A Tradition of Victory Read online

  “Never!” The word had drained the strength from him, and it had taken several moments before Beauchamp had continued,

  “The French will force the most advantageous terms for a settle-ment. To obtain them they are already filling their channel ports with invasion craft and barges, and the troops and artillery to fill them. Bonaparte hopes to frighten our people into a covenant advantageous only to him. When his wounds are healed, his ships and regiments replenished, he will tear up the treaty and attack us. There will be no second chance this time.”

  After another pause, Beauchamp had said in a dull voice, “We must give our people confidence. Show them we can still attack as well as defend. It is the only way we’ll even the odds at the tables. For years we’ve driven the French back into their ports or fought them to surrender. Blockade and patrol, line-of-battle or single ship actions, it is what has made our Navy great. Bonaparte is a soldier, he does not understand these matters, and will take no advice from those who know better, thank God.”

  His voice had grown weaker, and Bolitho had almost decided to call for assistance for the small, limp figure at the table.

  Then Beauchamp had jerked his body upright and had snapped, “We need a gesture. Of all the young officers I have watched and guided up the ladder of advancement, you have never failed me.” A wizened finger had wagged at him, like part of a memory of the man Bolitho had recalled so vividly from their first meeting. “Well, not in matters of duty anyway.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Beauchamp had not heard him. “Get as many of your ships to sea as soon as possible. I have written instructions that you are to assume overall command of the blockading squadron off Belle Ile. Further vessels will be obtained for your convenience just as soon as my despatches are delivered to the port admirals.” He had fixed Bolitho with an unwinking stare. “I need you at sea. In Biscay.

  I know I am asking everything, but then, I have given all I have to offer.”

  The picture of the high-ceilinged room at the Admiralty, the view from the windows of bright carriages, colourful gowns and scarlet uniforms seemed to blur as Bolitho’s mind came back to the cabin in Benbow.

  He said, “Admiral Sir George Beauchamp is ordering me to sea, Thomas. No arguments, minimum delays. Unfinished repairs, short-handed, outstanding powder and shot, I shall need to know everything to the last detail. I suggest a conference of all the captains, and I shall draft a letter to Captain Inch which must be sent immediately by courier to his ship at Chatham.”

  Herrick stared at him. “It sounds urgent, sir.”

  “I—I am not sure.” Bolitho recalled Beauchamp’s words. I

  need you at sea. He looked at Herrick’s troubled face. “I am sorry to burst into your new happiness like this.” He shrugged. “And to Biscay of all places.”

  Herrick asked gently, “When you went back to Falmouth, sir …”

  Bolitho looked through the stern windows and watched a local bumboat edging towards the Benbow’s counter. Food and drink to be examined and bartered for. The small luxuries in a sailor’s life.

  He replied, “The house was empty. It was as much my fault as anyone’s. Belinda had gone away with my sister and her husband. My brother-in-law wanted to show her a newly purchased estate in Wales.”

  He swung round, unable to conceal the bitterness, the despair.

  “After the Baltic and that hell at Copenhagen, who would have expected I should be sent to sea again within weeks?”

  He looked around the quiet cabin as if listening for those lost sounds of battle. The despairing cries of the wounded, the jubi-lant cheers of the Danish boarders as they had swarmed up through these very stern windows to die on Major Clinton’s bloodied bayonets.

  “How will she see it, Thomas? What use are words like duty and honour to a lady who has already given and lost so much?”

  Herrick watched him, scarcely daring to breathe. He could see it all exactly. Bolitho hurrying back to Falmouth, preparing his explanations, how he would describe his obligations to Beauchamp even if it turned out to be a fruitless gesture.

  Beauchamp had given his health in the war against France.

  He had selected young men to replace older ones whose minds had been left behind by a war which had expanded beyond their imagination.

  He had offered Bolitho his first chance to command a squadron. Now he was dying, his work still unfinished.

  Herrick knew Bolitho better than himself. So that was why Bolitho had come to the ship. The house had been empty and with no way of telling Belinda Laidlaw what had been decided.

