Second to None (36 page)

‘We will come about, Mr Cristie! Steer nor'-east!'

They were staring at him, and he heard the reluctance in Cristie's response.

‘The channel, sir? We don't even know if . . .' It was the closest he had ever come to open disagreement.

Adam swung on him, his dark eyes blazing. ‘
Men
, Mr Cristie! Remember? I'll roast in hell before I leave Galbraith to die in their hands!'

He strode to the opposite side, ignoring the sudden bustle of seamen and marines as they ran to braces and halliards, as if they had been shaken from a trance.

The leadsmen were in position in the chains, one on either bow, their lines already loosely coiled, ready to heave.

Adam bit his lip. Like a blind man with his stick. There was not a minute more to measure the danger. There was no alternative.

He said, ‘Carry on! Put the helm down!' He saw Massie staring at him over the confusion of men already lying back on the braces, his face wild, that of a stranger.

Cristie stood near his helmsmen, one hand almost touching the spokes as the big double-wheel began to turn, and
Unrivalled
's figurehead gazed at what appeared to be an unbroken line of sun-scorched rocks.

Adam gripped the old sword and forced it against his hip, to steady himself. To remember.

His voice sounded quite level, as if someone else had spoken.

‘Then get the hands aloft and shake out the t'gallants!'

He touched his face as the sun reached down between the flapping canvas, and did not see Bellairs pause to watch him.

Then he held out one hand, like someone quieting a nervous horse.

‘Steady now!
Steady!
'

Trust.

Adam remained by the nettings and watched the shadows of
Unrivalled
's topgallants and topsails glide over a long strip of sand and rock, as if some phantom ship were in close company. Some of the gun crews and unemployed seamen were peering into the water, the more experienced to study the patches of
weed, black in the weak sunlight, which seemed to line the side of the channel through the islands. They were bedded in rock, any one of which could turn the ship into a wreck.

As if to drive home their danger, the leadsman's voice echoed aft from the chains. ‘By the mark ten!'

Adam watched the man hauling in his lead, his bare arm moving deftly, perhaps too engrossed to consider the peril beneath the keel.

Cristie said, ‘Narrows a bit here, sir.' It was the first time he had spoken since they had laid the ship on the new tack, and his way of reminding his captain that after this there would be less room to come about, even if that was still possible.

‘Wreckage ahead, sir!' That was Midshipman Cousens, very calm, and aware of his new responsibilities now that Bellairs was promoted. Almost.

Adam leaned over to stare at the charred timbers as they parted across
Unrivalled
's stem. Galbraith's people must have got right alongside the vessel to cause such complete devastation. Perhaps they had all been killed. Somehow he knew Galbraith had done it himself; he would never delegate, particularly when lives were at risk.
And because I would expect it of him.
It was like a taunt.

He could smell it, too. The boat must have exploded like a giant grenade; the fire had done the rest. There were corpses as well, pieces of men, lolling wearily in the frigate's small wash.

‘Deep
six
!'

If he went to the side he knew he would be able to see the ship's great shadow on the seabed. He did not move. Men were watching him, seeing their own fate in him. Lieutenant Wynter was by the foremast, staring at another, larger island which appeared to be reaching out to snare them.

Adam said, ‘Let her fall off a point.' He saw Captain Bosanquet with one of his corporals positioned by the boattier. If she drove aground they would need every boat, perhaps to try and kedge her free again. But men in fear of their lives would see the boats as their only security, their link with the invisible
Halcyon
.

He looked at the masthead pendant again.
How many times?
Holding steady. If the wind backed again they would not
weather the next island, with its headland jutting out like a giant horn.
If, if, if
.

He heard the big forecourse flap noisily, and felt the deck heel very slightly.

Jago muttered, ‘Just stow that, matey!' Adam had not realised that he was at his side.

‘An' a quarter six!'

Adam released his breath very slowly. Slightly deeper here. He had seen the splash of the lead hitting the water, but his mind had rejected it, as if afraid of what it might reveal.

