The Complete Midshipman Bolitho

by Alexander Kent

  Starkie exclaimed, “Gauvin’s ship mounts twenty-four guns to our fourteen little squeakers!”

  Dancer asked, “When Sandpiper was used to seize the barquentine, what happened to her crew?”

  “Over the side.” Starkie looked grim-faced. “Gutted like pigs.”

  Bolitho said, “So much for the bad side. Now, what can we do against Gauvin?”

  He walked to the weather side, feeling the spray pattering across his face and hands.

  “He’ll know that Gorgon is to the south’rd.” Dancer had joined him. “And will expect us to try and rejoin her.”

  Bolitho glanced at Starkie, wondering if his memory could be trusted.

  “If we come about, Mr Starkie, how close could we weather the headland?”

  Starkie’s eyes widened with alarm. “Back to that damned island, y’mean?”

  “ Towards it. There is a difference.”

  “It’s dangerous. You should know that, if you rounded the headland under oars. There are reefs a’plenty, many not even marked on the charts.”

  Bolitho said half to himself, “Off Cornwall there are some islands called the Scillies. A Bristol trader was being chased by a French privateer in the last war. The trader’s master had no chance of outpacing the enemy, but he knew his islands well. He sailed right across one reef and the Frenchie followed him. Ripped out his keel. There were none saved.”

  Starkie stared at him with amazement. “You want to steer a course through the reef? Is that what you’re asking me to do?”

  A weak ray of sunlight lanced across the upper rigging and made the topgallant yard glitter like a crucifix.

  “Do we have a choice?” Bolitho watched him gravely. “Captivity, and possibly death to make another example, or . . .” The word hung in the air.

  Starkie nodded firmly. “We’ll probably die anyway, but God, it’s a chance I’d rather take.” He rubbed his rough hands together. “I suggest we call the hands and shorten sail to come about. If the wind goes against us we’ll end up on a lee shore.” He chuckled suddenly, dropping the years from his lined face. “By God, Mr, whatever your name is, I’d hate to serve under you when you’re a cap’n. My nerves would give out afore long!”

  Bolitho smiled sadly as more light opened up the deck to display the dull stains where men had fought and died, the jagged splinters left by the swivel gun.

  He looked at Eden. “See how Mr Hope is. Try and get him to take some brandy.” He saw the boy flinch. “Not Mr Tregorren’s bottle, if you please.”

  As Eden started for the companion he added, “And try to find a flag. I want this pirate to recognize Sandpiper under her rightful colours today.”

  Dancer watched him in silence. Then he said to Starkie, “I have never seen such a mood in him. He means to fight. It’s no deception.”

  The master’s mate walked to the lee rail and spat on to the creaming wash.

  “Well, m’lad, when Gauvin sees the flag, that’ll do it right enough. It’s not a sight he’s very fond of.”

  Eden reappeared carrying a roll of bunting. “Found one, Dick. Hidden under the b-brandy b-bottles in the cabin.”

  “How are the lieutenants?” Starkie spoke sharply, perhaps still hoping that someone else would appear to take over responsibility.

  Eden pouted. “M-Mr Hope is breathing a l-little better. Mr Tregorren is in a filthy s-state.”

  Starkie sighed. “Very well. Pipe the hands to the braces. No point in delaying things any more.”

  Bolitho gripped the poop rail and watched the seamen hurrying to braces and halliards, their movements jerky, as if they were still shocked and uncertain.

  It was like a dream. Of pirates, and brave young men fighting their country’s enemies.

  But it was fast becoming a nightmare. Only the first part was right, he thought. A little brig, a demoralized company, and some boys to lead them.

  He thought of his father, and of Captain Conway, grave-faced and confident behind their guns and their seamanship.

  He said, “Run up the colours, Mr Eden.” Even the formality surprised him. “Then stand by to come about.”

  8 Across the REEF

  “SOU’-SOU’-EAST, SIR! Full an’ bye!”

  Bolitho gripped the hammock nettings and watched the Sandpiper dip her lee bulwark steeply towards the sea. Spray and drifting foam dashed across the deck, and when he glanced up at the main yard he saw it was bending like a huge bow as the seamen worked to set more sail.

