Table Of ContentHe let his mind return to Broughton’s plan of battle. Perhaps the answer lay with
him rather than the plan. Too much rigidity.
But surely he would have learned from experience that in many cases ships were
called to give battle when scattered and without any set order at all? At St
Vincent where Broughton had actually fought, Commodore Nelson had once
again confounded the critics by dashing into the attack without regard for any set
strat-agem. Bolitho had mentioned it to Broughton and had gained one further
clue to his unwavering attitude.
He had snapped, “Nelson, Nelson, that’s all I hear! I saw him in his damned
Captain, although I was busy myself at the time.
More luck on his side than any sense of timing.” He had become very cool with
equal suddenness. “Give your people a plan, something to learn and learn until
they can act as one in total darkness or the middle of a typhoon. Keep at them
without rest until they can think of nothing else. You can keep your damned
heroics for my part. Give me a plan, one that is well tried, and I’ll give you a
victory!”
Bolitho thought back over that one brief insight. Broughton 92
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was actually jealous. Senior to Nelson, an officer he did not even know except
by reputation, with influence and breeding to support his every move, and yet he
was jealous for all that.
It did not add much to Bolitho’s knowledge of his superior, but it did make him
seem more human.
Broughton had never mentioned Taylor’s death or the savage flogging since
weighing anchor. Even at the hasty conference after the punishment he had made
little comment, but for one about maintaining discipline at all times.
In fact, as the wine had been passed around the assembled captains in the same
cabin where Taylor had heard his terrible fate, Broughton had been completely
at ease, even jocular as he had told the others of the sailing orders for Gibraltar.
Bolitho could recall seeing the Auriga’s longboat grounding on a sandbar, the
marines digging a hasty grave for Taylor’s corpse, working fast in the sunlight to
beat a rising tide. Taylor would rot in an unmarked grave. A martyr, or a victim
of circumstances, it was hard to know which.
Once at sea again Bolitho had watched his own ship’s company for any sign of
unrest, but the daily routine had kept them too busy perhaps for recriminations or
argument. The squadron had sailed without further incident and with no fresh
news of the troubles at the Nore.
He shaded his eyes to peer at the glittering horizon line.
Somewhere out there, far to windward and visible only to the masthead lookouts,
was the ship in question, the Auriga, once again under the command of her
original captain, Brice. Bolitho had made it his business to summon him aboard
just prior to sailing and had given him a warning as to his behaviour. He had
known it to be useless even as he was speaking to him.
Brice had stood quite still in his cabin, his hat beneath his arm, his pale eyes
avoiding Bolitho’s until he had finished.
Then he had said softly, “Vice-Admiral Broughton does not THE F LAG CAP
TAIN
93
accept that there was a mutiny. Neither, sir, did you when you came aboard my
ship. The fact that I am being returned to my rightful command surely proves
that whatever wrongs were committed were by others.” He had smiled slightly.
“One who escaped, and the other who was treated with more leniency than might
be expected in these dangerous times.”
Bolitho had walked around the table, feeling the other man’s hate behind the
mask of quiet amusement, knowing his own feelings were little better.
“Now hear my words, Brice, and remember them. We are going on a special
mission, maybe an important one for England. You will do well to change your
ways if you wish to see your home-land again.”
Brice had stiffened. “There’ll be no more uprisings in my ship, sir!”
Brice had stiffened. “There’ll be no more uprisings in my ship, sir!”
Bolitho had forced a smile. “I was not referring to your own people. If you
betray your trust once more, I will personally see that you are brought to a court-
martial, and that you receive the justice you so obviously enjoy imposing on
others!”
Bolitho walked to the nettings and glanced down at the water leaping against the
tall side. The squadron was about one hundred miles north-west of Cape Ortegal,
the very corner of Spain.
If ships had minds of their own, would Euryalus be remembering it too? he
wondered. It was here that she fought under the French flag against Bolitho’s old
Hyperion. Where her decks ran scarlet and the battle raged without let-up until
its grisly conclusion. But maybe ships did not care after all. Men died, crying for
half-remembered wives and children, for mothers, or for their comrades in hell.
Others lived on in a maimed existence ashore, forgotten by the sea and avoided
by many of those who could have helped them.
But the ships sailed on, impatient perhaps with the fools who manned them.
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“Sir! Zeus is signalling!” The midshipman of the watch was suddenly galvanised
into action. He jumped into the shrouds, his big telescope already to his eye.
“Zeus to Flag. Strange sail bearing nor’ west.” He looked down at Bolitho, his
face shining with excitement.
Bolitho nodded. “Excellent, Mr Tothill. That was quickly done.” He glanced
round and saw Keverne hurrying towards him.
The signal probably meant nothing, but after drills and dragging uncertainty any
sort of change was welcome. It had swept his other thoughts away like cobwebs.
“Sir?” Keverne eyed him intently.
