Inshore Squadron Read online

  THE INSHORE

  SQUADRON

  Selected Historical Fiction Published by McBooks Press

  BY ALEXANDER KENT

  The Complete Midshipman Bolitho

  Stand Into Danger

  In Gallant Company

  Sloop of War

  To Glory We Steer

  Command a King’s Ship

  Passage to Mutiny

  With All Despatch

  Form Line of Battle!

  Enemy in Sight!

  The Flag Captain

  Signal–Close Action!

  The Inshore Squadron

  A Tradition of Victory

  Success to the Brave

  Colours Aloft!

  Honour This Day

  The Only Victor

  Beyond the Reef

  The Darkening Sea

  For My Country’s Freedom

  Cross of St George

  Sword of Honour

  Second to None

  Relentless Pursuit

  Man of War

  Heart of Oak

  BY PHILIP MCCUTCHAN

  Halfhyde at the Bight of Benin

  Halfhyde’s Island

  Halfhyde and the Guns of Arrest

  Halfhyde to the Narrows

  Halfhyde for the Queen

  Halfhyde Ordered South

  Halfhyde on Zanatu

  BY DEWEY LAMBDIN

  The French Admiral

  The Gun Ketch

  Jester’s Fortune

  What Lies Buried

  BY ALEXANDER FULLERTON

  Storm Force to Narvik

  Last Lift from Crete

  All the Drowning Seas

  A Share of Honour

  The Torch Bearers

  The Gatecrashers

  BY JULIAN STOCKWIN

  Mutiny

  Quarterdeck

  Tenacious

  Command

  The Admiral’s Daughter

  BY JAN NEEDLE

  A Fine Boy for Killing

  The Wicked Trade

  The Spithead Nymph

  BY DUDLEY POPE

  Ramage

  Ramage & The Drumbeat

  Ramage & The Freebooters

  Governor Ramage R.N.

  Ramage’s Prize

  Ramage & The Guillotine

  Ramage’s Diamond

  Ramage’s Mutiny

  Ramage & The Rebels

  The Ramage Touch

  Ramage’s Signal

  Ramage & The Renegades

  Ramage’s Devil

  Ramage’s Trial

  Ramage’s Challenge

  Ramage at Trafalgar

  Ramage & The Saracens

  Ramage & The Dido

  BY FREDERICK MARRYAT

  Frank Mildmay OR

  The Naval Officer

  Mr Midshipman Easy

  Newton Forster OR

  The Merchant Service

  Snarleyyow OR

  The Dog Fiend

  The Privateersman

  BY V.A. STUART

  Victors and Lords

  The Sepoy Mutiny

  Massacre at Cawnpore

  The Cannons of Lucknow

  The Heroic Garrison

  The Valiant Sailors

  The Brave Captains

  Hazard’s Command

  Hazard of Huntress

  Hazard in Circassia

  Victory at Sebastopol

  Guns to the Far East

  Escape from Hell

  BY JAMES DUFFY

  Sand of the Arena

  The Fight for Rome

  BY JOHN BIGGINS

  A Sailor of Austria

  The Emperor’s Coloured Coat

  The Two-Headed Eagle

  Tomorrow the World

  BY R.F. DELDERFIELD

  Too Few for Drums

  Seven Men of Gascony

  BY JAMES L. NELSON

  The Only Life That Mattered

  BY C.N. PARKINSON

  The Guernseyman

  Devil to Pay

  The Fireship

  Touch and Go

  So Near So Far

  Dead Reckoning

  The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower

  BY NICHOLAS NICASTRO

  The Eighteenth Captain

  Between Two Fires

  BY DOUGLAS REEMAN

  Badge of Glory

  First to Land

  The Horizon

  Dust on the Sea

  Knife Edge

  Twelve Seconds to Live

  Battlecruiser

  The White Guns

  A Prayer for the Ship

  For Valour

  BY DAVID DONACHIE

  The Devil’s Own Luck

  The Dying Trade

  A Hanging Matter

  An Element of Chance

  The Scent of Betrayal

  A Game of Bones

  On a Making Tide

  Tested by Fate

  Breaking the Line

  BY BROOS CAMPBELL

  No Quarter

  The War of Knives

  Alexander Kent

  THE INSHORE SQUADRON

  the Bolitho novels: 13

  McBooks Press, Inc.

  www.mcbooks.com

  ITHACA, NY

  Published by McBooks Press 1999

  Copyright © 1978 by Bolitho Maritime Productions, Ltd.

