Man of War

by Alexander Kent

  He thought suddenly of the vice-admiral: a good reputation, popular too, they said.

  Jago walked away, humming silently to himself.

  But not one you would ever turn your back on.

  The relieved sentry and the corporal marched away to join their companions in the “barracks.” A hot meal at this hour was unheard of, in the Corps or anywhere else, and a tot as well for good measure. It was not to be missed. Tomorrow could wait.

  In the little pantry adjoining the admiral’s quarters, George Tolan was standing with a glass in his hand, adjusting to the deck’s slow roll and the solitary lantern’s beam swinging across his face.

  All this time. All those years. I should have been ready. He had trained himself to always be prepared. For the slightest hint, the weak moment which could still betray him.

  Very deliberately he filled the glass with wine. He sensed the warning again, like a signal, or a flare in the night. He would have to be doubly careful, even to the amount of wine he drank. Something far stronger would be better, but Bethune would notice. It would destroy everything he had worked for.

  His mind hesitated, like a keeper feeling for a trap, before he allowed himself to think it over again. The stupid marine who had tossed aside his musket just to make a fool out of the cook’s assistant and his damned chicken. The musket had been at half-cock. Safe, or so the untrained idiot might think. Many had discovered otherwise to their cost; he had heard that the captain had been wounded by such a shot.

  His guard must have been down, he thought. He had snatched up the heavy weapon, had caught it perfectly at the point of balance. Just like all those other times, all the drills and the bellowing sergeants. The skill, and eventually the pride at what he was doing. Only a second’s carelessness, and he had acted as if he was back in the line. And like that day when he had killed his officer.

  He’d listened to Bethune talking with the captain. For a moment he’d imagined that Bolitho had noticed his reaction, his ease with a musket. Twenty years ago. It could’ve been yesterday.

  He wiped the glass and held it up to the swinging light.

  Bethune would be calling him very soon now. His cot was ready, his heavy robe laid out on a chair. They would talk for a while as he helped him into the cot, and perhaps brought him another drink. He talked but never listened, unless he wanted to hear something.

  Tolan heard the little bell tinkle from the admiral’s quarters. He would not throw it all away now, after twenty years.

  He picked up his tray and opened the door.

  “Coming, Sir Graham!”

  He was safe.

  Adam awoke with a start, his eyes hot and sore, his mouth like dust. It was Jago, bending over the coat, one hand shielding the shuttered lantern while he waited for his senses to recover.

  Adam struggled into a sitting position, his mind groping for details and sounds. He felt as if he’d slept for only a few minutes.

  “What’s happening?”

  Jago watched him impassively, eyes in shadow.

  “Dawn comin’ up, Cap’n. First light very soon.”

  “Already?” The cabin seemed to be as dark as ever. Then he smelled fresh coffee, and thought he heard Bowles moving about in the pantry.

  Jago added patiently, “There may be trouble we have to deal with today. You said so yourself, Cap’n. They’ll be lookin’ to you. So I thought a shave might be in order, so to speak.”

  Adam groaned and climbed out of the cot, feeling the deck, angled but steady. “I’ve no time for that now, man!”

  But the anger refused to come, and eventually he shrugged and said, “I suppose it makes sense.”

  He walked across the checkered deck covering and sat in the chair by his desk, thinking of Bethune somewhere beneath his feet. As refreshed as ever, no doubt. He smiled. What made him a flag-officer, far removed from the day to day problems and discomforts of ordinary sailors. The smile grew. Or captains . . .

  Feet thudded overhead and someone shouted. He felt Jago’s hand on his shoulder, like a groom quieting a restless horse.

  “Easy, Cap’n.” The razor glinted in the solitary light. “I’ll not be long. You take some coffee first.”

  Adam leaned back in the chair and thought of the painting in his sleeping cabin. He’d been looking at it, at her, when he’d fallen asleep, the spiralling lantern keeping watch over both of them.

  Where was she now? What was she doing, thinking?

  Now that she had had time to consider and remember, how would she see that moment, when they had become one?

