Bolitho reined in his horse and looked at the house for a full minute. It was not an old building, he decided, and the cobbled driveway which led between some pillared gates was well kept, with no trace of weeds to spoil it. And yet it had an air of neglect, or a place which had too many occupiers to care. Behind him he heard the other horse stamping its hooves on the roadway and could almost feel Young Matthew’s excitement as he shared the pride and privilege of accompanying Bolitho on this warm, air-less evening.
Bolitho recalled the angry waves and the brig’s sail being ripped apart by it. It could have been another ocean entirely. There was a smell of flowers in the air, mixed as ever with that of the sea which was never far away.
The house was less than a mile from the dockyard at Sheerness where the two cutters had returned that morning.
A lieutenant had brought the invitation to Bolitho. It had been more like a royal command, he thought grimly.
He saw the glint of steel and the scarlet coats of two marines as they stepped across the gateway, attracted possibly by the sound of horses.
He had seen several pickets on the way here. It was as if the navy and not the local felons and smugglers were under siege. His mouth tightened. He would try to change that—always provided Commodore Hoblyn did not order him to leave.
He tried to recall all he could about the man. A few years older than himself, Hoblyn had also been a frigate captain dur-ing the American Rebellion. He had fought his ship Leonidas at the decisive battle of the Chesapeake, where Admiral Graves had failed to bring de Grasse to a satisfactory embrace.
Hoblyn had engaged a French frigate and a privateer single-handed. He had forced the Frenchman to strike, but as he had closed with the privateer his own ship had exploded in flames. Hoblyn had continued to fight, and even boarded and seized the privateer before his ship had foundered.
It had been said that the sight of Hoblyn leading his board-ers had been enough to strike terror into the enemy. His uniform had been ablaze, one arm burning like a tree in a forest fire.
Bolitho had met him only once since the war. He had been on his way to the Admiralty to seek employment. He had not even looked like the same man. His arm in a sling, his collar turned up to conceal some of the terrible burns on his neck, he had seemed a ghost from a battlefield. As far as Bolitho knew he had never obtained any employment. Until now.
Bolitho urged his mount forward. “Come, Matthew, take care of the horses. I shall have some food sent to you.”
He did not see the awe on the boy’s face. Bolitho was think-ing of Allday. It was so out of character not to ask, to demand to accompany him. Allday mistrusted the ways of the land, and hated being parted from Bolitho at any time. Perhaps he was still brooding over their failure to catch the smugglers. It would all come out later on. Bolitho frowned. But it would have to wait.
He had spoken with Lieutenant Queely aboard Wakeful before leaving Sheerness. It was like a missing part of a puzzle. Wakeful had seen nothing, and the revenue men had had no reports of a run. Testing him out? Like Delaval’s elaborate and calculated dis-play of the dead man, Paice’s informant. Cat and mouse.
He nodded to the corporal at the gate who slapped his mus-ket in a smart salute, the pipeclay hovering around him in the still air. Bolitho was glad he had declined a carriage. Riding alone had given him time to think if not to plan. He smiled ruefully. It had also reminded him just how long it was since he had sat a horse.
Young Matthew took the horses and waited as a groom came forward to lead him to the stables at the rear of the house. Bolitho climbed the stone steps and saw the fouled anchor above the pil-lars, the stamp of Admiralty.
As if by magic the double doors swung inwards noiselessly and a dark-coated servant took Bolitho’s hat and boat cloak, the lat-ter covered with dust from the steady canter along an open road.
The man said, “The commodore will receive you shortly, sir.” He backed away, the cloak and hat carried with great care as if they were heated shot from a furnace.
Bolitho walked around the entrance hall. More pillars, and a curved stairway which led up to a gallery. Unlike the houses he had seen in London, it was spartan. No pictures, and few pieces of furniture. Temporary, that described it well, he thought, and wondered if it also indicated Hoblyn’s authority here. He looked through a window and caught the glint of late sunlight on the sea. Or mine. He tried not to think about Queely. He could be guilty, or one of his people might have found a way to pass word to the smugglers. News did not travel by itself.
