Man of War Read online

  MAN OF

  WAR

  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

  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

  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

  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 NICHOLAS NICASTRO

  The Eighteenth Captain

  Between Two Fires

  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

  MAN OF WAR

  the Bolitho novels: 26

  McBooks Press, Inc.

  www.mcbooks.com

  ITHACA, NY

  Published by McBooks Press, Inc. 2004

  Copyright © 2003 by Bolitho Maritime Productions

  First published in the United Kingdom by William Heinemann Ltd. 2003

  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.

  Man of war / by Alexander Kent.

  p. cm. — (Richard Bolitho novels ; 26)

  ISBN 1-59013-066-9 (hc. : alk. paper)—1-59013-091-X (trade pbk. : alk. paper)

  1. Bolitho, Adam (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History, Naval—19th century—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6061.E63M36 2003

  823’.914—dc21

  2003010375

  All McBooks Press publications can be ordered by calling

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  Please call to request a free catalog.

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  Printed in the United States of America

  9 8 7 6 5 4

  For you, Kim, with all my love.

  The Revenge comes out of the squall!

  To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven:

  A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

  A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

  A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance . . .

  A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

  ECCLESIASTES 3:1-8

  1 NEW HORIZON

  EIGHT BELLS had chimed out from the forecastle and the lower deck was cleared while the ship moved steadily, purposefully some would say, toward the widening span of land, which seemed to reach out on either bow. The moment every sailor carried in his thoughts. The landfall. This landfall. Home.

  The sails, already reduced to topsails and jibs, were hardly filling, the tough canvas still shedding moisture like rain from the final, overnight approach.

  Hills and cliffs, at first in shadow and then opening up to the watery sunshine. Landmarks, familiar to some of the older hand
s, the names of others called down by the masthead lookouts while the land gained shape and colour, dark green in some places, but the brown of winter still clinging elsewhere. For it was early March 1817, and the air was as keen as a knife.

  Eight days out of Gibraltar, a fair passage when set against the adverse winds which had challenged every mile as they had skirted the Bay of Biscay, up and around the well-remembered names of Ushant and Brest, the enemy coast for so long. It was still hard to believe that those days had changed. As had the life of every man aboard this graceful, slow-moving frigate, His Britannic Majesty’s ship Unrivalled of 46 guns, and a complement of two hundred and fifty sailors and Royal Marines.

  Or so it had been when they had left this same port of Plymouth. Now there was a sense of contained excitement, and uncertainty. There were boys who had become men while the ship had been away. They would find a different life waiting upon their return. And the older ones, like Joshua Cristie, the sailing-master, and Stranace the gunner, would be thinking of the many ships which had been paid off, hulked, or even sold to those same enemies from the past.

  For this was all they had. They knew no other life.

  The long masthead pendant lifted and held in a sudden flurry of wind. Partridge, the burly boatswain, as rotund as his namesake, called, “Lee braces there! Stand by, lads!” But even he, whose thick voice had contested the heaviest gales and crashing broadsides, seemed unwilling to break the silence.

  There were now only shipboard noises, the creak of spars and rigging, the occasional thud of the tiller head, their constant companions over the months, the years since Unrivalled’s keel had first tasted salt water; that, too, right here in Plymouth.

  And nobody alive this day would be more aware of the challenge which might now be confronting him.

  Captain Adam Bolitho stood by the quarterdeck rail and watched the land edging out in a slow and final embrace. Buildings, even a church, were taking shape, and he saw a fishing lugger on a converging tack, a man climbing into the rigging to wave as the frigate’s shadow passed over him. How many hundreds of times had he stood in this place? As many hours as he had walked the deck, or been called from his cot for some emergency or other.

  Like the last time in Biscay, when a seaman had been lost overboard. It was nothing new. A familiar face, a cry in the night, then oblivion. Perhaps he, too, had been thinking of going home. Or leaving the ship. It only took a second; a ship had no forgiveness for carelessness or that one treacherous lapse of attention.

  He shook himself and gripped the scabbard of the old sword beneath his coat, something else he did without noticing it. He glanced along his command, the neat batteries of eighteen-pounders, each muzzle exactly in line with the gangway above it. The decks clean and uncluttered, each unwanted piece of cordage flaked down, while sheets and braces were loosened in readiness. The scars of that last savage battle at Algiers, a lifetime ago or so it felt sometimes, had been carefully repaired, painted or tarred, hidden except to the eye of the true sailor.

  A block squeaked and without turning his head he knew that the signals party had hoisted Unrivalled’s number. Not that many people would need telling.

  It was only then that you remembered. Roger Cousens had been the signals midshipman. Keen, caring, likeable. Another missing face. He felt the northwesterly wind on his cheek, like a cold hand.

  A voice said quietly, “Guard-boat, sir.” No excitement. More like two men exchanging a casual remark in a country lane.

  Adam Bolitho took a telescope from another midshipman, his eyes passing over familiar figures and groups which were like part of himself. The helmsmen, three in case of any last second’s trick by the wind or tide; the master, one hand on a chart but his eyes on the land. A squad of marines paraded, ready if needed to support the afterguard at the mizzen braces. The first lieutenant, a boatswain’s mate, and two marine drummer boys who seemed to have grown since they had last seen Plymouth.

  He steadied the glass and saw the guard-boat, oars tossed, quite motionless at this distance. His jaw tightened. It was what his uncle had called marking the chart for us.

  It was time.

  Not too soon, and never too late. He said, “Hands wear ship, Mr Galbraith!”

  He could almost feel the first lieutenant’s eyes. Surprise? Acceptance? The danger was past. Formality had taken over.

  “Lee braces there! Hands wear ship!”

