The Flag Captain

by Alexander Kent

  He said, ‘Show our visitor aft.’ He made an effort to square his shoulders. ‘Then set the hands to work. It would be unwise for them to see their leaders in despair.’

  Then followed by his secretary he walked slowly and painfully into the poop’s shadow.

  When Bolitho joined him again in the great cabin the admiral was sitting at the desk, as if he had never left it.

  ‘This despatch is from Sir Lucius Broughton.’ He waved to a chair. ‘Euryalus will remain at Falmouth to receive his flag, but at present he is in London. It seems that a new squadron is to be formed here, although to what purpose is not explained.’ He sounded very tired. ‘You are to ensure that our people have no contact with the shore, and those sent there because of illness or injury will not be returned.’ His mouth twisted angrily. ‘Afraid of spreading the disease on board, no doubt.’

  Bolitho was still standing, his mind grappling with all that the words entailed.

  The admiral continued in the same flat voice, ‘You will of course tell your officers what you think fit, but under no circumstances must the people be informed of the unrest at the Nore. It is worse that I feared.’ He looked at Bolitho’s grim face and added: ‘Captain Rook is required to assist you with all your supplies, and has instructions to bring any further stores or new spars and cordage direct to the ship.’

  Bolitho said slowly, ‘Sir Lucius Broughton, I know little of him. It is difficult to anticipate his wishes.’

  The admiral smiled briefly. ‘His flag was flying in one of the ships which mutinied at Spithead. I imagine his main requirement will be that it does not happen again.’

  He groped for his handkerchief and gripped the edge of the desk. ‘I must rest awhile and think of what has to be done. It would be better if you went ashore in my place. You may find that things are less dangerous than we imagine.’ He met Bolitho’s eyes. ‘But I would inform Captain Giffard first, so that his marines may be in readiness for trouble.’ He looked away and added, ‘I have seen the way our people look up to you, Bolitho. Sailors are simple folk who ask little more than justice in exchange for their lot afloat. But…’ the word hung in the air, ‘they are only human. And our first duty is to retain control, no matter at what cost.’

  Bolitho picked up his hat. ‘I know, sir.’

  He thought suddenly of the crowded world beyond the panelled bulkhead. At sea or in battle they would fight and die without question. The constant demands of harsh discipline and danger left little room for outside ideals and hopes. But once the spark touched off the latent power of these same men anything might happen, and it would be no use pleading ignorance or isolation then.

  On the quarterdeck again he was conscious of the change around him. How could you expect something like this to remain a secret? News travelled like wildfire in an overcrowded ship, though none could explain how it happened.

  He beckoned to Keveme and said flatly, ‘You will please go aft and report to Captain Rook. He saw Keverne’s dark features settle into a mask of anticipation. ‘You will then inform the ship’s lieutenants and senior warrant officers of the general position. I will hold you responsible until my return. You will arrange to have the sick and injured taken ashore, but not in our boats, understood?’

  Keverne opened his mouth and then closed it again. He nodded firmly.

  Bolitho said, ‘I will tell you now. There has been rumour of mutiny at the Nore. If any stranger attempts to approach or board this ship he will be deterred at once. If that cannot be done then he will be arrested and put in isolation immediately.’

  Keverne rested one hand on his sword. ‘If I catch a damned sea-lawyer I’ll teach him a thing or two, sir!’ His eyes blazed dangerously.

  Bolitho faced him impassively. ‘You will obey my orders, Mr. Keverne. Nothing more or less.’ He turned and sought out Allday’s thickset figure by the nettings. ‘Call away my barge crew immediately.’

  Keverne said, ‘You are taking your own boat, sir?’

  Bolitho replied coldly, ‘If I cannot trust them, after what we have borne and suffered together, then I can find no hope or solution for anything!’

  Without another word he strode down the ladder where the side party still waited above the swaying cutter at the entry port.

