In Gallant Company (7 page)

‘Deck there! Oi've lost sight o' th' schooner, zur!'

Pears' voice cut across the speculation and gossip. ‘Bring her up two points, Mr Cairns!' He watched the sudden bustle, the shrill calls between decks.

‘Man the braces there!'

Pears said to the deck at large, ‘We'll gain a cable or so.'

He looked up as the wheel squeaked and the yards began to swing in response to the braces. With her great spread of canvas still holding the dying wind,
Trojan
heeled obediently and pointed her jib boom further to windward. Flapping canvas, chattering blocks and the yells of petty officers did not cover his voice as he said to the tall sailing master, ‘That was
well done
, Mr Bunce.'

Bunce dragged his gaze from the helmsmen and the swaying compass card. In the dull light his eyes and brows stood out from all else.

He replied humbly, ‘It is His will, sir.'

Pears turned away as if to hide a smile. He barked, ‘Mr Sparke, lay aft. Mr Bolitho, attend the cutters and have them swayed out presently.'

Steel clashed between decks, and more men swarmed up to the boat tier, their arms filled with cutlasses, pikes and muskets.

Bolitho was on the gundeck, watching the second cutter's black painted hull rising on its tackles. Then he turned to look aft and saw that the upper poop and the taffrail were already misty and without substance.

He said, ‘Lively, lads, or we'll not find our way over the bulwark!' It brought a few laughs.

Pears heard them and said soberly to Sparke, ‘Tend well what the master tells you about the set of the current hereabouts. It will save a mile of unnecessary boat pulling, and not see you arriving on your prize with no breath to lift a blade.' He watched Sparke's eyes as they took it all in. ‘And take care. If you cannot board, then stand off and wait for the fog to clear. We'll not drift that much apart.'

He cupped his hands. ‘Shorten sail, Mr Cairns! Bring her about and lie to!'

More shouted commands, and moments later as the courses and topsails were brailed up to the yards the two boats detached themselves from the shadowy gundeck and swung up and over the gangway.

Bolitho came aft and touched his hat. ‘The people are mustered and armed, sir.'

Sparke handed him a scribbled note. ‘Estimated course to steer. Mr Bunce has allowed for the schooner's drift and the strength of the current.' He looked at the captain. ‘I'll be away, sir.'

Pears said, ‘Carry on, Mr Sparke.' He was going to add good luck, but set against Sparke's severe features it seemed superfluous.

He did say to Bolitho, however, ‘Do not get lost, sir. I'll not hunt around Massachusetts Bay for a year!'

Bolitho smiled. ‘I will do my best, sir.'

As he ran down to the entry port, Pears said to Cairns, ‘Young rascal.'

But Cairns was watching the pitching boats alongside, already filled with men and waiting for Sparke and Bolitho to take them clear of their ship. His heart was with them. It did him no good to realize that the captain's decision had probably been the right one.

Pears watched the black hulls turning end on, the confused splash and thud of oars suddenly picking up the stroke and taking them deeper into the wet, enveloping mist.

‘Double the watch on deck, Mr Cairns. Have swivels loaded and set to withstand any boarding attempt on ourselves.'

‘What will you do now, sir?'

Pears looked up at his ship's strength. Each sail was either furled or motionless, and
Trojan
herself was paying off to the current, rolling deeply on a steady swell.

‘Do?' He yawned. ‘I am going to eat.'

Bolitho stood up in the sternsheets and gripped Stockdale's shoulder while he found his balance. Through the man's checkered shirt his muscles felt like warm timber.

The mist swirled into the boat, clinging to their arms and face, making their hair glisten as if with frost.

Bolitho listened to the steady, unhurried pull of the oars.
No sense in urgency. Save the strength for later.

He said, ‘Hold her nor'-west, Stockdale, I am assured that is the best course to take.'

He thought of Bunce's wild eyes. Could there be any other course indeed!

Then, leaving Stockdale at the tiller, crouching over the boat's compass, Bolitho groped his way slowly towards the bows, climbing over thwarts and grunting seamen, treading on weapons and the feet of the extra passengers.

The twenty-eight-foot cutter had a crew of eight and a coxswain in normal times. Now she held them and an additional party which in total amounted to eighteen officers and men.