  First published in the United Kingdom by Hutchinson 1978

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any

  portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  without the written permission of the publisher. Requests for such

  permissions should be addressed to McBooks Press, Inc.,

  ID Booth Building, 520 North Meadow St., Ithaca, NY 14850.

  Cover painting by Geoffrey Huband.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kent, Alexander.

  The inshore squadron / by Alexander Kent.

  p. cm. — (Richard Bolitho novels ; 13)

  ISBN 0-935526-68-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  1. Great Britain—History, Naval—18th century—Fiction.

  2. Bolitho, Richard (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 3. Copenhagen, Battle of, 1801—Fiction. I. Title II. Series: Kent, Alexander.

  Richard Bolitho novels ; no. 13.

  PR6061.E63I57 1999

  823’.914—dc21

  99-39520

  All McBooks Press publications can be ordered by

  calling toll-free 1-888- BOOKS 11 (1-888-266-5711).

  Please call to request a free catalog.

  Visit the McBooks Press website at www.mcbooks.com.

  Printed in the United States of America

  9 8 7

  It was ten of April morn by the chime;

  As they drifted on their path,

  There was silence deep as death

  And the boldest held his breath

  For a time.

  From The Battle of the Baltic by

  THOMAS CAMPBELL

  1 WE HAPPY FEW

  ADMIRAL Sir George Beauchamp held his thin hands towards the blazing log fire and rubbed his palms slowly together to restore his circulation.

  He was a small, stooped figure, made fragile by his heavy dress coat and gold epaulettes, but there was nothing frail about his mind or the sharpness of his eyes.

  It had been a long, tiresome ride from London to Portsmouth, the journey worsened by autumn rain and deeply rutted roads. And Beauchamp’s one night’s rest in the George Inn on Portsmouth Point had been ruined by a fierce gale which had changed the Solent into a raging mass of white horses and made all but the largest vessels scurry for shelter.

  Beauchamp tur
ned from the fire and surveyed his private room, the one he always used when he came to Portsmouth, like many important admirals before him. Now the gale had receded and the thick glass windows shone like metal in sunlight, a deception, because beyond the stout walls the air was chilled, with a hint of winter to come.

  The little admiral sighed aloud, something he would never have done if company had been present. Late September 1800, seven years of war with France and her allies.

  Once, Beauchamp had envied his contemporaries, at sea in every quarter of the globe, in their fleets, squadrons or flotillas. But in weather like this he was more than satisfied with his office of Admiralty where his shrewd mind as a planner and strategist had won him much respect. Beauchamp had sent more than one flag officer to ignominy, and had placed his confidence in other, more junior men whose experience and ability had been previously overlooked.

  Seven years of war. He turned the thought over in his mind. Victories and defeats, good ships left to rot until the enemy was almost at the gates, brave men and fools, mutinies and triumphs. Beauchamp had seen it all, had watched new leaders emerging to replace the failures and the tyrants. Collingwood and Troubridge, Hardy and Saumarez, and, of course, the public’s darling, Horatio Nelson.

  Beauchamp gave a thin smile. Nelson was what the country needed, the very stuff of victory. But he could not see the hero of the Nile enduring the work of Admiralty like himself. Sitting at endless policy meetings, smoothing the fears of King and Parliament, guiding those less eager towards positive action. No, he decided, Nelson would not last a month in Whitehall, any more than he would in a flagship. Beauchamp was over sixty and looked it. He sometimes felt older than time itself.

  There was a discreet tap on the door and his secretary peered warily in at him.

