To Glory We Steer

2

BEWARE, THE PRESS!

The gig's crew pulled steadily towards the stone jetty and then gratefully tossed their oars as Stockdale growled an order and the bowman jabbed at a ringbolt with his boathook.

Bolitho turned his head to look back at the frigate and smiled slightly to himself. The Phalarope was anchored well out in Falmouth Bay, her sleek shape black and stark against the sea and watery sunlight which had at last managed to break through the scudding clouds. The ship had made a slow approach towards the headland, and he had no doubt that her presence had long since been reported, and every able-bodied man in the town would have taken full advantage of the warning to make himself scarce from the dreaded press.

By his side, huddled in his boat cloak, Lieutenant Thomas Herrick'sat in silence, his eyes watching the rain-soaked hills beyond the town and the grey, timeless bulk of the castle above Carrick Roads. There were several small craft moored in the safety of the Roads, coasters and tubby fishing boats enjoying the shelter and the protection of the anchorage.

Bolitho said, `A brisk walk will do us good,' Mr. Herrick. It may be the last chance we get for a while.' He stepped stiffly from the boat and waited until Herrick had followed him up the worn steps. An ancient sailor with a grey beard called, `Welcome, Captain! It is a fine ship you have out there!'

Bolitho nodded. A Cornishman himself, and a native of Falmouth, he knew well enough that it was unlikely any younger men would dare to stay and pass idle remarks to a King's officer. Frigates were too busy to enter port unless for one thing. To gather men.

Vibart had voiced that very thing as the Phalarope had swooped through the night, her sails thundering to the wind, her bow throwing back the spray in an unbroken white wake. But when Bolitho had outlined his plan even he had lapsed into silence.

As a boy Bolitho had often seen the approach, of a ship of war, and had heard the news shouted down the narrow streets, the cry carried from house to house like a distress signal. Young men had dropped their work, bid hasty farewells to their friends and families, and made for the safety of the hills, where they could watch and wait until the ship had made sail and dipped towards the horizon. There was a rough coast road above the cliffs which led north-east away from Falmouth towards Gerrans Bay and St. Austell. No press gang would take the time and trouble to follow them. Hampered by weapons and the short breath left by lack of exercise, they would know such efforts to be wasted. No, there were few who were slow or stupid enough to allow the King's men an easy catch.

In pitch darkness Bolitho had turned the ship inshore and heaved to, the deck canting savagely to the stiff wind and the swift offshore currents. Old Proby had been at first doubtful, and then had openly showed his admiration. There were no beacons, and apart from a dull shadow of land there was nothing to show that Bolitho had found the exact point below Gerrans Bay where the chart displayed a tiny crescent of beach.

A landing party had been detailed soon after leaving Portsmouth, and below the quarterdeck, their faces pale in a shaded lantern, the selected men had listened to Bolitho's instructions.

`I am putting you ashore here in the two cutters. You will be in two parties. Mr. Vibart and Mr. Maynard with one, and Mr. Farquhar with the second.' He had sought out the severe face of Brock, the gunner. `Mr. Brock will also accompany the second party.' Farquhar might be too eager if left alone, he thought. Brock's experience and self-contained efficiency would make a nice balance.

`If I know Falmouth, as soon as the ship appears in the Bay at first light the sort of men we are after will make their way along the coast road as fast as they can go. If your parties keep up a steady march along that road as soon as you leave Pendower Beach, they should run right into your arms. It saves selection, I believe.' He had seen Brock nod his narrow head approvingly. `The boats will return to the ship and you can march straight on to Falmouth.' A few of the men sighed, and he had added calmly, `It is only five miles. It is better than tramping around the town for nothing.'

With Herrick at his side he walked briskly up the sloping road towards the neat houses, his shoes slipping on the wellremembered cobbles. By now Vibart must have made some catches, he thought. If not, if he made his first misjudgement, it would only help to add to the tension in the Phalarope.

Lieutenant Okes was still aboard in charge of the ship until his return, and Captain Rennie's marines would be able to deter anyone who still hoped to desert. Even a desperate man would find it hard to swim the long stretch of tossing water from the anchored frigate.

