Sword of Honour

3

Adam

Captain Adam Bolitho flattened the chart across his cabin table and glanced at the final calculations of the passage, although he knew them by heart. Around and above him the frigate, His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Valkyrie of forty-two guns, held steadily on course, her reduced sails barely filling. It was early May but there was still an edge to the wind, as he had discovered during his customary morning walk on deck.

It was a time he usually liked. A ship coming to life, with the first glimpse of a horizon. Decks swabbed and holy stoned the boatswain and the carpenter comparing their lists of work for the new day. Sails to be brought down and repaired, rigging inspected and spliced wherever necessary. Water casks scoured out and prepared for refilling, and the end of stale, monotonous food, for the moment. Valkyrie was returning to harbour, to the main naval base at Halifax, Nova Scotia, the last real British foothold on the North American coast.

And what would they feel when they reached there? He stared around the cabin, at the lively wavelets falling astern beneath the frigate’s counter, feeling again the resentment and impatience he tried so hard to conceal from his ship’s company.

For Valkyrie was no ordinary or private ship; she was still officially the flagship of Rear-Admiral Valentine Keen, his uncle’s friend. And yours also, a voice seemed to insist.

Somehow they had grown apart, even since the total destruction of two American frigates with the loss of only one man, a midshipman. Not so long ago, yet Adam could scarcely recall his face. Keen spent more and more time ashore concerning himself with the transport of troops. Valkyrie was returning from yet another such convoy. And for what purpose, he wondered. The news from England was optimistic; the war in Europe would soon be over, so that more ships could be released to fight the Americans. But for how long?

The build-up of military strength here had to be for some reason.

He heard the marine sentry outside the screen door tap his musket on the deck and call, ”First Lieutenant, sir!”

He straightened his back as Lieutenant William Dyer stepped into the cabin.

It still came as a surprise, as if he expected John Urquhart to be presenting himself. Urquhart had gone to a command of his own, one for which he had been little envied. He had been promoted at Keen’s suggestion to command the frigate Reaper, a ship torn apart by mutiny, inhuman discipline, and murder.

Adam had known that Urquhart could do it, and had been rewarded by the occasional news of Reaper’s performance and various successes. A rebirth. But Adam was missing him now.

”Ready?”

Dyer looked at a point above his captain’s left shoulder. The master says that we shall be up to the anchorage within the hour, sir. If the wind holds steady from the nor’east, we should be in before six bells.”

A pleasant enough officer, and one who had made good use of his experience in this ship, one of the largest frigates on the station since Indomitable’s departure for England. But it went little beyond that.

”I shall come up directly.” He did not see the lieutenant’s quick glance around the cabin, but he could imagine it. Dyer probably thought that his captain wanted for nothing. As I once thought of mine.

Adam had been more than successful as a frigate captain, and he was sensible enough to appreciate it, and that luck rarely came into it except to provide the opportunity to meet with an enemy, and to know his thoughts like your own. After that, it was skill, determination, and the men who depended on you. He smiled. And good gunnery.

The lieutenant saw the smile, and, encouraged, asked, ”Will we be hoisting the admiral’s flag again after this, sir?”

”In truth, I do not know.” He moved restlessly to the stern windows and leaned his hands on the sill. He could feel the thud and shiver of the rudder-head, picture the ship as she would appear to any landsmen watching her careful approach.

A flagship. Only a frigate captain would understand the difference. It meant being tied to the fleet’s apron strings and the whims and fancies of a flag officer. Keen was a good commander, but it was not the same. He tried to steer his mind away from his own ship, Anemone, which had fallen to the American commodore, Nathan Beer. Only an explosion below deck had foiled her capture and salvage, and spared her an enemy’s flag. No, it was not the same.

Dyer withdrew, and Adam suspected he would soon be discussing their future with the other lieutenants. Wardroom gossip was only to be expected, but Dyer had not yet realised how quickly it could misfire.

He touched his side where the iron splinter had smashed him down, when Anemone had hauled down her colours and he had been unable to prevent it.

He watched the sea again, the fish leaping in Valkyrie’s untroubled wake.

And what of Keen? Would he marry Gilia St. Clair, and if so, why should he allow the prospect to torment him? Zenoria was dead, but his grief for her had not lessened. He picked up his hat and strode from the cabin. The fact was that Keen needed a wife, even if love did not enter into it.

