For My Country's Freedom Page 18

  Adam tried to discover his innermost feelings. But there were none. Did that mean there would be no tomorrow?

  ‘Orders? Carry on with the punishment.’ He smiled and was suddenly very young. ‘Then you may beat to quarters. The rest you know.’

  He turned away as the drums began to roll again and the frozen images came to life.

  A voice called out as the lash cracked down, ‘Woodpecker’s acknowledged, sir!’

  Adam watched the punishment without emotion. They were committed. I committed them.

  The instrument.

  * * *

  11

  Like Father, Like Son

  * * *

  Adam Bolitho returned to his place by the quarterdeck rail and looked along the full length of his command. The deck had been sanded around each eighteen-pounder so that the gun-crews would not slip and fall in the heat of battle. Equally, sand soaked up the blood if the enemy’s iron came crashing inboard.

  Lieutenant Hudson strode aft and touched his hat. ‘Ship cleared for action, sir.’ His face was full of questions.

  Adam said, ‘Well done, Mr Hudson. Nine minutes. They are improving.’

  He stared up at the clear sky and felt his heart quicken as the masthead pendant licked out in the breeze. This time it did not fall back limply to the mast. The wind was getting up. Very slightly, but if it held… He shut the ifs and buts from his mind.

  Instead he said, ‘You are probably asking why I did not order the nets to be spread.’ How open and vulnerable it looked without them. The nets were usually prepared as the ship was cleared for action, mainly to protect the gun-crews from falling wreckage but also to be joined to the loosely-slung boarding nets, to trap enemy attackers until they could be driven off with pikes and musket fire. Any sign of either would warn the Americans that they were ready to fight.

  Likewise, he had told Hudson to keep the marines out of the fighting tops where their bright uniforms would shout the same readiness for action.

  Hudson listened to his brief explanation, not knowing whether to find hope in it or to disbelieve it.

  Adam said, ‘Unity has all the sea-room in the world. Like us, she depends on surprise. My guess is she will keep to wind’rd and try to cripple us at long range. Then she will attempt to board us.’

  Hudson said nothing. He could see the dilemma that confronted the captain. If the Americans were allowed on board there would not be enough men to fight them off: too many were away in Anemone’s recently-taken prizes. However, if the captain showed his hand too soon, Unity’s massive broadside might dismast them even as she remained safely beyond accurate fire from Anemone.

  Adam raised his telescope and studied the other ship with complete concentration. She had set more sail and had left her small consort astern. Commodore Beer would not be able to see the convoy as yet, nor would he know it had been ordered to disperse, and devil take the hindmost.

  He said, ‘Full broadside. Double-shotted for good measure. Go to the gun-captains yourself, although most of them will not need to be told.’

  He glanced at Lieutenant Vicary by the foremast. Like the third lieutenant, George Jeffreys, he had barely seen any real action at close quarters. He thought of Unity’s guns. They would soon know all about it.

  He felt Starr beside him and spread his arms to receive the coat with its gold epaulettes. He had been so proud when he had been posted, just as he had known how pleased Bolitho would be.

  It had been fate. Golden Plover running herself on the African reef, and all hope given up for his uncle and Catherine. He swallowed hard. Valentine Keen had been reported lost in that wreck as well.

  How it haunted him, the night it had happened. Zenoria had come to him to share their grief, and out of that shared grief they had discovered a love they had hidden from one another and from the rest of the world.

  He touched his breeches and felt her glove against his leg. Could see her eyes as she had gazed into his when he had reached up to the carriage window at Plymouth.

  ‘All guns loaded, sir!’

  He thrust the memories away: they could not help him now.

  ‘Keep the hands out of sight. Just a few idlers gaping on the larboard gangway will suffice. A natural thing, eh? ‘Tis not every day we see a true symbol of freedom!’

  Joseph Pineo, the old sailing master, nudged one of his three helmsmen, but nobody else moved or spoke.

  Adam dragged out his watch and flicked open the guard. Beyond it he saw one of the young midshipmen taking huge breaths, his eyes watering as he stared at the other ship plunging over the water.