He glanced sideways at Herrick and said abruptly, `You have been aboard for two years, I believe?' He watched the guard drop behind the lieutenant's eyes. He had an open, homely face, yet there was this reserve, this caution, which seemed to symbolise for Bolitho the attitude of the whole ship.- It was as if they were all cowed to a point where they neither trusted nor hoped. He added, `According to, the log you were officer of the watch when the trouble started?'

Herrick bit his lip. `Yes, sir. We were beating up from Lorient. It was during the middle watch and quiet for the time of year.'

Bolitho watched the uncertainty crossing the man's face and felt a touch of pity. It was never easy to be the junior lieutenant in a ship of war. Promotion was slow and hard without either luck or influence. He thought of his own first chance, how easily it might have gone against him. One piece of luck had followed hard upon another. As a lieutenant in a ship of the line, at the very time of the American rebellion, he had been sent away in charge of a prize crew in a captured 'brig. While heading towards Antigua he had fallen upon a privateer and had fooled her captain into believing that his brig was still an ally. A rush of boarders, a swift and savage clash of steel, and the second ship had been his. Upon arrival at Antigua he had been welcomed by the Commander-inChief like a hero. Victories had been scarce, and reverses only too many.

So at the age of twenty-two be had been given command of the Sparrow. Again luck had guided his footsteps. The sloop's original commander had died of fever, and her first lieutenant was too junior for the coveted post.

He forced the sympathy to the back of his mind. `How many men were in the mutiny?'

Herrick replied bitterly, `No more than ten. They were trying to release a seaman called Fisher. Captain Po•mfret had had him flogged for insubordination the previous day. He had been complaining about the foul food.'

Bolitho nodded. `That is not uncommon.'

`But Captain Pomfret was not satisfied!' The words burst from his lips in an angry flood. `He had him lashed to the bowsprit, without allowing the surgeon even to treat his back!' He shuddered. `In the Bay of Biscay, with frost on the rigging, and he left him there like so much meat!' He controlled himself with an effort and muttered, `I am sorry, sir. I keep thinking about it.'

Bolitho thought back to Pomfret's neat, matter-of-fact recording in the log. The protesting seamen had rushed the quarterdeck and overpowered the quartermaster and master's mate at pistol point. Only Herrick, a man who obviously agreed with everything the seamen had offered as a grievance, stood between them and a full-scale mutiny. Somehow or other he had cowed them with words. He had ordered them back to the forecastle and they had obeyed because they trusted him. The next day Pomfret's vengeance had broken over the ship in a wave of ferocity. Twenty floggings, and two men hanged. He would not wait until the Phalarope rejoined the fleet, nor would he wait for higher authority to gauge his actions. Herrick's bitterness was well founded, or was it? On the face of it, Pomfret was within his rights. Perhaps Herrick should have shot down the mutineers, or even have foreseen the coming danger. He could have summoned the afterguard, given his life if necessary. Bolitho chilled at the thought of what might have happened if Herrick too had been overcome while he tried to reason with the desperate seamen. The sleeping officers would have been slaughtered, the ship thrown into chaos in enemy waters. It did not bear thinking about.

He persisted, `And then later, when you rejoined the fleet off Brest and came to action with those French ships. Why was the Phalarope not engaged?' Again he saw the wretched emotions, the Uncertainty and anger.

Then it dawned on him. Herrick feared him almost as much as Pomfret. He was captain. He had taken over the ship where Herrick's own misery and shame moved like a ghost between decks. Gently he added, `I take it that the crew were making their own protest?'

Herrick sunk his chin into his neckcloth. `Yes, sir. There was nothing you could put a name to. Sails were badly set. Gun crews slow in responding.' He laughed sharply. `But it was wasted. Quite wasted!' He looked sideways at Bolitho, a brief spark of defiance in his eyes. 'Pomfret usually avoided action if possible!'

Bolitho looked away. You fool, he thought angrily. You have allowed this man to act as a conspirator. You should silence him now, before everyone aboard knows you have accepted an open criticism of Pomfret, a selected captain, without a murmur.

He said slowly, When you have a command of your own,  Herrick, you may feel otherwise. The right course of action is not usually the easiest.' He thought of Vibart's hostility and wondered what he had been doing during the mutiny. `I know that every officer must earn his men's loyalty.' He hardened his tone. `But a captain has the loyalty of his' officers as a right, do I make myself clear?'