It was like being in a dark room with a blind man. Uniform, authority, all meaningless. A fight which had neither beginning nor end. Whereas at sea you held the obedience and efficiency of your ship by leadership and example. But the enemy was always visible, ready to pit his wits against yours until the final broad-side brought down one flag or the other.
Here it was stealth, deceit, and murder.
As a boy Bolitho had often listened to the old tales of the Cornish smugglers. Unlike the notorious wreckers along that cruel coastline, they were regarded as something vaguely heroic and daring. The rogues who robbed the rich to pay the poor. The navy had soon taught Bolitho a different story. Smugglers were not so different from those who lured ships on to the rocks where they robbed the cargoes and slit the throats of helpless survivors. He found that he was gripping his sword so tightly that the pain steadied his sudden anger.
He felt rather than heard a door opening and turned to see a slim figure framed against a window on the opposite side of the room.
At first he imagined it was a girl with a figure so slight. Even when he spoke his voice was soft and respectful, but with no trace of servility.
The youth was dressed in a very pale brown livery with darker frogging at the sleeves and down the front. White stockings and buckled shoes, a gentle miniature of most servants Bolitho had met.
“If you will follow me, Captain Bolitho.”
He wore a white, curled wig which accentuated his face and his eyes, which were probably hazel, but which, in the filtered sun-light, seemed green, and gave him the quiet watchfulness of a cat.
Across the other room and then into a smaller one. It was lined from floor to ceiling with books, and despite the warmth of the evening a cheerful fire was burning beneath a huge painting of a sea-fight. There were chairs and tables and a great desk strategically placed across one corner of the room.
Bolitho had the feeling that all the worthwhile contents of the house had been gathered in this one place.
He heard the young footman, if that was his station here, moving to the fire to rearrange a smouldering log into a better position. There was no sign of the commodore.
The youth turned and looked at him. “He will not be long, sir.” Then he stood motionless beside the flickering fire, his hands behind his back.
Another, smaller door opened and the commodore walked quickly to the desk and slid behind it with barely a glance.
He seemed to arrange himself, and Bolitho guessed it came of long practice.
Just a few years older than himself, but they had been cruel ones. His square face was deeply lined, and he held his head slightly to one side as if he was still in pain. His left arm lay on the desk and Bolitho saw that he wore a white fingerless glove like a false hand, to disguise the terrible injuries he had endured for so long.
“I am pleased to see you, Bolitho.” He had a curt, clipped manner of speech. “Be seated there if you will, I can see you the better.”
Bolitho sat down and noticed that Hoblyn’s hair was com-pletely grey, and worn unfashionably long, doubtless to hide the only burns which probed above his gold-laced collar.
The youth moved softly around the desk and produced a finely cut wine jug and two goblets.
“Claret.” Hoblyn’s eyes were brown, but without warmth. “Thought you’d like it.” He waved his right arm vaguely. “We shall sup later.” It was an order.
They drank in silence and Bolitho saw the windows chang-ing to dusky pink as the evening closed in.
Hoblyn watched the youth refilling the goblets.
“You’ve been luckier than most, Bolitho. Two ships since that bloody war, whereas—” He did not finish it but stared instead at the large painting.
Bolitho knew then it was his last battle. When he had lost his Leonidas and had been so cruelly disfigured.
Hoblyn added, “I heard about your, er—misfortunes in the Great South Sea.” His eyes did not even blink. “I’m told she was an admirable woman. I am sorry.”
Bolitho tried to remain calm. “About this appointment—”
Hoblyn’s disfigured hand rose and fell very lightly. “In good time.”
He said abruptly, “So this is how they use us, eh? Are we relics now, the pair of us?” He did not expect or wait for an answer. “I am bitter sometimes, and then I think of those who have nothing after giving their all.”
Bolitho waited. Hoblyn needed to talk.
