The Brave Captains Page 3

  The coach rumbled past them, showering them with mud and small stones, and those of the waiting infantrymen who troubled to look up saw that its window curtains were drawn, hiding its interior from their gaze. They made no comment, asked no questions, and, even among themselves, indulged in no speculation as to the identity of the passing travellers. The majority of the soldiers were not curious. So far as they were concerned anyone who drove at such speed, with an escort of cavalry riding before and behind, must be a personage of great importance—a General or their Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Baron Osten-Sacken, probably. Someone, at all events, whose presence in Simpheropol was required with much greater urgency than their own. They were simply the rearguard of a force of some thirty thousand men, summoned from Odessa and destined to act as reserves to the army of Prince Menschikoff now based at Bakshi-Serai and gathering, in daily increasing strength, in the Valley of the Tchernaya.

  Inside the coach, one of the occupants—a tall, slim young man in the uniform of a Colonel of Chasseurs and wearing the aiguillette of an Imperial aide-de-camp—moaned softly as the rear wheels of the vehicle struck some obstacle, almost dislodging him from his seat. His right sleeve was empty, tucked into the front of his frogged green jacket and, unable to save himself with his single arm, he slithered forward, to be brought up with a jolt against the door of the coach, all his weight momentarily on his left leg which—although booted—was heavily bandaged. He contrived to drag himself back into his seat before either of his two companions could offer him assistance, shaking his head firmly to the anxious question in the eyes of the lovely, dark-haired girl who sat beside him.

  “I … am all right, Sophia. Please do not make a fuss. I … it will pass, I promise you.”

  Her arms about him, endeavouring to give him support, the girl looked down pityingly at his pale, sweat-beaded face and tightly compressed lips. This journey was torment to him, she knew and, turning to the third occupant of the carriage, she addressed him pleadingly. “Cousin Nikita, I beg you … tell the coachman he must slow down. I know that you are anxious to reach Bakshi-Serai but Andrei is not fit to be thrown about in this manner. His leg is not yet healed and his arm causes him a great deal of pain still. He—”

  “Our hero of the Alma!” The handsome boy she had appealed to spoke derisively. “Of course, we must take the greatest care of him, must we not? But perhaps, my dear Sophia, your husband does not thirst, as I do, for action? It is possible that, having tasted English steel, he is less eager than he would have us believe to wipe out the stain on our country’s honour which those thrice-damned English bayonets inflicted upon it.”

  “He is ill,” Sophia defended. She felt her husband’s body go limp in her arms and, impeded by the swaying of the coach, managed at last to place him in a position of more comfort with his head pillowed on her lap. “And,” she added reproachfully, when her companion made no attempt to help her, “he is in such needless agony that he has fainted. Why must we travel at this reckless speed, Nikita? Surely a few hours won’t matter to you, will they?”

  “But of course they will! Mikail has stolen a march on me … he is already there. In action, probably, at the head of his troops, whilst I, his elder brother, am not.” With an impatient hand, the boy flicked dust from his impeccably polished Hessian boots. He, too, was in uniform, looking absurdly young for the major-general’s insignia and the number of Orders and decorations which adorned his silver-laced blue Hussar jacket. In fact, he was twenty-two … “If your husband is unfit to travel, then he is unfit to fight and should have remained at Odessa under his mother’s eye.”

  “You don’t know what he has endured,” the girl protested. “Have you no pity, Nikita?”

  “For Andrei Stepanovitch Narishkin? No, Sophia, I have not. He is an arrogant, strutting poseur, brought up by women, his every whim indulged by his adoring mother, who has made a weakling of him. Since his so-called capture of the English frigate Tiger, which ran aground under his nose, he has been impossible. I cannot imagine how you are able to endure being married to him.”

  Sophia Mikailovna Narishkin did not answer her cousin’s taunts. They were, she knew in her heart, justified but, even to her cousin Nicolai—whom she had known since childhood—she was not prepared to make any such admission.