Herrick looked straight ahead along the street. `Aye, aye, sir!' The guard was restored. His expression wooden and controlled.

Bolitho halted below the church wall and looked up the familiar street which ran beside the churchyard. At the top of the road was the house, its square, uncompromising shape, the familiar grey stonework as enduring as his memory of it.

He stood looking up at it, suddenly apprehensive, like an intruder. He said, `Carry on, Mr. Herrick. Go and see the garrison victualling officer and arrange to have as many fresh eggs and butter sent over to the ship as you can manage.'

Herrick was looking past him towards the big house, his eyes suddenly wistful. `Your home, sir?'

`Yes.' Bolitho began to see Herrick in a different light again. Away from the order and discipline of the frigate and framed by the rain-washed building behind him he looked vaguely defenceless. Bolitho knew from his own methodical study of the ship's papers that Herrick came of a poor, middle-class Kentish family, his father being a clerk. For that reason he would be without influence when he most needed it, and unless he was very fortunate in battle his chances, of advancement were slight.

The sight of his home, the confusion of judgement and ideas angered him, and he said sharply, `After you have dealt with the Army perhaps you would care to join me for a glass of wine before we sail, Mr. Herrick?' He gestured up the road. `My father will welcome you.'

Herrick opened his mouth, an unspoken refusal caught in mid-air. He tugged at his cross-belt and said awkwardly, `Thank you, sir.' He touched his hat as Bolitho turned away towards the house.

Herrick stood quite still, the wind tugging at his boatcloak, until Bolitho reached the gates. Then, chin sunk on chest, he walked slowly towards the castle, his brow creased in a deep frown.

Lieutenant Giles Vibart cursed as his feet skidded on loose stones and a seaman cannoned into his back. The grey morning light showed the extent of the previous night's wind, and the long grass and gorse was flattened and glittering with rain. He pulled his watch from inside his coat and then held up his hand.

`We'll stop here for a bit!' He saw his order passing down the small party of men, and waited until they had squatted beside the crude track before he crossed to the two midshipmen and the gunner.

`We'll give these idlers ten minutes and then move off again.' He looked round as a shaft of frail sunlight touched his cheek. `Then you can take a party further inland, Mr. Farquhar, in case of stragglers.'

Farquhar shrugged and kicked at a pebble. `Suppose nobody comes, sir?'

Vibart snapped, `Just do as you're told!'

Maynard, the other midshipman, readjusted his dirk and looked anxiously towards the resting seamen. `I hope none of 'em try and desert. The captain would be very displeased!'

The gunner gave a lazy grin. `I picked them myself. They're all old hands.' He picked up a piece of grass and pulled it between his uneven teeth. `All pressed men, too. Much better than volunteers for this job!'

Vibart nodded. `Quite right, Mr. Brock. There's nothing better to give an edge to the press. No sailor likes to think others are getting away with it!'

Brock frowned. `An' why should they? It's not right that the fleet is expected to fight bloody battles and keep the country free of the Frogs without help from these lazy, pampered civilians! They make money and live happily with their wives while we do all the hard work!' He spat out the grass. `To hell with 'em, I say!'

Vibart walked away from them and stared down at the rocky beach below the cliff. What did it matter what anybody said? They needed men, and the sooner the better.

He watched the wind hissing through the tangled grass and thought again of the frigate's dash through the night. How unlike Pomfret, he thought. He had always. liked and expected a smart ship. But to him it had been more like a possession than a weapon of war. He larded it in his fine cabin, enjoying his choice wines and well-stocked food store while he, Vibart, ran the ship and did all the things of which he was totally incapable. He moved restlessly on his thick legs as the old fire of resentment and injustice explored his mind like a drug.

Pomfret had been full of promises. A word in, the right quarter and his first lieutenant would receive recognition and promotion when the time was right. All Vibart had to do was take care of the ship and her discipline and he would do the

rest.

The captain had no interest in prize money. He was rich beyond Vibart's imagination. He was equally indifferent to glory. He was inefficient as he was cowardly.