  “Tops’l sheets!” Seamen strained back on braces and halliards. A boatswain’s mate pushed two extra hands to add their strength as Unrivalled continued toward her allotted anchorage.

  “Helm a-lee!” The slightest hesitation, and the big double wheel began to swing over, helmsmen moving like a single body.

  Adam Bolitho shaded his eyes as the sunlight lanced between the shrouds and flapping canvas, as the ship, his ship, turned steadily into the wind.

  He saw his coxswain watching across the busy deck, waiting to call away the gig, ready for the unexpected.

  “Let go!”

  The great anchor dropped from the cathead, spray bursting up and over the beautiful figurehead.

  After all the miles, the pain and the triumph, for better or worse, Unrivalled had come home.

  Lieutenant Leigh Galbraith looked aloft to make certain that the excitement of returning to England had not allowed slackness to mar the sail drill.

  Each sail was neatly furled, the masthead pendant curling in the offshore wind, the ensign streaming above the taffrail, bright against the land, hoisted to replace a well-worn and ragged one before the dawn had broken. Marine sentries were posted to prevent unlawful visitors, traders, even some of the local whores, coming aboard when they realized that Unrivalled’s company had had little to spend their pay on over the past months. And there was talk of slave bounty, and prize-money, too.

  He watched the guard-boat approaching, an officer standing in the sternsheets shading his eyes. Their first contact with authority since leaving the Rock. Unrivalled would probably be invaded now by riggers and carpenters, some of whom might have helped to build her more than two years ago.

  He shivered again. But it was not the bite of the March wind.

  He had seen the ranks of laid-up ships, large and small, as Unrivalled had tacked slowly toward the anchorage. Proud ships, famous names. Some had already been here when they’d last left Plymouth for the Mediterranean and Algiers, eight months ago.

  Who would be next?

  He confronted it, as a senior officer might examine a subordinate’s chances. His record was good. He had taken part in every action at Algiers and before. Captain Bolitho had already recommended him for a command of his own, had put it in writing to the flag-officer here in Plymouth before they had sailed. Suppose there was nothing? He might remain first lieutenant for yet another commission, until he was passed over altogether.

  He dismissed it angrily. He had a ship, and a fine one, more than many could claim.

  He walked to the entry port and touched his hat as the officer of the guard clambered aboard.

  The visitor glanced around the upper-deck and said, “Heard all about it, your part at Algiers! Lord Exmouth was full of praise in the Gazette!” He handed Galbraith a thick, sealed envelope. “For the captain.” He inclined his head toward the shore. “From the admiral.” He looked over at some of the bustling seamen, disappointed perhaps that there were no wounded on view, no shot holes in the freshly painted black and white hull. “Another boat is coming to collect the despatches, and any mail you have to go.”

  He reached for the guard ropes and added with a grin, “Welcome home, by the way!”

  Galbraith saw him over the side, and the oars were thrashing at the water almost before he had taken his seat.

  Galbraith made his way aft, ducking without thought beneath the overhanging poop.

  Past the wardroom, empty but for a messman; everyone else would be on deck, sharing it.

  The marine at the cabin door stamped his foot and bawled, “First l
ieutenant, sir!”

  It was something you never got used to, he thought. Every Royal Marine seemed to act as if he were on a parade ground, and not within the close confines of a ship.

  The screen door opened and young Napier, the captain’s servant, in his best blue coat, stood before him.

  Galbraith took it all in at a glance. The great cabin which he had come to know so well, where they had talked, and shared their thoughts as much as any captain and first lieutenant could; and it was rare in many cases he had known. Times of anxiety and doubt. And of pride.

  Some clothing was scattered across the stern bench, the captain’s patched and faded seagoing gear, while his best frock coat hung swaying from the skylight.

  Bolitho glanced at Galbraith and smiled. “Is my gig called away?” Then, half turned, “Here, David, help me with this sleeve—a few more minutes won’t matter. The admiral will know we are anchored.”

  Galbraith hesitated, and held out the envelope. “This is from the admiral, sir.”

  Bolitho took it and turned it over in sun-browned hands.

  “The ink is scarce dry, Leigh.” But the smile had gone, and the cabin could have been empty as he picked up a knife to slit it open.

  Feet pounded overhead and blocks squealed as the boatswain’s party made ready to hoist out the gig. The required formality of a ship’s return from active service. Galbraith heard none of it, watching the captain’s fingers curl around the envelope, its broken seal shining like blood from a sharpshooter’s musket. He said, “Is something wrong, sir?”

  Adam Bolitho turned sharply, his face hidden in shadow. “I just told you . . .” He checked himself with obvious effort, as Galbraith had seen many times when they had been coming to know one another. “Forgive me.”

  He looked at Napier. “Never mind about the sleeve. They can take me as they find me.” He touched the boy’s shoulder. “And rest that leg. Remember what the surgeon told you.”

  Napier shook his head, but said nothing.

  “The ship will be moved. Repairs and general overhaul . . . as you were doubtless expecting.” He reached out as if to touch the white-painted timber, but dropped his hand to his side. “She can certainly do with it, after the battering she took at Algiers.” As if he were speaking to the ship and nobody else.

  He brushed against the hanging coat and added, “Tomorrow you will receive orders from the flag-captain. We can discuss it when I return aboard.”

  He stared at the envelope still crumpled in his hand. He must think clearly. Empty his mind, as he had forced himself to do when everything had seemed finished. Lost. Two people he had come to know so well since he had taken command of Unrivalled, just over two years ago here in Plymouth: he had been her first captain. Galbraith, strong, reliable, concerned. And the boy David Napier who had almost died, the great, jagged splinter jutting from his leg like some obscene weapon. He had been so brave, then and again later under the surgeon’s knife when the wound had become poisoned. Perhaps like himself at that age . . .