The Only Victor (10 page)

Tyacke lowered his telescope and said, “Call all hands, Ben.” The first name had slipped out by accident. “We will wear ship and steer due east.” He glanced at Bolitho. “Into the lion's den!”

Bolitho looked up at the whipping pendant. Yes, Tyacke would miss the acting-master when he was promoted to full warrant rank. He might even see his replacement as another intruder.

He said, “It is the only way, Mr Tyacke, but I shall not hazard the ship unduly.”

The seamen ran to the braces and halliards, fingers loosening belaying pins, casting off lines from their cleats with such deft familiarity that they needed no shouts or curses to hasten them. The sky was growing brighter by the minute, and Bolitho felt his stomach muscles tighten when he considered what he must do. He could sense Allday gazing at him while he stood ready to assist the helmsmen if needed.

It had not just been stockings which had marked Bolitho's change of fortune. Once he had gained promotion to lieutenant at the tender age of eighteen, he had been freed from the one duty he had feared and hated most. As a lieutenant, no longer did he have to scramble up the treacherous ratlines to his particular station aloft whenever the pipe was shrilled between decks, or while he stood his watch with the others.

He had never gotten used to it. In all weathers, with the ship hidden below by a drifting mist of spray and spindrift, he had clung to his precarious perch, watching his men, some of whom had been sent aloft for the first time in their lives. He had seen sailors fall to an agonising death on the deck, hurled from rigging and yard by the force of a gale, or by billowing canvas which had refused all efforts to quell it.

Others had dropped into the sea, to surface perhaps in time to see their ship vanishing into a squall. It was no wonder that young men fled when the press gangs were on the prowl.

“Stand by aft!” Tyacke wiped the spray from his scarred face with the back of his hand, his eyes everywhere while he studied his men and the set of each sail.

“Let go an' haul! Roundly there! Tom, another hand on th' forebrace!”

The shadows of the main and staysail seemed to pass right over the busy figures as the long tiller bar went down, the canvas and rigging clattering in protest.

Bolitho could feel his shoes slipping, and saw the sea creaming under the lee rail as Tyacke brought her round. He saw too the uneven barrier of land stagger across the bowsprit while the schooner continued to swing.

Allday muttered, “By God, she can turn on a sovereign!” But everyone was too busy, and the noise too overwhelming, to hear what might be admiration instead of scorn.

“
Meet her!
Steady as you go!
Now,
let her fall off a point!”

The senior helmsman croaked, “Steady she goes, sir! East by north!”

“Secure!” Tyacke peered up into the glare. “Hands aloft to reef tops'l, Mr Simcox!” A quick grin flashed between them. “With the wind abeam it'll not do the work intended, and we might lose it.”

The twin masts swayed almost vertical and then leaned over once more to the wind's thrust.

Bolitho said, “A glass, if you please.” He tried not to swallow. “I am going to the foremast to take a look.” He ignored Allday's unspoken protest. “I imagine that there will not be too many watching eyes this early!”

Without giving himself time to change his mind he strode forward, and after a quick glance at the surging water leaping up from the stem, he swung himself on to the weather bulwark and dug his hands and feet into the ratlines. Up and up, his steps mounting the shivering and protesting shrouds.
Never look down.
He had never forgotten that. He heard rather than saw the topmen descending the opposite side, their work done as quickly as thought. What must they think, he wondered? A vice-admiral making an exhibition of himself, for some reason known only to himself . . .

The masthead lookout had watched him all the way, and as he clambered, gasping, to the lower yard he said cheerfully, “Foine day, Zur Richard!”

Bolitho clung to a stay and waited for his heart to return to normal. Damn the others who had raced him up the shrouds when they had all been reckless midshipmen.

He turned and stared at the lookout. “You're a Cornishman.”

The sailor grinned and bobbed his head. He did not appear to be holding on to anything. “That be roight, zur. From Penzance.”

Bolitho unslung the telescope from around his shoulders.
Two Cornishmen. So strange a meeting-place.

It took several attempts to train the glass in time with the schooner's lunges into the offshore breakers. He saw the sharp beak of the headland creeping out towards the weather bow, a tell-tale spurt of spray from the reefs Tyacke had mentioned.