“It’s a hopeless task if you let it be so, Bolitho. Our betters bleat and protest about the Trade, while they filch all they can get from it. Their Lordships demand more men for a fleet they them-selves allowed to rot while they flung those same sailors on the beach to starve! Damn them, I say! And you can be sure that when war comes, as come it must, I shall be cast aside to provide a nice posting for some admiral’s cousin!” He waited until his goblet was refilled. “But I love this country which treats her sons so badly.
You know the French as well as I—do you see them stopping now?” He gave a harsh laugh. “And when they come we shall have to pray that those murderous scum have lopped off the heads of all their best sea-officers. I see no chance for us otherwise.”
Bolitho tried to remember how many times the youth had refilled his goblet. The claret and the heat from the fire were mak-ing his mind blur.
He said, “I have to speak about the Loyal Chieftain, sir.”
Hoblyn held his head to a painful angle. “Delaval? I know what happened, and about the man who was killed too.” He leaned forward so that his fine shirt frothed around the lapels of his coat. A far cry from the tattered veteran Bolitho had seen years ago on his way to the Admiralty.
Hoblyn dropped his voice to a husky growl. “Someone burned down the man’s cottage while you were at sea—I’ll lay odds you didn’t know that! And his wife and children have vanished into thin air!” He slumped back again, and Bolitho saw sweat on his face.
“Murdered?” One word, and it seemed to bring a chill to the overheated room.
“We shall probably never know.” He reached out to grasp his goblet but accidentally knocked it over so that the claret ran across the desk like blood.
Hoblyn sighed. “Damn them all.” He watched his footman as he deftly mopped up the wine and replaced the goblet with a clean one.
“But life can have its compensations—”
Just for a brief instant it was there. The merest flicker of an exchange between them. The youth did not smile and yet there was an understanding strong enough to feel.
Hoblyn said offhandedly, “You have Snapdragon in Chatham dockyard?”
Bolitho shook himself. Maybe he was mistaken. He glanced quickly at the footman’s pale eyes. They were quite empty.
“Yes, sir. I thought it best—”
“Good thinking. There’ll not be much time later on. Our lords and masters want results. We shall give them a few.” He smiled for the first time. “Thought I was going to bite your head off, did ye? God damn it, Bolitho, you’re what I need, not some knothead who’s never heard a shot fired in bloody earnest!”
Bolitho pressed his shoulders against the chairback. There was something unnerving about Hoblyn. But under the bluster and the bitterness his mind was as sharp and as shrewd as it had ever been. If he was like this with everyone the slender footman must have heard every secret possible. Was he to be trusted?
Hoblyn added, “The big East Indiamen are among the worst culprits, y’know. They come up-Channel after months at sea and they meet with smugglers while they’re under way, did you know that?”
Bolitho shook his head. “What is the purpose, sir?”
“John Company’s captains like to make a little extra profit of their own, as if they don’t get enough. They sell tea and silks directly to the Trade and so avoid paying duty themselves. The Customs Board don’t like it, but with so few cutters to patrol the whole Channel and beyond, what can they expect?” He watched Bolitho calmly. “Wine and brandy is different. Smaller runs, less chance of the buggers getting caught. But tea, for instance, is light but very bulky.” He tapped the side of his nose with the little white bag. “Not so easy, eh?”
Bolitho waited, not knowing quite what he had expected.
“I have received information.” He must have seen doubt in Bolitho’s grey eyes. “From a better mouth than some wretched turncoat’s.” Hoblyn calmed himself with an effort. “There’s a cargo being landed at Whitstable ten days from now.” He sat back to watch Bolitho’s expression. “It will involve a lot of men.” His dark eyes seemed to dance in the candlelight as the youth placed a silver candelabrum on the desk. “Men for the fleet, or the gal-lows, we’ll strike no bargains, and a cargo to make these bloody smugglers realise we’re on the attack!”
