“I think the frigate is chasing Aranmore, Leigh.” He leaned on the chart, his scarred hands taking the weight.
Galbraith said, “Suppose you’re wrong, sir?”
Cristie forced a grin, and said, “There was only one man who was never wrong, Mr Galbraith, an’ they crucified him!”
Adam lingered on the warning, and knew what it must have cost Galbraith to say it.
“But if I’m not? If the Algerines capture Aranmore,” he hesitated, loathing it, “it will make Lord Rhodes a laughing-stock.
The hostages could be used for bargaining, and so much for ‘a show of strength.’”
Galbraith nodded, understanding. Experience, instinct; he did not know how it came about. And he was ashamed that he was glad the choice was not his. Nor probably ever would be.
He watched the captain’s face as he beckoned to Midshipman Cousens. Outwardly calm again, his voice unhurried, thinking aloud while he held out one arm to allow his coxswain to clip the old sword into position.
“Make to Flag, Mr Cousens. Enemy in sight to the west, steering west-by-south.” He saw Cristie acknowledge it. “In pursuit of…” He smiled at the youth’s frowning features. “Spell it out. Aranmore.”
It took physical effort to take and raise the spare telescope. The next few hours would be vital. He heard the flags squeaking aloft and in his mind saw them breaking out at the yard and, across that mile or so of lively water, another signals midshipman like Cousens reading the signal, as someone else wrote it down on a slate.
Cousens’ brow was furrowed in concentration. “From Flag, sir. Acknowledged.” He sounded rather subdued. “Flag’s calling up Halcyon, sir.”
Adam snapped, “No use! Halcyon’s too far downwind-it will take her a whole watch to close with them!”
Cousens confirmed it. “Chase, sir.”
Galbraith was beside him again. “They might run for it when they see Halcyon, sir.”
“I think not. The man in command will lose his head if he fails this time. And he will know it!”
He looked back at the signals party.
“Anything, Mr Cousens?”
Sullivan’s voice broke the spell, “Deck thar! Frigate’s opened fire, sir!”
He heard the distant thuds, bow-chasers, he thought, testing the range, hoping for a crippling shot.
Cousens shouted, “Signal Chase is still flying, sir!”
Adam walked to the compass, the helmsmen gazing past him as if he was invisible, the big double-wheel moving slightly this way or that, each sail filled and fighting the rudder.
He said, “Then acknowledge it, Mr Cousens.” And swung away, as if he might see in the boy’s eyes the folly of his own decision. “Get the hands aloft, Mr Galbraith! T’gallants and royals!” He grinned, the strain and doubt recoiling like beaten enemies. “The stuns’ls too, when we may!” He strode over to Cristie and his mates. “How so?”
“West-by-north, sir.” The master gave a wintry smile, as if the madness was infectious. “It’ll give ’er room to run down on the bugger!”
“Stand by, on the quarterdeck! Man the braces there!”
Another squall moaned through the stays and shrouds, and the canvas cracked as if it would tear itself from the yards as the helm went over.
“Flag is repeating our number, sir!” Cousens’ words were almost drowned by the distant reverberating crash of mortars. The bombardment had begun.
Galbraith shook his head. “Hoist another ensign, Mr Cousens,” and attempted to smile, to share what the captain was doing. “That will be duty enough for you today!”
He watched the seamen running from one task to the next, not one tripping over a gun tackle or snatching up the wrong line or halliard. All the training and the hard knocks had paid off. It was insanity, and he could feel it driving away his reserve and his concern at the captain’s deliberate misinterpretation of the admiral’s signal. He had even found time to note it and sign the log, so that no one else could be officially blamed.
Galbraith saw Napier handing his captain a clean shirt, laughing at something he said as he pulled it over his unruly hair. The sunlight was stronger now, enough to shine briefly on the locket the captain was wearing, the one he had seen in the cabin with the letters.
He felt a sudden chill as the boy handed Captain Bolitho his coat, not the one he had been wearing when he had first appeared on deck, if he had ever left it, but the gold-laced dress uniform coat with the bright epaulettes. A ready target for any marksman. Madness again, but Galbraith could imagine him wearing no other this day.
“West-by-north, sir! Steady she goes!”
Adam looked along his ship, hearing the intermittent crash of gunfire. Halcyon was under fire already, long-range shots, like the ones laid on Aranmore.
He thought of Avery, his comments concerning the infamous Captain Martinez, and touched the locket beneath the clean shirt, and said aloud, “You were right, George, and nobody saw it. The face in the crowd.”
He turned to see the other ensign breaking to the wind, seeming to trail on the dark horizon as the ship heeled over, knowing that his mind must be empty now of everything which might weaken his resolve. But a memory of his uncle came, as he had seen him all those other times.
“So let’s be about it, then!”
Luke Jago stood by the mainmast’s great trunk and looked along the frigate’s main deck. So many times; different ships and in all weathers, but always the same pattern. The whole larboard battery of eighteen-pounders had been run in, hauled up the tilting deck by their sweating crews, held in position by their taut tackles and ready for loading. Each crew was standing by with the tools of their trade, rammers and sponges, handspikes and charges, while every gun captain had already selected a perfect ball from his shot garland for the first, perhaps vital broadside. Around and at the foot of every mast the boarding-pikes had been freed from their lashings, ready to snatch up and spit anyone brave or stupid enough to attempt to board them. The weapons chests were empty, and each man had armed himself with cutlass or axe with no more uncertainty than a farm-hand selecting a pitchfork.
He could sense the new midshipman watching him, breathing hard in his efforts to keep up with the captain’s coxswain. Jago had wondered why the captain had given him the task of nursing Commodore Deighton’s son. One day he would be an officer like Massie or so many others he had known, quick to forget past favours, and the secret skills which only true seamen knew and could pass on.
He felt the deck jerk to the double crash of the bomb’s two mortars. Even at this distance, the ships were barely visible through the haze and dust, and yet the mortars’ recoil seemed to rebound from the very seabed.
He had heard some of the men joking about the captain’s reading of the flagship’s signal. They would be putting bets on it too, if he had made a serious mistake. He loosened the cutlass in his belt, swearing quietly. Captain Bolitho would be a marked man anyway, as far as the admiral was concerned.
He said to the midshipman, “You’ll be needed to pass messages between the forrard guns, under Mr Massie,” he jerked his thumb in the direction of the quarterdeck, “An’ the cap’n. And if he falls, to th’ next in command aft.”
He saw the boy blink, but he showed no fear. And he listened. He glanced at Midshipman Sandell by the empty boat tier, even now snapping at some luckless seaman. He’d be no bloody loss to anyone.
He said, “An’ remember, Mr Deighton, always walk, never run.
That only makes the lads jumpy.” He grinned at Deighton’s seriousness. “Stops you bein’ a target too!”
Then, seeing his expression, he touched the midshipman’s arm. “Forget I said that. It just came out.”
He stared at his own scarred hand on the boy’s sleeve. Let him think what he damn well likes. He’ll not care a straw for a common seaman. But it would not hold.
He said, “Now we’ll carry on aft.”
Deighton said, “It seems so empty without the boats on deck.”
“Never you mind them. We’ll pick ’em up afore sunset.”
Deighton said softly, “Do you believe that, really?”
Jago nodded to Campbell, who was leaning on a handspike near his gun. Like most of the crews he had stripped to the waist, his scarred back a living testimony to his strength. Jago sighed. Or stupidity. It was not long since he had done the same, his defiance of the authority which had wrongly punished him, leaving him scarred until the day he dropped.