Relentless Pursuit

by Alexander Kent

  A fresh attack was already being planned, by a fleet this time, and a born fighter, Lord Exmouth, had already been selected to command it, if rumour was to be believed. But Rhodes would not forget. Like an evil web. Rhodes’ cousin had died in an asylum, driven mad by the syphilis which had destroyed his chance to be Sir Richard’s flag captain in Frobisher. Keen frowned. It had all been buried. Rhodes had seen to that. But he would never forget.

  And the admiral whose son had been a midshipman under Adam’s first lieutenant during his first and only command . . . The youth had caused the death of a seaman, and Galbraith had put him ashore to await an enquiry. That too had been buried, and the midshipman appointed to another ship, forgotten. Except by his father. But Galbraith would never get another ship of his own now, unless some miracle happened. He recalled the intensity of Adam’s eyes, his plea for Galbraith. As a captain, in these circumstances, would I have done it?

  He heard a door open, the rustle of her gown against the furniture, and felt her hand on his arm. So much a part of it. And now there was the child to consider.

  She asked, “Have you seen her yet, Val?”

  Few called him that. Only Richard and his Catherine, and Zenoria.

  He covered her hand with his own and smiled. “Is it so obvious, Gilia?”

  She looked toward the sea. That, too, she could share. She had sailed many miles with her father, a renowned ship designer. It was good that he was not here to see all those fine vessels, like veterans begging on the streets.

  “He will be all right, Val. I feel it.”

  “I know. One of our best frigate captains, and a fighter.” He tried to dismiss it. Adam would have to learn. We all did. “I am no longer sure myself any more.”

  He felt her fingers tighten on his arm. “Look, Val, there she is!”

  They waited in silence, watching the cruising patterns of whitecaps, hearing that same wind probe beneath the eaves of Boscawen House.

  And there she stood, her topsails and courses almost pink in the fading light.

  Adam was taking advantage of the wind to carry him clear of the headland before he set more canvas. Even from here the occasional feathers of spray were visible, bursting up and over her beakhead and jib sails. But Keen saw it all with great clarity, as if he were there. The lovely figurehead, the naked girl with her hands locked behind her head and mane of hair, her breasts thrusting toward the horizon.

  He would have liked to have seen the anchor break from the ground and rise swiftly to her cathead. There would probably have been a fiddler, keeping time for the stamping feet, some inexperienced, on that slippery planking.

  As we did together so many times, so many seas. The greatest moment, until the landfall.

  Some out there would be feeling the first pangs of regret. It would be Christmas before they knew it . . .

  He could feel her hand gripping his arm, and knew what she was thinking. That they were together, and with God’s grace she would never have to watch his ship leaving like this. Never knowing when or if he would return. Like so many others. Like Richard and Catherine.

  And now Adam, who was alone.

  There were more voices. Intruders.

  “I’ll go down, Val. You stay a while longer.”

  He hugged her. She always knew. Just as she had taken over this great house as if she had been bred to it.

  He looked again. “No, Unrivalled’s cleared the Point. Adam will be eager to make more sail now.”

  They walked arm in arm to the door, past the great dark paintings of ships at war, smoke, flames and proud flags. But no pain, no blood. The vice-admiral, the youngest since Nelson, and his lovely wife, ready and prepared for another kind of duty.

  But once, as the wind rattled a shutter, Keen did look back, although he knew that Unrivalled was now out of sight.

  And he was with her.

  2 THE FINEST IN THE FLEET

  CAPTAIN Adam Bolitho loosened the collar of his heavy boatcloak and tugged his hat down more firmly on his dark hair as he paused at the street corner. To recover his bearings or to prepare himself, he was not certain which.

  The wind off Mounts Bay was still like ice, but had dropped considerably since Unrivalled had made her final approach two days earlier, buffeted this way and that, her reefed canvas cracking and banging in protest. It had been a relief to hear the anchor splash down, and see the town of Penzance, bright and sharp in the wintry glare.

