Yet again Wakeful had fought round in a tight arc to her orig-inal course, with the approaching corvette lying directly across the starboard bow. The enemy would have the wind-gage, but for Wakeful’s small guns it might be their only advantage.
“Loose tops’l!” Queely was everywhere, never more acutely aware of Kempthorne’s loss.
Bolitho could see it, the gangling lieutenant swinging around, the gaping hole in his throat. Then nothing. He plucked the sod-den shirt away from his skin, another reminder of the man who had stopped a ball which had been intended for him.
Queely came aft again, his chest heaving. “What now, sir?”
Bolitho pointed to the scarred jolly-boat. “Drop it outboard.”
The boatswain glanced at Queely as if for confirmation. Queely nodded curtly. “Do it!”
Bolitho watched the spare hands hoisting the boat up and over the lee bulwark. Like all sailors they were reluctant, fearful even of letting go of their only boat. Bolitho knew from experi-ence it would have been the same had there been ten times as many people in the company, and still only one boat. Always the last hope.
Queely understood although he lacked experience of it.
He was saying, “We’ll have enough splinters flying about before too long, man!”
Bolitho waited for the boatswain to hurry away to tend to some frayed rigging. The choppy sea and freezing wind could play havoc with even the best cordage.
He glanced around the deck. “Have all the hammocks brought up and lashed around the after gratings. It will give the helms-men some protection.” He did not add that an unprotected deck could be swept into a bloody shambles by one well-aimed burst of grape. It gave every man something to do. After Snapdragon’s destruction they needed to be busy even in the face of the oncom-ing corvette.
La Revanche had seemingly vanished, tacking back and forth, each precious minute taking her away from the drifting smoke which still floated above the sea where Snapdragon had dived for the bottom.
They had not been able to see much of the encounter, but the broadside which had followed Snapdragon’s last futile shots had stunned all of them.
Bolitho saw Allday supervising the stacking and lashing of the tightly lashed hammocks. In battle, even a strip of canvas gave an impression of safety to those denied protection.
Allday crossed to his side and said, “She’ll be up to us in twenty minutes, Cap’n.” He sounded unusually desperate. “What can we hit her with?”
“Telemachus has run out her stuns’ls, sir!” Another voice mut-tered, “Gawd! Watch ’er go!”
Bolitho saw the other cutter surging across the diagonal ranks of angry white horses, her hull dominated by her sails, her stem and forecastle rising and dipping in great banks of bursting spray.
Bolitho took a telescope and rested it against Allday’s shoul-der. It took time to train it on Telemachus and as soon as he had found her he saw one empty gunport, like a missing tooth. Paice had forgotten none of the things Bolitho had brought to their small flotilla. He was at this moment manhandling his second car-ronade over to larboard so that both could be laid on the corvette.
The enemy fired again, but the ball fell outside his vision. It was strange that the corvette did not alter course just long enough to pour a full broadside on the approaching cutter. It was unlikely that such a compact man-of-war would mount stern-chasers, and she could not fail to miss as the range dwindled away between the two vessels.
Queely shouted, “She’s coming for us, sir!”
Bolitho watched the corvette. She was almost bows-on now, her canvas tall above Wakeful’s starboard bow. He could see her flag whipping from the gaff, and was glad Brennier had at least been spared that.
“Shall I shorten, sir?” Queely was watching him, as if trying to shut out the menace of the oncoming enemy.
“No. Speed is all we have. Hold her on this tack, then put the helm up when we cross their path. We can luff, but only with speed in the sails!” He looked along the crouching gun crews. “I suggest you bring the men from the larboard battery.” Their eyes met and Bolitho added gently, “I fear we will take heavy losses if they manage to rake us. The weather bulwark will give them some cover at least.”
A whistle shrilled and the men scampered across from the other battery. They ran half-crouching as if already under fire, their faces stiff and pinched, and suddenly aged.
Queely made himself turn and stare at the corvette. He said, “Why does she hold so straight a path?”
Bolitho thought he knew. In this icy north wind and after the snow and sleet it was likely that every piece of her rigging was packed solid. It was also possible that the corvette had spent most of the past months in harbour while the loyalty or other-wise of France’s sea-officers was decided. Her company would be unused to this kind of work. Wakeful’s company was also new to it, but each and every hand was a prime seaman. It was pointless to mention his thoughts to Queely. It might offer a gleam of hope where there was none to be had. If the corvette was able to destroy or cripple the remaining cutters she could still chase and catch La Revanche before she reached a place of safety.
