Alexander Kent - THE INSHORE SQUADRON

Bolitho watched the next party of seamen clambering down from aloft. It was to be hoped they would find something hot below, too. Knowing Neale, he decided he would manage something for his men.

He looked up at the bulging canvas,' following Allday's gaze. Iron hard,, and brutal for the seamen who had to fight and control it. And yet it had a strange beauty. The small realization helped to drive his anxieties back into the shadows.

'Then I'll come down. I'd relish some soup, though I doubt if I could keep much else in my stomach!'

Allday grinned and stood aside to allow Bolitho to reach the companionway.

In the years he had served Bolitho he had never once seen him seasick. But there was said to be a first time for everyone.

Right aft, with the stern lifting and falling into a quarter sea, the scene was more like a grotto than a cabin. The windows were laced with fine ice, so that the filtered light made it seem colder than it was.

Bolitho sat and consumed Ozzard's soup, amazed that he could feel his appetite responding readily. More suited to a skinny midshipman than a flag officer, he thought.

Neale joined him later and placed his chart on the table for Bolitho's inspection.

'If the British merchantmen are in fact at Gotland, sir,' Neale jabbed his brass dividers on the chart, 'they will be lying here, on the north-western coast.' He looked at Bolitho's intent features. 'Below the guns of the fortress, no doubt.'

Bolitho rubbed his chin and tried to transfer the lines and figures into the sea and land, wind and current.

'If the ships are not there, Captain Neale, we have come in vain. But Mr Inskip strikes me as a man who is very shrewd and careful with his information. In theory, the ships will be in Swedish waters, but as the Russians seized them, and the French are showing interest, it seems I have little alternative but to cut them out. With the ships freed the motive for war is removed and any hope of the Tsar's success in invading England will melt with the snow.'

Neale pouted, his face full of mixed emotions.

Bolitho watched him and said, 'Speak your mind, Captain. I am too well used to Captain Herrick's ways to exclude you from free speech.'

'I doubt that the French will be expecting us to arrive, that is, assuming the Ajax is on the same course as ourselves. I will be eager to get to grips with her, sir, my ship owes a few scores. But to speak plainly, I think you have more chance of starting a war than preventing one.' He spread his hands helplessly and looked like a midshipman again. 'I cannot imagine why our admiral failed to act on these threats long ago.'

Bolitho glanced away, recalling Browne's words and Admiral Beauchamp's warning. Was Admiral Damerum the root cause of the warning? If so, why? It did not make any sense at all.

'How is the weather?'

Neale smiled, knowing Bolitho was giving himself time to think.

'Still snowing, sir, but no worse. My sailing master believes it may clear towards dawn.'

They both looked meaningly at the chart. By that time, events might have been decided for them.

Close-hauled on the larboard tack the frigate Styx drove steadily to the north, the sea sluicing over the weather bulwark and smashing down on the opposite side in regular assaults. Men too numbed by the wet and cold to speak kept a constant watch on running tackles and the trim of each yard, minds blank to all else but the pain and the danger.

Unseen on one beam was the Swedish coastline, and then as the frigate passed the southernmost point of Gotland the sea became choppier but less violent as she began the final part of her journey.

Bolitho was up and dressed before first light, so restless that Aliday had a harder time than usual shaving him. The ice was still clinging to the stern windows, but when the dawn eventually broke through it was brighter, and even promised a hint of sunlight.

Bolitho snatched up his hat and looked at Allday. 'God, you take your time, man!'

Allday wiped his razor methodically. 'Time was when admirals had patience, sir.'

Bolitho smiled at him and hurried on deck, the breath knocked instantly from his body by the keen wind.

Figures bustled about on every hand, and when Bolitho took a glass from the rack he saw the sprawling island of Gotland to starboard, blurred and humped in the dim light, like a sleeping sea-monster. It was said to be a strange place, with its fortified city and tales of raids and counter-raids going back over hundreds of years. It was not difficult to picture the Viking long-ships sweeping towards that inhospitable coast, he thought.

Neale crossed the deck and touched his hat.

'Permission to clear for action, sir? The people have been fed, but the benefit of a hot meal will soon fade if they are not kept busy.'

`Carry on, if you please. You command here. I am a passenger.'

Neale walked away, hiding a smile.

`Mr Pickthorn! Beat to quarters and clear for action!' He turned and held Bolitho's gaze, cutting back the years. 'And I want two minutes lopped off the time, d'you hear?'

