Alexander Kent - Second to None

And his own reply. Like somebody else. “When I’ve earned it!”

The Rosario ’s ragged seamen were hauling on halliards and braces, their bare feet gripping the deck like claws, without feeling.

It only needed one of them to shout, to signal. He found his fingers clenched on the hilt of the hanger. They must not be taken. There would be no quarter. No pity.

He moved around the mast and watched the helmsman putting down the wheel, one of Unrivalled’s topmen at his side, a dirk in his fist.

“Matchless ’as gone about, sir!” The man breathed out noisily. “They’re best off out o’ this little lot!”

Adam stared at the frigate. Old but well maintained, her name, La Fortune, in faded gilt lettering across her counter. Thirty guns at a guess. A giant to the local craft on which she preyed in the name of France. There were faces along her gangway and poop, but no muzzles were run out. Adam felt his body trembling. Why should they be? Those great guns had seen off the impudent intruder. He could hear some of them cheering, laughing. Not too many of them, however; the rest were probably ashore, evidence of their security here.

Rosario ’s master jumped away from the helmsman and cupped his hands, staring wild-eyed as the frigate’s masts towered over them. The dirk drove into his side and he fell without even a murmur.

Even at the end he must have realised that nothing Adam could do would match the horror his new masters would have unleashed on those who betrayed them.

It was already too late. With the helm hard over and the distance falling away, Rosario’s bowsprit mounted the frigate’s quarter like a tusk and splintered into fragments, cordage and flapping canvas shielding Wynter’s boarding party as they swarmed up and over the side.

Adam drew his hanger and waved it.

“At ’em, lads!” Hatches were bursting open and men ran, half blinded by the sunlight, carried forward by their companions, reason already forgotten.

Adam grasped a dangling line and dragged himself over the frigate’s rail, slipping and almost falling between the two hulls.

An unknown voice rasped, “Don’t leave us now, sir!” And laughed, a terrible sound. Matched only by the scarlet-coated marines, somehow holding formation, bayonets like ice in the sun’s glare, Captain Bosanquet shouting, “Together, Marines! Together!”

Adam noticed that his face was the colour of his fine tunic.

A horn or trumpet had added its mournful call to the din of shouting, the clash of steel, the screams of men being hacked down.

The boarding party needed no urging. Beyond the smoke and the scattering sailing craft was open water. The sea. All they had. All that mattered.

Adam stopped in his tracks as a young lieutenant blocked his way. He was probably the only officer left aboard.

“Surrender!” It had never left him. Not at moments like this. “Surrender, damn your eyes!”

The lieutenant lowered his sword but drew a pistol from inside his coat. He was actually grinning, grinning while he took aim, already beyond reach.

Jago lunged forward but halted beside Adam as the French officer coughed and staggered against the gangway. There was a boarding-axe embedded in his back.

Adam stared up at the masthead pendant. The wind was still with them.

“Hands aloft! Loose tops’ls!”

How could they hope to do it? To cut out a ship from a protected harbour?

“Cut the cable!” He wiped his mouth and tasted blood on his hand, but could recall no contest. Men were surrendering, others were being thrown over the side, dead or alive it did not matter.

La Fortune was free of the ground, her hull already moving as the first topsails and a jib steadied her against the thrust of wind, the demands of her rudder.

Guns were firing, but La Fortune moved on, untouched by the battery which could not be brought to bear.

He saw the Rosario drifting away, an oared galley already attempting to grapple her.

Wynter was shouting, “She’s answering, sir!” Not so blank and self-contained now, but wild-eyed, dangerous. His father the member of Parliament would scarcely have recognised him.

Jago said, “Lost three men, sir. Another’ll go afore long.”

He winced as iron hammered against the hull, grape or canister from Rosario ’s swivels, and licked his parched lips. A Froggie ship. There would be wine on board. He turned to mention it to the captain.

Adam was watching a Royal Marine hoist a White Ensign to the frigate’s gaff. Without surprise that they had done it. That they had survived.

But he said, “For you, Uncle! For you!”

ADAM BOLITHO closed his small log book and leaned his elbows on the cabin table. For a moment he watched the dying light, the shadows moving evenly across the checkered deck as Unrivalled tilted to a steady wind across the quarter. A fine sunset, the thick glass and the cabin skylight the colour of bronze.

He massaged his eyes and tried to thrust aside the lingering disappointment, and accept what he had perceived as unfairness. Not to himself, but to the ship.

They had done what many would have considered foolhardy, and, having cut out a valuable prize from under the noses of the Dey’s defenders, they had joined the other ships outside the port in an atmosphere of triumph and excitement.

Now Unrivalled sailed alone. At any other time Adam would have welcomed this, the independence beloved of frigate captains.

But he had sensed the resentment when Captain Bouverie had decided to return to Malta with the captured La Fortune, and, as senior officer, to reap the praise and the lion’s share of any reward which might be forthcoming. From what Adam had managed to glean from the French frigate’s log, it seemed that her captain had been employed along the North African coast, snatching up or destroying local shipping with little or no opposition. The circumstances of war must have changed his role to that of a mercenary, under French colours now that Napoleon was back in Europe, but living off whichever ally found his services most useful when there was no other choice.

Adam had known nothing but war all his life, and even while he had been at sea he had been well aware of the constant threat of invasion. He thought of La Fortune ’s captain and others like him. How would I feel, if England was overrun by a ruthless enemy? Would I continue to fight? And for what?

He felt the rudder shudder beneath the counter. The glass was steady, but Cristie insisted that the wind which had given them Rosario and their one chance to cut out the frigate was the forerunner of stronger gusts. It was not unknown in the Mediterranean, even in June.

Two of the cutting-out party who had died of their wounds had been from Unrivalled, and they had been buried immediately.

But it was another source of grievance, and then open protest, now that the prize had disappeared with Matchless. There had been an outbreak of violence in one of the messes, and a petty officer had been threatened when he had intervened. So there would be two men for punishment tomorrow.

Adam disliked the grim ritual of flogging. It too often broke a man who might have made something of himself had he been properly guided. He recalled Galbraith’s words to the midshipman. Inspired. The hard man would only become harder and more unruly. But until there was an alternative…

He frowned as the cabin servant entered and walked down the tilting deck towards him. One of the ship’s boys, his name was Napier, and he had been trained originally to serve the officers in the wardroom. He took his duties very seriously and wore an habitual expression of set determination.

Galbraith had made the choice himself, no doubt wondering why a post-captain did not have a servant of his own.