Alexander Kent - Midshipman Bolitho and the Avenger

Hugh Bolitho said, `Schooner, showing no lights. Under full sail too.' He shut his glass with a snap. `-Bit of luck. He'll be making more din than we are.' He dispensed with conjecture and added shortly, `Bring her up a point, Mr Gloag. I don't want the devil to slip past us. We'll hold the wind-gage if we can.'

Voices passed hushed orders, and cordage squeaked through the sheaves while overhead the big mainsail shivered violently before filling again to the, alteration of course.

Bolitho glanced at the compass as the helmsman said hoarsely, `East by south, sir.'

`Man the larboard battery.' Hugh sounded completely absorbed. `Open the ports.'

Bolitho watched the port lids being hauled open toreveal the glistening mane of water alongside. Avenger was heeling so far over that spray came leaping inboard over the six-pounders and deadly looking swivels.

Normally Bolitho would have felt like the rest of the men around him. Tense, committed, slightly wild at the prospect of a fight. But he could not lose himself this time, and kept thinking of the waggons, the outnumbered escort, the sudden horror of an ambush.

A Tragedy

A light spurted in the darkness, and for an instant he thought some careless seaman had dropped a lantern on the other vessel. Then he heard a distant crack, like a man breaking a nut in his palms, and knew it was a pistol shot. A warning, a signal. Now it did not matter which.

`Put up your helm, Mr Gloag!' Hugh's voice, loud now that caution was pointless, made the men at the tiller start. `Stand by on deck!'

There were more flashes, doing more to reveal the other vessel's size and sail plan than to harm the crouching seamen.

The distance was rapidly falling away, the big sails sweeping the cutter downwind like a bird of prey, and then they saw the schooner rising through the darkness, her canvas in confusion as she tried to change tack and beat clear.

Bolitho watched his brother as he stood by the weather rail, one foot on a bollard, as if he was watching a race.

`As you bear, Mr Truscott! On the uproll!'

A further pause, and across the choppy water Bolitho heard muffled shouts, a vague rasp of metal.

Then, `Fire!'

At a range of less than seventy yards the larboard battery hurled themselves inboard on their tackles, their long orange tongues as blinding as their ex

plosions were deafening. Unlike the heavy artillery

of a ship of the line, or even a frigate, Avenger's little

six-pounders had voices which scraped the insides of

the brain.

Bolitho pictured the effect of the sweeping hail of grape and close-packed canister as it cut into the other vessel's deck. He heard a spar fall, saw splashes alongside the darkened schooner as rigging and perhaps men dropped from the masts like dead fruit.

`Sponge out! Load!'

Hugh Bolitho had drawn his sword, and in the misty starlight it shone in his hand like a piece of thin ice. The same one he had used to settle a matter of honour. Probably many others too, Bolitho thought despairingly.

`Fire!'

Even as the small broadside crashed out again, shaking the hull like a giant fist, a few cracks and flashes showed that the smugglers were not ready to surrender.

Hugh Bolitho yelled, `Stand by to board!' He did not even look round as a man fell kicking on the deck with a musket ball in his neck.

How many times they must have drilled and practised this, Bolitho thought as he dragged out his hanger. The gun crews left their smoking charges and seized up cutlasses and pikes, axes and dirks, while the remainder of the hands threw themselves on sheets and halliards. At the moment of collision between the two hulls, Avenger's sails seemed to vanish like magic, so that with the way off her heavy, downwind plunge she came alongside the other vessel with one heart-stopping lurch.

But stripping off her sails had lessened the chance of dismasting her, likewise she did not rebound away from her adversary, so that as grapnels soared through the darkness and more shots and cries echoed between the hulls, the first boarders swarmed across the bulwark.

Pyke yelled, `Back, lads!'

Even that was like part of a rehearsed dance. As

the cheering boarders threw themselves inboard

again, two swivels exploded from the forecastle,

scything through a crowd of screaming figures who

seconds earlier had been rushing to repel the attack.

Hugh Bolitho pointed his sword. `Now! At 'em,

lads!'

– Then he was up and over, slashing at a man as

he did so, and catching one of his own as he all but fell between the two grinding hulls.

Bolitho ran to the forecastle, waving his hanger to the last party of boarders.

Yelling and cheering like demons they clambered over the gap. One man fell beside Bolitho without a sound, another threw his hand to his face and screamed, the sound ending with a sharp gasp as a boarding pike came out of the darkness and impaled him.

Shoulder to shoulder Bolitho's men advanced along the schooner's deck, while from the cutter alongside the remaining seamen yelled advice and warnings, accompanied by pistol-fire and a few well aimed missiles.