  Just a moment longer he stood and looked back at his ship and at the seamen who were already busy rigging awnings and assisting the sick men through the hatchways. As was his custom he had seen that every man aboard was issued with new clothing from the slop chest. Unlike some miserly captains who allowed their men to stay in the rags worn when they were pressed in town or village alike. But right now he could find no comfort at the sight of the wide trousers and checked shirts, the healthy faces and busy preparations. Clothing, and proper food when it was at all possible to obtain it, should be their right, not the privilege handed out by some godlike commander. It was little enough for what these same men gave in return.

  He shut the thought from his mind and touched his hat to the quarterdeck and side party before lowering himself down into the barge which Allday had steered purposefully between the cutter and the ship’s towering side.

  ‘Shove off forrard!’ Allday squinted into the sunlight and watched as the barge edged clear of the other boat. ‘Out oars, give way together!’

  Then as the barge gathered speed, the oars dipping and rising as one, he looked down at Bolitho’s back and pursed his lips. He knew most of Bolitho’s moods better than his own, and could well imagine what he must be thinking now. Mutiny in the Service he loved, and to which he had given everything. Allday had discovered all about it from the coxswain of the guardboat, a man he had served with many years back. How could a secret like that be kept for more than minutes?

  He ran his eye across Bolitho’s squared shoulders with their new and strangely alien gold epaulettes and at the jet black hair beneath his cocked hat. He had hardly changed, he thought. Even though he carried them all through one hazard after another.

  He glared at the bow oarsman who had let his eye wander to watch a gull diving for fish close abeam and then thought of what should have been waiting for Bolitho at Falmouth. That lovely girl and a child to welcome him home. Instead he had nothing but trouble, and once more was expected to do another’s work as well as his own.

  Allday saw Bolitho’s fingers playing a little tattoo on the worn hilt of his sword and relaxed slightly. Between them they had seen and done much together. The sword seemed to sum it all up better than words or actual thought.

  The barge swung round and glided into the shadow of the jetty, and as the bowman hooked on and Allday removed his hat Bolitho rose and climbed over the gunwale and on to the worn, familiar steps.

  He would have liked Allday with him just now, but it would not be right to leave the barge unattended.

  ‘You may return to the ship, Allday.’ He saw the flash of anxiety in the big coxswain’s eyes and added quietly, ‘I will know where you are when I need you.’

  Allday remained standing and watched Bolitho stride between two saluting militiamen at the top of the jetty.

  Under his breath he muttered, ‘By God, Captain, we ate going to need you!’

  Then he looked down at the lolling bargemen and growled, ‘Now, you idle buggers, let me see you make this boat move!’

  The stroke oar, a grizzled seaman with thick red hair, said between his teeth, ‘Do yewm reckon the word o’ the troubles will reach us ’ere?’

  Allday eyed him bleakly. So they all knew already.

  He grinned. ‘Word is like dung, matey, it must be spread about to be any use!’ He dropped his voice. ‘So it’s up to us to make sure it doesn’t happen, eh?’

  When he looked astern again Bolitho had already vanished, and he wondered what would be waiting for him on his return home.

  2

  The Visitor

  BOLITHO MADE HIMSELF stand quite still for several minutes as he stared towards the house. He had avoided the road through the town and had used instea
d the narrow twisting lane with its green hedgerows and sweet smells of the countryside. As he stood in the bright sunlight he was conscious of stillness, the hard pressure of the land through his shoes. It was all so different from the constant movement and sounds of shipboard life, and the realisation was one which never failed to surprise and please him. Except that this time it was not the same. He half listened to the gentle murmur of bees, the distant bark of some farm dog as it scurried around the sheep, while his eyes rested on the house, square and uncompromising against the sky and the sloping hill around which led towards the headland.

  With a sigh he strode forward again, his shoes disturbing the dust, his eyes squinting against the glare. Once through the broad gates in the grey stone wall he paused, unsure of himself and wishing that he had not come.

  Then as the double doors at the top of the steps opened he saw Ferguson, his one-armed steward, backed by two servant girls, waiting to greet him, their smiles so genuine that he was momentarily drawn from his own thoughts, and not a little moved.

  Ferguson took his hand and murmured, ‘God bless you, sir. It is a fine thing to have you back home again.’

