Alexander Kent - THE INSHORE SQUADRON

Herrick swore savagely and fired his remaining pistol at a man's head below the nettings.

'Signals? God dammit, we've no time for them!'

Browne wiped his mouth and lowered his sword. Then he said hoarsely, 'Indomitable's repeating a signal from the fleet. Discontinue the engagement! Number thirty-nine, sir!'

Bolitho stared past the Indomitable's battered hull and trailing shrouds. A frigate, one of Nelson's, was standing far beyond the smoke like an intruder, the signal still flapping to the wind.

`Cease firing!'

Wolfe pointed his hanger at the ship alongside as one by one the Danish seamen dropped their weapons and stood like stricken creatures, knowing that for them it was all over.

Herrick said, 'Take charge of our prize, Mr Wolfe!' He turned to look at the ships and at the galleys which even now were fading away into the smoke to seek refuge in their harbour.

The sea was littered with flotsam and broken timber of every sort. Men, friend and enemy alike, dung together for mutual support and awaited rescue, too beaten and shocked to care much who had won. There were many corpses, too, and Inch's Odin was so deep by the bows that she looked as if she might capsize at any moment.

Only the Styx seemed unmarked, distance hiding her hurt and scars as she shortened sail to search amongst the debris of battle.

Bolitho put his arm round his nephew's shoulder and asked, 'D'you still want a frigate, Adam?'

But the reply was lost in a growing wave of cheering, wilder and louder as it spread from ship to ship, with even the wounded croaking at the sky, grateful to be alive, to have come through it once more, or for the first dreadful time.

Herrick picked up his hat and banged it against his knee. Then he put it on his head and said quietly, 'Benbow's a good ship. I'm proud of her!'

Bolitho smiled at his friend, feeling the tiredness and the pain as he glanced at the grinning, smoke-blackened faces around him.

'Men, not ships, you once said, Thomas. Remember?'

Grubb blew his nose and then said, 'Rudder's answerin', sir!'

Bolitho looked at Browne. It had been a near thing. Even now he was not certain how it might have ended had the frigate not appeared. Perhaps the English and the Danes were too much alike to fight. If so, there would have been no man alive by nightfall.

Browne asked huskily, 'Signal, sir?'

'Aye. General signal. Squadron to form line ahead and astern o f flagship as convenient.'

The flag for close action rippled down from the yard, and as it was removed from the halliards Allday took it and laid it across the face of the dead midshipman.

Bolitho watched and then said quietly, `We will rejoin the fleet, Captain Herrick.'

They looked at each other. Bolitho, Herrick, Pascoe and Allday. Each had had something to sustain him throughout the battle. And this time there was something to hope for in the future.

Even if the weather remained kind to the mauled and bloodied squadron there was much to be done. Friends to be contacted, the dead to be buried, the ships to be made safe for the passage home.

But for this one precious moment, this escape from hell, a new hope would suffice.

Epilogue

The open carriage paused at the top of a rise while the horses regained their breath and the dust settled around them.

Bolitho removed his cocked hat and allowed the June sunlight to play across his face, his ear picking up the many sounds of insects in the hedgerows, the distant lowing of cattle, the voices of the countryside.

By his side Adam Pascoe stared ahead towards the rooftops of Falmouth, the glassy reflection of Carrick Roads beyond. On the opposite seat, his feet planted firmly on several sea-chests, Allday glanced contentedly around him, lost in his own thoughts and the moment of peace after the jolting ride from Plymouth.

The journey over moorland and past isolated farmsteads and small hamlets had been like a cleansing, Bolitho thought. After all the weeks and months, and those final devasting broadsides before Nelson had ordered a ceasefire and had declared a truce, the Cornish landscape had affected Bolitho and his companions deeply.

Now, Benbow was anchored at Plymouth with the other scarred survivors of the Inshore Squadron. With the exception of Inch's Odin, which because of her severe underwater damage had only just managed to reach the safety of the Nore.

Two months since they had watched the crimson galleys returning to harbour like guilty assassins, and now it was difficult to believe any of it had happened.

