Command a King's Ship

by Alexander Kent

  Bolitho dropped his hand. `Now! Helm a'lee!'

  To the mounting wind, and the sudden change of direction, Undine swayed over and down, the gun 'crews firing off another uneven salvo before Argus was plucked from their open ports.

  Bolitho yelled, `Mr. Davy! Starboard battery!'

  Men dashed from the still-smoking guns and threw themselves to assist the opposite side. Overhead, spars and blocks strained and bucked in protest, and more than one seaman fell headlong as the ship came thundering up close to the wind, her yards almost foreand aft.

  The fore topgallant sail split suddenly and violently, the fragments like streamers in the wind, but Bolitho ignored it. He was watching Argus's black shape sliding out and away from the starboard bow while his own ship turned steeply towards her poop. Shots crashed into hull and rigging alike, and Bolitho watched sickened as two seamen were pulped into offal and broken weapons. against the opposite side.

  Davy's voice was almost a scream. `Starboard battery! As you bear!'

  The order to fire was lost in the first crash from the forward guns, followed instantly along the deck as the Argus loomed up and over the nettings like a black cliff.

  `Sponge out! Reload! Run out!'

  The crews had no trouble in running out, for the ship was heeling so steeply to the wind that each gun squealed down the . deck like an enraged hog on the rampage.

  Bolitho cupped his hands. `Hold your fire!' He gestured to the men by the carronades on the forecastle. Several corpses lay near them, and he guessed Le Chaumareys' marksmen had realised his intention.

  A musket ball clanged against a six-pounder, and one of the helmsmen fell kicking and spluttering, his chin shot away by the ricochet.

  Bolitho shouted above the din, `Let her fall off a point, Mr. Mudge, you know what I expect today!'

  Shadows danced across the decks as pieces of broken rigging, blocks, a musket and other fragments bounced on the nets above.

  And here was the Argus, plunging heavily to starboard, trying to follow Undine round, but losing the chance as the English frigate swept across her stern.

  'Fire !’

  A carronade banged loudly, biting fragments from Argus's stern- and smashing her small quarter-gallery to fragments. Gun by gun the twelve-pounders followed its example, the balls slamming into the stern, or scything through the gaping windows to create death and confusion within.

  Men were cheering, despite threats and blows from their petty officers, and above the great writhing wall of smoke Bolitho saw the French frigate's masts moving slowly away and beyond the starboard quarter. But it was no time to falter now.

  `We will wear ship, Mr. Herrick! Lay her on the starboard tack!'

  `Aye, sir!' Herrick wiped his streaming face. Above the stains on his cheeks and mouth his bandage shone in the filtered sunlight like a turban. `It's lively work today, sir!'

  `Man the braces! Stand by to wear ship!'

  A man screamed as he was dragged from a gun, bleeding badly. As Whitmarsh's mates lifted him he struggled and kicked to free himself, more terrified of what waited below than of dying on deck.

  Sails thundering, and spilling wind from countless shotholes, Undine changed tack yet again, turning her bowsprit away from the islands and towards the sun.

  The sea looked much wilder now, with short wavecrests crumbling to the wind, or throwing sheets of spray above the gangways with hardly a break.

  Bolitho wiped his eyes and tried to restrain from coughing.

  Like his eyes, his lungs were raw with powder smoke, the stench of battle. He watched the other ship as she swam above the leaping spindrift. Willingly or not, Le Chaumareys had the wind-gage, and his ship now stood off Undine's starboard bow, a bare cable's length away. If Undine continued to overhaul her, both ships would run parallel, a musket shot apart. Argus would get her revenge at such a murderous range.

  He glanced quickly at Mudge. He, too, was watching the sea and the masthead pendant, but was it for the same reason?

  But to ask him now, to show that he was in need of a miracle and had nothing to replace one, would take the fight out of his men no less than an instant defeat. He saw them at their guns, panting and gasping, tarred hands gripping tackles and rammers, sponges and handspikes. Their naked bodies were streaked with sweat which cut through the powder grime like the marks of a fine lash. Their eyes shone through their blackened faces as if trapped.

