Second to None

7. A Bad Ship

LIEUTENANT Galbraith pivoted round on his heels and stared up to the quarterdeck rail, eyes slitted against the first hard sunshine.

“Ship cleared for action, sir!”

Adam did not take out his watch; he had no need to. From the moment the small marine drummer boys had begun the staccato rattle of beating to quarters, he had watched the ship come alive again, the savage wind almost forgotten. Only fragments of canvas and snapped cordage, flapping “Irish pennants,” as the old hands called them, gave any hint of the storm which had passed as quickly as it had found them.

Seven o’clock in the morning: six bells had just chimed from the forecastle. It was all routine, normal, and yet so different.

Adam had stood by the rail, feeling the ship preparing for whatever challenge she might meet within the next few hours. Screens torn down, hutch-like cabins folded away and stowed in the holds with furniture and all unnecessary personal belongings. A bad moment, when some might pause to reflect that their owners might not need them after this day was past.

It had taken ten minutes to clear the ship from bow to stern. Even his cabin, the largest he had ever occupied and a place which still lacked personality, was open, so that gun crews and powder monkeys could move unhindered if the shot began to fly.

The galley fire had been doused at the beginning of the storm, and there had been no time to relight it. Men fought better on a full belly, especially when they had already been contesting wind and sea for most of the night.

He stared along the main deck, at the gun crews standing by their charges, the long eighteen-pounders which made up the bulk of Unrivalled’s artillery. Most of them were stripped to the waist, new hands and landsmen following the example of the seasoned men who had seen and done it all before. Any clothing was precious to a working sailor, and costly to replace out of his meagre pay. Fabric also attracted gangrene, and hampered treatment should a man be wounded.

Adam thought he could smell the rum even from the quarterdeck. The purser had been quietly outraged by the extra issue he had ordered, a double tot for every man, as if the cost would be extracted from his own pocket.

But it had bridged the gap, and would do no harm at all.

Six seamen to each gun, including its captain, but hauling the heavy cannon up a tilting deck if the ship was to leeward of an enemy would require many more. An experienced crew should be able to fire a shot every ninety seconds, at the outset of battle in any case, although Adam had known some gun captains prepared and ready to fire three shots every two minutes. It had been so in Hyperion, an exceptional ship: a legend, like her captain.

He smiled, but did not see Galbraith’s quick answering grin.

The ship was moving steadily and, apparently, unhurriedly, with courses and staysails clewed up or furled. It seemed to open up the sea on either beam, and Adam had seen several of the unemployed seamen clambering up to seek out the enemy. To watch and prepare themselves as best they could. He considered it. The enemy. There were two of them, one large, a cut-down man-of-war by her appearance, the other smaller, a brig.

It was still so peaceful. So full of quiet menace.

Who were they? What had prompted their mission to Algiers?

He saw Lieutenant Massie by the foremast, ready to direct the opening shots, his own little group of midshipmen, messengers and petty officers waiting to pass his orders, and to close their eyes and ears to all else around them.

He turned away from the rail and saw the Royal Marines stationed across the deck, scarlet ranks moving evenly to the ship’s motion. Cristie, and Lieutenant Wynter, Midshipman Bellairs and his signals party, the helmsmen and master’s mates. A centre. The ship’s brain. He glanced at the tightly packed hammock nettings, slight protection for such a prize target.

He raised his eyes and saw more marines in the fighting-tops. He had always thought of it when facing an action at sea. The marksmen, one of whom he knew had been a poacher before enlisting, not out of patriotism but rather to avoid prison or deportation. They were all first-class shots.

He looked at the horizon again, the tiny patches of sails against the hard blue line. He would think even more of it now, since Avery had described those final moments, so quietly, so intimately. He bit his lip, controlling it. All these men, good and bad, would be looking to him. Aft, the most honour. He touched the old sword at his hip, remembering the note she had left with it. For me. He had seen Jago’s searching glance when he had come on deck. The old sword, the bright epaulettes. What had he thought? Arrogance, or vanity?

Jago was climbing the quarterdeck ladder now, his dark eyes barely moving, but missing nothing. A man he might never know, but one he did not want to lose.

Jago joined him by the rail and stood with his arms folded, as if to show his contempt for some of those watching. Like Lieutenant Massie, or the sulky midshipman named Sandell. Sandell, as he insisted on being called.

