Alexander Kent - THE INSHORE SQUADRON

Throughout the following morning, while Bolitho's ships changed tack to run down on the larger formation, Bolitho studied the admiral's squadron through a powerful telescope and wondered at the sense of keeping such a force employed in this fashion. The British fleets, in summer and winter alike, were expected to blockade the Dutch men-of-war along the coastline of Holland, the Spanish at Cadiz and, of course, the powerful French bases of Brest and Toulon. Apart from that, they were entrusted to patrol the vital trade routes from the East and West Indies, to protect them from the enemy, from privateers and even common pirates. It was an almost impossible task.

And now, because Tsar Paul of Russia, who had little liking for Britain and a mounting admiration of Bonaparte, might be expected to break his neutrality, even more desperately needed squadrons were wasted here at the approaches to the Baltic.

Herrick joined him and said, `The third ship, sir, that'll be Sir Samuel Damerum's.'

Bolitho moved his glass slightly and trained it on the one which wore the Union Flag at her mainmast truck. He was very conscious of the difference between the slow-moving vessels and his own small squadron. Patched canvas, weather-beaten hulls, in some cases whole areas of paint stripped away by wind and sea, they made a marked contrast with his newly refitted twodeckers.

Far beyond the heavier ships Bolitho could just make out the topgallants of a patrolling frigate, the admiral's 'eyes', and he guessed that their lookouts could also see the Danish coast.

`Call away my barge, Thomas. We will be up to them within the hour. See that the stores for the admiral are sent across in another boat directly.'

It was always a strange feeling when ships met each other. Those which had been at sea for a long period were always craving for news from home. The new arrivals had the additional anxiety of ignorance about what might be waiting for them.

His flag lieutenant strode across the quarterdeck, his face pinched with the keen air.

Bolitho said, `There is the admiral's flagship. The secondrate.'

Browne nodded. 'The Tantalus, sir. Captain Walton.' He sounded as if he did not much care.

'You will come across with me.' He smiled grimly. 'To ensure that I do not do something indiscreet.'

Herrick said, 'It might all blow over, sir. And we'll be back at Spithead for orders before you know it.'

Bolitho was in his cabin collecting his despatches from the strongbox when a clatter of blocks and the stiff crack of canvas told him that Beenbow, was coming about under shortened sail so that the barge could be lowered safely alongside.

When he went on deck again the scene had changed once more. The admiral's ships, moving very slowly under fully braced topsails, were like an enemy fleet, with Benbow about to break through their line of battle. It was only too easy to picture, and although many of,Benbow's people had never heard a shot fired in anger, Bolitho, like Herrick and some of the others, had seen it many times.

'Barge alongside, sir.' Herrick hurried towards him, -his face lined with the responsibility of controlling his ship and the rest of the squadron in Bolitho's absence.

'I will be as quick as I can, Thomas.' He tugged his hat firmly across his head, seeing the marines at the entry port, the boatswain's mates moistening their silver calls on their lips in readiness to speed him on his way. 'The admiral will not wish me to be an enforced guest if the sea gets up again, eh?'

A midshipman, unusually neat and tidy, was standing in the pitching barge, and beside him Allday was at the tiller, his rightful place. He must have impressed upon somebody that the rear-admiral would prefer his coxswain to a ship's lieutenant. If Allday got his way, the next time there would be no midshipman either, he thought. Browne, too, was in the boat, somehow managing to appear elegant.

`Attention in the boat!'

The calls shrilled, and Bolitho jumped the last few feet into the sternsheets as the barge rose sluggishly against Benbow's rounded flank.

'Bear off forrard! Give way all!'

Once clear of the two-decker's lee, the barge dipped and staggered through the waves like a dolphin. When Bolitho glanced at the midshipman he saw that his face was already ashen. His name was Graham, and he was seventeen, one of the senior 'young gentlemen'. His chances of promotion to lieutenant might be marred if he was sick in the barge carrying his admiral to meet another.

'Sit down, Mr Graham.' He saw the youth staring at him, startled at being addressed by one so senior. 'It will be a lively pull yet.' r

'Th-thank you, sir.' He sank down gratefully. 'I shall be all right, sir.'

Across his shoulders Allday grinned broadly at the stroke oarsman. Only Bolitho would bother about a mere midshipman. The funny part was, that Allday knew the luckless Graham had been eating some pie he had brought from England. It had doubtless been going mouldy when he had. stepped aboard. After days at sea in a damp, cheerless midshipman's berth, it must be as near poison as made no difference.

Bolitho's arrival aboard Damerum's flagship was no less noisy than his departure from his own.

