Alexander Kent - The Only Victor

He thought suddenly of Ozzard. So innocuous, and yet he had known, had recognised that it was that same ship which had so brutally destroyed Hyperion. Maybe it was the ship, and not the men who crewed her? French flag, Spanish, and now if she surrendered, an addition to His Britannic Majesty's fleet. Would she, the ship remain unchanged, like something untamed?

It still sickened him to recall how San Mateo had poured her broadsides into Hyperion, regardless of the destruction and murder she was causing to her own consorts, which were unable to move clear. The ship then.

Keen walked round to face him.

"Sir?" He watched quietly. Feeling it. Sharing it. There was pride too. More than he had dared to hope for.

Bolitho seemed to rouse himself. "Has she struck yet?" Is that me? So cold, so impersonal… An executioner.

Keen answered gently, "I believe her steering is shot away, sir. But their guns are still, and I think many of her people are dead."

Bolitho said, "A glass if you please." He saw their surprise as he crossed to the opposite side and levelled the telescope on Herrick's flagship. Unmoving and heavy in the water, her masts and trailing rigging dragging from either side. Thin scarlet threads ran down from the upper deck scuppers to the littered surface and the ship's unmoving reflection. As if she herself were bleeding to death. He felt his heart leap as he saw the tattered ensign still trailing from the poop where someone had braved hell to nail it there. Beyond Benbow, the other vessels drifted to no purpose. Spectators, victims; waiting for it all to end.

He called sharply, "Prepare all divisions to fire, Captain Keen! " There was no reply, and he could almost feel them holding their breath. "If they do not strike, they will die." He swung round. "Is that clear?"

Another voice; another still alive. Bosanquet called, "Brig Larne is closing, sir! "

Perhaps his meticulous interruption helped. Bolitho said, "Call away my barge and ask the surgeon to report to me. Benbow will need help. Your first lieutenant would be a great asset." He shook himself and walked to his friend. "My apologies, Val. I had forgotten."

Cazalet had fallen to the first exchange. A ball had all but cut him in half while he had been sending men aloft to attend repairs.

They were cheering again; it went on and on and Bolitho believed he could see men in Nicator's yards waving and capering, their voices lost in distance. Like great falling leaves the two French flags drifted down from San Mateo 's rigging and men stood back from her guns, silently watching like mourners.

Keen said harshly, "She's struck! " He could not contain his relief.

Bolitho saw his barge lifting and then dipping over the nettings, and knew that Keen had been dreading the order to re-open fire, flags or not.

Allday touched his hat. "Ready, Sir Richard." He studied him anxiously. "Shall I fetch a coat?"

Bolitho turned to him and winced as the sunlight pricked at his eye.

"I have no need for it."

Julyan the sailing-master called, "What about your hat, Sir Richard?" He was half-laughing, but almost sobbing with relief. Men had died right beside him. He was safe-one more time. Another step up the ladder.

Bolitho smiled through the smoky sunshine. "You have a son, I believe? Give it to him. It will make a good yarn, one day."

He turned away from the surprise and gratitude in the man's face and said, "Let us finish this."

It was a silent crossing, with only the creak of oars and the bargemen's breathing to break the stillness.

As Benbow's great shadow loomed over them, Bolitho did not know where he would find the strength to meet whatever lay ahead. He pinched the locket beneath his filthy shirt and whispered, "Wait for me, Kate."

Followed by the others, he clambered up the side. Shot holes pitted the timbers from gangway to waterline, rigging, some with corpses trapped within it like weed, tugged beneath the sea, pulling her down.

Bolitho climbed faster. But a ship's heart could be saved. He saw faces staring at him from open gunports, some driven half-mad, others probably killed at the outbreak of the battle.

He reached the quarterdeck, so bare now without the main and mizzen to protect it.

He heard Black Prince's surgeon calling out orders, and another boat already hooking alongside with more willing hands; but at this moment he was quite alone.

The centre of any fighting ship, where it all began and ended. The shattered wheel with the dead helmsmen scattered like bloodied bundles, even caught in attitudes of shock and fury when death had marked them down. A boatswain's mate who had been kneeling to fix a bandage to the flag lieutenant's leg, then both of them killed together by a hail of cannister shot. A sailor still bending on a signal when he had fallen, and the halliards were torn from his hands as the mast had gone careering overboard.

Propped against the compass box with one leg bent beneath him was Herrick. He was barely conscious, although Bolitho guessed that his pain was deeper than any gunshot wound.

He held a pistol in one hand, and raised his head, holding it to one side as if the broadsides had rendered him deaf.

"Ready, Marines! We've got 'em on the run! Take aim, my lads! "

Bolitho heard Allday mutter, "God, look at it."

The marines did not stir. They lay, from sergeant to private, like fallen toy soldiers, their weapons still pointing towards an invisible enemy.

Allday said sharply, "Easy, sir."

Bolitho stepped over an out-thrust scarlet arm with two chevrons upon it and gently took the pistol from Herrick's hand.

He passed it to Allday, who noted that it was in fact loaded and cocked.

"Rest easy, Thomas. Help is here." He took his arm and waited for the blue eyes to focus and recover their understanding. "Listen to the cheering! The battle's o'er-the day is won! "

Herrick allowed himself to be raised to a more comfortable position. He stared at the splintered decks and abandoned guns, the dead, and the scarlet trails which marked the retreat of the dying.

As if speaking from far away he said thickly, "So you came, Richard."

He uses my name and yet he meets me as a stranger. Bolitho waited sadly, the madness and the exhilaration of battle already drained from him.

Herrick was trying to smile. "It will be… another triumph for you."

Bolitho released his arm very gently and stood up, and beckoned to the surgeon. "Attend to the RearAdmiral, if you please." He saw the dead marine corporal's hair blowing in the breeze, his eyes fixed with attention as if he were listening.

Bolitho looked at Jenour, and past him to the waiting, listless ships.

"I think not, Thomas. Here, Death is the only victor."

It was over.

THE RELENTLESS bombardment of Copenhagen by day and night brought its inevitable conclusion. On the fifth of September, General Peyman, the governor of the city, sent out a flag of truce. Terms were still to be agreed, if possible with some honour left to the heroic defenders, but all fighting was to end.

While Bolitho and his ships took charge of their prizes and did what they could for the many killed and wounded, the terms of Copenhagen were decided. The surrender of all Danish ships and naval stores, and the removal of any other vessel not yet completed in the dockyard, and the occupation by Lord Cathcart's forces of The

Citadel and other fortifications for a period of six weeks while these tasks were carried out, formed the basis of the armistice. It was thought by some that even the skills and experience of the English sailors would be insufficient to complete this great operation within the allotted time, but even the most doubtful critics were forced to show admiration and pride at the Fleet's achievements.