Man of War

by Alexander Kent

  Again he felt the stab of envy. Simply being in command, without obligation . . .

  He saw Jago by the main hatch, turning to talk with one of Lotus’s petty officers. They were laughing, and Jago was thumping his back. Adam remembered that Jago had told him that one of the carpenter’s crew had been celebrating the birth of his first baby. A girl. No salt pork an’ ship’s biscuit for her! He had not noticed the sudden shadow in his captain’s eyes.

  That first night at sea, getting the feel of it as Pointer had called it. The heaving motion, the boom and slap of canvas, the sluice of water alongside, seemingly inches from the swaying cot. Finding time to think, to reproach himself.

  Suppose that one precious hour had ruined her life: if Lowenna found herself with child because of his inability to hold back, and shared the despair and shame of his own mother. She would be alone, and might be left with only hate in her breast, like the terrible memories she had been taught to overcome, if not forget. But Sir Gregory Montagu was dead. There was nobody else.

  He had thought of the tablet in the old church, which he had insisted on erecting all those years after his mother’s death.

  In loving memory of Kerenza Pascoe, who died in 1793.

  Waiting for his ship.

  As he had lain in the cot, feeling the ship moving around and beneath him, he had stared into the darkness, seeing those last words in his mind.

  He had eventually fallen asleep, the unspoken words still there.

  It must never happen to you, Lowenna.

  He came out of his thoughts, as if he had heard someone call his name. But it was Pointer again, his features tense. Making a decision. Or requiring one.

  “Mr Ellis has reported that the masthead lookout is certain we are being held under observation. To the nor’ east.” He saw the question in Adam’s eyes. “She’ll know we’re a man-of-war. No reason to keep her distance.”

  Adam glanced at the dazzling sky. “Good lookout, is he?”

  Pointer bobbed his head, puzzled. “My best, sir. He or one other —I always use them on this run.”

  No landsman would ever understand that, Adam thought, but he had known such a seaman in Unrivalled. The weatherbeaten face and clear, bright eyes came back to him instantly. Even his voice, when Adam had climbed up to his dizzy, swaying perch to consult him after one such sighting. Sullivan: the name leaped out of memory, like the face. He had never been wrong.

  He said, “What do you think?” and saw Pointer relax slightly.

  “If I come about to give chase we could lose him amongst the islands. We will be in the main channel again soon, but not before dusk. Too risky then.” He watched him, frowning. “Unless you think . . .”

  “Leave him as he is, Roger. You spoke earlier of the Iguanas.” He saw the tired face lightening. “Wait until first light.” He banged one hand into the other. “We’ll go for him then!”

  “But your orders, sir?”

  Adam knew the feeling. Beyond measure or control. Dangerous.

  He replied, “Our old enemy John Paul Jones had the answer, Roger. He who will not risk, cannot win!”

  Jago had stopped by the mizzen shrouds. He had heard none of it, but he recognized the signs only too well.

  It went against all his rules, but he was almost relieved.

  “Ship cleared for action, sir. Galley fire doused.”

  That was Ellis, the first lieutenant, clipped and formal. Adam could scarcely distinguish him from the other shadowed figures, moving to a familiar pattern. A strange feeling, as if he himself were invisible, or imagining it. The same drill he had seen and been a part of so many times.

  It was uncanny in small ships; sailors could feel their way about, above or below deck in a way which no landsman would ever understand. They were in complete darkness, with only the broken water surging back from the stem and marking their wake astern to betray their progress. Lotus leaned over, close-hauled on the starboard tack, swinging her jib-boom like a pointer toward the invisible horizon, and the unknown ship. Adam could sense the tension around him. If the stranger was still there when first light found them. She might be an innocent merchantman, staying near a man-of-war for her own security and to ensure a safe passage. It was probably common enough in these disputed waters. How different from all those years, of open warfare, when a merchant captain would go out of his way to avoid a King’s ship, fearful that she might board him and press some of his most experienced hands before he could find any means of protesting.

