Alexander Kent - Honour This Day

They walked beneath the poop and down the first com-pamonway to the lower gundeck. The ports were still sealed, but most of those on the larboard side had been blasted open, their guns hurled from their breechings. There were few dead here. Mercifully Keen had cleared the deck to storm the Spaniard alongside. But there were some. Lolling figures, eyes shtted as if because of the smoky sunlight, watching as they passed. Half a man, chopped neatly in two by a single ball even as he had run with his sponge to the nearest gun. Blood everywhere; no wonder the sides were painted red, but it still showed itself. Lieutenant Pnddie, second-in-command of the lower gundeck, lay face down, his back pierced with long splinters which had been blasted from the planking. He was still holding his sword.

Down another ladder, to the orlop, where Bolitho had to duck beneath each low beam. There were still one or two lanterns alight here. The dead lay in neat rows covered by sail-cloth. Others remained around the bloodied table, where they had died while they waited. Above their heads a heavy object fell to the deck, and then after a few seconds began to rumble along the scarred planking, like something alive.

Allday whispered, 'In the name of Christ!'

Bolitho looked at him. It must be a thirty-two pounder ball which had broken free of its garland and was now rolling purposefully down towards the bows.

They paused by the last hatchway and Allday dragged back the cover. It was one of the holds, where Ozzard always kept his vigil when the ship was in action.

Bolitho dropped to his knees and peered down while Allday lowered a lantern beside him.

He had expected to see water amongst the casks and crates, the chests and the furniture, but it was already awash from side to side. Barrels floated on the dark water, and lapped around a marine who had been clinging to a ladder when he had died. A sentry put to guard against terrified men running below in battle. He might have been killed by one of them, or like Ozzard had been trying to find refuge from the hell on deck.

The deck quivered again, and he heard heavy fragments booming against the carpenter's walk where more of his men had been trapped and drowned.

The orlop, and the holds and magazines beneath it, places which had remained in total darkness for all of Hyperion's thirty-three years. When they had returned the old ship to service after a hasty refit, it was more than likely the dockyard had missed something. Probably down there, where the first heavy broadside had smashed into the hull, there had still been some rot, unseen and undiscovered. Gnawing at the timbers and frames as far down as the keelson. San Mateo 's last bombardment had dealt the mortal blow.

Bolitho watched Allday shut the hatch and made his way back to the ladder.

So many memories would go with this ship. Adam as a midshipman; Cheney whom he had loved in this same hull. So many names and faces. Some would be out there now in the battered squadron where they waited to secure the prizes after their victory. Bolitho thought of them watching Hyperion, remembering her perhaps as she had once been, while the younger ones like Midshipman Spnngett… He cursed and held his hand to his eyes. No, he was gone too, with so many others he could not even remember.

Allday murmured, 'I think we'd better get a move on, sir.'

The hull shook once more, and Bolitho thought he saw the gleam of water in the reflected light, creeping through the deck seams; soon it would cover the blood around Mmchm's table.

They climbed to the next deck, then threw themselves to one side as a great thirty-two pounder gun came to life and squealed down the deck, as if propelled by invisible hands. Load! Run out! Ftre» Bolitho could almost hear the orders being screamed above the roar of battle.

On the quarterdeck once more Bolitho found Keen and Jenour waiting for him.

Keen said quietly, The ship is cleared, Sir Richard.' His eyes moved up to the flag, so clean in the afternoon sunlight.

'Shall I have it hauled down?'

Bolitho walked to the quarterdeck rail and grasped it as he had so many times as captain and now as her admiral.

'No, if you please, Val. She fought under my flag. She will always wear it.'

He looked at the Spanish Asturtas. He could see much more of her damage, her side pitted by Hyperion's own broadsides. She appeared much higher in the water now.

Bolitho looked at the sprawled figures, Parns's outflung arm with the pistol he had chosen as his final escape.

They had succeeded in driving off and scattering the enemy. Looking at the drfting ships and abandoned corpses, it seemed like a hollow victory.

Bolitho said, 'You are my ship.'

The others stood near him but he seemed quite alone as he spoke.

'No more as a hulk. This time with honour!' He swung away from the rail. 'I am ready.'

It took another hour for Hyperion to disappear. She dipped slowly by the bows, and standing on the Spaniard's poop Bolitho heard the sea rushing through the ports, sweeping away wreckage, eager for the kill.

Even the Spanish prisoners who gathered along the bulwarks to watch were strangely silent.

Hammocks floated free of the nettings, and a corpse by the wheel rolled over as if it had been only feigning death.

Bolitho found that he was gripping his sword, pressing it against the fan in his pocket with all his strength.

They were all going with her. He held his breath as the sea rolled relentlessly aft towards the quarterdeck until only the poop, and the opposite end of the ship, his flag above the sinking masthead, marked her presence.

He remembered the words of the dying sailor.

Hyperion cleared the way, as she always had.

He said aloud, 'There'll be none better than you, old lady!'

When he looked again she had gone, and only bubbles and the scum of flotsam remained as she made her last voyage to the seabed.

Keen glanced at the stricken survivors around him and was inclined to agree.

Bolitho paused near the edge of the cliff and stared hard across Falmouth Bay. There was no snow on the ground, but the wind which swept the cliffs and hurled spume high above the rocks below was bitterly cold, and the low dark-bellied clouds hinted at sleet before dusk.

Bolitho felt his hair whipping in the wind, drenched with salt and rain. He had been watching a small brig beating up from the Helf ord River, but had lost sight of her in the wintry spray which blew from the sea like smoke.

It was hard to believe that tomorrow was the first day in another year, that even after returning here he was still gripped by a sense of disbelief and loss.

When Hyperion had gone down he had tried to console himself that she had not made a vain sacrifice, nor had the men who had died that day in the Mediterranean sunshine.

Had the Spanish squadron been able to join with the Combined Fleet at Cadiz, Nelson might well have been beaten into submission.

Bolitho had transferred to the frigate Tybalt for passage to Gibraltar and had left Herrick in command of the squadron, although most of the ships would need dockyard care without delay.

At the Rock he had been stunned by the news. The Combined Fleet had broken out without waiting for more support, but outnumbered or not, Nelson had won a resounding victory; in a single battle had smashed the enemy, had destroyed or captured two-thirds of their fleet, and by so doing had laid low any hope Napoleon still held of invading England.

But the battle, fought in unruly seas off Cape Trafalgar, had cost Nelson his life. Grief transmitted itself through the whole fleet, and aboard Tybalt where none of the men had ever set eyes on him, they were shocked beyond belief, as if they had known him as a friend. The battle itself was completely overshadowed by Nelson's death, and when to Bolitho eventually reached Plymouth he discovered it was the same wherever he went.