Alexander Kent - A Tradition of Victory

Then he said, “Pull hard, lads. We’ve a whole ocean to choose from.”

“North-west by north, sir! Full and bye!”

Bolitho glanced up as the maintopsail shook violently in protest. Odin was sailing closer to the wind than he had imagined possible. A heavier ship like Benbow would have been in real difficulties by now, he thought.

Inch said, “I’ve put my best lookouts aloft, sir.”

Bolitho watched the water creaming away from the lee side as the sixty-four heeled over to the strengthening breeze. He could see the white patterns reaching out across the surface, when only a short while ago there had been darkness. Faces stood out too, and the uniforms of the marines looked scarlet and not black as they had appeared in the night.

“Deep nine!” The leadsman’s chant floated aft.

Bolitho glanced briefly at M’Ewan, the master. He appeared calm enough, although nine fathoms was no great depth beneath Odin’s keel.

He saw the land for the first time, a ragged shadow to starboard which marked the entrance of the bay.

Inch observed, “Wind’s steady, sir.” He was thinking of his ship’s safety this close inshore.

Bolitho watched Stirling and the ship’s signal midshipman with their assistants, surrounded by flags to suit every demand.

Without turning his head, Bolitho knew Allday was standing just a few paces away, arms folded as he stared fixedly ahead beyond the gilded figurehead and bowsprit as the ship thrust towards the top of the bay.

“By the mark seven!”

Inch stirred uneasily. “Mr Graham! We will alter course two points. Steer nor’-west by west!”

Graham raised his speaking trumpet. There was no need for silence any more. Either the invasion craft were here or they were not.

“Hands to the braces, Mr Finucane!”

Inch walked aft and consulted the binnacle as the ship paid off and then steadied on her new course. It was a small alteration but would keep the keel out of danger. Above the decks the sails hardened and filled as they too responded to the change.

“By the mark ten!”

The midshipman-of-the-watch coughed into his hand to hide his relief, and several of the marine marksmen glanced at each other and grinned.

“Deck there! Anchor lights fine on th’ weather bow!”

Bolitho followed Inch and his first lieutenant to the starboard side.

Dawn was minutes away. If they had kept to their original plan of attack they would be miles away, with every French ship and coastguard on full alert.

He tried not to think of Browne and what must have happened, but concentrated everything on the paler shadows and winking lights which must be the anchorage.

A distant boom echoed and re-echoed around the bay, and Bolitho knew the sound was being thrown back by the land.

A signal gun, a warning which was already too late, and had been from the moment they had slipped past Remond’s sleeping ships.

With the wind thrusting almost directly at the starboard side, and the ship tilting over to a steep angle, the guns would have all the help they required for the first broadsides.

Already the gun captains were waving their fists and their crews were working feverishly with tackles and handspikes.

Inch called, “On the uproll, Mr Graham, when I give the word!”

“Take in the mains’l!”

As the great sail was brought up to its yard Bolitho was reminded of a curtain being raised. There was sunlight too, probing out from the land where night mist and wood smoke drifted above the water like low cloud.

And there lay the anchored vessels of the invasion fleet.

For a moment Bolitho imagined the frail light was playing tricks, or that his eyes were deceiving him. He had expected a hundred such craft, but there must have been three times that number, anchored in twos and threes and filling the elbow of the bay like a floating town.

There was a medium sized man-of-war anchored nearby, a cut-down ship of the line, Bolitho thought, as he peered through his telescope until his eye throbbed.

The crowded vessels looked at peace through the silent lens, but he could picture the pandemonium and panic there must be as Odin sailed purposefully towards them. It was impossible, but an enemy ship was right amongst them, or soon would be.

Inch said, “Phalarope’s on station, sir.”

Bolitho trained his glass towards the frigate and saw her exposed carronades, blunt-muzzled and ugly, run out in a long black line. He thought he could see Pascoe too, but was not certain.

“Signal Phalarope. Take station astern of the Flag.”

He ignored the bright flags darting up to the yards and turned his attention back to the enemy.

He heard a trumpet, far-off and mournful, and moments later saw the guard-ship running out her guns, although as yet she had not made any attempt to up-anchor or set sail.

In his excitement Inch took Bolitho’s arm and pointed towards the shore.

“Look, sir! The tower!”

Bolitho trained his telescope and saw a tower above the headland like a sentinel. At the top a set of jerking semaphore arms told their story better than shouted words.

But if Browne had destroyed the semaphore station on the church, there would be no one to see and relay the message to Remond’s squadron. And even if the same message was passed in the other direction, all the way to Lorient, it was too late to save this packed assembly.

Odin’s jib-boom had passed the end of the anchored vessels now, which presented an unbroken barrier some half a mile away.

Smoke swirled above the guard-ship, and the rolling cash of gunfire showed that the French were now wide awake.

A few balls hurled spray into the air close abeam and brought cries of derision from Odin’s gun crews.

Graham watched as Inch slowly raised his sword above his head.

“On the uproll! Steady, my lads!”

A stronger gust of wind sighed into Odin’s topsails so that she heeled over and showed her copper in the pale sunlight. It was all Inch needed. The sword slashed down.

A midshipman who had been clinging to an open hatchway above the lower gun-deck yelled, “Fire!”

But his shrill voice was lost in the devastating roar of the upper battery’s eighteen-pounders.

Bolitho watched the waterspouts lifting amongst and beyond the anchored craft. The spray was still falling as the lower battery’s thirty-two-pounders added their weight of iron to the destruction. Bolitho saw fractured planking and whole areas of decking flung into the air, and when the smoke cleared he realized that several of the smaller craft were already heeling over. In the telescope’s lens he could see a few boats pulling clear, but in some cases the crews on the landward side of the anchorage had at last cut their cables and were trying to work clear.

“Run out!”

Again the trucks creaked and squealed up the slanting deck and the muzzles thrust through their ports.

“Stand by! As you bear!”

The sword came down again. “Fire!”

Slower this time, as each gun captain waited and took more careful aim before jerking at his trigger line.

The French guard-ship was loosening her topsails, but had fouled two of the drifting invasion craft. She fired nevertheless, and two balls hit Odin just above the waterline.

Bolitho saw smoke around the guard-ship, and realized one of the other craft had caught fire. It might even have been caused by a blazing wad from one of the guard-ship’s own guns. He could see the running figures, tiny and futile in distance, as they hurled water from the beakhead and tried to free their ship from the flames. But the entanglement of rigging and the persistent strength of the offshore wind were too much for them, and Bolitho saw flames leaping from hull to hull and eventually setting light to the guard-ship’s jibsails.