Authors: Alexander Kent
“Ready on the helm, Captain.” Julyan the master, and beyond him one of his mates, with a book open in both hands. All staring forward, their eyes on Squire. All but one. Luke Jago stood at the foot of the mizzen, arms folded, indifferent to the figures already high above him, some clawing their way out along the yards, dark shapes against the sky.
Adam saw him raise his hand, a gesture no more than a man would make brushing off a fragment of oakum. Then a nod, even as the cry came from forward.
“Anchor’s aweigh!”
The capstan was moving quickly now, men running to join those already hauling the braces, taking the strain as the great yards began to swing, canvas spilling to the wind as
Onward
broke free from the land.
Another quick glance at the anchored two-decker. As if she were under way and altering course toward them. But no sails were set, and only the people in her shrouds were moving to observe the new frigate’s departure.
Adam strode forward, stepping over the unshipped capstan bars, even as men ducked past and around him to clear the deck. He studied the compass, his body leaning slightly with the ship, feeling it, living it. More hoarse shouts, the clatter of tackles and the stamp of running feet as others answered the demands of wind and rudder.
The topsails, free of their yards at last, were already hard-bellied in the offshore wind, flinging down the night’s rain like pellets.
Onward
was answering, her masthead pendant throwing a hard shadow across the topmen as they dragged and kicked their way to safety, calling to one another in a mixture of bravado and relief. Julyan watched the jib as it filled and shook, some of Squire’s anchor party pausing to stare up even as they continued to make fast the great anchor to the cathead, the sea suddenly alive and breaking beneath them.
The land was sliding away across the quarter. Adam heard Guthrie again, voice like a trumpet, and could imagine him unmoving, his men running and weaving around him. More hands to the braces now, some slipping, pushed or cursed by those who stumbled over them.
Adam sensed Julyan’s eyes on him, covertly, not wanting to be seen.
“Meet her!” He wiped some spray from his face and heard the wheel go over. The helmsman was angled to the deck, his head thrown back as he, too, watched the sails, the canvas slapping and refilling while the bows continued to swing.
Faces, voices intruded. Impatience, anger. “Catch a turn there, Johnson!” A muffled response, then,
“Well, do it, whatever your bloody name is!”
Some one’s foot caught on a snaking length of rope; he fell, the breath knocked out of him, but was still able to offer a mocking bow to the man who pulled him upright.
Adam peered at the tilting compass. “Steady!” He rested his hand on the shining brasswork; he had seen a young sailor polishing it with great care at first light.
“Sou’ east by south, sir!”
He looked abeam and saw a fishing boat altering course to stand well clear, some small figures crouched beneath the tanned sails, one or two waving. Some of the anchor party were waving back. David Napier was standing beside the massive Squire, looking up at him and laughing. Still an adventure, then, even after the horror of
Audacity.
“We could let her fall off a point, sir.”
Adam lifted the telescope and wiped the lens on his sleeve.
Julyan was a good master, and
Onward
was his ship also.
“Well spoken.” He waited for the wheel to swing over once more, the fishing boat vanishing astern.
Vincent was beside him now. “All secure, sir.” He was looking up at the masthead pendant. “Wind seems steady enough.” He shaded his eyes and stared forward, then he raised his hand. “The foc’sle party can fall out. The anchor’s catted and secure for sea.” Then he smiled, for the first time. “A proud moment.”
Adam steadied his telescope and saw waves breaking on the rocks, harmless, almost delicate at this distance. But many a luckless sailor knew otherwise at close quarters. Penlee Point. He moved the telescope, and the silent crests and the land fell away.
A few faces loomed in the glass, and then the quivering jib and staysails. And unseen beneath them the leaping dolphin, the youth with his outstretched trident. He waited for the bows to lift. A beginning, and yet so final.
He could hear Vincent’s words.
A proud moment.
The open sea.
