The Darkening Sea

by Alexander Kent

  Unity’s maindeck guns were already being run out again, but if Beer could come around with the English frigate he would have to use his starboard guns. There would be no mercy from those great guns next time.

  The jib-boom was already passing the American’s stern. Bolitho could see the gilded lettering of her name on the counter, could almost hear Adam’s voice describing it despite Trevenen’s contemptuous doubt.

  The great carronade, laid and prepared by the gunner himself, lurched back on its slide, and for what must have been only a split second Bolitho thought it had misfired. And then he saw the Unity’s stern seem to open like a jagged cave. The carronade’s great ball would explode within, releasing a hail of grape-shot to scythe throughout the full length of the ship.

  ‘As you bear! Fire!’

  Gun by gun down the Valkyrie’s side each eighteen-pounder hurled itself inboard on its tackles. Not even a blind man could miss at this range. Almost every carefully supervised shot would rip through the other vessel’s hull, which, like their own, would be cleared and open from stern to bow.

  ‘Stop your vents! Sponge out! Load! Run out!’

  Despite the fear and the pitiful screams of badly wounded men, the many hours of gun-drill and discipline held them all together.

  A white-faced midshipman came to a halt, his feet slipping in blood as he saw Avery by the rail.

  ‘Pardon, sir!’ He winced as a ball slapped into the driver overhead. ‘The lookouts have sighted our ships! They are engaging the enemy!’

  Avery said, ‘I shall tell the admiral. Thank you, Mr Warren. Walk, if you please!’

  Urquhart yelled, ‘The Yankee is not under command, sir!’ His voice was cracking with disbelief.

  ‘But she’s still fighting!’ Even as Avery spoke another ball smashed through some hammock nettings and tossed three marines aside like bloody bundles. One of Unity’s nine-pounders, probably packed with grape and cannister shot.

  The sailing master was down and one of his mates staggered to his place, his white trousers splashed with the master’s own blood.

  He called shakily, ‘Steady as she goes, sir!’

  But Avery could see nothing but Allday, who was holding Bolitho against his own body as if to protect him.

  Avery ran over to them. ‘What is it?’

  He saw Allday’s face twisted in anguish. ‘Splinters, sir! Send for the surgeon!’

  They carried Bolitho gently to the foot of the mizzen mast.

  He said hoarsely, ‘Splinters … in my face!’ He gripped Avery’s arm with terrible force. ‘I can’t see!’

  He lowered his face into his hands. His eyes were tightly closed. Avery touched his cheek and could feel some of them, like tiny fish bones protruding from the skin.

  The hull shook again to the roar of a full broadside, although few of Valkyrie’s guns would still bear on their opponent. Avery barely noticed it. He looked up and saw Trevenen peering at them through the smoke.

  ‘Is it bad?’

  ‘He can’t see, sir!’

  Bolitho tried to get up but Allday held him firmly. ‘Get closer, Captain! Don’t give him time …’ He broke off, gasping with pain as he tried to open his eyes.

  Trevenen snapped, ‘Sir Richard is wounded! Mr Urquhart, stand by to disengage. That’s an order!’

  Avery stared at him. ‘You’d run?’

  Trevenen’s confidence was flooding back.

  ‘I command here! I said it would fail! Now Sir Richard has only himself to blame!’

  A figure in a bloodied apron hurried across the deck. It was not Minchin but his assistant, Lovelace.

  Trevenen shouted, ‘Take Sir Richard below. He has no place here!’

  ‘Who says so, damn you!’

  Avery stared as another figure came through the companion hatch, teeth bared against the pain of his severed arm. From a distance it might appear that Herrick was grinning. He stared slowly around at the litter of battle, the dead and dying, and lastly at the corpses of the marines, lying in disorder like the ones who had fought to the end aboard his old flagship.

  His eyes took in the American frigate, which was drifting further and further downwind, while some of the small vessels she had been escorting headed away as if Unity contained something evil.

  Then he said, ‘The Yankee will not trouble us again, not this time in any case. We will rejoin our ships without further delay.’ He closed his eyes tightly as if to control the pain.

  Trevenen was staring at him, wild with disbelief.

