With All Despatch Read online

  WITH ALL DESPATCH

  Selected Historical Fiction Published by McBooks Press

  BY ALEXANDER KENT

  The Complete Midshipman Bolitho

  Stand Into Danger

  In Gallant Company

  Sloop of War

  To Glory We Steer

  Command a King’s Ship

  Passage to Mutiny

  With All Despatch

  Form Line of Battle!

  Enemy in Sight!

  The Flag Captain

  Signal–Close Action!

  The Inshore Squadron

  A Tradition of Victory

  Success to the Brave

  Colours Aloft!

  Honour This Day

  The Only Victor

  Beyond the Reef

  The Darkening Sea

  For My Country’s Freedom

  Cross of St George

  Sword of Honour

  Second to None

  Relentless Pursuit

  Man of War

  Heart of Oak

  BY PHILIP MCCUTCHAN

  Halfhyde at the Bight of Benin

  Halfhyde’s Island

  Halfhyde and the Guns of Arrest

  Halfhyde to the Narrows

  Halfhyde for the Queen

  Halfhyde Ordered South

  Halfhyde on Zanatu

  BY DEWEY LAMBDIN

  The French Admiral

  The Gun Ketch

  A King’s Commander

  Jester’s Fortune

  What Lies Buried

  BY ALEXANDER FULLERTON

  Storm Force to Narvik

  Last Lift from Crete

  All the Drowning Seas

  A Share of Honour

  The Torch Bearers

  The Gatecrashers

  BY JULIAN STOCKWIN

  Mutiny

  Quarterdeck

  Tenacious

  Command

  The Admiral’s Daughter

  BY JAN NEEDLE

  A Fine Boy for Killing

  The Wicked Trade

  The Spithead Nymph

  BY DUDLEY POPE

  Ramage

  Ramage & The Drumbeat

  Ramage & The Freebooters

  Governor Ramage R.N.

  Ramage’s Prize

  Ramage & The Guillotine

  Ramage’s Diamond

  Ramage’s Mutiny

  Ramage & The Rebels

  The Ramage Touch

  Ramage’s Signal

  Ramage & The Renegades

  Ramage’s Devil

  Ramage’s Trial

  Ramage’s Challenge

  Ramage at Trafalgar

  Ramage & The Saracens

  Ramage & The Dido

  BY FREDERICK MARRYAT

  Frank Mildmay OR

  The Naval Officer

  Mr Midshipman Easy

  Newton Forster OR

  The Merchant Service

  Snarleyyow OR

  The Dog Fiend

  The Privateersman

  BY V.A. STUART

  Victors and Lords

  The Sepoy Mutiny

  Massacre at Cawnpore

  The Cannons of Lucknow

  The Heroic Garrison

  The Valiant Sailors

  The Brave Captains

  Hazard’s Command

  Hazard of Huntress

  Hazard in Circassia

  Victory at Sebastopol

  Guns to the Far East

  Escape from Hell

  BY JAMES DUFFY

  Sand of the Arena

  The Fight for Rome

  BY JOHN BIGGINS

  A Sailor of Austria

  The Emperor’s Coloured Coat

  The Two-Headed Eagle

  Tomorrow the World

  BY R.F. DELDERFIELD

  Too Few for Drums

  Seven Men of Gascony

  BY JAMES L. NELSON

  The Only Life That Mattered

  BY C.N. PARKINSON

  The Guernseyman

  Devil to Pay

  The Fireship

  Touch and Go

  So Near So Far

  Dead Reckoning

  The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower

  BY DOUGLAS W. JACOBSON

  Night of Flames

  BY DOUGLAS REEMAN

  Badge of Glory

  First to Land

  The Horizon

  Dust on the Sea

  Knife Edge

  Twelve Seconds to Live

  Battlecruiser

  The White Guns

  A Prayer for the Ship

  For Valour

  BY DAVID DONACHIE

  The Devil’s Own Luck

  The Dying Trade

  A Hanging Matter

  An Element of Chance

  The Scent of Betrayal

  A Game of Bones

  On a Making Tide

  Tested by Fate

  Breaking the Line

  BY BROOS CAMPBELL

  No Quarter

  The War of Knives

  Alexander Kent

  WITH ALL DESPATCH

  the Bolitho novels: 8

  McBooks Press, Inc.

  www.mcbooks.com

  ITHACA , NY

  Published by McBooks Press 1999

  Copyright © 1988 by Highseas Authors Ltd.

