Allday punched one fist into another. ‘I should have stopped the bastard! Not left it to some bloody bullock!’
Yovell half-listened to the stamp of bare feet, and the sudden squeal of blocks as the ship began to change tack again.
He said, ‘Sir Richard seems well enough. I think he always knew his eye would eventually fail him. It could have been worse. Much worse.’ He folded his hands on Bolitho’s desk. ‘I prayed. I hope I was heard.’
Allday turned on him, but was moved to silence by the simple assurance.
He growled, ‘Well, I think we should stop now. Haul down the flag an’ let some other up-an’-comin’ Nelson take the strain!’
Yovell smiled at that. ‘Within a month you’d be burrowing round, looking for some job to keep you occupied. I would lay odds on it, and you know I am not a gambling man.’
Allday sat heavily on the bench seat, and glared at the nearest eighteen-pounder.
‘I don’t never want to become like most of the old Jacks you see. You knows ’em well enough, swingin’ the lamp and sayin’ how great an’ fine it was to be raked by some bloody mounseer, an’ to lose a spar like poor Bryan Ferguson.’ He shook his shaggy head. ‘Never! What we done, we done together. That’s how I wants to remember it!’
The door opened and Avery entered the cabin. He, too, glanced at the pile of waiting letters and despatches, and shook his head.
‘I don’t know what drives him so!’ He waved Allday back to his seat and remarked, ‘There might be some fleet mail for us.’ He peered through an open gunport. ‘I just saw a sight, a big Indiaman, making all plain sail with the skill and swagger of a first-rate! Young Singleton told me she was Saladin, on passage to Naples. On the King’s business for a change, by the sound of it.’
Allday looked at him. ‘I knows her, sir. We was just talking about Bryan Ferguson, back home. Him an’ me went down to see her once when she dropped her hook at Falmouth.’
Avery said something vague in acknowledgement. Like Singleton, this seasoned, unflinching sailor could still surprise him. Back home…. Not many landsmen would ever understand what that meant to men like Allday, worn out by war and unready for peace. And what of me?
He could hear Ozzard rattling glasses in his pantry, preparing for the ship’s first visitors after they had anchored. He smiled faintly. Dropped her hook ….
Yovell was saying, ‘In a few weeks it will be Christmas again. And we don’t even know if the war with the Yankees is over.’
Avery, still gazing out idly, saw another local sailing craft pass Frobisher’s quarter. Eyes everywhere. The news of their destruction of the Algerine pirates would have preceded them, too. He thought of Black Swan’s commander, Norton Sackville. Even in the crowded wardroom, he remained alone. Avery knew what such isolation was like, while he had been waiting for the unwarranted court martial, and had seen former friends cross the road to avoid contact with him.
Ozzard appeared and said stiffly, ‘Sir Richard’s not here, then? Must be still on deck for entering harbour.’
Allday stood up abruptly. ‘I’ll take his sword.’ It was suddenly important, and he knew Avery was watching him with his steady cat’s eyes.
Avery said, ‘It’ll be a while yet. Another hour, the master informs me.’
Allday took down the sword, nonetheless. Remembering all those other times, the excitement, the madness, the survival. Always the pain.
It was still damp on deck, and the air was surprisingly cool, reminding him of what Yovell had said. It was November now, but hard to compare with England’s bare trees and angry, autumnal coastline.
The watch on deck were at their stations, and Allday noticed the extra lookouts aloft for the final approach. He thought of Captain Tyacke blaming himself for losing the Black Swan; you could never be too careful with so many mindless natives controlling all these hundreds of small vessels. Not a true seaman amongst them.
He found Bolitho with Tyacke by the quarterdeck rail, shading his eyes while he watched the land opening out to greet them. There was an anchored sloop-of-war close by, her yards and rigging full of cheering seamen as their flagship passed slowly abeam.
Allday gave a satisfied grin. As it should be.
Bolitho saw him, and the sword. ‘That was thoughtful, old friend…. I was looking at the harbour, preparing myself for what we might expect.’
