For My Country’s Freedom

'Keep still!' The voice was strained and sharp.

Adam tried to lie flat on his back, to hold the spreading fire in his side at bay.

'He’s coming now.' Another said, 'What the hell!'

The dry, stifling air moved slightly and another figure came to the table. The ship’s surgeon. When he spoke Adam detected an accent. French.

The man said, 'I do not know your thoughts, Commodore. He is the enemy. He has taken the lives of many of your company. What does it matter?'

As if from far away, Adam recognised the strong voice. Beer,

he thought. Nathan Beer. 'What are his chances, Philippe? I’m in no mood for lectures, not today!'

The surgeon gave a sigh. 'It is an iron splinter the size of your thumb. If I try to extract it, he may well die. If I do not, it is a certainty.'

'I want you to save him, Philippe.' There was no response, and he added with sudden bitterness, 'Remember, I saved you from the Terror. Did I say, ‘What does it matter?’' Almost brutally he continued, 'Your parents and your sister, how was it again? Their heads were struck off and paraded on pikes to be jeered at and spat upon. That mob was French, was it not?'

Somebody held a sponge soaked in water against Adam’s lips. It was no longer cold or even cool, and it tasted sour. But as he moved his lips against it he thought it was like wine.

The commodore again. 'Was this all he carried?'

The surgeon replied wearily, 'That and his sword.'

Beer sounded surprised. 'A woman’s glove. I wonder…'

Adam gasped and tried to turn his head.

'M-mine…' His head fell back. It was a nightmare. He was dead. Nothing was real but that.

Then he felt Beer’s breath against his shoulder. 'Can you hear me, Captain Bolitho?' He gripped Adam’s right hand. 'You fought bravely, nobody could deny it. I thought I would beat you into a quick submission, save lives, and with luck seize your ship. But I misjudged you.'

Adam heard his own voice again, faint and hoarse. 'Convoy?'

'You saved it.' He tried to lighten it. 'That time.' But his voice remained immeasurably sad.

Adam spoke only her name. 'Anemone…'

'She’s gone. Nothing could be done to save her.' Somebody was whispering urgently from the other world, and Beer grunted as he got to his feet. 'I am needed.' He rested his big hand on Adam’s shoulder. 'But I will return.' Adam did not see the quick

glance at the French surgeon. 'Is there anyone…?'

He tried to shake his head. 'Zenoria… her glove… now she is dead.'

He felt neat rum pouring into his mouth, choking him, making his mind reel still further. Through the waves of agony he heard the rasp of metal, then felt the hard hands encircle his wrists and ankles like manacles.

The surgeon watched the leather strap being placed between Adam’s teeth, then he held up his hand, and it was removed.

'Were you trying to speak, m’sieur?'

Adam could not focus his eyes, but he heard himself say distinctly, 'I am sorry about your family. A terrible thing…' His voice trailed away, and one of the surgeon’s assistants said sharply, 'It is time.'

But the surgeon was still staring at the enemy captain’s pale features, almost relaxed now as he fell into a faint.

He placed the palm of his hand on Adam’s body and waited for one of his men to remove the blood-sodden dressing.

Almost to himself he said, 'Thank you. Perhaps there is still hope left for some of us.'

Then, with a nod to the others around the stained table, he forced the probe into the wound, his mind so inured to the agonies he had witnessed in ships and on the field of battle that, even as he worked, he was able to consider the young officer who writhed under his hands, who had moved the formidable Commodore Beer to plead for his life. On the very doorstep of hell, he had still found the humanity to express sympathy for another’s suffering.

When he eventually went on deck it was pitch dark, the heavens covered with tiny stars which were reflected only faintly in the dark waters, and as far as the invisible horizon.

Work on repairs and re-rigging had ceased and seamen sprawled about the deck, too exhausted to continue. In the darkness it appeared as if corpses still lay where they had dropped,

while the air was still tinged with smoke and the smells of death.

The surgeon, Philippe Avice, was well aware that sailors could perform miracles, and without even going into harbour Unity’s men would soon have their ship ready to sail and fight again. Only an experienced eye would be able to see the extent of the English frigate’s ferocity.

And the dead? Drifting, falling like leaves into the ocean’s deeper darkness, while the wounded waited, enduring their pain and fear, to see what another dawn might offer them.

He found Commodore Beer sitting at his table in the great cabin. Even here, the enemy’s iron had left its mark. There was no safe place above the waterline in a ship-of-war. But Beer’s favourite portrait of his wife and daughters was back in its place, and a clean shirt lay ready for the morning.

Beer looked up, his eyes hard in the lantern-light.

'Well?'

The surgeon shrugged. 'He is alive. More, I cannot say.' He took a glass of cognac from Beer’s big hand. He sipped it and pursed his lips. 'Very good.'

Beer smiled, his eyes vanishing into the crow’s-feet of many years at sea.

'The cognac, Philippe? Or the fact that you have saved the life of an enemy?'

Avice shrugged again. 'It is just that I was reminded of something. Even in war, one should never forget it.'

Beer said, after a pause, 'His uncle would have been proud of him.'

The surgeon raised his eyebrows. 'You ’ave met the famous amiral who is said to risk his reputation as much as his life?'

Beer shook his head. I’m getting too old for this game.

He glanced at one of the cannons that shared this cabin when the drums beat the hands to quarters. It was still uncovered,

the barrel and tackles heavily smoke-stained.

'No, I never have. But I will, as sure as fate.'

His head nodded with exhaustion, and the surgeon slipped away quietly through the replaced screen door.

Beer drifted, thinking of the young frigate captain, and the unknown girl named Zenoria. Next time he wrote to his wife in Newburyport he would tell her about them… With something like a groan he pulled himself from the chair.

But first, there were the ship’s needs to attend to. Damage to assess, his men to be encouraged. Always, the ship must come first.

Captain Adam Bolitho had been ignorant of the declaration of war between the United States and England. With nothing but instinct and youthful experience, he had fought with a tenacity that might have turned the tables, despite Unity ’s superior artillery.

He picked up the glove and held it to the light. So small a thing, perhaps a mere gesture, without significance to the woman. But her loss had made Bolitho throw away caution, and prepare to fight his ship to the end.

In his mind’s eye Beer could still see the beautiful, bare-breasted figurehead, when Anemone had finally given up the fight.

Because her captain had nothing left to live for.

12. Witness