He hardened his heart. It was their sole reason for being here. To delay this enemy ship no matter what.
Bolitho raised the telescope again and saw Telemachus’s top-sail yard brace round, her hull merge then vanish beyond the corvette. Above the sounds of sea and wind he heard the faint crackle of musket fire, the harder bang of a swivel.
Then there was a double explosion and for a moment longer Bolitho imagined that the corvette did after all carry sternchasers, and had fired directly into the cutter as she veered wildly across her quarter.
Queely muttered thickly, “Hell, he’s damned close!”
Bolitho saw smoke billow over the corvette’s poop and knew Paice had fired both of his carronades into her stern. If one of those murderous balls managed to pierce the crowded gundeck it would keep them occupied until Wakeful was able to engage.
He heard the crack of Paice’s six-pounders and saw a hole appear in the enemy’s main topsail, some rigging part and stream out in the wind. But she was still coming, and Bolitho could see the details of her beakhead without the need of a glass, the white painted figure beneath it holding some sort of branch in one out-thrust hand.
“Stand by on deck!” Queely swung round, his eyes angry as if searching for Kempthorne. He saw Bolitho watching him and gave a small shrug, but it said everything.
Then he drew his hanger and held it above his head. “We fire on the uproll, my lads!”
Bolitho saw their despairing faces. The way they pressed close together, friend with friend, waiting to fight and die.
The corvette was sliding across the starboard quarter, and marksmen were already firing from her forecastle, one insolently straddling a cathead with his legs to obtain a better aim.
A musket banged out from below the mast and Bolitho saw the Frenchman hurl his weapon into the sea below as if it had become red-hot, before toppling from the cathead and plunging down the side.
Allday muttered, “Good shot, matey!”
The tiller went over and as blocks squealed and the forecourse and topsail yards were hauled taut, Wakeful seemed to pivot round to windward when minutes before it had seemed she would be run down by the enemy.
“Fire!” The six-pounders cracked out in a ragged salvo, the double-shotted muzzles spitting their orange tongues as the trucks squealed inboard on their tackles.
Queely yelled, “Stand fast!” He waved down some of the gun crews who were about to sponge out and reload. “Take cover!” The hanger gleamed in the smoky sunshine as Queely signalled to the carronade crew. “As you bear!” The gun-captain jerked his lanyard and the ugly, snub-nosed “smasher” lurched back on its slide, the heavy ball exploding against the corvette’s gangway, blasting one of the nine-pounders from its port, and flinging splintered wood-work and ripped hammocks over the side.
Bolitho watched the corvette’s exposed battery recoil. The two attacks had broken their timing, and the broadside was ragged, each one firing independently.
Bolitho tensed as a ball smacked through the mainsail and another parted some rigging and struck the sea far abeam. One gun had been loaded with grape and canister and Bolitho ducked as the charge exploded over the maindeck, hurling shattered plank-ing into the air, and thudding into the opposite bulwark where the gun crews would otherwise have been crouching.
Queely shouted, “Reload!” He stared wildly at his men. Not one had been hit, although a splintered piece of wood had been hurled into the hammocks around the helmsmen with the accu-racy of a spear.
And there was Telemachus. As Wakeful charged past the enemy’s poop, they all saw the other cutter tacking around to fol-low the corvette on the same course.
It took longer to bring Wakeful about and under control again. With so much sail, it was like trying to slow a runaway team of horses. The corvette lay directly ahead of them, with the cutters using wind and rudder to hold station on either quarter as if they were escorting her rather than forcing another engagement.
The corvette’s captain seemed unwilling to wear ship and confront them. But the cutters were unable to damage the enemy vessel without overhauling her. And the next time the French captain would be ready.
Bolitho watched Paice manoeuvring his cutter closer and closer, the occasional stab of musket fire exchanged between the ill-matched vessels. Telemachus had been badly mauled, and Bolitho had seen there was a hole punched through her hull, just a few feet above the waterline, before she had changed tack to continue her attack.
Sunlight flashed across the corvette’s stern-windows and Bolitho raised his glass to read the name painted on her counter.