  The marines were reloading their muskets, and Bellairs was strolling with his sergeant by the taffrail. At the helm another had taken the dead man's place, and Carwithen's coarse face was working on a plug of tobacco, his eyes cold, without expression. There were fewer men on the gun deck, although Bolitho had not seen many fall. Yet they had gone, had died or been maimed without a word from him to give reason for their sacrifice.

  He reached out to steady himself as the deck tilted more steeply. When he peered over the riddled hammocks he saw the sea's face forming into short, steep ranks, ranging towards the two ships as if to push them away.

  He yelled, `Mr. Davy! Are yon ready?'

  Davy nodded dully. `Every gun loaded with chain-shot, sir!'

  `Good.' Bolitho looked at Herrick. `I hope to God that the master knows his weather!' In a sharper tone he added, `Get the forecourse on her!'

  With the great foresail set and drawing, Undine began to overhaul the other ship at a remarkable pace.

  Bolitho flinched as more balls crashed alongside from Argus's stern-chasers, one of them hurling the quarter-boat into spinning pieces.

  A last challenge. That was what it had to look like. Gun to gun. No quarter until Undine was a sinking wreck.

  He said, `We will alter course when I give the word.'

  He waited, aching in ever muscle, his mind jumping to each gunshot from the Frenchman's poop. Undine's jib-boom seemed to be prodding her larboard quarter like a lance. A few stabs of fire above her shattered stern showed where marksmen had taken fresh positions, and Bolitho saw two of his marines drop like red fruit from the foretop, their cries lost to the mounting wind.

  Mudge said worriedly, `We may lose our sticks when we comes round, sir!'

  Bolitho ignored him.

  `Ready lads!'

  He watched the sea rising and breaking against Argus's opposite quarter, the mounting pressure against her yards.

  `Now!'

  He gripped the rail as the helm went over and the bows started to pull towards the-enemy. He saw Argus trimming her yards, the hull tilting steeply as she followed Undine's turn.

  Sunlight flashed on her quarterdeck, and then her side exploded in a line, of great flashes, the air rent apart with the savagery of her broadside.

  Bolitho almost fell as the massive weight of iron crashed into the hull or screamed and tore through the rigging overhead. He was choked by swirling smoke, his mind reeling from the combined noises of screams and yells, of musket fire from all angles.

  Somehow he dragged himself up the angled deck and peered towards the Argus. Smoke was drifting from her last broadside so fast that Undine seemed to be moving abeam to meet her. The illusion told him Mudge had been right, and as he watched Argus's sails bellying out towards him, he also saw her gunports awash as the wind thrust her over. Thank God for the

  wind.

  `Fire!' He had to repeat the order to make himself heard.

  `Fire!'

  Undine's disengaged gunports were also awash, and her runout battery was pointing almost towards the sky as each captain jerked his lanyard.

  Even above the roar of cannon fire and the wail of the wind Bolitho heard the chain-shot whimpering through the air and ripping into Argus's fully exposed topsails and braced yards. He heard, too, the immediate clatter of severed rigging, the louder explosions of bursting stays and shrouds as foremast and maintopmast swayed together like great trees before booming and splintering into the smoke.

  Bolitho waved his sword above his head. `Hold her steady, Mr. Mudge! She'll be alongside directly!'


  He ran to the gangway, and then stopped dead as the wind sucked the smoke downwind and away from the two drifting hulls. Dead and wounded lay everywhere, and as the marines ran to their places for boarding Bolitho saw Shellabeer mangled beneath a gun, and Pryke, the carpenter, pinned across a hatch coaming by a broken length of gangway, his blood linking with all the rest around him. And Fowlar, could that thing really be him?

  But there was no more time to regret or to think. Argus was here, alongside, and as Soames led his men across the bows Bolitho shook his sword and yelled hoarsely, `Over you go, lads!'

  The French seamen were struggling to free themselves from the great tangle of spars and rigging, the broken cordage lying in heaps like giant serpents.

  But the steel was ready enough. Bolitho crossed swords with a petty officer and then slipped in some blood, the breath driven from his body as the Frenchman pitched headlong across him. He felt the man jerk and kick, saw the awful agony in his eyes as Carwithen pulled him away, a boarding axe locked into his collar bone.

  On every hand men were fighting and yelling, the pikes and bayonets waving above the more desperate work of sword and cutlass.