Jago said, “The first ship, sir. Old Creagh thinks he knows her.”

So casually spoken. Testing me?

The face formed in his mind. Creagh was one of the boatswain’s mates, and would have been carrying out a flogging if Unrivalled had turned back instead of forcing her passage into the teeth of the storm. A lot of people might be thinking that, and cursing their captain for his stubborn refusal to give way.

“One of Mr Partridge’s mates.” He did not see Jago’s quiet smile, although he sensed it.

“He swears she’s the Tetrarch. Served in her some years back.”

Adam nodded. Like a family. Like the men who served them, there were bad ships too.

Tetrarch was a fourth-rate, one of a rare breed now virtually erased from the Navy List. Classed as ships of the line, they had been rendered obsolete by the mounting savagery and improved gunnery of this everlasting war. The fourth-rate was neither one thing nor the other, not fast enough to serve as a frigate, and, mounting less than sixty guns, no match for the battering she must withstand in the line of battle. Ship to ship. Gun to gun.

Tetrarch had been caught off Ushant some three years ago. Attacked and captured by two French frigates, she had not been heard of since.

Now she was back. And she was here.

Jago said, “Cut down, she is.” He rubbed his chin, a rasping sound like an armourer’s iron. “But still, she could give a fair account of herself. And with that other little bugger in company.”

Adam tried to put himself in the enemy’s position, assessing the distant vessels as if he were looking down on them. Like impersonal markers on an admiral’s chart. The brig would be sacrificed first. She had to be, if the bigger ship was indeed loaded with supplies and powder for others still sheltering in Algiers, enjoying what Bethune had called the Dey’s one-sided neutrality. After losing La Fortune to such a calculated trick, they would be doubly eager to even the score.

On a converging tack, both close-hauled, but the enemy would have the wind’s advantage. And there was not enough time to replace the fore-topgallant sail.

Galbraith had joined him, his face full of questions.

Adam asked, “How long, d’ you think?”

Galbraith looked up at the masthead pendant, flapping and drooping. How could the wind have change so completely?

He answered, “An hour. No more.” He hesitated. “She has the wind-gage, sir.”

“It’s the little terrier which concerns me. We shortened sail in time last night. But our lady will be hard put to lift her skirts in a hurry!” He studied the set of each sail, the yards braced round. The wind would decide it. “I want to hit them before they can do too much damage.”

The men at the quarterdeck nine-pounders glanced at one another. Too much damage. Not just timber and cordage, but flesh and blood.

Adam walked to the compass box and back again. “Our best shots must be all about today, Mr Galbraith.” He smiled suddenly. “A guinea for the man who marks down the captain. Theirs, not ours!”

Some of those same men actually laughed aloud. Captain Bouverie would not approve of such slack behaviour aboard Matchless.

He turned aside. “Be watchful of powder. The decks will soon be bone dry. One spark…” He did not need to continue.

He took a glass and held it to his eye; it was already warm against his skin.

Three ships, drawing together as if by invisible warps. Soon to be close, real, deadly.

I must not fail. Must not.

But his voice sounded flat and without emotion, betraying nothing of his thoughts.

“Load in ten minutes, Mr Galbraith. But do not run out. Let the people take their time. Gunnery is God today!”

If I fall. He had his hand on his pocket and could feel the locket there, carefully wrapped. Who would care?

He thought suddenly of the old house, empty now, except for the portraits. Waiting.

They would care.

It was time.

Galbraith glanced quickly at his captain and then leaned over the quarterdeck rail.

The final scrutiny. There was always the chance of a flaw in the rigid pattern of battle.

Decks sanded, particularly around each gun, to prevent men from slipping in the madness of action on blown spray or blood. Nets had been spread above the deck to protect the gun crews and sail-handling parties from falling debris, and impede any enemy reckless enough to try and board them.

The gunner and his mates had already gone to the magazine to prepare and issue charges to the powder monkeys, most of whom were mere boys. With no experience to plague them, they were less concerned than some of the older hands, who would look for reassurance at familiar faces around them, every man very aware of the two pyramids of sail, so much nearer now, although seemingly motionless on the glistening water.

Galbraith shouted, “All guns load!”

