“I didn’t wait to discover, sir! They were eager to dampen my interest!” He turned away to call some commands as his brig slewed dangerously across Benbow’s quarter. Then he shouted, “One is a second-rate, sir! No doubt of that!”
Herrick faced inboard and said, “Tell him to carry word to Sir Richard Bolitho.” He stopped Gossage and revised it. “No. To Admiral Gambier.”
He walked to the compass and back again, then glanced at the old Egret’s pyramid of tanned canvas which seemed to tower directly beyond Benbow’s jib-boom. He saw all and none of it. They were things and moments in his life too familiar to comment on. Even the old cry, The French are out! could not move him any more.
Gossage came back, breathing hard as if he had just been running.
“The brig’s making more sail, sir.” He eyed him despairingly. “Shall I order the convoy to scatter?”
“Have you forgotten Zest’s captain so soon, man? Waiting somewhere for his wretched court-martial? They once executed an admiral for failing to press home an attack—d’you imagine they would even hesitate over Captain Varian?” Or us , he thought, but did not say it.
He looked for the little brig but she was already tacking around the head of the column. The man with the horribly disfigured face might find Gambier or Bolitho by tomorrow. It was probably already pointless.
But when he spoke again, his voice was steady and unruffled.
“Signal the convoy to make more sail and maintain course and distance. Spell it out word by word if you have to, but I want each master to know and understand the nearness of danger.”
“Very well, sir. And then . . . ?”
Herrick was suddenly tired, but knew there would be no respite.
“Then, Captain Gossage, you may beat to quarters and clear for action!”
Gossage hurried away, his mind groping for explanations and solutions. But one thing stood out above all else. It was the first time he had seen Herrick smile since his wife had died. As if he no longer had anything to lose.
Captain Valentine Keen held his watch against the compass light, then glanced around at the shadowy figures on the quarterdeck. It was strange and unnerving to hear and see the flash of cannon fire from the land while Black Prince lay at anchor, another cable run out from aft so that they could kedge her round to use at least one broadside against attack.
When there was a lull in the bombardment Keen felt blind, and could sense the tension around him. A boat was hooked on to either cable, with Royal Marines crouched over the bulwarks armed with muskets and fixed bayonets in case some mad volunteer attempted to swim out and cut them adrift. Other marines lined the gangways, while the swivel guns were loaded and depressed towards the black, swirling current of Copenhagen’s great harbour.
The first part of the attack had gone well. The fleet had anchored off Elsinore on the twelfth of August; there had been no opposition despite the presence of so many men-of-war. Three days later the army had begun to advance on the city. The closer they got the heavier became the Danish opposition, and in the last attack the navy had been savaged by a fleet of praams, each mounting some twenty powerful guns, and a flotilla of thirty gun-boats. They were eventually driven off after a fierce engagement, and the military and naval batteries ashore were soon repaired.
Keen looked up as Bolitho crossed the quarterdeck, and guessed he had not slept.
“It is timed to begin soon, Val.”
“Aye, sir. The army have got their artillery in position. I heard they have seventy mortars and cannon laid on Copenhagen.”
Bolitho looked around in the darkness. Black Prince had followed Gambier’s main fleet to Elsinore and had soon been engaged with the Danish guns of the Crown Battery. It was not that much different from their other attack on Copenhagen, except that here they were fighting small craft and shadows, while the army pressed forward against persistent and dogged resistance.
Two divisions of sail of the line were anchored between the defenders and the Danish fleet, most of which appeared to be laid up in ordinary or in a state of repair, perhaps to appease the English and French predators.
In the midst of the bombardments and the far-off forays of cavalry and infantry, Lord Cathcart, the commander-in-chief, had found time to grant passports to the Princess of Denmark and the King’s nieces to travel safely through the English lines, “So that they could be spared the horrors of a siege.”
When Keen had remarked on the effect that might have on Danish morale, Bolitho had answered with sudden bitterness, “King George the Second was the last British monarch to lead his army into battle—at Dettingen, I think it was. I doubt if we’ll ever see such a thing again in our lifetimes!”
