Relentless Pursuit

by Alexander Kent

  Galbraith moved occasionally from one side of the quarterdeck to the other, and was surprised that it could still hold him, move him, after all the watches he had worked, all the sea miles logged. A ship at her best. He looked up and through the rigging at the batlike shadows of the topsails, barely moving in a soft, steady breeze. No moon, but the stars stretched from horizon to horizon. He smiled to himself. And he was not yet used to it.

  He glanced at the helmsmen, one at the wheel, the other standing by. Joshua Cristie, the master, took no chances; he had only just gone below himself. It was as if it was his ship. Like the gun captains he had watched at the drills. Possessive, resentful of unnecessary interference. He had spoken about the new midshipmen, one in particular, the youngest. Cristie had been instructing them, taking the noon sights, and it would be some time before they satisfied him. Of Midshipman Hawkins he had remarked, “Should be at home playing with his toy soldiers! Did you see the sextant his parents gave him? A beauty. Not something for a twelve-year-old child to cut his teeth on!”

  Galbraith had said, “You were about that age yourself when you were packed off to sea, or have you forgotten?”

  Cristie had been unmoved. “That was different. Very different. For us.”

  He felt the deck tremble and saw the wheel move slightly. The helmsman was watching the little dogvane, a tiny pointer made of cork and feathers perched on the weather side of the quarter-deck rail. On a dark night and with such light airs, the dogvane was a trained helmsman’s only guide to the wind’s direction.

  Trained: that summed it up, he thought. Like the drills, sails and rigging, guns and boatwork. It took time for raw recruits. It was different for the old hands, like that brute Campbell, and the gun captain he had seen glaring at Sandell behind his back; they might not see the point of it any more, now that there was no real enemy to face and fight, no cause to recognise, no matter how uncertain.

  It could change tomorrow. They had already seen it for themselves, when Napoleon had broken out of his cage on Elba. He glanced at the dimly lit skylight; the captain was still awake. Probably thinking about it too. His uncle had been killed then. A cross on a chart, nothing more. No better and no worse, he had said of Unrivalled’s company. Galbraith thought of Varlo’s comment about a captain’s responsibility. Why should that have touched me as it did? Varlo never seemed to make casual remarks. Everything had to matter, to reflect.

  He lifted a telescope from its rack and levelled it across the empty nettings.

  Over his shoulder he said quietly, “We’ll warn the middle watch, Mr Deighton. Those lights are fishermen, if I’m not mistaken.” He heard the midshipman murmur something. Tiny lights on the water, miles away, like fireflies, almost lost among the stars. It would be a safe bet to say that every one of them would already know about Unrivalled’s steady approach. He added, “Remind me to make a note in the log.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  He liked Deighton, what he knew of him. He had more than proved his worth in battle, and the captain had remarked on it.

  Galbraith put it from his thoughts. As my captain wrote of me when I was recommended for command.

  He heard the midshipman speaking to the boatswain’s mate of the watch, and he thought of what he had seen during the dog watches when Deighton had gone aloft with the young landman who had been terrified.

  Nobody else took much notice, but Galbraith had watched and remembered his own first time, going aloft in a Channel gale. He smiled. A million years ago.

  And he had seen them return to the deck. They had climbed only to the foretop, and had avoided the puttock shrouds which left a man hanging out over the sea or the deck below, with only fingers and toes to keep him from falling.

  A voice murmured, “Cap’n’s coming up, sir.”

  Some would never tell an officer, warn him. When it came down to it, it was all you had to prove your worth.

  He was surprised to see the captain coatless, his shirt blowing open in the soft wind.

  The helmsman reported, “Sou’-sou’-east, sir!”

  Galbraith waited, sensing the energy, the restlessness of the man, as if it was beyond his control. Driving him. Driving him.

  Adam said, “A fine night. The wind holds steady enough.” He turned to look abeam and Galbraith saw the locket glint in the compass light. He could see it in his mind. The bare shoulders, the dark, challenging eyes. Why did he wear it, when Sir Richard’s flag lieutenant, Avery, had brought it to him? Before he himself had been killed, on this deck.