  “Talking of English frigates,” the young Grand Duke went on, his tone deliberately provocative, “there is one in which, I am told, you still take a sentimental and somewhat unpatriotic interest … the Trojan, yes? Or was it her commander who aroused your—er—your interest during the voyage from England?”

  Sophia felt the hot, betraying colour come flooding into her cheeks. “Who,” she challenged angrily, “who dared to make any such suggestion?”

  Nicolai shrugged. “Servants talk … and old Osten-Sacken is an incurable gossip. There was mention of a ring … that one, I think,”—he gestured to the fine emerald on her right hand—“was it not? Ah, come now… .” When Sophia was silent, “when did we have secrets from each other, little cousin? What was he like, this English sailor of yours? A better man than Andrei, I’ll wager!”

  Sophia’s fingers gently caressed her husband’s cheek. Almost against her will, she found herself looking back, remembering the Trojan and Phillip Hazard. For a moment it was his face she saw pillowed on her lap, not Andrei’s and then, losing interest in his teasing, Nicolai drew back the curtain and pointed.

  “We’re in Simpheropol at last,” he said. As swiftly as it had come to haunt her, Sophia’s vision vanished. “Andrei,” she whispered softly, “wake up, my dear … we have arrived.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  1

  The morning of Sunday, October 22, dawned bright and clear with a hint of frost in the air although, as yet, it was by no means cold.

  Her Majesty’s steam-screw frigate Trojan, 31, in company with the rest of the British Black Sea Fleet, lay at anchor off the mouth of the Katcha River, six miles to the north of Sebastopol. As the sun rose, the duty watch—anticipating an early pipe to breakfast—moved about her freshly holystoned upper deck coiling down and stowing hammock.

  Vice-Admiral Dundas had assured Their Lordships of the Admiralty that, with the exception of the Albion and the Arethusa, he hoped to be able to make his squadron serviceable within 24 hours of the attack on Fort Constantine and, in Trojan’s case, this hope had been fulfilled. Her fore-topmast had been replaced; the tangled network of broken spars and torn rigging, with which she had emerged from the action, had been cut away and replaced, and the gaping holes in hull and upperworks, made by the Russian round shot, plugged and caulked up. The carpenter and his mates had toiled no less energetically than the seamen aloft, their task to rip up and renew splintered or fire-scorched deck planking and to repair what could not be renewed. Only her single, black-painted funnel, which had been riddled by the guns of the Wasp battery, still bore witness to the fury of the engagement in which Trojan and her squadron had taken part.

  Standing on the quarterdeck, Phillip Horatio Hazard, the frigate’s First Lieutenant and acting commander, looked about him with approval. Her newly appointed Captain, he thought, would be able to find little fault with the order Trojan was in, when he came to make his inspection later this morning. The entire ship’s company had worked with a will, like the good men they were and … he bit back an involuntary sigh and, acknowledging the salute of the officer of the watch, who came to meet him, said formally, “Pipe hands to breakfast, if you please, Mr Fox. The ship’s company will muster at five bells for Captain’s inspection. Captain Crawford will read his commission and then inspect the ship, before conducting Divine Service.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Lieutenant Fox nodded to the midshipman of the watch to pass on these instructions, his expression carefully blank and his voice lowered, as he added some routine instructions of his own. Seven bells of the Morning Watch struck; the Boatswain put his silver call to his lips and the pipe, echoed by his mate on the deck below, was obeyed with alacrity by t
he duty watch, who had all been out of their hammocks since 4 a.m.

  As the men gathered in their messes, clustering hungrily about the well-scrubbed deal tables to await the appearance of the cooks, with their mess-kits of steaming cocoa and boiled ship’s biscuit, the Boatswain’s powerful, full-throated voice could be heard, carrying clearly to the lower deck.

  “D’ye hear there, fore and aft? Clean for muster at five bells … rig of the day duck frocks and white trousers! Clean shirts and a shave, for Captain’s inspection at five bells… .”