‘Deck there!
Boats ahead!
' From his lofty perch Sullivan could very likely see over, if not beyond, the outthrust headland, and on to the next leg of the channel.

Bosanquet snapped, ‘Put your men in position, Corporal!'

His best shots, although his chosen marksmen were with the landing party.

Adam said, ‘Over here, boy!' He swung Napier round like a puppet and pointed him towards the bows. Then he laid the telescope on his shoulder. ‘Breathe easily.' Surely the boy was not afraid of him? With the ship in real danger of being wrecked, perhaps overrun by Algerines, it was impossible. He steadied the shoulder, and said quietly, ‘This will show them, eh?'

He saw the leading cutter spring into focus, the oars rising and falling to a fast, desperate stroke. Another cutter was close astern, and the third appeared to be stopped, its oars in confusion. A man was hanging over the gunwale, others were trying to drag him from the looms. They had been fired on, the sound muffled by
Unrivalled
's shipboard noises. One officer,
Halcyon
's second lieutenant, a seaman tying a bandage around his arm.

Even at this distance Adam could see Colpoys' disbelief, when he turned and saw
Unrivalled
filling the channel.

And then he saw the chebeck. She must have used her sweeps to cut past the wreckage and overhaul the three cutters. The great, triangular sails were filling, pushing the chebeck over while her sweeps rose and froze in perfect unison. No wonder unarmed merchantmen were terrified of the Barbary pirates.

Adam gritted his teeth, and felt the boy stiffen as the leadsman's chant came aft to remind them of their own peril.

‘By th' mark seven!'

He said sharply, ‘Stand to your guns, Mr Massie! Bowchasers, then the smashers!'

He saw Massie look aloft. A split second only, but it said everything. If
Unrivalled
lost a spar, let alone a mast, they would never see open water again.

Adam rubbed his eye and laid his hand on the boy's shoulder again. It was madness, but it reminded him of the instant she had raised her hand to strike him, and he had gripped her wrist with such force that it must have shocked her.

He said, ‘Still, now!' and winced as a bow-chaser banged out from the forecastle, the recoil jerking the planks even here at his feet.

He tried again, and then said, ‘Over yonder, boy.
You
look. Tell me.'

He thrust the long signals telescope into his hands, and tensed as another shot cracked out from forward. From a corner of his eye he saw one of the cutters passing abeam, suddenly dark in
Unrivalled
's shadow, men standing to yell and cheer when moments earlier they had been facing death.

There were more shots now, heavy muskets, and the sharper, answering crack of the marines' weapons.

He felt something thud into the packed hammocks, heard the screech of metal as a ball ricocheted from one of the quarterdeck nine-pounders. Men were crouching, peering through open ports, waiting for the first sight of the chebeck, waiting for the order as they had been taught, had had hammered into them day after day.

But Adam did not move an inch. He could not. He had to know.

Then Napier said in a remarkably steady voice, ‘It's them, sir! On the headland! Four of them!' The significance of what he had said seemed to reach him and he twisted round, the telescope forgotten. ‘Mr Galbraith is safe, sir!'

Then Massie's whistle shrilled and the first great carronade lurched inboard on its slide, the noise matched only by the
crash of its massive ball as it exploded into the chebeck's quarter. Timber, spars, oars and fragments of men flew in all directions, but the chebeck came on.

Massie gauged the range, his whistle to his lips. After one shot from the ‘smasher', many men were too deaf to hear a shouted order.

The second carronade belched fire, and the ball must have exploded deep within the slender hull.

Adam called, ‘As you bear!' He gripped the boy's shoulder. ‘I want them to
know,
to feel what it's like!'

There was more firing in the far distance, like thunder on the hills:
Halcyon
in pursuit of the third chebeck, her captain perhaps believing that his consort had been wrecked.

‘By th' mark . . .' The rest was lost in the crash of gunfire as Massie strode aft, pausing only to watch each eighteen-pounder fling itself inboard and pour a murderous charge into the stricken chebeck. There were still a few figures waving weapons and firing across the littered water. Even when the final charge smashed into the capsizing hull Adam imagined he could still hear their demented fury.

