Alexander Kent - Sword of Honour

He felt his jaw tighten as the first pyramid of sails appeared to rise out of the shark-blue water like a phantom. He moved the glass again. The second frigate had luffed, and was drawing away from her consort. Almost to himself, he said, They hope to divide our fire."

He lowered the glass slightly and glanced up at Frobisher' sspread of canvas, topsails and fore course flying and outer jib, with the big driver angled across the poop, the White Ensign streaming out from the peak. He knew that Tregidgo, the sailing master, was watching him. He ignored him. They all had their vital roles to play, but he was the captain. He must decide.

The wind was as before, from the north-west, not strong, but steady. Enough to change tack when required. She would handle even better when the order was given to slip the boats from their tow-lines astern; the main deck looked strangely clean and bare without them. Always a bad moment for sailors, when they saw their means of survival cast adrift. But the risk of flying splinters was far greater.

The sky was clearing, so different from the dawn. Long banks of pale clouds, but the sun already stronger and higher. He grimaced. A perfect setting.

He turned to face Kellett. "I want to make this quite clear. When we get to grips with those fellows, I want every available man at his station. Provided he can walk, I need him today, and I'll not stand for carrying passengers! The lower gundeck is the key to any fight with faster vessels. Inform Mr. Gage and Mr. Armytage that I expect them to maintain rapid fire no matter what may be happening up here. Is that understood?"

Kellett nodded. He had heard about Tyacke's experience at the Nile, when he had been on the lower gundeck with the big thirty-two pounders. Guns which, if properly laid and trained, could pierce nearly three feet of solid oak. Or so it was claimed.

Kellett had only served on a lower gundeck once, as a very junior lieutenant. The noise and the inferno of fire and smoke had been enough to drive some men to panic. It was a place and a time where only discipline and rigid training could overcome fear and madness. How it must have been for Tyacke… He remarked, "They wear no colours, sir." It was something to say, to ease the tension.

Tyacke raised his glass again. "They soon will. And by God they'll lose them, too!"

He concentrated on the leading frigate. There was a fine display of gilded carving around her beak head He smiled, unconsciously. She was Spanish, or had been once. He wondered what had happened to Huntress; perhaps they had put her down after the failure to lure Tireless beneath her broadside. He thought of his own depleted company. He must keep the enemy at a distance, cripple at least one of them.

How easy it was to regard strange ships as enemies; he had been doing it for most of his life. He thought suddenly of Bolitho. He was in the chart room, probably keeping out of the way. when every fibre in his body was tugging at him to take command, as a captain again. But there was neither fleet nor squadron this time, and some of the waiting seamen would be thinking as much. Their fate lay in the hands of three captains, and the man whose flag whipped out from the mainmast truck.

Tyacke heard Midshipman Singleton instructing his signals party by the halliards. The boy seemed different in some way, not yet mature, but in definably different.

Tyacke moved to the compass box and gazed at the group there, the backbone of any company committed to action. The master and his mates, three midshipmen to carry messages, four helmsmen at the tall double wheel, and beyond them, the rest of the after guard the marines and nine-pounder crews. Protected by nothing more than tightly-packed hammocks in the nettings, they would be the first target for any sharpshooter.

He said, "Converging tack, Mr. Tregidgo." He saw him nod; Tregidgo was not one to waste words. "We will engage from either side." He looked at their faces, stiff, empty. It was too late for anything else. I have decided.

He walked to the rail and gripped it. Warm, but nothing more. He smiled tightly. That would soon change. He looked along his command yet again, sobered by the thought that she might not be his for much longer. At the Nile, his own captain had fallen, and so many others on that bloody day. Could Kellett fight the ship if that happened? He shook himself angrily. It was not that. He had faced and accepted death many times. It was the navy's way, perhaps the only way. To make men confront and accept what was, in truth, unacceptable.

It was Marion. The new belief, the hope that a hand had reached out for him. Something he had sometimes dreamed about, but too often dreaded. He thought of Portsmouth, gazing at the nearest gun's crew. When all this had begun, when she had come to find him. With such quiet warmth, and such pride.

He thought of Bolitho's unfinished letter, hidden by the chart in the great cabin. Marion could never have realised what strength he had found in her.

He heard Allday's voice from the poop, and turned in readiness. He saw Bolitho, apparently quite calm, and Allday walking with him. As a friend, an equal. He smiled. No wonder it was so hard for people to understand, let alone share.

He touched his hat. "I would like to alter course, Sir Richard. Those two beauties will try to harry us, to use haste to avoid being dismasted." He waited while Bolitho took the big signals telescope from Midshipman Singleton, saw the way he held his head at an angle to obtain the best image. It was not possible to believe that he was blind in one eye.

They'm running up their colours, sir!"

Tyacke levelled his glass on the leading frigate. Had he really clung to a last doubt, a hope? He could see the Tricolour standing out to the wind. More than a gesture; it meant that this was war again, even if the rest of the world was ignorant of it. Napoleon had escaped from what had been, at best, a token captivity. He recalled Bolitho's rare anger, his despair for the men he had led, who, in his eyes, had been betrayed by complacency. Tyacke glanced at him now, and saw the bitterness on his features as he returned the glass to Singleton.

Then he looked directly at his flag captain. "So it is war once more, James." There was a cold edge to his voice. "So much for the Bourbon Restoration." He looked around at the silent gun crews and the waiting seamen, and the marines, faces shadowed beneath their leather hats. Very quietly, he said, "Too much blood, too many good men."

Then he smiled, his teeth very white in his tanned face, and only those close enough could see the pain and the anger which lay there.

"So cast the boats adrift, Captain Tyacke, and let us give these scum a lesson, teach them that now, as before, we are here, and ready!"

Somebody gave a wild cheer, and it was carried along the deck to the forecastle and the men crouching at the carronades, although they could not have heard a single word.

It was infectious. A madness, and yet so much more.

Tyacke touched his hat with equal formality. "I am yours to command, Sir Richard."

Allday watched the cluster of boats drift haphazardly away from the counter. There was no cheering now, nor would there be until the flag came down. Theirs or ours, the rules never changed.

He touched his chest as the pain moved through him like a warning. Then he grinned. One more time. And they were still together.

Bolitho stood beside Tyacke and watched the oncoming ships. The range was closing, and, at a guess, stood at about three miles. An hour and a half had passed since Frobisher had cleared for action; it felt like an eternity.

The two frigates were almost in line ahead, their sails overlapping, as if they were joined. It was the usual illusion; they were perhaps a mile apart, and pointing directly towards Frobisher's larboard bow. The wind had not varied by a degree; it was still north-westerly, light but steady enough. The frigates were close-hauled on the starboard tack, probably as near to the wind as they could manage.