  Phillip Hazard stood by himself on the starboard side of the quarterdeck, a tall and, in that moment, an oddly isolated and even lonely figure as he listened to the shouted orders, his dark brows meeting in a frown. Captain’s inspection now meant, of course, Captain Crawford’s inspection, not his own, he reflected wryly. In fact, this was probably the last time that he would stand on the weather side of Trojan’s quarterdeck, clad in the dignified trappings of command, his word law to the three hundred officers and men who made up the frigate’s complement of bluejackets, engineers, and marines. In a little under three hours’ time, he would cease to enjoy the exclusive right to pace these few yards of narrow deck, which were, by tradition, the commander’s prerogative, sacred to him as soon as he made his appearance from below, and to be shared only at his invitation, even by the officer of the watch. All too soon another man would stand here in his place and he himself, stripped of his brief authority, would be merely one of half a dozen watch-keeping lieutenants on board a ship-of-the-line, limited in his responsibilities, anonymous in his lack of importance.

  He smothered another sigh and, suddenly aware that the eyes of his own officer of the watch were fixed on him in mute but nonetheless obvious sympathy, felt himself redden.

  “Well?” He turned to face the offender. “What is it, Mr Fox?” His tone was discouraging, deliberately so, but Lieutenant Fox appeared to notice nothing amiss.

  “Sir?” He came to Phillip’s side, giving him the deference due to his temporary rank. “I said nothing, sir.”

  “No … but you were looking uncommonly glum. I wondered why.”

  Fox hesitated. “It occurred to me that the time had come rather sooner than we had anticipated, that was all,” he answered guardedly.

  “The time? The time for what, pray?” Phillip’s expression did not relax.

  “For you to take your leave of us again, Phillip,” the younger man told him, abandoning formality, since there was no one else within earshot. “And I was sorry—or glum, if you prefer it. The Trojan has been a happy ship under your command … a happy and efficient ship, as she was when she was first commissioned. I wish, for all our sakes, that you could have had a little longer.”

  Phillip’s lean, high-boned face hardened in an effort to avoid betraying his feelings. He regarded his senior watch-keeper and closest friend for a moment in frowning silence and then forced a smile. Their friendship had been of long standing, he reminded himself—dating back to their early days in the midshipmen’s berth of Captain Keppel’s Maeander frigate—and he had no secrets from Martin Fox. There was little point in pretending that he wanted to leave Trojan or welcomed the circumstances which compelled him to relinquish his temporary command and there was no point whatsoever in clinging to the remnants of a dignity he no longer possessed.

  “I wish that too,” he said flatly. “I wish with all my heart that I might have had a little while longer. I do not have to tell you with what affection I regard this ship or what it has meant to me to command her. But … let’s walk, Martin, shall we, until your relief puts in an appearance? Captain Crawford will be taking breakfast with the Commander-in-Chief, he told me, so I do not imagine that he will be here much before five bells. And he doesn’t require a boat to be sent for him.”

  They fell into step together, pacing the starboard side of the quarterdeck with the measured, unhurried tread of men to whom every obstacle and every foot of planking was familiar, both in daylight and in darkness.

  “What is he like, Phillip?” Martin Fox asked curiously.

  “Captain Crawford, do you mean?”

  “Yes. You talked to him yesterday aboard Britannia, did you not? What impression did you form of him?”

  “An exceptionally favourable one,” Phillip answered, without hesitation. “He is not young, in fact he’s held post-rank for almost as long as you and I have been at sea. And he has a fine record, of course. He was in Sir Edward Codrington’s squadron at Navarino, and served as a midshipman in the Blonde, which makes him one of the elite of this squadron. Admittedly, he has been on the half-pay list for several years but that, I understand, was due to ill health … Captain Crawford is not a wartime misfit like North. You’ll have no occasion to worry on that account, Martin, I assure you—he’s a fine seaman, from all accounts. As to what he’s like, as a man … well, I spent only a few minutes in conversation with him yesterday. Both Admirals were present, plying him with questions concerning the latest news from home, so he hadn’t much time to answer any of mine, but he struck me as a very pleasant individual. In appearance he is small and grey-haired, of rather frail physique, and he speaks very quietly. He seemed considerate and kindly and possessed of a dry sense of humour. I don’t think you will find him hard to get along with.”

