For My Country’s Freedom

17. And for What?

Richard Bolitho peered into the small looking-glass and felt the smoothness of his skin after Allday’s careful, unhurried shave. The ship was in total darkness, and with so much low cloud the first light would be late in coming. And yet the ship felt alive. Men moving about, the smell of breakfast still hanging greasily on the damp air.

Suppose I am wrong? He was surprised to see the face in the glass smile back at him. So many times, different ships, other seas and oceans. He knew that he was not wrong. It was not merely the calculations on York’s charts, the estimated time of arrival of the convoy at Halifax; it went deeper, so much so. Like the minds of men dedicated to survival but condemned to danger, even death. So many times.

Allday knew it too, but had said very little on this chill morning on the great Western Ocean.

Bolitho had touched only briefly on the matter of his son, Bankart.

Allday had hesitated, the keen razor poised in the air. "I want to feel him as my son, Sir Richard. But something stands between us. We’re strangers, as we were when I first met him."

Bolitho touched the locket beneath his shirt. A clean, frilled shirt, one of Ozzard’s best. Why was it necessary to do this? All-day had told him that his son had confided that the largest American men-of-war had the pick of the navy’s sharpshooters, former backwoodsmen who lived or died by the success of their marksmanship. It was madness, surely, to present an admiral’s hat and epaulettes as a ready target, or even a captain’s. He had said as much to Tyacke, whose answer had been uncompromising and blunt, like the man.

"I’m proud of this ship, Sir Richard. She’s mine, and I know her better than I ever believed possible. And I want our people to see me-know I’m with them, even at the worst of times." He had given one of his attractive smiles. "I seem to have learned that, too, from somebody not so far away!"

Bolitho rubbed his eye and winced. But if I have miscalculated, then Beer will have joined his other ships to attack the convoy. Even Valkyrie and her smaller consorts could not withstand such an onslaught.

Ozzard came out of the shadows carrying the heavy dress coat.

Bolitho said, "If we are called to battle, you will go below."

"Thank you, Sir Richard." He hesitated. "I’ll be ready when you need me."

Bolitho smiled. Poor Ozzard. He always took refuge below the waterline whenever battle was joined, as he had in the old Hyperion when she had begun to founder. Allday had even hinted that it had been his intention to remain there and go down with the old ship, as so many had done that day. How Hyperion Cleared the Way: the ballad was still ever-popular in sailors’ taverns and ale-houses.

Too many ghosts, he thought, ships and men, men and ships. Too many lost, too many lives…

There was a tap at the door and Tyacke made his way aft, his single epaulette glinting in the spiralling lantern-light.

"The wind’s backed a piece, Sir Richard, more like sou’-west by south. Steady enough, though." He glanced at the deckhead as if he could see the yards and reefed sails. "She’ll fly when we give her the chance!"

Bolitho tried to clear his mind. "When we are able, James, signal the frigates to close on us. Woodpecker will remain well up to wind’rd." A lone witness if things went badly wrong.

Tyacke said, "I was wondering if we should signal Zest to change stations with Reaper, sir. A captain with a new ship, a ship with a new captain." He shrugged. "I’d suggest that Reaper would be better placed closer to the enemy."

So even Tyacke was coming round. He said, "That is what I intend, James. If I am right…"

Tyacke exclaimed, "You mean that Commodore Beer has anticipated this move, and has outsailed us during the night?"

Bolitho felt the locket again, warm against his skin. "Wouldn’t you? Take the wind-gage if you had the chance? And if we run, we will eventually be caught on a lee shore, yes?"

Tyacke said shortly, "Sometimes you have me in irons,

Sir Richard. But run? Never, while I draw breath!"

He listened to the feet overhead. Recognising every sound, knowing the qualities and the reliability of each man there.

"That was a fine thing you did, James. ‘The strength of a ship.’ It is a pity such moments never reach the pages of the Gazette."

"Well, I’m damned if I know how you know, but it gave him something more important than himself to think about."

Allday entered quietly. "Horizon’s losing its cloak, Sir Richard." He glanced at the sword-rack. "Can’t see nothing yet."

Tyacke smiled and left the cabin, saying over his shoulder, "That son of yours might still change his mind and sign on with us, Allday!"

Allday watched the door close. "It’s no joke, Sir Richard."

Bolitho touched his arm. "I know." It was no time to be thinking of such things. A man could die in a moment of distraction.