  First published in the United Kingdom by Hutchinson 1988

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any

  portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  without the written permission of the publisher. Requests for such

  permissions should be addressed to McBooks Press, Inc.,

  ID Booth Building, 520 North Meadow St., Ithaca, NY 14850.

  Cover painting by Geoffrey Huband.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kent, Alexander.

  With all despatch / by Alexander Kent.

  p. cm. — (Richard Bolitho novels ; 8)

  ISBN 0-935526-61-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  1. Bolitho, Richard (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Great

  Britain—History, Naval—18th century—Fiction. I. Title.

  II. Series: Kent, Alexander. Richard Bolitho novels ; no. 8.

  PR6061.E63W58 1999

  823’.914—dc21

  99-19232

  CIP

  All McBooks Press publications can be ordered by calling toll-free 1-888- BOOK S 11 (1-888-266-5711).

  Please call to request a free catalog.

  Visit the McBooks Press website at www.mcbooks.com.

  Printed in the United States of America

  9 8

  Therefore with courage bold, boys, let us venture;

  Like noble hearts of gold now freely enter

  Your names on board the fleet, all friends forsaking,

  That we may soon complete this undertaking.

  —ANON.

  1. A KING ’S OFFICER

  REAR -ADMIRAL Sir Marcus Drew stood to one side of a window and idly watched the comings and goings of people and carriages outside the Admiralty. Like the other windows in his spacious room it was tall and broad and enabled him to distinguish the passers-by from the more regular visitors who daily, hourly even, thronged the Admiralty corridors in search of employment. Captains, young and not so young, some of whose exploits had once brought pride and hope to an England at war. Seeing the most persistent applicants, and having his subordinates turn the majority away, took much of the admiral’s time. He studied some puddles in the road left by a sudden shower. Now they shone like pale blue silk, reflecting the April sky while the clouds receded across London.

  For this was spring 1792 , another year
of uncertainty and threats of danger from across the Channel. But you would not think as much to watch the ladies in their frivolous gowns and bright colours, with their carefree, posturing escorts.

  Two years back, when news of the bloody revolution in France had hit London like a broadside, many had feared that the butchering, the murderous mobs and their guillotines would somehow spread their horror across the Straits of Dover. Others, naturally enough perhaps, had found comfort in their old enemy’s terrible change of circumstances.

  It might have been better if England had put aside the rules of war for once and attacked the French when they were caught in their own turmoil. But that had not even been considered.

  Drew turned away, his day, and the thought of dining later on in St James’s with some whist afterwards, turned sour.

  Their Lordships of Admiralty expected miracles if they imagined that the fleet, left to rot in harbours and estuaries for most of the ten years since the American Revolution, could suddenly be rebuilt to anything approaching its old strength. Thousands of seamen and marines had been thrown on the beach, unwanted by a nation for which so many had died or been maimed in the King’s name. Officers, too, left on half-pay if they were lucky, begging for berths in the merchant service, trying to return to the sea which had been their chosen life.

  Rear-Admiral Drew was nevertheless content with his own lot. There was even the promise of a mistress on a permanent basis now that he had managed to obtain an appointment for her husband, a young captain, in the East Indies.

  He stared hard at a huge painting on the opposite wall. It depicted Admiral Vernon’s seventy-gun flagship Burford with all flags flying, her broadside battering a Spanish fortress, “The Iron Castle” at Porto Bello, at almost point-blank range. It was how the public, the romantics, liked to imagine a sea-fight, he thought. No blood, no terror of a surgeon’s blade, just the majesty of battle.