  “She’ll despise me, Thomas. Someone else should have gone in my place. Rear-admirals, especially junior ones, are two a penny.

  What am I? Some kind of god?”

  Herrick smiled. “She’ll not think anything like that, and you know it! We both do.”

  “Do we?” Bolitho walked past him, his hand brushing his shoulder as if to reassure himself. “I wanted to stay. But I needed to do Beauchamp’s bidding. I owe him that much.”

  It had been like that old dream again. The house empty but for the servants, the wall above the sea lined with wild flowers and humming with insects. But the principal players were not there to enjoy it. Not even Pascoe, and that was almost as unnerving. He had received a letter of appointment to another ship within hours of Bolitho leaving for London.

  He smiled even as he fretted about it. The Navy was desperate for experienced officers, and Adam Pascoe was equally eager to take the first opportunity which would carry him to his goal, a command of his own. Bolitho pushed the anxiety from his mind. Adam was just twenty-one. He was ready. He must stop worrying about him.

  The sentry’s muffled voice came through the door. “Admiral’s coxswain, sah! ”

  Allday stepped into the cabin and smiled broadly at Bolitho.

  To Herrick he gave a cheerful nod. “Captain Herrick, sir.” He laid a large canvas bag on the deck.

  Bolitho slipped into his uniform coat and allowed Ozzard to pull his queue over the gold-edged collar. Only one good thing had happened, and he had almost forgotten it.

  “I shall shift my flag to Styx, Thomas. The sooner I contact my other ships off Belle Ile the better, I think.” He dragged a long envelope from inside his coat and handed it to the astonished Herrick. “From their lordships, Thomas. To take effect as from noon tomorrow.” He nodded to Allday who tipped a great scarlet broad-pendant on to the deck like a carpet. “You, Captain Thomas Herrick of His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Benbow at Plymouth will take upon yourself and assume the appointment of Acting-Commodore of this squadron with all direct responsibilities thereof.” He thrust the envelope into Herrick’s hard palm and wrung the other one warmly. “My God, Thomas, I feel a mite better to see you so miserable!”

  Herrick swallowed hard. “Me, sir? Commodore? ”

  Allday was grinning. “Well done, sir!”

  Herrick was still staring, his eyes on the red pendant at his feet.

  “With my own flag-captain? Who, I mean what …”

  Bolitho signalled for some more wine. His heart still ached as painfully as before and his sense of failure no less evident, but the sight of his friend’s confusion had helped considerably. This was their world. That other existence of marriage plans and security, talk of peace and future stability were alien here.

  “I am certain all will be explained in your despatches from London, Thomas.” He watched Herrick’s mind grappling with it and then accepting it as a reality. The Navy taught you that if nothing else. Or you went under. “Think how proud Dulcie will be!”

  Herrick nodded slowly. “I suppose so.” He shook his head.

  “All the same. Commodore.” He looked steadily at Bolitho, his eyes very blue. “I hope it’ll not steer us too far apart, sir.”

  Bolitho was moved and turned away to hide his emotion.

  How typical of Herrick to think of that first. Not of his right and just promotion, long overdue, but of what it might
mean to each of them. Personally.

  Allday sauntered to the two swords on the cabin bulkhead, suddenly engrossed in their appearance and condition. The bril-liant presentation sword from the people of Falmouth as recognition of Bolitho’s achievements in the Mediterranean and at the Nile. The other sword, without shine or lustre, outdated but finely balanced, seemed shabby by comparison. But neither the presentation blade, with all its gold and silver, nor a hundred like it, could equal the value of the older one. The Bolitho sword which appeared in several of those family portraits at Falmouth, and which Allday had seen in the press of many a battle, was beyond price.

  For once even Allday was unable to accept the sudden orders for sea with his usual philosophy. He had not stepped on shore this time for more than a dog watch, and now they were off again.

  He had already been fuming at the unfairness and stupidity which had prevented Bolitho from receiving a proper reward after Copenhagen. Sir Richard Bolitho. It would have just the right ring to it, he thought.

