In the King`s Name

He heard Vincent speak to the quartermaster before joining him at the rail.

“Good thing we didn’t lower the boats after all, sir. We don’t need another anchor!” He seemed calm enough, but his voice was edged with the usual impatience. A first lieutenant’s lot. Adam had not forgotten what it was like.

Vincent looked sharply along the deck as somebody gave a wild cheer. “What the hell!”

But others had joined in, gun crews peering or climbing on to their gangways, even individuals calling from yards or shrouds.

Luke Jago shouted up from the boat tier, “They’ve run up the flag, Cap’n!”

Adam reached instinctively for his telescope, then remembered. Our flag. He saw a seaman turn toward him, grinning. Perhaps he had spoken aloud. He walked to the side and lifted his hat to the shore.

Someone called out, “Wreckage, larboard bow, sir!”

Vincent said, “I’ll be up forrard, sir.”

“And I shall be here, Mark.”

The cheering had stopped. There were more shots, but it was impossible to judge the bearing or distance. Like the wind, it was playing tricks. Adam stared at the headland again: the ensign was very clear now, a twin of the one above the poop.

Midshipman Hotham offered him the big signals telescope. “They’re on the wall, sir.”

Adam trained it carefully and waited for the criss-cross of rigging to dissolve away. There were faces on the first stretch of the battery wall, and somebody was waving, perhaps cheering as Onward came past. Well-sited guns were a ship’s worst enemy, apart from fire. He moved the glass again and saw Vincent’s face pass, blurred and barely recognisable. Squire would be on his way aft to relieve him. Both good officers, but any newcomer might think they scarcely knew each other.

The telescope steadied, finding the range. A few boats huddled together, a shed and part of a slipway, then a cluster of ragged trees. Adam tensed. Someone running.

He heard Squire’s heavy breathing beside him, but did not lower the telescope.

“What do you make of it, James?”

Squire wiped the sweat from his cheek with the back of his hand. “I think the attackers must be on this side, sir. A few marksmen maybe, but until they can-” A jagged ridge of spray rose and fell, interrupting him. “Maybe only one gun. But properly laid and trained, all it would take to slow or disable them while stronger forces were summoned.”

Adam said, “Run out!”

He did not even hear the pipe, only the chorus of gunports being hoisted open. Showing her teeth.

“Ready, sir!”

Onward was heeling slightly, her topsails clutching and holding the offshore wind. But still no target. He could hear a few curses, and thumps from the gun deck as quoins were forced beneath the breeches to depress some of the guns still further.

Someone yelled from forward as a boat under oars pulled strongly from a tiny cove, which had been concealed by rushes or tall grass.

Adam steadied the glass again, and felt himself flinch as several flashes spurted from the boat’s gunwale. “As you bear!” He saw the nearest gun captain crouching over his breech, one hand raised, ready to jump clear.

“Fire!”

Only four guns could be brought to bear at this range. One would have been enough. The boat had taken a direct hit amidships, shattered as if by a giant’s axe. Eventually it settled and was already drifting abeam, planking, broken oars and a bare mast. And bodies.

Musket shots, but only a few, until Sergeant Fairfax’s powerful voice brought another fusillade.

“Gone soft, have you? What d’ you think they’d do to you? ”

The firing began again.

Green uniforms, with scarlet scarves. Life or death.

The guns had hardly finished reloading when lookouts sighted more wreckage. The remains of a small vessel, probably one of Tyacke’s brigantines, aground on a sandbar. She had been hit at point-blank range.

Adam stared at the other shore, but the battery wall was now out of sight. Only part of the nearby settlement was still in view, and it looked deserted. Abandoned. Waiting to accept the victors, perhaps? It must have seen many over the centuries.

Squire said heavily, “The brigantine was ahead of us, sir. It took more than a few shots to do that to her.”

Adam strode to the compass and wheel, but ignored both, looking at the masthead pendant and then at the master’s dog-vane. It was holding up well in spite of its frail cluster of cork and feathers.

He saw Julyan watching him through the receding gunsmoke. He might even have smiled.

He said, almost to himself, “While we are here, they’re trapped. There’s only one way to escape.”

Another gun, but further away. No fall of shot.

Sea against land. He thought suddenly of the Battle of Algiers, some three years ago, when Pellew, now Lord Exmouth, had won a resounding victory over combined land and sea forces. He could remember his own surprise and pride when he had read the admiral’s comment in the aftermath of his victory. He had described Adam Bolitho as a born frigate captain. From England’s greatest, it was praise indeed.

A cry from the forecastle: “More wreckage-ahead, sir!”

Julyan murmured, “Soon now, I think …” He did not finish.

This was as far as a vessel of any size could reach and retain room to tack or come about. Any one else could come overland, or up-stream, as had happened during the attack on the mssion.

Adam looked along the deck, at the gun crews baking in the sun, lookouts cupping hands around their eyes, midshipmen sweating and watching the land. Everything.

And the leadsman’s chant. “Deep six!”

He thought of Vincent, up there in the eyes of the ship where their figurehead, the boy with his trident and riding a dolphin, was pointing the way.

The ship comes first.

If Onward dropped anchor to avoid running aground, she would become a sitting target, to be destroyed by guns from the shore or by waterborne explosives. He saw more pieces of wreckage drifting past, part of a topmast lifting above the rest like a charred crucifix.

“Stand by to come about! Warn all hands!”

Men running, answering the shrill of calls, some already perched on the yards high above the guns and their motionless crews. Adam saw that even the cooks and messmen were adding their weight to the braces. He thought with a sudden, strange apprehension of Tyacke and Napier. Where were they now? He looked again for the flag, even though he knew it was out of sight.

Julyan lowered his eyes, watering from staring at the sun’s path. Like tears. “Give the word, sir!”

“Belay that!” It was Squire, his head thrown back to stare up at the braced topsails even as Adam came striding toward the compass. “Foretop, sir!”

Midshipman Hotham had also heard the lookout’s cry, and although he felt a little lost without the signals telescope he could see this in his mind. Like a signal.

Enemy in sight!

Adam lowered the telescope and felt someone take it from him. The image was imprinted on his brain. The ship, almost bows-on, sails fully braced. A big schooner, three-masted, he thought, even larger than the slaver they had taken as a prize. He watched closely. They would meet and pass in half an hour at this rate. Less. The stranger would be armed, but no match for a frigate.

“The other one will try to slip past us!”

Adam looked away from the pyramid of pale canvas. It was another midshipman, Simon Huxley, waiting to act