  ‘What are you saying? I am in command …’ He got no further.

  Herrick took a pace towards him. ‘You command nothing. You are relieved, and I’ll send you to hell for your bloody treachery! Now get off this deck!’

  Trevenen hesitated as if to protest, then, almost blindly, he turned and walked to the companion hatch. He had to push and thrust his way through his men, the same men who had once been afraid even to meet his eyes. Now they watched him in silence, without fear, only contempt.

  Herrick ignored him. ‘You, Urquhart or whatever your bloody name is – can you sail this ship?’

  The first lieutenant nodded like a puppet, his face blanched but determined after what he had witnessed.

  ‘I can, sir.’

  ‘Then do it. We shall rejoin our ships. They will be hard put just now!’

  One of the surgeon’s loblolly boys came to support Herrick but he shook him away angrily and tugged his dress coat more firmly around his shoulders. ‘See to the others, damn you!’

  Bolitho lay stiffly across Allday’s knees, and almost cried out as Lovelace’s strong fingers prised open his eye and applied a soft dressing and some stinging ointment, while the other battle raged on in the distance as if it were not real.

  What he had always dreaded had happened. With neither warning nor mercy, as it had happened to the men who were even now being dragged below to the hell of Minchin’s surgery. How could he go to Catherine now? How could he even consider it?

  Lovelace said, ‘Hold him firmly, Allday.’ Then he carefully turned Bolitho’s face towards the strengthening sunlight and stared into his eye with fierce concentration. He said, ‘Look up, Sir Richard.’

  Bolitho opened his eye and felt Allday tense as he stared past him. For an instant there was only mist and drifting flecks of blood. Then things stood out in separate, unmatched images. Herrick in his shining rear-admiral’s epaulettes, gripping the rail with his hand while he peered at something beyond the torn and bloodied hammock nettings. The boy-midshipman on whose shoulder he had steadied the telescope, staring down at him, sobbing noiselessly as the guns fell silent. Further still, to the severed rigging and punctured sails, a marine in the maintop waving his hat in the air. To whom, he wondered vaguely.

  He hardly dared to say it. ‘I can see again.’ He did not resist as Lovelace lifted the lid of his left eye. For an instant Bolitho saw surprise, even shock on his face, but he said calmly, ‘I do not think this one will change, Sir Richard.’

  ‘Help me up.’

  Bolitho stood between them while Lovelace removed tiny splinters from around his eyes. Each one was so small that it could barely be seen in the smoky sunshine. But just one would have been enough.

  Lovelace smiled gravely. ‘There were paint-flecks as well, Sir Richard.’ He looked away as somebody screamed out in agony. ‘I must go, sir. I am needed.’ He looked at Bolitho, and Avery thought that it was as if he were searching for something. ‘And yes, I will be glad to accept your offer!’

  Urquhart yelled, ‘Baratte’s Chacal has struck to Anemone, sir!’ He was wild with excitement.

  Bolitho strode to the quarterdeck rail with Allday’s shadow covering him like a cloak.

  ‘What of Laertes?’ He took a telescope and winced as the sunlight lanced into his eyes.

  Before they blurred again he saw Anemone almost alongside the French frigate, her foremast shot away and lying across Baratte’s deck like a crude bridge. Two cables away, Laertes
had grappled with the renegade’s ship Le Corsair. It would be a double blow to Baratte that his ship should be taken by Adam. He saw it all until the brightness forced him to lower the glass. Anemone’s sails were in tatters, her rigging like tangled creeper, but he thought he heard cheering. Adam was safe. No other captain could have fought his ship like that.

  He felt Herrick beside him and knew Allday was grinning despite the death and destruction which lay around them.

  Herrick said quietly, ‘They didn’t need us after all. But if the Yankee had really had his say there’s no telling what might have happened.’

  Urquhart called, ‘No signals yet, sir.’

  Bolitho nodded. ‘The most dangerous Frenchman afloat, and they did it. And I saw none of it.’

  Herrick swayed and looked at the spots of blood which were falling from his bandaged stump.

  ‘And he wanted to parade us together as his prisoners, eh? God rot him!’

  Avery asked, ‘What orders, Sir Richard?’