He said, "How do you feel, old friend?"

Allday seemed surprised by the question, then a lazy grin spread over his face and he said, "We’ve seen it all afore, Sir Richard." He shrugged. "Today or never…"

Bolitho nodded. There was a smell of rum in the cabin and again he was moved by Allday’s unbreakable faith and loyalty.

"Have another wet, old friend." He glanced around the spacious cabin. A place to think, to remember and to hide. In his bones, like Allday, he knew it was almost time.

He went out through the screen door and saw a squad of marines having their weapons checked by Sergeant Chaddock. They did not look up or see him as he passed, so intent were they on their inspection.

It made him feel invisible. Like one of the many ghosts this old ship must have in plenty

He stooped to peer through an open gunport, the twenty-four-pounder like ice under his fingers. Not for much longer.

Very dark, with only a few pale crests breaking away from the lower hull. Just a slight brush-stroke. The eastern horizon.

Oh dear Kate, think of me, of us!

Spray touched his skin, like an awakening, and he thought he heard her voice above the sounds of sea and ship.

Don’t leave me!

He rested his forehead on the weapon’s black breech and whispered, "Never!"

Captain James Tyacke paused outside Isaac York’s chartroom and glanced in at the sailing-master, who was crowded against his table with his three mates.

York smiled, his sharp eye taking in the dress coat and gleaming epaulette.

"You’re about early this day, sir."

Tyacke glanced over a master’s mate’s shoulder at the open log, and the date on the first page in York’s strong handwriting. September 12th 1812, with the time and date of today’s estimated position at the head of the column. Their eyes met. York had no doubts, either.

Tyacke nodded at the master’s mates. "Watch well today, gentlemen. You will learn something of your enemy."

Then he left the small space and walked towards the open deck. Silver, shark-blue, and lingering banks of shadow. Sea and sky. He could feel Scarlett walking closely behind him, could sense his uneasiness. But not fear, that was something at least.

He turned abruptly and said, "What is wrong, man? I told you when we met, I command Sir Richard’s flagship, but I am still your captain. Speak out. I nurse the notion that we will be too busy presently!"

Scarlett licked his lips, his eyes so listless that he seemed disinterested, in spite of what the day might bring.

Tyacke was growing impatient. "In truth I can’t help you if you remain dumb, sir. What is it, a woman? Have you fathered a child?"

Scarlett shook his head. "I wish it were that simple, sir."

"Money, then?" He saw the bolt strike home. "Cards?"

Scarlett nodded. "I am in debt, sir, serious debt!"

Tyacke regarded him without pity. "Then you are a fool. But we shall speak later. I may be able to help you." His tone hardened. "Give of your best today. I am relying on it. Indomitable will make this her day!"

He strode aft and stared up at the reefed topgallants and courses, the admiral’s flag and masthead pendant whipping out in the wind with the racing grey clouds beyond them.

He could hear the scrape of grindstones as Duff, the gunner, put his men to work sharpening cutlasses and boarding-axes. It could not have been very different before Crйcy and Agincourt, he thought. He saw acting-lieutenant Blythe in earnest conversation with Protheroe, the fourth lieutenant. He still wore his midshipman’s white patches, but in a King’s ship the word would have travelled like wildfire. Blythe’s one of them now! Tyacke smiled grimly. Or soon would be, if he was prepared to listen for a change.

Allday passed him by, resting a cutlass on his hand to find the right balance. Some of the hands spoke to him but he did not seem to hear.

At the foot of the quarterdeck ladder Allday gripped the handrail while Indomitable buried her stem in a long Atlantic roller, hurling spray heavily over the figurehead, the prancing lion with bared claws.

"What are you doing here?"

His son, a cutlass thrust through his belt, looked at him and shrugged. "The boatswain put me with the after-guard."

Allday tried to make a joke of it. "Old Sam probably knew

you were useless as a topman! Not so many ropes to play with down aft!" He was troubled, all the same. The quarterdeck in any ship was a target for marksmen and swivels; it always had been. The chain of command began and ended here. Many of the Royal Marines served in the after-guard too, their boots and equipment making them useless for work aloft.

Allday folded his arms. "We may be fighting some of your lot afore long, my lad, so be warned."

Bankart regarded him sadly. "I wanted to live in peace, that was all. Cap’n Adam was the first to understand. Why can’t you? There always has to be a flag, or one side or t’other. I hoped to find peace in America."