“Dismiss the hands from drills and prepare to set the t’gallants on her.” He
looked aloft, his eyes watering in the crisp breeze.
“The royals too if the wind gets no worse.”
As he hurried away Broughton reappeared on the quarterdeck, his face very
calm.
Bolitho said, “Sail to the nor’ west, sir.” He saw the brightness in the admiral’s
eyes and guessed how hard it was for him to appear so controlled.
Broughton pursed his lips. “Signal the Auriga to intercept.”
“Aye, sir.”
Bolitho beckoned to the signal midshipman and could almost feel Broughton’s
impatience at his back. Only the previous day he had sent the other frigate,
Coquette, on ahead at full speed to reach Gibraltar with his despatches, and to
make sure there was no change in plans for his squadron. With Auriga to
windward and the little sloop Restless sweeping downwind in the hopes of
snatching a French or Spanish fisherman for information, it had left his resources
very strained.
The boy reported, “Auriga has acknowledged, sir.”
Bolitho could picture the scene on the frigate’s deck as the distant flags had been
studied, probably from some swaying yard far above the sea, by another
midshipman like Tothill.
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95
He could well imagine Brice’s feelings at this moment too. A chance to further
his position with the admiral and before the whole squadron would not be taken
lightly. And heaven help any poor wretch who displeased him at such a time.
He took the big glass and climbed up beside the midshipman in the weather
shrouds, and trained it towards the horizon. The frigate leapt into view, her
topsails already filling as she went about and dashed towards the newcomer. He
could imagine the sounds of spray cascading over her bowsprit, the scream of
could imagine the sounds of spray cascading over her bowsprit, the scream of
blocks and rigging as more, and more canvas thundered out from her yards to
contain and hold the wind for her own power.
It was easy to forget men like Brice at such times, he thought vaguely. Auriga
was a beautiful little ship, a living, vital thing as she heeled to the wind and
buried her lee gunports in foam.
He returned to the deck and said, “Permission to give chase, sir?”
For another small moment he shared a common understanding and excitement
with Broughton. Saw his jaw tighten, the gleam in his eyes.
“Yes.” He stood aside as Bolitho raised his hand to Keverne.
Then he added, “All ships will, however, retain their stations.
See to it.”
As the signal soared up the yards and broke to the wind Bolitho saw the other
ships hoist their acknowledgements as one. Every captain must have been
waiting for this. Praying for something to break the monotony and the uncertain
watchfulness which had dogged them since Falmouth.
Overhead the growing spread of canvas cracked and boomed, the great yards
bending like bows until they looked as if they would tear free from the masts.
The hull tilted still further, so that men hastening about the upper deck seemed to
be leaning at strange and unreal angles, while more, and still more, canvas
bellied out to the wind.
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On the lower gundeck the ports would be completely submerged, and Bolitho
could hear the pumps already clanking as the hull took the strain and accepted it.
But they were overhauling the nearest seventy-four, and through the straining
criss-cross of rigging and shrouds he could see the officers on the Tanais’s
quarterdeck peering astern at the flagship as she begin to creep up on them.
Broughton said testily, “Signal Tanais to make more sail, dammit!”
As he walked away to the opposite side Bolitho heard Partridge mutter, “Her’ll
’ave the sticks out of ’er if she does, by God!”
Bolitho snapped, “Mr Tothill, get to the masthead and double quick! I need some
good eyes up there today.”
He made himself walk slowly back and forth on the weather side, hating the
slow pace of the squadron as he tried to picture what the other ship was doing.
“Deck there! Zeus is signalling, sir! Enemy in sight! ” His voice was shrill with
excitement. “A frigate, steering due east!”
Keverne rubbed his hands. “Running for Vigo, I shouldn’t wonder.”
He looked unusually tense, and Bolitho guessed he was probably picturing what
might have been with himself commanding Auriga instead of Brice.
He replied, “There’s a good chance we can head her off, Mr Keverne.”
Brice had the wind almost under his coat-tails and was fairly flying across the
path of his slow and ponderous consorts. The Frenchman could either try to
outpace him or go about and lose valuable time trying to beat out to sea again. If
he chose the latter course, one of the ships in the line might even get an
opportunity . . .
He jerked round as Broughton rapped, “God damn the Valorous! ” He threw his
telescope to a seaman. “Now she’s falling back.”
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97
The signal soared aloft immediately to Euryalus’s yards. Make more sail. But
even as the acknowledgement broke from the two-decker Bolitho saw her fore
topgallant sail disintegrate like ashes as it tore itself to fragments in the wind.
Bolitho said, “Shall I signal Zeus to chase independently, sir?
She’s got a good lead.” He knew the answer already, saw Broughton’s mouth
tightening as he added, “The Frenchman might still slip away from Auriga. ”
“No.” One word, with nothing to show disappointment or anger.