  A relief, or a warning? He shook himself angrily. He would go through with it. He could hear his coxswain breathing heavily, as if unused to the exercise and the steep ascent from the harbour. Curious or secretly amused, it was hard to tell with Luke Jago, the man who had always hated the navy in general, and officers in particular. And yet he was still here; after the fighting and the madness of battle, he had stayed. And he was a friend, a good one.

  Adam turned as two young boys ran past, one carrying a crudely fashioned model boat, the other a pirate’s flag, laughing and pushing each other, without a care in the world on this bitter forenoon with Christmas only a week away.

  One paused, staring at the two blue-clad figures, hats tilted against the wind.

  He called, “You want a good ship, Cap’n, zur?”

  Jago shook his fist. “Little buggers!” And they both ran off.

  Adam gazed after them, seeing himself. More ghosts . . .

  Like this street, so strange and yet so familiar. He had almost expected to see faces, hear voices he knew. He should turn and leave right now. Galbraith was ashore with his recruiting parties, not an enviable task at the best of times. Everybody remembered the press gangs, men being snatched from the streets, even from their homes, if an officer was afraid to return to his captain empty-handed.

  Like Falmouth, Penzance lived off and from the sea: you could smell the fish, and on hot days the nets hanging out to dry. Hemp, tar, and always the sea. Waiting.

  He had been only a boy like those who had just passed when he had left Penzance, clutching a scrap of paper which he was to give to the people he must find in Falmouth. He had never returned, except once, when he had ridden here on one of the Bolitho estate’s horses, twenty miles from Falmouth and back again. As that young boy, the twenty miles had been endless and punishing. And two days ago, with the proud silhouette of St Michael’s Mount across the starboard bow, he had returned once more. Not the nervous boy, but as the captain of a frigate.

  He thought of the orders he had received almost as soon as Unrivalled’s anchor had hurled spray over the beakhead. So why waste time? Why rouse the old doubts and painful memories?

  He turned, and was about to speak when he saw the tall steeple, clear and sharp against the washed-out sky. St Mary’s Chapel. Like feeling a hand on the shoulder . . . He remembered hearing the old men talk about that steeple, so fine and slender, so delicate on this storm-lashed coast of England. They used to wager on its chances when every new season of gales arrived. The old men were long dead. St Mary’s Chapel and its steeple were still standing.

  There were not many people about. It was market day, so most of those who ventured out would be hunting for bargains in Jew Market Street.

  “This way.” He glanced at the nearby houses, small details apparent, recalling what he had heard, and what his mother had told him in childhood. Ships had come to Penzance to load cargoes of copper, tin and granite. They had frequently come from Holland, and unloaded their ballast of Dutch sandstone before their return voyages. Nothing was wasted, and even now he saw the facings of houses built with Dutch sandstone and not the usual granite.

  On his way from the harbour he had seen few of the notices Galbraith had posted. Some had been torn down, others removed perhaps as souvenirs. He had caught the glances too: this was a seaport, and every one would know of the powerful frigate lying at her cable. Looking for men. Had it ever been different? And they would know he was her captain.

  He should have remembered that it was market day, a most unlikely time for a man
to sign his life away in a King’s ship. And an army recruiting party had been here also; he had seen a sergeant outside one of the local inns, persuading men who had already drunk too much ale for their own safety to make their marks, to be gone for a soldier.

  Galbraith had found twenty new hands so far, almost half of them from the local magistrate’s court. Better than prison or deportation, seemed to be their reasoning. Reality might come as something of a shock. He had heard Cristie the sailing master say scornfully, “Gallows bait, the whole lot of ’em!”

  He stopped outside the church and looked up at the weather vane. South-easterly wind. Perfect for sailing. Leaving here.

  Jago hesitated and then removed his hat as Adam stepped through the tall, weather-worn doors. “Shall I come, sir?”

  Adam hardly heard him. “If you wish.”

  The church was empty but for two old women sharing a pew; they both wore the traditional cowls he remembered from his childhood. Young or old, women carried huge baskets of fish, supported by strengthened bands around their heads, to settlements around the town, or sold it fresh from the sea from little donkeys in the streets. Neither of the women looked up as their shoes rang on the tiled floor.