  “Are you ready, Sir George?”

  “Yes.” It sounded like of course. “Ask him to come up.”

  Beauchamp never stopped working. But he enjoyed seeing his plans come to fruition, his choices for leadership and command rising to his severe standards.

  Like his visitor, for instance. Beauchamp looked at the polished doors, the sunlight reflecting on a decanter of claret and two finely cut glasses.

  Richard Bolitho, stubborn about some things, unorthodox in others, was one of Beauchamp’s rewards. Just three years ago he had appointed him commodore over a handful of ships and sent him into the Mediterranean to seek out and discover the French intentions. He had been a good choice. The rest was history; Bolitho’s swift actions and the later arrival of Nelson with a full fleet at his disposal to smash the French squadrons into defeat at the Battle of the Nile. Bonaparte’s hopes for a total conquest of Egypt and India had been destroyed.

  Now Bolitho was here, but as a newly appointed rear-admiral, a flag officer in his own right with all the doubts behind him.

  His secretary opened the door.

  “Rear-Admiral Richard Bolitho, sir.”

  Beauchamp held out his hand, feeling the usual mixture of pleasure and envy. Bolitho looked very well in his new gold-laced coat, he thought, and yet the transition had left the man unchanged. The same black hair with the rebellious lock above his right eye, the level gaze and grave expression which hid the adventurer and at the same time concealed the man’s humility which Beauchamp had discovered for himself.

  Bolitho saw the scrutiny and smiled.

  “It is good to see you, sir.”

  Beauchamp gestured to the table. “Pour, will you. I’m a mite stiff.”

  Bolitho watched his hand as he held the decanter above the glasses, steady and firm, when it should be shaking with the excitement he really felt. When he had seen his own reflection in a mirror he had scarcely been able to accept that he had made the final, definite step from captaincy to flag rank. Now he was a rear-admiral, one of the youngest ever appointed, but apart from the uniform, the gleaming epaulettes, each with the solitary silver star, he felt much as before. Surely something should have happened? He had always assumed that the move from wardroom to captain’s cabin would alter a man. But the stride from it to the right of hoisting his own flag was like ten leagues by comparison.

  Only in others had he seen any real difference. His coxswain, John Allday, could barely stop himself from beaming with pleasure. And when he had visited the Admiralty he had seen the amusement on his superiors’ faces when he had shown caution with his ideas. Now, they listened to his suggestions, when before someone might have crushed him into silence. They did not always agree, but they heard him out. That was a change indeed.

  Beauchamp eyed him severely above his glass. “Well, Bolitho, you’ve got your way, and I’ve got mine.” He glanced at the nearest window, steamy with the room’s heat. “A squadron of your own. Four ships of the line, two frigates and a sloop of war. You’ll be receiving orders from your admiral, but it will be up to you to translate them, eh?”

  They clinked their glasses, each suddenly wrapped in his own thoughts.

  To Beauchamp it meant a fresh, young squadron, a weapon to fit into the complex of war. To Bolitho it meant a lot more. Beauchamp had done everything to help him. Even to his choice of captains. All but one of them he knew well, and with good reason, and some he knew like old friends.

  Most of them had something in common in that each had served with or under him in the past. Bolitho glanced around the room. In this same room, nineteen years ago, he had been given his first major command, and in many ways his best remembered. In her he had found Thomas Herrick, who had become his first lieutenant and his loyal friend. In the same unhappy ship he had also met John Neale, a twelve-year-old midshipman. Neale was in his squadron now, a captain commanding a frigate of his own.

  “Memories, Bolitho?”

  “Aye, sir. Ships and faces.”

  That said it all. Bolitho had gone to sea, like Neale, at the age of twelve. Now he was a rear-admiral, the impossible dream. Too many times he had stood eye to eye with death, too often he had seen others fall about him to hold much confidence beyond the month or the year.

  “Your ships are all gathered here, Bolitho.” It was a statement. “So there’s no sense in wasting time. Get ’em to sea, exercise them as you know how, make them hate your guts, but forge them into steel!”