Allday said gruffly, "When we gets home, my son, just remember what it’s cost some of us. My wife Unis has already had one man killed aboard the old Hyperion, and her brother John lost a leg in the line with the 31st Huntingdonshires. You’ll find plenty of good men who’ve been maimed in Falmouth where Sir Richard’s found work for them."

"And what of you-" He hesitated. "Father?"

"I’ve more’n any man could hope for. Unis, and now my little Kate. They’ll both be waiting for me. Now there’s you. John," his eyes crinkled. "Three Johns all told, eh?"

Bankart smiled, strangely proud of this big man who, for once, was at a loss for words.

They both gazed up at the ragged clouds as the masthead lookout called, "Reaper in sight to the sou’-east, sir!"

The frigate must be right in the spreading cloak of silver. The first sighting of the day.

Allday saw Tyacke with Daubeny the officer-of-the-watch, conferring together, looking along the upper deck and gangways as more light spilled over the sea’s edge like water over a dam.

He heard Daubeny call, "Aloft with you, Mr Blisset, and take a glass, you idiot!"

The bright-eyed midshipman swarmed up the ratlines like a monkey and Allday murmured, "Cheeky little bugger, that one! Asked me what the navy was like in my day!"

They both fell silent as Blisset’s piping voice floated down from the crosstrees.

"Deck there! From Woodpecker repeated Reaper, Sail in sight to the sou-west!"

Tyacke called, "My respects to the admiral, Mr Scarlett, and…"

"I heard, Captain Tyacke." Bolitho waited for the deck to level off and then walked unhurriedly to the quarterdeck rail, where he and Tyacke formally touched hats to one another.

Allday watched. It always unnerved him, even though he knew Sir Richard would never suspect it from his "oak."

He turned to speak with his son, but Bankart was already being urged aft by the squat boatswain, Sam Hockenhull.

Allday felt the soreness in his chest come alive like a warning. It never left him completely, nor did it allow him to forget the day he had been cut down by Spanish steel, and Bolitho had been on the point of surrendering to save him.

Always the pain.

Tyacke looked for another midshipman. "Acknowledge the signal, Mr Arlington." He turned to Bolitho and waited for the inevitable. Bolitho glanced across the motionless figures, and those who peered up at the lookout’s lofty perch as if they expected it to prove a mistake.

He saw Allday looking at him. Remembering, or trying to forget? He smiled, and saw Allday raise one big hand like a private salute.

"When you are ready, Captain Tyacke."

Tyacke turned on his heel, his mutilated face stark in the first pale rays of silver light.

"Beat to quarters and clear for action, if you please, Mr Scarlett!"

Avery was here too, with the new senior midshipman Carleton, the replacement for Blythe who had taken the first vital step on his ladder of promotion.

Avery said, "Make to Reaper, repeated Woodpecker. Close on Flag."

He glanced at Bolitho and saw him smile briefly to the captain. Like a last handshake. He thought of his sister in her shabby clothes, the way she had embraced him on that final day.

The drummers and fifers scrambled into line, dragging their pipeclayed belts into place, their sticks crossed beneath their noses as they watched their sergeant.

"Now!"

The drums rolled and rattled, drowning even the scamper of bare feet as the men ran to obey, to clear the ship from bow to stern, opening her up into two great batteries.

Bolitho watched without expression. Even right aft beneath this deck, there would be nothing to impede the seamen and marines once action was joined. All gone: Catherine’s gifts, the green-bound Shakespeare sonnets, the wine-cooler which she had had engraved with the Bolitho crest and family motto, For My Country’s Freedom.

He could recall his father tracing that same motto with his fingers on the great fireplace in Falmouth… It would be cold in Cornwall now, the wind off the sea, the anger of breakers beneath the cliffs. Where Zenoria had thrown herself away and had broken Adam’s heart… Everything carried below. A few portraits perhaps, wardroom chairs, a metal box with individual money-pouches, a family watch, a lock of somebody’s hair.

"Cleared for action, sir!" Scarlett sounded breathless, although he had not moved from this place.

And Tyacke’s laconic comment. "Nine minutes, Mr Scarlett! They do you proudly, sir!"

Bolitho touched his eye. Praise indeed from Tyacke. Or was it Scarlett’s troubles that concerned him more?

"Deck there! Sail in sight to the nor’-west!" Then Midshipman Blisset’s reedy voice. "’Tis Zest, sir!"