Each eighteen-pounder was an island, its crew oblivious to the rest. Just as during the constant drills when they had roundly cursed every officer from the captain downwards, they were testing the training tackles, casting off the heavy breeching ropes, freeing the guns for loading. That too was a routine, a ritual, the bulky charge taken by the assistant loader from the breathless powder monkey, to be eased into the waiting muzzle and tamped home by the loader. No mistakes. Two sharp knocks to bed it in, and a wad tamped in to secure it.

Experienced gun captains had already selected their shots from the garlands, holding each ball, weighing it, feeling it, making sure it was a perfect shape, for the opening roar of battle.

It had all been done deliberately and without haste, and Galbraith knew why the captain had ordered them to take their time, for this first attempt at least. Now there was a stillness, each crew grouped around its gun, every captain staring aft at the blue and white figures of discipline and authority. As familiar as the guns which were their reason for being, in the company of which they greeted every dawn, and which were constant reminders of a ship’s hard comradeship.

And yet despite the toughness of such men, Galbraith knew the other side of the coin. Like the seaman who had been lost overboard, without even a cry. Later there would be a sale of his few possessions, before the mast, as they called it, and messmates and others who had barely known him would dip into their purses and pay exorbitant prices so that money could be sent to a wife or mother somewhere in that other world.

He turned and looked at his captain, speaking quietly with the master, gesturing occasionally as if to emphasise something. He gazed at the oncoming vessels. The moment of embrace. There would be more possessions to bargain for if today turned sour on them.

He blinked as a shaft of sunlight glanced down between the braced yards. The smaller vessel had tacked, widening the distance from her consort. The terrier, the captain had called her. Ready to dart in and snap at Unrivalled’s vulnerable stern and quarter. One shot could do it: a vital spar, or worse, damage to the rudder and steering gear would end the fight before Unrivalled had bared her teeth. He looked at the captain again. He would know. His first command had been a brig. He had been twenty-three, someone had said. He would know…

The enemy had the advantage of the wind, and yet Captain Adam Bolitho showed no sign of anxiety.

“We will load both broadsides and engage first at full range, gun by gun. Tell the second lieutenant to sight each one himself. We will then luff, and if the wind is kind to us we can rake the enemy with the other full broadside.”

Galbraith dragged his mind back to the present. Extra hands at the foremast ready to set the big forecourse, until now brailed up like the others. With the fore-topgallant sail missing, they would need every cupful of wind when they came about. And even then…

Adam called, “Open the ports!”

He imagined the port lids lifting along either beam, could see the water creaming past the lee side. Unrivalled was leaning over, and she would lean still further when they set the forecourse. He had guessed what Galbraith was thinking. If the wind deserted them now, the enemy ships could divide and outmanoeuvre him. He touched his pocket again. If not, the long eighteen-pounders on the weather side, at full elevation, would outrange the others. He smiled. So easily said…

Cristie had told him something about the Tetrarch which he had not known. She had been in a state of near mutiny when she had been attacked by the French frigates. Another bad captain, he thought, like Reaper, in which the company had mutinied against their captain’s inhuman treatment and had joined together to flog him to death. Reaper was back with the fleet now, commanded by a good officer, a friend of Adam’s, but he doubted that she would ever entirely cleanse herself of the stigma.

And Tetrarch might be the same. Her armament had been reduced in order to allow for more hold space, but she could give a good account of herself.

He looked up at the black, vibrating shrouds, the soft underbelly of the maintopsail, seeing it in his mind even now. Anemone torn apart by the American’s heavy artillery. Men falling and dying. Because of me.

He squared his shoulders, and felt his shirt drag against the ragged scar where the iron splinter had cut him down.

It was enough.

He said, “Run out!”

Every spare man, even the Royal Marines were on the tackles, hauling the guns up the tilting deck to thrust their black muzzles through the ports. The enemy was faceless, unknown. But it would be madness to show Unrivalled’s shortage of hands from the outset. After that…

There were a few hoarse cheers as the crouching gun crews saw the enemy angled across each port, and he heard Lieutenant Massie’s sharp response.

“Keep silent, you deadheads! Stand to your guns! I’ll have none of it!”

Adam walked to the rail and watched the nearest vessel, the brig. Like his old Firefly. Well handled, leaning over while she changed tack. Probably steering south-east. He thought of Cristie. By guess and by God. He measured the range, surprised still that he could do it without hesitation. The Tetrarch had taken in her fore and main courses and was preparing to await her chance, poised across the starboard bow as if nothing could prevent a collision.