  ‘We must assist the others with their prizes. After that …’ He swung round and asked, ‘No signals, Mr Urquhart? No wonder Captain Hannay gave up the fight. Baratte was playing another old trick!’ They stared at him as if the fear for his sight had deranged him. Bolitho shouted, ‘Where is that brig?’

  ‘Standing well away to lee’rd, sir!’

  Herrick stood steadily as a warrant officer tried to retie the reddening bandage, but suddenly the pain was too much. He gasped, ‘We did it, Richard, like those other times …’

  Then he fainted.

  ‘Take good care of him.’ Bolitho laid Herrick’s coat over him as some seamen carried him on to a grating. ‘But for him …’

  Then he said, ‘Baratte was directing the fight from the brig but flew his flag from Chacal. Just in case Unity could not frighten us off.’

  Avery said quietly, ‘If Captain Trevenen had had his way …’ He shrugged. It already seemed like history. Only the grim reminders were real.

  Bolitho said, ‘Make all sail, Mr Urquhart.’ He glanced down at the sailing master’s corpse as if he might still respond. But his face was stiff, frozen at the moment of impact. ‘Baratte shall not get away this time.’

  Allday watched him grimly as he touched his eyelid. ‘You had me fair troubled, Sir Richard.’

  Bolitho turned to look at him, his eyes very clear. ‘I know, old friend.’ He fingered the locket through his smoke-stained shirt. ‘Now Commodore Keen’s convoy will be safe. It is up to the military from this point.’ He seemed to see it in his mind. Too many men, too many ships. The price was always unbearable.

  The depression lifted slightly. ‘I expect I shall be unemployed for a while.’

  A voice called, ‘The brig has set more sail, sir!’

  Bolitho clenched his hands. ‘Too late. Tell the master gunner to lay aft.’

  Bob Fasken appeared below the rail and knuckled his forehead. ‘I’m ready, Sir Richard.’ His eyes seemed to ask, how did you know?

  Bolitho stared past him as the brig seemed to drift into Valkyrie’s mesh of rigging.

  ‘Fire when you are ready, Mr Fasken.’ He smiled briefly. ‘Your crews did well this day.’

  It seemed to take an eternity to overhaul the enemy brig. Corpses were dropped overboard, and the protesting wounded vanished from the darkly stained decks.

  Trucks squealed as one of the big eighteen-pounder bow-chasers was manhandled into position. The gunner watching with his arms folded. Handspikes were used to train the gun round, and some of the unemployed men stood on the gangway to watch, a few still searching for friends, a familiar face, which would never be seen again.

  The bow-chaser banged out and the smoke was cleared away even as the crew were sponging out and reloading.

  Bolitho saw the shot fall short of the brig’s counter, and heard some of the seamen laying bets with one another, when only moments earlier they had been staring death in the face.

  ‘Ready, sir!’

  ‘Fire!’

  This time Bolitho thought he saw the actual fall of shot. A dark blur, then wood splinters and rigging flying from the brig’s hull to drift along her side.

  Urquhart said in a whisper, ‘He must strike, damn him!’

  Avery pointed. ‘Look, sir! He’s running up his flag!’

  Bolitho lowered the telescope. Like an answer to Urquhart’s remark. He would never surrender.

  ‘Fire!’

  It was another hit, and men could be seen running like mad creatures as spars and rigging smashed down amongst them.

  Fasken shaded his eyes to peer aft. When no order was given he took the trigger-line from the gun-captain and balanced himself in a crouching position inboard of the black breech, something which he had probably not done since he had been part of a gun crew.

  Bolitho felt the deck rise and then settle, saw the trigger line go taut and then jerk to Fasken’s strong pull.

  For a moment longer it seemed that the gunner had missed. Then there was a mingled gasp of surprise and horror as the forepart of the brig exploded into a great tower of fire. Driven gleefully by the wind, the sails and tarred rigging were consumed in minutes, the fires reaching out along the hull and spitting through the open ports like tongues of bright sparks.

  The explosion, when it came, was like a single clap of thunder. Perhaps a magazine had been ignited, or maybe the brig was carrying extra powder for Baratte’s privateers.

  As the sound rolled away the vessel’s death pall was smeared across the sky like a black stain.