  The captain would be about his own age, and the lovely woman was older, beyond his reach, if that was the force which was tearing him apart.

  Adam said, “Call all hands at first light. I expect this ship to look her best. If and when we are given the time I want more boat drill. The waters we are intended for are not suitable for a man-of-war.”

  Galbraith waited. He was thinking ahead. Going over his orders again, sifting all the reasons, and the things unsaid. For the Captain’s discretion.

  Adam said suddenly, “I was pleased about young Deighton’s work today. A good example. God knows, some of these poor devils have little enough to sustain them.” He turned and Galbraith could almost feel his eyes in the darkness. “I’ll not stand for petty tyranny, Leigh. Attend to it as you see fit.”

  Galbraith heard his shoes crossing to the companion-way. He missed nothing. But what was driving him, when most captains would have been asleep at this hour?

  He was pacing the deck when the middle watch came aft.

  He noticed that the cabin skylight was still glowing, and his question remained unanswered.

  4 OBSESSION

  FRANK RIST, Unrivalled’s senior master’s mate, pressed one hand on the sill of an open port and stared at the colour and reflected movement of Funchal harbour. He had visited Madeira several times, a place always ready with a bargain to tempt the sailor-man, even if the price doubled at the first sign of a King’s ship.

  He felt the heat of the timber through his palm, something he never tired of, and smiled as a boat loaded with brightly painted pottery hovered abeam, apparently deaf to the bellowed warnings to stand clear from one of Captain Luxmore’s “bullocks.”

  He withdrew his head into the chartroom and waited for his eyes to accept the gloom of the low deckhead after the glare off the water. He rubbed them with his knuckles and tried to shrug it off. It was when he looked at a chart in uncertain light, or by the glow of a small lamp on the quarterdeck during the night watches that he noticed it most. Like most sailors Rist was used to staring into great distances, taking the bearing of some headland or hill, or gauging the final approach to an anchorage like this morning.

  He heard the first lieutenant’s footsteps overhead and the shrill of a call as another hoist of stores was hauled inboard, the purser doubtless counting every item and checking it against a list, as if it was all coming out of his own pocket.

  Unrivalled suited him, despite the gaps in her complement, and the new hands who were either old Jacks who had volunteered for a further commission, or those totally untrained in the ways of the sea like the youth Ede, who was quietly clearing up the chart space as if the ship was still out of sight of land, or he was afraid of making contact with those people and boats out there in the harbour.

  Ede was so young, and it troubled Rist when he considered it.

  He was a good master’s mate and the senior of the ship’s three. He tried to push it aside. He was also one of the oldest men in the company. Rist was forty-two years old, twenty-eight of which had been spent at sea in one sort of ship or another. He had done well, better than most, but he had to face it, unless old Cristie was offered another appointment or dropped dead, any hope of promotion was remote. And now his sight. It was common enough in sailors. He clenched his fist. But not now.

  He glanced at the youth, still so pale despite the sun which had greeted their course south of Biscay. Neat, almost delicate hands, more like a girl’s than a youn
gster going to sea for the first time. He could read and write, and had been an apprentice at some instrument maker’s shop in Plymouth or nearby.

  In the navy it was usually better not to know too much of a man’s past. It was what he did now, how he stood for or against the things which really mattered in a man-of-war. When it came down to it, the loyalty and courage of your mates counted more than anything. Rist looked around the chartroom. Old Cristie’s second home. You could still smell the paint and pitch from the repairs after that last savage battle.

  He stared through the port again. There was a Spanish frigate at anchor nearby. She had dipped her ensign when Unrivalled had glided past her. Hard to accept, to get used to. He shook his head. Such a short while ago and their young firebrand of a captain would have beaten to quarters and had the guns run out before the poor Spaniards had finished their siesta!

  It was strange. But it was what he did best. He thought about the rumours and the endless gossip in the mess. To most of them slavery was just a word. Others saw it as a possibility for prize-money, even slave bounty, or so the lower deck lawyers insisted.