‘By the mark fifteen!'

Adam saw the lead splash down again, could picture the seabed suddenly sliding away into depths of darkness.

‘We will heave to directly, Mr Cristie.' He raised his voice; even that was an effort. ‘Mr Wynter, stand by to retrieve those boats. Inform the surgeon. I want him on deck when they come aboard.'

He stared at the headland, misty now with drifting smoke.

‘I'll take the gig, sir.' It was Jago. ‘Fetch Mr Galbraith.'

Adam said, ‘I'd be obliged.' He looked away as men hurried past him. ‘And, thank you.'

Jago hesitated by the ladder and looked over his shoulder. The captain was standing quite still as orders were shouted and, with her sails in disorder, his ship came slowly round into the wind.

He had kept his word. Jago could hear the boats pulling towards the ship, their crews exhausted but still able to cheer.

He heard the sailing master say quietly to his mate, ‘Not a choice I would have cared to make, Mr Woodthorpe.'

Jago shook his head.
Not yours to make, was it?

As if to put a seal on it, the leadsman, forgotten in the forechains, yelled, ‘
No bottom, sir
!'

They were through.

THE LETTER LAY
on the cabin table, held down by the knife Adam had used to open it, its flap moving slightly in a faint breeze from the stern windows, the broken seal shining in the sunlight like droplets of blood. He tried to think it through rationally, as he had taught himself to do with most things.

Unrivalled
had anchored that morning, with
Halcyon
entering harbour close astern. A moment of triumph, a lingering excitement after the short, savage encounter with the chebecks and the sheer pleasure of greeting a filthy but grinning Galbraith, his shirt scorched almost from his back, and his equally dirty but jubilant companions.

Adam had taken his report ashore, only to be told that Bethune was neither at his headquarters nor aboard his flagship
Montrose
. He had boarded one of the squadron's brigs, and with Sir Lewis Bazeley had gone to examine potential sites for new defences in Malta and the offshore islands.

He had already noticed that the courier schooner
Gertrude
was in harbour, and she was preparing to weigh and make sail again by the time he had returned to
Unrivalled.
As was the way of fleet couriers.

He had been expecting a letter from Catherine, hoping for one. It was stupid of him and he knew it. She would be recovering from her loss, and would need time to decide what she must do in the immediate future and with the rest of her life. But he had hoped, all the same.

Instead, there had been this letter. The same neat, round handwriting which had followed him from ship to ship, from
despair to hope. Always warm, as she had been ever since that first day when he had arrived exhausted at the Roxby house after walking all the way from Penzance. From his mother's deathbed.

Aunt Nancy, Richard Bolitho's youngest sister, was the last person from whom he had been expecting to hear, and yet in his heart he knew there was none better suited to this task.

He walked to the stern windows and stared across at
Halcyon,
swinging to her cable and surrounded by harbour craft, with scarlet coats on her gangways to deter unwanted visitors. He had sent Captain Christie a copy of his report.
Halcyon
had done well, and between them they had lost only four men.

He looked at the letter again, as if his mind were refusing to lose itself in matters concerning the ship and the squadron. That other world seemed very close: rugged cliffs, treacherous rocks, and in contrast rolling hillside pastures and great, empty moors. A county which had produced many fine sailors, probably more than any other part of England. He could see Falmouth in his thoughts . . . the people, the quality of strength in its seamen and fisherfolk.

Where Belinda, whose hand had once rested on his cuff as he had led her up the aisle to marry Falmouth's most famous son, had been killed. Thrown from a horse.
Killed instantly
, Nancy had written. And yet he could not come to terms with it. Perhaps he had never really known Belinda, or been close enough to understand what had destroyed his uncle's marriage; she had always been beautiful, proud, but distant. She had been at the old house, and Adam could guess why, although the family lawyer had touched only in passing on it. Not wishing to trouble a King's officer,
fighting for his country's rights
.