There was a dull bang, and seconds later a hole appeared in the maintopsail. A sighting shot. He clenched his fists. Not yet, not yet. Another shot came from somewhere, sharper, one of the brig’s bow-chasers probably. He saw the feathers of spray dart from wave to wave, like flying fish. Still short.

“Forecourse, Mr Galbraith!” He strode to the opposite side. “Lay for the mainmast, Mr Massie! On the uproll!”

The enemy might be expecting a ragged broadside, and be waiting for a chance to close the range before Unrivalled could reload.

Adam heard Massie yell, “Ready! Fire! ”

He kept his eyes fixed on the other ship. Massie was managing on his own, pausing at each breech, one hand on the gun captain’s shoulder, the trigger-line taut, ready, the target framed in the open port like a painting come to life.

“Fire!”

Gun by gun, the full length of Unrivalled’s spray-dashed hull, each one hurling itself inboard on its tackles to be seized, sponged out and reloaded, the men racing one another to run out again, whilst on the opposite side the crews waited their turn, with only the empty sea to distract them from the regular crash of gunfire.

Someone gave a wild cheer.

“Thar goes ’er main-topmast! B’ Jesus, look at ’er, mates!”

But the other ship was firing now, iron hammering into Unrivalled ’s lower hull, a stray ball slamming through a port and breaking into splinters.

Adam tore his eyes from the spouting orange tongues of fire, feeling the blows beneath his feet like wounds to his own body. Men were down, one rolling across the deck, kicking and coughing blood, another crouched against a gun, fingers interlaced across his stomach, his final scream dying as he was dragged aside and the gun run up to its port again.

Galbraith yelled, “He’s standing off, sir!” He flinched as a powder monkey spun round, his leg severed by another haphazard shot. Adam saw another run and snatch up the fallen charge, eyes terrified, and averted from someone who had probably been his friend.

He turned. “Wouldn’t you? If you were full to the gills with powder and shot?” He shut them from his mind. “Stand by on the quarterdeck!” There was smoke everywhere, choking, stinging, blinding.

He could no longer see the other ship; the forecourse was filled to the wind, blotting out the enemy’s intentions.

“Put the helm down!” He dashed his wrist across his eyes and thought he saw the ship’s head already answering the helm, swinging bowsprit and flapping jib across the wind.

“Helm’s a’ lee, sir!”

Adam heard someone cry out and knew a ball had missed him by inches.

Come on! Come on! If Unrivalled was caught aback across the eye of the wind she would be helpless, doomed. He felt the deck planking jump again and knew the ship had been hit.

“Off tacks and sheets!” He walked level with the quarterdeck rail, his hand brushing against the smooth woodwork. Without seeing, he knew the forward sails were writhing in confusion, spilling the wind, allowing the bows to swing still further, unhampered.

“Fores’l haul! Haul, lads!”

One man slipped on blood and another dragged him to his feet. Neither spoke, nor looked at one another.

She was answering. Adam gripped the rail, and felt her standing into the opposite tack, sails filling and booming, the yards being hauled round until to an onlooker they would appear almost fore-and-aft.

“Hold her! Steer east-by-south!” Adam glanced swiftly at Cristie. Only a second, but it was enough to see a wild satisfaction. The pride might come later.

“Starboard battery!” Massie was there now, his sword in the air, his face a mask of concentration as he watched the brig swinging away, caught and unprepared for Unrivalled’s change of tack.

“Fire!”

It must have been like an avalanche, an avalanche of iron. When the whirling smoke, swept aside by the wind, laid bare the other vessel it was hard to recognise her, almost mastless, her shattered stumps and rigging dragging outboard like weed. She was a wreck.

Adam took a telescope from Midshipman Fielding, and felt the youth’s hand shaking. Or is it mine?

“Again, Mr Cristie! Man the braces and stand by to wear ship!” He tried to calm himself and steady the glass.

The terrier was dead. The real target could never outpace them.

“All loaded, sir!”

He watched the other ship. Saw the scars left by Unrivalled’s first controlled broadside, the holes punched in her darkly tanned canvas.

Galbraith called, “Ready, sir!” He sounded hoarse.

“Bring her about and lay her on the starboard tack.” He glanced up at the forecourse, at scorched holes which had not been there earlier. Earlier? On my birthday.

Galbraith’s voice again. “We could call on him to strike, sir.”