La Foi. So the girl’s figurehead must be Faith. In the stained lens he saw heads moving on the corvette’s poop, the flash of muskets, an officer pointing with his speaking trumpet. He also saw the massive scars on her lower hull where one of Paice’s car-ronades had found its mark. A foot or so higher and—he stiffened as two of the stern-windows shattered and pitched into the ves-sel’s frothing wake.
For one more moment he thought a lucky shot had hit the stern, although reason told him that none of Paice’s guns would yet bear.
Then he stared with sick realisation as another window was smashed out, and the black muzzle of a nine-pounder thrust into view.
“Signal Telemachus to stand away!” Bolitho had to seize Queely’s arm to make him realise what was happening. “They’ll blow him out of the water!”
But Wakeful was a good cable’s length astern of Paice’s cut-ter, and nobody aboard was bothering to look and see what she was doing. Paice had at last realised what was happening. Bolitho saw the yards coming round, the mainsail suddenly free and flap-ping wildly as Paice let her sway over while she took the wind across her beam.
Bolitho watched anxiously. Paice was doing what he thought was best. Lose the wind, but stand away from the onrushing Wakeful and so avoid a collision.
Bolitho snapped, “We’ll engage to larboard!” He did not want to take his eyes from the two vessels ahead, but needed to watch the mast and bulging topsail. Wakeful was tearing through the waves; the mast must be curving forward under such a pressure and weight of canvas and spars.
He turned his head, and at that very moment La Foi fired her hastily-rigged stern-chaser.
Queely shouted, “More grape!” He wiped his eyes wildly. “She’s still answering, sir!”
Telemachus was certainly under command, but her sails were pockmarked with holes, and, as he lifted his glass again, Bolitho saw bodies on her deck, a man on his knees as if he was praying, before he too fell lifeless.
He wanted to look away but watched as two thin threads of scarlet ran from the washports to merge with the creaming sea alongside. Like seeing a ship bleeding to death, as if there was no human hand aboard.
Wakeful’s men were staring over the bulwark, the gun crews from the opposite side hurrying to join their comrades for the next embrace.
Bolitho said, “It’ll take time to load and train that gun with makeshift tackles.” He looked at Queely, his gaze calm. “We must be up to her before she can use it on us.”
They bore down on Telemachus and Bolitho saw men work-ing like demons at halliards and braces, others clawing their way up broken ratlines to discard or repair damaged rigging.
He saw a lieutenant amongst some fallen rigging and knew it was Triscott. Then right aft near the tiller, Paice’s tall figure, with one hand thrust inside his coat. He might have injured it, Bolitho thought, but it was somehow reassuring to see him there, in his place.As Wakeful swept past Bolitho saw Paice turn and look across the tumbling waves, then very slowly raise his hat. It was strangely moving, and some of Wakeful’s men raised a ragged cheer.
Allday stepped nearer, his cutlass over his shoulder while he watched the other ship’s stern rise above the larboard bow. He had been a gun-captain himself aboard the old Resolution before he had met up with Bolitho. But then Allday had turned his hand to most things.
He knew better than most that if they overhauled the French ship they would be destroyed by her main battery. At close quar-ters like this, Wakeful would be pounded to fragments in minutes. Their only hope of delaying the corvette long enough to be worth-while was to hit her with a carronade with no chance of a miss. For if they remained on the enemy’s quarter the improvised stern-chaser would finish them just as brutally.
He saw a musket fire from the French ship and heard a spent ball slap into the deck nearby. In minutes, each ball could be deadly, and he stood close to Bolitho, just so that he would know he was here when it happened.
Bolitho said, “I would that we were in Tempest, old friend.” He spoke quietly, so that Allday could barely hear him above the chorus of wind and sea.
He added in the same unemotional voice, “I shall always remember her.”
Allday watched him grimly. Who did he mean? Tempest or his lady, Viola?
He heard Queely shouting to his gun crews, saw a terrified ship’s boy dash past with fresh charges for the six-pounders, and one of the seamen of the boatswain’s party staring at the deck, his lips moving as though in prayer, or repeating someone’s name.
He saw all and none of it. Bolitho had shared something with him, as he always did.
Allday lifted his chin and saw a movement in the corvette’s stern-windows. It was almost over. He stared up at the sky. Please God, let it be quick!
