Relentless Pursuit

by Alexander Kent

  Adam relaxed, muscle by muscle. Turnbull was letting him know how well informed he was about all those under his command. And from his last remark, it was obvious that he was already thinking of his own next appointment.

  He poured two glasses of wine, while Napier dared to look at the commodore for the first time.

  Turnbull said, “This is a fine ship, Bolitho. Your record matches it, I believe. A frigate will bring you fame, but beyond that, I’m not so sure.” He sipped the wine and smiled gently. “You put into Funchal, I see. Fair, I’d say, but a mite too sweet for my taste.” He changed tack again. “When we return to Freetown we shall be busy. The new Crown Agent should have arrived, and I intend to impress on him the need to carry out some sharp attacks on the various collecting areas. The trade is thriving, the prices are going higher by the day, and some of the traders are making it worse by bribing local chiefs to get the slaves for them.” He looked up, his eyes sharp. “Bribing them with muskets. And you know where that will lead.”

  There was a tap at the door and the sentry shouted, “Midshipman of the watch, sir!”

  Napier hurried to the screen, bare feet soundless on the painted canvas. Turnbull took out his timepiece. It seemed to glow in the cabin, and Adam guessed it was set with diamonds. He would be amused to know that the cabin servant always carried a broken watch, engraved with a little mermaid.

  Quite useless, and yet it seemed to mean everything to the boy. The realisation angered him suddenly. He was being unfair, and as intolerant as his visitor.

  In the same breath he knew how different it was. Not once had Turnbull shown the slightest pity for the murdered slaves and Paradox’s boarding party. The loss of the prize and its potential bounty seemed to matter more to him.

  Midshipman Deighton entered the cabin, his hat under his arm.

  “Mr Galbraith’s respects, sir, and the wind is freshening.” He glanced up as feet thudded overhead. Perhaps remembering what he had seen from the lofty masthead. Was that only yesterday?

  Turnbull said, “I shall require my boat, Bolitho. We don’t want to lose the wind!” He became serious again. “As soon as we clear the land and gain sea room we can pick up the south-east trades. That will knock a few days off the passage.”

  Adam said, “Carry on, Mr Deighton. I shall come up directly. Have the commodore’s boat called alongside.”

  He wondered why Turnbull had not chosen to shift his broad-pendant to Unrivalled for the return passage. It was all a cloak of mystery, some image of dash and daring which he seemed to consider appropriate for his present role.

  The door closed and Turnbull asked casually, “Deighton? His father was killed, wasn’t he? A commodore, too!” He chuckled again. “I shall have to watch myself!”

  At the door he said abruptly, “I would appreciate it if your clerk could complete two copies of your report before we sight Freetown. It will be useful to me, and I expect the new Crown Agent will be concerned to read it when he hears about the boarding party. An act of piracy, no less, which no turtleback at the Foreign Office will dare to ignore, not this time!”

  Adam led the way to the companion ladder, glad he was leaving. Turnbull glanced back towards the deserted wardroom, and once more his eyes missed nothing. Perhaps he was recalling a face or some moment in his past.

  He said, “The Crown Agent is or was a sea officer himself— that’s something in our favour, I hope.”

  He turned again, one perfectly polished shoe poised on the ladder.

  “Name’s Herrick. Rear-Admiral Thomas Herrick—mean anything to you?”

  Adam gripped the handrail to steady himself. Turnbull had not waited for or expected an answer. He already knew.

  On deck again it was still with him, and those who waited by the entry ports or stood smartly aside as he passed wore the faces of others he had known. We Happy Few. Very few now. And Thomas Herrick had been one of the first.

  So many questions, unanswered and unexplained. Like some of Cristie’s calculations, the neat lines on a chart which somehow seemed to convene and join again and again.

  The vessel which had perished, and screaming, trapped men and women left to drown or be savaged by sharks. Tyacke, who had been unable to speak of the memory which still ruled his life, and George Avery who had died because of it. And now Thomas Herrick. Down over the years. My uncle’s best friend.

  He raised his hat to the commodore, and the calls shrilled in salute as the marines presented arms.

  On the face of it, Turnbull should be more than satisfied. An unblemished record, and the seniority to prepare him for the next step to flag rank. When so many others had been cast aside with the running down of the fleet, he had a bright future within his grasp.

  He watched the boat pulling clear. The commodore did not once look astern at Unrivalled.

  Adam replaced his hat, and recalled the two barely touched glasses of Madeira in his cabin.