It was already much warmer; his shirt clung to him like another skin. He could see the crisscross of currents as the sea contested the jutting land before surging, confused and beaten, around it. As it had since time began. From this point and beyond, two great oceans, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, met. It was like a giant hinge, a gateway which gave access to India, Ceylon and all the territories of New South Wales. No wonder Cape Town was so valuable, so cherished. It was like Gibraltar at the gates of the Mediterranean: whoever held the Rock also held the key.

“
Ships, zur!
Larboard, yonder!”

Bolitho did not need to ask how he could already see them without the advantage of a telescope. Good lookouts were born, not trained, and he had always respected such sailors. The ones who were first to sight the dreaded breakers ahead when every chart claimed otherwise. Often in time for the captain to bring his ship about and save the lives of all aboard.

He waited for the glass to steady again and felt his face stiffen.

Two large ships at anchor; or were they moored fore-and-aft? It would seem so, he thought, to offer greater protection, a defence against a cutting-out attempt, and also to provide a fixed battery of guns to fend off attack.

The lookout said, “Beggin' yer pardon, zur. I reckon they be Dutch Indiamen.”

Bolitho nodded. Like the Honourable East India Company, such vessels were usually well-manned and armed and had proved more than a match for privateers, even men-of-war on occasions.

He turned to watch the sea breaking over some rocks. It was far enough. Further, and Tyacke would be hard put to claw away into open water.

Whatever the ships were doing, they represented a real threat. They had probably brought stores and men for the Dutch garrison, and might well be expecting others to join them.

Bolitho stared down at the deck and almost lost his grip. The mast was so steeply angled to the wind that the topmast leaned right over the blue water. He could even see his own shadow reflected on the crests.

“You may come about, Mr Tyacke!” For a moment he thought he had not heard, then saw the men running to their stations again.

A tall waterspout lifted suddenly abeam and seconds later Bolitho heard the echoing boom of a gun. He had no idea where it came from, but it was too close to ignore.

He made to lower himself to the ratlines again when the lookout said hoarsely, “There be a
third
'un, zur!”

Bolitho stared at him, then raised the glass again. He must be quick. Already the jib was flapping wildly, spilling wind and cracking like musket-fire as the helm went over.

Then, for just a few seconds, he saw the masts and furled sails of the other vessel, her hull lower and almost hidden by the two bigger ships. Dutch or French, it did not really matter. Bolitho had been a frigate captain and had commanded three of them in his time; there was no mistaking that familiar rig.

Waiting, maybe, for the letter which Tyacke's men had found aboard the
Albacora.
Bolitho pushed the hair from his eyes as the mast bucked and swayed over again and the spar felt as if it would splinter itself apart. This was a very large bay, according to Tyacke's chart some twenty miles across, far bigger than Table Bay which they had passed before dawn.

Whatever the Dutch commander's motives might be, he obviously considered the bay and the moored ships well worth protecting. A frontal attack by the English squadron would be costly and probably end in disaster.

He touched the man's shoulder. “Take care of those eyes!” Even as he spoke the words they seemed to come back at him like a mocking threat. He did not hear the lookout's reply; he had begun the difficult climb down to the deck.

Tyacke listened to what he had seen before saying, “They could divide us until—”

“Until they are reinforced? I agree.” Bolitho made up his mind. “You will close with the squadron as fast as you wish.” He found that he could look at the lieutenant's terrible scars without steeling himself. “Then I will need to speak with the general.” He touched Tyacke's arm. “Sir David will not be too pleased.”

Tyacke strode away, calling commands, watching the compass and rudder while Simcox scrawled his calculations on a slate.

A voice seemed to whisper inside Bolitho's mind.
Why interfere? Why not let others take responsibility—or are you allowing yourself to be taken in a trap like some wild animal?

He shook his head, as if he was replying to someone else. How could he request Commodore Popham to detach some of his ships, when they might be needed to evacuate the soldiers and marines if the worst happened? And Warren; could he be trusted any more than the arrogant Captain Varian?

He found Allday waiting near the weather shrouds and said,“I have been thinking . . .”