He found Balleine, the boatswain's mate, crouching above the stem like a figurehead, peering into the wet mist, a hand cupped around his ear to pick up the slightest sound which might be a ship, or another boat.

Bolitho said quietly, ‘I cannot see the second lieutenant's cutter, so we must assume we are dependent on our own resources.'

‘Aye, sir.' The reply was blunt.

Bolitho thought Balleine might be brooding over the flogging, or merely resentful in being given a look-out's job while Stockdale took the tiller.

Bolitho said, ‘I am depending on your experience today.' He saw the man nod and knew he had found the right spot. ‘I fear we are somewhat short of it otherwise.'

The boatswain's mate grinned. ‘Mr Quinn and Mr Couzens, sir. I'll see 'em fair.'

‘I knew it.'

He touched the man's arm and began to make his way aft again. He picked out individual faces and shapes. Dunwoody, a miller's son from Kent. A dark-skinned Arab named Kutbi who had enlisted in Bristol, although nobody knew much about him even now. Rabbett, a tough little man from the Liverpool waterfront, and Varlo, who had been crossed in love, and had been picked up by the press-gang while he had been drowning his sorrows at his local inn. These and many more he had grown to know. Some he knew very well. Others stayed away, keeping the rigid barrier between forecastle and quarterdeck.

He reached the sternsheets and sat down between Quinn and Couzens. Their three ages added together only came to
fifty-two. The ridiculous thought made him chuckle, and he felt the others turning towards him.

They think me already unhinged. I have lost sight of Sparke, and am probably steering in quite the wrong direction.

He explained, ‘I am sorry. It was just a thought.' He took a deep breath of the wet salt air. ‘But getting away from the ship is reward enough.' He spread his arms and saw Stockdale give his lopsided grin. ‘Freedom to do what we want. Right or wrong.'

Quinn nodded. ‘I think I understand.'

Bolitho said, ‘Your father will be proud of you after this.'
If we live that long
.

Cairns had explained to Bolitho what Quinn had meant about his family being in the leather trade. Bolitho had imagined it to be a tanyard of the kind they had in Falmouth. Bridles and saddles, shoes and straps. Cairns had almost laughed. ‘Man, his father belongs to an all-powerful city company. He has contracts with the Army, and influence everywhere else! When I look at young Quinn I sometimes marvel at his audacity to refuse all that power and all that money! He must be either brave or mad to exchange it for
this!
'

A large fish broke surface nearby and flopped back into the water again, making Couzens and some of the others gasp with alarm.

‘Easy all!' Bolitho held up his arm to still the oars.

Again he was very conscious of the sea, of their isolation, as the oars rose dripping and motionless along the gunwales. He heard the gurgle of water around the rudder as the boat idled forward into the swell. The splash of another fish, the heavy breathing of the oarsmen.

Then Quinn said in a whisper, ‘I hear the other cutter, sir!'

Bolitho nodded, turning his face to starboard, picking up the muffled creak of oars. Sparke was keeping about the same pace and distance. He said, ‘Give way all!'

Beside him Couzens gave a nervous cough and asked, ‘H-how many of the enemy will there be, sir?'

‘Depends. If they've already taken a prize or two, they'll be short of hands. If not, we may be facing twice our number or more.'

‘I see, sir.'

Bolitho turned away. Couzens did not see, but he was able to discuss it in a manner which would do justice to a veteran.

He felt the fog against his cheek like a cold breath. Was it moving faster than before? He had a picture of the wind rising and driving the fog away, laying them bare beneath the schooner's guns. Even a swivel could rip his party to shreds before he could get to grips.

He looked slowly along the straining oarsmen and the others waiting to take their turn. How many would change sides if that happened? It had occurred often enough already, when British seamen had been taken by privateers. It was common practice in the Navy, too.
Trojan
had several hands in her company caught or seized in the past two years from both sea and land. It was thought better to fight alongside their old enemy rather than risk disease and possible death in a prison hulk. While there was life there was always hope.

Bolitho reached up and touched his scar, it was throbbing again, and seemed to probe right through his skull.

Stockdale opened the shutter of his lantern very slightly and examined his compass.