  Rist had already considered something else. If Unrivalled was to be involved, which seemed unlikely at close quarters, there might be prizes. Any such capture would require a prize-master.

  It was hard not to consider it. Captain Bolitho could not spare a lieutenant for the task, and the midshipmen were either too young or incompetent. It would be the one chance he needed. He could see no other.

  He turned and exclaimed, “If the master sees you handling that, he’ll hang your guts out to dry, my lad!”

  Ede looked at him across the sextant, which he had been about to place in its well-worn case.

  He said, almost shyly, “I used to work with these, sir. A Parsons model, one of the earliest I ever saw.”

  In the sudden silence Rist saw the pain in his eyes, and wondered how it had all gone wrong. Attempted murder, they said. Youth and something else had saved him from the gibbet. Rist pushed it aside. It happened. Ede was paying the price for whatever it was. After all, you didn’t ask forgiveness when you were trying to hack out an enemy’s guts with dirk or cutlass!

  He asked, “What about magnifying glasses? For chart work and that sort of thing.” He turned away. Far enough, you idiot.

  But Ede said, “I can repair them, sir. I made some once for my . . .” His employer, he had nearly said. The man he had stabbed almost to death.

  Rist nodded. “I’ll speak to the first lieutenant. Can’t promise anything, but we could find work for you here.” He added scathingly, “Anything to keep some snotty blowhard out from under my feet!”

  He did not mention Sandell. He did not need to.

  Rist was thinking of Galbraith, how they had been together in that raid off the African coast, the exploding charges, the chebecks like fireballs while they had floundered to safety. He liked the first lieutenant; they got on well. Galbraith would be thinking much the same about his own dwindling chances of promotion. Others seemed to get it as if it were their right. Or because they knew somebody . . .

  He heard the bell chime from the forecastle, and thought of the rum which would soon be served in the warrant officers’ mess. After that, he had been ordered to take a boat ashore and stay in company with the captain’s new clerk, a strange old bird if ever there was one. But afterwards, if he could find the house, if it was still there, he might seek a little pleasure with one of the girls.

  He was forty-two, but told himself that he did not look it.

  Adam glanced through the open port again, at another vessel which was swinging to her anchor, to make a perfect twin with her reflection.

  A Portuguese flag; it was a joke when you thought about it. All the big powers beating the drum about banning slavery, Portugal most of all.

  He gave a wry smile. And yet they shipped more black ivory than any one.

  He looked at his hands in the dusty sunlight.

  Slavers, then. He turned away. And I was one of them.

  Captain Adam Bolitho climbed through Unrivalled’s entry port and paused to raise his hat to the quarterdeck, and the flag which hung so limply that it was scarcely moving. As he walked past the side-party he felt the sweat run down his spine and gather above his belt, and yet despite the busy afternoon ashore, the rituals of meeting the Governor and clearing the ship to take on supplies and fresh water, he felt strangely alert. Perhaps it was just being back on board, something he knew and trusted.

  Like the faces around him, some so familiar they could have been aboard since the ship had first run up her colours, when the world had been so very different. For all of us. Yet he knew that several of them had only joined at Penzance, mere days ago. Were they regretting it? An impulse, seeking something they had believed lost?

  Galbraith greeted him and said, “Fresh water will be brought out by lighters in the forenoon tomorrow, sir.” His strong features were full of questions, but he added only, “Two hands for punishment, sir.” It sounded like an apology. “Working on the jetty, drunk. There was a fight.”

  Adam glanced past him, feeling the heat striking down through the taut rigging, the neatly furled sails. “Who was in charge?”

  “Mr Midshipman Fielding, sir. He is usually very good in such matters. He is young . . .”

  “All the more reason why he should be respected, not abused because of it.”

  Fielding, the midshipman who had once awakened him from a dream. That same dream. Another memory.

  He said, “Deal with it when we are at sea.” He shaded his eyes to study the other anchored ships nearby. Mostly small local craft, they would have no difficulty clearing the harbour even with a light breeze. He thought of the people he had seen on the waterfront. The watching faces, interested, indifferent, it was impossible to tell. Like some Spanish officers from the visiting frigate; there had been a group of them waiting for their boat by the stairs. They had doffed their hats; a couple of them had smiled politely. Was it really so simple, so easy to forget, to wipe out the madness, the ferocity of battle which they had all suffered? Could I?

