Honour This Day

'I died a dozen times back there, Sir Richard. I – I thought you must have fallen in that broadside.' He saw Parns and said, 'We should move him.'

Bolitho took his arm. 'You know, don't you, Val?'

Their eyes met. Keen replied, 'Yes. She's sinking. There's little we can do.' He stared at the abandoned cannon, unable to watch Bolitho's pain. 'Even if we could cast these guns overboard. But time is against us.'

Parns gave a groan and Bolitho asked, 'Is the prize safe, Val?'

'Aye. She's Astunas of eighty guns. She took much punishment too from that battering, as did her neighbour. But she is useful for repeating signals.'

Bolitho tried to clear his throbbing mind; his ears were sdll aching from that terrible broadside.

'Signal Benbow to secure the prizes and then give chase with whatever forces we have still seaworthy. The Dons will doubtless be running for the nearest Spanish port.' He stared at the bloody decks. 'Leaving their friends as well as their enemies to manage for themselves!'

Keen tightened his hold on his coxswain. 'Come, Tojohns! We must muster the hands!'

Bolitho said to Jenour, 'Go below and take charge of the boatswain's party. Can you do that?'

Jenour stared at Parns. 'What about him, Sir Richard?'

Til wait for the surgeon.' Bolitho lowered his voice. 'He will want to amputate both legs, I fear.'

Parris said vaguely, 'I am sorry about this, Sir Richard.' He gasped as a great pain went through him. 'I – I could have helped. Should have come to you earlier when I learned about your troubles in London.'

I He was rambling. Bolitho leaned over him and grasped his

hand. Or was he?

Parris continued in the same matter-of-fact tone, 'I should have known. I wanted a new command so much, just as I hated to lose the other. I suppose I didn't want it quite enough.'

Figures were clambering over from the other ship, voices of command emerged from chaos, and he saw Penhaligon, the master, with one of his mates coming from the wrecked poop, carrying the ship's chronometer, the same one she had carried in all her years of service. He half-listened to Parris's vague sentences but he was thinking of this ship he had known better than any other. Hyperion had carried three admirals, served fifteen captains, and countless thousands of sailors. There had been no campaign of note she had missed except for her time as a hulk.

Parris said, 'Somervell became very dear to me. I fought against it, but it was no use.'

Bolitho stared at him, for a moment not understanding what he was saying.

'You and Somervell – is that how it was?' It came at him like a blow, and he was stunned at his own blindness. Catherine's dislike for Parris, not because he was a womaniser as Haven had believed, but because of his liaison with her husband. There was no love between us. He could almost hear her words, her voice. It must have been why Parris had lost his only command, the matter dropped by some authority which required the scandal to be buried.

Parris gazed at him sadly. 'How it was. I wanted to tell you – you of all people. After what you did for me and this ship what you had to endure because of my folly.'

Bolitho heard Blachford hurrying along the deck. He should have felt anger or revulsion, but he had been in the navy since he had been twelve years old; what he had not seen in that time he had soon learned about.

He said quietly, 'Well, you've told me now.' He touched his shoulder. 'I shall speak with the surgeon.'

The deck gave a shudder, and broken blocks and discarded weapons clattered from a gangway like so much rubbish.

Blachford looked as white as a sheet, and Bolitho could guess what it had been like for him in the cockpit.

'Can you do it here on deck?'

Blachford nodded. 'After this I can do anything.'

Keen came limping down from the quarterdeck and called, 'Benbow has acknowledged, Sir Richard. Rear-Admiral Herrick wishes you well, and offers you all assistance!'

Bolitho smiled sadly, 'Tell him no, but thank him.' Dear Thomas was alive, unharmed. Thank God for that.

Keen watched Blachford stooping to open his bag. His eyes said, it could have been either of us, or both. He said, 'Six of the Dons have struck, Sir Richard, including Intrepido which was the last to haul down her colours to Tybalt.''

There was the crack of a line parting and Keen added, 'She drags heavily on Asturias, Sir Richard.'

'I know.' He stared round. 'Where's Allday?'

A passing seaman called, 'Gone below, Sir Richard!'

Bolitho nodded. 'I can guess why."

Blachford said, 'I'm ready.'

There was another loud crack but this time it was a pistol shot. Bolitho and the others stared at Parris as his arm fell to the deck, the pistol he always carried still smoking in his fingers.

Blachford closed his bag, and said quietly, 'Perhaps his was the best way, better than mine. For such a courageous young man, I think living as a cripple would have proved unbearable.'

Bolitho removed his hat and walked to the quarterdeck ladder.

'Leave him there. He will be in good company.'

Afterwards he thought it sounded like an epitaph.

Scarlet coats moved into the ship, and Major Adams, hatless but apparently unmarked, was bellowing orders.

Bolitho said, The wounded first, Major. Over to the Spaniard. After that -' He did not finish.

Instead he turned to watch as Benbow, accompanied by Capricious, passed down the opposite side. There were no cheers this time, and Bolitho could envision how Hyperion must look. Was it imagination, or were the figurehead's muscled shoulders already closer to the sea? He stared until his damaged eye throbbed.

He could think of nothing else. Hyperion was settling down. They could not even anchor, for here the sea had no bottom, so her exact position could never be marked.

Men moved briskly around him, but like the moment he had hoisted his flag aboard, the faces he saw were different ones.

He touched the fan in his pocket. Sharing tt with her.

He saw Rimer, the wizened master's mate who had accompanied him on the cutting-out of the treasure galleon. He was sitting against a bollard, his eyes fixed and unmoving, caught at the moment the shot had cut him down. Loggie the ship's corporal, sprawled headlong across another marine he had been trying to haul to safety when a marksman had found him too.

The first of the wounded were being swayed up through one of the hatchways. A few cried out as their wounds touched the coaming or the tackles, but most of them just stared like the dead Rimer; they had never expected to see daylight again.

Allday reappeared by his side; he had brought Ozzard with him.

He said, 'He was still in the hold, Sir Richard.' He forced a grin. 'Didn't know the fight was over, bless 'im!' He did not say that he had found Ozzard sitting on the hold's ladder, Bolitho's fine presentation sword clutched against his chest, staring at the last lantern's reflections on the black water which was creeping slowly towards him. He had not intended to leave.

Bolitho touched the little man's shoulder. 'I am very glad to see you.'

Ozzard said, 'But all that furniture, the wine cabinet from her ladyship -' He sighed. 'All gone.'

Keen limped over and said, 'I hate to trouble you, Sir Richard, but-'

Bolitho faced him. 'I know, Val. You continue your work. I shall attend the ship.' He saw the protest die on Keen's lips as he added, 'I know her somewhat better than you.'

Keen stood back. 'Aye, aye, Sir Richard.' He glanced at the tautening hawsers to the ship alongside. There may not be long.'

'I know. Single-up your lines.' Then almost to himself he added, 'I have never lost a ship before.'