Alexander Kent - THE INSHORE SQUADRON

Someone whispered, 'Thank the Lord, he's fainted, poor bugger!'

Allday was behind Bolitho's head. 'Let us carry you aft, sir. Please, this is no place for you!'

Bolitho strained his head round to look at him. He wanted to console him, to explain that he had to remain here, if only to share the pain he had brought to the men around him. But no words came, and he was shocked to see the tears running down Allday's face.

Bolitho gritted his teeth. 'Where is Captain Herrick?'

Browne was on his knees beside him. 'He is attending to the squadron, sir. He will be down again soon.'

Again? So much to do; the dead to be buried, the repairs to be carried out before a storm found them, yet Herrick had already been here to see him.

Loveys was looking down at him, his wispy hair shining in the lamplight.

'Now, sir, let me see.'

Loveys knelt down, his skull-like features showing no sign of fatigue or dismay. He had just flensed a man's arm and amputated it, and God knew how many before that. For so frail a man he seemed to have more strength than any of them.

Bolitho closed his eyes. The pain was already so bad he barely felt the probing fingers, the slicing movement of a knife through his breeches.

Loveys said, 'Musket ball, but it is somehow deflected.' He stood up slowly. `I will do what I can, sir.'

Browne whispered, 'Your nephew is coming, sir. Shall I send him away?'

'No.'

Even one word was agony. The thing he had always dreaded. This was no scar, no spent ball in the shoulder. This was deep in his thigh. His leg and foot were on fire, and he tried not to think of the man he had just seen on the table.

'Let him come to me.'

Pascoe knelt beside him, his face very still, like one of the old portraits at Falmouth.

'I'm here, Uncle.' He took Bolitho's hand in his. 'How are you?'

Bolitho looked at the deckhead. Above it, and the next above that, the guns were still.

He said thickly, 'I have been better, Adam.' He felt the grip

tighten. 'Is everything all right with the squadron?'

He saw Pascoe trying to shield him from a man who was

carrying the bloodied bucket to the companion ladder.

Pascoe nodded. 'You beat them, Unde. You showed them!' Bolitho tried to hold the pain at bay, to estimate the damage

to his body his wild gesture had cost him.

Loveys was back again.

'I will have to remove your clothes, sir.'

Allday said, 'I'll do it!' He could barely look at Bolitho as he fumbled with his shirt and slashed breeches.

Loveys watched patiently. 'Better leave the rest to my loblolly boys.' He gestured to his assistants. 'Lively there!'

It was then that Bolitho wanted to say so much. To tell Adam about his father and what had really happened to him. But hands were already lifting him up and over some motionless figures. Drugged with rum, bandaged against infection, they might yet live. He felt something like terror, claws of fear exploring his insides.

He exclaimed, 'I want you to take the house in Falmouth. Everything. There is a letter…'

Pascoe looked desperately at Allday. 'Oh God, I cannot bear it.'

Allday said brokenly, 'He'll be all right, won't he?'

His words shocked Pascoe into reality. He had never known

Allday show doubt, in fact he had always looked to the burly

coxswain for assurance in the past.

He gripped Allday's sleeve. 'Be certain of it.'

Bolitho lay on the table, seeing little beyond the circle of swaying lanterns.

He had always expected it to be swift when it found him. One instant in battle, the next in death. But not like this, a useless cripple to be pitied or ridiculed.

Loveys said calmly, 'I will not deceive you, sir. You are in mortal peril of losing your leg. I will do my best.'

A hand came round Bolitho's head and the man placed a pad between his teeth. It was sodden with brandy.

Loveys said, `Bite well, sir.'

Bolitho felt the terror rising like a phantom. Fear that the moment was here and now, and that he would show it in front of all the unseen watchers.

Fingers gripped his arms and legs like manacles, and he saw Loveys' right shoulder draw back and then come down suddenly, the pain exploding in his thigh like molten lead.

He tried to move his head from side to side, but Loveys' men knew their trade well. On and on, the agony spreading and probing, cutting, and hesitating whenever the ship gave an unexpected roll.

Through the haze of agony and fear he heard a voice call, ''Old on, Dick! Not long now!'

The interruption by the unknown sailor or marine gave Loveys the seconds he needed.

With a final twist of his thin wrist he gouged the flattened musket ball from the blackened flesh and dropped it in a tray.

His senior assistant murmured, ''E's fainted away, sir.'

'Good.' Loveys made another, deeper probe. 'One more piece.' He watched the man swab away the blood. 'Hold him fast now.'

Herrick approached the table slowly, his men parting to let him through. It,was wrong to see Bolitho like this, naked and helpless. But in his heart he knew Bolitho would have it no other way. He had to clear his throat before he could speak.

'Is it done?'

Loveys snapped his fingers for another dressing. 'Aye, sir, for the present.' He gestured to the tray. 'The ball split one of his buttons and drove it and some fabric deep into the wound.' He met Herrick's anxious gaze. 'You and I have been in the King's service for a long time, sir. You know what can happen. Later I may regret that I did not remove the leg here and now.'

Herrick saw Bolitho stir, heard him moan quietly as a man removed the pad from his mouth.

He asked, 'Can we move him?'

Loveys signalled to his men. 'To my sick-bay. I dare not risk a longer journey.'