“No. I know what that feels like. We will open fire when we are in position.” The smile would not come. “The wind will not help him now.” He saw Midshipman Bellairs watching him fixedly, and said, “Signal the brig to lie to. We will board her presently.”

Bellairs beckoned to his signals party. “A prize, sir?” Like Galbraith he sounded parched, as if he could scarcely speak.

“No. A trophy, Mr Bellairs.” He looked at Galbraith. “Bring her about and take in the t’gallants. We shall commence firing.” He measured the distance again. “A mile, would you say? Close enough. Then we will see.”

He watched the sudden activity on deck, the shadows swinging across the flapping sails while the frigate continued to turn, the grim faces of the nearest gun crews.

It was neither a contest nor a game, and they must know it.

He saw Massie pointing with his sword and passing his orders, the words lost in the din of canvas and tackles.

Unless that flag came down, it would be murder.

Using the wind across his quarter to best advantage, Tetrarch’s captain had decided to wear ship, not to close the range but to outmanoeuvre and avoid Unrivalled’s challenge.

Adam observed it all in silence, able to ignore the bark of commands, the sudden protesting bang of canvas as his ship came as close to the wind as she could manage.

He raised his telescope again and trained it on the other vessel as she began to come about; he could even discern her figurehead, scarred and rendered almost shapeless by time and weather, but once a proud Roman governor with a garland of laurel around his head. Her captain might try to elude his adversary until nightfall. But there was little chance of that. It would only prolong the inevitable. He stared at the other ship’s outline, shortening, the masts overlapping while she continued to turn.

He could sense Galbraith and some of the others watching him, all probably full of their own ideas and solutions.

If they came too close and the other ship caught fire, her lethal cargo could destroy all of them. Adam had done it himself. Jago had been there then, also.

He said sharply, “Stand by to starboard as before, Mr Massie! Gun by gun!”

He wiped his eye and looked again. The enemy was bows-on, and in the powerful lens it looked as if her bowsprit would parry with Unrivalled’s jib-boom.

“As you bear!”

He saw the Tetrarch’s canvas billow and fill, the bright Tricolour showing itself briefly beyond the braced driver. What did the flag mean to those men, he wondered? A symbol of something which might already have been defeated.

He thought of Frobisher, the cruel twist of fate which had brought her and her admiral to an unplanned rendezvous with two such ships as this one.

“Fire!” He watched the first shots tearing through the enemy’s forecourse and topsails, and felt although he could not hear the sickening crash of falling spars and rigging.

Like Anemone…

But she continued to turn, exposing her broadside and the bright flashes from her most forward guns. Some hit Unrivalled’s hull, others hurled waterspouts over the side, where gun crews were working like fiends to sponge out and reload.

He heard Lieutenant Luxmore of the Royal Marines yelling a name as one of his marksmen in the maintop fired his Brown Bess at the enemy without waiting for the order. At this range, it was like throwing a pike at a church steeple. The madness. No one could completely contain it.

There was a wild cheer as with tired dignity Tetrarch’s foretopmast appeared to stagger, held upright only by the rigging. Adam watched, unable to blink, as the mast seemed to gain control, tearing shrouds and running rigging alike as if the stout cordage were made of mere twine, the sails adding to the confusion and destruction until the entire mast with upper spars and reeling foretop spilled down into the smoke.

Only a part of his mind recorded the shouts from the gun captains, yelling like men possessed as each eighteen-pounder slammed against its open port. Ready to fire.

He moved the glass very slightly. There was a thin plume of smoke from the main deck of the other ship. Any fire was dangerous, in a fight or otherwise, but with holds full of gunpowder it was certain death. He glanced at Unrivalled’s upper yards and the whipping masthead pendant.

“Fall off a point!”

He saw Massie staring aft towards him, his sword already half raised.

There was no room for doubt, less for compassion. Because that captain could be me.

Tetrarch was still turning, her bows dragging at the mass of fallen spars and cordage. There were men too, struggling in the water, calling for help which would never come.

The next slow broadside would finish her. At almost full range, high-angled to the rise of the deck, it would smash through the remaining masts and canvas before Tetrarch’s main battery could be brought to bear.

“As you bear!” It was not even his own voice. He thought he saw the sun lance from Massie’s upraised blade, and somehow knew that the gun crews on the larboard side had left their stations to watch, their own danger forgotten.