He said, ‘Steady as she goes, sir.' It seemed to amuse him.

On and on, changing the men at the oars, listening for Sparke's cutter, watching for even a hint of danger.

Bolitho thought that the schooner's master, being a local man, may have made more sail and outpaced the fog, might already be miles away, laughing while they pulled slowly and painfully towards some part of New England.

He allowed his mind to explore what was fast becoming a real possibility.

They might get ashore undetected and try to steal a small vessel and escape under sail. Then what?

Balleine called hoarsely, ‘There's a
glow
of sorts, sir!'

Bolitho stumbled forward again, everything else forgotten.

‘There, sir.'

Bolitho strained his eyes through the darkness. A glow, that described it exactly, like the window of an alehouse through a waterfront fog. No shape, no centre.

‘A lantern.' Balleine licked his lips. ‘Hung very high. So there'll be another bugger nearby.'

Bunce had been very accurate. But for his careful calculations they might have passed the other vessel without seeing her or the light. She was standing about a mile away, maybe less.

Bolitho said, ‘Easy all!' When he returned to the sternsheets he said, ‘She's up ahead, lads. From our drift I'd say she'll be bows on or stern on. We'll take what comes.'

Quinn said in a husky voice, ‘Mr Sparke is coming, sir.'

They heard Sparke call, ‘Are you ready, Mr Bolitho?' He sounded impatient, even querulous, his earlier doubts forgotten.

‘Aye, sir.'

‘We will take her from either end.' Sparke's boat loomed through the fog, the lieutenant's white shirt and breeches adding to the ghostlike appearance. ‘That way we can divide their people.'

Bolitho said nothing, but his heart sank. Either end, so the boat which pulled the furthest would have a good chance of being seen before she could grapple.

Sparke's oars began to move again and he called, ‘
I
will take the stern.'

Bolitho waited until the other was clear and then signalled his own men to pull.

‘You all know what to do?'

Couzens nodded, his face compressed with concentration. ‘I will stay with the boat, sir.'

Quinn added jerkily, ‘I'll support you, sir, er, Dick, and take the foredeck.'

Bolitho nodded. ‘Balleine will hold
his
men until they are ready to use their muskets.'

Cairns had been insistent about that, and rightly so. Any fool might set off a musket too soon if it was loaded and primed from the start.

Bolitho drew his curved hanger and unclipped the leather scabbard, dropping it to the bottom boards. There it would wait until he needed it. But worn during an attack it might trip and throw him under a cutlass.

He touched the back of the blade, but kept his eyes fixed on the wavering glow beyond the bows. The nearer they got,
the smaller it became, as the fog's distortion had less control over it.

From one corner of his eye he thought he saw a series of splashes as Sparke increased his stroke and went in for the attack.

Bolitho watched as with startling suddenness the masts and booms of the drifting schooner broke across the cloudy sky like black bars and the lantern sharpened into one unwinking eye.

Stockdale touched Couzens' arm, making the boy jump as if he had cut him.

‘Here, your fist on the tiller-bar, sir.' He guided him as if Couzens had been struck blind. ‘Take over from me when I give the word.' With his other hand Stockdale picked up his outdated boarding cutlass which weighed as much as two of the modern ones.

Bolitho held up his arm and the oars rose and remained poised over either beam like featherless wings.

He watched, holding his breath, feeling the drag of current and holding power of the rudder. They would collide with the schooner's raked stem, right beneath her bowsprit with any sort of luck.

‘Boat your oars!' He was speaking in a fierce whisper, although surely his heart-beats against his ribs would be heard all the way to Boston. His lips were frozen in a wild grin which he could not control. Madness, desperation, fear. It was all here.

‘Ready with the grapnel!'

He watched the slender bowsprit sweeping across them as if the schooner was riding at full power to smash them under her forefoot. Bolitho saw Balleine rising with his grapnel, gauging the moment, ducking to avoid losing his head on the schooner's bobstay.

There was a sudden bang, followed by a long-drawn-out scream. Bolitho saw and heard it all in a mere second. The flash which seemed to come from the sea itself, the response from the vessel above him, yells and startled movements before more explosions ripped across the water towards the scream.