The green hills, the sheep dotting their slopes, the slow comings and goings of farm waggons and carriers' carts were far removed from the discipline and suffering of a manof-war.

Only the marked absence of young men in the villages and fields gave a hint of war, otherwise it was as Bolitho had always remembered, had dung to when he had been in far-off places and on other seas.

The Battle of Copenhagen, as it was now being called, was hailed as a great victory. By their determined action the British squadrons had immobilized Denmark completely, and Tsar Paul's hopes of a powerful alliance had been smashed.

Against that, the price had been equally impressive, although far less remarked upon in press and Parliament. The British had lost more men dead and wounded than at the Nile. The Danes' total casualties in killed, wounded and taken prisoner, quite apart from the destruction or capture of their ships, were three times as great.

Bolitho thought of the faces he would not see again. Veitch, who had gone down in his sloop-of-war Lookout. Keverne, killed in the last stages of the fight aboard his Indomitable. Peel of the Relentless, and so many more beside.

And now, while Herrick, soon to be joined at Plymouth by his wife, dealt with the damage to his own command, Bolitho and his nephew had come home.

The carriage started to move once more, downhill this time, the horses nodding their heads together as if aware that food and rest were drawing loser with each turn of the wheels.

Bolitho, thought of Lieutenant Browne. After obtaining this carriage for the journey to Falmouth he had made his own way to London. Bolitho had made it perfectly clear to him. If he wished to return to his service when the Benbow was put back in commission he would be more than welcome. But if he chose another life in London, using his talents to better effect, that, too, Bolitho would understand. After such a baptism of fire and death, he doubted if Browne's view of daily life would ever be the same again.

Two farm workers, spades over their shoulders, doffed their hats as the carriage rolled past.

Bolitho smiled gravely. The word would soon be round, the grey house on the headland would have lights in the windows tonight. A Bolitho was back again.

Pascoe said suddenly, `I never thought to see this place again, Unde.'

He said it so forcefully that Bolitho was moved.

He answered, 'I know that feeling, Adam.' He touched his arm. 'We shall make the most of this stay.'

They spoke little for the last part of the journey. Bolitho felt unsettled, vaguely apprehensive as the wheels clattered on to the hard cobbles of the town.

He looked for familiar faces as they turned to watch the two sea officers being carried through the square. One so young, the other with the bright epaulettes on his shoulders.

A girl, shaking a tablecloth from an inn door, saw Allday and waved to him. Bolitho smiled. Allday at least was recognized, and welcome.

The road narrowed into a lane, lined on either side by mossy flint walls. Flowers barely moved in the warm air, and the grey house appeared to rise from the ground itself as the horses pounded up the last stretch towards the open gates.

Bolitho licked his lips as he saw Ferguson, his one-armed steward, running to meet the carriage, his wife dose behind him, already crying with pleasure.

He steeled himself. The first moments were always the hardest, in spite of the warm welcome and good intentions.

' Home, Adam. Yours and mine.'

The youth looked at him searchingly, his eyes bright. 'I want to talk about it, Unde. All of it. After losing Relentless I don't think I shall ever be so afraid again.'

Allday waved to some people by the gates, his face split into a grin. But he sounded serious as he said, 'I still think it's wrong and damn unfair, sir, an' nothing will make me change my mind!'

Bolitho watched him wearily. `Why so?' He already knew, but it was better to let Allday get it out of his system so that he could enjoy their homecoming in his own way.

Allday gripped the door as the carriage swung round towards the stone steps.

`All them others, sir, getting the glory and the praise. But for you they'd have been wallowing in their own guts long since! You should have got a knighthood, an' that's no error!' He looked at Pascoe for support. 'Ain't that right?'

Then he 'aaw Pascoe's expression and turned his head towards the doorway at the top of the steps.

Bolitho held his breath, barely able to trust his own senses.

She stood motionless, her slim figure and long chestnut hair framed against the house's inner darkness, one hand held out towards him as if to consume the last few yards.

Bolitho said quietly, `Thank you, Allday, old friend, but now I know I have won a far greater reward.'

He climbed from the carriage and took her in his arms. Then, watched in silence by Pascoe and Allday, they walked into the house. Together.