Cross of St George Read online

  “I know. She was very moved by it. And so was I.”

  Herrick shook his head. “But I can see now, don’t you understand? What you’ve done for the navy, for England, no less—and yet still you drive yourself.” He reached out and seized Bolitho’s arm. “Go while you can, Richard. Take your Catherine and be grateful. Let someone else carry this goddamned burden, this war that nobody wants, except those who intend to profit from it! It is not our war, Richard. Just this once, accept it!”

  Bolitho could feel the strength of the man in the grip of the solitary hand. No wonder he had forced himself to climb the ship’s side, to prove what he could do, and who he was.

  “Thank you for saying that, Thomas. I shall tell Catherine when I write to her next.”

  Herrick walked beside him to the entry port. His bags and sea-chest had vanished. He saw Allday waiting, and said, “Take care, you rascal.” He stared past him at the land. “I was sorry to hear about your son. But your daughter will give you much happiness.”

  Allday looked at Bolitho. It was as if he had known what Herrick had just said, had felt the very urgency of the plea.

  “He won’t listen to me, Mr Herrick. Never does!”

  Herrick held out his hand to Tyacke. “She does you credit, Captain Tyacke. You have suffered for what you have earned, but I envy you, for all that.” He turned toward Bolitho and removed his hat. “You, Captain, and one other.”

  The calls shrilled and the marines’ bayonets flashed in the bright sunlight.

  When Bolitho looked down once more, the gig was already backing water from the side. He watched until it was lost beyond an anchored brigantine. Then he smiled. Typically, again, Herrick did not look back.

  Tyacke fell into step beside him. “Well, I don’t envy him his job, Sir Richard. It’s Reaper’s captain who should be on trial. I’ve run better slavers up to the main-yard before now!”

  Bolitho said, “He may surprise us, but I agree. His is a thankless task.” But the force of Herrick’s words refused to leave him, and he could not imagine what it must have cost him to speak.

  Tyacke said suddenly, “This victory you mentioned, Sir Richard. Some place in Spain, you said?”

  It was said to be Wellington’s greatest triumph over the French so far. The war could not last much longer, surely.

  Bolitho replied, “They speak of months, not years any more, James. I have learned not to hope too much. And yet …” He watched the courier schooner Reynard speeding toward the harbour mouth, her ensign dipping in salute as she passed abeam of his flagship. A small, lively command for the young lieutenant who was her lord and master. Like Miranda, the schooner which had been Tyacke’s first command; he would be thinking of it now, and of their own first wary meeting. What they had now become to one another.

  He said abruptly, “Well, James, the war is still with us here, so I shall have to accept it!”

  Bolitho stood by a window and watched his flag lieutenant walking along the stone-flagged terrace, carrying his hat in the warm sunshine. In the background, the anchorage was so crowded that it was hardly possible to see Indomitable. But for his flag curling in the wind, she might have been any one of them.

  Valentine Keen was saying, “I decided to send Valkyrie to Antigua. She was the only ship powerful enough to escort the prize and frighten off any over-eager enemy.”

  In the glass Bolitho saw Keen’s reflected arm wave across the litter of papers and despatches which the schooner Reynard had delivered to him. Bolitho had sensed a moment’s uneasiness when the schooner had sailed smartly abeam as he had been speaking to Tyacke: Reynard ’s youthful commander had known then that Keen was here, otherwise he would have made his report on board Indomitable.

  “Valkyrie met with two American frigates. It is all here in Adam’s report, which he passed to Reynard when they happened to meet at sea.”

  “And one was destroyed, Val. Valkyrie suffered no losses but for a midshipman. Remarkable.”

  “Yes, they picked up a few survivors, not many, apparently, and discovered that the ship that went down with Success was the USS Condor. A Captain Ridley was in command, killed, with most of his people, it seems.”

  “And the other frigate was the Retribution.”

  Keen did not seem to hear him. “I did not intend that either Valkyrie or the prize should be put at unnecessary risk. Had I been aboard, I would have made certain that a more open course was observed. Captain Bolitho was too near to the enemy coast.”