  Bowles was here, head bowed beneath the deckhead beams. “Clean shirt, sir, and another coat.” He glanced at Jago; he might have winked.

  Adam stood up and touched his face. Like the hot coffee, the shave had pushed the tiredness aside.

  Jago remarked, “Lighter already, Cap’n.”

  Adam fastened the shirt and tugged the neckcloth into place. He was ready.

  “The picture—put it somewhere safe, Bowles.”

  “All done, sir.”

  Adam walked to the chair and touched it. They would never discover the reason for the gunfire and the flashes in those black clouds; this was a vast ocean, with ships tiny by comparison, like drifting leaves on a mill-race.

  “I’m going on deck.”

  Bowles nodded gravely. Jago waited, seeing the indecision, the doubts.

  He left the cabin and walked past the chartroom and into the fading shadows. Anonymous shapes moved aside, faces and voices becoming people he had come to know: the morning watch, four o’clock until eight, when the ship, any ship, awoke.

  Stirling, as first lieutenant, had the watch, and was already facing aft, as if he had known the captain would choose this moment to come on deck. Instinct . . .

  Adam said, “A quiet watch, Mr Stirling.” He moved to the compass box and glanced at the card swaying easily in the small light. West by south. Nothing had changed. He peered up at the topsails, pale but still indistinct, moving occasionally to the thrust of the wind. “A good man aloft?”

  “Sir. I’ve two up, sir. Although . . .”

  Adam turned to stare out at the sea. “Although you think there’ll be nothing for them to see.”

  Stirling stood his ground. “It’s been a while, sir.”

  “Yes.” He was right. Any pirate or unlawful trader would have spread every inch of canvas if they thought a King’s ship was near.

  He walked to the lee side of the quarterdeck and saw a long feather of spray burst from a patch of dark water. Like a fall of shot. A fish of some kind, a large one too.

  He heard the hoarse voice of Henry Mudge, the boatswain. “Put two good ’ands on this splicin’ as soon as it’s light, Mr Quinlan. I shouldn’t ’ave to tell you these glarin’ faults, eh? If you wants to sit that exam one day, an’ Gawd ’elp the rest of us if you does . . .” His voice faded on the sudden boom of canvas as the driver filled in a gust.

  Another face. Quinlan was one of the youngest midshipmen. Feeling his way. Like David Napier.

  The two helmsmen pulled down on the big double wheel, one leaning round to watch the compass card, the other staring aloft at the peak of the driver to gauge the wind’s strength, and that of the sea against the rudder far below his feet. He had a vivid tattoo on his muscular arm, a wild bird with spread wings, and what looked like a human skull beneath it.

  Adam was suddenly alert, and wide awake. Just moments earlier, the sailor had been in complete darkness.

  He strode to the rail and watched the sea gaining colour, light spilling from the horizon far astern, giving life to the topsails and driver, shining on spray-dappled planks and gangways. On upturned faces and those working on the yards, and a man in an apron carrying a bucket, pausing to note the wind’s direction before heaving its contents over the lee side.

  Adam shaded his eyes and looked at the masthead pendant, licking out from the truck, brightly coloured as it caught the dawn and held it. The galley fire was rekindled and
there was smoke in the air. The men of the forenoon watch would be going to breakfast, such as it was, probably some of the leavings from the unexpected supper their captain had arranged in a moment of kindness—or madness, as the word had it on the messdecks.

  He walked slowly to the rail again and felt salt like dried sand under his fingers.

  And down in his quarters Bethune would be smiling to himself. Shaking his head, wondering if he had made the right choice for his flag-captain.

  “Deck there!”

  All caught like unfinished sketches. The man in his apron, his empty bucket poised in mid-air. Two seamen listening to the young midshipman named Quinlan, others frozen as they stared up and through the mesh of rigging, to the invisible lookout in the crosstrees.

  Stirling’s voice echoed above all other sounds.

  “I hear you. Where away?”

  It seemed an age before the lookout called down again.

  “Fine on th’ starboard bow, sir! Wreckage!”

  Adam snatched up a telescope and trained it beyond the forecastle, to a dark horizon still unwilling to cast the night aside.

