Alexander Kent - For My Country’s Freedom

He strode aft and stared up at the reefed topgallants and courses, the admiral’s flag and masthead pendant whipping out in the wind with the racing grey clouds beyond them.

He could hear the scrape of grindstones as Duff, the gunner, put his men to work sharpening cutlasses and boarding-axes. It could not have been very different before Crйcy and Agincourt, he thought. He saw acting-lieutenant Blythe in earnest conversation with Protheroe, the fourth lieutenant. He still wore his midshipman’s white patches, but in a King’s ship the word would have travelled like wildfire. Blythe’s one of them now! Tyacke smiled grimly. Or soon would be, if he was prepared to listen for a change.

Allday passed him by, resting a cutlass on his hand to find the right balance. Some of the hands spoke to him but he did not seem to hear.

At the foot of the quarterdeck ladder Allday gripped the handrail while Indomitable buried her stem in a long Atlantic roller, hurling spray heavily over the figurehead, the prancing lion with bared claws.

"What are you doing here?"

His son, a cutlass thrust through his belt, looked at him and shrugged. "The boatswain put me with the after-guard."

Allday tried to make a joke of it. "Old Sam probably knew

you were useless as a topman! Not so many ropes to play with down aft!" He was troubled, all the same. The quarterdeck in any ship was a target for marksmen and swivels; it always had been. The chain of command began and ended here. Many of the Royal Marines served in the after-guard too, their boots and equipment making them useless for work aloft.

Allday folded his arms. "We may be fighting some of your lot afore long, my lad, so be warned."

Bankart regarded him sadly. "I wanted to live in peace, that was all. Cap’n Adam was the first to understand. Why can’t you? There always has to be a flag, or one side or t’other. I hoped to find peace in America."

Allday said gruffly, "When we gets home, my son, just remember what it’s cost some of us. My wife Unis has already had one man killed aboard the old Hyperion, and her brother John lost a leg in the line with the 31st Huntingdonshires. You’ll find plenty of good men who’ve been maimed in Falmouth where Sir Richard’s found work for them."

"And what of you-" He hesitated. "Father?"

"I’ve more’n any man could hope for. Unis, and now my little Kate. They’ll both be waiting for me. Now there’s you. John," his eyes crinkled. "Three Johns all told, eh?"

Bankart smiled, strangely proud of this big man who, for once, was at a loss for words.

They both gazed up at the ragged clouds as the masthead lookout called, "Reaper in sight to the sou’-east, sir!"

The frigate must be right in the spreading cloak of silver. The first sighting of the day.

Allday saw Tyacke with Daubeny the officer-of-the-watch, conferring together, looking along the upper deck and gangways as more light spilled over the sea’s edge like water over a dam.

He heard Daubeny call, "Aloft with you, Mr Blisset, and take a glass, you idiot!"

The bright-eyed midshipman swarmed up the ratlines like a monkey and Allday murmured, "Cheeky little bugger, that one! Asked me what the navy was like in my day!"

They both fell silent as Blisset’s piping voice floated down from the crosstrees.

"Deck there! From Woodpecker repeated Reaper, Sail in sight to the sou-west!"

Tyacke called, "My respects to the admiral, Mr Scarlett, and…"

"I heard, Captain Tyacke." Bolitho waited for the deck to level off and then walked unhurriedly to the quarterdeck rail, where he and Tyacke formally touched hats to one another.

Allday watched. It always unnerved him, even though he knew Sir Richard would never suspect it from his "oak."

He turned to speak with his son, but Bankart was already being urged aft by the squat boatswain, Sam Hockenhull.

Allday felt the soreness in his chest come alive like a warning. It never left him completely, nor did it allow him to forget the day he had been cut down by Spanish steel, and Bolitho had been on the point of surrendering to save him.

Always the pain.

Tyacke looked for another midshipman. "Acknowledge the signal, Mr Arlington." He turned to Bolitho and waited for the inevitable. Bolitho glanced across the motionless figures, and those who peered up at the lookout’s lofty perch as if they expected it to prove a mistake.

He saw Allday looking at him. Remembering, or trying to forget? He smiled, and saw Allday raise one big hand like a private salute.

"When you are ready, Captain Tyacke."

Tyacke turned on his heel, his mutilated face stark in the first pale rays of silver light.

"Beat to quarters and clear for action, if you please, Mr Scarlett!"

Avery was here too, with the new senior midshipman Carleton, the replacement for Blythe who had taken the first vital step on his ladder of promotion.

Avery said, "Make to Reaper, repeated Woodpecker. Close on Flag."

He glanced at Bolitho and saw him smile briefly to the captain. Like a last handshake. He thought of his sister in her shabby clothes, the way she had embraced him on that final day.

The drummers and fifers scrambled into line, dragging their pipeclayed belts into place, their sticks crossed beneath their noses as they watched their sergeant.

"Now!"

The drums rolled and rattled, drowning even the scamper of bare feet as the men ran to obey, to clear the ship from bow to stern, opening her up into two great batteries.

Bolitho watched without expression. Even right aft beneath this deck, there would be nothing to impede the seamen and marines once action was joined. All gone: Catherine’s gifts, the green-bound Shakespeare sonnets, the wine-cooler which she had had engraved with the Bolitho crest and family motto, For My Country’s Freedom.

He could recall his father tracing that same motto with his fingers on the great fireplace in Falmouth… It would be cold in Cornwall now, the wind off the sea, the anger of breakers beneath the cliffs. Where Zenoria had thrown herself away and had broken Adam’s heart… Everything carried below. A few portraits perhaps, wardroom chairs, a metal box with individual money-pouches, a family watch, a lock of somebody’s hair.

"Cleared for action, sir!" Scarlett sounded breathless, although he had not moved from this place.

And Tyacke’s laconic comment. "Nine minutes, Mr Scarlett! They do you proudly, sir!"

Bolitho touched his eye. Praise indeed from Tyacke. Or was it Scarlett’s troubles that concerned him more?

"Deck there! Sail in sight to the nor’-west!" Then Midshipman Blisset’s reedy voice. "’Tis Zest, sir!"

Tyacke smiled. "I had forgotten all about that shrimp! Acknowledge, but tell Zest to remain on station."

Avery saw Bolitho nod to him and he touched the signals midshipman on the arm. He jumped as if he had been hit by a musket-ball.

"Hoist battle ensigns, Mr Carleton!" How do I feel? He lifted and dropped the hanger in its scabbard at his hip and saw some of the quarterdeck gun crews staring at him. I feel nothing. Only the need to belong. He glanced at Bolitho, his profile so calm as he watched the horizon for the first sign of the enemy. To serve this man like no other.

"Deck there! Second sail to the sou’-west! ’Nother man-o’-war, sir!"

Avery expected he might see surprise, even dismay in the profile turned towards him. If there was anything he might recognise, it was relief. He repeated his thoughts in his mind. Like no other.

Bolitho stood watching the sea, and his men while they waited for their next orders.