Bolitho felt his shoes slithering on the remains left by the swivels' murderous onslaught. He shut his mind to all else but the faces which loomed and faded before him, the jarring ache of steel as he kept up his guard and probed for weakness in an opponent's defence.

Across the heads and shoulders of the yelling, cursing men he saw his brother's white lapels, heard

his voice as he urged his party forward, separating and dividing the defenders into smaller and smaller groups.

Someone yelled, `That's for Jackie Trillo, you bugger!' A cutlass swung like 'a scythe, almost cutting a man's head from his shoulders.

`Strike! Throw down your arms!'

But a few more were to fall before the cutlasses and pikes clattered on the planking amongst the corpses and groaning wounded.

Then Bolitho saw his brother point his sword at a man by the untended wheel.

`Have your people anchor. If you desist or try to scuttle, I will have you seized up and flogged.' He sheathed his sword. `Then hanged.'

Bolitho hurried to his side. `The whole of Cornwall will have heard this!'

Hugh did not seem to be listening. `Not Frenchies as I suspected. They sound like Colonists.' He turned abruptly and nodded. `Yes, I agree. We will leave the prize anchored here, under guard. Have two swivels hoisted across and trained on the prisoners. Then put a petty officer in charge. He'll know how to deal with them. He'd rather die than face me after letting them escape!'

Bolitho followed him, his mind awhirl as he watched his brother's progress. Passing orders, answering questions, his hands moving to emphasize a point or to indicate what he wanted done.

Pyke shouted, `Anchor's down, sir!'

`Good.' Hugh Bolitho strode to the side. `The rest of you, come with me. Mr Gloag! Cast off and get the ship under way, if you please!'

Blocks squeaked, and like rearing spectres the sails rose above the listing, pock-marked schooner.

Reluctantly at first, and then with gathering speed, the Avenger jerked and bumped her way free of the other vessel's side, the sails filling immediately to carry her clear.

`Where to, sir?' Gloag was peering at the sails. `It's a mite more dangerous 'ere.'

`Put a good leadsman in the chains, please. Sounding all the way. We'll anchor in four fathoms

and sway out the boats.' He looked at his brother.

`We'll head inland in two groups and cut the road.'

`Aye, aye, sir.'

Surprisingly, Hugh clapped him on the arm.

`Cheer up, man! A fine prize, full of smuggled booty, I shouldn't wonder, and no more than a few men killed! We can only take one step at a time!'

As the cutter groped her way closer and closer to

the land, the leadsman's dreary chant recorded the growing danger. Eventually, with surf to starboard, and a dark hint of land beyond, they dropped anchor. But for Gloag's anxiety and repeated warnings, Bolitho suspected his brother would have gone even nearer.

Even now, he did not envy Gloag's responsibility. Anchored amidst sand-bars and jagged rocks, without sufficient hands to work her clear if the wind rose again, he would be hard put to stop Avenger dragging and being pushed ashore.

If Hugh Bolitho was also conscious of it he concealed his fears well.

The two boats were lowered, and taking all but a handful of men, they headed for the nearest beach. The boats were filled to the gunwales, and each man was armed to the teeth.

But as the oars rose and fell, and the land thrust out to enfold them, Bolitho could feel the emptiness. The sounds of gunfire would have been enough. The people who had been making the signals, and any others involved, would be in their cottages by now, or galloping to some hiding-place as fast as they could manage.

Once assembled on the small beach, with the sea pushing and then receding noisily through the rocks, Hugh said, `We will divide here, Richard. I'll take the right side, you the left. Anybody who fails to stop when challenged will be fired on.' He nodded to -his men. `Lead on.'

In two long files the sailors started up the slope from the beach, at first expecting a shot or two, and then finally accepting that they were alone.

Bolitho crossed the narrow coast road, the wind whipping around his legs, as his men hurried out on either side. The waggons might be safe. Could already have passed on their way. There were certainly no wheel tracks to mark where the heavily loaded waggons had gone by.

The seaman named Robins held up his hand. `Sir!' Bolitho hurried to his side. `Someone's comin'!'

The seamen scattered and vanished on either side of the rough track, and Bolitho heard the soft click of metal as they cocked their weapons in readiness.

Robins and Bolitho remained very still beside a wind-twisted bush.

The seaman said softly, `Just th' one, sir. Drunk, by th' sound of it.' He grinned. `Not been as busy as th' rest of us!' His grin froze as they heard a man sobbing and gasping with pain.

Then they saw him reeling back and forth across the road, almost falling in his pitiful efforts to hurry. No wonder Robins had thought him drunk.

Robins exclaimed, `Oh God, sir! It's one of our lads! It's Billy Snow!'