  Jago paused by a bust of what he supposed was some local dignitary, and watched and waited.

  Adam halted beneath one of the windows and stared at the memorial plaque. He knew now that she had been beautiful. But for years he had remembered only that final day when she had pushed him away, pleading with him to leave her and find his way to Falmouth. Sick, dying, but as always she had put him first. Just as she had sold herself for him. He shivered, aware of the silence, of the streets he had just walked. Like the houses, they seemed so much smaller than he had remembered.

  He reached out impetuously, as Jago had seen him do many times, to a friend, to a subordinate. To me.

  The plaque was plain and simple. Even that had been something of a struggle with the stonemason and the church.

  But it was done.

  In loving memory of Kerenza Pascoe, who died in 1793.

  Waiting for his ship.

  That was all. The most they would condone for a woman of her reputation.

  Adam touched it and smiled. Surprised that it was not diffi-cult.

  “I came, Mother. God bless you.”

  Then he turned and walked toward the doors again.

  Jago glanced at the tablet. No title, no details. Just a woman’s name and something about a ship. He was sometimes glad that his father had forced him to learn to read and write when he had been a boy, working in the schooner running out of Dover. With clips around his ears if he did not apply himself. Looking back now, it was all he could find to thank his father for, a bully who had died after falling drunk into a dock. So they said.

  But reading gave you an edge. As the captain’s coxswain he was privileged to walk the decks as much as he chose, to the annoyance, he knew, of some of the senior rates and little squirts like Midshipman Sandell. A glance at the chart or one of the log books kept him informed. When, where, how. Some of the hands aboard ship were just ignorant hawbucks, bumpkins; the ship could be on the moon for all they knew.

  He thought of the two old women at prayer, fishwives as they were called round here, and wondered what comfort it gave them. He had heard prayers at sea, when some poor Jack was stitched up in his hammock and tipped over the side like so much rubbish. Where was the sense in that?

  He felt the breeze across his face as they stepped on to the street once more and saw the captain square his shoulders, but not, he guessed, against the wind.

  The woman who was remembered in the church had been Captain Bolitho’s mother. Jago knew much of the story, and guessed the rest. Bolitho was a lucky man. A good family, and an uncle who would live in sailors’ legends as long as Nelson, some said. But lucky above all else. He had risked his ship, his reputation, maybe his career by flying in the face of an admiral’s orders, and all because of that woman they had carried in Unrivalled. He had seen her crossing swords, and glances, with the captain.

  And lucky to have a ship, with the navy being cut down in numbers daily, their companies thrown ashore to fend as best they could. Until the next bloody war, he thought. Then it would be soft words and the like, to get poor Jack back to sea again.

  He looked up at the houses as they walked. Most captains would try to forget their pasts if it left a gap in their defences. Like Sir Richard and his lady, and his brother who had deserted the navy to fight for the Americans, Hugh Bolitho, who had fathered Unrivalled’s captain. The last of the family, they said.

  But not this one. He shied away from any sort of unfounded trust; it was something he could never accept.

  Adam Bolitho had taken him to the church with him. And for some reason, it mattered.

  They had reached a place where the sea opened up to greet them again, like polished pewter, hard on the eyes, Adam thought, even for men like Unrivalled’s most experienced lookout, Joseph Sullivan, whose uncanny skill had found him the Triton. Sullivan was one of the older hands, respected by everyone, not least because he had been at Trafalgar, although he rarely spoke of it, and Adam was grateful that he had stayed with the ship.

  Sullivan had regarded him with those clear eyes, like the eyes of a much younger man looking out of his weathered face.

  “Where else would I go, Cap’n?”

  And there was the ship, like glass from this vantage point. Strange to think that Bellairs, the youngest lieutenant, was the only officer aboard until the recruiting venture was over and the anchor was hove short again. Doing what he had always dreamed of. Like most of us. Luck, dead men’s shoes, who could say? Massie, the second lieutenant, had been killed. The third lieutenant, Daniel Wynter, had left the ship to follow his late father into politics. The member of Parliament had always hated his son’s career in the navy and had made no secret of it. In death he had apparently succeeded in getting his own way.