  People were taking shape now, a face here, an arm or a fist gesturing to someone in the shrouds, and another shadow sliding silently down a backstay, feet soundless as they hit the deck.

  The first lieutenant was with Pointer, speaking quietly, while the sailing-master showed his teeth in the gloom as one of them said something that amused him. Lotus carried one other lieutenant; the rest of the ship’s backbone was comprised of warrant officers. And a solitary midshipman. A small, close-knit company.

  Adam thought of David Napier, somewhere at sea in the frigate Audacity. Would he be able to cope with the brutal humour usual in most ships?

  He remembered the shy pleasure when he had thanked him for his gift, the shining new midshipman’s dirk. Like a bond. A talisman.

  Jago must have been standing very close. He said, “Masthead, sir.” Even he was whispering.

  Adam looked up and realized he could see the reefed topsail, and high above it the long pendant, red and white, streaming in the wind, somewhere above all the darkness, holding the frail light as if it were free and unattached.

  Pointer was saying, “There may be nothing in it. But we shall load all guns in good time.” Nobody spoke, as if he were talking to himself. Or to Lotus.

  Adam heard the boatswain calling out names, telling someone to shift yerself, like an old woman this morning! Then another sound, and he remembered that most sloops carried sweeps, long oars which could be run outboard and manned by all spare hands to give the vessel steerage way if they were suddenly becalmed. They could give her one or two knots in a dead calm. Enough to save her in an emergency.

  There was a small oar port beside each gun, and Adam recalled the galleys they had fought at Algiers. He realized he was touching his side, the wound which she had tended when he had been thrown from his horse. Which she had kissed in that last embrace.

  Pointer was beside him. “The sweeps might help if I need to cross her stern.” He walked away again. He was obviously in little doubt of today’s outcome.

  Lotus’s only midshipman hurried aft, his white collar patches very clear against the sea’s dark backdrop.

  He held out a telescope, saying, “First lieutenant’s respects, sir.”

  Adam could feel the youth staring at him. It would probably go in his next letter home. Midshipmen wrote notoriously long letters, never knowing when they would be collected by some passing courier, or indeed if they would ever be finished.

  He said quietly, “When will you stand for lieutenant? Soon, I trust?”

  He heard the quick intake of breath. Today the admiral’s flag-captain spoke to me.

  “Two years, sir, perhaps less.” He turned his head this way and that, and faltered, “But I don’t want to leave this ship.”

  Adam put his hand on his arm and felt him jump. “I know the feeling. But look ahead. When the chance comes, grasp it!”

  He saw the midshipman’s eyes gleam in the growing light as he looked up as if to see the invisible lookout.

  “Deck there! Sail, fine on th’ starboard bow!”

  Pointer exclaimed, “Still there, same course, by God!” He swung round, his voice sharper now. “More sail, Mr Ellis—get the t’gallants on her if she’ll wear it!”

  Calls shrilled, and figures scampered to halliards and braces while topmen, like scurrying monkeys, dashed up the ratlines, faintly visible at last as the first yellow edge ran along and over the horizon.

  The lookout’s voice again, rising without effort above the bang
ing canvas and squealing blocks.

  “Deck there! She’s a barque!”

  “Steady she goes, sir. Nor’ east by north! Full an’ by!”

  Adam relaxed his body, sinew by sinew. A converging tack. Pointer had done well to bide his time. If the stranger went about and made a run for it, they might still outsail him.

  “What’s your lookout’s name, Roger?”

  Pointer stared at him, his mind grappling with several things at once.

  “Er, Jenkins, sir.” It sounded like a question.

  Adam slung the telescope over his shoulder. “I’m going aloft.” He felt the smile on his lips, as if he had no control over it. “I’ll not cross your bows!”

  Jago followed him to the weather shrouds. “You sure about this, Cap’n?”

  Adam climbed on to the ratlines, feeling the spray cold against his hands, his face.

  “They want evidence—I intend to give it to them!”

  Jago stood his ground. “It’s your neck, Cap’n.”

  Adam lifted his foot to test the next ratline. All those years ago, running up the shrouds with other “young gentlemen,” sometimes barefoot; no fear of heights, or danger.