  “A good lookout indeed, Mr Stirling. We could have missed it altogether in this light.”

  He realized that Troubridge was beside him, wide-eyed, as if he had just been dragged out of his cot.

  “Sir Graham heard the noise, sir.” He was almost apologetic. “He sends his compliments . . .”

  “Tell Sir Graham that we have found wreckage. We were right.”

  Troubridge paused at the top of the ladder and turned to look back at him. Very young, like the night they had broken into the studio together.

  “You were right, sir.” And he was gone.

  Adam saw Jago watching from the poop ladder. At ease now. It was out of his hands.

  The light was gaining strength every minute; faces became individuals and the sea on either beam reached away to its horizon. There were groups of seamen, jaws champing on the remains of their breakfast, when normally men strung it out until the last possible moment. Something different. Anything to break the monotony of routine and trimming sails.

  The sea was still lively, something that had to be considered from Athena’s poop, high compared with that of a frigate.

  He raised the telescope which had appeared as if by magic at his elbow. Another midshipman . . . his mind faltered . . . Vicary, had been observing him and was ready.

  Clearer this time. He squinted and tried again. A living, working ship. Was that all that remained of her?

  The lookout was a good one. High above the deck, he had the benefit of the changing colours on the sea’s face in the first light of the dawn, and the unbroken crests and long, undulating troughs which were never completely absent in this great ocean.

  “Have the jolly-boat ready to lower, Mr Stirling. Volunteers.”

  He felt his fingers tighten on the telescope. Like dust scattered across the blue-grey water. Hundreds of fragments widely spread over a mile or so, maybe more.

  He did not see Jago move but heard him murmur, “I’ll take the jolly-boat, Cap’n. The gig’s still on the tier.” Calm, almost matter-of-fact.

  Mudge the boatswain was shouting orders to his men on the main deck, his voice louder than usual in the damp air.

  Stirling said, “Boat’s crew mustered, sir.” No doubts this time. An order was an order, something he accepted without question.

  He heard the young midshipman named Vicary suppress a gasp, and Adam saw that his eyes were wide and fixed, like saucers. And no wonder.

  “What is all the excitement about?” It was Bethune, staring around the quarterdeck, then down toward the boat tier where tackles were already being manhandled into position. “I see no need for further involvement.” The smile returned. “We’ve both seen and weathered far worse, eh, Adam?”

  Some of the watching seamen grinned like conspirators. They had not set eyes on their admiral since he had joined the ship at Plymouth.

  Every available telescope was trained on the pathetic fragments which reached away on either bow, some with shape and meaning now. A mast, or part of it, with sodden canvas still attached, trailing cordage like weed, and a complete portion of grating drifting quite apart, clean in the hard light as if it had just been scrubbed.

  “Well, if you need to discuss anything further . . .” Bethune paused, one hand on the rail, his head half turned as a voice yelled, “Deck there! Larboard bow!” He seemed unable to continue, then, after a moment, shouted, “Bodies, sir!”

  Adam strode to the nettings and trained the telescope with great care. It gave him time, allowed his anger to subside. He heard himself say, “I’m lowering a boat, Sir Graham.” The glass steadied as Athena’s hull rode easily over another unending trough. Long enough to see it. Share it, before the picture dropped out of focus. A piece of timber, probably decking, blasted away by the explosion, with two figures clinging or stranded across it. One was all but naked, the other wore uniform, the same as some of those standing around him.

  He heard Scollay, the master-at-arms, exclaim, “Ours, by Jesus!”

  He glanced across the deck. “Heave-to, Mr Stirling.” He sought out the boatswain’s rotund figure. “Lower the jolly-boat as soon as we come about.” He saw Jago pause to stare up at him, then he was gone.

  He realized that Bethune had not moved, and was standing with his hand still on the rail, his hair blowing in the wind, as if he could not grasp what was happening.

  Adam raised the glass again, feeling the deeper pitch of the deck as, with sails thundering, Athena came heavily round and into the wind. Calls shrilled, and orders were yelled to topmen and those manning the braces, but Stirling’s booming voice overrode them all.