  But no, those buggers at the Admiralty had deliberately avoided doing what was proper. He clenched his big fists as he looked at the swords. It was buzzing through the fleet that Nelson had received much the same treatment, so that was some consolation. Nelson had raised all their hearts when he had pretended not to see his superior officer’s signal to break off the action. It was so like the man, what made the Jacks love him and the admirals who never went to sea loathe his very name.

  Allday sighed and thought of the girl he had helped to rescue from the wrecked carriage just a few months ago. To think that Bolitho might still lose her because of a few stupid written orders was beyond his understanding.

  “A toast to our new commodore.” Bolitho glanced at the goblets. The first lieutenant had come aft, his head bowed beneath the deckhead, while Grubb, the master, feet well apart to pro-portion his considerable weight, was already contemplating the goblet which looked like a thimble in his hand.

  Herrick said, “Allday, come here. Under the circumstances, I’d like you to join us.”

  Allday wiped his hands on his smart nankeen breeches and mumbled, “Well, thankee, sir.”

  Bolitho raised his goblet. “To you, Thomas. To old friends, and old ships.”

  Herrick smiled gravely. “It’s a good toast, that one.”

  Allday drank the wine and withdrew into the shadows of the great cabin. Herrick had wanted him to share it. More than that, he had wanted the others to know it.

  Allday slipped out of a small screen door and made his way forward towards the sunshine of the upper deck.

  They had come a long way together, while others had been less fortunate. As their numbers grew fewer so the tasks seemed to get harder, he thought. Now Bolitho’s flag would soon be in the Bay of Biscay. A new collection of ships, a different puzzle for the rear-admiral to unravel.

  But why the Bay? There were ships and men a-plenty who had been doing that bloody blockade for years, until their hulls had grown weed as long as snakes. No, for Beauchamp to order it, and for Richard Bolitho to be selected for the work, it had to be hard, there was no second way round it.

  Allday walked into the sunlight and squinted up at the flag which curled from the mizzen.

  “I still say he should be Sir Richard!”

  The young lieutenant on watch considered ordering him about his affairs and then recalled what he had been told of the admiral’s coxswain. Instead, he moved to the opposite side of the quarterdeck.

  When the anchorage was eventually plunged into darkness, with only the riding lights and occasional beam from the shore to divide sea from land, even the Benbow felt to be resting.

  Exhausted from their constant work aloft and below, her people lay packed in their hammocks like pods in some sealed cavern.

  Beneath the lines of hammocks the guns stood quietly behind their ports, dreaming perhaps of those times when they had shaken the life from the air and made the world cringe with their fury.

  Right aft in the great cabin Bolitho sat at his desk, a lantern spiralling gently above him as the ship pulled and tested her cables.

  To most of the squadron, and to many of Benbow’s people, he was a name, a leader, whose flag they obeyed. Some had served with him before and were proud of it, proud to be able to give him his nickname which none of the new hands would know.

  Equality Dick. There were others who had created their own image of the young rear-admiral, as if by expanding it they would increase their own immortality and fame. There were a few, a very few, like the faithful Ozzard who was dozing like a mouse in his pantry, who saw Bolitho’s moods in the early morning or at the end of a great storm or sea-chase. Or Allday, who had been drawn to him when on the face of things he should have had their first meeting marred by the hatred and humiliation of a press-gang.

  Herrick, who had fallen asleep over the last pile of signed reports from the other captains, had known him at the height of excitement and at the depths of despair. Perhaps he better than any other would have recognized the Richard Bolitho who sat poised at his desk, the pen held deliberately above the paper, his mind lost to everything but the girl he was leaving behind.

  Then with great care he began. “My dearest Belinda …”

  2. No Looking Back

  RICHARD BOLITHO lay back in a chair and waited for Allday to finish shaving him. Herrick was standing by the screen door, just out of his line of sight, while around and above them the Benbow’s hull and decks quivered and echoed to the clatter of repairs.

  Herrick was saying, “I’ve informed Captain Neale that you will be shifting your flag to Styx this forenoon, sir. He seems uncommon pleased about it.”