Bolitho looked away. The Frenchman would be surprised that there was no
change in the squadron’s line of advance. He was somewhere right ahead of the
column, hidden by Zeus’s tall pyramid of sails, and moving very fast. But Auriga
had crossed over now, and he could see her speeding downwind, every sail set
and drawing its full as she tore towards the enemy. As she lifted and smashed
down across the serried lines of whitecaps he could see the sunlight playing on
her bared copper, and her sleek hull which shone in the glare like glass.
Zeus edged slightly out of line and Bolitho held his breath as he watched the
French frigate sway momentarily into view. About five miles away. It did not
seem possible that they had converged on her so quickly.
Auriga would be about three miles distant, and she had already overreached the
other frigate. Bolitho tried to clear his mind, to think what he would do in the
enemy’s place. Go about, or try to continue towards the land hidden below that
mocking horizon? There was certainly no chance of beating the Auriga on her
present course. Yet, if he made a dash for it he was almost sure to run into the
arms of a British patrol along the Portuguese coast. Vigo was the last safe
refuge, unless he was prepared to turn and fight.
Broughton said, “Make a general signal. Shorten sail and 98
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re-form correct stations.” He eyed Bolitho bleakly. “Auriga can handle the Frog
now.”
As the signal was passed and repeated up and down the line Bolitho could
almost sense the frustration around him. Four powerful ships, yet because of
Broughton’s inflexible rules as impotent as merchantmen.
A dull bang echoed across the water and Bolitho saw a puff of brown smoke
drifting towards the French ship. Brice had fired a ranging shot, although it was
not possible to see where it fell.
not possible to see where it fell.
Every glass came up as Keverne said hoarsely, “The Frog’s wearing ship! By
God, look at him!”
The French captain had mistimed it badly. Bolitho could almost pity him as he
put his ship round in an effort to cross the Auriga’s bows. He could see her bared
bilge, the sun dancing on her straining sails as the yards swung still further until
she was heeling right over in her own spray. A solid thunder of gunfire echoed
and re-echoed across the tossing water, and Bolitho imagined Brice’s first
broadside smashing into the exposed bilge as he used his advantage of wind and
position to follow her round.
Somebody in the Euryalus’s foretop raised a cheer, but otherwise there was
complete silence as seamen and marines watched the frigates overlapping,
clawing closer and closer to each other, the smoke already whipped free in the
wind.
Another ripple of flashes, this time from the Frenchman, but the Auriga’s masts
and yards remained intact, whereas the enemy’s canvas was pitted with holes,
her main topsail tearing itself to ribbons after the first barrage.
Keverne whispered, “A good prize, I’m thinking. We can do with another frigate
anyway.”
It was hard to distinguish what was happening now. The two ships could only be
half a cable apart, and getting nearer each minute. More cannon fire, and then
the enemy’s mizzen top-THE F LAG CAP TAIN
99
gallant pitched down into the rolling smoke, the ripped canvas and rigging
following it into the bedlam below.
Broughton said, “She’ll strike soon.”
“The wind’s droppin’, sir.” Partridge kept his voice hushed, as if fearful of
breaking the concentration.
Broughton replied. “It does not matter now.” He was smiling.
A new silence had fallen, and across the last three miles which separated the
Zeus from the two frigates they could see that the gunfire had ceased and both
ships lay locked together.
It was over.
Broughton said softly, “Well, well, Bolitho. What do you have to say about that?
”
Some marines on the forecastle removed their shakos and began to cheer, the cry
taken up aboard the Tanais directly ahead.
Bolitho brushed past the admiral and snatched a telescope from its rack as the
cheering began to falter and die almost as soon as it was begun. He felt his skin
chill as he watched the flag fluttering down from the Auriga’s peak like a
wounded bird, to be replaced instantly by another. The same flag which still
lifted jauntily above the tattered sails of her adversary. The tricolour of France.
Keverne gasped, “By God, those bastards have struck to the Frogs! They never
even tried to fight ’em!” He sounded stunned with disbelief.
The Auriga was already drifting clear of the Frenchman, and there was fresh
activity on her deck and yards as she swung slowly downwind and away from
the helpless squadron. Through the glass Bolitho could see her marines, their red
coats making a patch of colour as they were disarmed and herded below by a
French boarding party. Not that a boarding party was necessary, he thought
bitterly. The whole of the ship’s company, which seconds before had been
fighting so well, had surrendered. Gone 100
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over to the enemy. He replaced the glass, unable to hold it because his hand was
shaking with both anger and despair.
Without effort he could see the delegates gathered in the little inn at Veryan Bay.
Allday and his hidden pistol. The man called Gates. And John Taylor, crucified
and maimed because he had tried to help.
Partridge said in a small voice, “No chance of catchin’ ’em now.
They’ll be in Vigo afore dusk.” He looked away, his shoulders slumped. “To see