D
AVID
N
APIER REACHED OUT
to steady himself but dropped his arm as the deck lifted beneath him. He was becoming accustomed to the motion of a ship again, and
Onward
’s sudden changes of mood. Five days since they had weighed anchor and Plymouth had merged into the coastline and vanished. It was as if the elements had been waiting for them. Strong winds and rough seas the further they drove into the Western Approaches had made rest a luxury, and sleep impossible, with the pipe for all hands to shorten sail or man the braces for yet another change of tack shrilling every hour, and
Onward
’s people up and running.
Five days, and still no sight of land nor any other vessel. Sea and wind, and he was pleased that he had been able to ride both without fear. He did not allow himself to think much about
Audacity
, but she had been a smaller frigate. A good beginning for any young gentleman.
He looked at the door across the narrow passageway:
Onward
’s wardroom. Only a few paces from the midshipmen’s berth, but as one wag had remarked, it could take a lifetime to reach it.
Onward
carried six midshipmen, and yet they scarcely knew one another. Learning their duties and their own parts of ship, and the foul weather, had made certain of that. Even off watch or in rare moments of peace, they were still strangers. Deacon, the senior in the gunroom, spent most of his spare time reading manuals on navigation or gunnery and making notes in his log; he was also in charge of the signals crew. The prospect of the examination for promotion obviously weighed heavily on him.
At the other end of the scale, Midshipman Walker, who was twelve years old and in his first ship, seemed to be continually seasick or recovering over a bucket, as he was now. Napier swallowed. He had never suffered seasickness, but there was always a first time.
Simon Huxley had remained friendly, and helpful when they were allowed to work on charts together, but he was still reserved, thinking constantly of his father and always anticipating any slur or criticism, real or imagined.
The wardroom door opened to his knock, and a messman, some silver tankards gripped insecurely in one hand, regarded him impassively.
“Can I help?” The merest pause. “Sir?”
“Lieutenant Squire sent for me.”
The messman looked over his shoulder. “He can’t see you just yet, Mr Napier. If you wait, I’m sure he’ll not be long.”
Napier nodded. He could hear voices, one raised. The deck tilted sharply and a tankard slipped from the messman’s hand and clattered across it.
Napier stooped instinctively and retrieved it. “No damage.”
The messman gave him a long, measuring look. “Thank you, sir. You shouldn’t …”
Napier wondered what he would think if he knew he was speaking to some one who had been a cabin servant, and had waited at table. But the messman had disappeared.
He heard Squire say something and then the other voice.
“Thought you should be
told
, that’s all! Some might think you’d forgotten you was one o’ them, and not that long ago, neither!”
The speaker strode past Napier without a glance.
If he even saw me.
Squire came to the door. “Ah, there you are, boy. Come in and rest easy. We’ll be changing tack soon—all hands again, eh?”
Napier followed him, still thinking about the man who had just pushed past him. He had seen him about the deck often enough, a burly, hard-faced boatswain’s mate. Fowler: the name had stuck in his mind for some reason.
Some one who must have known Squire while he was still on the lower deck. An old grievance, or perhaps he wanted a favour…
“I’ve changed your present duties for gunnery drill. Mr Maddock agrees. Starboard battery. All experience is needed in a new company like ours.” He seemed unperturbed by whatever had happened. “The captain intends to increase the gun drill. He’s not satisfied, as it stands.” He opened a pad and studied it.
Napier was gazing around the wardroom, home to the officers, with its spartan comforts, small, screened sleeping quarters, chairs and tables: their only private space and refuge after long hours on watch or handling the ship under every imaginable condition, even in the heat of action. He felt his skin crawl. Like that last time.
Beat to quarters.
The squeal of trucks, the guns being run out. Ready to fire.
He clenched his fingers into fists.
“How’s the leg, by the way?”
“It’s fine, sir.” As if he had read his thoughts. His fears.
Squire gestured vaguely. “Lady Luck was with you that day.”
Napier watched him, head bent over the pad, scratching notes, apparently relaxed. No secrets in a frigate, they said, and it was true.
He heard the familiar trill of calls, the thud of feet in that other, real world.
“All hands! All hands!”
They left the wardroom together and almost collided with another messman.
Squire asked, “Where are you going? Didn’t you hear the pipe?” and the man lifted a bucket.
“Young middy’s spewin’ ’is guts up again, sir!”