  “I trust you are right.” Fox’s broad shoulders rose in a shrug. The midshipman of the watch approached him diffidently, offering the muster book for his inspection. He excused himself, glanced at it, and nodded in curt dismissal. When he turned to Phillip again, the expression on his good-looking young face was a trifle less glum but he said, with regret, “I shall still be sorry to see you go. And so will this ship’s company … most damnably sorry, Phillip, believe me.”

  “It’s good of you to say so,” Phillip returned, his tone bleak. “I’ll be sorry to go but there’s no help for it, is there? I had no illusions. I didn’t for a moment imagine that I should be left in command of this ship, however much I wanted to be. It was never on the cards, Martin—how could it be, when there are full Commanders and even Post-Captains of twice my age, having to be content with six-gun sloops and out-dated paddle-wheel corvettes? In any event, my dear fellow …” He clapped a hand on his companion’s shoulder and grinned at him affectionately. “My going will put you one more rung up the ladder and, if anyone has earned his promotion, you have … and I mean that, in all sincerity.”

  “Promotion at your expense?” Martin Fox exclaimed. He flushed indignantly. “That’s the last thing I want, the very last! And you know it, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do. And you, I am sure, know that old proverb about not looking a gift horse in the mouth.”

  “I have heard it quoted,” Fox admitted, still very red of face. “But all the same, Phillip, Admiral Lyons did promise that you—”

  Phillip cut him short. He said, his tone crisp, “The Admiral has done his best for me. Indeed, he’s done far more than I had any right to expect, in the circumstances. I have him to thank for my appointment to the Agamemnon and—”

  “As third lieutenant, Phillip! And he had told you, as he told us all, that he intended to recommend you for promotion,” Fox put in.

  “True,” Phillip conceded, his smile widening and his tone now deliberately light. “But it is the Commander-in-Chief who decides whether or not to pass on such recommendations to their Lordships, is it not? I’ve been given the opportunity to volunteer for service with the Naval Brigade ashore, you know. Replacements are needed and Admiral Dundas himself advised me to take the opportunity. He—”

  “Are you trying to tell me that Admiral Dundas has blocked your promotion?” Martin Fox demanded. He halted, staring at Phillip in frank bewilderment. “But why? What reason has he, for heaven’s sake?”

  Phillip fell silent, his smile fading. He was far from anxious to discuss—even with Martin Fox—what the Commander-in-Chief had said to him the previous evening, when he had been summoned aboard Britannia to receive orders
to hand over his temporary command to Captain Crawford. The Admiral’s words had come as an ugly shock to him, from which he had not yet fully recovered, and Martin Fox—being the loyal friend he was—would insist on coming to his defense should he suspect what had transpired. This, at all costs, must be prevented, Phillip thought wretchedly, since it would inevitably do more harm than good. He shrugged, with simulated indifference, and attempted to evade the question.

  “The Admiral has his reasons, Martin, and no useful purpose can be served by going into them now, I promise you.”

  “But”—Fox was not to be put off—“he told you what his reasons were, I imagine?”

  “Yes, he told me. But there’s nothing to be done, in the circumstances. Nothing, that is to say, that would not make matters worse for us all … you may take my word for that.”

  “For us all, Phillip?” Fox said quickly. “What do you mean? Surely …” Comprehension dawned and he swore softly under his breath. “You cannot mean that the North affair is being held against you? If it is, then it’s the height of injustice! Oh, I realize that it is considered reprehensible to speak ill of the dead, but where the late Captain North is concerned, my conscience is clear because I can, in truth, say nothing good of him.”

  “Then say nothing,” Phillip besought him.

  “Why? Is North to be whitewashed at your expense, without your lifting a finger to defend yourself? In God’s name, Phillip, have you forgotten to what a state this ship’s company was reduced under his command? Or to what desperate lengths we ourselves were being driven by his tyranny?”

  “No.” Tight-lipped, Phillip shook his head. “I have not forgotten—nor am I likely to forget. But I should infinitely prefer not to speak of it now, Martin. It is over, it’s no longer of any consequence.”