Tyacke smiled. "I had forgotten all about that shrimp! Acknowledge, but tell Zest to remain on station."

Avery saw Bolitho nod to him and he touched the signals midshipman on the arm. He jumped as if he had been hit by a musket-ball.

"Hoist battle ensigns, Mr Carleton!" How do I feel? He lifted and dropped the hanger in its scabbard at his hip and saw some of the quarterdeck gun crews staring at him. I feel nothing. Only the need to belong. He glanced at Bolitho, his profile so calm as he watched the horizon for the first sign of the enemy. To serve this man like no other.

"Deck there! Second sail to the sou’-west! ’Nother man-o’-war, sir!"

Avery expected he might see surprise, even dismay in the profile turned towards him. If there was anything he might recognise, it was relief. He repeated his thoughts in his mind. Like no other.

Bolitho stood watching the sea, and his men while they waited for their next orders.

The little Woodpecker would give them early warning before scuttling to safety from those great guns. Two ships then, as he had expected. The other one must be Baltimore.

"Royal Marines, take station!"

Up the shrouds on either side to their positions in the fighting-tops, Marines known to be good shots above the rest; at least three of them, Tyacke had discovered, were once poachers. The rest tramped across the quarterdeck and took up their

stations behind the tightly-packed hammock nettings, grim-faced, bayonets fixed, the debonair Captain Cedric du Cann watching them with cold, professional interest, his face almost the colour of his tunic.

Solitary scarlet figures stood at the hatchways, ready to prevent men from running below if their nerve broke or they were driven mad by the sights and sounds around them.

Tyacke called, "You may cast off the boats, Mr Hockenhull!"

Always a bad moment even for the most experienced seamen, who would know well the additional danger from flying splinters if a longboat were smashed by cannon fire. But as they were lowered and allowed to drift away, many saw them as a last chance of survival if the battle turned against them. Loosely moored together, they would drift with the sea to await recovery by the victors, whoever they might be.

"Rig the nets!"

More men ran to obey, and Allday saw his son hauling on blocks and tackles with his new companions to spread the protective net above the big double-wheel and its four helmsmen.

Just a glance, and he was gone. For a brief second Allday tried to recall Bankart’s mother, and was shocked to discover he could remember nothing about her. As if she had never been.

"From Reaper, sir. Enemy in sight to the sou-west!"

"Acknowledge and repeat signal to Zest."

Bolitho said suddenly, "Do your fifers know Portsmouth Lass, sergeant?"

The Royal Marine puffed out his cheeks. "Yessir." It sounded like of course.

"Then so be it!"

Isaac York recorded in his log that on this September morning in 1812, while the Indomitable held her same course under reduced canvas, the ship’s small drummers and fifers marched

and counter-marched up and down the crowded gun deck, the familiar tune Portsmouth Lass lively enough to set a man’s foot tapping, or purse his lips in a silent whistle.

Allday looked at his admiral and smiled gravely.

Bolitho never forgot. Nor would he.

Bolitho took a telescope from the rack and walked aft towards the taffrail, his body angling to the deck without conscious effort.

He raised the glass with care, imagining his small force as the morning gull might see it. Sailing in line abreast with Indomitable in the centre, the wind lively but steady across the starboard quarter. By and large, as Isaac York would describe it. He steadied the glass once again on the western horizon, still partly in misty shadow compared with the silver knife-edge of the eastern sky.

He tightened his grip on the cool metal, controlling his emotion. The quarterdeck gun crews were still awaiting orders after clearing for action; some would be watching him, and wondering what this day might cost.

There she was, Beer’s Unity, with almost every sail set and filled so that she appeared to be leaning forward into the surging spray beneath her beak-head. The huge broad-pendant straight out like painted metal, a picture of naval strength at its best.

Over his shoulder he said, "Tell Captain Tyacke. Fifteen minutes." He glanced up to the masthead pendant and felt his injured eye sting in protest.

Avery was ready, the signal already bent on. As they had discussed it for such an eventuality, except that Adam had commanded Anemone then. He would be feeling her loss today, with men whose strength he did not know, in a frigate which was very like the one which had been so dear to him. And yet, he would be thinking, so different.

He turned and walked down to the quarterdeck rail and ran his eyes the full length of the ship.