Allday fastened the sword into place. The belt needed adjusting; Sir Richard was losing weight. He frowned. One of Unis’s pork pies, now, that would be more like it.
Kellett called, ‘Signal that fool to stand away!’ He sounded sharper than usual, on edge.
A master’s mate said, ‘Guard boat, sir!’
Bolitho walked to the side and saw the smart pinnace with a midshipman and a captain of marines in the sternsheets coming about to lead them in; the marine stood to raise his hat in salute. He had always enjoyed the moment of entering harbour, no matter where it might be, but his heart refused to rise to it. He thought suddenly of Keen; he would be married by now, and a port admiral in his own right. He wondered who else would have been at the wedding. Bethune, perhaps even Thomas Herrick. He bit his lip. No, not Thomas. He had never healed the rift between himself and Keen.
She would be good for Val. Strong enough to stand up to his overbearing father, woman enough to help him forget.
‘Guard boat is comin’ alongside, sir!’ The master’s mate sounded shocked at such a breach of procedure.
Kellett shouted, ‘They have a message for the admiral! Lively there, Mr Armytage! Your people are all like old women this morning!’
‘Stand by for entering harbour! Hands aloft, Mr Gilpin!’
Bolitho raised his arm to the guard boat as the oars backed water, and swung the stem towards the sand-coloured fortifications once again.
Tyacke said, ‘Carry on, Mr Kellett.’
Armytage arrived on the quarterdeck, still flushing from Kellett’s rebuke and the grins from various seamen. It was his first commission as a lieutenant.
He saw Avery and hurried across, a small package, wrapped in oilcloth, in his hand.
Bolitho said, ‘Here, Mr Armytage!’
He felt the others watching him, as if unable to move while the ship and her tall shadow carried them forward, some invisible force in command.
‘Thank you, Mr Armytage.’ He unfolded the oilcloth carefully, his head turned very slightly to correct the imbalance of his vision. Then the paper; for a moment he held it in his hands. A carefully pressed rose, velvet-red, as he had seen them so many times. Again he read the card, the writing he knew so well. I am here. We are together.
Avery’s voice broke in anxiously. ‘Is something amiss, Sir Richard? Can I ….’
Bolitho could not look at him, remembering yesterday’s verdict from Lefroy. He answered quietly, ‘A miracle, George. They do happen after all.’
They stood side by side on a small balcony which looked down over a cobbled courtyard and an arched entrance from the street. There was a fountain in the centre of the courtyard, but, like the cobbles, uncared for, and full of weeds browned by the Maltese sun. There were servants, unobtrusive and unseen, their presence marked by fresh fruit and wine in the room behind them.
Even the island’s sounds were distant and muffled, someone singing, or perhaps chanting in a strange, quavering voice, and the regular clang of a chapel bell.
She turned slightly inside his arm, which had never left her waist since they had stepped on to the balcony. She felt his fingers tighten, as if he still could not believe it, as if he was afraid to release her, and like a dream it would all be lost.
She said, ‘I wanted to go to the jetty and watch you come ashore. To meet you and hold you. I wanted it so much. Instead ….’
They both glanced down as an old dog turned over, panting in the sunshine before dragging itself into the retreating shadows.
He tightened his hold around her waist, thinking of the haste with which he had cut short his immediate d
uties to come ashore, to this quiet street, to her.
She had told him about Sillitoe, how he had arranged this passage, how even this house belonged to one of his friends or associates, someone who owed him favours. He had felt no resentment or jealousy. It was as if he had known.
As he had slipped out of his heavy coat she had told him the rest of the story, or most of it. How Sillitoe had come with his men to her aid, and had saved her.
Then Bolitho had held her for the first time, pressing her face to his, stroking her hair, his words muffled until he had lifted her chin in his fingers and had said without emotion, ‘I would have killed him. I will kill him.’
She had kissed him, and had whispered, ‘Sillitoe is a law unto himself. He will deal with it.’
‘He is in love with you, Kate.’ She had flinched at the familiar use of the name. ‘Who would not be?’
