The Only Victor

by Alexander Kent

  “The captains are assembled on board, Sir Richard. Only Zest’s commander is absent and on his patrol area.”

  Bolitho nodded. Two weeks since he had parted from Herrick, with too much time to think back over their exchange. Now, for the first time, because of the improved weather conditions, he had drawn the bulk of his squadron together in the hard glare which made the sea look like beaten silver. It was the first time, also, that his captains had managed to reach the flagship.

  “What about our courier brig?”

  Jenour flushed still further. How could Bolitho have known that the brig had been reported by Glorious’s masthead lookout? He had been here in his quarters since a dawn stroll, not on his private sternwalk, but on the quarterdeck in full view of everyone.

  Bolitho saw his confusion and smiled. “I heard the signal being repeated on deck, Stephen. A sternwalk has its uses—the sound carries quite well.” He added wryly, “Even the things that people say, when they are being somewhat indiscreet!”

  He tried not to hope that the little brig, named Mistral, was bringing a letter from Catherine. It was too soon, and anyway she would be very busy. He laid out each careful excuse to hold his disappointment at bay.

  He said, “Signal her commander to report on board when the time comes.”

  He thought of the captains who were waiting to meet him. Not one of them a friend; but all were experienced. That would suffice. After Thomas Herrick . . . his mind thrust it away, feeling the same hurt and sense of betrayal. There had been a time when, as a captain himself, he had fretted about meeting a new ship’s company. Now he knew from experience that usually they were far more worried than he.

  All through the past hour or so, calls had shrilled at the entry port as the various captains had been piped aboard. Each one of them might be thinking more about the rumours of scandal than what lay ahead.

  He said, “Please ask Captain Keen to bring them here.” He had not noticed the sudden edge to his voice. “He was quite surprised to see his old Nicator as one of the squadron . . . he commanded her six or seven years back. We were at Copenhagen together.” His grey eyes became distant. “I lost some good friends that day.”

  Jenour waited, and saw the sudden despair depart from his face like a cloud across the sea.

  Bolitho smiled. “He said to me once that Nicator was so rotten there were many times he believed only a thin sheet of copper stood between himself and eternity. Heaven knows what the old ship is like now!”

  Jenour paused by the door, hating to break into these confidences. “Are we so short of ships, Sir Richard?”

  Bolitho walked to the quarter galley and watched the uneasy water, the way some circling gulls appeared to change colour as they dipped and drifted through the sunlight.

  “I fear so, Stephen. That is why those Danish ships are so important. It might all come to nothing, but I think not. I did not imagine Poland’s death, nor did I invent the near destruction of Truculent. They knew we were there.” He remembered how Sir Charles Inskip had scoffed at him because of his suspicions about French intentions. But that had been before the desperate battle; he had not scoffed since.

  He became impatient with his memories and said, “Tell Ozzard to fetch some wine for our guests.”

  Jenour closed the door, and saw Ozzard and another servant already preparing goblets and standing them inside the fiddles in case a sudden squall came down on the ship.

  Bolitho walked to the wine-cooler and touched the inlay with his fingers. Herrick would be at his home. Remembering how it had been; expecting to see his Dulcie and feel the warmth of her obvious adoration for him. Herrick was probably blaming him too for Benbow’s being relieved; as if it had happened because Bolitho wanted the squadron for himself. How little he knew—but it was always easy to find a bitter reason if you wanted it enough.

  The door opened and Keen ushered the others inside so that they could introduce themselves to Bolitho on arrival.

  He had a mixed impression of experience, competence and curiosity. All were post-captains except the last one to arrive. Ozzard bustled amongst them with his tray, but their eyes were on the captain of the frigate Anemone as he reported to their vice-admiral. More like a younger brother than a nephew.

  Bolitho clasped Adam’s hand but could no longer restrain himself, and put his arm around his shoulder and hugged him.