  “Two hundred miles, you say?” He turned from the glare, his eye suddenly painful. “You and I have trailed our coats a good deal nearer than that, in our time!”

  “I think it was deliberate.” Keen faced him across the table. “I know he is your nephew, and I am the first to appreciate that. But I think it was an impetuous and dangerous course of action. We could have lost both ships.”

  Bolitho said, “As it was, Val, we exchanged a broken-down prize which would have taken months or perhaps years to overhaul and refit, for one of a group which has been a thorn in our side since our return to Halifax. Your place was here, while you were waiting to receive the latest convoy. You made the right decision, and it was yours to make. And as the one in command, Adam had no choice but to act as he did. I would expect that of any of my captains. You must know that.”

  Keen recovered himself with an effort. “The survivors also confirmed your belief that Captain, now Commodore Rory Aherne was in command of the group.” He banged his hand down on the papers, and anger put an edge to his voice. “He might have taken my flagship!”

  “And Adam—where is he now?”

  Keen plucked his shirt away from his skin. “He had orders for the Captain in Charge at Antigua. He will return here when he has carried out my instructions.”

  “Remember when you were my flag captain, Val. Trust extends in two directions. It has to be the strongest link in the chain of command.”

  Keen stared at him. “I have never forgotten that. I owe everything to you … and Catherine.” He smiled, ruefully, Bolitho thought, and said, “And to Adam, I know that!” He touched his pocket, and Bolitho wondered if he carried the miniature there. So that was it. This was, after all, Benjamin Massie’s house, and the St Clairs would be staying here also. It was not difficult to guess what had come between Keen and his flag captain. The girl with moonlit eyes.

  In fairness, it might prove to be the best thing that could happen to Keen. As Catherine had predicted … A brave and defiant young woman, one strong enough to help Keen in his future. And able to stand up against his father, he thought grimly.

  Adam would not regard it in that light at all.

  “And what of the latest intelligence, Val?”

  Keen took two goblets from a cupboard. “The Americans have brought two more frigates to Boston. I ordered Chivalrous and the brig Weazle to patrol outside the port. If they come out …”

  Bolitho said, “I think they will. And soon.” He looked up, and asked, “And York—is there any more news?”

  Keen shrugged. “Very little. It takes so long to reach here. But David St Clair told me that weapons and supplies were stored there for our ships on the lakes. They might have seized or destroyed them. Either way, it will make our vessels less able to control Lake Erie, which St Clair insists is the vital key to the whole area.”

  “And tell me about Miss St Clair.” He saw Keen start, so that some of the claret he was about to pour pattered onto the table. He added gently, “I shall not pry, Val. I am a friend; remember that, too.”

  Keen filled the two goblets. “I admire her greatly. I have told her as much.” He faced him again. “Perhaps I delude myself.” He gave his boyish smile, which Bolitho had seen from his youth to this moment, and seemed relieved that he had at last spoken openly about it.

  Bolitho thought of Adam’s despair, his agony when he had read Catherine’s letter, breaking the news of Zenoria’s lonely and terrible death. But he said, “Thank you for sharing it with me.
I wish you good fortune, Val. You deserve it.” He returned the smile, touched by Keen’s obvious relief. “I mean it. You cannot be an admiral all of the time!”

  Keen said suddenly, “I am told that Rear-Admiral Herrick is here. Transferred to Indomitable when you made your rendezvous with the convoy.” He did not attempt to soften his tone.

  “I know there was no love lost between you, Val. He does not relish this mission, let me assure you.”

  Keen said shortly, “The right man for the task, I think. He has known what it is to sit on both sides of the table at a court martial!”

  “That is past, Val. It has to be.”

  Keen persisted, “But what can he do? Ninety men, British sailors. Hang them or flog them? The crime was done, the penalty is already decided. It has always been so.”

  Bolitho moved to the window again, and saw Avery speaking with Gilia St Clair.

