Alexander Kent - Cross of St George

“My name is David St Clair.” He reached out his hand. “This is my daughter, Gilia. Your arrival was a miracle, sir. A miracle!”

Adam glanced at the young woman. She was warmly dressed for travel, her eyes steady and defiant, as if this were the ordeal rather than its relief.

He said, “I have little time, Mr St Clair. I am to transfer you to my ship, Valkyrie, before it becomes too dark.”

St Clair stared at him. “I know that name!” He held his daughter’s arm. “Valentine Keen’s ship, you recall it!” But she was observing Valkyrie’s seamen and marines, as if sensing the friction between them and their prisoners.

Adam said, “His flagship. I am his flag captain.”

St Clair said smoothly, “Of course. He is promoted now.”

Adam said, “How were you taken, sir?”

“We were on passage in the schooner Crystal, out of Halifax, bound for the St Lawrence. Admiralty business.” He seemed to become aware of Adam’s impatience and continued, “These others are her crew. The woman is the master’s wife, who was aboard with him.”

“I was told of your business here, sir. I thought it dangerous, at the time.” He glanced at the girl again. “I was proved right, it seems.”

A boatswain’s mate was waiting, trying to catch his eye.

“What is it, Laker?”

The man seemed surprised that his new captain should know his name. “The two Yankee officers, sir…”

“Send them over to the ship. Their own men, too. Lively now!”

His eyes moved to the gangway where one of the guns was still abandoned on its tackles. There was a great stain on the planking, like black tar. It must be blood. Perhaps it marked the place where they had flogged their captain without mercy.

He called, “And run up our colours!” It was a small enough gesture, amid so much shame.

One of the American lieutenants paused with his escort. “Tell me one thing, Captain. Would you have fired, hostages or not?”

Adam swung away. “Take them across.”

St Clair’s daughter said quietly, “I wondered that myself, Captain.” She was shivering now, despite her warm clothing, the shock and realization of what had happened cutting away her reserve.

St Clair put his arm around her, and said, “The guns were loaded and ready. At the last minute some of the men, her original people, I believe, fired them to show their intentions.”

Adam said, “The American lieutenant, Neill, is probably asking himself the same question that he put to me.” He looked the girl directly in the eyes. “In war, there are few easy choices.”

“Boat’s ready, sir!”

“Have you any baggage to be taken across?”

St Clair guided his daughter to the side, where a boatswain’s chair had been rigged for her.

“None. There was no time. Afterwards, they destroyed the Crystal. There was an explosion of some kind.”

Adam looked around the deserted deck, at his own men, who were waiting to get Reaper under way again. They would probably have preferred to send her to the bottom. And so would I.

He walked to the side, and ensured that the girl was securely seated.

“You will be more comfortable in the flagship, ma’am. We shall be returning to Halifax.”

Some of Reaper’s original company, urged ungently by Loftus’s marines, were already being taken below, to be secured for the remainder of the passage.

She murmured, “What will become of them?”

Adam said curtly, “They will hang.”

She studied him, as if searching his face for something. “Had they fired on your ship we would all be dead, is that not so?” When Adam remained silent, she persisted, “Surely that must be taken into consideration.”

Adam turned suddenly. “That man! Come here!”

The seaman, still wearing a crumpled, red-checkered shirt, came over immediately and knuckled his forehead. “Sir?”

“I know you!”

“Aye, Cap’n Bolitho. I was a maintopman in Anemone two years back. You put me ashore when I was took sick o’ fever.”

Memory came, and with it the names of the past. “Ramsay, what in hell’s name happened, man?” He had forgotten the girl, who was listening intently, her father, the others, everything but this one, familiar face. There was no fear in it, but it was the face of a man already condemned, a man who had known the nearness of death in the past, and had accepted it.

“It ain’t my place, Cap’n Bolitho. Not with you. That’s all over, done with.” He came to a decision, and very deliberately dragged his shirt over his head. Then he said, “No disrespect to you, miss.

But for you, I think we would have fired.” Then he turned his back, allowing the fading sunlight to fall across his skin.

Adam said, “Why?” He heard the girl give a strangled sob. It must seem far worse to her.

The seaman named Ramsay had been so cruelly flogged that his body was barely human. Some of the torn flesh had not yet healed.

He pulled his shirt on again. “Because he enjoyed it.”

“I am sorry, Ramsay.” He touched his arm impulsively, knowing that Lieutenant Gulliver was watching him with disbelief. “I will do what I can for you.”

When he looked again, the man was gone. There was no hope, and he would know it. And yet those few words had meant so much, to both of them.

Gulliver said uneasily, “Ready, sir.”

But before the boatswain’s chair was swung out to be lowered into the waiting boat, Adam said to St Clair’s daughter, “Sometimes, there are no choices whatsoever.”

“Lower away! Easy, lads!”

Then he straightened his back and turned to face the others. He was the captain again.

RICHARD BOLITHO leaned away from the bright sunshine that lanced through Indomitable ’s cabin windows to rest his head against the chair’s high back. It was deep and comfortable, a bergere, which Catherine had sent on board when this ship had first hoisted his flag. Yovell, his secretary, sat at the table, while Lieutenant Avery stood by the stern bench watching two of the ship’s boats pulling back from the brig Alfriston, which had met up with them at dawn.

Tyacke had made it his business to send across some fresh fruit. Having commanded a small brig himself, he would have appreciated its value to her hard-worked company.

There had been a burst of cheering when Alfriston had hove to to pass across her despatches, which was quickly quelled by officers on watch who had been very aware of their admiral’s open skylight, and perhaps the importance of the news Alfriston might have brought to him.

Tyacke had come aft, bringing the heavy canvas satchel himself.

When Bolitho asked about the cheering, he had replied impassively, “Reaper’s been retaken, Sir Richard.”

He glanced now at the heavy pile of despatches on the table. The entire report of the search for, and capture of, Reaper was there, written in Keen’s own hand rather than that of a secretary. Did he lack confidence in his own actions, or in those who supported him, he wondered. It remained a private document, and yet, despite the seals and the secrecy, Indomitable’s people had known its contents, or had guessed what had happened. Such intuition was uncanny, but not unusual.

He listened to the creak of tackles and the twitter of a bosun’s call as the next net full of stores was hoisted outboard before being lowered into a boat for Alfriston. It was difficult to look at the vast blue expanse of ocean beyond the windows. His eye was painful, and he had wanted to rub it, even though he had been warned against disturbing it. He must accept that it was getting worse.

He tried to concentrate on Keen’s careful appraisal of Reaper’s discovery and capture. He had missed out nothing, even his own despair when he had seen the hostages paraded on her deck, a human barricade against Valkyrie’s guns. He had generously praised Adam’s part in it, and his handling of the captured sailors, American and mutineers alike.