Alexander Kent - Cross of St George

York asked uneasily, “Was there more trouble up north then, sir?”

Bolitho smiled. “No, it was the King’s birthday. It was his wish!”

York grinned. “Oh, well, that’s different, sir!”

Bolitho picked up the dividers from the chart. “The enemy know the risks as well as we do. We shall remain in company as best we can. Each captain will have his best lookouts aloft, but they cannot work miracles. By dawn we shall be in position, here.” The points of the dividers came down like a harpoon. “We may become scattered overnight, but we must take that chance.”

Tyacke studied him in silence. You will take it, his expression said. Bolitho said, “If I were the enemy commander I would send in my landing parties, and perhaps release one of my smaller ships as close inshore as possible to offer covering fire if need be. That would even the odds.” He put down the dividers very carefully. “A little.”

Tyacke said, “If we’re wrong, sir…”

“If I am wrong, then we will return to Halifax. At least they will be prepared there for any sudden attack.” He thought of Keen when he had spoken of St Clair’s daughter: he might become a vice-admiral sooner than his highest hopes, if the enemy had outwitted this makeshift plan.

He saw Avery bending over the table to scribble some notes in his little book, and for a second their eyes met. Did Avery know that his admiral was barely able to see the markings on the chart without covering his damaged eye? He felt the sudden despair lift from his spirit, like a dawn mist rising from the water. Of course they knew, but it had become a bond, a strength, which they willingly shared with him. Again he seemed to hear Herrick’s words. We Happy Few. Dear God, don’t let me fail them now.

Then he said quietly, “Thank you, gentlemen. Please carry on with your duties. Captain Tyacke?”

Tyacke was touching his scars; perhaps he no longer noticed that he was doing it.

“I would like to have the people fed before the morning watch, sir. Then, if you agree, we will clear for action.” He might have been smiling, but his face was in shadow again. “No drums, no din of war.”

Bolitho said lightly, “No Portsmouth Lass, either?” The same thought returned. Like conspirators. Or assassins.

Tyacke twisted round. “Mr Daubeny, do not strain your ears any further! I want all officers and senior warrant officers in the wardroom as soon as is convenient.” He added, almost as an afterthought, “We had better assemble our young gentlemen as well on this occasion. They may learn something from it.”

York left with Daubeny, probably to confer with his master’s mates. It would keep them busy, and a lack of sleep was nothing new to sailors.

Avery had also departed, understanding better than most that Tyacke wished to be alone with Bolitho. Not as the officer, but as a friend. Bolitho had almost guessed what his flag captain was going to say, but it still came as a shock.

“If we meet with the enemy, and now that I have weighed the odds for and against, I think we shall, I would ask a favour.”

“What is it, James?”

“If I should fall.” He shook his head. “Please, hear me. I have written two letters. I would rest easy and with a free mind to fight this ship if I knew…” He was silent for a moment. “One is for your lady, sir, and the other for somebody I once knew… thought I knew… some fifteen years back, when I was a young luff like Mr Know-it-all Blythe.”

Bolitho touched his arm, with great affection. It was the closest to the man he had ever been.

He said, “We shall both take care tomorrow, James. I am depending on you.”

Tyacke studied the well-used chart. “Tomorrow, then.”

Later, as he made his way aft to his quarters, Bolitho heard the buzz of voices from the wardroom, rarely so crowded even in harbour. Two of the messmen were crouching down, listening at the door as closely as they dared. There was laughter too, as there must have been before greater events in history: Quiberon Bay, the Saintes, or the Nile.

Allday was with Ozzard in the pantry, as he had known he would be. He followed Bolitho past the sentry and into the dimly lit cabin, with the sea like black glass beyond the windows. Apart from the ship’s own noises, it was already quiet. Tyacke would be speaking to his officers, just as he would eventually go around the messdecks and show himself to the men who depended on him. Not to tell them why it was so, but how it must be done. But the ship already knew. Like Sparrow and Phalarope, and Hyperion most of all.

Allday asked, “Will Mr Avery be coming aft, Sir Richard?”

Bolitho waved him to a chair. “Rest easy, old friend. He’ll find a minute to pen a letter for you.”

Allday grinned, the concern and the pain falling away. “I’d take it kindly, Sir Richard. I’ve never been much for book-learnin’ an’ the like.”

Bolitho heard Ozzard’s quiet step. “Just as well for the rest of us, I daresay. So let us drink to those we care about, while we can. But we’ll wait for the flag lieutenant.” He looked away. Avery had probably already written a letter of his own, to the unknown woman in London. Perhaps it was only a dream, a lost hope. But it was an anchor, one which was needed by them all.

He walked to the gun barometer and tapped it automatically, recalling Tyacke’s acceptance of what must be done, his confidence in his ship. And of his words. “If I should fall…” The same words, the same voice which had spoken for all of them.

Avery entered the cabin even as the sentry shouted his arrival.

Bolitho said, “Did it go well, George?”

Avery looked at Ozzard and his tray of glasses.

“Something I heard my father say, a long time ago. That the gods never concern themselves with the protection of the innocent, only with the punishment of the guilty.” He took a glass from the unsmiling Ozzard. “I never thought I would hear it again under these circumstances.”

Bolitho waited while Allday lurched to his feet to join them. Tomorrow, then.

Thinking of Herrick, perhaps. Of all of them.

He raised his glass. “We Happy Few!”

They would like that.

LIEUTENANT George Avery gripped the weather shrouds and then paused to stare up at the foremast. Like most of the ship’s company, he had been on deck for over an hour, and yet his eyes were still not accustomed to the enfolding darkness. He could see the pale outline of the hard-braced topsail, but beyond it nothing save an occasional star as it flitted through long banners of cloud. He shivered; it was cold, and his clothing felt damp and clinging, and there was something else also, a kind of light-headedness, a sense of elation, which he thought had gone forever. Those days when he had been in the small schooner Jolie, cutting out equally small prizes from the French coast, sometimes under the noses of a shore battery… Wild, reckless times. He almost laughed into the damp air. It was madness, as it had been madness then.

He swung himself out and wedged his foot onto the first ratline, then, slowly and carefully, he began to climb, the big signals telescope hanging across his shoulder like a poacher’s gun. Up and up, the shrouds vibrating beneath his grip, the tarred cordage as sharp and cold as ice. He was not afraid of heights, but he respected them: it was one of the first things he could remember when he had been appointed midshipman under his uncle’s sponsorship. The seamen, who had been rough and independent although they had shown him kindness, would rush up the ratlines barefooted, the skin so calloused and hardened that they scorned the wearing of shoes, which they would keep for special occasions.

He stopped to regain his breath, and felt his body being pressed against the quivering rigging while the invisible ship beneath him leaned over to a sudden gust of wind. Like cold hands, holding him.