Bolitho’s mind was in a whirl. If it was true, Hoblyn was right. It would make all the difference to their presence here. He pictured Whitstable on the chart, a small fishing port which lay near the mouth of the Swale River. More proof if any were needed of the smugglers’ audacity and arrogance. At a guess, Whitstable was no more than ten miles from this very room.
“I’ll be ready, sir.”
“Thought so. Nothing like a bit of humiliation to put fire in your belly, eh?”
A clock chimed somewhere and Hoblyn said, “Time to sup. The rest can keep. I know you’re not one to loosen your tongue. Something else we have in common, I suspect.” He chuckled and then struggled around the desk while the youth waited to lead the way to another room.
As he bent over Bolitho saw the livid scars lift above his col-lar. He must be like that over most of his body. Like a soul banished from hell. They moved out into the same hallway where a servant waited at another pair of doors. There was a rich smell of food, and Bolitho noticed the cut and material of Hoblyn’s clothes. His fortunes had changed if nothing else.
He was about to ask that a meal be sent for Young Matthew when he saw Hoblyn’s hand brush against that of the footman.
Bolitho did not know if he felt disgust or pity.
As Hoblyn had said, the rest can keep.
Bolitho awoke shocked and dazed and for a few agonising sec-onds imagined that he was emerging from the fever again. His skull throbbed like hammers on an anvil, and when he tried to speak his tongue felt as if it was glued to the roof of his mouth. He saw Young Matthew’s round face watching him in the gloom, only his eyes showing colour in a feeble glow from the cabin skylight.
“What is it?” Bolitho barely recognised his voice. “Time?” His senses were returning reluctantly and he realised with sudden self-abhorrence that he was still fully clothed in his best uniform, his hat and sword on the table where he had dropped them.
Matthew said in a hoarse whisper, “You bin sleeping, sir.”
Bolitho propped himself on his elbows. The hull was moving very sluggishly on the current, but there were only occasionally some footfalls on the deck above. Telemachus still slept although it must soon be dawn, he thought vaguely.
“Coffee, Matthew.” He lowered his feet to the deck and sup-pressed a groan. Blurred pictures formed in his mind and faded almost as quickly. The laden table, Hoblyn’s face shining in the candlelight, the comings and goings of servants, one plate fol-lowing the next, each seemingly richer than that which had preceded it. And the wine. This time a groan did escape from his lips. It had been a never-ending stream.
The boy crouched down beside him. “Mr Paice is on deck, sir.”
He remembered what Hoblyn had revealed, the information he had gained on a Whitstable landing. The need for secrecy. How had he got back to Telemachus? He could remember none of it.
His mind steadied and he looked at the boy. “You brought me here?”
“It were nothing, sir.” For once he showed no excitement or shy pride.
Bolitho seized his arm. “What is it? Tell me, Matthew.”
The boy looked down at the deck. “It’s Allday, sir.”
Bolitho’s brain was suddenly like clear ice. “What has happened?”
Pictures flashed through his thoughts. Allday standing over him, his bloodied cutlass cleaving aside all who tried to pass.
Allday, cheerful, tolerant, always there when he was needed. The boy whispered, “He’s gone, sir.”
“Gone?”
The door opened a few inches and Paice lowered his shoul-ders to enter the cabin.
“Thought you should know, sir.” He added with something like the defiance he had shown at their first meeting, “He’s not borne on the ship’s books, sir. If he was . . .”
“He’s my responsibility, is that what you mean?”
Paice must have seen the pain in his face even in the poor light.
“I did hear that your cox’n was once a pressed man, sir?”
Bolitho ran his fingers through his hair as he tried to assem-ble his wits. “True. That was a long while ago. He has served me, and served me faithfully, for ten years since. He’d not desert.” He shook his head, the realisation of what he had said thrusting through him like a hot blade. “Allday would not leave me.”
Paice watched, unable to help, to find the right words. “I could pass word to the shore, sir. He may meet with the press gangs. If I can rouse the senior lieutenant I might be able to stop anything going badly for him.” He hesitated, unused to speaking so openly. “And for you, if I may say so, sir.”