  Bolitho smiled. ‘Not for long this time. But thank you.’

  He saw Ferguson’s wife, plump and rosy cheeked in her white cap and spotless apron, scurrying to greet him, her face torn between pleasure and tears as she curtsied and said, ‘Never a warning, sir! But for Jack, the exciseman, we’d not have known you were back! He saw your topsails when the mist lifted and rode here to tell us.’

  ‘Things have changed, Ferguson.’ Bolitho removed his hat and walked through the high entrance, aware of the cool stone, the ageless textures of oak panelling which shone dully in the filtered sunlight. ‘There was a time when the young men of Falmouth could smell a King’s ship before it topped the horizon.’

  Ferguson looked away. ‘Not many young men left now, sir. Those not in safe jobs have all been taken or volunteered.’ He followed him into the broad room with its empty fireplace and tall leather-backed chairs.

  It was very quiet here too, as if the whole house was holding its breath.

  Ferguson said, ‘I will fetch you a glass, sir.’ He gestured to his wife and the two servant girls behind Bolitho’s back. ‘You’ll be wanting some time alone on your first hour…’

  Bolitho did not turn. ‘Thank you.’ He heard the door close behind him and then moved to the foot of the staircase, the wall of which was lined with the paintings of all the others who had lived here before him. So familiar. Nothing had changed, and yet…

  The stairs creaked as he climbed slowly past the watching portraits. Captain Daniel Bolitho, his great-great-grandfather, who had fought the French at Bantry Bay. Captain David Bolitho, his great-grandfather, depicted here on the deck of a blazing ship, who had died fighting pirates off the African coast. Where the stairs turned to the right old Denziel Bolitho, his grandfather, the only member of the family to reach the rank of rear-admiral, waited to greet him like a friend. Bolitho could still remember him, or thought he could, from the days when he had sat on his knee as a small child. But maybe it was his father’s stories about him and the familiar picture which he really recalled. He paused and looked directly at the last portrait.

  His father had been younger when the portrait had been finished. Straight-backed, level-eyed, with the empty sleeve pinned across his coat, an afterthought of the painter after he had lost an arm in India. Captain James Bolitho. It was difficult to remember him as he had looked on their last meeting so many years back when he had told Bolitho of his other son’s disgrace. Hugh, the apple of his eye, who had killed a brother officer in a duel before fleeing to America to fight against his own country in the Revolution.

  Bolitho sighed deeply. They were all dead. Even Hugh, whose deceptions had finally ended in death before his own eyes. A death which was still a secret he could share with no one. Hugh’s record of failure and deception would stay a secret, and his memory rest in peace if he had anything to do with it.

  Ferguson called from the foot of the stairs, ‘I have put the glass by the window, sir. Some claret.’ He paused uncertainly before adding, ‘In your bedroom, sir.’ He sounded ill at ease. ‘They were to have been a surprise, but had not been finished at the time of your last visit…’ His voice trailed away as. Bolitho walked quickly to the door at the end of the landing and pushed it open.

  For a moment longer he could see no change. The four-poster bed held in a shaft of dappled sunlight from the windows. The tall mirror where she must have sat to comb her hair when he had been away… he felt his throat go dry as he turned to see the two new pictures on the far wall. It was just as if she was alive again, here in this room where she had waited in vain for his return. He wanted to move closer but was afraid, afraid the spell might break. The artist had even caught the sea-green in her eyes, the rich chestnut of her long hair. And the smile. He took a slow step towards it. The smile was perfect. Gentle, amused, the way she had looked at him whenever she had been near.

  A step sounded in the doorway and Ferguson said quietly, ‘She wanted them together, sir.’

  Bolitho looked at the other portrait for the first time. He was depicted wearing his old dress coat, the one with the broad white lapels which Cheney had liked so much.

  He said huskily, ‘Thank you. It was good of you to remember her wishes.’

