Alexander Kent - THE INSHORE SQUADRON

Herrick grinned. 'I've already put in my bid.'

A figure flitted past like a shadow. It was Loveys, the surgeon. Bolitho felt a chill dart up his spine as he remembered the pain, the intent stare in Loveys' deepset eyes as he had probed into the torn flesh.

The squadron surgeons would be in demand in hours rather than days, he thought grimly.

He said, 'I am going to my cabin. Perhaps you can join me presently.'

Herrick nodded. 'I'd like to clear for action when the people have been fed, sir.'

Bolitho agreed. He had left it to each individual captain to prepare for battle when he thought fit. Herrick would take it badly, none the less, if one of them beat the flagship to it.

The cabin looked larger than usual, and Bolitho realized that Ozzard had had most of the furniture carried below the waterline. It always made him feel uneasy. A sense of committal and finality.

Allday had taken down the bright presentation sword and was cleaning the other one with a soft cloth.

`I've arranged supper for you, sir. Nothing heavy.' Bolitho sat down and stretched out his legs. 'Doesn't the prospect of another battle worry you?'

'It does, sir.' He peered along the blade and nodded with satisfaction. `But where your flag goes the others will follow and the enemy will be the thickest. That's far more to worry

about than a few bloody noses!'

Bolitho allowed Allday to continue with his own private routine. The courier brig would be in England now with any luck. A day or so on the roads and his letter would eventually reach Herrick's home in Kent where Belinda was staying.

Ozzard entered with his tray covered by a cloth.

He said, `They are about to dear for action, sir.' He sounded outraged by the disturbance it would cause. `But Mr Wolfe has assured me that this cabin will remain as it is until you have finished.' He placed the tray on the table.

'Salt beef again, I'm afraid, sir.'

`Bolitho smiled, recalling Damerum's mention of his London grocer. Mr Fortnum? Perhaps he would go there with Belinda one day.

Far away, as if aboard another ship, he heard the cry, growing louder as deck above deck the boatswain's mates and petty officers dashed through the hull.

`All hands! All hands! Clear for action!'

Benbow seemed to shiver as hundreds of feet pounded along her decks, as if she herself was stirring to give battle.

Bolitho looked at the tough meat and Ozzard's attempt to make it appear palatable.

He heard himself say, `Looks well, Ozzard. I'll take a glass of madeira with it.'

Allday walked from the cabin, his huge, outdated cutlass beneath his arm. He would take it to the gunner's grindstone himself. Trust it to a seaman or ship's boy and it would come back looking like a woodsman's saw.

He had heard Bolitho's comment. So like the man, he thought. At a time like this he would eat that rock-hard meat rather than hurt Ozzard's feelings.

He strolled between the lines of guns, through the hurrying figures and bawling warrant officers.

Allday had seen it all before, and had often been one of these bustling shapes.

But as Bolitho's personal coxswain he was above it, unreach able afloat or ashore until fate decided otherwise.

Tom Swale, the boatswain, gave Allday a great gap-toothed grin as he passed.

`Busy, John?'

Allday nodded companionably. `Aye, Swain, busy.'

It was a game and they both knew it… Without it they would be useless when the guns began to speak.

One by one Bolitho's ships up-anchored as soon as it was completely dark, and like ghostly shadows moved slowly away from the rest of the fleet.

Bolitho rested both hands on the quarterdeck rail and strained his eyes directly ahead. He could see the pale uprights of the masts, the bulky webs of rigging stretching up into the night, but little else. Relentless and Lookout were invisible, as were most of the pulling boats as they moved ahead and abeam of their great charges like wary hounds.

A chain of men lined each of Benbow's gangways ready to pass back soundings from the leadsmen in the bows to Grubb and his assistants by the helm.

The wind hissed and slapped playfully at the reefed topsails, and against the ship's hull Bolitho heard the gentle sluice of water, almost the only sign that Benbow was under way.

There was a harder shadow to larboard, the Swedish coast creeping out towards them as if it and not the ships were moving.

'By th' mark ten, sir!'

Bolitho heard Herrick whispering with Grubb, someone's pencil squeaking on a slate as the depth was recorded.

Bolitho knew that the Indomitable, next astern, was very dose, but was afraid to climb to the poop and seek her out. It was as if he would miss something, or by turning away he might leave a gap in his own defences.

Surely the Danish batteries would be expecting something like this? He knew it was unlikely but, nevertheless, found it hard to accept. No admiral in his right mind would attempt to lead a fleet through the narrows under thosepowerful guns, so what would be the point of sending a mere handful like Bolitho's?

It had sounded all right in the cabin, but as the brooding shoreline hardened still further towards the larboard bow it was less easy to digest.

He thought of the leading boat pulling well ahead of the men-of-war. Busy with lead and line, watching for a prowling guard-boat, listening for an unusual sound. It must be like a black desert. He wondered which lieutenant was in charge. He had not asked. If he needed their trust, he must trust them also.

The boats had been cast off an hour before they had reached the start of the narrows. The oarsmen would be getting tired now, more conscious of their fatigue than the need for absolute vigilance.

He stepped back from the rail, cursing himself for his anxieties. It was done.

Herrick stepped out of the gloom. 'Seems fairly quiet, sir.'

`Yes. My guess is that the Danes have made such massive preparations for a frontal attack on the port that they are as reluctant as we are to move in the darkness.'

A few more hours and Nelson's ships would be roused and under way, ready to follow the same route through the Sound Channel and then head for an anchorage at Hven Island where they could lick their wounds before the final assault on the Danish forts and blockships.

The heads along the larboard gangway bobbed together with sudden urgency until the last man in the chain called, 'Shoal on the larboard bow, sir!'

Herrick snapped, 'Bring her up a point, Mr Grubb.'

Bolitho resisted the temptation to join some of the ninepounder crews at the nettings as they peered down into the darkness. It must have been Benbow's second cutter which had seen and signalled the danger.

Sails rustled together as the yards were trimmed, and Bolitho looked across to the opposite beam, wondering if any sleepy sentry had noticed the cutter's shaded lantern as the warning was flashed to the flagship.

But he doubted if the Danes were very different from Englishmen. It took a lot to get a sentry to rouse his officer and possibly the whole garrison merely because he thought he had seen something. Whole campaigns, let alone one fight, had been lost and won because of military protocol.

He pictured Wolfe somewhere up there in the bows. The first lieutenant had no particular duty for the moment. His experience, his hoard of skills gained in every sea in the world, was enough. He might see or feel something. Sense some dangerous shallows perhaps which even the leadsmen had missed.

Herrick murmured, 'How many of these miniature gunboats d'you reckon we'll find, sir?'

'The exact number is not known, Thomas. But more than twenty, and that is too many. Vice-Admiral Nelson intends to anchor eventually at the Middle Ground Shoal before he doses with the Danish ships. He will do it, no matter what we discover. But if those galleys can work through his line of battle, it could be disastrous.'