Bolitho touched the boy’s shoulder and felt him shiver.
“Fetch me some water and fresh coffee, Matthew.” His voice was heavy, his mind still groping.
Suppose Allday had decided to leave? Bolitho recalled his own surprise when Allday had not insisted on accompanying him to the commodore’s house. It was all coming back. Bolitho felt his inner pocket and touched the written orders which the com-modore had given him. It was a wonder he had not lost them on the way back to the cutter, he thought wretchedly.
Allday might have felt the affair of the Loyal Chieftain badly. God knew he had put up with enough over the past months— and with what reward for his faith and his unshakeable loyalty?
Now he was gone. Back to the land from which Bolitho’s own press gang had snatched him all those years back. Years of dan-ger and pride, loss and sadness. Always there. The oak, the rock which Bolitho had all too often taken for granted.
Paice said, “He left no message, sir.”
Bolitho looked up at him. “He cannot write.” He remembered what he had thought when he had first met Allday in Phalarope. If only he had had some education Allday might have been any-thing. Now that same thought seemed to mock him.
Somewhere a boatswain’s call twittered like a rudely awak-ened blackbird.
Paice said heavily, “Orders, sir?”
Bolitho nodded and winced as the hammers began again. Eating and drinking to excess, something he rarely did, and all the while Allday had been here, planning what he would do, awaiting the right moment.
“We shall weigh at noon. See that word is passed to Wakeful.” He tried to keep his tone level. “Do it yourself, if you please. I want nothing in writing.” Their eyes met. “Not yet.”
“All hands! All hands! Lash up an’ stow!” The hull seemed to shake as feet thudded to the deck, and another day was begun.
“May I ask, sir?”
Bolitho heard the boy returning and realised that he would have to shave himself.
“There is to be a run.” He did not know if Paice believed him, nor did he care now. “The commodore has a plan. I shall explain when we are at sea and in company. There will be no rev-enue cutters involved. They are to be elsewhere.” How simple it must have sounded across that overloaded table. And all the while the handsome youth in the white wig had watched and listened.
Paice said haltingly, “I sent the first lieutenant ashore to col-lect two of the hands, sir. They were found drunk at a local inn.”
He forced a grin. “Thought it best if he was out of the way ’til
I’d spoken with you.”
The boy put down a pot of coffee and groped about for a mug.
Bolitho replied, “That was thoughtful of you, Mr Paice.”
Paice shrugged. “I believe we may be of one mind, sir.”
Bolitho stood up carefully and thrust open the skylight. The air was still cool and sweet from the land. Maybe he no longer belonged at sea. Was that what Allday had been feeling too?
He glanced down and saw Matthew moving a small roll of canvas away from the cot.
Paice backed from the cabin. “I shall muster the hands, sir. No matter what men may believe, a ship has no patience and must be served fairly at all times.”
Bolitho did not hear the door close. “What is that parcel, Matthew?”
The boy picked it up and shrugged unhappily. “I think it belonged to Allday, sir.” He sounded afraid, as if he in some way shared the guilt.
Bolitho took it from him and opened it carefully on the cot where he had lain like some drunken oaf.
The small knives, tools which Allday had mostly made with his own hands. Carefully collected oddments of brass and copper, sailmaker’s twine, some newly fashioned spars and booms.
Bolitho was crouching now, his hands almost shaking as he untied the innermost packet and put it on the cot with great care.
Allday never carried much with him as he went from ship to ship. He had placed little importance on possessions. Only in his models, his ships which he had fashioned with all the skill and love he had gained over the years at sea.
He heard the boy’s sharp intake of breath. “It’s lovely, sir!”