The gun crews were stripped to the waist despite the wind’s bitter edge, their muscled bodies very brown from their service in the Caribbean. Beer could not risk losing them. But he would not expect them to run either.

He tugged out his watch and saw Midshipman Essex observing him with studied concentration.

There must be no mistakes at this stage: Beer had the wind-gage, and that was bad enough.

He felt Allday moving closer, heard his uneven breathing, the old pain probably aroused and reminding him of that other time, and all the rest. Unity and Baltimore between them probably carried as many guns as a first-rate ship of the line. Together or separately, they would be hard to surprise or vanquish.

He said, "Mr Avery, general signal. Alter course, steer north-west by north!"

As the bright signal flags soared aloft to break out to the wind, he could see Adam’s intent face in his mind, and Hamilton of the Reaper, and the plump Eames of Woodpecker who had defied orders to hunt for survivors.

The topmen were already spread out along the yards, with every spare hand at braces and halliards. The moment of decision had come which could destroy every one of them.

"All acknowledged, sir!" Avery licked his lips to moisten them.

Bolitho looked at Tyacke. "Execute!"

As the flags darted down again to drop amongst the signal party in colourful disorder, Tyacke shouted, "Lay her on the larboard tack, Mr York. Steer nor’-west by north, as close as you can!"

With the spokes gleaming in the strange light the big wheel was hauled over, the helmsmen squinting at the masthead pendant and the shaking driver while Indomitable continued to swing. He snatched a telescope from a gasping midshipman and rested it on the boy’s shoulder as reefs were cast off, and the spreading canvas thundered out from every spar until even the great main-

sail yard appeared to be bending like a bow.

From line-abreast to line-ahead, with the little brig lost somewhere beyond Reaper.

Tyacke yelled, "Cast off your breechings! Prepare to load! Full elevation, Mr Scarlett!"

Then, surprisingly, Tyacke removed his hat and slapped it against the nearest breech.

"Come on, my lads! Watch this lady fly!"

With almost every sail she could carry filled and hard to the wind, the ship did seem to be bounding over the crests, not away from the enemy this time but on a close-hauled converging tack.

"All guns load!"

Bolitho gripped a stay and watched the half-naked bodies of the gun crews moving in tight separate teams, the scampering powder-monkeys with their bulky cartridges, each gun captain stooping to check the training tackles, his heavy gun moving slightly with the breeching rope cast off.

"Open the ports!"

The gunports on either side were hauled open, as if raised by a single hand. Drills, drills and more drills. Now they were ready, Lieutenant Daubeny by the foremast, his sword across his shoulder while he watched the enemy. Not merely sails any more, but towering and full of menace as they bore down towards the larboard bow.

Heavy artillery roared from elsewhere, and there was something like a sigh as the little Woodpecker drifted out of command, her foremast, yards and flapping canvas trailing over the side even as more long-range balls from Unity slammed into her hull.

Tyacke drew his sword. "On the uproll, lads! Lay for the foremast!"

Bolitho gripped his hands together and watched the glittering sword in Tyacke’s fist. The Baltimore was steering directly for the gap between Indomitable and Adam’s Zest in the van.

The deck tilted slightly, the topsails flapping in protest while the ship came as close as she dared into the wind.

"Fire!"

It was like watching an invisible avalanche as it roared across Baltimore’s tall side, splintering gangways and timbers alike, upending guns and clawing every sail so that some ripped open, tearing into long ribbons as the wind completed the destruction.

"Signal Zest, Mr Avery! Attack and harry the enemy’s rear."

Tyacke glanced round. "He’ll need no second order, sir!"

"Stop your vents! Sponge out! Load!"

Along the deck each grubby gun captain held up his fist.

"Ready, sir!"

"Run out!"

A few flashes burst through the thickening smoke, and Bolitho felt the enemy’s iron smash into the lower hull.

Men peered at one another, looking for friends and messmates. Not a single man had fallen and Bolitho heard a ragged cheer: defiance, pride, and the overwhelming madness of a fight at sea.

"Fire!"

Allday exclaimed, "The bugger’s mizzen is goin’, sir!"

The Baltimore’s steering must have been damaged or its helmsmen smashed down in that last broadside. A few guns were still firing, but the timing was gone, the ability to change tack destroyed with it.

Bolitho wiped his face with his sleeve, and saw the long orange tongues spitting through the smoke beyond the big American. Steady and merciless, gun by gun, into the drifting Baltimore’s unprotected stern. Bolitho could imagine Adam sighting and firing each gun himself. Remembering what he had lost and could never reclaim.