Vibart would have been able to manage Pomfret's indulgences but for the captain's real weakness. Like many cowards he was a bully and a sadist. To Vibart harsh discipline was a necessity, but senseless cruelty seemed to be pointless. It weakened or maimed men who would be better employed on duty, it damaged the blind trust of men required to obey without question.

But Vibart was only a lieutenant, and was thirty-three years old. Unlike most of the other officers he had not entered the Navy as a boy, but had come the hard way, having served in merchant vessels the length and breadth of the world. His last three years at sea, prior to entering the Navy as a master's mate, had been aboard an African slaver where he had soon learned that senseless brutality had meant loss of profit at the end of a voyage, with stinking holds as full of useless carcasses as prime, saleable bodies.

He turned angrily and shouted, `Right! We'll move off now!' He watched with brooding eyes as the men picked up their weapons and shambled down the track, while that arrogant young monkey Farquhar strode up the hillside to head . inland. He was typical, Vibart thought viciously. Eighteen years old, pampered and well bred, with a powerful admiral to watch over his progress like a nurse. He glared at the lanky Maynard: `Don't stand there gaping. Go ahead of the patty!'

Well, in spite of their advantages of breeding and influence he, Giles Vibart, had shown them. He allowed the knowledge to stir his insides like rum. He had realised that Pomfret's weakness could not be changed, just as he had soon understood that to oppose him would have finished any hope he might have had left for personal reward. He had managed to overcome his own objections. After all, did it really matter that men were unjustly flogged? They might be flogged later for real cause, so where was the difference?

He had had one ally aboard the unhappy frigate. David Evans, the purser, had kept him fully informed of what was going on between decks. Evans was an evil man even by the standards of his trade. Whenever his ship touched land he would be ashore negotiating for stores and food, using his keen brain and ready tongue to purchase the very worst, the most rancid stock available, and adjusting the price to his own pocket. Vibart, as first lieutenant, was well aware of this trick, but used his knowledge to his own advantage. Evans had useful toadies on the lower deck, reliable men who would inform readily on their messmates for small reward.

Carefully and methodically Vibart had put ruthless pressure on the crew. But floggings were all in the captain's name, never in his own. He was always careful to show off his own seamanship and prowess at navigation whenever Pomfret was not there to see it. Whatever happened when the pressure broke through the men's resistance, Vibart had to be sure that he was ready and blameless at any enquiry.

Evans had told him about the proposed mutiny, and Vibart had known that the moment had at last arrived. When he had suggested to Pomfret that the flogged seaman, Fisher, should be lashed to the bowsprit like some flayed figurehead, he had known that it was the last thing needed to fan alive the flame of anger and mutiny.

The ringleaders had chosen their time well, he conceded. If Okes had been officer-of-the-watch he might have panicked and raised an almighty row which even Pomfret, half sodden with drink in his bunk, would have heard. But Herrick was a different matter. He was a thinker. He would be bound to reason with the men, to prevent an uprising rather than to crush it by brute force.

Knowing all these things, even to the chosen time, Vibart had waited breathlessly in his cabin. Squeezed in the wardroom had been the ship's full complement of marines, their sergeant another of Vibart's willing helpers. It was such a straightforward plan that Vibart had wanted to laugh at its simplicity.

The mutineers would rush the quarterdeck and overpower the watch. Herrick, rather than raise the alarm and drive Pomfret to another bloody frenzy, would try to quieten them, to listen to their complaints. But the men would kill him, and then Vibart would rush on deck and blanket the quarterdeck with musket fire..

At the court of enquiry even the most biased admiral would not fail to see that Vibart had saved the ship, when one officer lay dead with his watch and the captain slept in a drunken stupor.

Even now on the wet hillside Vibart could remember the sound of his own breathing in that sealed cabin. Then the stealthy approach of the mutineers even as two bells pealed out from forward. But there were no shots, and no cries. No rasp of steel, or the sound of Herrick's last gasp for life.

When at last, unable to control his anxiety, he had crept on deck he had found Herrick at his post, the maindeck deserted.

The young lieutenant had reported the incident as a `deputation' concerned with the welfare of the dying Fisher. That was all. When Vibart had pushed him further, Herrick had still stood his ground, his anger giving way to contempt as his eyes had fallen on Vibart's loaded pistols and the marine sergeant at the cabin hatch.