‘I am in love with you.’
He thought of the piles of despatches which had been brought by the last courier from England. Once so important; he had barely scanned them, and had left Tyacke to sift through them.
She turned again in his arms and looked directly into his face.
‘I would have done anything to be here with you. When the ship sailed into the harbour and your Frobisher was not at anchor, I thought I would die.’ She moved against him. ‘And then you came. My admiral of England.’ She struggled with the words. ‘Will you be able to stay? Saladin is returning in a matter of days. If only ….’
He kissed her face and her throat, and felt the pain draining away like sand. ‘It is more than I dared to hope for.’
She led him into the room and closed the shutters.
‘They know you are here?’
He nodded, and she said softly, ‘Then they will know what we are doing.’ He reached out for her, but she twisted away from him. ‘Pour some wine. I must do things.’ She smiled, and pushed some hair from her face. ‘Oh, Richard, I love thee so!’ Then, like the dream, she was gone.
Bolitho thought of Avery and Allday, who had accompanied him ashore. Each unwilling to abandon him in a strange port, and yet both so determined not to display their anxieties.
And she was here. It was not another dream, wherein she was torn away from him. He felt again the anger and shock as he recalled her careful description of the attack, and what Oliphant had intended. It was as if Oliphant represented all those nightmare figures, the rivals and lovers which were always a part of his fears.
And she had shown a courage which he could only imagine; it was not even something he could compare with the shipwreck, or their first embattled meeting aboard the Navarra.
She called through the door, ‘What of tomorrow?’
‘I must meet the garrison commander, and receive some officials.’
‘Afterwards?’
He felt the sudden excitement. ‘I shall be meeting a very beautiful girl.’
She came into the room very quietly, her feet bare, her body clothed from neck to ankles in a fine, white gown.
She put her arms around his neck and held him tightly.
‘A girl? If only I still were.’ She gasped as he cupped her shoulders and ran his hands down her spine.
She said softly, ‘And I missed your birthday. It was all done in such a hurry. Perhaps I shall buy something here in Malta ….’
She stood quite still, her arms at her sides as he found the gold cord and pulled it towards him. The gown was so thin that, in falling, it scarcely made a sound, and she watched him, her lips suddenly moist and parted in the filtered sunlight, as he held her against him before lifting her, and carrying her to the bed.
Her fingers were like claws in the sheets as he kissed her nakedness, her mouth and her throat, each breast, with a lingering pressure which made her cry out as if in pain as her nipples hardened in his lips. Once she had dreaded that this reunion would only bring back the disgust and the terror of that night. But it was as if she had no memory, and no control at all; she felt her body writhing as he came to her and she drew him down, touching and caressing, taking him into her, as if it was for the first time.
He kissed her, deeply, and tasted what might have been tears. But their need of one another drove all reserve, all memory, into the shadows. She arched her back so that he could lift her, to join them even more closely; they were one.
She turned her head from side to side, her hair spreading across the disordered sheets, her face damp as if from fever.
‘I can’t wait, Richard … I can’t wait … it’s been so long ….’
The rest was lost as they fell, entwined like broken statuary, and there was nothing, only the sound of their urgent breathing.
When, eventually, they stood again at the shuttered doors the shadows were deeper, and the old dog had disappeared. Together they drank the wine, neither noticing that the glasses were hot from the sun.
She put her arm around his shoulder, and did not look away when he turned his head to see her more fully.
‘I know, dearest of men. I know.’
He felt her move against him, and the need of her again.
She tossed the mood aside. ‘I am out of practice! Come, my love … I shall do better this time!’
Faint stars were in the sky when they finally fell asleep, in one another’s arms.
There was a smell of jasmine in the room. The miracle was complete.