Scarlett called wildly, "Reaper’s struck, sir!" He sounded half mad with disbelief. "The bastards!"

Bolitho lowered his glass. Reaper had been overwhelmed. All but dismasted, her sails like blackened rags, she was falling downwind, her ensign gone, her upper deck like a slaughterhouse. Smashed guns, men and pieces of men, her brave captain, James Hamilton, in a game made for others far younger, killed on the quarterdeck where he had fought his ship to the end. He should have remained in the H.E.I.C. This was not for him. Bolitho looked at his hand on the rail, gripping until it was bloodless. Not for me either.

"Run out! Take aim! Fire!"

Bolitho coughed as more smoke swirled inboard through the open ports. Acrid, savage, blinding.

Reaper had had no chance. A small sixth-rate of 26 guns against Beer’s powerful artillery.

He wiped his eyes and saw Avery watching him, surprisingly calm. Distancing himself from the shattered ships and the floundering bodies that marked Woodpeckers sudden end, as he did from many other experiences.

"All reloaded, sir!" Scarlett was staring from Tyacke to his admiral.

A silence had fallen over the ship; even the wind had lulled for the moment. Drifting through smoke as dense as fog, with only the muffled sounds of musket fire and swivels, and the smells of burning timber. Like the gateway to hell itself.

Then he saw Unity’s topgallants, her sky-scrapers, punctured here and there but strangely serene above the smoke and carnage it concealed.

"Stand by, lads!"

Bolitho watched Tyacke’s sword, wondering in those few seconds why fate had decided that this vital meeting was to be.

But the sword fell from Tyacke’s hand as the smoke exploded in one huge broadside. A world of screaming madness, of falling rigging and razor-edged splinters.

Men dying, or being pounded into bloody gruel even as they stood mesmerised by the enormity of the bombardment.

There were twisting, unreal shapes as the maintopmast thundered down over the side, the corpses of some marines tossed from the nets and into the sea like human flotsam.

Hands pulling him to his feet, although he could not recall having fallen. His hat was gone, and one of his proud epaulettes. There was bright blood on his breeches, but no pain, and he saw Midshipman Deane staring at him from the rail, half his young body pulped into something obscene.

Bolitho heard Avery calling, but it seemed far away, although their faces all but touched.

"Are you hit, sir?"

He gasped, "I think not." He dragged out the old sword and saw Allday crouching near by, his cutlass already drawn while he peered half blind into the smoke.

Somebody yelled, "Repel boarders! Stand-to, marines, face your front!"

Bolitho wiped his face again with his sleeve. There was still order and life in the ship. Axes flashed through the trailing cordage and shattered spars alongside, and he heard the boatswain bellow, "More men on the forebraces ’ere!"

Tyacke was also on his feet, his coat badly torn by the trailing halliards which had almost clawed him over the side.

But the guns were still loaded, waiting to fire when Tyacke dropped his sword.

"Now!" Bolitho would have fallen but for Allday’s grip on his arm. The deck was slippery and the sweet smell of death was stronger even than the burned powder.

Tyacke stared at him and then waved his blade. "Open fire!"

Unity’s shadow seemed to tower above them, sails already being brailed up as the Americans lined the gangway and prepared to board the drifting Indomitable.

Tyacke’s voice seemed to rouse a memory, a discipline which had all but gone. With the hulls barely yards apart the roar of Indomitable ’s twenty-four-pounders sounded like the climax to a nightmare.

It seemed to give individual strength where before there had been only the raw fury of war. Wild-eyed, the Indomitables remaining men and the marines from the nettings charged, yelling and cheering, blades clashing and stabbing as they swarmed on to the enemy’s deck. Musket and pistol-shots brought down a few of them, and one hot blast of canister cut down Captain du Cann and some of his marines before the frenzied mob overwhelmed the swivel, and hacked the solitary gunner to bloodied rags.

Suddenly there were more cheers, English voices this time, and for one dazed instant Bolitho imagined relief had arrived from the convoy.

But it was Zest, grappling the big Unity from the opposite side. Adam and his new company were already swarming across the gap.

Allday parried a cutlass to one side and hacked down the man with such a powerful blow that the blade almost severed his neck. But it was too much for him. The pain seared through his chest, and he could barely see which way he was facing.

