Alexander Kent - THE INSHORE SQUADRON

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.

The paler outline of the fortress walls were almost lost in drifting snowflakes, but somewhere a trumpet gave a strident blare, and Bolitho pictured the startled, cursing soldiers as they ran to man their defences. No man thought too well when roused from a warm bunk to face this kind of weather.

'Now, Captain Neale! Alter course and cut astern of the merchantmen! '

A long way off a gun boomed out, the sound without menace in the snow. A testing shot? A call to arms? Bolitho could feel the excitement welling up like madness. It was too late, whatever it was.

He put his hand down to steady himself as the wheel went over and the Styx changed tack towards the anchorage. His palm touched- the brilliantly gilded hilt of his presentation. sword, and with something like shock he remembered he had left his old blade in the Benbow.

Allday saw his uncertainty and felt the same anxiety.

Bolitho turned and looked at him. He knew that Allday understood and would be blaming himself.

'Never fear, Allday, we did not know our visit to the Danes would end here.'

They both smiled, but neither was deceived. It was like an. omen.

'The Ajax has cut her cable, sir!' A midshipman was dancing with excitement. 'They are in a real confusion!'

Bolitho watched the first scrap of canvas appear on the other frigate's yards, the steep angle of her masts as wind and current carried her towards the shore.

Neale had drawn his sword and was holding it above the nearest gun crew as if to restrain them. The French ship was standing higher through the snow now, taking on shape and personality. More sails had appeared, and above the din of spray and canvas they heard the rumble of gun trucks, the urgent shrill of a whistle.

Across his shoulder Neale called, 'Don't let -her fall off too much! We'll hold the Frenchman 'twixt us and any shore battery!'

Bolitho studied the enemy frigate as she appeared to move astern. Neale had forgotten nothing. From the corner of his eye, even as the Styx completed her slight change of tack, he saw the captain's sword slice down.

'As you bear! Fire!'

Bolitho felt his eyes smarting painfully as a freak breeze brought some of the gunsmoke down across the quarterdeck. He watched the guns hurling themselves inboard on their tackles, the fiery orange tongues ripping through the swirling snow, his ears half-deafened by the noise. Then the quarterdeck six-pounders added their sharper notes, the balls falling short or beyond the other, ship, some even hitting her.