  He recalled Pointer’s expression when he had quoted John Paul Jones. But the words still made sense.

  Jago took his silence for something else. “We’ve a few leagues to sail yet, sir.”

  Adam looked down at him. His face was still in shadow, but he did not need to see it.

  He said, “I’ve seen enough men killed for a flag, Luke. I’ll not stand by while more of them die simply because of greed!”

  Ellis, the first lieutenant, commented, “A man of strong beliefs, Cox’n.”

  Jago shook his head, rarely at a loss except for certain moments.

  He answered harshly, “Second to none, sir!”

  He peered up again and saw Bolitho’s shadow swinging out and around the futtock shrouds. Like a true seaman. There were few officers who would or could do it.

  Why do we do it, then? He thought of the painting in the captain’s sleeping cabin, hundreds of miles astern by now, the lovely, half naked woman held captive above the sea. And of the reality in that shabby room when the captain and young Troubridge had smashed down the door. And I was with them.

  The captain should be with her right now, not risking his life all over again for some poxy slaves.

  He heard a voice shout, “All guns load, but do not run out!” Bloody officers.

  Jago stared up once more but the captain had vanished. Past the maintop and upwards to the topgallant yard. If the ship changed tack again, or even if he slipped, it would be over in seconds.

  He readjusted the heavy blade at his belt and looked for the dawn.

  The voice seemed to answer him. It is what we are.

  Adam threw his leg over the lookout’s dizzy perch on the crosstrees and seized a stay for support. A very long climb from Lotus’s main deck, and he could feel his heart pounding against his ribs like a hammer. He was pleased that he was not completely breathless.

  It was a sight which had always impressed him. Midshipman to post captain, it made no difference. The hull heeling hard over to the thrust of topsails and topgallants, each section of mast quivering and jerking to the press of wind and rigging. From this, the highest point in the ship, the sea was directly below him, the glassy blue and rearing crests reflecting the sails, angled far beneath his dangling legs.

  He wiped the spray from his face and mouth, tasting the raw salt, his skin tingling. He swallowed hard. A long climb indeed.

  He glanced at the masthead lookout, surprised that he was much younger than he had expected. He had a powerful voice which carried easily above and through the busy shipboard noises, like Sullivan in Unrivalled, but in fact he seemed only in his late twenties, slightly built, with an open face, deeply tanned almost to the colour of the mast.

  He had been watching him climbing from the deck far below with interest, and not a little curiosity, as had some seamen on the maintop as Adam had climbed past them. They had been rigging a swivel gun on the top’s barricade, but had turned to stare, and one of them had called, “Bit dangerous up ’ere, sir!” They had all laughed.

  Adam took another breath.

  “Good morning—Jenkins, isn’t it?”

  “That’s me, sir.” He was studying Adam’s flapping shirt and the well-worn, tarnished epaulettes on his seagoing coat.

  Adam unslung the telescope and peered ahead and across the bow as the mast reeled over again, the mainsail cracking and thudding to the wind.

  Then he saw the other ship, like a delicate model, sharp against a horizon which was sloping over and down as if to dislodge her and Lotus together.

  “Is it the same barque which you chased into Havana?”

  Jenkins frowned, and it made him look younger. “No, sir, different.” There was no doubt or hesitation. “Something about her, see?”

  Adam caught the Welsh accent. He levelled the glass again, or tried to as Lotus altered course slightly. It made it seem that the barque was the only vessel moving.

  He waited for the mast to steady, and concentrated on the other vessel’s rig. A large barque, with the usual untidy appearance when seen on this bearing, square-rigged on fore and main, fore-and-aft rigged on the mizzen, which gave her a broken outline, as if some spars were missing. Big and powerful. But how could Jenkins be sure it was not the one Pointer had described?

  The lookouts aboard the barque must have seen Lotus by now. Even with the night sky astern of her, she would be laid bare as daylight drove away the shadows and opened up the sea like burnished pewter.

  The lookout was wrapping a piece of cloth expertly around his head, and remarked casually, “Gets a bit like the bakery up here. I wouldn’t stay too long, sir.”