He ran lightly up the companion ladder, and gazed at the familiar panorama which lay across the bows like a ragged barrier. Ships of every kind. Men-of- war, merchantmen, transports, captured prizes, and small, butterfly-like sails which created the movement in every living harbour.

He nodded to Ritchie, the sailing master, and saw him stand away from the compass box; he had been leaning against it. So his wounds were troubling him again. The surgeon had said that he should be discharged.

Adam frowned. Discharged? It would kill him more quickly than any American splinters.

A glance aloft at the newly trimmed sails, and the long, flapping tongue of the masthead pendant. She would make a proud sight, all sails clewed up except topsail and jib, her company at their stations at braces and halliards, top men ready to take in the last of her canvas once the anchor was dropped.

A sight which, in the past, had always warmed and excited him. But the exhilaration eluded him now, like something beyond his reach.

”Lee braces there! Hands wear ship!”

Bare feet thudded along the deck, and blocks squealed as more men threw their weight on the snaking lines.

Tops’ sheets!”

Adam folded his arms, and saw one of the young midshipmen turn to study him.

”Tops’1 clew lines! Lively there! Take that man’s name, Mr. M’Crea!”

”Helm a-lee!”

Adam walked to the side to watch as the big frigate came slowly round and into the wind, the way falling off her, her remaining sails already being dragged and fisted into submission.

”Let go!”

Dyer hurried aft, his eyes everywhere as the ship came to rest at her cable.

”Will you require the gig, sir?”

Ritchie, the master, grimaced against the pain and then exclaimed, ”Cheering, sir!”

Adam took a telescope and trained it on two other frigates anchored nearby. Their shrouds and rigging were filled with shouting, waving seamen and marines.

He closed the glass with a snap. ”Yes, Mr. Dyer, I shall want the gig as soon as possible.”

Dyer stared at him. ”What does it mean, sir?”

Adam looked at the land. ”It means peace. Not here perhaps, but peace, the hope of a lifetime.” He glanced at the staring midshipman. ”He was not even born when the first guns in this war were fired.”

Some of the seamen were grinning at one another, others were shaking hands as if they had just met in some lane or harbour street.

”I shall visit Rear-Admiral Keen. He will expect it.” He saw the first lieutenant trying to grapple with it. ”Take charge, Mr. Dyer. I will speak with the hands later when I return.” He touched his arm, and felt him jump as if he had just been nicked by a musket ball.

”They have done well. There are many who were not so fortunate.”

Later, as he climbed into the gig, he recalled his last words.

Like an epitaph.

Rear-Admiral Valentine Keen looked up from his desk and saw his flag lieutenant, the Honourable Lawford de Courcey, watching him through the door.

”Yes?”

De Courcey glanced only briefly at Keen’s visitor, and said, ”It is reported, sir, that Valkyrie is approaching the anchorage.”

Thank you. Let me know as soon as Captain Bolitho arrives.”

He looked around the room, which he used as his headquarters in Halifax. Charts, files, and books of signals. With de Courcey and some borrowed clerks, he had managed to stay abreast of the work as he could not have done if he had been at sea for long periods. It had made him feel that he belonged, and that what he was doing was progressive, enabling every ship and facility to give of its best. Until a few days ago, when the frigate Wakeful had arrived from England with news of the victory and of Napoleon’s surrender. So far away, on the other side of the Atlantic, and yet the word of victory in Europe had affected him far more than the war which was being fought here against the Americans; perhaps because it had been his war for so long, with many enemies involved, but always the French.

He would have received the news earlier but Wakeful’s, young captain had lost a couple of spars in a Western Ocean ! storm in his eagerness to be the first to bring the despatches. Wakeful had also carried a passenger.

Keen looked at him now: Captain Henry Deighton, the next ; acting commodore of the Halifax squadron, and soon to be . directly under the command of Sir Alexander Cochrane, who i had taken over the whole station. |

It had all happened so quickly that Keen could not decide if he was pleased or disturbed by the unseemly haste.

There had been several letters among the despatches, including one from the First Lord, to reassure him, perhaps, that the next phase of his career was about to begin. There had been no letters from his father, a sure sign of his continuing disapproval.

And there was Gilia. He would delay no longer in asking her, and of course her father, if his proposal of marriage would be acceptable.

Deighton said, ”Captain Bolitho what is he like, sir?”

Keen studied him. He was a senior post-captain, with several years of blockade duty and two fleet actions to his credit. Squarely built, with short, gingery hair and restless eyes. Not an easy man to serve, harder still to know, he thought.