Before Bolitho could stop him he ran towards the lurching figure and caught him in his arms.

`What is it, Billy?'

The man swayed and gasped, `Where was you, Tom? Where was you?'

Bolitho and some of the others helped Robins to lay the man down. How he had got this far was a miracle. He was cut and bleeding from several wounds and his clothing was sodden with blood.

As they tried to cover his injuries, Snow said in a small voice, `We was doin' very well, sir, an' then we sees the soldiers, comin' down the road like a cavalry charge!'

He whimpered, and someone said harshly, `Easy with that wound, Tom V

Snow muttered vaguely, `Some of the lads gave a huzza, just for a joke, like, an' young Mr Dancer went on ahead to greet them.'

Bolitho stooped lower, feeling the man's despair, the nearness of death.

`Then, an' then…'

Bolitho touched his shoulder. `Easy now. Take your time.'

`Aye, sir.' In the strange star-glow his face looked like wax, and his eyes were tightly shut. He tried again. `They rode straight amongst us, hackin' an' slashin', not givin' us a chance. It was all done in a minute.'

He coughed, and Robins whispered huskily, ''E's goin', sir.'

Bolitho asked, `What about the others?'

The head jerked painfully. Like a puppet's. `Back there. Up th' road. All dead, I think, though some ran towards the sea.'

Bolitho turned away, his eyes smarting. Sailors would run towards the sea. Feeling betrayed and lost, it was all they knew.

"E's dead, sir.'

They all stood round looking at the dead man. Where had he been going? What had he hoped to do in his last moments?

`The cap'n's comin', sir.'

Hugh Bolitho, with his men at his back, came out of the darkness, so that the road seemed suddenly crowded. They all looked at the corpse.

`So we were too late.' Hugh Bolitho bent over the dead man. `Snow. A good hand.' He straightened up and added abruptly, `Better get it over with.' He walked down the middle of the road, straightbacked. Completely alone.

It did not take long to find the others. They were scattered over the road, the rocky slope beyond, or apparently hurled bodily over the edge on to the hillside.

There was blood everywhere, and as the seamen

lit their lanterns the dead eyes lit up in the gloom as if to follow their efforts, to curse them for their betrayal.

The waggons and the escort's own weapons had all gone. Not ail the men were there who should have been, and Bolitho guessed they had either fled into the darkness or been taken prisoners for some terrible reason. And this was Cornwall. His own home. No more than fifteen miles from Falmouth. On this wild coastline it could just as easily have been a hundred.

A man Bolitho recognized as Mumford, a boatswain's mate came from the roadside. He held out a cocked hat and said awkwardly, `I think this is Mr Dancer's, sir.'

Bolitho took it and felt it. It was cold and wet.

A cry brought more men running as a wounded seaman was found hiding in a fold of rocks above the road.

Bolitho went to see if he could help and then stopped, frozen in his tracks. As Robins held up his lantern to assist the others with the wounded and barely conscious man, he saw something pale through the wet grass.

Robins said fiercely, "Ere, sir, I'll look.'

They clambered up the slippery grass together, the lantern's beam shining feebly on a sprawled body.

It was the fair hair Bolitho had seen, but now that he was nearer he could see the blood mingling with it as well.

`Stay here.'

He took the lantern and ran the rest of the way.

Gripping the blue coat he turned the body over, so that the dead eyes seemed to stare at him with sudden anger.

He released his grip, ashamed of his relief. It was not Dancer, but a dead revenue man, cut down as he had tried to escape the slaughter.

He heard Robins ask, `All right, sir?'

He controlled the nausea and nodded. `Give me a hand -with this poor fellow.'

Hours later, dispirited and worn out, they reassembled on the beach in the first grey light of dawn.

Seven more survivors had been found, or had emerged from various hiding places at the sound of their voices. Martyn Dancer was not one of them.

As he climbed aboard the cutter Gloag said gruffly, 'If 'e's alive, then there's 'ope, Mr Bolitho.'

Bolitho watched the jolly boat pulling ashore again, Peploe, the sailmaker, and his mate sitting grimly in the sternsheets, going to sew up the corpses for burial.

There would be hell to pay for this night's work, Bolitho thought wretchedly. He thought of the fairheaded corpse, the sick despair giving way to hope as he realized it was not his friend.

But now as he watched the bleak shoreline, the small figures on the beach, he felt there was not much hope either.

8. Voice in the Dark

Harriet Bolitho entered the room, her velvet gown noiseless against the door. For a few seconds she stood watching her son silhouetted against the fire, his hands outstretched towards the flames. Nearby, her youngest daughter Nancy sat on a rug, her knees drawn up to her chin as she watched him, as if willing him to speak.