  Adam smiled, and handed him the telescope. “Here—tell me what you see.”

  Jenkins held the telescope as if he had never seen one in his life. As if it was not to be trusted.

  But he trained it with great care and said, “It’s her driver, sir. When it takes the wind over the quarter it . . .” He paused. “Well, the driver boom looks higher than it should.” He offered the telescope, as if relieved. “As if to make space for something.” He ended lamely, “But then again . . .” He stared at Adam as he used the glass, and Adam said, “Jenkins, where did you get those eyes?” He hardly knew what he was saying: even the most experienced seamen might not notice it. The flaw in the picture. Nothing much. But a skilled lookout knew every sort of tide and current, and the mood of each spar and sail in the ships they passed.

  Jenkins said, “My da was a shepherd, good one too, see? I used to help him as a boy, got used to searching for sheep, straining my eyes for the stragglers. No life for me, I thought.” He might have shrugged. “So I volunteered. Not pressed, see.”

  Adam leaned out as far as he dared and saw the small figures moving about the pale planking between his feet. The barque’s big aftermost sail, the driver, was higher than normal, as if the poop had been raised in some way. A glance at the masthead pendant, taut in the wind and pointing toward the other vessel. He measured the distance and bearing almost without thought. If I am wrong . . . He thought of the figures on the deck below. If he was right, they would not stand a chance.

  He swung himself over the crosstrees. “Thank you, Jenkins. I’ll see that this goes in the log!” Something to say, to prevent the conviction from wavering.

  He paused, one foot feeling for the first ratline, and looked up, startled, as Jenkins said, “I was serving in Frobisher, sir. I was there.” He looked away. “When they told me your name, I was so proud . . .” He did not go on. Could not.

  Adam said, “When Sir Richard fell. My uncle.”

  He began to clamber down the swaying, vibrating shrouds, his mind suddenly clear, free of doubt.

  They were all waiting for him as his shoes hit the deck.

  He said, “Your man, Jenkins—you were right about him.” H
e pausing, wanting his breathing to steady. “The barque is not all she seems, Roger. I believe she carries heavier artillery than is customary for an honest trader.”

  They were crowding closer to hear him, maybe to consider their own fate. Excitement, doubt, anxiety, as if something inhuman had dropped amongst them. He found time to notice that Jago was the only one who seemed as usual. Arms folded, his fingers loosely on the hilt of the heavy blade he always carried.

  Pointer rubbed his chin, with the habitual frown, as he listened to Adam’s description. He was Lotus’s commanding officer. If the other ship proved to be an enemy, no matter in what guise, he’d be held responsible if anything went wrong. Adam Bolitho was a vice-admiral’s flag-captain, part of a legend. But a passenger.

  In a matter of a few months Pointer’s promotion would be in orders: commander, the first real step toward post rank. One error or reckless action, and he would join the thousands of unemployed, half-pay officers.

  He looked along his ship and at the men he had come to know so well during his six months in command. The good and the untrustworthy, the hard men, and the ordinary Jack who had no choice at all but to trust his captain. He faced Bolitho, his searching eyes taking in the faded coat and stained epaulettes. There was fresh tar now on his hands and breeches from the climb to the masthead, but, in any ship, you would know him instantly as the captain.

  He said, “I’ll be guided by you, sir.” He saw his first lieutenant nod, and nudge someone beside him.

  Adam touched his arm and for an instant looked at his hand. Steady: no uncertainty. Like a drug or a breed of madness.

  “I shall put it in the log, Roger.” He thought of Jago’s remark. “It will be my neck.”

  He stared up through the rigging and pictured the keen-eyed Welshman, searching for lost sheep before volunteering. Who was there on that terrible, proud day when Richard Bolitho had fallen on the deck of his own flagship.

  It was past. This was now.

  “So let’s be about it, shall we?”

  Ellis, the first lieutenant, lowered his telescope and called, “Spanish colours, sir! No tricks this time!” It was impossible to tell if he was disappointed or relieved.