16
Lifeline
CAPTAIN ADAM BOLITHO walked slowly to the quarterdeck rail and, for only a few seconds, laid his hand upon it. Like the rest of the ship, it was cold and damp, and he felt a shiver run down his spine like some ghostly reminder. He was very aware of the crowded maindeck, the upturned faces, still anonymous and unknown to him, the swaying lines of scarlet-coated marines, the blue and white groups of officers and those of warrant rank. Soon to be a ship’s company. His ship’s company. People, individuals, the good and the bad, but on this bitter December day they were strangers. And Captain Adam Bolitho was quite alone.
On the lively passage back from Halifax to England, he had still imagined that he would be replaced at the last moment. That his one hope would be gone.
It was not a dream. It was not a reward. It was now, today. What his uncle had sometimes described as the most coveted gift was his by right. His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Unrivalled, a fifth-rate of forty-six guns, was in almost every sense ready to join the fleet and perform whatever task might be ordered. So fresh from the builders’ hands that in places below decks the paint was not yet dry, but up here, even to the inexperienced eye, she was a thing of beauty. She moved restlessly on the current, her holds and stores yet to be filled, like her magazines and shot-lockers, to give the graceful hull stability and purpose.
It was an important day for all of them. The fruitless, bitter war with the United States was all but over. Unrivalled was not only the first ship of her name on the Navy List, but also the first to be commissioned under the promise of peace.
Adam glanced at the taut shrouds and blacked-down stays, the new cordage touched with frost like entwined, frozen webs, and he saw the breath of one seaman hanging over him like smoke.
It was misty, too, and the houses and fortifications of Plymouth were still blurred, like a glass out of focus.
He felt the ship move again, and pictured the Tamar River which he had seen when he had first arrived. Beyond it was Cornwall, his home, his roots. He had heard that Catherine had gone to Malta to visit his uncle, and it had seemed pointless to challenge the rutted, treacherous roads merely to visit an empty house. Even more so to venture further, perhaps to Zennor.
He pushed the thought away, and drew the scroll from inside his damp coat. This was all that mattered, all that counted now. There was nothing else, and he must never forget that.
He looked steadily at the assembled company for the first time. The seamen were uniformly dressed in new clothing from the purser’s slop chest, chequered shirts and white trousers. A new beginning.
U
nlike any other ship in which he had served, Adam knew that Unrivalled carried not a single pressed man. The ship was undermanned, and some of her company he knew were felons from the assizes and local courts who had been given a choice: the King’s service or deportation. Or worse. There were seasoned hands too, a tattoo or some skilled piece of tackle to mark them out from the rest. With ships and men being paid off with unseemly haste, why did some choose to remain in this harsh world of discipline and duty? Perhaps because, despite whatever they had sacrificed or endured, it was all they trusted.
Most of them would have heard other captains read themselves in at some time in their service, but as always it was a moment of significance for every one. The captain, any captain, was their lord and master for as long as the commission dictated.
Adam had known good captains, the best. He had also known the tyrants and the petty-minded, who could make any man’s life a misery, or just as easily take his life from him.
He unrolled the scroll, and saw men leaning towards him to hear more clearly. There were visitors as well, including two vice-admirals, and a small group of burly men in rougher clothing. They had been surprised to be invited, and proud, too; they had built this ship, had created her, and had given her life.
The commission was addressed to Adam Bolitho Esq, in large, round copperplate writing; it could have been Yovell’s, he thought.
‘Willing and requiring you forthwith to go on board and take upon you charge and command of captain in her accordingly.’
It was like listening to someone else, so that he was able both to speak and take note of individual faces: Vice-Admiral Valentine Keen, now the port admiral at Plymouth, and, with him, Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune, who had come from the Admiralty in London for the occasion.
He recalled the moment when he had been pulled around the ship, and she had been warped to her first mooring. The figurehead had intrigued him: a beautiful woman, her nude body arched back beneath the beakhead, her hands clasped behind her head and beneath her long hair, her breasts out-thrust, her eyes looking straight ahead, challenging and defiant. It had been made by a well-known local carver named Ben Littlehales, and was said to be the best work he had ever done. Adam had heard some of the riggers saying that Littlehales always used living models, but none of them knew who she was, and the old carver would never tell. He had died on the day Unrivalled had first quit the slipway.
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