“He’d better get over it. Otherwise…” He left the threat hanging in the air as he strode heavily to the ladder.
Afterwards, Napier wondered if he had welcomed the interruption.
Adam Bolitho leaned back in the chair and stretched both arms above his head. Had he been alone he would have allowed himself to yawn, but his mind was still clear and alert. It was almost noon, and the shipboard sounds were intruding once more after the squeal of trucks and gun-tackles from the starboard-side eighteen-pounders. With the hull still tilting under a brisk north-westerly, it had taken every muscle to haul each gun up to its port, and he had not needed to be within earshot to be aware of the curses aimed in his direction as they had obeyed each command of the drill. Rammers and sponges, and more sweat with handspikes to train or traverse toward an invisible enemy. He had not forgotten, and he had probably cursed his captain then as bitterly as the rest of them.
He saw a shadow fall across the table as Lieutenant Vincent moved away from the stern windows. After the gales and roiling cloud it was almost unreal to see the sun, and feel a hint of warmth through the thick glass. Not that either of them could see very much through the layers of caked salt.
He could picture the chart, the calculations and the nagging doubts that stayed in company. He should be armoured against them, but wind and sea were always waiting to ambush an arrogant captain.
Vincent said, “We’ll sight the lights of Cadiz tomorrow. The next landfall will be the Rock.”
The other figure stirred at the table, closing his much-thumbed log book.
“Sunday, praise the Lord, we can celebrate in church!” Tom Maddock,
Onward
’s gunner, gave a rare grin. “With plenty of time for more drills!”
Adam heard sounds from the pantry. Morgan would be standing by; he was getting used to his ways, knowing his captain was eager to meet his officers to discuss, and perhaps criticize, their progress in working up this new company.
And it had not been easy. In the Bay of Biscay they had been forced to hoist and manhandle the quarter-boat inboard to avoid it being swamped or torn adrift in a steep following sea, “as solid as a cliff,” one topman had observed. Guthrie the boatswain had left no room for doubts. “If you goes overboard in that, you’ll need to swim the rest of the way to Gib!”
But nobody did, although a good many had taken a thrashing from
Onward
for their efforts.
A sailor’s lot.
A bandage, a tot of rum and a slap on the back cured many ills.
Morgan had come into the cabin, a tray with four glasses already prepared. Adam rubbed his eyes, the fatigue washing over him.
“Gentlemen, I forgot. I’ve asked the surgeon to join us.”
Maddock said, “I’d best get back to my duties, sir. I have to fix the skead on one of my carronades.”
Adam waved him down with a smile.
My carronades.
“Take a glass beforehand.”
Maddock sat and opened his log book again. It was nothing personal. Maddock shared the wardroom with Murray the surgeon, but their shipboard work, and their worlds, kept them apart much of the time. Most sailors felt the same. Share a tot and a joke together and then one day there was the barrier, and the dread.
He returned his thoughts to Gibraltar. Ten days since they had left Plymouth. Not like the last time in
Unrivalled
, when they had returned there after Algiers. Only eight days from the Rock to Plymouth Sound. But that had been different…
He said suddenly, “You were at Trafalgar, I believe?”
Maddock looked up. “Aye, sir, gunner’s mate in the old
Spartiate
, seventy-four, Cap’n Laforey.” His eyes crinkled. “Different times then.”
Reading his mind.
He watched Morgan pouring the wine, deep red and tilting in the glass, then holding quite still before moving again.
From the Last Cavalier.
Sunday, when the anchor dropped, what would she be doing? Thinking? Walking near the old church, or along the headland. Waiting for a ship. Never sure.
Morgan murmured, “He’s here now, sir.”
Gordon Murray, the surgeon, glanced around the great cabin.
“Celebration, is it?” A quick nod to Morgan, and he sat down, a trim, slightly built figure, unlike so many of his calling, and light on his feet like a dancer, or a swordsman. “I was delayed, sir.” The fourth glass was being filled, tilting to the motion. “Hard to think with all the damned din on deck. Two men injured.” His eyes flicked to Maddock. “But they’ll live. I hate to think what they would do if those guns ever fired in anger.”