  The dark hair which matched his own; even the restless energy of a young colt when he had first joined Hyperion as a skinny midshipman of fourteen years. It was all still there. Bolitho held him at arm’s length and studied him feature by feature. But Adam was a man now, a captain of his own frigate; what he had always dreamed about. He was twenty-six years old. Another twist of Fate? Bolitho had been the same age when he had been given command of his first frigate.

  Adam said quietly, “It is good to see you, Uncle. We barely had an hour together after Truculent’s return to port.”

  His words seemed to linger in the air like the memory of a threat. But for Anemone’s sudden appearance, the three French vessels would surely have overwhelmed Poland’s ship by sheer weight of artillery.

  Bolitho thought grimly, And I would be dead. He knew he would never allow himself to be taken prisoner again.

  Keen had got the others seated and they were watching the reunion, each man fitting it into his own image of the Bolitho they knew, or had only heard about. There was no sort of resentment on their faces; Bolitho guessed that Adam was far too junior to present any kind of threat to their own status in the squadron.

  Bolitho said, “We will talk far longer this time. I am proud to have you under my flag.”

  All at once the midshipman with the cheeky grin was back again. Adam said, “From what I hear and read, it is barely safe to leave you on your own, Uncle!”

  Bolitho composed himself and faced Keen and the other captains. There was so much he wanted to tell Adam, needed to tell him, so that there would never be any doubts, no secrets to plague them when they were alone.

  Adam looked so right in his dress coat; but more like a youth playing the part of a hero than the man who held the destiny of a thirty-eight-gun frigate and some one hundred and eighty souls in his hands. He thought of Herrick’s distress, his scathing comments about the Bolitho charm. Maybe he had been right? It was easy to picture Adam’s face now in one of the portraits at the house in Falmouth.

  “I wanted to meet you as soon as possible, for I have discovered in the past that circumstances often prevent us from taking our time over such matters.” There were several smiles. “I am sorry that we are short of two in our numbers—” He hesitated as he realised what he had said. It was as if Herrick was right here, watching, resenting the implication; blaming him for sending the two ships into port without waiting. He said, “This is not a time for loosening our grip on the reins. There are many who saw Trafalgar as a victory which would end all danger at a single stroke. I have seen and heard it for myself, in the fleet and on the streets of London. I can assure you, gentlemen, it is a foolish and misinformed captain who believes this is a time for relaxation. We need every ship we can get, and the men who care enough to fight them when the time comes, as come it must. The French will exploit their gains on land and have proved that few troops can withstand them. And who knows what leaders they will put to sea once they have the ships again to use against us? The French navy was weakened by the very force which brought Napoleon to power. During the blood-letting of the Terror, loyal officers were beheaded in the same blind savagery as the so-called aristocrats! But new faces will appear, and when they do we must be ready.” He felt suddenly drained, and saw Adam watching him with concern.

  He asked, “Have you any questions?”

  Captain John Crowfoot of the Glorious, a tall, stooping figure with the solemn looks of a village clergyman, asked, “Will the Danes offer their fleet to the enemy, Sir Richard?”

  Bolitho smiled. He even sounded like one. “I think not. But under extreme pressure
they might yield. No Dane wants the French army on his soil. Napoleon’s armies have a habit of staying put after they have invaded, no matter on what pretext.”

  Bolitho saw Keen lean forward to look at the next captain to speak. It was Captain George Huxley who commanded Nicator, Keen’s old ship. He was probably wondering what kind of man could be expected to hold the rotting seventy-four together.

  Huxley was stocky and level-eyed, giving an immediate impression of unwavering self-confidence. A hard man, Bolitho thought.

  Huxley insisted, “We must have more frigates, Sir Richard. Without them we are blind and ignorant of affairs. A squadron, nay, a fleet could pass us in the night, to seaward or yonder along the Dutch coast, and we might never know.”

  Bolitho saw one of them glance round as if he expected to see the Dutch coastline, even though it was more than thirty miles abeam.

  He said, “I share that sentiment, Captain Huxley. I have but two under my command. That of my nephew, and the Zest, whose captain I am yet to meet.”