  Without turning he asked, “When you met up with Reaper, and before she struck to you, did you believe that Adam would order the guns to fire on them?” He waited a few seconds. “Hostages or not?”

  “I … am not certain.”

  Bolitho saw the girl throw back her head and laugh at something Avery had said. Caught up in a war, and now in something more personal. She had talked with Adam: she would have known, or guessed, how near death might have been that day.

  He walked away from the window, turning his back on the light. “The schooner Crystal in which the St Clairs were on passage when Reaper captured them—who owned her?”

  “I believe it was Benjamin Massie. You have a very good memory for names.”

  Bolitho put down the glass, thankful for the sunlight behind him, hiding his face and his thoughts.

  “It’s getting better all the while, Val!”

  Richard Bolitho stepped onto the jetty stairs and waited for Tyacke and his flag lieutenant to follow him. Across the heads of the barge crew Allday was watching him, sharing it all with him, even if he probably saw things differently.

  Bolitho said to him, “I’m not certain how long we shall be.”

  Allday squinted into the hard light. “We’ll be here, Sir Richard.”

  They walked up to the roadway in silence, and Bolitho noted that the air felt cooler despite the sun. It was September: could the year be passing so quickly?

  He thought of the letter he had received from Catherine, telling him of Roxby’s final hours, and describing the funeral in detail so that he felt he had been there with her. Quite a grand affair, as was appropriate for a knight of the Hanoverian Guelphic Order: Roxby had been well liked by his own set of people, respected by all those who worked for him, and feared by many others who had crossed his path in his other role as magistrate. He had a been a fair man, but he would have had little patience with today’s happenings. Even in the barge Bolitho had sensed the tension, the oarsmen avoiding his eyes, Avery staring abeam at the anchored Reaper, and Tyacke quite detached from it all, more withdrawn than he had been for many months.

  He raised his hat to a troop of soldiers as they clattered past on perfectly matched horses, their young ensign raising his sabre with a flourish at the sight of an admiral’s uniform.

  All these soldiers. When would they be called upon to fight, or was the die already cast? Tyacke, like David St Clair, had been right about the Americans and their determination to take and hold the lakes. They had made another raid on York, and had burned supply sheds and military equipment which had been abandoned when the British army had retreated to Kingston three months ago. The need to wrest control of Lake Erie from the Americans was vital, to protect the line of water communications and keep open the army’s only supply route, without which they would be forced into further retreat, and perhaps even surrender.

  He saw the barracks gates ahead of them, and realized with pleasure that he was not out of breath.

  The guard had turned out for them, with bayonets glinting as they walked into the main building. A corporal opened the doors for them, and Bolitho saw his eyes move briefly to Tyacke’s disfigured face, and then just as hastily away. He knew that Tyacke had noticed, and wondered if that was why he was so unusually remote. He was intensely aware of the stares, the pity, and the revulsion: he was never allowed to forget, and Bolitho knew that that was why he avoided going ashore whenever possible.

  More doors and clicking heels, and then they entered a large, spartan room containing a table and two rows of chairs. Keen and Adam were already present, as was the languid de Courcey. A dusty-looking civilian clerk sat at one end of the table, a major of the Royal Marines at the other. Despite the room’s bare austerity, it already had the atmosphere of an official court.

  They shook hands, more like strangers than friends. Bolitho had seen very little of Adam since his return from Antigua, but had written to congratulate him on his destruction of the prize and her attacker, with the loss of only one man. It was hard to tell what Adam really thought about it.

  The other door was opened and Rear-Admiral Thomas Her-rick walked straight to the table and sat down, his eyes moving briefly across their faces, his own impassive, with nothing to reveal the strain under which he had placed himself with his personally conducted enquiry into the loss and recapture of His Britannic Majesty’s frigate Reaper.