  Suppose I am mistaken? That there had been no declaration of war even though he and many others had expected it? Two ships passing, and nothing more?

  He said, ‘With this puff of extra wind I intend to come about and engage him on the starboard side. He may anticipate it, but he cannot prevent it.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘We shall soon see if all our drills and exercises have had any value.’

  He looked again at his ship, a lingering gaze full of questions, Hudson thought; memories too. Missing faces. Pride and fear, comradeship. He bit his lip. If the worst happened, some of the pressed men might try to surrender. He realised with a start that he was unarmed except for his hanger, which his father had presented to him when he had joined Anemone.

  ‘This will serve you well, my boy, as will your fine young captain!’ What would his father think now?

  He saw the captain raise his glass to study the other ship, to gauge her approach, the moment of embrace.

  Adam said, ‘I see him, Dick. It is Nathan Beer right enough. Be ready to put the best marksmen aloft. There may not be much time.’ Hudson was about to hurry away when something in the captain’s voice made him turn back.

  ‘If I fall, fight the ship with everything you have.’ He looked up at the White Ensign streaming from the peak. ‘We’ve done so much… together.’

  As he walked around the upper deck Hudson was struck not by the tension, but by the air of resignation. Anemone was fast. If she could break off contact she might easily lose the Yankee when dusk came. Where was the point in fighting and dying for a handful of poxy merchantmen? Hudson was young, but he had heard that sentiment expressed often enough.

  He paused by Vicary, who said quietly, ‘She’s big.’

  ‘Aye. But Captain Bolitho is just as experienced as this Commodore Beer I keep hearing about.’ He clapped him on the arm and felt him jump.

  Vicary glanced at the nearest gun-crew as they crouched below the gangway behind their sealed port. ‘Are you not afraid?’

  Hudson considered it, his eyes never leaving the oncoming pyramid of sails. ‘I’m more afraid of showing it, Philip.’

  Vicary held out his hand, as if they had just met in a street or country lane in England. ‘Then I’ll not let you down, Richard.’ He stared beyond the vibrating shrouds to the empty blue sky. ‘Though I fear I’ll not see another day.’

  Hudson returned to the quarterdeck, his friend’s words hanging in his mind like an epitaph.

  Adam said to him, ‘Pass the word. Just as we discussed it. We will come about and lay her on the starboard tack. Do they all understand?’

  ‘Those who count, sir.’

  Surprisingly, Adam grinned, his teeth very white in his face. ‘By God, Dick, we shall need everybody, even that oaf Baldwin, stinking of rum in the sick-bay though he might be!’

  Hudson loosened his hanger and murmured, ‘Good luck, sir.’

  Adam licked his lips and said, ‘I am as dry as dust!’ Then he stooped slightly to stare along the quarterdeck rail, using it like a ruler as Unity’s long jibboom appeared around the tightly-packed hammock nettings for the first time.

  ‘Ready ho! Put the helm down!’

  ‘Helm’s a-lee, sir!’

  Even as the ship tilted to the thrust of wind and rudder Adam found time to see one of the marines, kneeling beside the hammocks with his long Brown Bess propped beside him, turn to stare at his capt
ain.

  ‘Open the ports!’

  As one, the gunport-lids were hoisted on both sides of the ship, the gun-crews already ready at the tackle falls, staring aft for the order.

  ‘Run out!’

  Like squealing pigs each carriage was hauled smartly to the side, the black muzzles pointing at empty sea and sky while Anemone continued to bear round across the wind.

  ‘Mainsail haul!’

  Adam strode across the tilting deck as the waiting marines swarmed up the shrouds and ratlines to the fighting tops on each mast.

  We did it! We did it!

  Instead of being on Anemone’s quarter, the big frigate was sliding past the bowsprit, her sails in confusion as she prepared to follow suit. She was running up two additional ensigns. Beer had not been completely unprepared.

  ‘Steady! Hold her!’

  ‘Steady as she goes, sir! Sou’-west by west!’

  Adam stared until his eyes felt raw. ‘On the up-roll!’

  Without taking his eyes from Unity he could picture each gun-captain looking aft, watching his raised fist, every man with his trigger-line bar-taut.