Bolitho touched the little model and felt his eyes prick with sudden emotion. Unpainted still, but there was no mistaking the shape and grace of a frigate, the gunports as yet unfilled with tiny cannon still to be made, the masts and rigging still carried only in Allday’s mind. His fingers paused at the small, delicately carved figurehead, one which Bolitho remembered so clearly, as if it were life-sized instead of a tiny copy. The wild-eyed girl with stream-ing hair, and a horn fashioned like a great shell.
Young Matthew said questioningly, “A frigate, sir?”
Bolitho stared at it until he could barely see. It was not just any ship. With Allday it rarely was.
He heard himself murmur, “She is my last command, Matthew. My Tempest.”
The boy responded in a whisper, “I wonder why he left it behind, sir?”
Bolitho turned him by the shoulder and gripped it until he winced. “Don’t you see, Matthew? He could tell no one what he was about, nor could he write a few words to rest my fears for him.” He looked again at the unfinished model. “This was the best way he knew of telling me. That ship meant so much to both of us for a hundred different reasons. He’d never abandon it.”
The boy watched as Bolitho stood up to the skylight again, barely able to grasp it, and yet knowing he was the only one who was sharing the secret.
Bolitho said slowly, “God damn him for his stubbornness!” He bunched his hand against the open skylight. “And God protect you, old friend, until your return!”
Marching in pairs the press gang advanced along yet another nar-row street, their shoes ringing on the cobbles, their eyes everywhere as they probed the shadows.
At the head a tight-lipped lieutenant strode with his hanger already drawn, a midshipman following a few paces behind him.
Here and there the ancient houses seemed to bow across the lanes until they appeared to touch one another. The lieutenant glanced at each dark or shuttered window, especially at those which hung directly above their wary progress. It was all too com-mon for someone to hurl down a bucket of filth on to the hated press gangs as they carried out their thankless patrols.
The lieutenant, like most of them in the local impressment service, had heard all about the two officers being stripped, beaten and publicly humiliated on the open road, with no one raising a hand to aid them. Only the timely appearance of the post-captain and his apparent total disregard for his own safety had saved the officers from far worse.
The lieutenant had been careful to announce his intentions of seeking prime seamen for the fleet, as so ordered. He slashed out angrily at a shadow with his hanger and swore under his breath. You might just as well ring the church bells to reveal what you were about, he thought. The result was usually the same. Just a few luckless ones, and some of those had been lured into the hands of the press gangs, usually by their own employers who wanted to be rid of them. A groom who had perhaps become too free with a landowner’s daughter, a footman who had served a mistress better than the man who paid for her luxuries. But trained hands? It would be a joke, if it were not so serious.
The lieutenant snapped, “Close up in the rear!” It was unnec-essary; they always kept together, their heavy cudgels and cutlasses ready for immediate use if attacked, and he knew they resented his words. But he hated the work, just as he longed for the chance of a ship. Some people foolishly wrung their hands, and clergy-men prayed that war would never come.
The fools. What did they know? War was as necessary as it was rewarding.
There was a sudden crash, like a bottle smashing.
The lieutenant held up his hanger, and behind him he heard his men rouse themselves, like vixens on the scent of prey.
The midshipman faltered, “In that alley, sir!”
“I know that!” He waited until his senior hand, a hard-bitten gunner’s mate, had joined him. “Did you hear that, Benzie?”
The gunner’s mate grunted. “There be a tavern through there, sir. Should be closed now, o’course. This be th’only way out.”
The lieutenant scowled. The idiot had left the most impor-tant fact to the end. He swallowed his revulsion and said softly, “Fetch two men and—”
The gunner’s mate thrust his face even closer and whispered thickly, “No need, sir, someone be comin’!”
The lieutenant thankfully withdrew his face. The gunner’s mate’s breath was as foul as any bilge. Chewing tobacco, rum and bad teeth made a vile mixture.
“Stand to!” The lieutenant faced the narrow alley and cursed Their Lordships for the absurdity of it. The hidden figure with the slow, shambling gait was probably a cripple or as old as Neptune. What use was one man anyway?
