The Complete Midshipman Bolitho Page 8

  Several shots whimpered overhead, fired by whom, nobody knew.

  “Loose the heads’ls!” Tregorren seemed everywhere. “Lay her on the starboard tack!”

  Bolitho clung to the shrouds and stared abeam where a fire was still burning fiercely to show where the marines had created a diversion.

  Tiny lanterns moved this way and that, and he realized they were on the other vessel, which had already changed her bearing considerably.

  After the long pull around the headland, the apprehension and fear, the actual cutting-out had taken less than twenty minutes. It seemed incredible, and as he paused to think of the nearness of death he felt the sweat like ice-rime on his spine.

  He slid down a backstay and found Tregorren bellowing orders down the after companion.

  Dancer ran across the deck and said, “God, I was worried for you! I thought we were never going to engage!”

  He turned as a man yelled, “Sir! There’s a whole lot of British seamen battened down ’ere!”

  Tregorren snapped, “See to them! No doubt they are some of the brig’s own company.” He caught the man’s arm. “But prisoners, sick or bloody well dying, I want ’em up here on deck!”

  He lowered his face to the compass box. “Hold her steady, quartermaster. As close to the wind as you can. I want no mauling from that battery!”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” The men at the wheel eased the spokes deftly. “Full an’ bye, sir! West by south!”

  Bolitho watched the figures emerging from the main hatch. Even in the darkness he could sense their disbelief as they were helped and pushed on to the open deck.

  One man lurched aft and touched his forehead.

  “Starkie, sir. Master’s mate of the Sandpiper. ” He swayed, and would have fallen but for Bolitho.

  Tregorren was watching the released seamen, his chin sunk on his neckcloth.

  “You the senior?”

  “Aye, sir. Cap’n Wade and the other officers were killed.” He dropped his eyes. “We have been in hell, sir.”

  “Possibly.”

  Tregorren strode to the foot of the mainmast and squinted up at the flapping topsail.

  “Get some of those hands to work and set the spanker and then the fores’l. I want to get some sea-room.”

  He turned and added shortly, “Well, Mr Starkie, you can take charge aft as you are the best qualified.” He looked him slowly up and down, as if his eyes could pierce the darkness. “Although it would seem you are less so for defending one of His Majesty’s ships, eh?”

  He hurried away, shouting for Dancer and thrusting through the dazed seamen like a plough.

  The master’s mate consulted the compass and the set of the topsail and said harshly. “He had no cause to speak like that. We had no chance.” He looked at Bolitho and added, “You fought well back there. Some of these devils were laughing at what they would do if your ship tried to force home an attack.”

  “But who are they?”

  Starkie let out a great sigh. “Pirates, corsairs, call ’em what you will, but I swear I have seen none worse, and I have been at sea all my years.”

  Bolitho saw two men carrying Lieutenant Hope to the companion and prayed he would be strong enough to survive. Several seamen had died, and it was a miracle there were not more to be buried.

  Starkie said, “They kept us aboard to crew the poor Sandpiper. Like galley slaves we were. Beaten and treated like scum. They had only enough hands for the guns. But enough to keep us cowed, I can tell you.”

  Eden had joined them. “Any midshipmen, w-were there?”

  Starkie looked at him for several seconds. “Two. Only two. Mr Murray died in the attack. Mr Flowers, he was about your age, well, they killed him later.” He turned away. “Now leave me be, I don’t want to think about it.”

  Tregorren came aft again. He sounded almost jovial as he called, “She answers well, Mr Starkie. A fine little vessel. Fourteen guns too, I see.”

  Eden said, “Mr S-Starkie says that the pirates are the worst he’s s-seen, sir!”

  Tregorren was still studying the brig, his head cocked as the sails shuddered and banged before the rudder brought the ship back on course again.

  “Indeed, indeed. Well, the other pirate vessel has weighed.” He faced Starkie. “And where would she be going, d’you reckon?”

  Starkie shrugged. “They have another rendezvous to the north of here. Cap’n Wade was searching for it when we were attacked.”

  “I see.” Tregorren walked aft to the taffrail. “Be first light in an hour or so. We will be able to signal Gorgon . Put a good man aloft as lookout. We may be able to catch that one and give him a nice dance at the end of a halter.”

