Honour This Day Read Free Page A

may be old, Captain Haven, but she has out-sailed many far younger! The Chesapeake, the Saintes, Toulon and Biscay—her battle honours read like a history of the navy itself!” It was unfair, but Haven should have known better.
    Every yard of that tour had been a rebirth of memory. Only the faces and voices did not fit. But the ship was the same. New masts, and most of her armament replaced by heavier artillery than when she had faced the broadsides of Lequiller’s Tornade, gleaming paint and neatly tarred seams; nothing could disguise his Hyperion. He stared round the cabin, seeing it as before. And she was thirty-two years old. When she had been built at Deptford she had had the pick of Kentish oak. Those days of shipbuilding were gone forever, and now most forests had been stripped of their best timber to feed the needs of the fleet.
    It was ironic that the great Tornade had been a new ship, yet she had been paid off as a prison hulk some four years back. He felt his left eye again and cursed wretchedly as the mist seemed to drift across it. He thought of Haven and the others who served this old ship day and night. Did they know or guess that the man whose flag flew from the foremast truck was partially blind in his left eye? Bolitho clenched his fists as he relived that moment, falling to the deck, blinded by sand from the bucket an enemy ball had blasted apart.
    He waited for his composure to return. No, Haven did not seem to notice anything beyond his duties.
    Bolitho touched one of the chairs and pictured the length and breadth of his flagship. So much of him was in her. His brother had died on the upper deck, had fallen to save his only son Adam, although the boy had been unaware that he was still alive, at the time. And dear Inch who had risen to become Hyperion ’s first lieutenant. He could see him now, with his anxious, horse-faced grin. Now he too was dead, with so many of their “happy few.”
    And Cheney had also walked these decks—he pushed the chair aside and crossed angrily to the open stern windows.
    â€œYou called, Sir Richard?”
    It was Ozzard, his mole-like servant. It would be no ship at all without him.
    Bolitho turned. He must have spoken her name aloud. How many times; and how long would he suffer like this?
    He said, “I—I am sorry, Ozzard.” He did not go on.
    Ozzard folded his paw-like hands under his apron and looked at the glittering anchorage.
    â€œOld times, Sir Richard.”
    â€œAye.” Bolitho sighed. “We had better be about it, eh?”
    Ozzard held up the heavy coat with its shining epaulettes. Beyond the screen door Bolitho heard the trill of more calls and the squeak of tackles as boats were swayed out for lowering alongside.
    Landfall. Once it had been such a magic word.
    Ozzard busied himself with the coat but did not bring either sword from the rack. He and Allday were great friends even though most people would see them as chalk and cheese. And Allday would not allow anyone but himself to clip on the sword. Like the old ship, Bolitho thought, Allday was of the best English oak, and when he was gone none would take his place.
    He imagined that Ozzard was dismayed that he had chosen the two-decker when he could have had the pick of any first-rate he wanted. At the Admiralty they had gently suggested that although Hyperion was ready for sea again, after a three-year overhaul and refit she might never recover from that last savage battle.
    Curiously it had been Nelson, the hero whom Bolitho had never met, who had settled the matter. Someone at the Admiralty must have written to the little admiral to tell him of Bolitho’s request. Nelson had sent his own views in a despatch to Their Lordships with typical brevity.
    Give Bolitho any ship he wants. He is a sailor, not a landsman.
    It would amuse Our Nel, Bolitho thought. Hyperion had been set aside as a hulk until her recommissioning just a few months ago, and she was