The Flag Captain

Calvert stared at him with sudden determination. “I will never forget that you sent men to look for me.” The determination faded. “But I couldn’t leave him there like that. He was just a boy.”

Bolitho recalled Broughton’s scathing comment, as if it had been spoken aloud in the room. Do him good! Well, perhaps after all he had been right.

He said gravely, “Many good men have died today, Mr Calvert. It is up to us to see their efforts are not wasted.” He paused before adding, “And to ensure that young Lelean’s trust is not betrayed.”

Long after Calvert had gone Bolitho sat slumped in the chair. What was the matter with him to offer Calvert such comfort?

Calvert was useless, and probably always would be. He came of a background and social climate which Bolitho had always mistrusted and often despised.

Was it because of that one spark which had been given him by the dead midshipman? Could he really hold on to such ideas in a war which had passed all reason and outwitted traditional sentiment?

Or was it that he had replaced Lelean with his own nephew? Would it have been fair to add to Calvert’s misery when inwardly he knew he would have acted the same had it been Adam out there in an unknown gully?

When the first grey fingers of dawn explored the wall of the commandant’s room Bolitho was still in the chair, dozing in exhausted sleep, and awakening at intervals to new doubts and problems.

On the top of the central tower Bickford was already awake and watching the probing light. After a while he could wait no longer and beckoned to a seaman who was standing nearby.

“Good enough, eh?” He could not stop grinning. His part of the action was done, and he was alive. “Run up the colours! That’ll make Coquette sit up and beg!”

At noon Bolitho climbed to the top of the central tower and leaned over the battlements to study the activity in the bay. Just after dawn the frigate Coquette, followed by Inch’s Hekla had passed through the narrow channel below the fortress, and within an hour had been joined by the battered and listing Navarra. Now, as he watched the boats pulling busily back and forth from the shore to the ships, from the marine outpost on the beaked headland to the pickets on the causeway, it was hard to remember it as the empty place it had once been.

He raised a telescope and trained it across the anchored bomb vessel until he had discovered Lieutenant Bickford and his landing party searching amongst the low-roofed buildings at the top of the bay. Giffard had already reported the village-for it was little more than that-to be quite deserted. The fishing boats which they had sighted before the first attack proved to be derelict

and had not been used for many months. Like the village, they were part of some ghost habitation from the past.

The one good capture had been the little brig, named Turquoise. She was a merchant vessel, armed only with a few outdated four-pounders and some swivels, but refitted and properly equipped would make a very useful addition to the Navy List. She also represented a command for a junior officer. Bolitho had promised himself that Keverne should get her as his just reward.

He moved the glass slightly to watch the Navarra being warped closer and closer to the beach. The master’s mate sent to command her had made sail as fast as he had been able, just as soon as he had sighted the British ensign flying over the fortress. The makeshift repairs had begun to give way, and it had been all he could do to reach Djafou before the sea overtook the pumps for the final plunge.

Bolitho was glad Keverne had selected the master’s mate in question. A less intelligent seaman might have obeyed his last order to stand clear of the land until the squadron’s entrance, for fear of incurring the displeasure of his superiors. Had he done so, the prize ship would indeed have been lost, for within thirty minutes of her arrival the wind had died completely, and the sea, from the headlands to the burnished horizon, was like a sheet of dark blue glass.

Boats were all around the listing vessel, and he could see parties of men from the other ships busily unloading stores and heavy spars, swaying out guns and anchors to lighten the hull as much as possible in readiness for beaching.

Like the crew of the little brig, who had surrendered without a murmur of protest, the arrival of the Navarra’s company and passengers posed another real problem. He saw many of them being gathered in lines on the beach, the women’s clothing contrasting vividly with the silver-coloured sand and the hazy hills beyond the village. They had to be fed and quartered, as well as protected from any marauding tribesmen who might still be

nearby. It was not going to be easy, and he doubted if Broughton would view their presence as anything but an unwanted nuisance.

The squadron was probably just below the horizon, and he could picture the admiral fretting and fuming at being becalmed, and still in ignorance of the success or failure of the attack. But the lack of wind was an ally, too. For if Broughton could not reach Djafou, then neither could an attacker.

Metal groaned and clattered on the lower rampart, and he saw Fittock, the gunner, supervising the removal of one of the iron-mounted cannon so that the damaged wall could be partially repaired. The guns had already shown they could hold the entrance against powerful ships of war. And with the innocent-looking Hekla anchored in the centre of the bay, even a heavy attack along the coast by troops was a bad risk.

He lowered the glass and tugged at his shirt which was clinging to his skin like a hot towel. The more he mulled over what they had found at Djafou, the more convinced he became that it was useless as a base. Automatically he thrust his hands behind him and started to pace slowly back and forth on the heated flagstones, his feet measuring almost exactly the span of the Euryalus’s quarterdeck.

If he had held the final responsibility, would he have acted differently from Broughton? Return to Gibraltar and admit failure, or go further east in the hope of discovering a suitable bay or inlet without informing the Commander- in-Chief?

He felt his scabbard slapping against his thigh as he paced, and let his mind stray back to the grisly hand-to- hand fighting during the night. Every time he allowed himself to be drawn into these reckless raids he was narrowing his own chances of survival. He knew it, but could not help himself. He guessed that Furneaux and some of the others imagined it was conceit, a desperate yearning for glory which made him leave his proper role of flag captain to take part in such dangerous forays. How could he explain his true feelings when he did not understand them himself? But he

knew he would never allow his men to risk their lives because of some hazy plan from his own mind without his being there with them to share its reward or failure.

He smiled grimly to himself. Which was why he would never attain flag rank. He would go on facing battle after battle, passing experience to the barely trained officers who were being promoted to fill the growing gaps left by the war’s harvest. And then one day, in a place like this, or on the deck of some ship, he would pay the price. As always, he found himself praying fervently it would be instant, like the closing of a door. Yet at the same time he knew it was unlikely. He thought of Lucey, and those others who were down below in the great cool storerooms which were being used as a hospital. Coquette’s surgeon would do his best, but many of them would die slowly, with no relief from pain but the fortress’s supply of wine, which was mercifully plentiful.

Bolitho paused by the battlements and saw a boat shoving off from the Coquette and turning towards the fortress. Another was leaving the bomb vessel, and he realised he had been so busy with his thoughts he had almost forgotten he had invited Inch and Captain Gillmor to dine with him. One of them might think of some idea, no matter how vague, which would throw light on Djafou’s total lack of strategic value.

Later as he stood in the commandant’s cool room sharing a jug of wine with the two captains, he marvelled at the way in which they could discuss and compare their experiences and viewpoints of the brief, fierce battle. It was hard to realise none of them had slept for more than an hour or so at a time, nor did there seem much likelihood of rest in the near future. The Navy was a good school for such stamina, he thought. Years of watchkeeping and snatching catnaps between all the endless necessities of making and shortening sail, going to quarters or having to repair storm damage under the most severe conditions hardened even the laziest man to going without proper rest almost indefinitely.

Inch was describing the excitement aboard Hekla as the marine

spotters had recorded his first fall of shot when Allday entered to announce that Lieutenant Bickford had returned from his expedition to the village.