”A good frigate captain. Successful, too.”

”Yes, I know him by reputation, of course, sir. It must have been a great asset to have Sir Richard Bolitho at his shoulder.”

Keen said nothing. Deighton had already made up his mind, or had had it made up for him.

Deighton said, ”Originally one of Sir Richard’s midshipmen, I understand.”

Keen said, ”So was I. Vice-Admiral Bethune at the Admiralty was another. A good influence, it would seem.”

Deighton nodded. ”I see. I look forward to meeting him. Lost his ship, taken prisoner of war and then escaped ... he sounds resourceful, if a trifle reckless.”

”He is my flag captain, at least until I leave here.”

It was quietly said but he saw the shot go home. Deighton had come from England; he would know better than anyone what was intended. It would mean further promotion, to vice-admiral. He still could not believe it.

He thought of Richard at home now in England, with his Catherine. He had seen and shared the legend himself. He opened the drawer very slightly and saw the miniature of the girl looking up at him. It could be his, too. Ours.

He half-listened to the tramp of boots outside the building, the raucous shouts of drill sergeants. This part of the place was on loan to him because of the general; it would soon revert to the army once his flag came down.

What would Adam think of the peace? He had agreed to be his flag captain, and the decision had surprised Keen. Adam was his own man, Deighton was right about that, and reckless to some degree, although Keen would never say so to someone outside the Happy Few. He could stay here and serve under the new commodore, or he could apply to be relieved, to take his chances in England while he hunted for a new command. It would not be easy; he knew that from his experience of other treaties, other respites in the long years of war.

He thought of all their faces, Inch, and Neale, and others like Tyacke who had somehow survived. The word was rarely used in the fleet, but each man was a hero. Perhaps that was what his father had implied more than once. That in war you needed heroes if you were to succeed. In peace, they were an embarrassment to those who had risked nothing.

It made him feel vaguely uneasy, as if he were letting Adam down. That was absurd. The choice was made, and by the time the next courier vessel arrived, everything might have changed yet again.

He closed the drawer, realising that de Courcey had returned.

”Valkyrie’s gig has been sighted, sir.”

De Courcey withdrew. The perfect aide, always there when he was needed, although Keen very clearly understood why he and Adam could not endure one another.

Deighton got to his feet. A heavy man, but he moved lightly, with an air of urgency and purpose. Commodore would be a big step for him. Sir Alexander Cochrane had gathered so many senior officers under his command that it was unlikely Deighton would rise any higher. And he would know it.

Deighton said, ”I must leave, sir. I have arrangements to complete.”

”We shall meet again this evening, Captain Deighton. I shall introduce you to Halifax society!”

Deighton stared at him, as if searching for a trap of some kind. Then he left the room.

Keen sighed, and thought, unexpectedly, of England, of Hampshire. It would be spring there. And there would be Gilia.

Suddenly, he was glad to be leaving.

Adam Bolitho opened the shutters of the two lanterns in his cabin to give it an air of welcome and seclusion. He rubbed his shin, cursing silently to himself; he had just collided with a chair in the darkness.

He touched the watch, heavy in his pocket, but did not look at it. It was about three o’clock in the morning, with Valkyrie riding easily at her anchor, a ship at rest, as much as she could be with some two hundred and fifty souls, seamen and marines, throughout her hull, some probably still awake after hearing of Napoleon’s submission, and wondering what it might mean to them.

When he had returned from his visit to Keen’s temporary headquarters he had ordered the lower deck to be cleared and the hands to muster aft. All those upturned faces: men he had come to know well, and those others who had managed to stay at arm’s length from him, and all other authority. United by discipline, by the ship, and by their loyalty to one another, the strength of any man-of-war.

Later, he had explained to his officers what the immediate future might bring. With the arrival of better weather, it would almost certainly mean increased action against the Americans. That had been expected.

Dyer had been quite outraged when he had told them that there would be an acting commodore, as if the exchange of a rear-admiral’s flag for a mere broad pendant was akin to a personal insult.

The day after tomorrow Valkyrie would sail in company with another small convoy, but her main duty would be to demonstrate to Commodore Deighton the importance and the efficiency of the squadron’s scouts and offshore patrols.

Adam slumped in a chair and rubbed his shin again. He had had too much to drink, although he could scarcely remember it. And that was not like him.