Lieutenant Andrew Triscott tore his eyes from Wakeful’s strain-ing sails and made himself turn inboard again. He had thought he was prepared for this, had trained himself to accept the inevitable when it came. Instead he could only stare at the utter chaos on Telemachus’s deck, fallen rigging and scorched pieces of canvas, and worst of all the blood which ran unchecked into the scuppers. He had never believed there could be so much blood.
Faces he had come to know, some dead, others screwed up in agony, like strangers.
He heard Paice’s strong voice forcing through the noise and confusion. “Clear those men from the guns!”
Triscott nodded, still unable to speak. He clung to Paice’s strength like a drowning man groping for a piece of flotsam in the sea. He saw Chesshyre by the tiller, two helmsmen down, one gasping with pain as his companion tied a rough bandage around his arm to staunch the bleeding. Triscott retched helplessly. The second man was headless, and he saw some of his blood and bone spattered across Paice’s breeches.
The boatswain swam into Triscott’s blurred vision, his face smeared with powder smoke, his eyes like coals.
“You all right, sir?” He did not wait for an answer. “I’ll muster some spare ’ands!”
Triscott stared round, half-expecting to find nobody alive, but Paice’s powerful voice and the burly boatswain’s angry gestures with a boarding axe brought them from cover, while others dragged themselves from beneath fallen sails and cordage. Obedient even in the face of death, from fear or from habit, or because they did not know how else to act.
Triscott lurched away from the bulwark and saw some of the bloodied corpses being dropped over the side. The wounded were taken to the main hatch or aft to the companionway, their cries and screams ignored as they were hauled to some kind of safety.
Triscott had seen Paice raise his hat to the other cutter, and wondered how he could stand there, with the ship shaking her-self apart around him.
Paice seemed to read his mind from half the deck’s length away.
He shouted, “Stand to the guns again, Mr Triscott! Point the carronades yourself!”
Triscott realised that he was still gripping his hanger, the one his father had given him when he had passed for lieutenant.
He saw the gunner’s body being toppled over the side. A dour but dedicated man, who had helped Triscott many times when he had learned the ways of handling the cutter’s weapons. Now he was drifting away from the hull, no longer a face at gun-drill, or yelling threats to his own special party of seamen. Triscott stuffed his fist into his mouth to prevent himself from crying out aloud.
Hawkins rejoined him and said harshly, “It’s up to you, sir.” He regarded him steadily and without sympathy. “We must engage again. Wakeful’s trying to close with the enemy. She’ll never man-age unsupported!”
Triscott stared aft, seeking the aid which had always been there.
Hawkins said flatly, “You’ll get no ’elp there, Mr Triscott. ’E’s badly wounded.” He watched his words sink in and added relent-lessly, “The master’s as scared as shite, ’e’ll not be much use.” He stood back, forcing himself to ignore the shouts and demands which came from every side. He had to make Triscott understand if only for a moment longer. “You’re the lieutenant, sir.”
Triscott stared at Paice who was gripping the compass box, one hand still thrust inside his coat. His eyes were tightly shut, his teeth bared as if to bite back the pain. Then he saw the blood which had soaked the left side of Paice’s breeches, all the way from beneath his coat to the deck around him. He had been hit in the side.
Hawkins persisted, “Took a piece of iron the size of three fin-gers in his ribs. God dammit, I tried to get ’im to let me—” He watched the lieutenant, his voice suddenly desperate. “So act like ’im, sir, even if you does feel like runnin’ to yer mother!”
Triscott nodded jerkily. “Yes. Yes, thank you, Mr Hawkins.” He looked at the watching faces. “We shall follow Wakeful, and attack to—” He hesitated, thinking of the dead gunner. “To lar-board. There’s no time to transfer the carronades this time.”
The boatswain frowned and then touched his arm. “That’s more like it.” He turned to the others nearby. “The lieutenant says we’ll engage to larboard!” He brandished the axe. “So stand to, lads! Man the braces there!”
From aft Paice watched the sudden bustle, with even injured men limping to their stations, the sudden response as the punc-tured mainsail tugged at the long boom and filled reluctantly to the wind. He dragged himself to the tiller, the remaining helms-men moving to give him room.
He gripped the well-worn tiller bar and felt his Telemachus answering him through the sea and rudder. His head dropped; he jerked up his chin, suddenly angry, and doubly determined.