  He thought of Keen’s remark: “Captain Fordyce has the reputation of a martinet, sir. He is an admiral’s son, as you will know, but his methods are hardly mine.” It was rare for Keen to speak out on the subject of a fellow captain. Their Lordships probably thought that Zest needed a firmer hand after Varian’s example.

  There were more questions on repairs and supplies, on patrol areas and shortages. Some of the questions were directed at Bolitho’s proposed signals and fighting instructions, because of their brevity rather than their context.

  Bolitho looked at them thoughtfully. They do not know me. Yet.

  He replied, “Too much time is lost, wasted by unnecessary exchanges in the midst of a sea-fight. And time, as you know from experience, is a luxury we may not always have.” He let each word sink in before he added, “I had correspondence with Lord Nelson, but like most of you, I never had the good fortune to meet him.” He let his gaze rest on Adam. “My nephew is the exception. He met him more than once—a privilege we can never share. Gone for ever he may be, but his example is still ours to be seized and used.” He had all their attention, and he saw Adam touch his cheek surreptitiously with the back of his hand.

  “Nelson once said that in his opinion no captain could do very wrong if he laid his ship alongside that of an enemy.” He saw Crowfoot of the Glorious nod vigorously, and knew that by the door Jenour was staring at him as if afraid he might miss something.

  Bolitho ended simply, “In answer to some of your questions— I don’t think Our Nel’s words can ever be improved on.”

  It was another two hours before they all departed, feeling better for the plentiful supply of wine, and each man preparing his own version of the meeting for his wardroom and company.

  As Ozzard remarked ruefully, “They certainly made a hole in the cheese Lady Catherine sent aboard!”

  Bolitho found some time to speak with the youngest captain in his squadron, Mistral’s Commander Philip Merrye, whom Allday later described contemptuously, “’Nother one of those twelve-year-old cap’ns!”

  Then under a gentler north-westerly than they had known, the five sail of the line took station on their flagship and brought in another reef for the coming night. Each captain and lieutenant was very aware of the man whose flag floated from Black Prince’s foremast, and the need not to lose contact with him in the gathering darkness.

  Keen had been going to ask Bolitho to sup with him, but when the brig’s commander had produced a letter for him he had decided otherwise.

  It was to be a private moment, shared by nobody but the ship around him, and with Catherine. This was a man none of his captains would recognise, as he bent over his table and carefully opened her letter. He knew he would read it many times; and he found he was touching the locket beneath his shirt as he straightened the letter under a deckhead lantern.

  Darling Richard, dearest of men, so short a while since we were parted and yet already a lifetime . . .

  Bolitho stared around the cabin and spoke her name aloud. “Soon, my love, soon . . .” And in the sea’s murmur, he thought he heard her laugh.

  17 “YOU HOLD THEIR HEARTS . . .”

  IF THE officers and men of Bolitho’s North Sea squadron had expected a quick relief from the dragging boredom of blockade duty, they were soon to be disappointed. Weeks overlapped into months. Spring drove away the icy winds and constant damp of winter, and still they endured the endless and seemingly pointless patrols. Northward from the Frisian Islands, with the Dutch coast sometimes in view, often as far as the Skagerrak where Poland had fought his last battle.

  Better than most Bolitho knew he was driving them hard, more so than they had probably ever endured before. Sail and gun drills, in line ahead or abreast to a minimum of signals. Then he had divided his squadron into two divisions with the clergyman-like Crowfoot’s Glorious as senior ship of the other line. Bolitho had now been reinforced by the two remaining seventy-fours, Valkyrie and Tenacious, and a small but welcome addition of the schooner Radiant, the latter commanded by an elderly lieutenant who had once been with the revenue service.

  Small Radiant might be, but she was fast enough to dart close inshore and make off again before an enemy patrol vessel could be roused enough to weigh anchor and come out to discourage her impudence.

  Allday was shaving Bolitho one morning and for the first time since they had come aboard, the stern windows were open, and there was real warmth in the air. Bolitho stared up at the deckhead while the razor rasped expertly under his chin.

  The blade stilled as he said, “I suppose they hate my insides for all the drills I am forcing on them?”