  He swung angrily on Eden. “Well, what are you gaping at? I hear you were useless during the attack! Weeping for your mother, were you? Nobody to protect you?”

  Bolitho said, “Easy, sir, some of the people are listening.”

  “And damn you for your impertinence!” Tregorren’s mood had changed like a savage squall. “I’ll have no more of it!”

  Bolitho stood his ground. “Mr Eden was knocked down during the boarding, sir.” He could feel his caution dropping away, his future already in ruins. But he was sick of Tregorren’s sarcasm and brutality towards those unable to fight back. “We were, you recall, outnumbered, sir. We had been expecting some support.”

  Tregorren stared at him as if suffering a seizure. “Are you suggesting—” He tugged at his neckcloth. “Are you daring to suggest that I was late in boarding?” He leaned forward, his face inches from Bolitho’s. “Well, are you?”

  “I was saying that Mr Eden did well, sir. He had lost his weapon, and he is twelve years old, sir.”

  They faced each other, oblivious to everything about them.

  Then Tregorren nodded very slowly. “So be it, Mr Bolitho. You will join the masthead lookout until I say differently. When we return to the ship I intend to have you put under arrest for gross insubordination.” He nodded again. “See how the family likes that, eh?”

  Bolitho felt his heart pumping against his ribs like a hammer. He had to repeat over and over in his mind: He wants me to strike him. He wants me to strike him. It would make Tregorren’s actions complete, and for Bolitho final.

  “Is that all, sir?” He barely recognized his own voice.

  “Aye.” The lieutenant swung away, his sudden move making the mesmerized spectators scatter like rabbits. “For the present.”

  Dancer walked to the main shrouds with him and said hotly, “That was a foul thing to say! I felt like knocking him to the deck, Dick!”

  “So did I.” Bolitho swung himself on to the ratlines and stared up at the main yard. “And he knew it.”

  Dancer said awkwardly, “Never mind. We took the brig. That must count for something with Captain Conway.”

  “It is all we have.” He started to climb. “Be off, Martyn, or he’ll have you all aback, too.”

  “When you have finished, Mr Dancer!” The voice searched him out from the shadows. “Be so good as to find a cook and have the galley fire lit. These people look like scarecrows, and I can’t abide filth!”

  Dancer called, “At once, sir!”

  He looked up at the black shrouds, but Bolitho had already vanished.

  7 Mr STARKIE’S story

  RICHARD BOLITHO CLUNG TO A STAY and watched the sky brightening reluctantly across the horizon. Little more than a grey blur, but in hours it would be almost too hot to think.

  He felt the mast shiver and vibrate as the Sandpiper responded eagerly to her bulging sails. He wondered how the wounded were getting on, if Lieutenant Hope was better, or giving way to his injury.

  A few figures were just visible on the brig’s narrow poop and below the mainmast. He thought he could smell food from the galley and felt his stomach contract painfully. He could not remember when he had last eaten, and found himself hating Tregorren for keeping him aloft without relief.

  The lieutenant had been right about
one thing. When the news reached the Bolitho home in Falmouth it would have lost the unfairness and hostility of the moment. It would be seen only as Tregorren intended. That Bolitho had acted badly and with insubordination against a superior officer.

  He heard heavy breathing and saw Dancer hauling himself up to the crosstrees beside him.

  He said, “You’d better watch out, Martyn!”

  Dancer shook his head. “It’s all right, Dick. Mr Starkie sent me. He’s worried about our lieutenant.”

  Bolitho looked at him. “Mr Hope? Is he worse?”

  “He is as before.” Dancer clutched at a stay as the brig heeled violently in a sudden gust. “It is Tregorren who is causing the concern.” He grinned. “Although I must say I can’t muster much grief !”

  Bolitho reached out and stretched his cramped limbs. He was aching from exposure and felt clammy with salt spray.

  Dancer added, “Mr Starkie thinks that he has a fever.”

  They slid down to the deck together and found the master’s mate by the wheel with the helmsmen.