He had changed into his best uniform and returned ashore for the evening reception which Keen had felt was necessary to welcome his successor. It had been a noisy, uninhibited gathering, which had shown no sign of ending even when Adam had made his excuses and walked back to the jetty, where his gig’s crew had been dozing at their oars.

David St. Clair and his daughter Gilia had been there, as he had known they would be, as well as local merchants and suppliers to the fleet, officers of the garrison, and several other captains. Benjamin Massey, a close friend of Keen’s father, had not attended; it was said that he had returned to England. But Massey’s mistress, Mrs. Lovelace, had been present. She had smiled at Adam, that same direct, challenging look she had given him before. But this time her husband had accompanied her. The invitation in her eyes had been very clear.

Gilia St. Clair had made a point of greeting him, and had hinted that Keen was about to propose marriage. She had watched his face while she spoke to him, remembering, perhaps, when she had asked him if he had known Keen’s wife, and his unhesitating reply. I was in love with her. She might have told Keen while Valkyrie had been away, but for some strange reason he was certain that she had not.

Then she had mentioned Keen’s promotion, and the possibility of his becoming port admiral at Plymouth, and the despair that was ever waiting for its chance seized him once again.

She had even mentioned the house in Plymouth. Boscawen House. It had been all he could do to hide his emotion.

It had been at the port admiral’s house that he had met Zenoria, purely by chance. She had dropped a glove while alighting from her carriage. It had been the last time he had seen her, before she had taken her life. She had been in Plymouth to visit Boscawen House, accompanied by a London lawyer.

Had Keen, in fact, bought it as long ago as that? Did it signify nothing more to him than a suitable house for a senior officer and his wife?

Like yesterday .. . Zenoria in the admiral’s house, surrounded by other officers and their wives, and yet completely alone.. .. And her glove, which he had been carrying when the American broadsides had done for his Anemone. That, too, was another fragment of this undying pain.

Her voice. ”Keep it for me. Think of me sometimes, will you ?”

He would never forget.

He jerked around in the chair. ”Who is that?”

It was John Whitmarsh, his servant. Another reminder. He had been the only survivor from Anemone, except for those men who had surrendered when they had seen their captain fall. Just a boy, who had been ‘volunteered’ by an uncle when his father had been drowned off the Goodwins. He could have been no more than ten or so when he had been sent to sea in Anemone.

”Me, zur.” He stepped carefully into the circle of light. ”I thought you would likely be staying ashore, zur.”

Adam ran his fingers through his dark hair. He must not go on like this. He would destroy himself, and those who depended on him.

”I considered it.” He gestured to his cupboard. ”A glass of cognac, if you please, John Whitmarsh.” He watched him bustling about, always so content, so eager. When Adam had offered him the position of servant the boy had treated it with open delight, as if he had been thrown a lifeline. How could he know that he, in turn, had offered the same to his captain?

And now, all the changes. What might happen next? He looked at the boy grimly. He had nobody. Father dead, and no word from his mother, although Adam had written in an attempt to discover her whereabouts, and her interest, if any, in her son. He was thirteen years old. As I once was.

He took the goblet and held it to the lamplight.

”Stay a while, John Whitmarsh. I have been meaning to speak with you.”

”Is something wrong, zur?”

”Have you thought about your future, in the navy, or beyond that?”

He frowned. ”I - I’m not sure, zur.”

Adam studied him for several seconds. ”I received no reply from your mother, you see. Someone must decide for you.”

The boy seemed suddenly anxious. ”I’m very happy here, zur. You’ve taught me so many things, how to read an’ write....”

”That was not all my doing, John Whitmarsh. You are a quick learner.” He looked at the goblet again. ”Would you consider being sponsored as midshipman, or transferred as a volunteer to some ship more suitable for advancement? Have you thought of that?”

The boy shook his head. ”I don’t understand, zur. A midshipman .. . wear the King’s coat like the young gentlemen, like Mister Lovie who was killed?” He shook his head again, determination making him suddenly vulnerable. ”I shall serve you, zur, an’ one day perhaps I’ll become your cox’n like old Mister Allday does for Sir Richard!”

Adam smiled, and was strangely moved. ”Never let Allday hear you describe him as old, my lad!” He became serious again. ”I believe you could be a midshipman, and eventually a King’s officer, with some education and the right guidance.

And I would be prepared to sponsor you.” He saw that he was achieving nothing. ”I shall pay even your mother cannot object to that!”

The boy stared at him, his eyes filling his face. It was all there, despair, anxiety and disbelief.

