Honour This Day (2 page)

Hyperion—
it had to be an act of Fate.

He could recall the last time he had seen her, after he had worked her into Plymouth. The staring crowds who had thronged the waterfront and Hoe to watch the victor returning home. So many killed, so many more crippled for life after their triumph over Lequiller's squadron in Biscay, and the capture of his great hundred-gun flagship
Tornade
which Bolitho was later to command as another admiral's flag captain.

But it was this ship which he always remembered.
Hyperion,
seventy-four. He had walked beside the dock in Plymouth on that awful day when he had said his last farewell; or so he had believed. Battered and ripped open by shot, her rigging and sails flayed to pieces, her splintered decks darkly stained with the blood of those who had fought. They said she would never stand in the line of battle again. There had been many moments while they had struggled back to port in foul weather when he had thought she would sink like some of her adversaries. As he had stood looking at her in the dock he had almost wished that she had found peace on the seabed. With the war growing and spreading,
Hyperion
had been made into a stores hulk. Mastless, her once-busy gundecks packed with casks and crates, she had become just a part of the dockyard.

She was the first ship of the line Bolitho had ever commanded. Then, as now, he remained a frigate-man at heart, and the idea of being captain of a two-decker had appalled him. But then, too, he had been desperate, although for different reasons. Plagued by the fever which had nearly killed him in the Great South Sea, he was employed ashore at the Nore, recruiting, as the French Revolution swept across the continent like a forest fire. He could recall joining this ship at Gibraltar as if it was yesterday. She had been old and tired and yet she had taken him to her, as if in some way they needed each other.

Bolitho heard the trill of calls, the great splash as the anchor plummeted down into the waters he knew so well.

His flag captain would come to see him very soon now for orders. Try as he might, Bolitho could not see Captain Edmund Haven as an inspiring leader or his personal adviser.

A colourless, impersonal sort of man, and yet even as he considered Haven he knew he was being unfair. Bolitho had joined the ship just days before they had weighed for the passage to the Indies. And in the thirty which had followed, Bolitho had stayed almost completely isolated in his own quarters, so that even Allday, his coxswain, was showing signs of concern.

It was probably something Haven had said on their first tour of the ship, the day before they had put to sea.

Haven had obviously thought it odd, eccentric perhaps, that his admiral should wish to see anything beyond his cabin or the poop, let alone show interest in the gundecks and orlop.

Bolitho's glance rested on the sword rack beside the screen. His own old sword, and the fine presentation one. How
could
Haven have understood? It was not his fault. Bolitho had taken his apparent dissatisfaction with his command like a personal insult. He had snapped, “This ship may be old, Captain Haven, but she has out-sailed many far younger! The Chesapeake, the Saintes, Toulon and Biscay—her battle honours read like a history of the navy itself!” It was unfair, but Haven should have known better.

Every yard of that tour had been a rebirth of memory. Only the faces and voices did not fit. But the ship was the same. New masts, and most of her armament replaced by heavier artillery than when she had faced the broadsides of Lequiller's
Tornade,
gleaming paint and neatly tarred seams; nothing could disguise his
Hyperion.
He stared round the cabin, seeing it as before.
And she was thirty-two years old.
When she had been built at Deptford she had had the pick of Kentish oak. Those days of shipbuilding were gone forever, and now most forests had been stripped of their best timber to feed the needs of the fleet.

It was ironic that the great
Tornade
had been a new ship, yet she had been paid off as a prison hulk some four years back. He felt his left eye again and cursed wretchedly as the mist seemed to drift across it. He thought of Haven and the others who served this old ship day and night. Did they know or guess that the man whose flag flew from the foremast truck was partially blind in his left eye? Bolitho clenched his fists as he relived that moment, falling to the deck, blinded by sand from the bucket an enemy ball had blasted apart.

He waited for his composure to return. No, Haven did not seem to notice anything beyond his duties.

Bolitho touched one of the chairs and pictured the length and breadth of his flagship. So much of him was in her. His brother had died on the upper deck, had fallen to save his only son Adam, although the boy had been unaware that he was still alive, at the time. And dear Inch who had risen to become
Hyperion
's first lieutenant. He could see him now, with his anxious, horse-faced grin. Now he too was dead, with so many of their “happy few.”

And Cheney had also walked these decks—he pushed the chair aside and crossed angrily to the open stern windows.

“You called, Sir Richard?”

It was Ozzard, his mole-like servant. It would be no ship at all without him.

Bolitho turned. He must have spoken her name aloud. How many times; and how long would he suffer like this?

He said, “I—I am sorry, Ozzard.” He did not go on.

Ozzard folded his paw-like hands under his apron and looked at the glittering anchorage.

“Old times, Sir Richard.”

“Aye.” Bolitho sighed. “We had better be about it, eh?”

Ozzard held up the heavy coat with its shining epaulettes. Beyond the screen door Bolitho heard the trill of more calls and the squeak of tackles as boats were swayed out for lowering alongside.

Landfall. Once it had been such a magic word.

Ozzard busied himself with the coat but did not bring either sword from the rack. He and Allday were great friends even though most people would see them as chalk and cheese. And Allday would not allow anyone but himself to clip on the sword. Like the old ship, Bolitho thought, Allday was of the best English oak, and when he was gone none would take his place.

He imagined that Ozzard was dismayed that he had chosen the two-decker when he could have had the pick of any first-rate he wanted. At the Admiralty they had gently suggested that although
Hyperion
was ready for sea again, after a three-year overhaul and refit she might never recover from that last savage battle.

