Alexander Kent - Second to None

Galbraith saw Napier handing his captain a clean shirt, laughing at something he said as he pulled it over his unruly hair. The sunlight was stronger now, enough to shine briefly on the locket the captain was wearing, the one he had seen in the cabin with the letters.

He felt a sudden chill as the boy handed Captain Bolitho his coat, not the one he had been wearing when he had first appeared on deck, if he had ever left it, but the gold-laced dress uniform coat with the bright epaulettes. A ready target for any marksman. Madness again, but Galbraith could imagine him wearing no other this day.

“West-by-north, sir! Steady she goes!”

Adam looked along his ship, hearing the intermittent crash of gunfire. Halcyon was under fire already, long-range shots, like the ones laid on Aranmore.

He thought of Avery, his comments concerning the infamous Captain Martinez, and touched the locket beneath the clean shirt, and said aloud, “You were right, George, and nobody saw it. The face in the crowd.”

He turned to see the other ensign breaking to the wind, seeming to trail on the dark horizon as the ship heeled over, knowing that his mind must be empty now of everything which might weaken his resolve. But a memory of his uncle came, as he had seen him all those other times.

“So let’s be about it, then!”

Luke Jago stood by the mainmast’s great trunk and looked along the frigate’s main deck. So many times; different ships and in all weathers, but always the same pattern. The whole larboard battery of eighteen-pounders had been run in, hauled up the tilting deck by their sweating crews, held in position by their taut tackles and ready for loading. Each crew was standing by with the tools of their trade, rammers and sponges, handspikes and charges, while every gun captain had already selected a perfect ball from his shot garland for the first, perhaps vital broadside. Around and at the foot of every mast the boarding-pikes had been freed from their lashings, ready to snatch up and spit anyone brave or stupid enough to attempt to board them. The weapons chests were empty, and each man had armed himself with cutlass or axe with no more uncertainty than a farm-hand selecting a pitchfork.

He could sense the new midshipman watching him, breathing hard in his efforts to keep up with the captain’s coxswain. Jago had wondered why the captain had given him the task of nursing Commodore Deighton’s son. One day he would be an officer like Massie or so many others he had known, quick to forget past favours, and the secret skills which only true seamen knew and could pass on.

He felt the deck jerk to the double crash of the bomb’s two mortars. Even at this distance, the ships were barely visible through the haze and dust, and yet the mortars’ recoil seemed to rebound from the very seabed.

He had heard some of the men joking about the captain’s reading of the flagship’s signal. They would be putting bets on it too, if he had made a serious mistake. He loosened the cutlass in his belt, swearing quietly. Captain Bolitho would be a marked man anyway, as far as the admiral was concerned.

He said to the midshipman, “You’ll be needed to pass messages between the forrard guns, under Mr Massie,” he jerked his thumb in the direction of the quarterdeck, “An’ the cap’n. And if he falls, to th’ next in command aft.”

He saw the boy blink, but he showed no fear. And he listened. He glanced at Midshipman Sandell by the empty boat tier, even now snapping at some luckless seaman. He’d be no bloody loss to anyone.

He said, “An’ remember, Mr Deighton, always walk, never run.

That only makes the lads jumpy.” He grinned at Deighton’s seriousness. “Stops you bein’ a target too!”

Then, seeing his expression, he touched the midshipman’s arm. “Forget I said that. It just came out.”

He stared at his own scarred hand on the boy’s sleeve. Let him think what he damn well likes. He’ll not care a straw for a common seaman. But it would not hold.

He said, “Now we’ll carry on aft.”

Deighton said, “It seems so empty without the boats on deck.”

“Never you mind them. We’ll pick ’em up afore sunset.”

Deighton said softly, “Do you believe that, really?”

Jago nodded to Campbell, who was leaning on a handspike near his gun. Like most of the crews he had stripped to the waist, his scarred back a living testimony to his strength. Jago sighed. Or stupidity. It was not long since he had done the same, his defiance of the authority which had wrongly punished him, leaving him scarred until the day he dropped.

The boy murmured, “I’ve never been in a real sea-fight before.”

Jago knew that Deighton had transferred from the old Vanoc, a frigate said to be so infested with rot that she was as ripe as a pear, with only her copper holding her together.

He looked up at the towering masts and their bulging pyramids of canvas. From down here, the topgallant masts appeared to be bending like whips to the mounting pressure.

It was there again. Pride. Something he had all but taken an oath against. But she was flying through the water, spray bursting through the beak-head and drenching the figurehead’s naked shoulders, a veritable sea nymph. He saw Halcyon, so much closer now, heeling over at a steep angle from Unrivalled’s bow. A well-handled ship, he conceded. But no match for the big Dutchman.

And the lookouts had reported that the merchantman Aranmore was somewhere ahead. Victim or prize, it depended on which side you took.

Jago thought of the girl he had helped to carry below. He stared at the poop, the officers’ figures leaning over to the sloping deck as if they were nailed to it to hold them in position. And now she was out there with her bullyboy of a husband and God alone knew how many other important passengers. Jago had seen the captain’s face that night, and again when he had gone ashore to see her, even if he had not intended to meet her or it had been a complete accident. Jago thought otherwise. He shaded his eyes and saw the captain standing with one hand on the quarterdeck rail. By that same ladder.

And why not? As smart as paint, she was. He smiled crookedly. And she knew it, what’s more.

The sound of cannon fire across the sea’s face, and for an instant Jago imagined that the wind had changed direction.

Sullivan’s voice cut through the boom of canvas and the groan of straining cordage. “Deck thar! Halcyon’s under fire!”

Jago ran to the side and stood on a gun truck to get a better view. Halcyon was as before, cutting through the water, her ensigns very white against the hazy sky, their scarlet crosses like blood. Then there was a sudden groan, and her fore-topmast and spars began to topple; the sea and wind muffled the sound, and yet he seemed to hear it clearly, the slithering tangle of masts and rigging, snapping cordage and torn canvas, and then the complete mass plunging over the lee bow, flinging up spectres of spray. There would be men there, too, some killed in the fall, others dragged over the side by broken shrouds and stays, dying even as he watched, while others ran to hack the debris away. There was never time for pity.

Within minutes the fallen fore-topmast was dragging Halcyon around like a giant sea anchor, and her guns were pointing impotently at open water.

“Stand by to wear ship!» That was the first lieutenant, voice distorted by his speaking-trumpet. “Pipe the hands to the braces!”

Jago waited, feeling the ship’s response to wind and rudder. The afterguard tramping past those same officers, hauling at the mizzen braces while Unrivalled altered course to windward, as close as she’d come, some of the sails already whipping and cracking in protest until more hands brought them under control.