  Bolitho smiled gravely. He was eager to leave. The land held nothing for him any more. He had visited Falmouth, his house and estate there. It had affected him in the same way as before. As if the house had been waiting for something. He had stood before her portrait in his bedroom several times. Listening to her voice. Hearing her laugh. Yearning for the girl he had married and lost almost immediately in a tragic accident. Cheney. He had even spoken her name. As if to bring the picture to life. When he had left to make for London he had turned in the doorway to look at her face once more.

  The sea-green eyes, like the water below Pendennis Castle, the flowing hair with the colour of new chestnuts. She, too, had appeared to be waiting.

  He shook himself from his thoughts and remembered the one enjoyable thing he had shared when Herrick had returned to England in his old Lysander.

  With surprisingly little hesitation Herrick had married the widow Dulcie Boswell whom he had met in the Mediterranean.

  Bolitho had made the journey willingly to the small Kentish church on the road to Canterbury. The pews had been filled with Herrick’s friends and neighbours, with a good sprinkling of blue and white from fellow sea officers.

  Bolitho had felt strangely excluded, the feeling made harder to bear when he had recalled his own wedding at Falmouth, with Herrick beside him to offer the ring.

  Then, as the bells chimed and Herrick had turned from the altar with his bride’s hand on his gold-laced cuff, he had paused by Bolitho and had said simply, “You being here, sir, has made this just perfect for me.”

  Beauchamp’s voice intruded again. “I would like to take lunch with you, but I have business with the port admiral. And no doubt you’ve much to do. I’m obliged to you for many things, Bolitho.�
�� He gave a wry smile. “Not least for accepting my suggestion for a flag lieutenant. I’ve had my fill of him in London!”

  Bolitho guessed there was a lot more to the request than that but said nothing.

  Instead he said, “I shall take my leave, sir. And thank you for seeing me.”

  Beauchamp shrugged. It looked like a physical effort. “Least I could do for you. You have your orders. You’re not being offered an easy passage, but then you’d not have thanked me for one, eh?” He chuckled. “Just keep a weather eye open for trouble.” He fixed Bolitho with a flat stare. “I’ll say no more than that. But your deeds, your rewards, well earned though they were, will have made you some enemies. Be warned.” He held out his hand. “Now be off with you, and mark what I said.”

  Bolitho left the room and strode past several people who were waiting to see the fierce little admiral. For advice, for favours, for hope, who could say?

  At the foot of the stairs, standing near a crowded coffee room, he saw Allday waiting for him. As always. He would never alter. The same homely face and broad grin whenever he was pleased. He had thickened out a bit, Bolitho thought, but he was like a rock. He smiled to himself. At any other time an inn servant would have hurried a mere coxswain round the back to the kitchens, or, more likely, outside into the cold.

  But in his blue coat with its gilt buttons, new breeches and polished leather boots he looked every inch an admiral’s coxswain.

  And how Allday had struggled over the past three years to call him sir. Before, he had always addressed Bolitho as captain. Now he was having to get used to a rear-admiral. Just that morning as they had left for Portsmouth from a friend’s house where Bolitho had been staying for a few days, Allday had said cheerfully, “Never mind, sir. It’ll be Sir Richard soon, and I can manage that well enough!”

  Allday handed him his long boat-cloak and watched as Bolitho tugged his cocked hat firmly over his black hair.

  “This is a moment, eh, sir?” He shook his head. “We’ve come a long road.”

  Bolitho looked at him warmly. Allday usually managed to put his finger on it. Times and places, blue seas and grey ones. Danger with death swiftly on its heels. Allday was always there. Ready to help, to use his cheek as liberally as his courage in every situation. He was a real friend, although he could do much to try Bolitho’s temper when he wanted to.

  “Aye. In some ways it feels like beginning all over again.”

  He glanced at himself in the wall mirror near the entrance, much as he had done when he had gone out to take command of the frigate Phalarope, younger then than any captain in his new squadron.