  Allday waited, then continued with his razor. “Better this way, Sir Richard. It’s fair enough in small craft, but in big ships like this ’un it’s wrong to draw officers and sailors too close together.”

  Bolitho looked at him curiously. More wisdom. “How so?”

  “’Tween decks they needs someone to hate. Keeps them on edge, like a cutlass to a grindstone!”

  Bolitho smiled and let his mind drift again. Cornwall would be fresh again after the drab weather. Bright yellow gorse, sheets of bluebells along the little paths to the headland. What would Catherine be doing? He had received several letters in the courier brig; once he had three altogether, as often happened with the King’s ships constantly at sea. Catherine always made her letters interesting. She had dispensed with Somervell’s property in London, and after paying off what sounded like a mountain of debts she had purchased a small house near the Thames. It was as if she had felt his sudden anxiety all the miles across the North Sea and had explained, “When you must be in London, we will have our own haven—we shall be beholden to nobody.” She spoke too of Falmouth, of ideas which she and Ferguson had put in motion to clear more land, to make a profit, and not merely sustain its existence. She never mentioned Belinda, nor did she speak of the enormous amount of money Belinda required to live in the only style she had come to accept.

  There was a knock at the outer door and Keen entered and said apologetically, “I thought you should know, Sir Richard. Our schooner is in sight to the east’rd and is desiring to close on us.”

  Allday dabbed Bolitho’s face and watched the light in his eyes. There was no sign of injury. No change, he thought. So perhaps after all . . .

  Bolitho said, “News, d’you think, Val?”

  Keen said impassively, “She comes from the right direction.”

  In Catherine’s last letter she had mentioned her meeting with Zenoria. “Tell Val to take heart. The love is as strong as before. It needs a sign.” Keen had taken the news without comment. Resigned, hopeful or desperate; whatever his emotions were, he hid them well.

  When Allday had left them alone Bolitho exclaimed, “In God’s name, Val, how much longer must we beat up and down this barren coast waiting for some word? Every morning the horizon is empty but for our own companions, each sunset brings more curses from the people because of all this fu
tility!”

  There were more delays, while the schooner tacked this way and that before she could lie under Black Prince’s lee and drop her boat in the water.

  Lieutenant Evan Evans had served with the Revenue cutters before joining the King’s navy, but he looked more like a pirate than a law-abiding sailor. A great block of a man with rough grey hair which looked as if he cut it himself with shears, a brick-red face so battered and so ruined by hard drinking that he was a formidable presence even in Bolitho’s great cabin.

  Ozzard brought some wine but Evans shook his shaggy head. “None o’ that, beggin’ yer pardon, Sir Richard—it plays hell with my gut!”

  But when Ozzard produced some rum Evans drained the tankard in one swallow. “More like it, see?”

  Bolitho said, “Tell me what you found.”

  Together they walked to the table where Bolitho’s own chart was spread with his personal log open beside it.

  Evans put a finger as thick and as hard as a marlin spike on the chart and said, “Three days back, Sir Richard. Makin’ for the Bay o’ Heligoland, she was, leastways ’twas a fair guess at her direction.”

  Bolitho contained his impatience. Evans was reliving it. It would destroy the picture in his mind if he was goaded. It was strange to hear the local landmarks described in his rich Welsh accent.

  Keen prompted gently, “She?”

  Evans glared at him and continued, “Big as a cathedral, she was. Ship o’ th’ line.” He shrugged heavily. “Then two frigates came from nowhere, out o’ th’ sun to all intents. One was a forty-four.” He frowned, so that his bright eyes seemed to vanish into thick folds of skin.

  Bolitho straightened his back and clasped his fingers together behind him. “Did you see her name, Mr Evans?”

  “Well, we were proper busy when she let fly with a bowchaser, but my little schooner can show a clean pair o’ heels as anyone will tell you . . .”

  Bolitho remarked, “She was L’Intrépide, was she not?”

  The others stared at him and Keen asked, “But how could you know, sir?”