God Almighty, what a bloody mess. He did not know or care if he had spoken aloud. A terrified lieutenant, and a third of his company killed or wounded. Two guns upended, and so many holes in the remaining sails they would be hard put to put about when the worst happened.
He closed his eyes and gasped while the agony lunged through him. Each time it was worse, each one like the thrust of a heated blade. He had bunched his waistcoat and shirt into a tight ball against the wound, and could feel his blood soaking his side and leg. It felt warm while the rest of his body was shaking and icy cold.
“Steady, men!” He peered forward but the compass seemed too misty to read. He said thickly, “Steer for the bugger’s quarter!”
Chesshyre cried, “Wakeful’s nearly there!”
Paice leaned hard on the tiller and growled, “Get up on your feet, man! D’you want the people to see you cringing like a frightened cur?”
Chesshyre scrambled upright and stared at him wildly. “God damn you!”
“He most likely will!”
He heard Triscott yell, “All loaded, sir!” Paice hoped that nobody else had guessed just how terrified Triscott really was. But his was the true courage, he thought. More afraid of showing fear than of fear itself.
Hawkins hurried toward him, his gaze taking in the blood and Paice’s ashen features.
He said, “Wakeful’s goin’ to engage, sir! But I reckon the Frogs ’as got their chaser rigged again!”
Paice nodded, for a moment longer unable to speak. Then he asked, “What can you see now, Mr Hawkins?”
Hawkins turned away, his eyes burning. He had served with Paice longer than anyone. He respected him more than any other man, and to see him like this was worse than the stark death which had torn the decks open in a merciless bombardment. Now he could barely see. Hawkins said, “She’s up to ’er starboard quarter!” He slammed his hands together and shouted, “The stern-chaser is runnin’ out, sir!”
The explosions seemed joined as one, the stern-chaser’s sharper note almost lost as Wakeful’s carronade belched fire at point-blank range even as her bowsprit outreached the enemy’s quarter.
Paice asked, “Well? What’s happened?”
Hawkins said, “Not sure, sir. Wakeful’s payin’ off.” He could not bear to look at Paice. “Their jib and fores’l are shot away.”
“And the enemy—speak up, man!”
Hawkins watched the other vessel. The carronade had blasted away the stern windows and must have completely destroyed the makeshift stern-chaser. But otherwise she seemed intact, with only her foresail in disarray. Some of her hands were swarming aloft, and he saw the corvette begin to change course for the first time.
Then he said with chilled disbelief, “I think ’er steerin’s gone, sir!”
Paice gripped his shoulder and shook him. “Thank God!” He peered along the torn and littered deck. “Ready there?”
Triscott called aft, “Aye, sir!”
Paice forced a grin. “We’ll close with her now, before the bug-gers can rig new steering-gear!”
Hawkins asked urgently, “Will you let me fix a bandage?”
Their eyes met and Paice said, “You bloody fool. We both know the truth.” Then he grimaced as the pain came back. “But I thank you, and I plead to my Maker that you see another dawn break, Mr Hawkins!”
Hawkins swung away and waved his axe at some unemployed gun crews.
“To me, lads! Stand by to wear ship!”
He thought he heard faint cheering, and when he peered through the drifting smoke he saw Wakeful falling with the wind, temporarily out of control, her forecastle torn and splintered by that last charge of grapeshot.
He turned on his heel and shouted, “They’m cheerin’ you, sir!” Then he waved his hat and yelled to his own men, “Huzza, lads! A cheer for Wakeful!”
They probably thought him mad, with death lurking so close. But it helped to save Hawkins’s last reserve of strength. When he had turned aft he had seen that for Paice, victory, like defeat, was already out of reach.
Bolitho crouched on his hands and knees, his mind and ears cringing to the twin explosions. He had felt the massive charge of grapeshot smash into the bows, the screams and yells of men who had been scythed down even as the carronade had crashed inboard on its slide.
Then Allday’s hand was beneath one armpit, lifting him to his feet, and he saw Queely offering him the old sword, which must have been cut from his belt by a single iron splinter. He felt his breeches, the jagged tear. The splinter had been that close.
Then he stared at the enemy’s blackened stern. All windows demolished, the counter stove in like wet felt, the ornate taffrail high overhead splintered and unrecognisable.
