For My Country’s Freedom

He glanced towards the wall and was relieved to see that Larne had moved her berth, doubtless to complete her re-rigging. He wondered if they knew he was here, if someone was watching him with a telescope at this very second.

He said, 'There are stairs at the end.'

'Roight, zur. I’ll make sure there be a boat waitin’ for ’ee.'

Oh, there will be, he thought. Even if the boat’s crew had been up since before dawn. Tyacke had done it himself often enough. Waiting for the new lord and master, imagining what he would be like: the man who would rule everybody’s life from senior lieutenant to ship’s boy; who could promote, disrate, flog and, if necessary, hang anyone who did not abide by his orders.

He shivered slightly but disdained to put on his boat-cloak It was a fair morning and the sea was a mass of dancing white horses, but it was not the cool air that caused him to tremble. It was this moment, which he had dreaded, of this particular day.

He saw a flurry of splashes and knew it was a boat casting off from a mooring buoy. His arrival had been noted.

'Thank you, Henry.' He put some coins into the man’s fist and stared at the big brass-bound chest. They had travelled a long way together since he had recovered from his injuries. His complete world was contained in it.

Recovered? Hardly that. It was impossible not to be reminded of it daily. He saw himself reflected in other people’s faces, and the horror and the pity he saw there had never ceased to wound him.

All through the night he had gone over everything he had discovered about Indomitable, his head filled, as if it would burst if he could not rest. All the lieutenants had been aboard throughout the refit, even the luckless Laroche who had blundered into the inn parlour. The first confrontation. There would be many more.

He gazed out at the moored ship. Without her original top-hamper she looked like any other large frigate at this distance. Like the Valkyrie, with her main gun deck higher than fifth- and sixth-rates so that her devastating broadside could be used to maximum effect. He watched the approaching boat critically, the oars rising and falling like wings. He thought even Allday would approve.

He turned to speak once more, but the little cart had gone. Only the sea-chest remained. The gig swung in a tight arc, the bowman poised with his boat-hook to grip the mooring ring on the stairs.

After what seemed an eternity a young lieutenant ran up the stairs and raised his hat with a flourish.

'Protheroe, sir! At your service!'

'Ah, yes. Fourth lieutenant.' He saw the young officer’s eyebrows lift with surprise, and thought for a moment that his memory had betrayed him.

'Why-yes, sir!'

Tyacke turned deliberately to reveal the burned side of his face. It had the effect he expected. When he turned back, Protheroe had gone pale. But his voice was controlled as he rapped out orders, and two seamen ran to collect the heavy chest.

Tyacke glanced at them as they hurried past with their eyes

averted. Laroche had obviously told a grim story about their new captain.

Protheroe watched the chest being carried down to the gig, no doubt terrified that they would let it fall into the water. Not long out of a midshipman’s berth, Tyacke thought.

'May we proceed, Mr Protheroe?'

The lieutenant stared around with dismay. 'I was looking for your coxswain, sir.'

Tyacke felt his mouth break into a smile.

'I am afraid that the commander of a brig does not run to his own cox’n!'

'I see, sir.' He stood aside and waited for Tyacke to descend the weed-lined steps.

Again the quick stares from the boat’s crew, then every eye looking instantly away as his glance passed over them. Tyacke sat down in the sternsheets and held his sword against his thigh, as he had done when he left Larne.

'Let go! Bear off forrard! Out oars!'

Tyacke turned to watch the gap of lively water widening. I am leaving. God for what?

'Give way all!'

He asked, 'How long have you been in Indomitable?'

'A year, sir. I joined her while she was still laid up in ordinary and about to complete her rebuilding.' He faltered under Tyacke’s eyes. 'Before that I was signals midshipman in the Crusader, 32.'

Tyacke stared across the stroke oarsman’s broad shoulder at the masts and yards rising up to greet him, as if they were lifting from the seabed. Now he could see the difference. One hundred and eighty feet overall, and of some fourteen hundred tons, her broad beam betrayed that she had been built originally for the line of battle. Her sail plan had changed little, he thought. With a wind over the quarter she would run like a deer if properly handled.

He saw the pale sunlight gleaming on several telescopes and knew the men were stampeding to their stations.

What would his first lieutenant be like? Perhaps he had expected promotion, even command of the powerful ship once her overhaul was completed. Indomitable’s last captain had left her months ago, leaving his senior lieutenant in charge until their lordships had decided what to do with her. They had not. He gripped his sword even tighter. Sir Richard Bolitho had made that decision. He could imagine the words. So be it.

'Bring her to larboard, Mr Protheroe!' There was an edge to his voice, although he had not realised it.

As he watched the long tapering jib-boom reaching out towards them like a lance, he saw the figurehead where it crouched beneath the beak-head. Crouched was right. It was in the form of a lion about to attack with both paws slashing at the air. A fine piece of work, Tyacke thought, but it was not the original figurehead, which would have been far too big for the rebuilt hull. Except for the bright red mouth and gleaming eyes, it shone with expensive gold paint, perhaps a gift from the builders who had converted her.

'Carry on, Mr Protheroe.' He was suddenly eager to begin, his stomach in knots as the gig veered towards the main-chains and the entry port, where he had already seen the scarlet of the marines. My marines.

He thought of Adam Bolitho’s frigate, Anemone. Lying alongside this ship, she would be overwhelmed.

His experienced eye took in everything, from the buff and black hull that shone like glass above the cruising white horses, to the new rigging, shrouds and stays freshly blacked-down and every sail neatly furled, probably by the petty officers themselves for this important occasion.

For all of us, a voice seemed to say.

He would find himself a personal coxswain. Another Allday, if there was such a man. He would be more than useful at times like these.

The gig had hooked on, the oars tossed, the seamen staring directly astern. Anywhere but at their new captain.

Tyacke rose to his feet, very aware of the lively gig’s movement, waiting for the exact moment to climb up to the entry port.

'Thank you, Mr Protheroe. I am obliged.'

Then he seized the handropes and stepped quickly on to the tumblehome before the sea could drag him down.

Like the walk from Larne to the waiting carriage, the minutes seemed endless. As his head rose above the port, the sudden explosion of noise was deafening. The bayoneted muskets of the Royal Marines snapped in salute in time with their officer’s sword, and the calls of boatswain’s mates, followed by the rattle of drums, rose and then fell silent.

Tyacke removed his hat in salute to the extended quarterdeck with its neatly-packed hammock nettings. He noticed that the wheel and compass boxes were unsheltered. Builders and designers, then as now, saw only the efficiency of their work, not men being shot down by enemy sharpshooters with nothing but the stowed hammocks