The next morning Pomfret had been almost as beside himself as if an actual mutiny had broken out. `Complaints?' He had screamed at Vibart across the wide cabin. `They dare to complain?' Even without much prompting he had seen the men's actions as a real challenge to his own authority.

When at last the frigate had been ordered to Portsmouth to face an enquiry, Vibart had known fresh hope. Things had moved fast. The ship had been stripped of known troublemakers -and had been fitted out for another long spell of service. Pomfret had stayed in his cabin, sulky and brooding up to the time he was ordered from the ship. But no new commission had arrived for Vibart. No command of either the Phalarope or any other ship.

He was back exactly as he had been when he had first joined the frigate under Pomfret, except that the new captain, Bolitho, was another kind of person entirely.

He jerked from hiss thoughts as Maynard called breathlessly, `Sir! One of the men is signalling from the hillside!'

Vibart drew his sword and slashed sharply at a small bush. `So the captain guessed right, did he?' He waved his arm in a half circle. `Right, you men! Get to either side of the road and wait for Mr. Farquhar's party to work round behind them. I don't want anyone to escape!' He saw the men nod and shuffle to the bushes, swinging their clubs and readjusting their cutlass belts.

When the moment of contact actually came, even Vibart was taken off guard.

It was more like a carefree procession than a party of men avoiding the press gangs. Some fifty or more men tightly bunched on the narrow track, talking, some even singing as they strolled aimlessly away from Falmouth and the sea.

Vibart saw Farquhar's slim silhouette break the skyline and stepped out from the bushes. His appearance could not have affected them more deeply had he been something from another world. He held up his sword as his men stepped out across the road behind him.

`In the King's name! I charge you all to line up and be examined!' His voice broke the spell. Some of the men turned and tried to run back along the road, only to halt gasping 'at the sight of Farquhar's men and the levelled muskets. One figure bolted up the hillside, his feet kicking the grass like some terrified rabbit.

Josling, a bosun's mate, lashed out with his cudgel. The man screamed and rolled down the slope and lay in a puddle clutching his shin. Josling turned him over with his foot and felt the man's bleeding leg. Then he looked at Vibart and said offhandedly, `No eggs broken, sir!'

Shocked and dazed the men allowed themselves to be pushed into line on the road. Vibart stood watching and calculating. It had been so easy that he wanted to grin.

Brock said, `Fifty-two men, sir. All sound in wind and limb!'

One of the uneven rank dropped on to his knees and whimpered, `Please, please, sir! Not me!'

There were tears on his cheeks, and Vibart asked harshly, `What is so special about you?’

'My wife, sir! She's ill! She needs me at home!' He rocked on his knees. "She'll die without my support, sir, in God's name she will!'

Vibart said wearily, `Stand that man on his feet. He makes me sick!'

Another at the end of the rank said in a tight voice, `I am a shepherd, I'm excused from the press!' He stared round challengingly until his eye fell on Brock. `Ask him, sir. The gunner will bear me out!'

Brock sauntered across to him and held up his cane. `Roll up your sleeve.' He sounded bored, even indifferent, and several of the watching men forgot their shocked misery to lean from the rank-and watch.

The man in question took a half-pace away, but not quickly enough. Like a steel claw Brock's hand fastened on his rough shirt and tore it from his arm to display an interwoven tattoo of crossed flags and cannon.

Brock stepped back and swayed on his heels. He looked along the rank. `No man has a tattoo like that unless he is a seaman.' His voice was slow and patient, like a schoolmaster with a new class. `No man would recognise me as a gunner unless he had served in a King'ss ship!'

Without warning his cane flashed in the weak sunlight. When it returned to his side the other man had blood on his face where it had cut almost to, the bone.

The gunner looked at him levelly. `Most of all, I dislike being taken for a fool!' He turned his back, dismissing the man from his mind.

A seaman yelled, `Another signal, sir! One more group comin' down the road!'

Vibart sheathed his sword. `Very well.' He looked coldly at the shivering line of men. `You are entering an honourable service. You have just learned the first lesson. Don't make me teach you another!'

Maynard fell into step beside him his face troubled. `It seems a pity that there is no other way, sir?'