  Starkie remarked hoarsely, “The wind’s freshening a bit.” He shaded his eyes to peer at the masthead pendant. “But it’s holding steady from the nor’-east.” He added grimly, “So far.”

  Bolitho hardly heard him. He was watching the brig’s efforts as she lifted and smashed down on to each successive line of whitecaps.

  From the moment they had brought the ship about and turned her gilded figurehead towards the land again he had sensed the change around him. Even the Sandpiper’s original hands, many showing festering cuts and cruel injuries from their captivity, were shouting to each other, doing all they could to set every stitch of canvas short of tearing the masts out of her. Only when they looked aft did they falter. Perhaps, Bolitho thought, they still expected to see their young captain at the rail, as if by hoping they could hold their memories at bay.

  Dancer shouted above the din of canvas and wind, “She’s flying, Dick!”

  He nodded, seeing the bows dip into a steep-sided roller and hurl the spray high over the beakhead in a solid white sheet.

  “Aye.” He looked across the quarter. “Can you see the frigate?” He gripped Dancer’s arm. “There she is! And she’s making more sail.”

  As the gloom of the night retreated slowly towards the open sea he saw the topsails and topgallants of the other ship, changing shape as she too changed tack and came end-on in pursuit. He pointed to the flag above his head, making a bright patch against the washed-out sky.

  “Mr Starkie was right, it seems. Our enemy is roused!”

  Starkie walked up to the weather side, his body leaning against the deck’s steep angle.

  “I’m holding her as close to the wind as I dare. Bring her up another point and she’ll not answer.”

  Bolitho took a glass from a rack by the compass box and trained it towards the land. As he steadied it through the maze of shrouds and vibrating halliards he saw the faces of some of the seamen loom towards him, and wondered what they were thinking as the brig headed for the shore, to the place where their pain and humiliation had begun.

  Then he saw the headland, jutting out in a welter of breakers like the prow of a Roman galley.

  How different it had looked from the cutter, all that while ago. He had to shake himself to realize it was only yesterday.

  The sea looked rougher, and driven by the gusty wind was surging amongst a necklace of rocks as if to beckon them all to destruction.

  There was a dull bang, and when he swung aft towards the frigate he saw a smear of smoke moving rapidly with the wind.

  Starkie said, “Just a sighting shot. She’s too lively to hit us at this range.”

  Bolitho did not reply. He was watching the frigate’s great fore-sail writhing and puffing in disorder as her captain brought her up into the wind. She was almost in irons when the foresail filled and hardened again, the lee gunports heeling down until they were awash.

  Dancer said, “She’s worked across our stern, Dick.”

  “Yes. She intends to take the wind gage from us.” He still kept his eyes on the frigate until they watered painfully. “But it means she will stand the closer inshore when we pass the headland.”

  Dancer stared at him. “Can we really get through?”

  Starkie heard him and called, “You’ll be asking if we can walk on water next!” He seized the wheel and added his own strength to the helmsmen’s. “Watch your head, damn you!”

  Another bang. This time Bolitho saw the white feathers of spray kicking across each line of waves as t
he ball skipped past their stern.

  He looked at the Sandpiper’s six-pounders. Very suitable for hit-and-run attacks on enemy merchantmen, or for running down pirates and smugglers.

  For taking on a frigate they were useless.

  “Send another good lookout aloft, Martyn.” He staggered as the deck shook violently in a sudden trough. “The Gorgon may be in sight.”

  But there was no sign of the big seventy-four. Just the pursuing frigate, and the first view of the island on the far side of the bay.

  As before, it looked pale and strangely tranquil in the early sunlight, and it was hard to accept all that had happened there.

  Starkie had said earlier that the island was even now packed with wretched slaves, men and young girls who had been gathered by the traders from all parts of Africa.

  And before long many of them would be sailing west to the Americas and the Indies. If they were lucky they might end their days in comfortable captivity, rather like dependent servants.

  Those less fortunate would eke out their lives like animals. When their usefulness was over, their strength used up, they would be discarded.

