Alexander Kent - Second to None

He came out of his thoughts abruptly and stared at the masthead. Colour. Not much, but it was there, the red and white of the long pendant, and even as he watched he saw the first touch of sunlight run down the topgallant mast like paint.

He took a telescope brusquely from Midshipman Cousens and strode to the shrouds, extending the glass as he moved. He rested it on the tightly packed hammocks and stared across the bow.

Land, fragments. As if they had been scattered by the gods.

He said, “Are the leadsmen ready, Mr Bellairs?”

“Aye, sir.”

Cristie said, “Closer inshore there’s some seven fathoms, sir.” He did not add, or so the notes state. He knew his captain needed no reminding. Seven fathoms. Unrivalled drew three.

Adam looked up at the gently bulging maintopsail. He could see most of it, the head in contrast with the foot, which was still in deep shadow. Not long now.

He steadied the glass once more and trained it slowly across the craggy humps of land. He could see the higher ground also, and that one small islet had a solitary pinnacle at its end, like something man-made.

“Bring her up a point. Steer sou’-west.” There was an edge to his voice but he could not help it. “Rouse the lookouts, Mr Wynter-they must be asleep up there!”

Suppose Galbraith had been taken by surprise and overwhelmed? Thirty-five men. He had not forgotten what Avery had told him about the barbarity of the Algerines towards their captives.

He rested his forehead against the hammock nettings. So cool. Soon it would be a furnace here.

“Sou’-west, sir! Steady she goes!”

A quick glance at the topsails again. Steady enough. Braced close to the wind, such as it was.

He thought of Halcyon, in position by now on the other side of this miserable group of tiny islands. The trap was set. He touched his empty watch pocket and felt the pain again.

Somebody moved past him and he saw that it was Napier, his feet bare, as if to avoid being noticed.

Adam said, “We are cleared for action, Napier. You know your station. Go to it.”

He swung round and stared up again. Very soon now, and the whole ship would be in broad daylight. Or so it would feel.

He realised that the boy was still there. “Well?”

“I-I’m not afraid, sir. The others think I’m not to be trusted on deck!”

Adam stared at him, surprised that the simplicity could move him, even distract him at this moment.

“I understand. Stand with me, then.” He thought he saw Jago grin. “Madness is catching, it seems!”

“Deck there! Somethin’ flashin’ from the middle high ground!”

Adam licked his lips. The voice was Sullivan’s. Something flashing: it could only be one thing, early sunshine reflecting from a glass. A lookout. They were there.

Then came the explosion, which seemed to linger in a slow climax before rolling across the sea and sighing against the ship. Unrivalled seemed to quiver in its path.

“One craft under way, sir. ’Nother on fire!” Sullivan was barely able to contain his excitement, which was rare for him.

On the upper deck the gun crews were staring into the retreating shadows or aft at the quarterdeck, trying to guess what was happening. A great pall of smoke had begun to rise, staining the clear, clean sky like something grotesque, obscene. There were more explosions, puny after the first, and smoke spreading still further as if to confirm the success of Galbraith’s attack.

But sails were moving, suddenly very bright and sharp in the new sunlight, and Adam had to force himself to see it as it really was. A vessel destroyed: impossible to guess how many had died to achieve that. But the explosion was on a different bearing, so that the alleged anchorage must also be wrongly charted.

Galbraith would stand no chance of getting away. Another chebec, perhaps two, were using the change of wind which had delayed his attack. They would escape. He steadied the glass again, ignoring everything but the tall triangles of sails, a flurry of foam as the chebec used her long sweeps to work around the blazing wreck, which was burned almost to the waterline.

Between and beyond was the gleam of water: the line of escape. And Halcyon would not be there to prevent it. He swallowed as a second set of sails moved from the smoke, like the fins of a marauding shark. They still had time for revenge. Galbraith’s boats would stand no chance, and even if his men broke and scattered ashore they would hunt them down and slaughter them. Revenge… I should have known that, only too well.

“We will come about, Mr Cristie! Steer nor’-east!”

They were staring at him, and he heard the reluctance in Cristie’s response.

“The channel, sir? We don’t even know if…” It was the closest he had ever come to open disagreement.

Adam swung on him, his dark eyes blazing. “Men, Mr Cristie! Remember? I’ll roast in hell before I leave Galbraith to die in their hands!”

He strode to the opposite side, ignoring the sudden bustle of seamen and marines as they ran to braces and halliards, as if they had been shaken from a trance.

The leadsmen were in position in the chains, one on either bow, their lines already loosely coiled, ready to heave.

Adam bit his lip. Like a blind man with his stick. There was not a minute more to measure the danger. There was no alternative.

He said, “Carry on! Put the helm down!” He saw Massie staring at him over the confusion of men already lying back on the braces, his face wild, that of a stranger.

Cristie stood near his helmsmen, one hand almost touching the spokes as the big double-wheel began to turn, and Unrivalled’s figurehead gazed at what appeared to be an unbroken line of sunscorched rocks.

Adam gripped the old sword and forced it against his hip, to steady himself. To remember.

His voice sounded quite level, as if someone else had spoken.

“Then get the hands aloft and shake out the t’gallants!”

He touched his face as the sun reached down between the flapping canvas, and did not see Bellairs pause to watch him.

Then he held out one hand, like someone quieting a nervous horse.

“Steady now! Steady!”

Trust.

Adam remained by the nettings and watched the shadows of Unrivalled’s topgallants and topsails glide over a long strip of sand and rock, as if some phantom ship were in close company. Some of the gun crews and unemployed seamen were peering into the water, the more experienced to study the patches of weed, black in the weak sunlight, which seemed to line the side of the channel through the islands. They were bedded in rock, any one of which could turn the ship into a wreck.

As if to drive home their danger, the leadsman’s voice echoed aft from the chains. “By the mark ten!”

Adam watched the man hauling in his lead, his bare arm moving deftly, perhaps too engrossed to consider the peril beneath the keel.

Cristie said, “Narrows a bit here, sir.” It was the first time he had spoken since they had laid the ship on the new tack, and his way of reminding his captain that after this there would be less room to come about, even if that was still possible.

“Wreckage ahead, sir!” That was Midshipman Cousens, very calm, and aware of his new responsibilities now that Bellairs was promoted. Almost.

Adam leaned over to stare at the charred timbers as they parted across Unrivalled’s stem. Galbraith’s people must have got right alongside the vessel to cause such complete devastation. Perhaps they had all been killed. Somehow he knew Galbraith had done it himself; he would never delegate, particularly when lives were at risk. And because I would expect it of him. It was like a taunt.

He could smell it, too. The boat must have exploded like a giant grenade; the fire had done the rest. There were corpses as well, pieces of men, lolling wearily in the frigate’s small wash.