A Tradition of Victory (3 page)

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 …”

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?

Herrick turned quickly as the sentry shouted the arrival of the first lieutenant.

“I am needed, sir.” He sounded wretched.

Bolitho gripped his hand. “I am sorry I’ll not be here when your broad-pendant breaks. But if I have to go, I’d like to go with haste.”

Wolfe appeared in the doorway. “Beg pardon, sir, but there’s a visitor coming aboard.” He was looking at Bolitho who felt his heart give a great leap. It fell just as quickly as Wolfe said flatly, “Your flag-lieutenant is here, sir.”

Herrick exclaimed, “Browne?”

Allday hid a grin. “Browne with an ‘e.’”

“Send him aft.” Bolitho sat down again.

Lieutenant the Honourable Oliver Browne had been thrust upon him as flag-lieutenant by Beauchamp. Instead of the empty-minded aide he had appeared at first meeting, Browne had proved himself invaluable as adviser to a newly appointed rear-admiral, and later as a friend. When the battered ships had returned from the Baltic, Bolitho had allowed Browne a choice. Return to his more civilized surroundings and duties in London, or resume as his flag-lieutenant.

When Browne entered the cabin he looked unusually dishevelled and weary.

Herrick and Wolfe hastily left the cabin, and Bolitho said,

“This is unexpected.”

The lieutenant sank down into a proffered chair, and as his cloak fell aside Bolitho saw the dark stains on his breeches, sweat and leather. He must have ridden like a madman.

Browne said huskily, “Sir George Beauchamp died last night, sir. He completed his orders for your squadron and then …” He gave a shrug. “He was at his table with his maps and charts.” He shook his head. “I thought you should know, sir. Before you sail for Belle Ile.”

Bolitho had learned never to question Browne’s knowledge of things which were supposed to be secret.

“Ozzard. Make some fresh coffee for my flag-lieutenant.” He saw Browne’s tired features light up slightly. “If that is what you intend to be?”

Browne released the cloak from his throat and shook himself.

“Indeed, I was praying for that, sir. I wish nothing more than to get away from London, from the carrion!”

Overhead, calls trilled and tackles creaked as more stores and equipment were hoisted up from the lighters alongside.

But down in the cabin it was different. Very still, as Browne described how Beauchamp had died at his table, his signature barely dry on his last despatches.

Browne said evenly, “I have brought those orders direct to you, sir. Had you sailed before I arrived here, it is likely they would never have been put aboard a courier brig and sent after you.”

“You are saying that Sir George’s plan would have been cancelled?”

Browne held a cup of coffee in both hands, his face thoughtful. “Postponed indefinitely. There are, I fear, too many in high places who can see nothing but a treaty with France. Not as the respite which Lord St Vincent and some of the others see it, but as a means to profit and exploit the plunder which an armistice will bring. Any attack on French harbours and shipping with peace so near would be seen by them as a handicap not an advantage.”

“Thank you for telling me.”

Bolitho looked past him at the two swords on the bulkhead.

What did men such as Browne had described know of honour?

Browne smiled. “I thought it was important you should know.

With Sir George Beauchamp alive and in control of future events, your activities on the new station would have made no difference to your security, no matter what hornets’ nest you disturbed.” He looked at Bolitho steadily, his youthful face suddenly mature. “But with Sir George dead there is nobody to defend you if things go wrong. His record of achievements and service will give weight to your instructions and nobody will question them. But should you fail, it will be a scapegoat not a blameless commander who returns here.”

Bolitho nodded. “Not for the first time.”

Browne smiled. “After Copenhagen I can believe anything of you, sir, but I am uneasy about the risk this time. Your name is known and toasted from Falmouth to the ale houses of Whitechapel. And so is Nelson’s, but their lordships are not so impressed that they could not hurt him for his impudence at Copenhagen.”

“Tell me.” Bolitho stared at the young lieutenant. His was another world. Intrigue and scheming, influence of fortune and family. No wonder Browne was glad to be quitting the land. The
Benbow
had given him a taste for excitement.