He got a hasty impression of glittering bayonets and red coats, of stiff-faced lieutenants, and then the admiral himself, thrusting forward to meet him.

'Come aft, Bolitho. God's teeth, this chill is enough to pierce your marrow!'

The Tantalus was a good deal larger than the Benbow, and Damerum's quarters more lavish than Bolitho had ever seen in a King's ship. Apart from the movement, and the muffled shipboard noises, it could have been part of a rich chamber. If the ship ever had to clear for action in a hurry, the fine drapes and expensive French furniture would suffer badly.

Damerum gestured towards a chair while a servant took Bolitho's hat and boat-cloak.

'Sit you down, sir, and let's have a good look at you, eh?'

Bolitho sat. Sir Samuel Damerum, Knight of the Bath, Admiral of the Red, was, at a guess, in his early fifties. He had a brisk, lively way of moving and speaking, but his greying hair, and an obvious thickening about his middle which even an immaculately tailored waistcoat could not conceal, made him seem older.

He said, `So you're Richard Bolitho.' His gaze fell briefly on the gold medal which Bolitho wore around his neck for this formal visit. 'The Nile medal, no less.' He shook his head. 'Some people have all the luck.' In the same quick manner he changed tack again. 'How's the squadron?' He did not wait but added, 'You took longer to reach me than I'd hoped, but can't be helped, what?'

Bolitho said, 'I'm sorry about that, sir. Bad weather, raw landsmen. The usual.'

Damerum rubbed his hands, and as if by sorcery a servant appeared.

'Brandy, man. And not that muck we keep for captains!' He chuckled. 'God, what a war, Bolitho. On and on. No damn end to it.'

Bolitho waited, not yet at ease with this erratic man. He spoke a lot, but so far had said nothing.

Bolitho said, 'My flag captain is sending some stores across for you, sir.'

'Stores?' The admiral's eyes were on the brandy and the two glasses which his servant had carried to a table. 'Oh, yes. Mr Fortnum, my grocer in London, does his best to keep me supplied, y'know. Not easy these days.'

Bolitho did not know who Mr Fortnum was, but felt he should have done.

The brandy was mellow and warming. Much of it and Bolitho knew he would be asleep if he was not careful. 'Well, Bolitho, you will know that you are to assume the duties of the inshore squadron. The Danish affair seems to have cooled down for the present, but my information is that the Tsar of Russia is eager to join with the French against us. You know about the pact he has been trying to make with Sweden?' Again he did not wait for an answer but hurried on. 'Well, he is still set on that idea. In addition, he has the backing of Prussia. Together they may force the Danes against us also. It is never easy to live in peace next to a raging lion!'

Bolitho pictured his small squadron trying to stem the advance of the combined Baltic fleets. Beauchamp had said that his task would not be an easy one.

'Will we enter the Baltic, sir?'

Damerum signalled to his servant for the glasses to be refilled.

'Yes and no. A great show of strength would be wrongly interpreted. Tsar Paul would use it to fan the flames. We'd be at war in a week, But a smaller force, yours, can go with peaceful intent. My ships are known to all the spies who flit past my frigates. It will soon be common knowledge that a new squadron is here. Smaller, and so a lessening of tension and suspicion all round.' He smiled, showing very even teeth. 'Besides which, Bolitho, if there was real trouble we are helpless until next year. March at the earliest. We could not get to grips with the Tsar's ships while they are in harbour, so we must wait for the winter ice to melt. Until then,' he fixed Bolitho with a calm stare, `you will keep an eye on things at close quarters.' He chuckled. `At very close quarters to begin with. You are instructed to enter Copenhagen and meet with a British official there.'

Bolitho stared at him. 'Surely you, as senior officer, would be a better choice, sir?'

'Your concern does you credit. But we have to tread warily. Too junior an officer and the Danes will feel slighted. Too senior and they will see this for something sinister, a threat perhaps.' He wagged a finger. 'No, a young rear-admiral would be about right. The Admiralty believes so, and I have confirmed my support.'

'Well, thank you, sir.' He did not know what to say. It was all happening so quickly. A squadron, a new station, and almost at once he was off again on something quite different. He had a feeling he was going to find Browne very useful after all.

Damerum added suddenly, 'In any doubts at all, send a fast vessel to find me. Half of my ships are returning to England for overhaul, the remainder are to reinforce the Dutch blockade. It is all in the written instructions which even now my flag lieutenant is handing to yours. They are lucky men. They handle the destiny of a fleet, but take no part in the skill of responsibility for it, damn them!'

Water dashed against the stern windows like pellets. It had begun to rain or worse.