He winced as the whole sky burst into flame and the systematic bombardment started. To add to the horror, powerful Congreve rockets were soon falling on the city, disgorging their deadly loads of fire, so that within the hour many of the buildings nearest the waterfront were ablaze.
Keen said between his teeth, “Why don’t the Danes strike? They have no chance!”
Bolitho glanced at him and saw his face flickering in the red and orange reflections, while the hull, deep beneath them, shook to each fall of shot.
The Danes, he thought. No one ever referred to them as the enemy.
“Boat ahoy! Stand off, I say!”
Marines ran along the deck and Bolitho saw a boat pause abeam, rocking gently in the current and laid bare by the lurid flash of rockets.
There were white crossbelts visible, and someone yelled at the sentries to hold their fire. Another moment, and the nervous marines would have poured a volley into the boat.
An officer stood in the sternsheets and cupped his hands, pausing between each roar of explosions to make himself understood.
“Sir Richard Bolitho!” A pause. “The Admiral-Commanding sends his compliments, and would you join him in the flagship?”
“What a time to choose!” Bolitho glanced round and saw Jenour with Allday close by. To Keen he said, “I will go across in the guardboat. It must be urgent not to keep until dawn.”
They hurried to the entry port where the boat had eventually been allowed to hook on.
Bolitho said tersely, “You know what to do, Val. Cut the cables if you are attacked—use the boats if necessary.”
Then he was down in the guardboat and pressed between Jenour and the officer-of-the-guard.
As they pushed off from Black Prince’s massive, rounded hull someone thrust his head through an open gunport and yelled, “You get us out o’ this, eh, Our Dick?”
The officer snapped, “Damned impertinence!”
But Bolitho said nothing; he was too moved for words. It was like being pulled across liquid fire, with anonymous pieces of charred wood tapping against the hull, and falling ashes hissing into the water.
Admiral Gambier greeted him in his usual distant manner.
“Sorry to drag you over, Sir Richard. Your squadron may be sorely needed tomorrow.”
Bolitho’s hat was taken away and replaced by an ice-cold glass of hock.
Admiral Gambier glanced aft towards his quarters. All the screen doors were open to the warm air, and smoke drifted in and out of the gunports as if a fireship were already alongside.
The great cabin seemed to be packed with blue and scarlet coats, and Gambier said with obvious disapproval, “All congratulating themselves—before the Danes surrender!”
Bolitho kept his face impassive. The Danes again.
Gambier jerked his head. “We are using my captain’s quarters. Bit quieter.”
In the cabin, similar but older than Keen’s in the Black Prince, all but one lantern were extinguished. It made the stern windows burn and spark like the gateway to hell.
Gambier nodded to a midshipman and snapped, “Fetch him!” Then he said, “Damned glad of those vessels you managed to poach from Good Hope. The Captain of the Fleet never stops talking about it.”
There were footsteps on the outer deck and Ga
mbier said quietly, “I must warn you, this officer’s face is most hideously wounded.”
Bolitho swung round. “James Tyacke!”
Gambier muttered, “Never mentioned that he knew you. Odd fellow.”
Tyacke came into the cabin, ducking beneath the deckhead beams until Bolitho gripped his hands warmly in his.
Gambier watched. If he were impressed he did not reveal it.
He said, “Give Sir Richard your news, Commander.”
As Tyacke described his sighting of the French ships, and his later meeting with Herrick’s convoy, Bolitho felt the anger and dismay crowding in from the flashing panorama beyond the ship.
Gambier persisted, “You are certain, Commander?”
Tyacke turned from the shadows and momentarily displayed his ravaged face.
“A second-rate, possibly larger, and another sail of the line a-stern of her. There were others too. I had no opportunity to linger.”
Gambier said, “This is a small-ship war now that the army is ashore, Sir Richard. I did not anticipate that Rear-Admiral Herrick would need further protection. It seems I was wrong, and should have left your squadron on its station until—”
Bolitho interrupted sharply, “Do you think they’ve found the convoy?”
