Alexander Kent - Stand into Danger

Palliser’s voice was never still. As the anchor rose dripping to the cathead and was swiftly made fast to prevent it battering at the ship’s hull, more men were rushed elsewhere by his demanding trumpet.

“Get the fore and main-courses set!”

The biggest sails boomed out from their yards and hardened like iron in the driving wind. Bolitho paused to straighten his hat and draw breath. The land where he had searched for volunteers was safely on the opposite beam now, and with her masts lining up to the wind and rudder Destiny was already pointing towards the narrows, beyond which the open sea waited like a field of grey.

Men fought with snaking lines, while overhead blocks screamed as braces and halliards took on the strain of muscle against the wind and a growing pyramid of canvas.

Dumaresq had not apparently moved. He was watching the land sliding abeam, his chin tightly jammed into his neckcloth.

Bolitho dashed some rain or spray from his eyes, feeling his own excitement, suddenly grateful he had not lost it. Through the narrows and into the Sound, where Drake had waited to match the Armada, where a hundred admirals had pondered and considered their immediate futures. And where after that?

“Leadsman in the chains, Mr Slade!”

Bolitho knew he was in a frigate now. No careful, portly manoeuvre here. Dumaresq knew there would be many eyes watching from the land even at this early hour. He would cut past the headland as close as he dared, with just a fathom between the keel and disaster. He had the wind, he had the ship to do it.

Behind him he heard Merrett retching helplessly and hoped Palliser would not see him.

Stockdale was bending a line round his palm and elbow in a manner born. On his thick arm it looked like a thread. He and the captain made a good pair.

Stockdale said huskily, “Free, that’s what I am.”

Bolitho made to reply but realized the battered fighter was speaking for his own benefit.

Palliser’s tone stung like a lash. “Mr Bolitho! I shall tell youfirst, as I need the t’gan’sls set as soon as we are through the narrows! It may give you time to complete your dream and attend to your duties, sir!”

Bolitho touched his hat and beckoned to his petty officers. Palliser was all right in the wardroom. On deck he was a tyrant.

He saw Merrett bending over a gun and vomiting into the scuppers.

“Damn your eyes, Mr Merrett! Clean up that mess before you dismiss! And control yourself!”

He turned away, confused and embarrassed. Palliser was not the only one, it seemed.

THE WEEK which followed Destiny’s departure from Plymouth was the busiest and the most demanding in Richard Bolitho’s young life.

Once free of the land’s protection, Dumaresq endeavoured to set as much canvas as his ship could safely carry in a rising wind. The world was confined to a nightmare of stinging, ice-cold spray, violent swooping thrusts as the frigate smashed her way through troughs and rearing crests alike. It seemed as if it would never end, with no time to find dry clothing, and what food the cook had been able to prepare and have carried through the pitching hull had to be gulped down in minutes.

Once as Rhodes relieved Bolitho on watch he shouted above the din of cracking canvas and the sea surging inboard along the lee side, “It’s the lord and master’s way, Dick! Push the ship to the limit, find the strength of every man aboard!” He ducked as a phantom of freezing spray doused them both. “Officers, too, for that matter!”

Tempers became frayed, and once or twice small incidents of insubordination flared openly, only to be quenched by some heavyfisted petty officer or the threat of formal punishment at the gratings.

The captain was often on deck, moving without effort between compass and chartroom, discussing progress with Gulliver, the master, or the first lieutenant.

And at night it was always worse. Bolitho never seemed to get his head buried in a musty pillow for his watch below before the hoarse cry was carried between deck like a call to arms.

“All hands! All hands aloft an’ reef tops’ls!”

And it was then that Bolitho really noticed the difference. In a ship of the line he had been forced to claw his way aloft with the rest of them, fighting his loathing of heights and conscious only of the need not to show that fear to others. But when it was done, it was done. Now, as a lieutenant, it was all happening just as Dumaresq had prophesied.

In the middle of one fierce gale, as Destiny had tacked and battered her way through the Bay of Biscay, the call had come to take in yet another reef. There had been no moon or stars, just a rearing wall of broken water, white against the outer darkness, to show just how small their ship really was.

Men, dazed by constant work and half blinded by salt spray, had staggered to their stations, and then reluctantly had begun to drag themselves up the vibrating ratlines, then out along the topsail yards. The Destiny had been leaning so steeply to leeward that her main-yard had seemed to be brushing the broken crests alongside.

Forster, the captain of the maintop, and Bolitho’s key petty officer, had yelled, “This man says ’e won’t go aloft, sir! No matter what!”

Bolitho had seized a stay to prevent himself from being flung on his face. “Go yourself, Forster! Without you up there God knows what might happen!” He had peered up at the remainder of his men while all the time the wind had moaned and shrieked, like a demented being enjoying their torment.

Jury had been up there, his body pressed against the shrouds by the force of the wind. On the foremast they had been having the same trouble, with men and cordage, sails and spars all pounded together while the ship had done her best to hurl them into the sea below.

Bolitho had then remembered what Forster had told him. The man in question had been staring at him, a thin, defiant figure in a torn checkered shirt and seaman’s trousers. “What’s the matter with you?” Bolitho had had to yell above the din.

“I can’t go, sir.” The man had shaken his head violently. “Can’t!”

Little had come lurching past, cursing and blaspheming as he helped to haul some new cordage to the mainmast in readiness for use.

He had bellowed, “I’ll drag ’im aloft, sir!”

Bolitho had shouted to the seaman, “Go below and help relieve the pumps!”

Two days later the same man had been reported missing. A search of the ship by Poynter, the master-at-arms, and the ship’s corporal, had revealed nothing.

Little had tried to explain as best as he knew how. “It were like this, sir. You should ’ave made ’im go aloft, even if ’e fell and broke ’is back. Or you could ’ave taken ’im aft for punishment. “E’d ’ave got three dozen lashes, but ’e’d ’ave been a man! ”

Bolitho had reluctantly understood. He had taken away the seaman’s pride. His messmates would have sympathized with a man seized up at the gratings and flogged. Their contempt had been more than that lonely, defiant seaman had been able to stand.

On the sixth day the storm passed on and left them breathless and dazed by its intensity. Sails were reset, and the business of clearing up and repairing put aside any thought of rest.

Now, everyone aboard knew where the ship was first headed. To the Portuguese island of Madeira, although what for was a mystery still. Except to Rhodes, who had confided that it was merely to lay in a great store of wine for the surgeon’s personal use.

Dumaresq had obviously read the report of the seaman’s death in the log, but had said nothing of it to Bolitho. At sea, more men died by accident than ever from ball or cutlass.

But Bolitho blamed himself. The others, Little and Forster, years ahead of him in age and experience, had turned to him because he was their lieutenant.