Sails on the Horizon: A Novel of the Napoleonic Wars Read Online Free Page B

it was. Then San Josef hauled down her colors. Charles stared, dumbfounded. After a moment a slight figure in a British naval commodore’s uniform appeared at the quarterdeck railing, yelled something Charles couldn’t make out, and waved his hat.
    Charles struggled to stand, but it took too much effort. He eased himself back down, wiped clear some blood that had run into his eye, and waved back.

 
    TWO
    C HARLES TRIED TO WILL HIS SENSES TO WORK. A THROBBING , splitting pain burned in the left side of his head above the temple, and for an instant he wondered if he were dead or alive. Had he really seen a British naval officer at the railing of the San Josef, or had he imagined it? There was no one there now. He had to be alive; it wouldn’t hurt so badly if he were dead. At least he didn’t think so.
    In stages he became aware of the increasingly distant and isolated exchanges of cannon fire as at least some British warships pursued the scattered rear of the fleeing Spanish fleet. So he was alive and the commander of the Argonaut, or what remained of her. He tried to guess at the damage the ship had sustained. That she had been cruelly battered there was no question. Not a mast was standing, and he sensed from the sluggish way she rolled that she had taken on a great deal of water. Christ, his head hurt!
    “Well, this is a fine way to spend St. Valentine’s Day,” Daniel Bevan’s familiar voice sounded behind him. “Decided to sit down and take the rest of the day off, I see.”
    Charles half-turned and smiled thinly at his friend. The movement brought a fresh stab of pain. He tentatively raised a hand to the area just above his ear to feel for the wound. “How bad is it? The ship, I mean.”
    “Oh, it’s bad, very bad, Charlie,” Bevan said, kneeling beside him. He brushed Charles’s hand away and with both of his own carefully tilted his head to examine the injury. “We’re dismasted, without steerage, and sinking. But look at the bright side; it could be worse.”
    “How? Ow!” Charles chirped. It felt like Bevan was poking at the side of his temple with a boarding pike.
    “Hold still, you sissy. It would be worse if we’d already sunk, of course. Then you’d have to learn how to swim.” Bevan released Charles’s head and stood. “You’ll live to fight another day, Charlie. The Admiralty will be awfully sorry to hear it, though.”
    Charles began shaking again, partly as a reaction to the intensity of the battle and partly from the cold that seemed to seep into his bones. Bevan removed his uniform jacket and draped it around his friend’s shoulders. “Come on,” he said, pulling Charles to his feet. “The admiral may come to visit, and we can’t have him find you sitting on your duff, bleeding all over the deck. It ain’t professional.” Charles stood unsteadily and leaned on Bevan’s broad shoulders for support. The tangled remains of the nearly destroyed ship were more evident from an upright position— his ship. He was responsible. “Oh, Lord,” he muttered, “the navy’s going to have my arse for this.”
    “No, they’re not,” Bevan said earnestly. “You’ll be a hero. The navy always loves a long butcher’s bill. Shows you take your work seriously.” He led Charles over to a raised hatch cover and helped him sit on it. “All right, Charlie, you stay here. I’m going to fetch someone to come and fix you up.”
    “Wait.” Charles grabbed Bevan’s arm. “How many?”
    “Don’t know yet; we still have to count. The numbers will be high, though. But that’s what happens when you throw a tiny sixty-four in front of the whole Spanish navy.” Bevan gently pulled himself away and left to find someone to fetch the ship’s surgeon. Charles watched a party of sailors forward attempting to rig shearlegs so they might sway up a spar and lash it as a jury replacement to the stump of the former foremast. The midshipman he had left in charge of the gundecks—Winchester