Queely said hoarsely, “I think we got her steering, sir!” He looked at him with sudden desperation. “It’s still not enough, is it?”
Bolitho watched the small figures swarming up the corvette’s ratlines. Soon they would have a jury-rig, and be ready to face them once more. He shifted his glance to Wakeful’s foredeck. Six men dead, several more crawling to safety, or being carried to the hatchway. It was a miracle that anyone had survived.
It would take Queely’s men an hour or more to re-rig the foresail and jib, and it was obvious that most of the forward rig-ging was rendered quite useless.
He watched the corvette turning very slowly, wind, and not rudder, carrying her off course. At this range she would use her broadside to bombard Wakeful until she followed Snapdragon to the seabed.
Allday exclaimed harshly, “Here comes Telemachus, Cap’n! By God, haven’t they taken enough?”
Bolitho saw the other cutter bearing down on the drifting corvette for another attack, her sails in rags, her bulwark and fore-castle looking as if they had been torn and gnawed by some nightmare monster.
He said quietly, “Give them a cheer, Mr Queely. I’d not thought to see such valour this day.”
The cheers echoed across the lively wave crests to the men on the other cutter, and probably to those working aloft aboard La Foi whose captain had ordered his stern-chaser to fire just sec-onds too late. Men were running aft and shooting towards the oncoming cutter, but once under the corvette’s quarter there was not a single nine-pounder which could be brought to bear.
The two carronades fired within seconds of one another. More debris burst from the stern and up through the deck beyond. The force of the explosion flung men from the gangways, while some even fell from the foresail yard to the deck below.
Bolitho stared until his eyes throbbed. Was it the constant strain, the agony of seeing men cut down, who had never known the savage demands of sea warfare? He seized Queely’s arm. “Is it going?”
Queely nodded, unable to answer. The corvette’s main mast was beginning to topple, held for a while by stays and shrouds until the weight of spars and wind-filled canvas took control. In those few seconds Bolitho saw some of the French sailors who had been sent aloft to free each frozen block by hand, stare down as they realised too late that there was no escape or survival.
Then, with rigging parting like pistol shots, the mast thun-dered over the side, to be snared by the remaining lines and dragged alongside to make any chance of steering impossible.
Bolitho watched the confusion, and knew that Telemachus’s last shots must have exploited the damage left by Queely’s car-ronade.
Queely stared along the deck, his eyes wild, hungry for revenge. For Kempthorne and the others who lay dead and dying, for Snapdragon, and for his own command.
He said huskily, “We can still close with them, sir! God damn them, they’ll not be able to move before nightfall!”
The sailing master called anxiously, “Telemachus is standing away, sir!” He hesitated, as if he too shared Bolitho’s mood. “She’s dipped ’er Ensign, sir!”
Bolitho looked across the smoky water to where Telemachus was tacking very slowly away from her crippled adversary.
So Jonas Paice was dead. After all he had suffered, or per-haps because of it, he was now at peace.
Aloud he said firmly, “There’s been enough killing. I’ll not countenance cold-blooded murder and smear our name.” His grey eyes lingered on the other battered cutter. No tall figure at her bulwark. He must have been dying then, even as he had doffed his hat in a last salute. “Or his especially. A worthy and honourable man.”
Queely watched him dully, shoulders heaving from the madness of battle.
Bolitho looked at him and added, “We have saved Brennier and his treasure.” He did not even glance at the drifting corvette which moments earlier had been ready to destroy them all. “Her captain will pay a more terrible price for his failure—so why fire on his men, who cannot defend themselves?”
He saw Allday watching him, his hands crossed over the hilt of his cutlass.
Bolitho said, “I’ll board Telemachus as soon as we can work alongside. I shall take command and pass you a tow.”
“You in command, sir?”
Bolitho smiled sadly. “Mine is the honour this time, Mr Queely.”
Later, as Wakeful tugged reluctantly at her towing warp, Bolitho stood by Telemachus’s taffrail and looked at the damage, the bloodstains, the hurt of this vessel, where it had all begun for him.
Paice’s body had been carried below and laid in the cabin. Hawkins the boatswain had asked about burying him at sea with the others. Bolitho had seen the boatswain’s rough features soften as he had replied, “No, Mr Hawkins. We’ll lay him with his wife.”