  Bolitho knew that Herrick had read all the statements, including that taken by Avery from Reaper’s badly injured first lieutenant at Hamilton, and Adam’s account of the recapture from the Americans when Reaper’s guns had been discharged into the sea. Herrick had also spoken with David St Clair, and very likely with St Clair’s daughter. Bolitho recalled the moment at the general’s house when the youthful captain of the King’s Regiment had handed the girl’s miniature over to Keen. This latest attack on York had occasioned no more casualties, as the British army had not returned to the burned-out fort, but she must have thought of it, all the same: the man she had loved, and had believed had cared deeply for her, lying up there somewhere with his dead soldiers. The Americans had quit York after only three days; perhaps the stores and weapons they had hoped to find were already gone, or had been destroyed during the first attack. Compared with many other battles, the action was not one of the most significant, but in proportion it was certainly one of the bloodiest; and the full consequences were still to be measured.

  Herrick looked up from his file of papers.

  “This is an official court of enquiry into the loss and recapture of His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Reaper, intelligence of which I am authorized and ordered to summarize for the Lords of Admiralty, for their guidance and final approval.”

  He waited for the clerk to pass him another sheet of paper.

  “We are all very well aware of the consequences of bad example, and of poor leadership. It is often too simple to be wise after an event which has already done so much wrong and caused so much damage.” For only a moment, his blue eyes rested on Bolitho. “In all these years of war, against one foe or another, we have won many victories. However, we have never won the freedom to question or challenge what we did, or why we were so ordered.” He almost smiled. “And I fear we never will, in our lifetimes.”

  He looked down again. “We require no reminding of the absolute need for order and discipline at all times. Without them, we are a shambles, a disgrace to the fleet in which we serve.” His shoulder moved, and the empty sleeve swayed slightly; he did not appear to notice. “It is a lesson which any captain forgets at his peril.”

  Bolitho glanced at his companions. Keen and Adam had both been his midshipmen, and had learned the hazards and the rewards on their way up the ladder of promotion. De Courcey was listening intently, but his expression was devoid of understanding. James Tyacke was leaning back in the shadows as if to conceal his face, but his hands, which rested in his lap, were very tense, locked together as if he, too, were preparing for the inevitable. Like those others who would be waiting: some ninety souls, whose suffering under a sadistic captain would soon be obliterated in the name of
justice.

  He saw Adam gazing at him with unblinking eyes, his face drawn, as if he were in pain. But Bolitho knew it was a deeper pain even than the body’s wounds: he was reliving the loss of his ship, the flag coming down while he lay where he had fallen on that bloody day. Remembering those who had fought and died at his bidding. Men who, as Herrick had rightly said, had never known the freedom to question or challenge what they were ordered to do.

  He thought Adam must be remembering their many long conversations, each gaining from the other’s experience. He was headstrong and impetuous, but his love had never been in doubt, caring always for the man who would be called upon to sign the warrants for those condemned to be hanged, or at best flogged into something inhuman.

  Bolitho touched the locket beneath the fresh shirt he wore, and thought he saw understanding in Adam’s face.

  Herrick was saying, “The Americans are, fortunately, a nation of magpies. They are slow to throw away items which may be of historic interest at some later time.” He gestured to the clerk, and waited while he opened a large, canvas-covered volume.

  Herrick continued, without expression, “Reaper’s punishment book. It tells me more than five hundred written reports and dying declarations. This captain was not long in command and on his first active service as such, and yet this book reads like a chapter from Hell itself.”

  Bolitho could almost feel Tyacke’s sudden tension. Wanting to speak out. But Herrick knew for himself what quarterdeck tyranny could be: Bolitho had become his captain in Phalarope all those years ago only because the previous captain had been removed. Another tyrant.

  “To go back to that day, gentlemen. The mutiny, which we now know was both inspired and encouraged by the Americans who boarded that unhappy ship. There were ringleaders, of course, but without American aid and a ready presence, who could swear to the truth of what would have happened?” He peered at his papers, as he must have done every day since his arrival in Halifax. “Vengeance is a terrible disease, but in this case it was probably inevitable. We know that Reaper’s captain died as a result of the flogging he received that day.” He looked up sharply, his eyes hard. “I have known common seamen die even under a legal flogging. We must not allow the deed to overshadow or dispel the cause.”