Tyacke shrugged. “Doubt it. But they will, if they maintain their course and speed.”
Bolitho looked at the admiral. “I am asking you to allow me to order my squadron to sea, sir.”
Gambier eyed him severely. “Impossible. Out of the question. In any case, most of your ships are to the east’rd in the Baltic approaches. It would take two days, longer, to get them in pursuit.”
Tyacke said bluntly, “Then the convoy will perish, sir, as will its escorts.”
The admiral frowned as a gust of laughter came up from his quarters. “People are dying over there! Do they care for no damned thing!”
He seemed to make up his mind. “I will release your flagship. You can have one other— Nicator, as she is moored with you. Poor old girl will probably fall apart if she is called to battle!” Then he exclaimed, “But there is no one to guide you through the Sound.”
Bolitho said desperately, “I did it before, under Nelson’s flag, sir.”
Tyacke remarked calmly, “I’ll lead the way, Sir Richard. If you’ll have me.”
Gambier followed them to the side and said to his own captain, “Would you say I am an easy man to serve?”
The captain smiled. “Fair, sir.”
“Not the same.” He watched the guardboat speeding across the water, one minute in total darkness, the next illuminated so brightly in the falling Congreve rockets that he could see every detail.
Then he said, “Just now, in my own flagship, I felt that he was in command, not I.”
The flag captain followed him aft towards the din of voices. It was a moment he would savour all his life.
Back aboard Black Prince, Bolitho rapped off his orders as if they had been lurking there in his mind.
“Send a boat to your old ship, Val. She’s to weigh and follow without delay.” He gripped his arm. “I’ll not have any arguments. Larne will lead us out. I said this might happen, damn them!”
The great three-decker seemed to burst alive as calls trilled between decks and men ran to their stations for leaving harbour. Anything was better than waiting and not knowing. They would not care whatever the reason. They were leaving. Bolitho thought of the unknown wag who had called out in the darkness.
The capstan was clanking busily, and he knew that the kedge-anchor would soon be hoisted inboard.
A lantern moved across the water, and occasionally Bolitho saw the brig’s sturdy shadow as she made ready to take the lead.
Two great rockets fell together on the city, lighting up the sky and the ships in a withering fireball.
Bolitho had been about to call for Jenour when it happened. As the fire died away he took his hand from his injured eye. It was like looking through clouded water, or a misted glass. He lowered his head and murmured, “Not now. Not yet, dear God!”
“Cable’s hove short, sir!”
Keen’s voice was harsh in the speaking-trumpet. “How does the cable grow, Mr Sedgemore?” Then he paused until the next flash so that he could see the angle of the lieutenant’s arm. There was not much room, especially in the darkness. He needed to know how the ship, his ship, would perform when she tore free of the ground.
Cazalet bellowed, “Loose tops’ls!” A few paces aft. “Stand by, the Afterguard!”
Black Prince seemed to tilt her lower gunports close to the black water as the cry came drifting aft.
“Anchor’s aweigh, sir!”
Bolitho gripped the tarred nettings and tried to massage his eye.
Jenour asked in a whisper, “May I help, Sir Richard?”
He cringed as Bolitho swung on him, and waited for the stinging retort.
But Bolitho said only, “I am losing my sight, Stephen. Can you keep a secret so precious to me?”
Overcome, Jenour could barely answer, but nodded vigorously, and did not even notice a boat pulling frantically from under the black figurehead while the ship continued to swing round.
Bolitho said, “They must not know.” He gripped his arm until Jenour winced with the pain. “You are a dear friend, Stephen. Now there are other friends out there who need us.”
Keen strode towards them. “She answers well, sir!” He glanced from one to the other, and knew what had happened. “Shall I send for the surgeon?”
Bolitho shook his head. Maybe it would pass; perhaps when daylight found them, it would be clear again.
“No, Val . . . too many know already. Follow Larne’s stern-light and put your best leadsmen in the chains.”
