For My Country’s Freedom

side.

But the guns were still loaded, waiting to fire when Tyacke dropped his sword.

'Now!' Bolitho would have fallen but for Allday’s grip on his arm. The deck was slippery and the sweet smell of death was stronger even than the burned powder.

Tyacke stared at him and then waved his blade. 'Open fire!'

Unity’s shadow seemed to tower above them, sails already being brailed up as the Americans lined the gangway and prepared to board the drifting Indomitable.

Tyacke’s voice seemed to rouse a memory, a discipline which had all but gone. With the hulls barely yards apart the roar of Indomitable ’s twenty-four-pounders sounded like the climax to a nightmare.

It seemed to give individual strength where before there had been only the raw fury of war. Wild-eyed, the Indomitables remaining men and the marines from the nettings charged, yelling and cheering, blades clashing and stabbing as they swarmed on to the enemy’s deck. Musket and pistol-shots brought down a few of them, and one hot blast of canister cut down Captain du Cann and some of his marines before the frenzied mob overwhelmed the swivel, and hacked the solitary gunner to bloodied rags.

Suddenly there were more cheers, English voices this time, and for one dazed instant Bolitho imagined relief had arrived from the convoy.

But it was Zest, grappling the big Unity from the opposite side. Adam and his new company were already swarming across the gap.

Allday parried a cutlass to one side and hacked down the man with such a powerful blow that the blade almost severed his neck. But it was too much for him. The pain seared through his chest, and he could barely see which way he was facing.

Avery was trying to help, and Allday wanted to thank him, to do what he had always done, to stay close to Bolitho.

He tried to shout but it was only a croak. He saw it all as if it were a series of pictures. Scarlett yelling and slashing his way over the blood-red deck, his hanger like molten silver in the misty sunshine. Then the point of a pike, motionless between two struggling seamen: like a snake, Allday thought. Then it stabbed the lieutenant with the speed of light. Scarlett dropped his sword and clung to the pike even as it was dragged from his stomach, his scream silenced as he pitched down beneath the stamping, hacking figures.

He saw Sir Richard fighting a tall American lieutenant, their blades ringing and scraping as each sought the other’s weakness. Avery saw it too, and dragged a pistol from beneath his coat.

Tyacke shouted, 'The flag! Cut it down!' He turned and saw another officer running at him with his sword. Almost contemptuously, he waited for the man to falter at his terrible scars and momentarily lose his nerve before he ran him through, as he would have done a slaver.

There was one great deafening cheer which seemed unending, ear-splitting. Men hugging one another, others peering round, cut and dazed, not knowing whether they had won or lost, barely knowing friend from foe.

Then silence, the sounds of battle and suffering held at bay like another enemy.

Bolitho went to Allday’s assistance and, with Avery, got him to his feet.

Avery said simply, 'He was trying to protect you, sir.'

But Allday was crawling on his knees, his hands and legs soaked with blood, his eyes suddenly desperate and pleading.

'John! It’s me, John! Don’t leave us now!'

Bolitho watched, unable to speak as Allday knelt, and with great gentleness gathered his son’s body into his arms.

Bolitho said, 'Here, let me, old friend.' But the eyes that met his were blank, like a total stranger’s.

He said only, 'Not now, Sir Richard. I just needs a few minutes with him.' He brushed the hair from his son’s face, so still now, caught at the moment of impact.

Bolitho felt a hand on his shoulder, and saw that it was Tyacke’s.

'What?' The enemy had surrendered, but it made no sense. Only Allday’s terrible hurt was real.

Tyacke glanced at Allday, on this crowded and fought-over deck, so alone with his grief.

He said abruptly, 'I’m sorry, Sir Richard.' He waited for Bolitho’s attention to return to him. 'Commodore Beer is asking for you.' He looked up at the sky, clearing now to lay bare their wounds and damage. If he was surprised to be alive, he did not reveal it. He said, 'He’s dying.' Then he picked up a fallen boarding-axe and drove it with furious bitterness into the quarterdeck ladder. 'And for what?'

Commodore Nathan Beer was propped against the broken compass-box when Bolitho found him, his surgeon and a bandaged lieutenant trying to make him comfortable.

Beer looked up at him. 'I thought we’d meet eventually.' He tried to offer his hand but as if it was too heavy, it fell back into his lap.

Bolitho stooped down and took the hand. 'It had to end in victory. For one of us.' He glanced at the surgeon. 'I must thank you for saving my nephew’s life, doctor. Even in war it is necessary to love another.'

The commodore’s hand was heavy in his, the life running out of it like sand from a glass.

Then he opened his eyes and said in a strong voice, 'Your nephew-I remember now. There was a lady’s glove.'

Bolitho glanced at the French surgeon. 'Cannot anything be done for him?'

The surgeon shook his head, and afterwards Bolitho recalled seeing tears in his eyes.

He gazed into Beer’s lined face. A man with an ocean of experience. He thought of Tyacke’s bitterness and anger. And for what?

'Someone he cared for very much…' But Beer’s expression, interested and eager, had become still and unmoving.

Allday was helping him to his feet. 'Set bravely, Sir Richard?'

Bolitho saw Lieutenant Daubeny walk past, the Stars and Stripes draped over one shoulder.

He touched Allday’s arm, and then realised that Adam was watching them across the fallen.

'Yes, old friend. It gets harder.' He pointed at Daubeny. 'Here, lay the flag over the commodore. I’ll not part him from it now!'

He climbed slowly across the fallen spars, and on to Indomitable ’s scarred deck.

Then he turned and grasped Allday’s arm. 'Aye, set bravely.' He looked at the watching faces. What did they really think? Pride, or was it conceit: the need to win, no matter what?

He touched the locket beneath his stained shirt, which had been clean only hours ago.

Aloud he said quietly, 'I’ll never leave you, until life itself is denied me.'

Despite all this carnage, or perhaps because of it, he knew she would hear him.

Epilogue

Lady Catherine Somervell stared at her reflection in the looking-glass and brushed her long dark hair, her eyes critical, as if searching for a fault. Brush-brush-brush, automatic and without feeling. It was just another morning, a bitter one too if the frost around the bedroom windows was any gauge.

Just another day. Perhaps a letter would come. In her heart she knew it would not.

In two days’ time it would be December; after that did not bear thinking of. Another year. Separated from the only man she loved, could ever love.

It had been a hard winter so far. She would ride around the estate and then go to Nancy. Lewis, the King of Cornwall, was

ill. He had suffered a stroke, the possibility of which his doctor had warned him often enough in the past.

Catherine had sat with him, reading to him, feeling the frustration and the impatience of the man who, more than most, had lived life to the full. He had muttered, 'No more hunting, no more riding-where’s the point of going on?'