  The new lieutenant, Varlo, seemed experienced and came from a naval background. He had also been flag lieutenant for a few months to a rear-admiral at the Nore.

  Galbraith had had little to say about him, other than mentioning his duties. He was keeping his distance until matters had settled down. As his captain had once tried to do.

  It was impossible.

  Adam turned and stared at the ship until his eyes watered. He should have remained on board. There was more than enough for him to do before sailing. So why . . . ?

  He heard Jago say casually, “Now who’s this, then?”

  Something in the tone, even the suggestion of a hand loosening the short, wide-bladed dirk he always wore. A hint of danger, like those other times. But he was mistaken. There was no threat in the two figures who were waiting by a pair of opened gates.

  The man was tall, and well built, but for the way he twisted his shoulders. About his own age, but wearing an eye patch which did not conceal the terrible scar that clawed down his face and neck. One eye must have been torn out, and the flesh opened to the bone. He had only one arm.

  His companion was a young woman, who wore a cap and apron. She was holding the man’s arm, and her face was hostile.

  Jago said, “What is it, matey?” He stood as if very relaxed, one hand resting on his belt.

  The man took half a pace forward and tried to say something. His voice was confused, almost strangled, but he would not stop.

  The girl cut in, “I said you should stay away! They don’t care! I told you!” But she was sobbing, the anger a mask for something else.

  Adam said, “It’s all right. My fault—I was many miles away just then.”

  He moved nearer, but felt as if he were frozen to this place. A man of his own age, crippled, half-blind, barely able to speak. Not just a survivor, but a victim.

  He said quietly, “John Powers, foretopman.” He held out his right hand, but changed it to suit the one-armed man.

  The head twisted round still further, so that the eye seemed to f
ill his face. Then he spoke, slowly, with painful gaps between each word, and all the while the girl held his arm, watching his face, sharing the anguish, as she must do every day.

  “Not . . . killed . . . sir.” He nodded slowly, remembering it, seeing it. “I . . . was . . . told you . . . was . . . ’ere.” There were more deep scars on his throat. “ . . . ’Ad . . . to . . . come . . . an’ . . . be sure . . .”

  Adam said to Jago, “John Powers served in my Anemone, when we lost to the Yankee. A day I’ll never forget.”

  The girl reached up to brush her companion’s hair from his face.

  She pleaded, “Let’s get back, Johnny. They will be lookin’ fer us, eh?”

  Adam said, “Where do you work?”

  She gestured over her shoulder. “At the inn. We got a place to sleep. Don’t need nobody else!”

  The crippled man, who had been one of the best topmen in Anemone’s company, said, “Wash . . . pots . . . an’ . . . things . . . sir.”

  Adam put his hand to his pocket but she snapped, “I brung ’em, cause he wanted it! We don’t need yer money, sir!”

  She dragged him round and pushed him towards the opened gates. From a small window Adam could see faces watching, tankards poised with interest.

  The man named Powers tried again. “Anemone was the finest in the fleet!” He did not stammer once.

  Jago stared after them and then at his captain and shrugged, his hand slipping away from the dirk. “It happens, sir. We’ll always see it. It’s the way of things.” He felt he wanted to reach out, to touch his arm as he had seen him do so often, and reassure him in some way.

  Adam looked at him, his dark hair blowing in the wind although he did not recall having removed his hat.

  “Sometimes we need to be reminded.” He stared up at the old steeple. “Pride.”

  One word. It was all that was needed.

  Lieutenant Galbraith held his hands out to a crackling log fire. It was about noon but he felt as if he had been on his feet for days, and he was tired, frustrated and disappointed. He nodded to the inn’s landlord and took the proferred glass, felt it run like fire across his tongue, and wondered where it had come from. Smugglers would be busier than ever now that the war with France was over. For the moment.