  Bolitho glanced at Allday’s engrossed features as he worked the razor skilfully around his chin. Poor Allday, he obviously dis-approved of the move to a cramped frigate after the comparative luxury of the flagship, just as Herrick mistrusted any other captain’s ability to conduct his affairs.

  It was strange how the Navy always managed to weave the threads so finely together. Captain John Neale of the thirty-two-gun Styx had served as a chubby midshipman under Bolitho in his first frigate, in another war. Like Captain Keen who was anchored less than a cable away in the third-rate Nicator, he too had been a midshipman in one of Bolitho’s commands.

  He frowned, and wondered when he would hear how Adam Pascoe was progressing, what his appointment was, what manner of captain he now served.

  Allday wiped his face carefully and nodded. “All done, sir.”

  Bolitho washed from a bowl which Allday had placed near the stern windows. No word was said, it was something they had formed over the years. At sea or in harbour, Bolitho disliked wasting time staring at a blank piece of timber while he was preparing himself for another day.

  There was so much to do, orders to sign for individual captains, a report of readiness for the Admiralty, approval for the squadron’s mounting dockyard expenses, new appointments to be settled. It would be unfair to leave Herrick with too much unfinished business, he decided.

  Herrick remarked, “The mail-boat took your despatches ashore, sir. She’s just returned to her boom.”

  “I see.” It was Herrick’s way of telling him that there was no letter from Belinda.

  He glanced through one of the windows. The sky was as clear as yesterday’s, but the sea was livelier. He would use the wind to seek out the ships of the blockading squadron where he was to assume control. Off Belle Ile, a key point in a chain of patrols and squadrons which stretched from Gibraltar to the Channel ports. Beauchamp certainly intended that he should be in the centre of things. This particular sector would cover the approaches to Lorient in the north and the vital routes to and from the Loire Estuary to the east. But if it was a stranglehold on the enemy’s trade and resources it could also be a hazard for an unwary British frigate or sloop should she be caught on a lee shore or too interested in a French harbour to notice the swift approach of an attacker.

  Bolitho was no stranger to
Styx. He had been aboard her several times, and in the Baltic had seen her young captain engage the enemy with the coolness of a veteran.

  Bolitho threw down his towel, angry with himself for his dreaming. He must stop going over past events. Think only of what lay ahead, and the ships which would soon be depending on him.

  He was a flag-officer now and, like Herrick, he had to accept that promotion was an honour, not some god-given right.

  He smiled awkwardly as he realized the others were staring at him.

  Allday asked mildly, “Second thoughts, mebbee, sir?”

  “About what, damn you?”

  Allday rolled his eyes around the big cabin. “Well, I mean, sir, after this the Styx will seem more like a pot o’ paint than a ship! ”

  Herrick said, “You get away with murder, Allday. One day you’ll overstep the mark, my lad!” He looked at Bolitho. “All the same, he has a point. You could shift flag to Nicator, and I could take command until—”

  Bolitho eyed him impassively. “Old friend, it is no use. For either of us. Today you assume the appointment of commodore and will hoist your broad-pendant accordingly. You will eventually have to select your own flag-captain and attend to the appointment of a new one for Indomitable. ”

  He tried to parry the thought aside. Another memory.

  Indomitable had been in the thick of it at Copenhagen, and it was not until after the order to cease fire that Bolitho had learned that her captain, Charles Keverne, had fallen in the fighting.

  Keverne had been Bolitho’s first lieutenant when he had been a flag-captain like Herrick. Links in a chain. As each one broke, the chain got shorter and tighter.

  Bolitho continued sharply, “And I cannot moon about here like a sixth lieutenant. The decisions are not ours.”

  Feet clattered in the passageway, and he knew that, like himself, Herrick was very conscious of these precious moments. Soon there would be the busy comings and goings of officers for orders, senior officials from Plymouth to be flattered and coaxed into greater efforts to finish the repairs. Yovell, his clerk, would have more letters to copy and be signed, Ozzard would need to be told what to pack, what to leave aboard the Benbow until … he frowned. Until when?