  Bolitho had heard it said that slave ships, like the oared galleys of Spain, could be traced at sea by their terrible smell. The stench of bodies crammed together, unable to move, incapable of making even the simplest comfort for themselves.

  Bang. A ball hissed overhead and slapped through the fore topsail like an iron fist.

  “Closer.” Starkie had his thumbs in his belt, his eyes fixed on the frigate. “He’s overhauling us more quickly now.”

  “Deck there! Breakers on the lee bow!”

  Starkie ran to the rail and snatched a glass. “Aye, that’s ’em. The first line of reefs.” He glared aft at the helmsmen. “Let her fall off a point!”

  The wheel creaked, and brought a protest of flapping canvas from the topgallants.

  “Sou’ by east, sir!”

  “Steady as you go!”

  Bolitho could tell from the worsening motion, the way every spar and sail seemed to be quivering in protest, that they were entering shallower water and crossing a fierce undertow.

  Starkie said, “Better shorten sail.”

  Bolitho looked at him, his voice almost pleading. “If we do, he’ll take us before he’s in any danger.”

  The master’s mate eyed him impassively. “As you say.”

  Eden scrambled through the canting companion, his eyes frightened as he peered astern for the enemy.

  “Mr Hope is c-calling for y-you, Dick.”

  He ducked as the frigate’s bow-chaser hurled a shot close abeam, throwing a waterspout high into the air like a surfacing whale.

  Bolitho nodded. “I’ll go to him. Call me if anything happens.”

  Starkie was peering through his telescope at the nearest line of breakers. By allowing his ship to fall downwind just a trifle he had brought the bowsprit and tapering jib-boom almost in line with the tell-tale surf.

  He said over his shoulder, “Don’t worry. You’ll know. ” Bolitho groped his way from the companion ladder and entered the small, hutch-like cabin.

  Hope was sprawling in a cot, his eyes very bright as Bolitho bent over him.

  “I’ve heard that the fourth lieutenant is unwell?” His face was ashen. “Damn him, why did he hold off his attack?” He was rambling vaguely. “My shoulder. Oh God, they’ll lop off my arm when we get to the ship.”

  The pain and the despair seemed to steady him.

  “Are you managing?”

  Bolitho forced a smile. “We have a good master’s mate on deck, sir. Mr Dancer and I are trying to look like veterans.”

  Another dull bang penetrated the humid cabin, and Bolitho felt the hull tremble as a ball slammed down hard alongside. Too close.

  Hope gasped, “You cannot fight a frigate!”

  “Would you have me strike, sir?”

  “No!” He shut his eyes and groaned with pain. “I don’t know. I only understand that I should be helping you. Doing something. Instead . . .”

  Bolitho watched his desperation with new understanding. Hope, the fifth lieutenant, had been closer to him than the other officers. He always pretended not to show his concern for the midshipmen under his charge, displayed an outer skin of hardness which had been taken as brutal on some occasions. But his constant presence amongst them had proved that some of his unsympathetic criticism had been both necessary and beneficial. As he had remarked more than once: This ship needs officers not children.

  And now he was lying there, broken and helpless.

  Bolitho said quietly, “I will come for advice whenever I can, sir.”

  One hand moved out of the bloodstained cot and gripped his. “Thank you.” Hope was barely able to focus his eyes. “God be with you!”

  “Below there!” It was Dancer’s voice. “The frigate’s running out her starboard guns!”

  “I’m coming!”

  Bolitho ran for the ladder. Thinking of Hope, of all of them.

  In the short time he had been below the sunlight had broken from the land and changed the sea into an endless array of leaping wavecrests.

  Starkie shouted, “Wind’s backed a piece! Nothing much. But the frigate’s going to make a run for us, I reckon!”

  Bolitho took a glass from a seaman and trained it over the nettings. The frigate was barely a mile off the larboard quarter, sails braced hard round to hold the wind, her starboard guns showing above the churning wash along her side like black teeth.

  He saw her outline alter slightly as she came up a point or so to windward, the sunlight lancing on weapons and telescopes, and on the large black flag at her mainmast truck. He could even distinguish her name painted on weatherworn scrollwork beneath her beakhead. Pegaso. Probably the original name she had carried under the Spanish flag.