As they carried him into the shadows of the orlop Loveys seemed to thrust him momentarily from his mind. He pointed to a man whose head was swathed in bandages. `Get him!' Then to Herrick he added simply, `This place, these conditions, are all I have, sir. What do the Admiralty expect of me?'

Herrick walked past the man who was next on the table. To Pascoe he said, 'I'd take it as a favour if you'd stay with him.' He selected his words carefully, sensing Pascoe's sudden anxiety as he added, 'If things go badly, I need to know at once.' He looked at the young lieutenant gravely. 'And be will want to know you are dose by.'

He turned on his heel and beckoned to Browne. `Come. We'll walk through the gundecks and speak with our people. They did well today, bless 'em.'

Browne followed him towards the companion ladder, to the cleansing air of the upper deck.

Under his breath he said, `And so did you, Captain Herrick, and I know what it is costing you at this very moment.'

When Herrick eventually returned to the quarterdeck the work was still under way. Aloft and below men were splicing and cutting wood for repairs under Wolfe's watchful eye.

Speke, who had taken over the watch, touched his hat and said, 'Indomitable has rigged a jury-mast for her mizzen, sir, and the squadron is under command.'

It was strange, Herrick thought, he had not even considered his sudden authority of overall responsibility. Nor did it seem to matter now. He clenched his jaw as a man cried out pitifully from the lower gundeck. Then he took a telescope and levelled it on the other ships. The line was uneven, and the sails were more holes than canvas. But Herrick knew that given time ships could be put to rights, their hurts repaired. He thought of the terrible scene on the orlop. With people it was not so simple.

Herrick turned towards Browne. It would soon be too dark to pass or exchange signals. He had already ordered that the squadron should, steer south-east in the best formation they could manage.

'I will require a list of all casualties and damage, Mr Browne. Mr Speke will assist you. At daylight you will signal the squadron and request the same from each ship in turn.' He swallowed hard and turned his face away. `Our admiral is bound to ask me that first when he is up and about again.'

Speke was an unimaginative man. 'Will he recover, sir?'

Herrick swung on him, his eyes blazing. `What are you saying, man! Just you attend your damn duties!'

As the two lieutenants hurried away, Major Clinton came out of the gloom and said, `Be easy, sir. I'm sure he meant no harm.'

Herrick nodded. 'I expect you're right.' Then he moved to the weather side and began to pace up and down.'

Old Grubb blew his nose noisily and plodded over to the marine. 'Leave 'im, Major. With all respect, leave 'im be. This'll be a black day for the cap'n, be certain of that, an for many more beside.'

Clinton smiled sadly and then climbed up to the poop deck where some of his men had fallen that afternoon.

He had heard many stories about Bolitho and Herrick, that they had obviously been true was even more surprising, he thought.

Captain Thomas Herrick leaned moodily on his elbow and leafed through the purser's daily report. His mind and body ached from worry and work, and neither was helped by the Benbow's uncomfortable motion. She would roll steeply into a trough, the movement ending each time with a long-drawn-out shudder which ran through every deck and timber.

She was, like the other ships of the line, anchored under the protection of Skaw Point. After the slow crawl from the position on the chart where they had fought Ropars' squadron, and another day at anchor, they were still working. Mending or replacing sails, paying seams, hammering and sawing, splicing and blacking-down rigging. It was just as if they were in the security of a dockyard instead of being out here in the bleak North Sea.

There was a tap at the door, and Herrick steeled himself for the moment he had been dreading.

'Enter!'

Loveys, the surgeon, closed the door behind him and took a proffered chair. He appeared exactly as before, deathly white, and yet tireless.

Loveys said, 'You look worn out, Captain.'

Herrick thrust all the affairs of the squadron and his ship aside like dead leaves. Even though he had been forced to attend to his daily work without respite, he had not once forgotten his friend in the stern cabin.

Men to be promoted to fill the gaps of dead or crippled comrades. Midshipman Aggett appointed as acting lieutenant in place of young Courtenay. With his lower jaw shot away and his mind completely unhinged, it was a miracle Courtenay had survived this long. The watch and quarter bills had had to be rearranged to share out the experienced hands. The purser had been complaining about rations, about. the total loss of some salt beef casks which had been shattered by a stray cannon-ball. The grim business of sea burials, of answering questions and maintaining contact with the other captains, all had taken a brutal toll of his resources.

'Never'mind that.' He calmed his tone with an effort. `How is he today?'

Loveys looked at his strong fingers… `The wound is very inflamed, sir. I have repeatedly changed the dressings, and am now using a dry stupe on it.' He shook his head. 'I'm not certain, sir. I cannot smell gangrene as yet, but the wound is a bad one.' Loveys made a gesture like scissors with his fingers. 'The enemy ball was flattened on impact with flesh acid bone, but that is normal enough. The button was split like a claw and, I fear there may be fragments left in the wound, even pieces of cloth which could encourage rotting.'

'Is he bearing up well?'

Loveys gave a rare smile. 'You will know that better than I, sir.' The smile vanished. 'He needs proper care ashore. Each jerk of his cot is agony, each movement could be the one to start gangrene. I give him an opiate at night but I cannot weaken him further.' He looked Herrick in the eyes. 'I may have to probe again, or worse, take off the leg. That can kill even the strongest, or a man given power by the lust for battle.'