He stiffened and steadied the glass again. This time, he knew it was his own hand shaking.

“Belay that order!”

There was too much smoke, but certain things stood out as clearly as if the enemy had been alongside.

The forward guns were unmanned, and there were figures running across the ship’s poop and half deck, apparently out of control. For an instant he imagined that the fire had taken control, and the ship’s company were making a frantic attempt to escape the imminent explosion.

And then he saw it. The French flag, the only patch of colour on that broken ship, was falling, seemingly quite slowly, until somebody hacked the halliards apart so that it drifted across the water like a dying sea bird.

Cristie grunted, “Sensible man, I’d say!”

Someone else said harshly, “A lucky one too, God damn his eyes!”

Tetrarch was falling downwind, her main course and mizzen already being brailed up, as if to confirm her submission.

Adam raised the glass again. There were small groups of men standing around the decks; others, dead or wounded it was impossible to tell, lay unheeded by the abandoned guns.

Midshipman Bellairs called, “White flag, sir!” Even he seemed unable to grasp what was happening, even less that he was a part of it.

“Heave-to, if you please!” Adam lowered the glass. He had seen someone on that other deck watching him. With despair, hate; he needed no reminding. “Take the quarter-boat, Mr Galbraith, and pick your boarding party. If you find it safe for us to come alongside, then signal me. At any sign of treachery, you know what to do.”

Their eyes held. Know what to do. Unrivalled would fire that final broadside. Any boarding party would be butchered.

Galbraith said steadily, “I shall be ready, sir!”

“A close thing.”

“We would have run them down, sir. The way you handled her…”

Adam touched his sleeve. “Not that, Leigh. I wanted them dead.”

Galbraith turned away, beckoning urgently to one of his petty officers. Even when the quarter-boat had been warped alongside and men were clambering down the frigate’s tumblehome, he was still reliving it.

The Captain had called him by his first name, like an old and trusted friend. But more, he remembered and was disturbed by the look of pain on the dark features. Anguish, as if he had almost betrayed something. Or someone.

“Bear off forrard! Give way all!”

They were dipping and rising over the choppy water, the boat’s stem already clattering through drifting flotsam and lolling corpses. Galbraith shaded his eyes to look up at the other vessel, huge now as they pulled past her bows, seeing the damage which Unrivalled’s guns had inflicted.

“Marines, take the poop! Creagh, put your party below!” He saw the boatswain’s mate nod, his weather-beaten face unusually grim. He was the man who had first recognised Tetrarch, and perhaps remembered the blackest moment in her life, when she had been surrendered to the enemy.

Sergeant Everett of the marines called, “Watch yer back, sir! I’d not trust a one of ’em!”

Galbraith thought of the captain again. It might have been us. Then he lurched to his feet, one hand on the shoulder of an oarsman in this overcrowded boat, his mind empty of everything but the grapnel thudding into the scarred timbers and the hull grating alongside.

“With me, lads!”

Within a second he might be dead, or floating out there with the other corpses.

And then he was up and over the first gunport lid, tearing his leg on something jagged but feeling nothing.

There were more people on deck than he had expected. For the most part ragged and outwardly undisciplined, the sweepings of a dozen countries, renegades and deserters, and yet… He stared around, taking in the discarded weapons, the sprawled shapes of men killed by Unrivalled’s slow and accurate fire. It would need more than greed or some obscure cause to weld this rabble into one company, to stand and fight a King’s ship which for all they knew might have been expecting support from other men-of-war.

He thought of the hand on his sleeve, and pointed with his hanger.

“Where is your captain?” He could not recall having drawn the blade as he had scrambled aboard.

A man stepped or was pushed towards him. An officer of sorts, his uniform coat without facings or rank.

He said huskily, “He is dying.” He spread his hands. “We pulled down the flag. It was necessary!”

One of Creagh’s seamen shouted, “Fire’s out!” He glared at the silent figures below the poop as if he would have cut each one down himself. “Lantern, sir! Knocked over!”

The ship was safe. Galbraith said, “Run up our flag.” He glanced at Unrivalled, moving so slowly, the guns like black teeth along her side. Then he looked up at the squad of Royal Marines with their bayoneted muskets. They had even managed to depress a swivel-gun towards the listless men who were now their prisoners. A blast of canister shot would deter any last-minute resistance.