  Davy was heading for the quarterdeck ladder, shouting to the men at his back, when a rally of French seamen left him momentarily isolated and alone. Bolitho watched his contorted face above the thrusting shoulders, saw his mouth shaping unheard screams as they cut him down, their weapons not still even after he had dropped from sight.

  Midshipman Armitage stood shaking on the gangway, his skin like chalk as he shouted, `Follow me!' Then he, too, was dead, pushed aside and trodden underfoot as the two opposing groups surged together again.

  Bolitho saw it all as he fought his way aft towards the main quarterdeck ladder. Saw it, and recorded it in his mind. But without sequence, like a nightmare. As if he were a mere onlooker.

  He reached the ladder and saw the French lieutenant facing him, the one named Maurin, who had an English wife. The rest seemed to fade into a swirling, embattled fog as the two swords reached out and circled each other.

  Bolitho said harshly, `Strike, Maurin! You have done enough l'

  The Frenchman shook his head. `It is not possible, m'sieu!'

  Then he lunged forward, taking Bolitho's sword on the hilt, and deftly turning it towards the sea. Bolitho let himself fall back to the next step, seeing the desperation on Maurin's face, knowing, without understanding why, that this man alone stood between victory and senseless slaughter.

  'Le Chaumareys is deadl' Bolitho tested the next step with his left foot. `Am I not right?' He had to shout at the top of his voice as more of Undine's men burst yelling on to the gun deck and attacked the French crew from behind. They must have climbed through the shattered stern, Bolitho realised dully. Again it was more of a reaction than anything. He added coldly, `So for God's sake strike!'

  Maurin hesitated, the uncertainty plain on his face, and then made up his mind. He sidestepped and raised his hilt almost level with his eyes before lunging towards Bolitho's chest.

  Bolitho watched him with something like despair. Maurin had been too long in the one ship, had forgotten the need for change. It was easy. Too sickeningly easy.

  Bolitho took his weight on his foot, parried the blade as it darted towards him, and struck. The lieutenant's weight was more than enough, and Bolitho almost had the sword wrenched from his grip as Maurin fell gasping to the deck below.

  A pigtailed seaman raised his boarding pike, but Bolitho shouted, `Touch him, and I'll kill you myself!'

  He saw Herrick walking between the French seamen who were throwing their weapons on to the bloodied deck, the fight over. Their strength going at the sight of Maurin's last gesture.

  He thrust the sword into its scabbard and walked heavily up the last few steps. He knew Allday was behind him, and Herrick took his place at his side as together they stood in silence looking at Le Chaumareys' body where it lay beside the abandoned wheel. He looked strangely peaceful, and amidst so much carnage and horror, almost unmarked. There was a dark stain below his shoulder, and a small trickle of blood from a corner of his mouth. Probably one of Bellairs' sharpshooters, Bolitho thought vaguely.

  Bolitho said quietly, `Well, we did meet, Captain. Just as you said we would.'

  Lieutenant Soames knelt to unfasten Le Chaumareys' sword, but Bolitho said, `Leave it. His was a bad cause, but he fought with honour.' He turned away, suddenly sick of the watching dead, their pathetic stillness. `And cover him with his flag. His proper flag. He was no pirate!'

  He saw Davy's body being carried to the gangway, and added, `A moment longer and he would have seen Argus taken. Enough prize-money even for his debts perhaps.'

  As they climbed across the trapped water between the drifting hulls Bolitho turned, startled, as some of the seamen gathered to cheer him. He looked at Herrick, but he shrugged and gave a sad smile.

  `I know how you feel, sir, but they are glad to be alive. It is their way of thanking you.'

  Bolitho touched his arm. `Survival? I suppose it is a fair cause for battle.' He forced a smile. `And for winning.'

  Herrick picked up his hat and handed it to him. `I'll set the people to work, sir. The pumps sound too busy for my liking.'

  Bolitho nodded and walked slowly towards the stern, his shoes catching at splinters and broken cordage. By the taffrail he paused and looked wearily along his command, at the broken planking and stained decks, the figures which were picking their way amidst the debris, more like survivors than victors.

  Then he leaned back and loosened his neckcloth, and shook open his best dress coat which was torn and slashed in a dozen places.

