Honour This Day

by Alexander Kent

  The fishing-boat had vanished, unaware of the thoughts it had roused.

  Bolitho stared at Hyperion’s glowing lines of open ports. As if she was still hanging on to the angry sunset, or was burning from within. He thought of the six hundred souls packed into her rounded hull and once again felt the pain of his responsibility, which wrongly directed could destroy them all.

  They did not ask for much, and even the simplest comforts were too often denied them. He could picture these faceless men now, the Royal Marines in their barracks, as they termed their section of the deck, polishing and cleaning their equipment. At other mess tables between the guns where sailors lived out their watches below, some seamen would be working on delicate scrimshaw, or making tiny models of bone and shell. Seamen with hands so roughened by cordage and tar, yet they could still produce such fine results. The midshipmen, of which Hyperion carried eight, would be performing their studies for promotion to the godly rank of lieutenant, sometimes working by the smallest light, a glim set in an old shell.

  The officers had not yet emerged except for brief contact on deck, or at dinner in his cabin. Given time they would show what they could or could not do. Bolitho swung his hat at some buzzing insect in the darkness. Given leadership. It all came down to that. He heard Jenour’s shoes scrape on the rough ground as he turned towards the top of the boatshed.

  Then he heard the carriage wheels, the stamp of a restless horse, and a man calling out to calm it.

  Jenour whispered hoarsely, “’Tis a lady, Sir Richard.”

  Bolitho turned, only his heart giving away his feelings. Not once did he question who it might be at this hour. Perhaps he had inwardly been expecting her, hoping she might find him. And yet he knew otherwise. He felt off-guard, as if he had been stripped naked.

  They met below the propped-up bow of an old boat and Bolitho saw that she was covered from head to toe in a long cloak; its cowl hung loosely over her hair. Beyond her he could see a carriage on the road, a man at the horse’s head, two small lamps casting an orange glow across the harness.

  Jenour made to leave but she waved his apology aside and said, “It is well. I have my maid with me.”

  Bolitho stepped closer but she did not move towards him. She was completely hidden by the cloak, with just the oval of her face and a gold chain at her throat to break the darkness.

  She said, “You are leaving very soon.” It was a statement. “I came to wish you luck with whatever—” Her voice trailed away. Bolitho held out his hand, but she said quickly, “No. It is unfair.” She spoke without emotion, so that her voice seemed full of it. “You met my husband?”

  “Yes.” Bolitho tried to see her eyes but they too were in deep shadow. “But I want to speak about you, to hear what you have been doing.”

  She lifted her chin. “Since you left me?” She half turned away. “My husband spoke to me of your private meeting. You impressed him. He does not admire others very often. The fact you knew of the frigate’s new name . . .”

  Bolitho persisted, “I need to talk, Kate.” He saw her shiver.

  She said quietly, “I once asked you to call me that.”

  “I know. I do not forget.” He shrugged and knew he was floundering, losing a battle he could not fight.

  “Nor I. I read everything I could, as if I expected that with time I could lose what I had felt. Hatred was not enough. . . .” She broke off. “I was hurt—I bled because of you.”

  “I did not know.”

  She did not hear him. “Did you imagine that your life meant so little to me that I could watch years of it pass and not be hurt? Years I could never share . . . did you think I loved you so little?”

  “I thought you turned aside, Kate.”

  “Perhaps. There was nothing offered. More than anything I wanted you to succeed, to be recognised for what you are. Would you have had people sneer when I passed as they do at Nelson’s whore? How would you have ridden that storm, tell me?”

  Bolitho heard Jenour’s shoes as he moved away, but no longer cared.

  “Please give me the chance to explain—”

  She shook her head. “You married another and have a child, I believe.”

  Bolitho dropped his hands to his sides. “And what of you? You married him.”

  “Him?” She showed one hand through the cloak but withdrew it again. “Lacey needed me. I was able to help him. As I told you, I wanted security.”

  They watched each other in silence and then she said, “Take care in whatever madness you are involved. I shall probably not see you again.”

