For My Country's Freedom by Alexander Kent Page B

time.
    â€œSo we’m losin’ yew tomorrer, Mr Tyacke.”
    â€œYes,” he said, turning slightly away from her.
    â€œI’ve told Henry to fetch ’is cart bright ’n’ early for yew.”
    Tomorrow. Weeks of uncertainty. Now it was almost time.
    Tyacke had not been back in England for years. On his way here from the dockyard he had watched the passing scenery like a stranger in some foreign country. Through the city itself, shop after shop. Hairdressers and hatters, painters and distillers, and more inns and lodging-houses than he could imagine. Plenty of sea officers, and sailors who he assumed had the protection and were free to come and go as they pleased. He recalled the disbelief amongst Larne ’s company when Bolitho had granted permission for his men to go ashore. Only one had failed to return. Drunk, he had fallen into a dock and drowned.
    He had seen plenty of women, too. Some prettily dressed and decorative, the wives of army and naval officers, perhaps. Others, like Meg of the Crossed Keys, trying to do men’s work, to replace those who might never come home.
    He said, “I’ve been very comfortable here. Maybe I’ll see you again some day.”
    She turned to look at him, and although he watched carefully for it, there was no abhorrence in her eyes when they rested on his face.
    â€œI’ll fetch your supper soon, zur.”
    They both knew they would not meet again.
    He sipped his brandy. Good stuff. Maybe smugglers came this way . . . His thoughts returned to his new command. How different she would be. Designed originally as a small third-rate of 64 guns, she had been cut down to her present size by the removal of most of her upper deck and corresponding armament. But her forty 24 -pounders remained, with an additional four 18 -pounders for bow- and stern-chasers. Tyacke had studied every detail of the ship, and her history since she had been built at the famous William Hartland yard at Rochester on the Medway.
    He considered Bolitho’s comments, the ship’s possible use if war broke out with the United States. All the big new American frigates carried twenty-four-pounders and for sheer firepower were far superior to English frigates like Anemone.
    More to the point, perhaps, his new command had a far greater cruising range. Her original company of over six hundred had now been reduced to 270, which included 55 Royal Marines.
    She was still undermanned, but then every ship was, which was in or near a naval port.
    All those unknown faces. How long would it be before he came to know them, their value, their individual qualities? As a captain he could ask what he pleased of his officers. Respect, as he had seen with Bolitho, had to be earned.
    He thought again of the ship herself. Thirty-four years old, built of fine Kentish oak when there had been such trees for the asking. In newer ships some of the timbers were barely seasoned, and their frames were cut by carpenters, not shaped over the years for extra strength. Some were built of teak on oak frames, like John Company’s ships, which were mostly laid down in Bombay. Teak was like iron, but hated by the sailors who had to work and fight in them. Unlike oak splinters, teak could poison a man, kill him far more slowly and painfully than canister shot.
    Tyacke swallowed more brandy. His new command had first tasted salt water while he had been in his mother’s arms.
    His face softened into a smile. We must have grown up together. She had even been at the Nile. He tried not to touch his scarred cheek. Other battles too. The Chesapeake and the Saintes, Copenhagen, and then because she was too small for the line of battle she had shared all the miseries of blockade and convoy duty.
    There must be a lot of experienced post-captains asking why Sir Richard should hoist his flag above an old converted third-rate when he could have had anything he wanted. A full admiral now. He wondered what Catherine