  Starkie said abruptly, “It’ll be dawn soon. I can’t understand it. He’s like a man possessed down there. I dunno what we’ll do if we run into more trouble.” He looked away, his voice brittle. “I can’t take being a prisoner again. Not after what we’ve suffered, and that’s God’s truth!”

  Bolitho replied, “We’ll go to him.” He touched Dancer’s arm. “But I’m no surgeon.”

  In the tiny cabin where Sandpiper’s last captain had enjoyed his privacy and suffered his anxieties, they found Tregorren slumped across a table, his face buried in his arms. The cabin stank of spirits or coarse wine, and as the brig lifted and plunged across the broken water Bolitho heard glass rolling about beneath the cot, and in the glare of a solitary lantern saw that there were many such bottles in a rack against the bulkhead.

  Dancer murmured grimly, “Mr Tregorren has surely found his heaven!”

  Bolitho leaned over the table. “I’ll try and rouse him. You keep clear.” He seized the lieutenant’s shoulders and heaved him backwards over the chair.

  He had been expecting to see a man the worse for drink.

  Dancer exclaimed, “In God’s name, Dick, he looks like death!”

  Tregorren had a terrible pallor, and more so because his normally ruddy complexion was patchy grey, and when his eyes flickered open very slowly he seemed quite dazed, like someone suffering extreme shock.

  He started to speak, but his speech was so thick he had to clear his throat with a series of loud retches.

  Bolitho asked, “Are you ill, sir?” He saw Dancer try to hide a grin and added hastily, “Mr Starkie was worried for you.”

  “Was he?” Tregorren tried to stand but fell back in the chair with a terrible groan. “Get that bottle!” His fingers were like claws as he seized the bottle and took a long, desperate swallow. “I don’t know what’s happening.” He was speaking in a vague, slurred voice. “Can’t control my body.” He retched and tried to rise again. “Must get to the heads.”

  Bolitho and Dancer hauled him to his feet, and for a few moments the three of them swayed and reeled to the motion as if in a weird dance.

  Dancer muttered, “He’s done it this time! What our old doctor would call the bloody flux! The man is coming apart!”

  As they lurched through the bulkhead door Bolitho saw Eden watching from another small cabin where Hope had been since being carried below.

  “Give a hand here, Tom! We have to get him to the heads!”

  Eden said brightly, “He l-looks t-terrible, to be sure.”

  When they reached the deck the air was like wine after the overpowering stench in the cabin.

  Starkie hurried from the wheel. “Is it fever then?”

  Eden piped, “H-he has the g-gout, Mr Starkie. I have been s-saying s-so all along. He h-has been taking medicine to ease the pain, but I s-suspect has over indulged.”

  They all stared at the diminutive midshipman who had suddenly emerged as their only source of medical knowledge.

  “Well, what’ll we do?” Starkie sounded lost.

  Eden regarded the sagging, groaning figure and replied, “When he g-gets b-back to the ship the s-surgeon will t-take care of him. There’s n-nothin’ we can d-do.” He grimaced. “S-serve him right.”

  “Be that as it may.” Starkie watched Dancer clinging to the lieutenant’s coat to stop him from falling clean across the bulwark. “We’re going to need him shortly.”

  Dancer stared at him. “I don’t see that. We can signal Gorgon and the captain will know what to do.”

  Starkie regarded him bleakly. “You’ve not noticed. The wind has shifted to the nor’-east. It’d take your ship all day to beat up to this position, that is even if your cap’n knows what’s happening.”

  Dancer persisted, “Then what is to stop us from running down on her?”

  Starkie said, “I’m only a master’s mate, and one right glad to be safe and free again, but I know the Navy, and I know captains. Sandpiper is well placed to head off the enemy, or at least follow her to her hiding place.” He shrugged. “But without an officer, I’m not so sure. You get no reward for empty heroics, and that’s for certain in any navy.”

  They looked at Eden as he said in a small voice, “We’re not going to the Gorgon? ”

  Bolitho noticed that he had even lost his stammer in his anxiety.

  He said quietly, “Come over here, Tom.” He took the boy’s arm and asked calmly, “What did you do to Mr Tregorren?”

  Eden stared at the deck, his hands moving in agitation.