Sergeant Everett called, “Captain’s up here, sir!”

Galbraith sheathed his hanger. It would be useless in any case if some hothead tried to retake the ship. The groups of men parted to allow him through, and he saw defeat in their strained features. The will to fight was gone, if it had ever been there. Apathy, despair, fear, the face of surrender and all it represented.

Tetrarch’s captain was not what he had expected. Propped between one of his officers and a pale-faced youth, he was at a guess about Galbraith’s age. He had fair hair, tied in an old-style queue, and there was blood on his waistcoat, which the officer was attempting to staunch.

Galbraith said, “M’sieur, I must tell you…”

The eyes opened and stared up at him, a clear hazel. The breathing was sharp and painful.

“No formalities, Lieutenant. I speak English.” He coughed, and blood ran over the other man’s fingers. “I suppose I am English. So strange, that it should come to this.”

Galbraith stared around. “Surgeon?”

“None. So many shortages.”

“I will take you to my ship. Can you manage that?”

What did it matter? A renegade Englishman; there was a slight accent, possibly American. Perhaps one of the original privateers. And yet he did not seem old enough. He stood up; he was wasting time.

“Rig a bosun’s chair. You, Corporal Sykes, attend this officer’s wound.” He saw the doubt in the marine’s eyes. “It is important!”

Creagh shouted, “’Nother boat shovin’ off, sir!”

Galbraith nodded. Captain Bolitho had seen or guessed what was happening. A prize crew, then. And there was still the dismasted brig to deal with. He needed to act quickly, to organise his boarding party, to have the prisoners searched for concealed weapons.

But something made him ask, “What is your name, Captain?”

He lay back against the others, his eyes quite calm despite the pain.

“Lovatt.” He attempted to smile. “Roddie-Lovatt.”

“Bosun’s chair rigged, sir!”

Galbraith said, “We have a good surgeon. What is the nature of your wound?”

He could hear the other boat hooking on, voices shouting to one another, thankful that reinforcements had arrived. All danger forgotten, perhaps until the night watches, when there would be thoughts for all men.

Lovatt did not conceal his contempt as he said bitterly, “A pistol ball. From one of my gallant sailors yonder. When I refused to haul down the flag.”

Galbraith put his hand on the shoulder of the boy, who had not left the wounded man.

“Go with the others!”

His mind was full. An English captain who was probably an American; a ship which had been handed to the enemy after a mutiny; and a French flag.

The boy tried to free himself and Lovatt said quietly, “Please, Lieutenant. Paul is my son.”

Two seamen carried him to the hastily rigged boatswain’s chair. Once, Lovatt cried out, the sound torn from him, and reached for his son’s hand. His eyes moved to the newly hoisted flag at the peak, the White Ensign, so fresh, so clean above the pain and the smell of death.

He whispered, “Your flag now, Lieutenant.”

Galbraith signalled to the waiting boat’s crew and saw Midshipman Bellairs peering up at him. He would learn another lesson today.

Lovatt was muttering, “Flags, Lieutenant… We are all mercenaries in war.”

Galbraith saw blood on the deck and realised it was his own, from the leg he had cut when climbing aboard.

The chair was being hoisted and then swayed out over the gangway.

He said, “Go with him, boy. Lively now!”

Creagh joined him by the side as the chair was lowered into the boat, where Bellairs was waiting to receive it.

“Found this, sir.” He held out a sword. “Th’ cap’n’s, they says.”

Galbraith took it and felt the drying blood adhering to his fingers. A sword. All that was left of a man. Something to be handed on. He thought of the old Bolitho blade, which today his captain had worn. Or forgotten.

He studied the hilt. One of the early patterns, with a five-ball design, which had been so resented by sea officers when it had been introduced as the first regulation sword. Most officers had preferred their own choice of blade.

Deliberately, he half-drew it from its leather scabbard and read the engraving. He could even picture the establishment, in the Strand in London, the same sword-cutlers from whom he had obtained the hanger at his hip.

He stared across at his own ship, and at the boat rising and dipping in the swell on its errand of mercy.

Better he had been killed, he thought. A King’s officer who had become a traitor: if he lived through this, he might soon wish otherwise.

He sighed. Wounded to be dealt with, dead to be put over. And a meal of sorts. After that… He felt his dried lips crack into a smile.

He was alive, and they had won the day. It was enough. It had to be.