The sun probed through the drifting flurries of snow and touched the taut sails with the colour of pewter. Everything shone, even the sailors' hair as they ran to obey the urgent tattoo of drums had droplets of melting ice as if they had been dragged up from the sea-bed.

Pascoe strode past buckling on his curved hanger and calling the names of the Benbow's men. Bolitho noticed that when he called one in particular, a new hand named Babbage, he paused and studied him gravely, separating him from the crowd with a quick scrutiny.

A candidate for promotion, or someone to be warned for carelessness? Bolitho caught his nephew's eye and nodded to him.

`Well, you have a frigate, Adam. How does it feel?'

Pascoe smiled broadly. 'Like the wind, sir!'

The first lieutenant, puffing with exertion and red from the keen air, called, 'Ship cleared for action, sir!'

Neale dosed his watch with a snap. 'Smartly done, Mr Pickthorn.'

Then he turned and touched his hat to Bolitho. 'We are yours to lead, sir.'

Browne watched the preparations and then the sudden stillness along the gundeck and said half to himself, `But to where, I wonder?'

Bolitho moved the telescope carefully along the grey shoreline. If only the snow would go altogether. Yet in his heart he knew it was their only ally, their one guard against detection.

Figures moved restlessly around and past him. The occasional clink of metal or the scrape of a handspike intruded into the telescope's small, circular world to distract him.

He tried to recall everything he had studied on the chart and in Neale's notes. A headland should be standing out somewhere on the lee bow, and around it would lie the ships.

Bolitho bit his lip to contain his racing thoughts and anxieties. Maybe, could, might, perhaps, they were useless to him now.

He heard Neale say, `Shall I run up the colours, sir?'

'Please do: I suggest you hoist an ensign to the fore and main also. If our captured merchantmen are over yonder, they'll need all the convincing we can offer.'

He glanced up at the mizzen truck where his own flag had been broken when he had transferred from the Benbow. It might make the French, and anyone else who would otherwise try to attack them, imagine that other ships were on their way in support. Even very junior admirals were not expected to stray about in frigates.

Bolitho asked, `How is- the wind?'

The master replied instantly, `Shifted a point, sir. Nor'westerly.'

Bolitho nodded, too absorbed in his thoughts to notice how an edge had come to his voice.

`Let her fall off three points, if you will. We'll weather the headland as close as we can.'

The sailing master said, `Well, I dunno, sir…' Then he saw the look in Neale's eye and cut his protest short.

The big wheel creaked over, three helmsmen, legs wide apart to keep their balance on the icy deck planking, watching sails and compass like hawks.

Eventually the master said, `East by north, sir.'

Bolitho ignored the seamen as they ran to retrim the yards and braces, the heavy tramp of the afterguard as they followed suit. Neale had learned a lot. Stripped to topsails, forecourse and jib, Styx was responding well, leaning forward under her icehard canvas as if eager on her own account to do battle.

He looked at the gun crews, huddled together for comfort but ready. The sand on the deck around the long twelvepounders to prevent the men from slipping already changing to liquid gold.

How bright the marines' coats looked in the strange light. With snow gathering on their hats they could have been a child's toys at Christmas time.

He saw Pascoe by the forward guns, one hand resting on his hanger, his slim outline swaying easily with the regular plunge of the stem. He was talking to another junior lieutenant, probably discussing their chances. It was often like that. Trying to appear calm, to remain sane when your heart was gripped in a vice and you -imagined every seaman near you could hear its frantic pounding.

`Land on the lee bow, sir!' A slight pause. `Almost dead ahead!'

Neale called sharply, `Leadsman in the chains, Mr Pickthorn. Begin sounding in fifteen minutes.'

If he was afraid of his command running aground he concealed it very well, Bolitho thought.

Bolitho steadied his glass once more. The land looked very close. An illusion, he knew, but if the wind veered suddenly, or they lost it entirely, they would be hard put to claw away.

Neale said, `Take in the forecourse.' He moved closer to Bolitho. `May I bring her up a point, sir?'

Bolitho lowered the glass and looked at him. 'Very well.'

He stared up at the bright flags at each masthead and gaff. He could feel the snowflakes melting on his eyes, moistening his lips. It helped to steady him.

The big forecourse was already booming and flapping reluctantly up to its yard, the seamen spread out above it fisting and kicking the frozen canvas like apes gone mad. Slivers of ice fell through the nets above the gun crews like fragments of broken glass, and Bolitho saw a petty officer stoop to retrieve a piece before jamming it into his mouth.

Another familiar sign. The mouth like dust, when you craved for beer, water, anything.