Vibart did not reply. Like the man who had begged for his wife, such statements lacked both purpose and meaning.

Only aboard the ship did anything count for any of them.

Bolitho sipped at his port and waited until the servant girl had cleared away the table. His stomach had long grown used to meagre and poorly cooked shipboard food, so that the excellent meal of good Cornish lamb left him feeling glutted and uncomfortable.

Across the table his father, James Bolitho, drummed impatiently on the polished wood with his one remaining hand and then took a long swallow of port. He seemed ill at ease, even nervous, as he had been from the moment of his son's arrival.

Bolitho watched him quietly and waited. There was such a change in his father. From his own boyhood dayss to the present time Bolitho had seen his father only on rarely spaced occasions when he had returned here to the family home. From foreign wars and far-off countries, from exploits which children could only guess at. He could remember him as tall and grave in his naval uniform, shedding his service selfdiscipline like a cloak as he had come through that familiar doorway beside the portraits of the Bolitho family. Men like himself, like his son, sailors first and foremost.

When Bolitho had been a midshipman under Sir Henry Langford he had learned of his father's wounds whilst he had been engaged in fighting for the fast-advancing colonies in India, and when he had seen him again he had found him suddenly old and embittered. He had been a man of boundless energy and ideas, and to be removed from the Navy List, no matter how honourably, was more than the loss of an arm, it was like having his life cut from within him.

Locally in Falmouth he was respected as a firm and just magistrate, but Bolitho knew in his heart that his father's very being still lay with the sea, and the ships which came and went on the tide. Even his old friends and comrades had stopped coming to visit him, perhaps unable to bear what their very presence represented. Interest changed so easily into envy. Contact could harm rather than soothe.

Bolitho had a brother and two sisters. The latter had now both married, one to a farmer, the other to an officer of the garrison. Of Hugh, his older brother, nothing had yet been said, and Bolitho made himself wait for what he guessed was uppermost in his father's mind.

`I watched your ship come in, Richard.' The hand drummed busily on the table. `She's a fine vessel, and when you get to- the West Indies again I have no doubt you will bring more honour to the family.' He shook his head sadly. `England needs all her sons now. It seems as if the world must be our enemy before we can find the, right solution.'

It was very quiet in, the house. After the pitch of a deck, the creak of spars, it was like another world. Even the smells were different. The packed humanity, and the varied aromas of tar and salt, of cooking and damp, all were alien here.

It felt lonely, too. In his, mind's eye he could still picture his mother, young and vivacious as he remembered her. Again, he had been at sea when she had died of some brief but final illness. Now there was no companion for James Bolitho, and nobody to sit enraptured or amused by stories of the family's past. exploits.

Bolitho glanced at the great clock. `My men will have found new poeple for the crew by now or not at all,' he said quietly. `It is a sad necessity that we have to get seamen like this.'

His father's face came alive from his inner thoughts. `I believe that their duty is more important than their passing comfort! Every week I have to sign deportation orders for the colonies, or hang useless thieves. Life in a King's ship would have spared them the indignity of life ashore, would have saved them from petty greed and temptation!'

Bolitho studied his father's face and remembered himself as he had appeared in the mirror of the George Inn at Portsmouth. It was there in his father, as it was in the portraits along the walls. The same calm face and dark hair, the same slightly hooked nose. But his father had lost his old fire, and his hair was grey now, like that of a man much older.

His father stood up and walked to the fire. Over his shoulder he said gruffly, `You have not yet heard about your brother?'

Bolitho tensed. `No. I thought he was still at sea.'

`At sea?' The older man shook his head vaguely. `Of course, I kept it from you. I suppose I should have written to you, but in my heart I still hoped he might change his ways and nobody would have known about it."

Bolitho waited. His brother had always been the apple of his father's eye. When last he had seen him he had been a lieutenant in the Channel Fleet, the next in line for this house and for the family inheritance. Bolitho had never felt particularly close to Hugh, but put it down to a natural family jealousy. Now, he was not so sure.

`I had great hopes for Hugh.' His father was talking to the fire. To himself. `I am only glad his mother is not alive to know of what he became!'

`Is there something I can do?' Bolitho watched the shoulders quiver as his father sought to control his voice.