  Bolitho said, “I shall sail tomorrow. But then he doubtless told you that too.”

  For the first time her voice rose in passion and anger.

  “Don’t you use that tone with me! I came tonight because of the love I believed in. Not out of grief or pity. If you think—”

  He reached out and gripped her arm through the cloak.

  “Do not leave in anger, Kate.” He expected her to tear her arm away and hurry back to the coach. But something in his tone seemed to hold her.

  He persisted, “When I think of never seeing you again I feel guilty, because I know I could not bear it.”

  She said in a whisper, “It was your choice.”

  “Not entirely.”

  “Would you tell your wife you had seen me? I understand she is quite a beauty. Could you do that?”

  She stepped back slightly. “Your silence is my answer.”

  Bolitho said bitterly, “It is not like that.”

  She glanced round towards the carriage and Bolitho saw the cowl fall from her head, caught the gleam of the lamps on her earrings. The ones he had given her.

  She said, “Please leave.” When he made to hold her again she backed away. “Tomorrow I shall see the ships stand away from the land.” She put her hand to her face. “I will feel nothing, Richard, because my heart, such as it is, will sail with you. Now go! ”

  Then she turned and ran from the shed, her cloak swirling about her until she reached the carriage.

  Jenour said huskily, “I am indeed sorry, Sir Richard—”

  Bolitho turned on him. “It’s time you grew up, Mr Jenour!”

  Jenour hurried after him, his mind still in a whirl from what he had seen and unwillingly shared.

  Bolitho paused by the jetty and looked back. The carriage lamps were still motionless, and he knew she was watching him even in the darkness.

  He heard the barge moving towards the jetty and was suddenly thankful. The sea had claimed him back.

  At noon on the third day at sea Bolitho went on deck and walked along the weather side. It was like the other days, as if nothing, not even the men on watch, had changed.

  He shaded his eyes to glance up at the masthead pendant. The wind was steady, as before, across the starboard quarter, creating a long regular swell which stretched unbroken in either direction. He heard the helmsman call, “Steady as she goes, sir! Sou’-west-by-west!” Bolitho knew it was more for his benefit than the officer-of-the-watch.

  He looked at the long swell, the easy way Hyperion raised her quarter and allowed it to break against her flank. A few men were working high above the deck, their bodies tanned or peeling according to their time at sea. It never stopped. Splicing and reeving new lines, tarring-down and refilling the boats with water on their tier to keep the seams from opening in the relentless glare.

  Bolitho felt the officer-of-the-watch glancing at him and tried to remember what he could about him. In a fight, one man could win or lose it. He paced slowly past the packed hammock nettings. Vernon Quayle was Hyperion’s fourth lieutenant, and unless he was checked or possibly killed he would be a tyrant if he ever reached post-rank. He was twenty-two, of a naval family, with sulky good looks and a quick temper. There had been three men flogged in his division since leaving England. Haven should have a word with the first lieutenant. Maybe he had, although the captain and his senior never appeared to speak except on matters of routine and dis
cipline.

  Bolitho tried not to think of Hyperion as she had once been. If any man-of-war could be said to be a happy ship in days like these, then so she had been then.

  He walked forward to the quarterdeck rail and looked along the upper deck, the market-place of any warship.

  The sailmaker and his mates were rolling up repaired lengths of canvas, and putting away their palms and needles. There was a sickly smell of cooking from the galley funnel, though how they could eat boiled pork in this heat was hard to fathom.

  Bolitho could taste Ozzard’s strong coffee on his tongue, but the thought of eating made him swallow hard. He had barely eaten since leaving English Harbour. Anxiety, strain, or was it still the guilt of seeing Catherine again?

  Lieutenant Quayle touched his hat. “ Upholder is on station, Sir Richard. The masthead makes a report every half-hour.” It sounded as if he was about to add, “or I’ll know the reason!”

  Upholder was hull-down on the horizon and would be the first to signal that she had sighted Thor at the rendezvous. Or not. Bolitho had placed the brig in the van because of her young commander, William Trotter, a thoughtful Devonian who had impressed him during their first few meetings. It needed brains as well as good lookouts when so much depended on that first sighting.