Allday faced him. “You saw th' size o' that ball, Sir Richard? It's a fortress. We'd need more ships, an' even then we'd be hard put to close with the buggers.” Then he gave a great sigh and rubbed his chest, where the pain of a Spanish sword-thrust lurked as a constant reminder. “But I sees it's no use me arguing—is it, Sir Richard?”

Bolitho eyed him fondly. “I don't want to see men butchered to no good purpose, old friend.”

“Nor I, but . . .”

“And I want to go home. The two enjoined make only one course to take. And if we delay I fear that we shall lose the both.”

From the opposite side Tyacke watched them thoughtfully.

Simcox joined him and mopped his face with his red handkerchief. “A close thing, James.”

Tyacke saw Bolitho clap his hand on Allday's thick arm, the same impetuous gesture he had used to himself. The youthful vice-admiral with the wild black hair blowing in the wind, in his soiled shirt and tar-smeared breeches, was actually laughing, until his coxswain responded with a reluctant grin.

Almost to himself Tyacke replied, “We are not out of the woods yet, Ben.” He tried to hide his relief from his friend as the haze-shrouded headland began to swing away across the quarter. “But they'll cheer as loud as all the rest when the call comes. They've never seen a real battle, that's why.” But Simcox had gone to supervise his men again, and did not hear.

5 “MUST THEY DIE FOR
N
OTHING?”

“I
F YOU WOULD
care to follow me, Sir Richard?” The young army captain stared at Bolitho as he strode up the sloping beach, as if he had just dropped from the moon.

Bolitho paused and glanced at the closely anchored vessels in the bay. Between them and the land every sort of boat was pulling back and forth, some disgorging red-coated soldiers into the shallows to wade ashore, others making heavy weather of it. They seemed loaded down with weapons and stores so that one or two looked in some danger of capsizing.

Bolitho saw
Miranda
's longboat threading her way back to the schooner to await his next instructions. Tyacke would be only too glad to be out of this place, he thought.

If it was hot aboard ship it was doubly so ashore. The heat seemed to rise from the ground like a separate force, so that within minutes Bolitho's clothing was clinging to him. For the army's sake he was fully dressed in the frock coat and gold-laced hat he had collected from
Themis
during their brief pause to inform Warren what was happening, and to pass his orders to the other captains.

He walked behind the young officer, watching for signs of success or delays in the army's progress so far. There were plenty of soldiers in evidence, working to haul powder and shot from the beach while others marched steadfastly in squads and platoons towards the hills. A few glanced at him as they passed, but he meant nothing to them. Some of them were very bronzed, as if they had come from garrisons in the Indies; others looked like raw recruits. Weighed down as they were with packs and weapons, their coats were already darkly patched with sweat.

Allday tilted his hat over his eyes and commented, “Bloody shambles, if you asks me, Sir Richard.”

Bolitho heard the far-off bang of light artillery—English or Dutch it was impossible to tell. It seemed impartial and without menace, but the canvas-covered corpses awaiting burial along the rough coastal track told a different story.

The captain paused and pointed at some neat ranks of tents. “My company lines are here, Sir Richard, but the General is not present.” When Bolitho said nothing he added, “I am sure he will be back shortly.”

Somewhere a man screamed out in agony, and Bolitho guessed there was a field hospital here, too, with the headquarters company. Progress
was
slow. Otherwise the army surgeons would be beyond that forbidding-looking ridge, he decided.

The captain opened a tent flap and Bolitho ducked to enter. The contrast was unnerving. The ground was covered by rugs and Bolitho imagined the challenge it must have been for the orderlies to find somewhere flat enough to lay them, and pitch this large tent so securely.

A grave-faced colonel, who had been seated in a folding campaign chair, rose to his feet and bowed his head.

“I command the Sixty-First, Sir Richard.” He took Bolitho's proffered hand and smiled. “We knew of your presence here, but not
amongst
us of course!” He looked tired and strained. “There was no time to receive you with due honours.”

Bolitho looked up and saw a singed hole in the top of the tent.

The colonel followed his glance. “Last evening, Sir Richard. One of their marksmen got right through our pickets. Hoping for an important victim, no doubt.” He nodded to the orderly who had appeared with a tray of glasses. “This may quench your thirst while you are waiting for the General.”

“Are the enemy well-prepared?”