  He permitted himself a small smile. Vernon’s fight had been some half-century ago, but the ships had changed hardly at all since then. No, he decided, his appointment here at the Admiralty was better than any quarterdeck. He would have his mistress, and his elegant London rooms; he would, of course, need to be seen on Sundays in the family pew on his Hampshire estate, with his wife and children.

  He returned to the ornate table and sat down without enthusiasm. His clerk had placed his papers in order. The clerk’s duty was to interrupt him after a pre-arranged time during each interview. It never stopped.

  Soon the French would declare war. One could hardly describe this uneasy pause on the fringe of the Terror as little better anyway. As always England would be unprepared. Ships and men. Ships and men.

  His gaze fell on the name on the uppermost sheet. Richard Bolitho Esquire. It looked much-handled, and Drew wished that someone else could take his place today. Richard Bolitho, who had distinguished himself in the American Revolution, and a man luckier than most, had held two highly successful commands since, the last being the frigate Tempest in the Great South Sea. His final battle with the frigate Narval and supporting schooners had been legendary. The French Narval had been seized by the notorious pirate Tuke after an uprising within her own company. The Bounty mutiny, then the horrendous news from Paris had given Tuke mastery of the barely defended islands. Only Bolitho’s command had stood between him and total control of the rich trade routes from the Indies.

  And now Bolitho was here. He had, to all accounts, visited the Admiralty daily for several weeks. Like most professional seaofficers Drew knew a great deal about Bolitho. About his old Cornish background, and his fight against the shame which had cost his family dearly. His only brother Hugh had deserted from the navy after killing a fellow officer in a duel, and had then gone to seek his fortune in America; even worse, as a lieutenant, then the captain of a Revolutionary prize frigate.

  No amount of courage and honour could completely wipe that stain away. And he had paid his debt in full, Drew thought as he turned over the papers. Wounded to the point of death; and then after the fight with Tuke’s Narval Bolitho had been struck down by fever. He had not been employed for two years and, if half of what Drew had heard in the elegant rooms around St James’s was true, he had nearly died many times during his fight to live.

  Their Lordships must have a reason for their change of heart, the admiral decided—although on the face of it, it would seem better if Bolitho turned down this appointment, and be damned to the consequences.

  Drew’s eyes sharpened as he recalled the rumour about Bolitho’s attachment for a government official’s lovely wife. She had died of fever and exposure after some desperate journey in an open boat. Drew covered the papers with a leather folder. An official’s lovely wife. That would make a change from some of the dull, earnest faces he had seen across this table, with their high-sounding requests in the name of duty or the King, as the fancy took them.

  He picked up a small brass bell and shook it impatiently. Get it over with. In the event of another war against France, without the standards of monarchy to guide the old enemy, there might be no room for yesterday’s heroes. Admiralty agents in Paris had reported seeing whole families of alleged gentlefolk being dragged through the streets to lie beneath the blade of Madame Guillotine: even the children were not spared.

  Drew thought of his serene estate in Hampshire and suppressed a shudder. It could not, must not happen here.

  The clerk opened the door, his eyes downcast like a well-rehearsed player.

  “Captain Richard Bolitho, Sir Marcus!”

  Drew gestured expressionlessly to a chair which faced the table. As a captain he had taught himself the art of inscrutability, just as he had learned the skill of missing nothing.

  Richard Bolitho was thirty-five but looked younger. He was tall and of slim build, and Drew observed that his white-lapelled coat with the buttons and gold lace of a post-captain hung just a bit too loosely on his frame. As he sat in the chair, Drew could sense his tension in spite of his efforts to conceal it. A shaft of sunlight played across his face and hair, a loose lock above the right eye barely hiding the great scar received when he had been hacked down as a youthful lieutenant in charge of a watering party on some island or other. The hair was black, like a raven’s wing, and the eyes which watched him steadily were grey, and reminded Drew of the Western Ocean.