  Tetrarch was somewhere up to windward, ready to dash down if needed, and the third brig, Vesta, was far astern, her main role to ensure they were not being followed by some inquisitive stranger. So far they had seen nothing. It was as if the sea had emptied, that some dreadful warning had cleared it like an arena.

  Tomorrow they would be near enough to land for the mast-head to recognise it.

  Bolitho had spoken to Hyperion’s sailing-master, Isaac Penhaligon. Haven was fortunate to have such an experienced master, he thought. So am I. Penhaligon was a Cornishman also, but in name only. He had been packed off to sea as a cabin-boy at the tender age of seven years, and had walked ashore very little since. He was now about sixty, with a deeply-lined face the colour of leather, and eyes so bright they seemed to belong to a younger person trapped within. He had served in a packet-ship, in East Indiamen, and eventually had, as he had put it, donned the King’s coat as a master’s mate. His skill and knowledge of the oceans and their moods would be hard to rival, Bolitho thought. An additional piece of luck was that he once sailed in these same waters, had fought off buccaneers and slavers, had done so much that nothing seemed to daunt him. Bolitho had watched him checking the noon sights, his eyes on the assembled midshipmen whose navigation and maritime knowledge lay in his hands, ready to make a rough comment if things went wrong. He was never sarcastic with the young gentlemen, but he was very severe, and they were obviously in awe of him.

  Penhaligon had compared his charts and notes with Price’s own observations and had commented sparingly, “Knew his navigation, that one.” It was praise indeed.

  A petty officer approached the lieutenant and knuckled his forehead. Bolitho was thankful to be left alone as Quayle hurried away. He had seen the petty officer’s expression. Not just respect for an officer. It was more like fear.

  He stroked the worn rail, hot from the sunlight. He thought of that last meeting in the boatshed, Catherine’s voice and fervour. He had to see her again, if only to explain. Explain what? It could do nothing but harm to her. To both of them.

  She had seemed unreachable, eager to tell him the hurt he had done her, and yet . . .

  He remembered vividly their first meeting, and when she had cursed him for the death of her husband. Her second husband. There had also been the one she rarely mentioned, a reckless soldier-of-fortune who had died in Spain in some drunken brawl. Who had she been then, and where had she come from? It was hard to see her, so captivating and striking as she was now, set against the squalor she had once touched on in a moment of intimacy.

  And what of Somervell? Was he as cold and indifferent as he appeared? Or was he merely contemptuous; amused perhaps while he watched the reawakening of old memories, which he might use or ignore as he chose?

  Would he ever know, or would he spend the rest of his life remembering how it had once been for so short a time, knowing that she was watching from a distance, waiting to learn what he was doing, or if he had fallen in battle?

  Quayle had gone to the helm and was snapping something at the midshipman-of-the-watch. Like the others, he was properly dressed, although he must be sweating fire in this heat.

  Had Keen been his flag captain he would have—Bolitho called, “Send for my servant!”

  Quayle came alive. “At once, Sir Richard!”

  Ozzard emerged from the shadows of the poop and stood blinking in the glare, more mole-like than ever. Small, loyal and ever ready to serve Bolitho whenever he could. He had even read to him when he had been partially blinded, and before, when he had been smashed down by a musket. Meek and timid, but underneath there was another kind of man. He was well-educated and had once been a lawyer’s clerk; he had run away to sea to avoid prosecution, and some said the hangman’s halter.

  Bolitho said, “Take my coat, if you please.” Ozzard did not even blink as the vice-admiral tossed his coat over his arm and then handed him his hat.

  Others were staring, but by tomorrow even Haven might tell his officers to walk the decks in their shirts and not suffer in silence. If it took a uniform to make an officer, there was no hope for any of them.

  Ozzard gave a small smile, then scurried thankfully into the shadows again.

  He had watched most faces of Bolitho, his moods of excitement and despair. There had been too many of the latter, he thought.

