Alexander Kent - Command a King`s Ship

'Time to do my rounds, sir.' He cocked his head to listen as water gurgled and sluiced along the quarterdeck scuppers. 'I have the middle watch, and may snatch a cat-nap before I face the breeze.'

Bolitho pulled out his watch and felt Herrick looking at it. 'I will turn in now. I have a notion we may all be needed before long.'

In fact, it felt only minutes after his head had touched the pillow that someone was clinging to the cot and tapping his shoulder. It was Allday, his shadow rising and falling like a black spectre as the cabin lantern swung violently from the deckhead.

'Sorry to wake you, Captain, but it's getting far worse up top.' He paused to allow Bolitho's brain to clear. 'Mr. Herrick told me to pass the word.'

Bolitho stumbled out of the cot, instantly conscious of a new, more uneven motion. As he pulled on his breeches and shoes and held out his arms for a heavy tarpaulin coat he asked, 'What time is it?'

Allday had to shout as the sea thundered against the hull and surged angrily along the upper deck.

'Morning watch is about to be called, sir!'

'Tell Mr. Herrick! Call them now!' He gripped his arm and together they lurched half across the cabin like two tipsy sailors. 'I want all hands directly! I'm going to the chart space.'

He found Mudge already there, his lumpy figure sprawled across the table while he peered at the chart, blaspheming quietly as the lantern went mad above his head.

Bolitho snapped, 'How is it?'

He glanced up at him, his eyes red in the feeble glow.

'Bad, sir. We'll 'ave the canvas in shreds unless we lie to for a bit.'

Bolitho peered at the chart. Plenty of sea-room. That was the only consolation.

He hurried towards the quarterdeck ladder and almost fell as the ship swayed and corkscrewed in two separate motions. He fought his way to the wheel, where four helmsmen, their bodies lashed firmly to prevent their being caught unawares by an incoming wave, were fighting the spokes, their eyes glowing in the flickering compass light.

Herrick shouted, 'I've called all hands, sir! And I've put extra ones on the pumps!'

Bolitho peered at the jerking compass card. 'Very well. We will lie to under shortened maintops'l. Get Davy to put the best men aloft at once!'

He turned as a sound like gunshot echoed above the shriek of wind and sea, and saw the mizzen topsail rip itself apart, the fragments tearing yet again into ragged streamers, pale against the low, scudding clouds.

He could hear the dismal clank of pumps, hoarse cries as men blundered to their stations, dodging below the gangways as more frothing water flooded amongst them.

Fowlar shouted, 'The sailmaker has only just repaired that cro'jack, sir!' He was grinning, in spite of the confusion. 'He'll not be pleased!'

Bolitho was watching the black shapes of the topmen as they climbed cautiously up the vibrating ratlines. The wind flattened them occasionally against the shrouds, so that they hung motionless before starting up again for the topsail yards.

Mudge yelled, 'Th' quarter boat 'as carried away, sir!'

No one paid any heed, and Herrick spluttered in spray before saying, 'There goes the foretops'l, sir! Those lads are doing fine.'

Something dropped amongst the taut rigging before falling to the gun deck with a sickening thud.

Herrick shouted, 'Man from aloft! Take him to the surgeon!'

Bolitho bit his lip. It was unlikely he could live after such a fall.

Fighting every yard of the way, Undine came round into the wind, her hull awash from quarterdeck to beakhead, and with men clinging to tethered guns or stanchions as each wave surged and broke across her reeling deck.

Mudge bellowed hoarsely, 'She'll ride it out now, sir!'

Bolitho nodded, his mind cringing from the onslaught, the very vehemence of the storm.

'We'll set the spanker if the tops'! carries away. Tell the boatswain to have his hands ready, there'll not be time for regrets if that one goes!'

He felt a bowline being bent around his waist, and saw Allday's teeth bared in a grin.

'You look after us, Captain. This'll take care of you.'

Bolitho nodded, the breath knocked out of him. Then he clung to the dripping nettings, peering through the painful needles of spray as he watched over his command. A lucky ship? Perhaps he had spoken too soon. Tempted fate.

Herrick gasped, 'Could be over by first light, sir.'

But when dawn did come, and Bolitho saw the angry, copper-coloured clouds reflected upon the endless, jagged wavecrests, he knew it was not going to give up so willingly.

High above the deck, torn and broken cordage floated to the wind like dead creeper, and the solitary braced topsail looked so full-bellied that it could follow the fate of the other at any second.

He looked at Herrick, seeing the angry sores on his neck and hands where the blown salt had done its work. The other crouching, battered figures nearby were no better. He thought of the other frigate, probably snug in a protected anchorage, and felt the anger welling up inside him.

'Get some hands aloft, Mr. Herrick! There's work to be done!'

Herrick was already clawing his way along the nettings towards the rail.

Bolitho wiped his face and mouth with his arm. If they could weather this one, he thought, they would be ready for anything.

'Some more 'ot coffee, sir?' Noddall held his pot above Bolitho's mug without waiting for a reply.

Bolitho sipped it slowly, feeling the scalding liquid running through him. A taste of rum, too. Noddall was certainly doing his best.

He eased his shoulders and winced. Every bone and fibre seemed to ache. As if hehad been in actual battle.

He studied the weary figures who were moving about the upper deck, made curiously ghostlike and unreal by the heavy vapour which rose from sodden planking and clothing alike.

It had been just that, he thought gravely. A battle, no less than if cannon had been employed. For three days and nights they had fought it out, their confined world made even smaller by the great roaring expanse of wavecrests, their minds blunted by the ceaseless shriek of the wind. Like him, the ship seemed to have had the breath knocked from her. Now, under barely drawing topsails, her littered decks steaming once more beneath an empty sky, she was thrusting only slowly above her reflection. In places paint had been pared away to display wood so bare it could have been the work of a carpenter. Everywhere men were at work, marlin spikes and needles, hammers and tackles, endeavouring to restore the ship which had carried them through such a frenzy that even Mudge had admitted it was one of the bitterest he had endured.

He came across the deck now, his coat steaming gently, his jowls almost hidden in white stubble.

'Accordin' to me reckonin', sir, we've overreached the Benua Group by a fair piece. When we checks the noon sights I'll be 'appier.' He squinted upwards towards the flapping pendant which had lost almost half its length in the storm. 'But the wind's veered as I thought it might. I suggest we 'old your new course, nor' nor'-east, until we gets a better fix of our position.' He blew his nose loudly. 'An' I'd make so bold as to say 'ow well you 'andled 'er, sir.' He puffed out his cheeks. 'A couple o' times I thought we was done for.'

Bolitho looked away. 'Thank you.'

He was thinking of two men less fortunate. One had gone during the second night. Swept away without a sound. Nobody had seen him go. The other had slipped from the larboard cathead where he had_ been -working -feverishly to repair chafing lashings around the anchor stock. A solitary wavecrest had pulled him from his perch almost casually, so that for a while longer he had still imagined he would be saved. Willing hands had reached out for him, but another wave had flung him not outwards but high in the air like a kicking doll before hurling him against the massive anchor with savage force. Roskilly, a bosun's mate, had insisted he had heard the man's ribs cave in before he had been dragged screaming into the frothing water alongside.