`Nothing. Hugh is no longer in the Navy. He got into debt gambling. He always had an eye for the tables, as I think you know. But he got into deep trouble, and to end it all he fought a duel with a brother officer, and killed him!'

Bolitho's mind began to clear. That explained the few servants, and the fact that over half the land belonging to the house had been sold to a local farmer.

`You covered his debts then?' He kept his voice calm. `I have some prize money if ...'

The other man held up his hand. `That is not necessary. It was my fault for being so blind. I was stupid about that boy. I must pay for my misjudgement!' He seemed to become more weary. `He deserted the Navy, turned his back on it, even knowing how his act would hurt me. Now he has gone.'

Bolitho started. `Gone?’

'He went to America. I have not heard of him for two years, nor do I want to.' When he turned Bolitho saw the lie shining in his eyes. `Not content with bringing disgrace on the family name, he has done this thing. Betrayed his country!'

Bolitho thought of the chaos and death at the disaster of Philadelphia and answered slowly, `He may have been prevented from returning by the rebellion.'

`You know your brother, Richard. Do you really think it likely? He always had to be right, to hold the winning cards. No, I cannot see him pining away in a prison camp!'

The servant girl entered the room and bobbed in a clumsy curtsy. 'Beggin' pardon, zur. There's an officer to zee you.'

`That'll be Herrick, my third lieutenant,' said Bolitho hurriedly. `I asked him to take a glass with us. I'll tell him to go if you wish?'

His father stood up straight and flicked his coat into position again. `No, boy. Have him come in. I will not let my shame interfere with the real pride I have in my remaining son.’

Bolitho said gently, 'I am very sorry, Father. You must know that.'

`Thank you. Yes, I do know. And you were the one I thought would never make your way in the Navy. You were always the dreamer, the unpredictable one. I am afraid I neglected you for Hugh.' He sighed. `Now it is too late.' There was a step in the hallway and he said yvith sudden urgency, 'In case I never see you again, my boy, there is something you must have.' He swallowed. `I wanted Hugh to have it when he became a captain.' He reached into a cupboard and held out his sword. It was old and well tarnished, but Bolitho knew it was of greater value than steel and gilt.

He hesitated. `Your father's sword. You always wore it!'

James Bolitho nodded and turned it over carefully in his hands. `Yes, I always wore it. It was a good friend.' He held it out. `Take it. I want you to wear it for me!'

His father suddenly smiled. `Well then, let us greet your junior officer together, eh?'

When Herrick walked uncertainly into the wide room he saw only his smiling host and his new captain, one the living mould of the other.

Only Bolitho saw the pain in his father's eyes and was deeply moved.

It was strange how he had come to the house, as he had always done in the past, seeking comfort and advice. Yet he had mentioned nothing about the difficulties and danger of his new command, or the double-edged responsibility which hung over his head like an axe.

For once, he had been the one who was needed, and he was ashamed because he did not know the answer.

At dawn the following day the frigate Phalarope unfurled her sails and broke out her anchor. There were no cheers to speed her parting, but there were many tears and curses from the women and old men who watched from the jetties.

The air was keen and fresh, and as the yards creaked round and the ship heeled away from the land Bolitho stood aft by the taffrail, his glass moving slowly across the green sloping hills and the huddled town below.

He had his ship, and all but a full complement. With time the new men would soon be moulded into sailors, and given 36

patience and understanding they might make their country proud of them.

St. Anthony's Light moved astern, the ancient beacon which was the returning sailor's first sight of home. Bolitho wondered when or if he would see it again. He thought too of his father, alone in the old house, alone with his memories and shattered hopes. He thought of the sword and all that it represented.

He turned away from the rail and stared down at one of the ship's boys, a mere infant of about twelve years old. The boy was weeping uncontrollably and waving vaguely at the land as it cruised away into the haze. Bolitho asked, `Do you know that I was your age when I first went to sea, boy?'

The lad rubbed his nose with a grubby fist and gazed at the captain with something like wonder.

Bolitho added, `You'll see England again. Never you fear!' He turned away quickly lest the boy should see the uncertainty in his eye.

By the wheel old Proby intoned, `South-west by South. Full and by, quartermaster.'

Then, as if to cut short the agony of sailing, he walked to the lee rail and spat into the sea.