  “I knew he was t-trying to t-treat himself by p-putting medicine in his w-wine. I s-saw it on a flask in his c-cabin. Vin Antim, like my f-father uses in m-matters of g-gout.” He added wretch-edly, “So I p-put a large m-measure in one of his b-bottles. He must have d-drunk all of it, and a full b-bottle of b-brandy as well.”

  Bolitho stared at him. “You might have killed him!”

  “B-but I thought we were rejoining the sh-ship, you see. I just w-wanted him to s-suffer for all the things he s-said to you, and to m-me.” He shook his head. “And now you s-say we’ll not be joining Gorgon r-right away?”

  Bolitho breathed out slowly. “So it seems.”

  Dancer steadied the lieutenant as he staggered away from the bulwark. “Get some men to help this officer to the cabin!”

  Bolitho said, “What now, I wonder?”

  As if in answer he heard the lookout yell, “Deck there! Sail on the lee bow!”

  They ran to the nettings but the sea to leeward was still in deep shadow.

  Starkie said bitterly, “So the devil’s downwind of us. He stands between us and safety.”

  “How well d’you know this coast?” Bolitho’s question seemed to come out all on its own.

  “Good enough.” Starkie peered at the compass as if to gather his thoughts. “It’s a bad one to try and outpace a frigate.”

  Bolitho thought of the Gorgon to the south of their position. Maybe the captain did not even know they had cut out the Sandpiper, and believed she had fled with the frigate.

  Starkie was saying, “We’d been searching for pirates for months, and Cap’n Wade got some information from a Genoese trader that there was one such vessel in these waters. At the time, the cap’n thought there was only a small ship, and probably not much of a craft at that. But this pirate is no fool, believe me. They say he is half-French and half-English, but one thing is certain, he’s thrown in his lot with some Algerine corsairs who have come from the Mediterranean to prey on slavers and honest traders alike.”

  Bolitho looked at Dancer and asked softly, “Are there many of them?”

  “Enough. They were short-handed when they took Sandpiper, but new men are joining their ranks every day. It doesn’t matter what race or country they come from. I’m told that if they swear allegiance to Islam they can be anything they like. The frigate was Spanish before they took her off Oran, and she is commanded by this Jean
Gauvin. A madman, if ever I saw one, and without fear.

  The corsair who forced some Senegalese traders to open the fortress for him is Raïs Haddam. He put our officers to death. Slowly, and in front of our people. It was terrible to see and hear it.”

  Nobody spoke, and as Bolitho watched Starkie’s tanned features he could see him reliving the horror as if it had just happened.

  “We anchored just off the fortress. It was a fine day, and the people were in high spirits. And why not, for we were going home in a month more or so. The frigate lay near us, wearing Spanish colours. The fortress too was flying a trading company flag.” He gave a shudder. “I suppose Cap’n Wade should have known or suspected. But he was only a lieutenant, no more’n twenty-three. We lowered the boats and went ashore to meet the governor of the island. Instead we were surrounded, and the fortress battery put down a few balls around the Sandpiper just to let the watch know they had no chance.”

  “After the killing and the torture was over, this Algerine corsair, Raïs Haddam, spoke to the rest of us. Told us that if we worked the ship for him we might be spared.” He looked away. “Gauvin was there too, and when one of the midshipmen tried to protest it was Gauvin who ordered him to be killed. They burned him alive on the foreshore!”

  Dancer whispered, “My God!”

  “Aye.” Starkie stared past him into the shadows. “Haddam has gathered the scum of the earth to his banner.”

  Bolitho nodded. “Raïs Haddam. I have heard my father and his friends speak of him. He has raided the Algerian coast for years, and is now looking elsewhere for his corsairs.” He glanced at the paling sky. “I never expected to meet up with him!”

  Starkie said bitterly, “There is no time left to prepare a defence.”

  Bolitho looked at their faces, sensing despair and defeat. Dancer was too new to the Navy to know anything different. Starkie was still too stunned by his captivity to offer advice.

  Bolitho said quietly, “Then we must prepare an attack.”

  He thought of Tregorren, filled with pain and drink because of Eden’s ruse. Of Hope, barely breathing, a musket ball in his shoulder. Of their seamen, some bewildered at their sudden releases and others quite exhausted from the savage fighting on this same deck.