Bolitho stood up. 'I shall find my fresh instructions interesting reading, Sir Samuel.' He held out his hand. 'And thank you for the trust you have placed in me.'

As he said it he realized the true meaning for the first time. It was like having a line severed. The instructions were for him to interpret as he saw fit. There was nobody nearby to run to for guidance or advice. Right or wrong, it was his decision.

'I'll not see you over the side, if you don't mind, Bolitho. I've letters to write to catch the courier brig for England.' As they walked to the screen door, beyond which Browne was conversing with a very weary looking lieutenant, he said, 'So good luck in Copenhagen. It's a fair city, I'm told.'

After a perilous descent down the flagship's side, Bolitho and Browne wedged themselves in the sternsheets and wrapped their boat-cloaks around their bodies.

Through chattering teeth Browne asked, 'All well, sir? I should have been with you, but the admiral's aide was waiting to head me off. I did not even get offered a glass, sir!' He sounded quietly outraged.

Bolitho said, 'We are going to Copenhagen, Mr Browne.' He saw the lieutenant's eye light up. 'Does that suit?' 'Indeed it does, sir!'

It was good to be back aboard Benbow. New she might be, and as yet untried, but already she had 'a personality, a warmth which had been lacking aboard the ship he had just visited. Perhaps it was Herrick's influence at work. You never knew for certain with ships, Bolitho thought.

Herrick joined him in the cabin and waited patiently while Bolitho rid himself of his dripping cloak and hat.

'Copenhagen, Thomas. We will lay a course for The Skaw at once, and I shall inform the squadron what is to happen.' He grinned at Herrick's grave expression. 'When I know myself, that is!'

It was a hundred miles at least to The Skaw, the northernmost point of Denmark. It would give him ample time to study his instructions, and perhaps even to read that which had been left out.

Bolitho lay back in a chair while Allday finished shaving him. It was early morning and barely light beyond the salt-streaked windows, but Bolitho had been awake for an hour, preparing himself for a testing day and going over his instructions to see if he had missed anything.

Bolitho was surprised he was so relaxed. He was able to drowse while the razor slid smoothly up his throat, to listen to the sluice of water overhead and the attendant march of bare feet as the decks were washed down.

He thought he heard the boatswain's thick voice, too. Swale, Big Tom as he was called, had a strange sounding tone, almost a lisp, caused by the loss of most of his front teeth. In battle or brawl, Bolitho did not know. Herrick had said he was a good boatswain, and at this moment he was probably examining the poop and quarterdeck again. It was always a strain for the first weeks at sea for a newly built ship. Timber, not always as well seasoned as it should be after years of war and shortages, could do strange things with the hull rolling about in all directions.

Benbow certainly sailed well, he thought. Several times the other two-deckers had been forced to spread more canvas to keep up with her. A fine ship. She alone must have taken-the best part of a forest to build.

Bolitho jerked upright in the chair, making Allday exclaim, 'Easy, sir! I all but parted your windpipe just then!'

Then he said, 'I heard it, too. Gunfire!'

Bolitho started to rise and then lay back again. 'Finish the shave, please.' He controlled his sudden excitement. 'It won't do for me to go rushing on deck.'

It was hard, all the same. He had always been used to going at once to the quarterdeck to assess the circumstances for himself. He recalled one of his first captains, when as a midshipman he had been ordered to pass an urgent message aft to that same lordly presence.

The captain had been drinking in his stern cabin. Bolitho could picture him without effort. As he had stammered out the message, the captain had turned merely to nod and say, 'My compliments to the first lieutenant, Mr Bolitho. Tell him I will come up shortly. That is, if you have still the breath for it!'

Perhaps he, too, had been dying to see for himself, as Bolitho was now.

There was a tap at the screen door and Herrick entered the cabin.

'Good morning, Thomas.' He smiled. It was wrong to play games with Herrick and he added, 'I heard firing.'

Herrick nodded. 'From the bearing I would say it is Lookout, sir, to the nor'-east.'

Bolitho wiped his skin with a towel and stood up, feeling the deck quiver as the rudder fell heavily in a trough. Lookout was the little sloop-of-war, and her captain was Commander Veitch, Herrick's previous first lieutenant. A stern-looking man from Tynemouth, utterly dependable, who had earned his promotion the hard way. If he was tackling something on his own, then it was small and agile… Veitch obviously considered there was no time to inform his flagship or call for assistance. He was not that sort of man anyway.

Herrick suggested, 'Probably a blockade runner, sir.'

Ozzard hurried in with Bolitho's coat and held it out like a Spaniard tormenting a bull.