“They are, Sir Richard, and they have all the advantages.” He frowned and added disdainfully, “But they use methods I find un-soldierly. That marksman, for instance, was not in uniform, but dressed in rags to match his surroundings. He shot two of my men before we ran him to earth. Not the kind of ethics I care for.”

Allday remarked, “I think I sees him just now, Sir Richard, hanging from a tree.”

The colonel stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.

“What . . . ?”

Bolitho said, “Mr Allday is with
me,
Colonel.”

He watched as Allday took a tall glass of wine from the orderly and winked at him. “Don't you stray too far, matey.” In his fist, the glass looked like a thimble.

Bolitho sipped the wine. It, like the General, travelled well.

The colonel walked to a folding table where several maps were laid out.

“The enemy falls back when pressed, Sir Richard—there seems no eagerness to stand and fight. It is a slow business all the same.” He shot Bolitho a direct glance. “And if, as you say, we can expect no further support in men and supplies, I fear it will be months rather than weeks before we take Cape Town.”

Bolitho heard horses clattering amongst loose stones, the bark of commands and the slap of muskets from the sentries outside the tent. The horses would be glad to be on dry land again, Bolitho thought, even if nobody else was enjoying it.

The General entered and threw his hat and gloves on to a chair. He was a neat man with piercing blue eyes. A no-nonsense soldier who claimed that he asked nothing from his men that he could or would not do himself.

There were instructions; then the General suggested that the others should leave. Allday, with three glasses of wine under his belt, murmured, “I'll be in earshot if you needs me, Sir Richard.”

As the flap fell across the entrance the General commented, “Extraordinary fellow.”

“He's saved my life a few times, Sir David; my sanity a few times more.”

Surprisingly, some of the sternness left the General's sun-reddened face.

“Then I could use a few thousand more like him, I can tell you!” The smile faded just as quickly. “The landings went well. Commodore Popham worked miracles, and apart from the inevitable casualties it was very satisfactory.” He looked at Bolitho severely. “And now I am told that I shall receive no reinforcements, that you even intend to strip the squadron of some of the frigates.”

Bolitho was reminded vividly of his friend Thomas Herrick. His eyes were that blue. Stubborn, loyal, hurt even. Was Herrick still his friend? Would he never accept his love for Catherine?

He said shortly, “It is not merely
my
intention, Sir David!” Thinking of Herrick and the gulf which had come between them had put an edge to his voice. “It is the King's own signature on those orders, not mine.”

“I wonder who guided his hand for him?”

Bolitho replied quietly, “I did not hear that, Sir David.”

The General gave him a wry smile. “Hear what, Sir Richard?”

Like two duellists who had changed their minds, they moved to the maps on the table.

Once, the General looked up and listened as distant gunfire echoed sullenly around the tent. It reminded Bolitho of surf on a reef.

Bolitho laid his own chart on top of the others and said, “You are a soldier, I am not; but I know the importance, the vital necessity of supplies to an army in combat. I believe that the enemy expect to be reinforced. If that happens before you can take Cape Town, Sir David, what chances have you of succeeding?”

The General did not answer for a full minute while he studied Bolitho's chart, and the notes which he had clipped to it.

Then he said heavily, “Very little.” Some of his earlier sharpness returned. “But the navy's task is to prevent it! Blockade the port, and fight off any would-be attempt to support the garrison.” It sounded like an accusation.

Bolitho stared at the chart, but saw only Warren's handful of ships. Each captain had his orders now. The three frigates would watch and patrol the Cape and the approaches, while the remaining two schooners maintained contact between them and the commodore. They might be lucky, but under cover of darkness it would not be too difficult for other vessels to slip past them and under the protection of the shore batteries.

And then the choice would remain as before. Attack into the bay and risk the combined fire of the batteries and the carefully moored ships—at best it would end in stalemate. The worst did not bear contemplating. If the army was forced to withdraw in defeat because of lack of supplies and the enemy's continued stubborn resistance, the effect would resound right across Europe. The crushing victory over the Combined Fleet at Trafalgar might even be cancelled out by the inability of the army to occupy Cape Town. France's unwilling allies would take fresh heart from it, and the morale in England would crumble with equal speed.