  Bolitho watched the sea’s face easing away the violent disturbances. For what, he wondered? So that Baratte could further prove he was a better man than his father and loyal to his country’s cause? A vanity, then?

  He heard himself say, ‘Rejoin the others, Mr Urquhart. Then tell the purser to break out the rum.’ He looked at the men who had once been too cowed even to speak. ‘They are all heroes today.’

  Avery ventured, ‘After this, Sir Richard?’

  ‘Home, if there is still justice in the world.’ He let his mind linger on it.

  The mood changed just as swiftly. ‘Besides, we have a wedding to attend!’ He slapped Allday’s shoulder. ‘Keep this one up to his word!’

  Surprisingly, Allday did not respond as he had expected.

  He said quietly, ‘Would you really do that, Sir Richard?’

  The men in the other ships were all cheering now, the fear and pain held at bay. Until the next time.

  But Bolitho heard only the words of his old friend. His oak.

  Somewhere in the past he could recall a signal he had once made. It seemed very apt for this moment, for this special man.

  ‘I will be honoured,’ he said.

  * * *

  Epilogue

  * * *

  Richard Bolitho gripped the tasselled strap as the carriage swayed and shuddered into some deep ruts like a small boat in a choppy sea. He felt drained, and every bone in his body was aching from this endless journey. In his tired mind it all seemed to overlay in vague, blurred pictures, from the moment he had stepped ashore at Portsmouth to be whisked immediately to London to make his report.

  All the while he had been yearning to get away, to begin the long, long drive from that world to his own West Country. Surrey, Hampshire, Dorset, Devon. He could not remember how many times they had stopped to change horses, how many inns they had visited. Even when he had broken the journey to spend a night in one of the coaching inns the images seemed confused. People who had stared at him, wondering what business was taking him westward but too nervous or polite to ask. The smells of meat puddings and mulled ale, saucy-eyed servant girls, jovial landlords who lived off the coaching trade with far more success than the highwaymen.

  Opposite him Allday sprawled across his seat, his bronzed face rested and untroubled in sleep. Like most sailors he could sleep anywhere, if an opportunity offered itself.

  It was hard to accept that he was in England after all that happened.
Baratte was dead, and even Tyacke, who had searched the whole area in his Larne, had found no living soul to survive the terrible explosion.

  Under jury-rig and nursing their injuries and damage, the ships, including the two French prizes, had crawled back to Cape Town. There, to his astonishment, Bolitho had found fresh orders requiring him to hand over his command to Commodore Keen and return home. They had passed Keen’s convoy on passage but not close enough to communicate. Bolitho’s flag at the fore would tell Keen all he needed to know. The way ahead was clear, and the first military landings on the islands adjoining the main objective, Mauritius, could go ahead.

  Bolitho wiped the window with his sleeve. They had made an early start, as they had on most mornings when the road had been a good one. Bare, black trees, wet from overnight mist or rain, the rolling fields and hills beyond. He shivered, and not only with excitement. It was November and the air was bitter.

  He thought of the good-byes and the unexpected partings. Lieutenant Urquhart had been left in charge of Valkyrie, supervising the repairs until a new captain was appointed. That was the strangest thing of all, Bolitho thought. Trevenen had vanished on the final night before making their landfall at Good Hope. A twist of fate? Or had he been unable to face the consequences of what he had done when Bolitho had been wounded? He had left no letter, no declaration. The ship had been searched from cable tier to orlop: it had been just as if he had been spirited away.

  Or it might have been murder. Either way, the part played by Hamett-Parker in getting Trevenen such an important command might be reopened because of it.

  Farewells. Tyacke, grave and strangely sad, able to forget his disfigurement while they had shaken hands: friends or brothers, they were both.

  And Adam, whose Anemone had seen the worst of the fighting and had suffered the most casualties. Adam had spoken of them with pride and with a deep sense of loss. Two of his lieutenants had been killed. His voice had been full of unashamed emotion when he had described how they had grappled with the Chacal, which had been flying Baratte’s own flag, and one of his midshipmen, called Dunwoody, had fallen. ‘I had recommended him for early promotion. He will be greatly missed.’