”I want to stay with you, zur. I don’t want anybody else.”

Overhead feet moved back and forth, the watch changing. It must be four o’clock. But to this boy it meant nothing; all he saw was the one life he knew being taken from him.

”I shall tell you a story. There once was a young boy who lived with his mother in Penzance. They did not have much money, but they were happy together. Then his mother died, and this boy was left with nothing. Nothing but a piece of paper and the name of his uncle, whose home was in Falmouth.”

”An’ be that you, zur?”

”Aye, John Whitmarsh, it was. I walked all the way to Falmouth. Not as far as India, but far enough, and there I was taken in and protected by the lady I grew to know as my Aunt Nancy. I could have stayed with her, and I would have had no fear of want again. But I waited until my uncle’s ship returned to Falmouth. He was her captain.” He was surprised at his own voice. Pride, love for the man who was one of England’s greatest admirals.

The boy nodded gravely. ”An’ you became a midshipman, zur.” There was a silence, then he said, ”When I met Sir Richard that day, when he asked about you, an’ what I saw when our ship went down, I felt it. How he felt, what you meant to him, just like me an’ my father.”

”So think about it, for your own sake. And for mine. We take much from this strange life we lead. It is sometimes a comfort to put something back into it.”

The boy picked up the empty goblet but Adam shook his head, and he left it.

Then he said, ”I only ever had one real friend, zur, that was Billy, an’ he was lost that day.”

Adam stood up and yawned. ”Well, now you have another, so be off and catch some rest before they pipe the hands.”

He turned to watch as the slight figure melted into the shadows, and was pleased by what he had done.

They were two days out of Halifax on passage for the Bermudas once again, and Valkyrie, with her heavily laden charges, had barely logged five hundred miles. Long, monotonous days when some of the hands had to be chased even to their routine duties watch by watch.

In other circumstances it might have been ideal. There was a light northeasterly wind, enough to fill the sails and no more, with clear skies and sun to drive away the memories of winter cold and darkness.

At noon Adam stood by the quarterdeck rail and shaded his eyes to watch the three heavy transports lying downwind, with the outline of Wildfire, a smaller twenty-eight-gun frigate, almost invisible in a shimmering heat haze.

He heard the murmuring voices of the midshipmen, who were gathered with their sextants to estimate and compare their calculations from the midday sights, while Ritchie and one of his mates moved amongst them with the tired patience of schoolmasters. Lieutenant Dyer was with the boatswain by the foremast, discussing work to be done on the cross trees although Adam guessed that he had chosen the moment merely to keep out of his way.

This endless convoy work, soldiers and guns, stores and ammunition; it might be necessary, but it was not a life he cared for. A slow passage and limp canvas when he was more used to questions of whether to reef or not, with spray bursting over the beak head to send the unwary flying.

He glanced at the skylight. He had scarcely seen Captain Deighton since he had come aboard. He was down there now, using the large stern cabin. Deighton was probably relishing it, thinking of the moment when it would be his steppingstone to higher rank.

He glanced at the masthead. At least there was no broad pendant yet. This is still my ship.

Ritchie was writing in his log, and looked up as Adam’s shadow fell across it.

The sea was empty, a glittering, blinding desert, and yet in his mind’s eye he could see the land, exactly as Ritchie’s spidery calculations and estimated position described it. New York lay some hundred and fifty miles to the west. Ships, movement, the enemy. But for how much longer?

”How are you feeling, Mr. Ritchie?”

He saw the immediate alarm, the anxiety. Like the boy, when he had asked him about his future.

”Fair enough, sir.” He sighed. ”Some days is better’n others.”

Adam regarded him gravely. Take heed of the bad times, Mr. Ritchie. Have a word with the surgeon, perhaps?”

Ritchie’s worn face split into a grin. ”Of course, sir.”

George Minchin was a surgeon of the old school, one of the butchers. And yet, even sodden with rum, he had probably saved more lives in his brutal trade than others more mindful of the risks. He had been Bolitho’s surgeon in the old Hyperion when she had fought her last fight. Drink should have sent him aloft long since, Adam thought, but he was still with them. He could understand Ritchie’s reluctance to fall into his hands.

He saw Ritchie turn his head slightly. ”He’s one of the walking dead if ever I saw one, sir!”