Bolitho said, “I suspect that neither of us welcomed this mission, Sir David.”

The General turned as the young captain Bolitho had seen before appeared at the entrance.
“Yes?”

The captain said, “A message from Major Browning, Sir David. He wishes to re-site his artillery.”

“Send word, will you? Do nothing until I reach there. Then tell an orderly to fetch my horse.”

He turned and said, “The news you have brought me is no small setback, Sir Richard.” He gave him a level stare. “I am relying on you, not because I doubt the ability of my officers and men, but because I have no damned alternative! I know the importance of this campaign—all eyes will be watching it as a foretaste of what lies ahead. For make no mistake, despite all the triumphs at sea, they will be as nought until the English foot-soldier plants his boots on the enemy's own shores.”

There were hushed voices outside the tent, the dragging steps of a horse being led reluctantly back to duty.

The General tossed back the glass of brandy someone had brought for him and picked up his hat and gloves. They were probably still warm from his last ride.

He gave a wry smile. “A bit like Nelson yourself, y'know. He used to think he was just as able a brigadier ashore as he was a good sailor afloat!”

Bolitho said coldly, “I do recall that he captured Bastia and Calvi with his sailors, and not the army.”

“Touché!”
The General led the way from the tent and Bolitho saw more soldiers marching past, their boots churning up clouds of red dust.

The General said, “Look at 'em. Must they die for nothing?”

Bolitho saw Allday hurrying down the beach to signal for the boat. He answered, “If you knew me, Sir David, you would not ask that.”

The blue eyes flashed like ice as the General lifted one foot to the stirrup. “It is because I know
of
you, Sir Richard; and I am not asking. For the first time in my career, I am
begging!
”

The colonel joined Bolitho near the water's edge, and together they watched the boat pulling strongly around an anchored store-ship.

He said, “I have never seen him like that before, Sir Richard.”

Allday was pointing to where he wanted the boat to come in, but his mind was still with Bolitho. What he had not heard, he could guess. Whoever knew the rights and wrongs of all this must have realised the hopeless task they had given him.

He heard the colonel snap his boots together as he said, “I hope we shall meet again, Sir Richard.”

Bolitho turned and looked up the shelving beach. “Be certain of it, Colonel. In Cape Town or in hell, only greater powers will decide which!”

The boat had almost reached the anchored schooner when Bolitho turned and spoke to Allday again.

“You remember
Achates,
Allday?”

The big coxswain grimaced and touched his chest. “Not likely to forget that little lot, Sir Richard!” He tried to grin, to shrug it off. “But that were four years past.”

Bolitho touched his arm. “I did not mean to bring it back, old friend, but I had an idea concerning it. There was a time when I thought we had lost ‘Old Katie' just as surely as
Hyperion.
”

Allday stared at his grave features, his spine suddenly like ice despite the strong sunlight. “A
fireship,
d'you mean, sir?” He spoke almost in a croak, then glanced at the stroke oarsman to make certain he was not listening as he threw himself back on his loom.

Bolitho seemed to be thinking aloud. “It might prove useless. I realise what I am asking others to do.” He stared abeam as a fish leapt from the water. “But set against the cost in lives and ships . . .”

Allday twisted round and looked at the boat's coxswain. But the man's eyes were fixed on the final approach, his knuckles whitening on the tiller bar. It was unlikely that
Miranda
would carry a flag-officer again. He would be fully aware of the consequences if he ruined it.

Not one of them in the boat would realise what agony Bolitho was going through, nor understand if they did.

Bolitho said, “I recall what Mr Simcox said about the wind. Little use to us maybe, but it might entice the enemy to cut and run for it.”

He turned as the schooner's masts swept above them. “They will have to be volunteers.”

Allday bit his lip. These were not Bolitho's men, but strangers. They had not followed his flag when they had broken the enemy's line with all hell coming adrift around them. He could remember that other time at San Felipe as clearly as yesterday.
Achates
at her moorings, and then suddenly the approaching ship bursting into flames, bearing down on them while they stared with horror at the inferno. There was only one thing worse than being snared by a fireship, Allday thought grimly, and that was being the crew of one.
Volunteers?
They were as likely as a virgin on Portsmouth Hard.