  Above his head the flag was flapping more easily, the sudden squall having passed on as quickly as it had arrived to save them from Argus's great guns. But for it ...

  He looked round, suddenly anxious, but saw Mudge in his place near the helm, cutting at a piece of cheese with a small knife which he had fished from one of his pockets. He looked very old in the dusty sunlight. Little Penn was squatting on a gun truck, having his wrist bandaged, and dabbing at his nose which had started to bleed when a charge had exploded prematurely nearby.

  Bolitho watched them with something like love. Mudge and Penn. Age and innocence.

  There was Keen, speaking with Soames, and looking very strained. But a man now.

  Feet crunched on the debris, and he saw Noddall approaching him cautiously, a jug of wine clasped against his chest.

  `I am afraid I can't yet find the glasses, sir.' He kept his eyes fixed on Bolitho's face, and had probably had them shut as he had groped past some of the horror below.

  Bolitho held the jug to his lips and said, `But this is some of my best wine.'

  Noddall dabbed his eyes and smiled nervously. `Aye, sir. All of it. The rest was destroyed by the battle.'

  Bolitho let the wine fill his mouth, savouring it. Needing it. They had come a long way since that shop in St. James's Street, he thought.

  And in a few weeks they would be ready again. The missing faces would still be remembered, but without the pain which even now was getting stronger. Terror would emerge as bravado, and courage be recalled as duty. He smiled bitterly, remembering the words from so long ago. In the King's name.

  He heard Penn say in his squeaky voice, `I was a bit frightened, Mr. Mudge.' An awkward pause. `Just a bit.'

  Old Mudge looked across the deck and held Bolitho's gaze. `Frightened, boy? Gawd, 'e'll never make a cap'n, will 'e, sir?'

  Bolitho smiled, sharing the moment with Mudge alone. For he knew, better than most, that the truth of battle was not for children.

  Then he looked along his command again, at the gleaming shoulder of the proud figurehead below the bowsprit.

  Undine was the real victor, he thought, and he was suddenly grateful to have her to himself.

  Epilogue

  Lieutenant Thomas Herrick stepped into the stern cabin and tucked his hat beneath his arm.

  `You sent for m
e, sir?

  Bolitho was standing by the open windows, his hands on a sill, watching the weed on the sea-bed and tiny, bright fish darting around the motionless rudder.

  It was afternoon, and along the shoreline of Pendang Bay the trees and green fronds waved and shone in a dozen hues to a steady breeze. Good sailing weather, he thought absently, but not for Undiae. Not just yet.

  He turned and gestured to a chair. `Sit down, Thomas.' He saw Herrick's gaze resting on the opened despatches

  which had been brought aboard that day. A brig from Madras.

  Orders and news.

  `Another Indiaman will be arriving shortly, Thomas. This despatch is from the Admiral Commanding the Inshore Squadron. He is sending fresh hands to replace some of those we lost in battle.'

  How easily said. Lost in battle. He glanced slowly around the cabin, knowing that Herrick was watching him, sharing his memories.

  There was little to show of the mauling the ship had suffered under Le Chaumareys' guns. Fresh paint covered the repaired timbers, and the smell of tar and wood-shavings lingered throughout the hull. A month and two days since they had gone alongside Argus, but despite the back-breaking work, and the rewards of seeing the ship looking her old self again, the pictures of the fight hung in Bolitho's mind as if it were yesterday.

  And how they had worked. Perhaps, like himself, the rest of the company had needed it, if only to hold the memories at bay a little longer.

  Small moments stood out when you least expected them.

  Midshipman Penn crouching down as a gun recoiled inboard, wreathed in smoke, while its crew dashed forward again with sponge and rammer. A man had been hurled to the deck in a wave of flying splinters. Had lain there staring unwinkingly at jthe sky. Penn had reached out to touch him and had tried to ump away as the man had reached out to seize his wrist. He must have died at that very instant. Bolitho did not remember seeing the incident at the time, but it had lurked in wait within his mind. And Armitage leading his squad of boarders after Davy had fallen under those plunging blades. The clumsy, awkward midshipman, blind with terror, yet gathering his few reserves of strength only to find they were not enough.