Alexander Kent: For My Country’s Freedom

"Shall I have a word?" He expected a blunt rebuff.

Instead Ozanne said roughly, "I’d be obliged, but watch your step. There might be a squall or two."

Avery nodded in acknowledgement. It was something Allday had once said to him as a warning.

It was so dark between decks that he almost fell. Larne was small and cramped after a frigate, especially after the old Cano-pus in which he had been serving when Sillitoe had written to him about the possibility of an appointment to flag-lieutenant.

"Who is that out there? Lay aft if you must!"

He called, "Avery, sir. Flag-lieutenant!" He saw the flickering candle and Tyacke’s disfigured face turning away as he groped for a bottle.

"Send you, did he?"

He sounded angry, even dangerous. Avery replied, "I thought Sir Richard was aboard, sir."

"Well, you can see that he’s bloody well not, so you can leave!" Just as suddenly, his voice changed. "Not your fault. It’s nobody’s damned fault. It’s this bloody war, what it’s done to us." He was muttering to himself as he opened the bottle and slopped something into another glass. Some of it splashed unheeded on to the table. Avery could smell it, and thought of his empty stomach.

"’Fraid it’s only Geneva. I’ve seen off the cognac." He gestured vaguely. "Shift yourself. Can’t see you well enough from here."

Avery stood up, ducking to avoid the beams. The poor bastard. He doesn’t want me to see that side of his face.

Tyacke said thickly, "You limped. Of course, I’d forgotten. You were wounded, weren’t you? And then there was the court martial." He repeated, "Not your fault."

"Anything I can do, sir?"

Tyacke did not seem to hear. "What a lot we are, eh? I’ve seen his coxswain-Allday, right?"

Avery nodded, afraid to break the spell.

"I’ve seen him often enough, when he thinks Sir Richard isn’t looking, holding his chest sometimes, hardly able to draw breath ’cause of what the Dons did to him." His voice was louder, and Avery imagined Ozanne by the skylight, listening, hoping.

"Then there’s his old friend, Rear-Admiral Herrick." He spoke with unexpected bitterness. "Now he’s lost a bloody arm for his troubles!" He downed a full glass and almost choked. "Sir Richard must enjoy helping lame ducks."

"He’s a fine man, sir. I’ll not stand by and hear him slandered!"

Tyacke was on his feet in a flash. He seized Avery’s lapels and dragged him across the table so that they were inches apart.

"Of course he’s a fine man! Don’t you damned well tell me what to say or think!"

Avery did not try to move or release himself. He could see Tyacke’s wounded face, the blue eye bright in the candlelight, isolated by pain. But almost worse, there were tears running across the melted skin.

Tyacke was shaking him with gentle firmness. "Look at me. Look… at… me."

Avery said quietly, "Tell me, sir." At any moment Ozanne would come aft. Then it would be too late.

Tyacke released his grip and patted his arm, then he sat down heavily again. In a flat, toneless voice he said, "He asked me to be his flag-captain." He shook with silent laughter. "Can you imagine that, man? How could I accept?"

"You think he asked you out of pity? He would never put his people at risk for that, even for a dear friend’s sake." He waited, anticipating another outburst. But Tyacke was very still, except for the painful breathing and the play of shadows across his face.

Avery remembered what had driven Allday to confide so desperately in him about Bolitho’s injured eye, and how privileged he had felt to be entrusted with the secret. To share it with another now seemed tantamount to a betrayal.

But the cold grip around his heart would not release him. There was so much at stake. Too much.

He said, "You spoke of our misfortunes just now…"

Tyacke shook himself. "I meant no disrespect to you."

"None taken." He swallowed the raw gin and said, "We are not the only ones."

"Damn me, I know that."

When Avery remained silent he leaned towards him again, and for a moment the flag-lieutenant believed he had gone too far.

Then he said, almost inaudibly, "Not Sir Richard. Surely you don’t mean him?"

Avery stood up very carefully. "He is losing the sight of one eye."

Tyacke’s hand went up to his face, as it must have done when the bandages had been finally removed. It must have seemed a miracle that he had not lost his eye.

"He said nothing to me about it."

Avery wanted to stay but knew he must leave. "He’s very like you, sir. A proud man above all else. So it was not pity you see." He heard Ozanne breathing heavily in the passageway. "He needs you, now more than ever. Would you have him beg?"

He could feel Ozanne’s relief as he brushed past him, afraid that Tyacke would summon him back and begin all over again. Also, he knew he was going to be sick.

He reached the carriage and managed to gasp, "Port admiral’s house, if you please!"

In the tiny cabin Lieutenant Ozanne was watching Tyacke, who was trying to refill his glass.

He asked wearily, "What happened?"

Tyacke peered at him and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

"Secret, Paul. If I tell you, then it’s not." His voice was very slurred.

The bottle rolled unheeded on to the deck, and Tyacke would have followed it but for his powerful first lieutenant.

"I don’t know who said what, James Tyacke, but I was a mite worried about you!"

He gave a great sigh and snuffed out the candle.

Then, with Tyacke’s coat over one arm, he stepped outside and heard the rain on the companion ladder.

For a while longer Ozanne, who had been at sea since his boyhood, looked around and listened to the watch below crowding into their messes for their evening meal. There would be much discussion below deck about the proposed shore leave. Such generosity was unheard of.

He touched the solitary gold epaulette on Tyacke’s coat and said quietly, "I think we’re losing you, James, and we’ll be the poorer for it."

Afterwards he knew he had been speaking to-and for-the whole ship.

Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune strode across the thick carpet, his face alight with a warm smile as he seized Bolitho’s hand.

"My God, Sir Richard, you make my heart sing to see you so well and rested! I have to admit to a certain nervousness at the prospect of meeting you for the first time since my appointment. Those far-off days when you were my captain and I was a bumbling midshipman are hard to shake off!"

The handshake, like the smile, was genuine, Bolitho thought. Bethune was not quite what he had expected, and it was true that they had not met since his first command, the sloop-of-war Sparrow in ’82. A lifetime ago.

The round-faced midshipman with the dark freckles was no more. Instead here was a flag-officer who must be in his forties, but who looked years younger. Bright-eyed, lean and confident, a far cry from many senior officers who had languished in the halls of Admiralty He had the same infectious smile, but there was an air of confidence and authority about him which Bolitho guessed would be a great attraction to ladies of the Court, or at the many receptions he would have to attend in his new capacity.

Bolitho felt a touch of envy and cursed himself for his own vanity. He had followed Bethune’s progress to fame in the Gazette from time to time. The turning point had come when he had been in command of a small 26-gun sixth-rate. Sailing alone, he had fallen in with two big Spanish frigates, either of which should have been able to force him to submit. Instead, after a spirited engagement, Bethune had run one enemy ashore and captured the other with hardly a man lost.