The shadow loomed from the shadows and the lieutenant called sharply, “In the King’s name, I order you to stand and be examined!”
The gunner’s mate sighed and tightened his hold on the heavy cudgel. How the navy had changed. In his day they had clubbed them senseless and asked questions later, usually when the poor wretch awoke with a split head to find himself in a man-of-war already standing out to sea. It might be months, years, and in many cases never, that the pressed man returned to England. Who would care anyway? There had even been a case of a bridegroom being snatched from the steps of a church on his wedding day.
But now, with regulations, and not enough ships ready for sea, it was unsafe to flout the Admiralty’s rules.
He said, “Easy, matey!” His experienced eye had taken in the man’s build and obvious strength. Even in this dawn light he could see the broad shoulders and, when he turned to stare at the press gang, the pigtail down his back.
The lieutenant snapped, “What ship?” His nervousness put an edge to his voice. “Answer, or you’ll be the worse for it, man!”
The gunner’s mate urged, “There be too many o’us, matey.” He half-raised his cudgel. “Tell the lieutenant, like wot ’e says!”
Allday looked at him grimly. He had been about to give up his hazy plan, when he had heard the press gang’s cautious approach. Were it not so dangerous it might have made him smile, albeit secretly. Like all those other times when he had dodged the dreaded press in Cornwall, until the day when His Britannic Majesty’s frigate Phalarope had hove into sight. Her captain had been a Cornishman, one who knew where landsmen ran to ground whenever a King’s ship topped the horizon. It was strange when you thought of it. If a Frenchie ever drew close inshore every fit man would stand to arms to protect his home and country from an enemy. But they would run from one of their own.
Allday said huskily, “I don’t have a ship, sir.” He had spilled rum over his clothing and hoped it was convincing. He had hated the waste of it.
The lieutenant said coldly, “Don’t lie. I told you what would happen if—”
The gunner’s mate gestured at him again. “Don’t be a fool!”
Allday hung his head. “The London, sir.”
The lieutenant exclaimed. “A second-rate, so you are a prime seaman! Yes? ” The last word was like a whip-crack.
“If you say so, sir.”
“Don’t be bloody insolent. What’s your name, damn you?”
Allday regarded him impassively. It might be worth it just to smash in the lieutenant’s teeth. Bolitho would have a useless pip-squeak like him for breakfast.
“Spencer, sir.” He had neglected to invent a name, and the slight hesitation seemed to satisfy the officer that it was because of guilt.
“Then you are taken. Come with my men, or be dragged in irons—the choice is yours.”
The press gang parted as Allday moved amongst them. Their eagerness to be gone from this deserted street was almost matched by their relief.
One of the seamen muttered, “Never mind, mate, could be worse.”
Somewhere, far away, a trumpet echoed on the morning air. Allday hesitated and did not even notice the sudden alarm in their eyes. He had done it. At this moment Bolitho might be looking at the little Tempest. But would he see a message there? Allday felt something like despair; he might see only desertion and treachery.
Then he squared his shoulders. “I’m ready.”
The lieutenant quickened his pace as he heard someone drum-ming on a bucket with a piece of metal. The signal for a mob to come running to free their capture.
But this patrol at least had not been entirely wasted. Only one man, but obviously an experienced sailor. No excuses either, nor the last-moment, infuriating production of a Protection like those issued to apprentices, watermen, and the likes of the H.E.I.C.
The gunner’s mate called, “Wot’s yer trade, Spencer?”
Allday was ready this time. “Sailmaker.” Chosen carefully, not too lowly, so that they might have disbelieved him, nor too senior, so that they might have sent him back to the London, a ship he had never laid eyes on.
The man nodded, well satisfied. A sailmaker was a rare and valuable catch.
They topped a rise and Allday saw the masts and crossed yards of several men-of-war, their identities still hidden in deep shadow. Bolitho was there. Would they ever meet again?
If not it will be because I am no longer alive.
Strangely enough the realization brought him immediate com-fort.