If only the people in England could see them, he thought grimly. These same sort of men throughout the fleet lived in squalor but fought with dignity and incredible courage. Sweepings from jails some of them perhaps, ill-used ashore and afloat, but they were all that stood between Napoleon or anyone else who became an enemy. He almost smiled as he recalled something his father had once said. ' England must love enemies, Richard. We make so many of them!'

The first lieutenant called, 'Permission to load, sir?'

Neale glanced at Bolitho then replied, `Yes. But not doubleshotted, Mr Pickthorn. With the breeches almost frozen solid, I fear it would do more damage to us than the Frenchies!'

Bolitho gripped his hands together behind him. So confident in him, they even had a mental picture of their enemy firmly fixed. If the bay was empty, that trust would fade just as swiftly.

The leadsman's thick arm was revolving in a slow circle, then he released the lead and line and craned over to watch it splash down beyond the bows.

'By the mark ten!'

Bolitho 'sensed the master shifting restlessly by the wheel, imagining the craggy bottom gliding beneath the coppered hull. The lead splashed down again.

'An' a quarter less ten!'

Bolitho clamped his jaws together. They had to get as near as possible. He saw the great slab of land rising above the bowsprit and jib-boom, filled with menace.

'By the mark seven!'

The ship's marine lieutenant cleared his throat nervously and one of the quarterdeck seamen jumped with alarm. 'By the mark five!'

Bolitho heard the master whispering to Neale. Thirty feet of water. It was not much with the shelving bottom so close. 'Deep four!' The leadsman sounded quite unperturbed again.

As if he was convinced he was about to die and there was nothing he could do about it.

Bolitho levelled the glass again. Two isolated dwelling houses, like pale bricks on the hillside. Drifting smoke, too, or was it? The snow made it hard to see anything clearly. Smoke from an early morning hearth? Or some forewarned battery heating shot to give the impudent Styx a hot reception?

He saw the surf boiling below the headland, the sharp glitter of ice caught in the reflected glare.

`Bring her up two points, Captain Neale.'

He shut the glass with a snap and handed it to a midshipman.

The seamen had been poised for the order like athletes, and as the braces squealed and the yards added their confidence to the rudder, the frigate headed up further to windward, the headland moving back like a great stone door.

The leadsman called, 'By the mark ten!'

Somewhere a man gave an ironic cheer.

'Nor'-east, sir! Full an' bye V

Bolitho gripped the quarterdeck rail as he had done so many times in so many ships.

Any moment now. The wind was right, with the ship sailing as dose to it as she could and still keep the canvas drawing. Once round the headland it must be quick and definite, the shock of surprise like ice water across a sleeping sailor.

`Run out, if you please.'

Bolitho looked away from the little group of officers. If the bay was empty they would laugh at his pitiful preparations. But if they lost precious minutes to save his pride they would curse him with justification.

As the second lieutenant dropped his hand the guns trundled to the ports, trucks squealing as the crews controlled their downhill advance with tackles and handspikes. It was no easy task with the planking so treacherous.

Almost together the black muzzles of the twelve-pounders thrust through the ports, while here and there a gun captain reached out to brush snow from his charge.

'Starboard battery run out, sir!'

'Deck there!' The tension was broken momentarily as the masthead lookout yelled excitedly, 'Ships at anchor round the point, sir!'

Bolitho looked at Neale, and beyond him where Allday was moving his big cutlass back and forth through the air like a wand.

Then forward again, to where his nephew had climbed on to a gun truck to see beyond the nettings.

If every other man-jack aboard had doubted him, these three had not.

'Stand by to wear ship!'

'Hands to the braces there!'

As topmen and others employed at each mast dashed to obey, only the gun crews remained motionless, each captain watching his small world which was held in a square port like a picture.

Neale held up his hand. 'Be easy, lads! Easy now!'

Bolitho heard him. It was like someone calming a nervous horse.

He stared hard across the nettings, barely able to control his feelings. It was all there. Half a dozen merchantmen anchored close together. Somehow dejected in their coatings of white snow, their crossed yards devoid of movement or life.

Allday had moved up to his shoulder, as he always did. To be near. To be ready.

Bolitho could hear his heavy breathing as he said, 'English ships, sir. No doubt about it.' His thick arm shot forward. 'And look yonder! The damn Frenchie!'

Bolitho snatched the glass again and trained it through the masts and rigging. There she was, the Ajax, as he remembered her. Further inshore was a second man-of-war, larger and more cumbersome. Probably a cut down two-decker. The escort for the seized merchantmen, waiting to ride out the weather or await orders.