  Adam looked for the jolly-boat. One moment it was being swayed up and over the larboard gangway, then it vanished, only to reappear well clear of the side, pulling strongly for the nearest cluster of flotsam and the two corpses.

  He said, “There are other bodies close by.” He pressed the glass hard against his eye, so that he would not forget. Corpses, pieces of men, rising and dipping as if in some obscene dance.

  He said, “Fetch the surgeon.”

  “Comin’, sir!”

  Adam moved the glass very slightly and saw Jago’s face loom into life, eyes nearly closed against the early sunshine.

  “I’m here, sir.”

  He held the glass steady, waiting for the deck to rise again. He did not turn his head, but knew it was Crawford.

  “Have your people ready.” He lowered the glass and handed it to Midshipman Vicary, but Jago’s face remained; he was standing in the tossing boat, managing to hold up and cross both hands above his head. “There is a survivor. Warn the bosun to be ready. Use my quarters if you wish. It might save time, and a life.”

  Bethune said, “I should not have questioned your judgment, Adam.”

  Adam had not even seen him move from the rail. “I had a feeling.” He shrugged. “I can’t explain it, even to myself.” He watched the light returning to Bethune’s eyes, some of the familiar confidence. But for just that short while he had seen it broken down, as if he had lost control.

  Bethune looked up, perhaps at his flag, streaming from the fore.

  “Call me if you discover anything. But get underway as soon as possible.” Again the slight hesitation. “When you think fit.” He strode to the companion without another look at the sea, or the pitching jolly-boat floating amongst the thinning carpet of flotsam and death.

  Lieutenant Francis Troubridge held the screen door open and tried to summon a smile of greeting as Athena’s captain walked into the admiral’s day cabin. As the door closed he heard the bell chime briefly before it separated this world from the rest of the ship.

  “Sir Graham is waiting for you, sir.” He wanted to say so much more, to share some small part of what had happened. The ship hove-to, the tension on deck, all eyes on the jolly-boat and the captain’s coxswain giving his signals, then returning on board
with the one survivor.

  And all the while, Captain Bolitho had been on deck, watching, passing orders while he brought the ship under command again, his voice calm enough, but his eyes telling a different story.

  Adam glanced around the cabin, with its elegant furniture and fittings. It seemed unreal, but in some peculiar way it helped to steady his nerves. In a ship it was always a matter of time and distance: it began with those simple lessons, grouped around the sailing-master; he had seen the midshipmen listening to Fraser. He rubbed his forehead. Only yesterday? How could that be? Shooting the sun, and later, much later, perhaps a star in the heavens. Fixing a ship’s position by taking a compass bearing of a landmark, a church tower perhaps. He let his mind wander. Or perhaps St Anthony’s light at Falmouth . . .

  Yesterday. And now it was the last dog-watch again, when Bethune had been eating his chicken at that desk.

  The servant Tolan appeared out of the shadows, a tray with one goblet balanced on it.

  “Cognac, sir.”

  Troubridge said quickly, “I hope you don’t mind, sir. I thought you might care for it.”

  Adam felt the strain draining away, like sand from the glass.

  “Thank you.” And to Tolan, “And you, too.”

  Then he sat down in a chair which had already been prepared for him, like the mariner’s eternal puzzle. Time and distance. Bethune was offering him both.

  Darkness was already falling over the heaving water, with a few stars pale and clear now that the clouds had dispersed. Athena was on course once more, making good the time lost in their rescue attempt.

  The cognac was good. Very good. Probably from that shop in St James’s Street in London where his uncle had often bought wine, and his Catherine had ordered it for him when he was away at sea. And for me . . . He rubbed his eyes again, trying to clear his thoughts, to see the events in order, neat and helpful. He felt his mouth crack. Like Fraser’s log book and his careful notes, day by day. Hour by hour.

  The vessel was, had been, the Celeste, a naval courier brig, one of the many which served every fleet and base wherever the Union flag was flown. Overworked and taken very much for granted, these small vessels were the vital link between Their Lordships at the Admiralty and virtually every captain afloat.