Alexander Kent - For My Country’s Freedom

Familiar smells here, which even the dockyard could not

quench. Paint and tar, hemp and close humanity. Not just another overworked brig. Tyacke had overcome his terrible disfigurement to weld her into what she was, and what she had achieved. The devil with half a face.

Would he do it all over again? Could he even consider asking him?

Tyacke was standing framed against the sloping stern windows, his shoulders bowed between the deckhead beams in the small cabin, which nevertheless stretched the whole breadth of the stern. His face was in shadow. He said, "Welcome aboard, sir." He reached for his coat with the single epaulette on its left shoulder, but Bolitho said, "No, I am here uninvited." He dropped his boat-cloak and then hung his heavy dress coat over a chair. "Let us be just two men for a while."

Tyacke reached into a cupboard and produced a bottle and two goblets.

"Took this off a smuggler, sir. Seems like good stuff."

As he turned the reflected glare from the water lit up the left side of his face. Like Avery’s it was strong, with deep crow’s-feet around the eye to mark the years at sea on so many oceans.

The other side of his face had been so burned that it was barely human. Only the eye had survived there, blue like Her-rick’s. Even his unruly hair had not escaped. Once it had been almost as dark as Bolitho’s but now it was smudged with grey, whilst directly above the burns the hair had turned pure white, like the lock covering Bolitho’s own scar, which he hated so much.

It had happened aboard the Majestic at the Battle of the Nile, as it was now called. Tyacke had been on the lower gun-deck when that burning hell had exploded around him. He had never discovered what had caused the explosion, as all the gun crews of his division had been killed. Even brave Westcott, Majestic ’ s captain, had died on that terrible day.

The brandy was strong and fiery. They clinked goblets and

Tyacke said, "A willing foe and sea room, sir! It’s all I ask!"

It was strange to be drinking the familiar toast here in the dockyard. Feet thudded across the quarterdeck only inches away, and great coils of cordage were being dragged over the planking and hoisted aloft to the rigger’s crew.

Tyacke regarded him steadily. Then he made up his mind, with a determination that was like something physical.

"They’re taking my ship-is that it, sir?"

So easily said, but it was breaking his heart. Even now he was looking around in the shadows as if to avoid the frail sunshine falling through the skylight. So many things must have happened here. So many decisions, overwhelming to some, perhaps, with only themselves against a whole ocean. But not to this man.

Bolitho said, "I am instructed that Larne will return to the African squadron and the anti-slavery patrol… eventually. I have been assured that there are no intentions to remove any of your company for service in other hulls. I can obtain it in writing from the port admiral, if you wish."

Tyacke was staring at his big sea-chest. Bolitho wondered if the gown was still hidden there, the one he had offered to Catherine after their rescue, to cover her nakedness from the staring sailors.

"I’d like that, sir. I’ve had no cause to trust a port admiral." He looked up, momentarily confused. "That was a stupid thing to say. I beg your pardon, sir!"

"I was once a frigate captain." How strange that it should still hurt, after all these years. Once a frigate captain. "I can recall only too well the constant poaching of good men, and their replacement with gallows-bait."

Tyacke poured some more brandy and waited.

Bolitho said, "I have no right to ask you, but…" He broke off as something heavy fell on to the deck above, followed instantly by Ozanne’s furious outburst, and laughter for good measure.

Laughter in a King’s ship was too often a rare sound. How can I ask him?

Tyacke was an unmoving silhouette against the thick glass.

"But you will, sir." He leaned forward, so that his face hovered in the sunshine. "Rank has no part in this."

Bolitho said, "No, none. We have done too much together. And when you took us from the sea I was already far too deeply in your debt." He thought of her in the tossing longboat, her sailor’s garb plastered to her body while they had fought the ocean and the nearness of death together.

He heard himself say quietly, "I want you to take promotion…" He hesitated. It was slipping away. "And be my flag-captain. There is none other I want." Need, need. Tell him… The words seemed to fill the cabin. "That is what I came to ask."

Tyacke stared at him. "There is no one I would rather serve, sir. But…" He appeared to shake his head. "Aye, that one word but says it all. Without your trust in me I would have given in to self-pity. But without the freedom of this vessel-without Larne- I find it too hard a choice."

Bolitho reached for his coat. Avery would be looking for him. His involvement could do nothing but harm.

He stood up and held out his hand. "I must see the port admiral." He looked at him steadily, knowing he would never forget this moment. "You are my friend, Lady Catherine’s too, and so shall it remain. I will request that your ship’s company be allowed ashore watch-by-watch."

He felt the hard firmness of their handshake, was aware of the emotion in Tyacke’s voice. Then it was over.

Lieutenant George Avery climbed from the carriage and felt the fine drizzle falling past the coach-lamps and into his face.

"Wait here-I’ll only be a moment. Then you can take us to the Boar’s Head."

It had taken longer than he had expected, or else it had got dark earlier than usual. He tugged his hat more tightly down on his forehead and turned up the collar of his boat-cloak. His stomach was making its emptiness felt, and he realised that he had not eaten since a hasty breakfast at some inn along the way.

The water of the Hamoaze beyond the dockyard was alive with riding-lights, like fireflies above their reflections. Small craft made dark shadows around them, officers coming and going, the watchful guard-boat, the unending life of a busy harbour.

Here along the wall other lanterns shone by brows and entry ports, where any novice, the unwary or a man who had taken too much to drink could easily trip over a ringbolt or some dockyard material and pitch over the edge.

He saw the brig’s two bare masts, higher than before on an incoming tide. Figures by an entry port, a lieutenant’s white-lapelled coat: probably the side party assembled to see the vice-admiral ashore.

What had they been discussing, he wondered. Old times perhaps, the rescue after the shipwreck of which Allday had told him. Poor Allday; he would be beside himself with worry over this journey. Not being in his proper place, as he would put it.

Avery recognised the thickset officer as Paul Ozanne, Larne’s second-in-command.

"I was delayed, Mr Ozanne. I hope Sir Richard is not too displeased."

Ozanne took his arm and guided him aft. He glanced at the cabin skylight, in darkness except for a solitary candle.

He said bluntly, "Sir Richard left long ago. He said to tell you he would be at the port admiral’s house."

Avery tensed. Something was wrong. Badly wrong. Otherwise…

"What has happened?" Ozanne would know. Better than anyone, he would understand his captain and companion, and his friend, too.

"He’s down there now, drinking. Worse than I ever seen him. Can’t make no sense out of him. I’m fair troubled."

Avery thought of Bolitho’s expression when he had gone to board this ship. Anxious, despairing, a different man from the one he had known at sea, or at the house in Falmouth.