Bolitho #23 - For My Country's Freedom by Alexander Kent

Author:Alexander Kent [Kent, Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-09-20T13:04:58+00:00

For My Country's Freedo#261496D 7/10/08 11:14 AM Page 156

part ii: 1812

10 D eception

CAPTAIN James Tyacke stood at the top of the companion ladder and waited for his eyes to become accustomed to the early morning darkness. It was a moment he never grew tired of. Quiet because the hands had not yet been piped to begin another day, private because of the lingering shadows. Above all, private; no easy thing in a man-of-war, not even for her captain.

In a short while the sun would change everything, reaching from horizon to horizon, all privacy gone. Water was getting short; they would have to return to Antigua in a few days’ time.

What would they find? Fresh orders, news from England, the war, that other world?

None of it mattered much to Tyacke. The Indomitable was his main concern. Week in, week out, he had drilled his company until it was almost impossible to tell the seasoned professionals from the landmen. Gunnery and sail drill, but with leisure still for the simple pleasures sailors enjoyed. Parted from their homes, it was all they had to keep them out of mischief. Hornpipes and wrestling in the dogwatches, and contests, mast against mast, to see which one could reef or make more sail in the least time.

Indomitable was now a ship-of-war which could give a good account of herself if so called.

But mostly she had been concerned with constant patrols, the stop-and-search procedure even of neutrals to prevent trade with For My Country's Freedo#261496D 7/10/08 11:14 AM Page 157

FOR MY COUNTRY ’S F REEDOM

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French ports, and to seek out deserters from the King’s navy. The Leeward Squadron had taken several prizes and recovered many such deserters, mostly sailing in American merchantmen, trying to reach a new life in what they believed to be a democratic par-adise. Compared with the hardships they were forced to suffer under the British flag in this endless war, it probably was.

The first lieutenant was officer-of-the-watch and he could sense his presence on the opposite side of the quarterdeck. Scarlett had become used to Tyacke’s ways, his early walks on deck when most captains would have been content to leave a morning watch to their senior lieutenants.

It was still cold, the quarterdeck rail damp with moisture.

When dawn came up that would all change: the vapour would rise from the sails and rigging like steam, and the tar in the deck seams would cling to shoes and bare feet alike.

Tyacke could see it clearly in his mind’s eye, as if he were a sea-eagle soaring high above the blue water with the ships like tiny models below: in a ragged, uneven line abreast, Indomitable in the centre and the two smaller frigates, one to starboard and one to larboard. Once they had exchanged the first signals their line would extend and take proper station. The masthead lookouts would be able to see one another, just, and together their span of vision would cover a range of some sixty miles. To the spies, and

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