  Past the marine sentry and into the great cabin. The world he shared with Bolitho, where rank was of little importance. He held up the coat and examined it for traces of tar or strands of spun yarn. Then he saw his own reflection in the mirror and held the coat against his own small frame. The coat hung almost to his ankles and he gave a shy smile.

  He gripped the coat tightly as he saw himself that terrible day when the lawyer had sent him home early.

  He had discovered his young wife, naked in the arms of a man he had known and respected for years.

  They had tried to bluff it out and all the while he had been dying as he had stared at them.

  Later, when he had left the small house on the Thames at Wapping Wall, he had seen the shopkeeper’s name opposite. Tom Ozzard, Scrivener. He had decided then and there it was to be his new identity.

  Never once had he looked back to the room where he had stopped their lies with an axe, had hacked and slashed until there was nothing recognisable in human form.

  On Tower Hill he had found the recruiting party; they were never far away, always in the hopes of a volunteer, or some drunkard who would take a coin and then find himself in a man-of-war until he was paid off or killed.

  The lieutenant in charge had regarded him with doubt and then amusement. Prime seamen, strong young men, were what the King needed.

  Ozzard carefully folded the coat. It was different now. They would take a cripple on two crutches if they got the chance.

  Tom Ozzard, servant to a vice-admiral, afraid, no, terrified of battle when the ship quaked and reeled around him, a man with no past, no future.

  One day, deep in his heart, Ozzard knew he would go back to that little house at Wapping Wall. Then, only then, he would give in to what he had done.

  From the masthead lookout, curled up in the crosstrees, to Allday, sprawled in his hammock while he slept off the aftermath of several “wets,” from Ozzard to the man in the great cabin whom he served, most thoughts were on tomorrow.

  Hyperion in all her years, and over the countless leagues she had sailed, had seen many come and go.

  Beyond the figurehead’s trident lay the horizon. Beyond that, only destiny could identify.

  5 LEADERSHIP

  BOLITHO walked up the wet planking to the weather side of the quarterdeck and steadied himself by gripping the hammock nettings. It was still dark, with only spe
ctres of spray leaping over the hull to break the sea’s blackness.

  Darker shadow moved across the quarterdeck to merge with a small group by the rail, where Haven and two of his lieutenants received their reports and passed out new orders.

  Voices murmured from the gundeck, and Bolitho could picture the hands at work around the invisible eighteen-pounders, while on the deck below the heavier battery of thirty-two-pounders, although equally busy, remained silent. Down there, beneath the massive deckhead beams, the gun crews were used to managing their charges in constant gloom.

  The hands had been piped to an even earlier breakfast, probably an unnecessary precaution because when dawn found them they would still be out of sight of land—except, with any luck, by the masthead lookouts. In the past hour Hyperion had altered course, and was heading due west, her yards close-hauled with their reduced canvas of forecourse and topsails. It explained the uneasy, turbulent motion, but Bolitho had noticed the difference in the weather as soon as his feet had touched the damp rug by his cot.

  The wind was steady but had risen; not much, but after the seemingly constant calm or glassy swell, it seemed violent by comparison.

  Everyone nearby knew he was on deck and had discreetly crossed to the lee side to give him room to walk if he chose. He looked up at the rigging and saw the braced topsails for the first time. They were flapping noisily, showing their displeasure at being so tightly reined.

  He had been awake for most of the night, but when the hands were called, and the work of preparing the ship for whatever lay ahead begun, he had felt a strange eagerness to sleep.

  Allday had padded into the cabin, and while Ozzard had magicked up his strong coffee, the big coxswain had shaved him by the light of a spiralling lantern.

  Allday had still not unburdened himself about his son. Bolitho could remember his elation when he had discovered he had a son of twenty, one he had known nothing about, who had decided to join him when his mother, an old love of Allday’s, had died.

  Then aboard the cutter Supreme after Bolitho had been cut down and almost completely blinded, Allday had nursed an anger and a despair that his son, also named John, was a coward, and had run below at the very moment when Bolitho had needed him most.