Allday heard and saw all of this, his mind dazed by the impos-sible shift of events.
The sky was even bluer than when he had looked up and offered his prayer. But his senses refused to accept any of it.
Only when Bolitho drew near him and said gently, “Look yonder, old friend. Tell me what you see.”
Allday slowly raised his eyes, afraid of what might be there. Then in a small voice he murmured, “White cliffs, Cap’n.”
Bolitho nodded, sharing the moment with him, and with Paice.
“I never thought to see them again.”
Allday’s face split into an unexpected grin.
“An’ that’s no error, Cap’n!”
At eight bells that evening, they saw the murky silhouette of Dover Castle.
The two little ships had come home.
He had been surprised to discover that leaving England again had been so easy. There was no knowing what lay ahead, or what the war might mean to him and to his captain. But on the nine days’ passage from Spithead aboard this frigate, the thirty-six-gun Harvester, it had felt more like a homecoming than some of the anxious moments they had shared in the past.
For a few seconds he stood by the screen door and saw Bolitho framed against the tall stern windows, with a sunlit panorama of sea and hazy coastline turning very slowly beyond as the frigate was laid on her final tack for the anchorage.
In the vivid light the Rock itself was a hint of land, rather than a solid reality; but just the sight of it made Allday tense with excitement, something else he found difficult to explain. Gibraltar was not merely the gateway to the Mediterranean this time. It opened for them a new life, another chance.
He nodded with slow approval. In his best uniform with the white lapels, and the newly adopted epaulettes gleaming on either shoulder, Bolitho was a far cry from the man in the shabby coat, facing the smugglers’, then the corvette’s, cannon fire with equal determination, and with a defiance which had never left him despite the setbacks, the suffering and the procession of disap-pointments which had taken them both to the Nore.
Bolitho turned and looked at him. “Well? What do you see?”
Allday had served with him for eleven years. Coxswain, friend, a right arm when need be. But Bolitho could still surprise him.
Like now. The post-captain, a man envied not a little by Harvester’s young commanding officer; and yet he was anxious, even afraid, that he would fail, and betray all the hopes he had nursed since his return to duty.
“Like old times, Cap’n.”
Bolitho turned and gazed at the glistening water below the counter. Nine days’ passage. It had given him plenty of time to think and reflect. He thought of the frigate’s young captain—not even posted yet, about his own age when he had been given Phalarope, when his and Allday’s lives had crossed and been spliced together. It could not be easy to have him as a passenger, Bolitho thought. He had spent much of his time in these borrowed quar-ters, alone, and cherishing that precious moment when the orders had at last arrived for him.
“To proceed with all despatch and upon receipt of these orders, to take upon you the charge and command of His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Hyperion.”
He smiled wistfully. The Old Hyperion. Once something of a legend in the fleet. But what now after all those years, so many leagues sailed in the King’s service?
Was he still disappointed that he had not been offered a frigate? He bit his lip and watched some Spanish fishing boats idling above their images on the clear water.
It was not that. For Bolitho it was still too easy to recall the months of illness, then his daily pleading at the Admiralty for a command, any sort of ship they might condescend to provide. No, it was not that. Failure, then? The lurking fear of some weakness, or of the fever which had almost killed him with no less skill than an enemy ball or blade?
A muscle jumped in his cheek as the frigate’s salute crashed across the bay, shaking the hull gun by gun like body blows. He heard the timed response from one of the Rock’s batteries, and wondered why he was not even now on the quarterdeck seeking out his new command from the many vessels moored beneath the Rock’s changeless protection.
He moved to a mirror which hung above one of his sea chests and studied his reflection, dispassionately, as he might a new sub-ordinate. The uniform coat, with its broad white lapels and gilt buttons, the gold lace and epaulettes, should have offered imme-diate confidence. He knew from hard experience that no matter what kind of ship lay ahead, her company would be far more con-cerned about their new lord and master than he should be about them. But it failed to repel the uncertainty.
He thought of his last appointment and wondered still if the thankless task of recruiting at the Nore had been the true reason behind it. Had Lord Marcuard known even then that Bolitho was his choice for the other, deeper trust? Using his desperation for an appointment, a chance, no matter what, of returning to the one life he knew, and after losing Viola, needed more than ever. Perhaps he might never learn the complete truth.
