For My Country's Freedom by Alexander Kent Page A

this tall straight-backed man gave the formality both significance and a new impact.
    It was addressed to James Tyacke Esquire, appointing him to the Indomitable on this day in April 1811 . Not far from the place where Drake was alleged to have kept the fleet and the Dons waiting while he finished his game of bowls.
    Willing and requiring you forthwith to go on board and take upon you the charge and command of captain in her accordingly; strictly charging and commanding all the officers and company of the said Indomitable . . . At that point Tyacke looked across the mass of upturned faces. The old Indom. But the one-legged cook was not in sight. Perhaps he had imagined it, and Troughton had been only a lingering spectre who had come back to give him the strength he had needed.
    Eventually it was all over, ending with the customary warning. Threat, as he perceived it. Hereof nor you nor any of you may fail as will answer the contrary at your peril.
    He rolled up the commission and said, “God Save the King!”
    There was neither sound nor cheering, and the silence at any other time would have been oppressive.
    He replaced his hat and gazed aloft where Sir Richard Bolitho’s flag would soon be hoisted to the mainmast truck for the first time.
    â€œYou may dismiss the hands, Mr Scarlett. I will see all officers in my quarters in one hour, if you please.”
    The figures crowded below the quarterdeck rail were still thinking only of their own future, and not of the ship. Not yet.
    And yet despite the silence he could feel only a sense of elation, an emotion which was rare to him.
    This was not his beloved Larne. It was a new beginning, for him and for the ship.
    Lieutenant Matthew Scarlett strode aft, glancing this way and that to ensure that the ship was tidy, the hammock nettings empty, all spare cordage coiled or flaked down until the new day. The air that touched his face when he passed an open gunport was cold, and the ship’s motion was unsteady for so powerful a hull.
    He had overheard the sailing-master lecturing some of the “young gentlemen” during the dogwatches. “When the gulls fly low over the rocks at night, it’ll be bad next day, no matter what some clever Jacks tell you!” Scarlett had seen the two newest midshipmen glance doubtfully at one another. But the gulls had flown abeam even as the darkness of evening had started to close in around the anchored ship. Isaac York was rarely mistaken.
    Past the unattended double wheel and further aft into the shadows, where a Royal Marine sentry stood in the light of a spiralling lantern. The Indomitable had been converted to contain two large cabins aft, one for her captain, and the other for use by the senior officer of a flotilla or squadron.
    But for Tyacke’s arrival and the vessel’s selection as Sir Richard Bolitho’s flagship, one of the cabins might have been his. He acknowledged the watchful sentry and reached for the screen door.
    The sentry tapped the deck with his musket and bawled, “First Lieutenant, sir! ”
    â€œEnter!”
    Scarlett closed the door behind him, his eyes taking in several things at once.
    Tyacke’s supper stood on a tray untouched; the coffee he had requested must be ice-cold. The table was completely covered with books, canvas folios and pages of the captain’s own notes.
    Scarlett thought of the officers all packed into this cabin shortly after the captain had read himself in. Could that have been only this morning? Tyacke must have been going through the ship’s affairs ever since.
    â€œYou have not eaten, sir. May I send for something?”
    Tyacke looked at him for the first time. “You were at Trafalgar, I believe?”
    Scarlett nodded, taken aback by the directness.
    â€œAye, sir. I was in Lord Nelson’s weather column, the Spartiate, 74. Captain Sir Francis Laforey.”
    â€œDid you ever meet Nelson?”
    â€œNo, sir. We saw him often