  ‘Fire!’

  The ship shook as if she had run aground, as the guns hurled themselves inboard on their tackles and smoke funnelled through each of the starboard ports.

  All tension was gone in an instant. Whooping like madmen, the gun-crews threw themselves into the drill over which they had cursed and sweated for months.

  ‘Stop your vents! Sponge out! Load! Run out!’

  The gun was God. Nothing else mattered, and each man in a crew had learned the hard way.

  Arms reached up through the drifting smoke. ‘Ready!’

  But Adam was watching the other ship. The range was about a mile and a half, too far for certain accuracy. But he had seen Unity’s sails jerking or carrying away as the broadside had hissed over the water and raked her like a deathly wind.

  Adam raised his fist. It was working. Three shots every two minutes.

  ‘Fire!’

  Wreckage splashed around Unity’s bows as she continued to come around. Smaller weapons were firing from her forecastle and Adam glanced at the main-course as a black-rimmed hole smacked through the canvas.

  Now Unity was lying across the starboard quarter and continuing to turn, gathering speed as her topmen fought to set the royals on her for extra speed. Not that she needed it.

  ‘Fire!’

  Adam grasped the rail as gun by gun the American began to retaliate. With so many pressed men in the English ships, Beer had probably been surprised by Anemone’s agility and confidence.

  He winced as he felt the iron smashing into the hull or through the rigging overhead. The boatswain and his crew were running this way and that, marlin spikes and spare cordage already being put to good use. Unity still held the advantage. If Anemone stood away downwind to obtain more distance, Beer would send a full broadside through her stern. If their positions remained the same it was only a matter of time, gun for gun.

  ‘Fire!’

  Anemone’s one advantage was that, by being downwind, her guns could be elevated to the maximum. Every ball was finding a target; and there were wild cheers as the American’s forecastle was blasted into splinters, and one of her bow-chasers was hurled aside on to its crew.

  The deck shuddered violently as the quarterdeck nettings were cut to pieces, and scorched and slashed hammocks were flung across screaming marines who were tossed aside like bloody rags.

  Adam pulled a seaman to his feet. ‘Get to it, lad!’ But the man stared at him emptily as if his mind had completely cracked.

  Hudson, hatless, his hanger already drawn, hurried aft. ‘Grapeshot, sir!’

  ‘Aye.’ Adam wiped his mouth, although it was so dry he could barely swallow. ‘He’s a confident one not to use his heavier metal at this range!’

  The ship lurched again and he saw two guns upended, tendrils of blood running across the deck where the crews had been cut down.

  ‘Stand to!’ The third lieutenant clapped his hands to his chest and fell kicking to the deck. Vicary jumped forward to take his place. ‘Fire as you bear!’

  The eighteen-pounders recoiled down the side. Each gun-captain seemed able to ignore the chaos and death, men pulped by incoming shots while they crouched at the guns on the disengaged side.

  Adam did not even blink as two marines fell from the maintop to join the crawling, pleading wounded and those who were already beyond aid.

  Hudson yelled, ‘Get those guns working, Mr Vicary! Lively now!’

  The lieutenant turned and peered aft through the thickening smoke, like a drowning man reaching for a line.

  ‘Load! Run out!’ He staggered as shots hammered into the lower hull, and more rigging fell on to the gangways to add to the destruction and chaos.

  Vicary looked up and stared with disbelief as the American’s upper yards and punctured sails rose above the fog of gunfire like a cliff. Hudson retched and turned away as Vicary fell, his fingers clutching what a charge of canister had found and destroyed. There was no face left. Even in this murderous hell Hudson heard his mother’s voice. Such an English face. Now, in a split second, he had become nothing.

  ‘Sir! The Cap’n’s hit!’ It was Starr, Adam’s loyal coxswain.

  ‘Fetch the surgeon!’

  Hudson knelt beside him and gripped his hand. ‘Easy, sir! He’ll soon be here!’

  Adam shook his head, his teeth bared against the pain. ‘No – I must stay! We must fight the ship!’