  Then he walked quickly to the window and leaned over the warm sill. There, just round the hill, he could see the glittering horizon line. What she would have seen from this same window. Once he might have been saddened, even angry, that Ferguson had put the pictures here. To remind him of her, and his loss. He would have been wrong, and now as he stood with his palms resting on the sill he felt strangely at peace. For the first time that he could recall for a long while.

  Below in the yard an old gardener peered up and waved his battered hat but he did not see him.

  He stepped back into the room and turned once more towards the portraits. They were reunited here. Cheney had seen to that, and nothing could take them apart any more. When he was back at sea again, perhaps on the other side of the world, he would be able to think of this room. The portraits side by side, watching the horizon together.

  He said, ‘That claret will be warm by now. I’ll come down directly.’

  Later as he sat at the big desk, writing several letters to be carried to the port officials and chandlers, he thought about all that had happened here in this house. What would become of it when he died? There was only his young nephew, Adam Pascoe, Hugh’s illegitimate son, left to claim the Bolitho inheritance. He was away serving with Captain Thomas Herrick at the moment, but Bolitho decided he would soon do something for the boy to make sure of his rightful ownership of this house. His mouth hardened. Much as he loved his sister Nancy, he would never allow her husband, a Falmouth magistrate and one of the biggest landowners in the county, to get his hands on it.

  Ferguson appeared again, his face set in a frown.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir, but there’s a man to see you. He is most insistent.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘I have never laid eyes on him before. A seafaring fellow, there’s no doubt of that, but no officer or gentleman, I’m equally sure!’

  Bolitho smiled. It was hard to recall Ferguson as the man who had once been brought aboard his ship Pbalarope by the pressgang, he and Allday together, poles apart it had appeared at the time. Yet they had become firm friends, and even when Ferguson had lost an arm at the Saintes he had continued to serve Bolitho here as his steward. Like Allday, he seemed to have that same protective attitude when anything uncertain or unusual was about to occur.

  He said, ‘Show him in. He’ll not be too dangerous, I think.’

  Ferguson ushered the visitor through the doors and closed them with obvious reluctance. He would be waiting within a foot of the entrance, Bolitho guessed, just in case.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  The man was thickset a
nd muscular, well tanned and with hair fashioned into a pigtail. He was wearing a coat which was far too small for him, and Bolitho imagined it had been borrowed to cover up his true identity. For there was no mistaking his broad white trousers and buckled shoes. Even if he had been stark naked he would have known him to be a sailor.

  ‘I begs yer pardon for the liberty, sir.’ He knuckled his forehead while his eyes moved quickly tound the room. ‘Me name’s Taylor, master’s mate o’ th’ Auriga, sir.’

  Bolitho watched him calmly. He had a faint North Country burr, and was obviously nervous. A deserter hoping for mercy, or a place to hide in another ship? It was not unknown for such men to run back to the one and only world where they might be safe with any sort of luck. Yet there was something vaguely familiar about him.

  Taylor added quickly, ‘I was with you in th’ Sparrow, sir. Back in seventy-nine in th’ West Indies.’ He watched Bolitho anxiously. ‘I was maintopman then, sir.’

  Bolitho nodded slowly. ‘Of course, I remember you now.’ In the little sloop Sparrow, his first-ever command, when he had been just twenty-three, and the world had seemed a place for reckless enjoyment and unbounded ambition.

  ‘We ’eard you was back sir.’ Taylor was speaking rapidly. ‘An’ because o’ me knowin’ you like, I was chosen to come.’ He smiled bitterly. ‘I thought as I’d ’ave to borrow a boat or swim to yer ship. You comin’ ashore so soon made things easier like.’ He dropped his eyes under Bolitho’s gaze.

  ‘Are you in trouble, Taylor?’

  He looked up, his eyes suddenly defensive. ‘That will depend on you, sir. I was chosen to speak with you, an’, an’, knowin’ you as a fair an’ just captain, sir, I thought maybe you’d listen to…’

  Bolitho stood up and studied him calmly. ‘Your ship, where is she lying?’

  Taylor jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘’Long the coast to th’ east’rd, sir.’ Something like pride crossed his tanned face. ‘Frigate, thirty-six, sir.’