  He saw Partridge, the barrel-chested boatswain, giving instructions to one of his mates. A flogging, then. Partridge would never even question it. When it came down to it, the Articles of War and a thin line of marines was the final extent of a captain’s authority.

  He turned his head, missing something Galbraith was saying.

  It was Partridge, big fists on his hips, an amused grin on his sun-reddened face.

  “She may ’ave a fancy Portuguese name, my son, but I knows ’er of old!” He seemed to realise that Adam was listening and explained, “The brigantine over yonder, sir. The old Rebecca as she was in them days. First tasted salt water in Brixham.”

  Adam stared over his massive shoulder. Like the flaw in the pattern, the face in the crowd which is so easily missed.

  “You’re certain?”

  Parker, one of the boatswain’s mates, grinned. “Never forgets, sir!”

  Partridge seemed to realise it was not merely idle comment. He said, “My father worked at the yard in Brixham, sir. There was money trouble, and someone else paid for Rebecca to be completed.” His eyes sharpened. “The rig I remembers most. The extra trys’l. Rare, unless you’ve got spare ’ands to manage ’em. She were in all kinds o’ trouble, even had a run-in with the Revenue boys. Then she vanished out o’ Brixham. Disappeared.” He looked around at their faces. “Till now.”

  Galbraith said, “She’s taken on no stores since we anchored, sir. And she’s unloaded none, either. Time in harbour costs money. Unless . . .”

  Adam touched his sleeve. “Come aft with me.” He looked across the water again. Perhaps it was meant to be. Or maybe he needed to delude himself. There was no mail or message for Unrivalled. Nothing. So why had he noticed the black-hulled brigantine? Even the name Albatroz across her counter, when the gig had pulled him back to the ship.

  “You’ve a good memory, Mr Partridge. It may
be a great help.”

  Partridge rubbed his chin and said, “Well, she’s not in ballast, sir. My guess is she’ll be up an’ away before dawn. I could take a party o’ picked men an’ go over . . .”

  He looked down, surprised as his captain gripped his arm.

  “A Portuguese ship, in a Portuguese harbour, Mr Partridge? It goes beyond our powers. Some might even say it is what certain people are expecting, hoping we might do.” He smiled suddenly. “But we shall see, eh?”

  Galbraith followed him aft beneath the poop, saw him glance at the nearest ladder as if he had remembered something.

  Adam said, “Call all hands early, Leigh. Mr Partridge may be right. I want to work clear of the anchorage as soon as possible. We shall use boats to warp her out if need be.” He gave that rare smile again. “My orders state quite clearly, with all despatch. So be it, then.”

  He entered his cabin and hesitated. “There was no mail for the ship, Leigh, new or old. It will doubtless catch up with us one day!” The smile would not return. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a letter to write.”

  He walked to the stern windows and stared at the nearest ships and the waterfront beyond them. On his way to pay his respects to the Governor he had seen a little stall; it could hardly be called a shop. But it had reminded him of the one in Malta, where on a reckless impulse he had purchased the small silver sword with the single word Destiny engraved on the reverse. Like some mindless, lovesick midshipman. But she had taken it, and had worn it. With him and for him.

  And she had been here, in this ship. In this cabin.

  He sat down and pulled open his shirt to cool his body.

  Destiny. Perhaps that, too, was another dream.

  Daniel Yovell laid down his pen by its little well and tugged out a handkerchief to mop his brow. It looked soiled and crumpled, but he was an old enough hand to appreciate the value of fresh water, no matter what size the ship.

  He had heard the familiar slap of feet overhead, the bark of orders, the response of squealing blocks and sun-taut cordage. He had always allowed it to remain a mystery, something outside his own daily life. Even here in the great cabin it was stiflingly hot, the deck barely moving, the shadows angled across the beams and frames, unchanged.