Avery was trying to help, and Allday wanted to thank him, to do what he had always done, to stay close to Bolitho.

He tried to shout but it was only a croak. He saw it all as if it were a series of pictures. Scarlett yelling and slashing his way over the blood-red deck, his hanger like molten silver in the misty sunshine. Then the point of a pike, motionless between two struggling seamen: like a snake, Allday thought. Then it stabbed the lieutenant with the speed of light. Scarlett dropped his sword and clung to the pike even as it was dragged from his stomach, his scream silenced as he pitched down beneath the stamping, hacking figures.

He saw Sir Richard fighting a tall American lieutenant, their blades ringing and scraping as each sought the other’s weakness. Avery saw it too, and dragged a pistol from beneath his coat.

Tyacke shouted, "The flag! Cut it down!" He turned and saw another officer running at him with his sword. Almost contemptuously, he waited for the man to falter at his terrible scars and momentarily lose his nerve before he ran him through, as he would have done a slaver.

There was one great deafening cheer which seemed unending, ear-splitting. Men hugging one another, others peering round, cut and dazed, not knowing whether they had won or lost, barely knowing friend from foe.

Then silence, the sounds of battle and suffering held at bay like another enemy.

Bolitho went to Allday’s assistance and, with Avery, got him to his feet.

Avery said simply, "He was trying to protect you, sir."

But Allday was crawling on his knees, his hands and legs soaked with blood, his eyes suddenly desperate and pleading.

"John! It’s me, John! Don’t leave us now!"

Bolitho watched, unable to speak as Allday knelt, and with great gentleness gathered his son’s body into his arms.

Bolitho said, "Here, let me, old friend." But the eyes that met his were blank, like a total stranger’s.

He said only, "Not now, Sir Richard. I just needs a few minutes with him." He brushed the hair from his son’s face, so still now, caught at the moment of impact.

Bolitho felt a hand on his shoulder, and saw that it was Tyacke’s.

"What?" The enemy had surrendered, but it made no sense. Only Allday’s terrible hurt was real.

Tyacke glanced at Allday, on this crowded and fought-over deck, so alone with his grief.

He said abruptly, "I’m sorry, Sir Richard." He waited for Bolitho’s attention to return to him. "Commodore Beer is asking for you." He looked up at the sky, clearing now to lay bare their wounds and damage. If he was surprised to be alive, he did not reveal it. He said, "He’s dying." Then he picked up a fallen boarding-axe and drove it with furious bitterness into the quarterdeck ladder. "And for what?"

Commodore Nathan Beer was propped against the broken compass-box when Bolitho found him, his surgeon and a bandaged lieutenant trying to make him comfortable.

Beer looked up at him. "I thought we’d meet eventually." He tried to offer his hand but as if it was too heavy, it fell back into his lap.

Bolitho stooped down and took the hand. "It had to end in victory. For one of us." He glanced at the surgeon. "I must thank you for saving my nephew’s life, doctor. Even in war it is necessary to love another."

The commodore’s hand was heavy in his, the life running out of it like sand from a glass.

Then he opened his eyes and said in a strong voice, "Your nephew-I remember now. There was a lady’s glove."

Bolitho glanced at the French surgeon. "Cannot anything be done for him?"

The surgeon shook his head, and afterwards Bolitho recalled seeing tears in his eyes.

He gazed into Beer’s lined face. A man with an ocean of experience. He thought of Tyacke’s bitterness and anger. And for what?

"Someone he cared for very much…" But Beer’s expression, interested and eager, had become still and unmoving.

Allday was helping him to his feet. "Set bravely, Sir Richard?"

Bolitho saw Lieutenant Daubeny walk past, the Stars and Stripes draped over one shoulder.

He touched Allday’s arm, and then realised that Adam was watching them across the fallen.

"Yes, old friend. It gets harder." He pointed at Daubeny. "Here, lay the flag over the commodore. I’ll not part him from it now!"

He climbed slowly across the fallen spars, and on to Indomitable ’s scarred deck.

Then he turned and grasped Allday’s arm. "Aye, set bravely." He looked at the watching faces. What did they really think? Pride, or was it conceit: the need to win, no matter what?

He touched the locket beneath his stained shirt, which had been clean only hours ago.

Aloud he said quietly, "I’ll never leave you, until life itself is denied me."

Despite all this carnage, or perhaps because of it, he knew she would hear him.