He had found himself thinking of Paice very often. That wor-thy man, as he had described him in his despatch to the Admiralty. Many hundreds would die in this war, thousands, before it was ended in victory or defeat. Names and faces wiped away; and yet there were always the solitary men like Paice, whose memory never died.
He thought too of Vice-Admiral Brennier. He had received barely a mention in the newssheets, and Bolitho guessed that Marcuard’s powerful hand was in that too. Perhaps Brennier would after all be involved in some counter-revolution.
The last gun thundered, and he heard voices calling com-mands as they were sponged out and prepared for the final cable or so of the frigate’s entrance. Many eyes would be watching her. Letters from home—fresh orders—or simply the sight of a visi-tor from England to prove that Gibraltar was not entirely alone.
Allday crossed the cabin, the old sword held in his hands.
“Ready, Cap’n?” He offered a grin. “They’ll be expecting to see you on deck.”
Bolitho extended his arms and heard Allday muttering to himself as he clipped on the sword.
“You needs a bit o’ fattenin’ up, Cap’n—”
“Damn your impertinence!”
Allday stood back and hid a smile. The fire was still there. It just needed coaxing out.
He ran his eyes over Bolitho’s slim physique. Smart as paint. Only the cheekbones, and the deeper lines at his mouth betrayed the grief and the illness.
Bolitho picked up his hat and stared at it unseeingly.
It was very strange, he had often thought, that at no time since the French treasure had been landed at Dover and put under guard, had it ever been publicly mentioned. Perhaps Marcuard, or even the prime minister, Pitt, had their own ideas as to how it might be used to better advantage?
How things had changed, just as he had known they would; just as Hoblyn had so bitterly prophesied. Especially with Pitt, he thought. The man who had cursed and condemned the smug-gling gangs, who had used dragoons and the gibbet to keep their “trade” at bay if not under control, had now been quoted as pay-ing tribute to the very same scum. “These men are my eyes, for without them I am blind to intelligence of the enemy!” It was so incredible that it was all the harder to believe, and to stomach.
As Queely had remarked dourly, “Had Delaval stayed alive he might well have held a letter of marque from the King!”
Queely: another face in memory. He had been appointed to command a sturdy fourteen-gun brig at Plymouth. Bolitho won-dered if he would take all his books with him to this different ship and different war.
He turned to Allday. In his blue coat and flapping white trousers, the tarred hat in one big fist, he would stir the heart of any patriotic landsman, or woman. Bolitho thought of the song he had heard when he had boarded Harvester from Portsmouth. “Britons to Arms.” How poor Hoblyn would have laughed at that.
He heard a yell from the quarterdeck, the instant creak of the rudder as the wheel was put over. He could see it in his mind, as clearly as if he had been there on deck. The cluster of figures around the cathead ready to let go one anchor. The marines lined up on the poop in neat scarlet ranks. Captain Leach, anxious that everything should be right on this fair June morning, and justi-fiably proud of his fast passage from Spithead.
Bolitho shrugged and said quietly, “I can never find words to thank you, old friend.” Their eyes met and he added, “Truly, heart of oak.”
Then he walked through the screen door, nodding to the sen-try before moving out into the sunlight, the expectant seamen who were waiting to furl every sail with only seconds between them when the anchor splashed down.
Leach turned to greet him, his expression wary.
Bolitho said, “You have a fine ship, Captain Leach. I envy you.”
Leach watched him cross to the nettings, unable to conceal his astonishment. Surely Bolitho wanted for nothing? A post-captain of distinction who was almost certain to reach flag rank before this war showed signs of ending, unless he fell out of favour or was killed in battle . . .
“Ready, sir!”
Leach held up his arm. “Let go!”
Spray burst over the beakhead as the great anchor splashed down, but Bolitho did not see it.
I am a frigate captain.
And that gentle, remembered correction. Were—a frigate cap-tain.
He ignored the voice in his memory and stared at the large ships-of-war anchored astern of one which wore a vice-admiral’s flag at the fore.
One of them is mine.
He looked at Allday and smiled freely for the first time.
“Not a lively frigate this time, old friend. We’ve much to dis-cover!”
Allday nodded, satisfied. The smile gave light to the grey eyes once more. It was all there, he decided. Hope, determination, and a new strength which her death had once taken away.
He breathed out slowly.
The Old Hyperion. So be it then.