  Hudson shouted to the sailing master, ‘Let her fall off two points!’ His brain cringed to the constant crash of shots hitting the hull. But all he could think of was the captain. He saw Starr pulling open the coat with the bright epaulettes, and swallowed as he saw the blood pumping out of Adam’s side, covering him, encircling him like something foul and evil.

  Another great splintering crash, and the roar of trailing rigging, as the whole of the foremast went over the side taking sails, broken planking and screaming men with it into the sea.

  Cunningham bent down and applied a dressing, which within seconds was as bloody as his butcher’s apron. He looked at Hudson, his eyes wild and afraid. ‘I can do nothing! They’re dying like flies down below!’ He ducked as more balls ripped overhead or exploded into lethal splinters against one of the guns.

  Adam lay quite still, feeling his Anemone being torn apart by the unwavering bombardment. His mind kept fading away, and he had to use all his remaining strength to bring it back. There was little pain, just a numbing deadness.

  ‘Fight the ship, Dick!’ The effort was too much. ‘Oh, dear God, what must I do?’

  Hudson stood up, his limbs very loose, unable to believe he was unmarked amongst so much suffering and death.

  He raised his hanger and hesitated. Then with one slash he severed the ensign’s halliards, and in the sudden silence that followed he saw the flag running out to the full extent of the line until it floated above the water like a dying bird.

  Then there was cheering, deafening, it seemed, from Anemone’s bloodied and splintered decks.

  Hudson stared at the blade in his hand. So much for glory. Nobody would use it to taunt them in defeat. Blindly he flung it over the disengaged side, then knelt down again beside his captain.

  Adam said vaguely, ‘We held them off, Dick. The convoy should be safe now in the dark.’ He gripped Hudson’s hand with surprising strength. ‘It was… our duty.’

  Hudson felt the tears stinging his eyes. The sunshine was as bright as before. There was more movement as the great frigate came alongside, and armed seamen swarmed across the deck as Anemone’s company threw down their weapons. Hudson watched as the men he had come to know so well accepted defeat. Some were downcast and hostile; others greeted the Americans with something like gratitude.

  An American lieutenant called, ‘Here he is!’

  Hudson saw the massive figure climbing up past the abandoned wheel. Even the sailing master had falle
n. Always a quiet man, he had died just as privately.

  Nathan Beer looked around at the carnage on the quarterdeck.

  ‘You in charge?’

  Hudson nodded, remembering Adam Bolitho’s description of this man. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Is your captain still alive?’ He stood staring down at Adam’s pale features for several seconds. ‘Take him across, Mr Rooke! Get our surgeon to see him right away.’

  To Hudson he said, ‘You are now a prisoner of war. There is nothing to be ashamed of. You had no chance.’ He watched as Adam was carried away on a grating. ‘But you fought like tigers, as I would have expected.’ He paused. ‘Like father, like son.’

  The deck gave a lurch and someone called, ‘Better clear the ship, sir! That was an explosion!’

  The boarding party were hastily rounding up their prisoners and dragging some of the wounded to the ship alongside.

  Starr, the captain’s coxswain, walked past. He touched his hat to Commodore Beer, and for only a second, looked at Hudson.

  ‘They’ll not take his ship away from him now, sir.’

  The deck was tilting over. Starr must have prepared Anemone for this all on his own. Now she would never fight under an enemy flag.

  And I shall never fight under mine.

  As darkness covered the misty horizon, and the Unity still lay hove-to to carry out makeshift repairs, Anemone drifted clear and began to settle down stern first, the lovely figurehead holding on to her last sunset. How he had wanted it. He thought of Nathan Beer’s quiet comment, and did not understand.

  Like father, like son.

  He looked at his hands as they began to shake uncontrollably.

  He was alive. And he was ashamed.

  Every moment roused a fresh thrust of agony, pain which defied even the need to breathe, to think. Sound welled and faded, and despite his inner torment Adam Bolitho knew he was in constant danger of losing consciousness, even as his reeling mind told him he would not live if he did.

  He was on board the ship which had defeated him, but it was not like that at all. Voices cried and sobbed, it seemed on every side, although somehow he knew the awful din came from elsewhere as if through a great door, muffled and full of anguish like the abyss of hell itself.