The man in question was tall, narrow-chested and bony, like a living skeleton. Except that Adam had seen him carry Captain Deighton’s chest and other gear up from a boat alongside with neither a tackle nor another hand to aid him; he had muscles of steel. He was Deighton’s personal servant and went by the name of Jack Norway. If that was indeed his name.

When spoken to, he would listen attentively, his gaunt head slightly on one side, his gaze never leaving the speaker. Dyer had remarked irritably, ”Never says a word, damn his eyes! More like a bodyguard than a servant, if you ask me!” He had shown no interest in mixing with those around him, and the others seemed content to keep it so.

Adam tugged out his watch and flicked open the guard. Then he turned it slightly to catch the sun’s reflection on the engraved mermaid, which had immediately attracted him in the shop in Halifax. Chiming clocks, watches of every kind, and this one. His old watch had gone missing after he had been wounded in Anemone, or had been stolen during his imprisonment. The little mermaid. Like the one which was said to visit the church in Zennor, where Zenoria now lay. Or did she .. . ?

”We shall exercise the starboard battery after the hands have been fed, Mr. Ritchie.” He could smell the heady aroma of rum in the warm air, another part of a ship’s daily life. Mine, too.

He saw one of the midshipmen cleaning his sextant, then turning away as Deighton appeared on the quarterdeck.

He glanced at the men working on deck, the sail maker crew with their needles and palms, stitching and repairing, letting nothing go to waste. Fasken, the gunner, was bending over one of the larboard carronades, watched anxiously by Lieutenant Warren, who until recently had been a midshipman. There were probably about forty years between them.

Deighton remarked, ”Some experienced men, Captain Bolitho, but some very young ones, would you agree?”

Adam said, ”The ship has a good backbone of seasoned men, warrant officers and the like. I have been lucky. Some of the others are quite young, and I’m still short-handed despite volunteers from Halifax, but even the young ones have experience enough of battle.”

He studied Deighton’s profile, the short ginger hair, the ever restless eyes.

Almost to himself, Deighton added, ”Keep them busy, drive them hard, that’s the answer. But I’m sure you know that, eh?”

”This is not a ship of the line, Captain Deighton. We are often engaged in chasing enemy vessels, with a prize or two at the end of the day. We always need extra hands to crew the prizes, when and where we can find them.”

Deighton nodded slowly. ”And you have been more than successful, I hear.”

Adam gestured over the starboard side. There are prizes a-plenty out there for those who will run them to earth.”

Deighton took a telescope from the rack and scanned the horizon immediately ahead of the ship, pausing at each transport, and the hazy frigate beyond.

”She must be Wildfire. Captain Price.”

Adam half-smiled. Price, the wild-eyed Welshman. But all he said was, ”A good officer.”

”Yes, yes. We shall see.”

The afternoon watch had taken over its various stations, the men glancing at the other captain as they trooped aft, their eyes curious, perhaps hostile.

Adam wondered why. Because Deighton was a stranger? But then so was I.

Deighton asked abruptly, ”And who is thatT

Adam saw the boy, John Whitmarsh, pausing by the boat tier to stare at the sea.

”My servant.”

Deighton smiled, for the first time. ”A damn sight prettier than mine!

Where did you find him?”

He was surprised that Deighton could rouse such resentment in him.

”He was one of the few to survive when my ship was sunk.” He turned and looked at him directly. ”I am putting him up for advancement.”

”I see. Is he from a good family? His father, has he .. . ?”

Adam replied shortly, ”His father is dead. He has no means of support.”

”Then I don’t understand.” He touched Adam’s sleeve. ”Or... perhaps I do.”

A squad of marines had lined the quarterdeck nettings, and a sergeant was inspecting their muskets. At a signal from forward, some old pieces of boxwood were hurled outboard by the carpenter’s mates.

”Marines, ready!”

Adam beckoned to the lieutenant of marines. ”Carry on!”

The pieces of woodwork floated past, and as the order rang out each marine fired his musket in turn. There were a few grins and some derisive cheers from idlers on the gundeck as splashes burst around the makeshift targets.

Adam reached out and took the marine officer’s pistol, and tested the weight in his palm; it was heavier and clumsier than his own. He climbed up on to some bollards and took aim. The driftwood was further away now, and he heard Deighton remark, ”Not much chance there!”

”I think, Captain Deighton, that you were right the first time. You don’t understand.”

He felt the pistol buck in his grip and saw one of the wood fragments splinter. Then he handed the pistol to the marine lieutenant, and said, ”Now, I think we all do.”