Allday materialised from the darkness, holding out a cup. “Here, Sir Richard.”
Bolitho swallowed it and felt the black coffee, with a mixture of rum and something else, steady his insides so that he could think again.
“That was more than welcome, old friend.” He handed him the cup and thought of Inskip. “I am over it now.”
But when he looked at the burning city again, the mist was still there.
19 TRUE COLOURS
WITH HER great yards braced so hard round that to a landsman they might appear to lie fore-and-aft, Black Prince steered as close-hauled to the wind as was possible. For most of the previous night they had clawed their way up the narrow Sound from Copenhagen, pursued all the while by the continuous thunder of the bombardment.
Somehow Nicator had held station on the flagship, but for Black Prince, a powerful three-decker, it had been a trial of nerves as well as skill. Urgent voices had passed each sounding aft from the leadsmen in the forechains, and at one time Bolitho had sensed that only a few feet lay between the ship’s great keel and disaster.
Dawn had found them heading out into the Kattegat, still comparatively shallow, but after the Sound it felt like the Western Ocean. Later, when Bolitho watched the pink glow on the choppy water, he knew that darkness would be upon them early that night. A glance at the masthead pendant assured him that the wind was holding steady, north-east. It would help them tomorrow, but had he waited until daylight as Gambier had suggested, the wind’s sudden veer would have bottled them up in harbour. He thought of Herrick for the hundredth time. Lady Luck.
Keen crossed the deck and touched his hat, his handsome features raw from a full day on deck in chill wind.
“Any further orders before nightfall, sir?”
They looked at one another, like friends across a common garden wall at the close of an ordinary day.
“It will be tomorrow, Val. Or not at all. You know what these supply convoys are like, the speed of the slowest vessel in it, necessary for mutual protection. Rear-Admiral Herrick’s convoy apparently numbers some twenty ships, so if there was a battle, some of the fastest must surely have reached the Skagerrak at least by now?” He forced a smile. “I realise you think me morbid, even mad. Herrick will pro
bably doff his hat to us at first light tomorrow, and sail past full of noble contentment!”
Keen watched him, the man he had come to know so well.
“May I ask something, sir?” He glanced round as the calls twittered in the endless daily life of a man-of-war: Last dogwatchmen to supper!
“Ask away.” He saw the gulls pausing to rest on the pink water like flower petals and thought of the dead Captain Poland, who had seen nothing but the path to duty.
“If you were in Rear-Admiral Herrick’s position, what would you do, if an enemy second—or even first-rate as it now appears— and other vessels hove in sight?”
Bolitho looked away. “I would scatter the convoy.” He looked at him again, his eyes dark in the strange glare. “Then I would engage the enemy. A waste of time . . . who knows? But some might survive.”
Keen hesitated. “But you do not think he would order them to break formation, sir?”
Bolitho took his arm and guided him a few paces past the big double-wheel, where Julyan the tall sailing-master was speaking to his mates in his deep rumbling tones. Worth his weight in gold, Keen had claimed several times; he had certainly proved his skin with wind, tide and rudder when they had struggled up the Sound.
“I am concerned, Val. If the enemy is searching for his ships, he will see it as something . . .” He groped for the word but saw only Herrick’s stubborn eyes.
“A personal thing, sir?”
“Aye, that’s about the strength of it.”
A sickly smell of pork came from the galley funnel and Bolitho said, “After both watches have eaten, have the ship cleared for action. But keep the galley in use until the last. More warm bellies than steel have won battles in the past, Val!”
Keen gazed along the broad length of his command, seeing it probably already enmeshed in the chaos and destruction of close-action.
“I agree.” He added suddenly, “Your Mr Tyacke could be right about the largest Frenchman, but then precious few know about Black Prince as yet—she is far too new.”
The officer-of-the-watch glanced at Keen and cleared his throat impressively.
“A chill, Mr Sedgemore?” Keen grinned with easy humour. “You wish to have the watch relieved?”
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