For My Country’s Freedom

Bolitho had said, 'I was a part of it, too.' Catherine’s words seemed to ring in his mind. The Mark of Satan. Was there, could there be substance in the old Cornish beliefs and superstitions?

After that they had sat mostly in silence, until at last Adam had made to leave.

'I grieve for Rear-Admiral Keen. His loss is all the more tragic because…' He had left the rest unsaid.

He had picked up his hat and straightened his uniform. When he returned to his ship they would only see him as their captain. So it must be.

But as Bolitho had watched him climb down into his boat to the trill of calls, he had seen only the midshipman.

He stirred himself as voices pealed down from aloft.

'Deck there! Zest in sight to larboard!'

Like yesterday, and all the others before it. He could picture the rakish 38-gun frigate, her captain too, Paul Dampier, young, perhaps too headstrong, and very ambitious. Rather like Peter Dawes, the admiral’s son who now commanded Valkyrie out of Halifax.

'Deck there! Reaper in sight to starboard!' A smaller frigate

of 26 guns. James Hamilton, her captain, was old for his rank and had been attached to the Honourable East India Company until he had re-entered the navy at his own request.

And away to windward would be the little brig Marvel. Ready to run down on anything suspicious, to search coves and inlets where her larger consorts might lose their keels; to run errands, almost anything. Bolitho had often seen Tyacke watching her whenever she was close by. Still remembering. Marvel was very like his Larne.

He saw Allday at the foot of the quarterdeck ladder. He had his head on one side, and was ignoring the rush of seamen to trim the yards again, urged on no doubt by the smell of breakfast.

Bolitho asked sharply, 'What is it?'

Allday looked at him impassively. 'Not certain, sir.'

'Deck there! Sail in sight to th’ nor’-east!'

Tyacke glanced around until he found Midshipman Blythe. 'Aloft with you, my lad, and take a glass!'

There was an edge to his voice and Bolitho saw him stare at the horizon, already glassy bright and searing.

'Prepare to make more sail, Mr Scarlett!'

Blythe had reached the mainmast crosstrees. 'Sail to the nor’-east, sir!' Just the slightest hesitation. 'Schooner, sir!'

Scarlett remarked, 'Well, she’s not running away.'

With Indomitable and the other two frigates hove-to, and the brig Marvel making sail to block the stranger’s escape if she proved hostile, every available glass was trained despite the heavy, regular swell.

Midshipman Cleugh, Blythe’s haughty assistant, called in his squeaky voice, 'She’s Reynard, sir!'

Scarlett said, 'Courier. I wonder what she wants?'

Nobody answered.

Allday climbed silently up the ladder and stood at Bolitho’s shoulder.

'I’ve got a feeling, sir. Something’s wrong.'

It was almost an hour before the schooner was near enough to drop a boat. Her captain, a wild-eyed lieutenant named Tully, was taken down to the cabin where Bolitho was pretending to enjoy some of Ozzard’s coffee.

'Well, Mr Tully, and what have you brought me?'

He watched as Avery opened the bag and then dragged out the sealed and weighted envelope.

But the schooner’s young captain exclaimed, 'It’s war, sir! The Americans are already at the Canadian frontier…'

Bolitho took the despatches from Avery’s hand. 'Where are their ships?' One letter was from Captain Dawes in Valkyrie. He had taken his ships to sea as already arranged, and would await fresh orders as they had planned, it seemed so long ago.

He repeated, 'But where are their ships?'

Dawes had written as a postscript, Commodore Beer’s squadron quit Sandy Hook during a storm.

He could almost hear the words. A total responsibility. But he felt nothing. It was what he had expected. Hoped, perhaps. To end it once and for all.

Tyacke, who had been waiting in silence, asked suddenly, 'What is the date of origin, sir?'

Avery replied, 'Ten days ago, sir.'

Bolitho stood up, aware of the silence in the ship, despite the heavy movement. Ten days, and they had been at war without knowing it.

He swung round. 'The next convoy from Jamaica?'

Tyacke said, 'Sailed. They’d not know either.'

Bolitho stared at the chair by the stern bench. Where Adam had sat with Catherine’s letter. Where his heart had broken.

He asked, 'What escort?' He saw Tyacke’s face. He, too, had known that this was coming. But how could that be?

Avery said, 'Anemone, sir. If they were not expecting…'

Bolitho interrupted him sharply. 'Make a signal to Zest and Reaper, repeated Marvel. Close on flagship and remain in company.' He looked directly at Tyacke, excluding everyone else. 'We shall lay a course for the Mona Passage.' He could recall it so clearly, that much-disputed channel to the west of Puerto Rico, where he and so many faces now lost had fought battles now forgotten by most people.

It was the obvious route for any Jamaica convoy. Heavily laden merchantmen would stand no chance against ships like the U.S.S. Unity, or men like Nathan Beer.

Unless the escort saw through the deception and turned to defend the convoy against overwhelming odds, as Seraphis had faced John Paul Jones’s Bonhomme Richard in that other war against the same enemy.

It was just possible. That convoy had been saved. Seraphis had been beaten into submission.

He looked at Tyacke but in his heart, he saw only Adam.

'All the sail she can carry, James. I think we are sorely needed.'

But a voice seemed to echo back, mocking him.

Too late. Too late.

Richard Hudson, first lieutenant of the 38-gun frigate Anemone, strode aft to the quarterdeck even as eight bells chimed out from the forecastle. He touched his forehead as a mark of respect to the second lieutenant, whom he was about to relieve. Like the other officers he wore only his shirt and breeches, and was hat-less, and he could feel even the lightest garment plastered to his body like a second skin.

'The afternoon watch is aft, sir.'

The words were formal and timeless, the navy’s custom from the Indian Ocean to the Arctic, if so ordered.

The other young lieutenant, the same age as himself, replied with equal precision, 'The course remains at south-east by south,

the wind has backed to about north by west.'

Around and below them, midshipmen and the duty watch took their stations while others filled in their time splicing and stitching, the endless tasks of maintaining a ship-of-war.

Hudson took a telescope from its rack and winced as he held it to his eye. It was as hot as a gun-barrel. For a moment or two he moved the glass across the drifting heat haze and the dark blue water until he found the shimmering pyramids of sail, the three big merchantmen which Anemone had been escorting from Port Royal, and would continue to escort until they had reached the Bermudas, where they would