  “She’s fired!”

  A stabbing line of orange tongues belched from her gunports, the untimed broadside whipping past Sandpiper’s stern and a few moaning above the poop.

  Bolitho said, “Alter course, Mr Starkie. Two points to wind-ward, if you can.”

  Starkie opened his mouth to protest and changed his mind. He watched some barely concealed rocks dashing past the starboard side. Well clear, but it meant they were committed. Amongst the sprawling reefs like a fly in a web.

  “Man the braces there! Let go and haul!” Dancer hurried to lend a hand. “ Heave, lads!”

  Above the plunging hull every shroud and sail seemed to be booming and creaking in disorder as the bows crept round and then steadied on the next spit of land.

  Another ragged broadside, the balls skipping harmlessly astern and bringing a feeble cheer from a watching seaman who did not realize the peril he was in.

  Bolitho shouted, “Get the best gun captain, Martyn! Lively!”

  “Sou’-east by south, sir!” The helmsman sounded dazed.

  “Very well.”

  Starkie turned momentarily to watch as a grizzled old seaman in patched trousers and a check shirt ran aft and knuckled his forehead.

  “Taylor, zur.”

  “Well, Taylor, I want you to pick your two most reliable crews and man the aftermost six-pounders, starboard side.”

  Taylor blinked at the midshipman, probably thinking Bolitho was at last going mad. The enemy, after all, was on the opposite side.

  Bolitho was speaking quickly, his mind blank to everything but the frigate and Sandpiper’s bearing from her. He tried to remember everything he had learned or had had beaten into him from the age of twelve until this day. “Double-shotted. I know it’s a risk. But I want you to hit the frigate’s bows when I give the word.”

  Taylor nodded slowly. “Aye, zur.” He gestured with a tarred thumb. “I fathom yer meanin’, zur.” He ambled away, bawling out names and examining two six-pounders by the poop as he did so.

  Bolitho looked at Starkie, his eyes level. “I want to wear ship and pass out through the reef again. The frigate’s bound to follow. He will have all
the advantage with the wind under his coat-tails.” He saw Starkie nodding grimly. “For just a few moments we will have him under our guns.” He smiled, the effort freezing his lips. “Such as they are. He’ll not be expecting us to turn and fight. Not now.”

  Starkie stared beyond the bows like a man seeking a way out.

  “I think I know a passage. It’s not much.” He made a sweeping movement with his fist. “I’m not sure about the depth. A few fathoms, no more, if I’m any judge.”

  Thuds and bangs told Bolitho that Taylor and his men were almost ready.

  A sudden roar of cannon fire made him realize that the frigate was still determined to cripple Sandpiper and then bring her to close action.

  Aloud he murmured, “Not this time, my friend.”

  Starkie lowered his telescope as the frigate’s iron shrieked overhead and brought down several lengths of broken rigging and a few blocks. The hull gave a violent jerk, and Bolitho knew they had taken their first direct hit.

  He looked at Starkie as the latter called, “Ready when you are.” He wiped his forehead with his wrist. He was streaming with sweat.

  “Man the braces! Stand by to wear ship!” Bolitho nodded to the two gun crews. “Run out!”

  He gripped his hands behind him until the force of his hold steadied him. He knew Dancer was staring, as were several of the men at the braces and halliards. Perhaps they were trying to see their own fate in his face.

  He heard the old gun captain say, “Don’t yew forget, lads. As we goes about we’ll be to lee’rd of that bugger. But it’ll give your guns a better chance as we ’eels over like.”

  There was a brief lull in the wind, so that just for an instant the sounds of sea and canvas faded. Through his racing thoughts Bolitho heard another sound, that of Tregorren groaning like a bull in agony.

  The madness of it, the very hopelessness of their position made the lieutenant’s discomfort all the more unreal.

  He shook himself back to the present.

  “Put up your helm! Wear ship!”

  Leaning drunkenly with the wind, her beakhead lifting and smashing down in a welter of criss-crossing waves, Sandpiper began to respond to canvas and rudder.