  Drew came straight to the point. “I am pleased to see you, Bolitho. You are something of an enigma, as well as one of England’s heroes.” The grey eyes did not blink and Drew felt off-balance. Irritated, too, that he and not Bolitho had been suddenly put on the defensive. After all, Bolitho was the one who had been begging for a ship— any ship.

  He began again. “Are you feeling returned to fair health?”

  “Well enough, Sir Marcus.”

  Drew relaxed again. He was in command. He had seen the sudden anxiety which even Bolitho’s impassive gravity could not contain.

  Drew continued, “You will know this tale of old, Bolitho. Too many captains, and not yet enough vessels to receive them. There are fleet transports and supply vessels, of course, but—”

  Bolitho’s eyes flashed. “I am a frigate captain, Sir Marcus—”

  The admiral raised one hand so that the frilled lace spilled over his cuff.

  He corrected, “ Were a frigate captain, Bolitho.” He saw the pain cross his face, the deeper lines which seemed to sharpen his cheekbones. The fever might still lurk there. He said smoothly, “And a fine one to all accounts.”

  Bolitho leaned forward, one hand grasping the hilt of his old sword so tightly that the knuckles were as white as bones.

  “I am recovered, Sir Marcus. In God’s name, I thought when I was admitted—”

  Drew stood up and crossed to the window again. He had no sense of command or victory now. If anything he felt ashamed.

  He said, “We need men, Bolitho. Seamen, those who can reef and steer, fight if need be.”

  He turned briefly and saw Bolitho staring down at the old sword. Ano
ther part of the story, he thought. It had been in the family for generations. Had been intended for Bolitho’s brother. His disgrace and treachery had killed their father as surely as any pistol ball.

  “You are being appointed to the Nore. As captain-in-charge of some small craft.” He waved his hand vaguely. “We have had many deserters from the Nore—they see smuggling as a more profitable profession. Some have even decamped to the Honourable East India Company, although I—”

  Bolitho remarked coldly, “John Company has a record of treating its people like men, Sir Marcus, not as some will use them.”

  Drew turned and said sharply, “It is all I can offer. Their Lordships believe you to be suitable for it. However—”

  Bolitho stood up and held his sword tightly against his hip.

  “I apologise, Sir Marcus. It is not of your doing.”

  Drew swallowed hard. “I do understand.” He tried to change the subject. “You will have none of your past company with you from Tempest, of course. She came home well before you and is now in service with the Channel Fleet. Tempest, and before that the— Unicorn, I believe?”

  Bolitho watched him in despair. Doing his best. He heard himself reply, “ Undine, sir.”

  “Well, in any case—” It was almost over.

  Bolitho said quietly, “I shall have my coxswain. He is enough.”

  Drew saw one of the gilt door-handles drop; the clerk was right on cue.

  Bolitho added, “It is history now, maybe forgotten entirely. But one ship, my ship, was all His Britannic Majesty’s navy had in the whole ocean to meet with and destroy Tuke.” He turned and appeared to be studying the great painting, hearing perhaps the true sounds of war, feeling the pain of a ship under fire. He continued, “I fell that day. It was then that the fever rendered me helpless.” He faced Drew again and smiled. The smile did not touch his grey eyes. “My coxswain killed Tuke. So you could say that he saved the islands all on his own—eh, Sir Marcus?”

  Drew held out his hand. “I wish you well. My clerk will attend your orders. Be patient, Bolitho—England will need all her sailors soon.” He frowned. “Does that amuse you, sir?”

  Bolitho took his cocked hat from the hovering clerk.

  “I was thinking of my late father, Captain James as he was to all who knew him. He once said much the same words to me.”

  “Oh, when was that?”

  Bolitho withdrew, his mind already grappling with the brief outline of his commission.