Curiously it had been Nelson, the hero whom Bolitho had never met, who had settled the matter. Someone at the Admiralty must have written to the little admiral to tell him of Bolitho's request. Nelson had sent his own views in a despatch to Their Lordships with typical brevity.

Give Bolitho any ship he wants. He is a sailor, not a landsman.

It would amuse Our Nel, Bolitho thought.
Hyperion
had been set aside as a hulk until her recommissioning just a few months ago, and she was thirty-two years old.

Nelson had hoisted his own flag in
Victory,
a first-rate, but he had found her himself rotting as a prison hulk. He had known in his strange fashion that he had to have her as his flagship. As far as he could recall, Bolitho knew that
Victory
was eight years older than
Hyperion.

Somehow it seemed right that the two old ships should live again, having been discarded without much thought after all they had done.

The outer screen door opened and Daniel Yovell, Bolitho's secretary, stood watching him glumly.

Bolitho relented yet again. It had been easy for none of them because of his moods, his uncertainties. Even Yovell, plump, round-shouldered and so painstaking with his work, had been careful to keep his distance for the past thirty days at sea.

“The Captain will be here shortly, Sir Richard.”

Bolitho slipped his arms into the coat and shrugged himself into the most comfortable position without making his spine prickle with sweat.

“Where is my flag lieutenant?” Bolitho smiled suddenly. Having an official aide had also been hard to accept at the beginning. Now, after two previous flag lieutenants, he found it simple to face.

“Waiting for the barge. After that,” the fat shoulders rose cheerfully, “you will meet the local dignitaries.” He had taken Bolitho's smile as a return to better things. Yovell's simple Devonian mind required everything to remain safely the same.

Bolitho allowed Ozzard to stand on tip-toe to adjust his neck-cloth. For years he had always hung upon the word of admiralty or the senior officer present wherever it happened to be. It was still difficult to believe that this time there was no superior brain to question or satisfy. He
was
the senior officer. Of course in the end the unwritten naval rule would prevail. If right, others would take the credit. If wrong, he might well carry the blame.

Bolitho glanced at himself in the mirror and grimaced. His hair was still black, apart from some distasteful silver ones in the rebellious lock of hair covering the old scar. The lines at the corners of his mouth were deeper, and his reflection reminded him of the picture of his older brother, Hugh, which hung in Falmouth. Like so many of those Bolitho portraits in the great grey stone house. He controlled his sudden despair. Now, apart from his loyal steward Ferguson and the servants, it was empty.

I am here. It is what I wanted.
He glanced around the cabin again.
Hyperion. We nearly died together.

Yovell turned aside, his apple-red face wary. “The Captain, Sir Richard.”

Haven entered, his hat beneath one arm.

“The ship is secured, sir.”

Bolitho nodded. He had told Haven not to address him by his title unless ceremony dictated otherwise. The division between them was already great enough.

“I shall come up.” A shadow moved through the door and Bolitho noticed just the briefest touch of annoyance on Haven's face. That was an improvement from total self-composure, he thought.

Allday walked past the flag captain. “The barge is alongside, Sir Richard.” He moved to the sword rack and eyed the two weapons thoughtfully. “The proper one today?”

Bolitho smiled. Allday had problems of his own, but he would keep them to himself until he was ready. Coxswain? A true friend was a better description. It certainly made Haven frown that one so lowly could come and go as he pleased.

Allday stooped to clip the old Bolitho sword to the belt. The leather scabbard had been rebuilt several times, but the tarnished hilt remained the same, and the keen, outmoded blade was as sharp as ever.

Bolitho patted the sword against his hip. “Another good friend.” Their eyes met. It was almost physical, Bolitho thought. All the influence his rank invited was nothing compared with their close bond.

Haven was of medium build, almost stocky, with curling ginger hair. In his early thirties, he had the look of a sound lawyer or city merchant, and his expression today was quietly expectant, giving nothing away. Bolitho had visited his cabin on one occasion and had remarked on a small portrait, of a beautiful girl with streaming hair, surrounded by flowers.

“My wife,” Haven had replied. His tone had suggested that he would say no more even to his admiral. A strange creature, Bolitho thought; but the ship was smartly run, although with so many new hands and an overload of landsmen, it had appeared as if the first lieutenant could take much of the credit for it.

Bolitho strode through the door, past the rigid Royal Marine sentry and into the glaring sunlight. It was strange to see the wheel lashed in the midships position and abandoned. Every day at sea Bolitho had taken his solitary walks on the windward side of the quarterdeck or poop, had studied the small convoy and one attendant frigate, while his feet had taken him up and down the worn planks, skirting gun tackles and ringbolts without any conscious thought.

Eyes watched him pass, quickly averted if he glanced towards them. It was something he accepted. He knew he would never grow to like it.

Now the ship lay at rest; lines were being flaked down, petty officers moved watchfully between the bare-backed seamen to make sure the ship, no longer an ordinary man-of-war but an admiral's flagship, was as smart as could be expected anywhere.

Bolitho looked aloft at the black criss-cross of shrouds and rigging, the tightly furled sails, and shortened figures busily working high above the decks to make certain all was secure there too.

Some of the lieutenants moved away as he walked to the quarterdeck to look down at the lines of eighteen-pounders which had replaced the original batteries of twelve-pounders.

Faces floated through the busy figures. Like ghosts. Noises intruded above the shouted orders and the clatter of tackles. Decks torn by shot as if ripped by giant claws. Men falling and dying, reaching for aid when there was none. His nephew Adam, then fourteen years old, white-faced and yet wildly determined as the embattled ships had ground together for the last embrace from which there was no escape for either of them.