  Looking back, it was hard to discern the real man beyond the authority.

  All he could recognise was envy.

  7 SECRETS

  UNRIVALLED’S gig came smartly alongside a sagging, sun-blistered pier and hooked on. Luke Jago tilted his hat and stared at the buildings on the waterfront, one of which displayed the Union Flag, with two scarlet-coated marines finding what shade they could inside the arched entrance. Then he glanced at Midshipman Deighton, who was in charge of the gig. He had said nothing more about the bloodstained water, the pathetic fragments, all that remained to mark the scene of the slaughter. He was doing well, and even Jago had to admit to something like admiration. It was as far as he would go.

  He waited while Captain Bolitho climbed on to the pier. In his best frock coat, cocked hat and fresh breeches, he could have been someone else entirely, he thought. The open shirt and scuffed hessian boots belonged elsewhere. Jago hid a grin. Like me.

  Adam said, “Not too far to walk.” He turned to look back at the ship, clean and sharp against the sprawl of merchantmen and busy coastal craft. Awnings and windsails already rigged, some boats lurking nearby to offer their wares, always hopeful.

  Jago watched him, remembering his expression, his change of mood after they had dropped anchor this morning. It had happened after Captain Tyacke’s first lieutenant had come aboard to see him, as if he had judged their arrival to the minute. Then Jago had seen it for himself. Their prize, the Portuguese-owned Albatroz, had gone from Freetown. Released, they said, on some small legal detail, point of law as he had heard Cristie call it. He knew most of Unrivalled’s company had been so certain of their share of the prize-money that they had spent it already in their dreams.

  But it was not that. It was something deeper, more personal. Perhaps he knew the captain better than he realised, and could sense his moods in a way he would never have believed likely. Nor wanted to. Like young Deighton, and his father the commodore who had been killed by one of their own men. They shared it, but it remained private all the same.

  He looked at the people milling along the waterfront. Black, brown, as many colours as the flags in the harbour.

  “I’ll lead the way, sir.” He glanced into the boat as Deighton asked uncertainly, “What shall I do?”

  Jago frowned. “Keep the boat in the shadow, if you can. An’ if any bugger tries to steal somethin’ . . .” He could not keep it up with Deighton. He grinned. “You’ve got a pretty dirk on yer belt, Mr Deighton. Use it!”

  Adam climbed the last of the steps and looked at the town, the dust and the haze rising beyond it like woodsmoke.

  As he had brought Unrivalled up to her anchorage he had seen another vessel already at her moorings; she had probably entered Freetown an hour or so earlier. A brig, sturdy and typical of those which served as maids of all work in the fleet. Tyacke would have seen her too, and been reminded of his first command. As I was of mine. But it was something else. She was a courier brig, most likely from England, her scarred hull and weathered appearance speaking more than words of the seas he knew
so well. Grey, stormy: the enemy. And there were men working aloft on the yards, spreading new canvas, or sending down the remnants from their recent passage to be repaired.

  Courier brig. So there would be mail, for somebody. Men unable to read or write would have the letters recited to them on the messdeck, while others who perhaps never received news from home would sit and listen. Share it.

  He stopped by a tall, dangerous-looking cargo hoist and tried again to come to terms with the thought uppermost in his mind. Tyacke had considered it important enough to send his lieutenant, Raven, across to prepare him. Or to warn me?

  Rear-Admiral Thomas Herrick. To everybody else the name would signify just another flag officer, perhaps not even that.

  But Adam had known Herrick for as long as he could remember. The navy’s way, on and off, like a family. They all said that . . .

  He could not accept that Valentine Keen, now Flag Officer Plymouth, had not known, had not forewarned him. He had served both with Richard Bolitho and Thomas Herrick more times than he could count. And yet, just weeks ago, when he had visited Keen and his wife while Unrivalled was completing repairs at Plymouth, Keen had said nothing. He must have heard about Herrick’s appointment as Crown Agent, so why not mention it? Adam had sensed for a long time that there had been a coolness between the two; Herrick had once put Keen in front of a court of enquiry, which he had bitterly resented. And now their roles were reversed. Keen outranked Herrick, and still had several avenues of advancement before him; there was surely no need for continued animosity.

  He had been, and still was, hurt by the realisation that Valentine Keen had kept it from him. Did rank really reach so far above friendship?

  He was reminded suddenly of his brief visit to Falmouth, when Ferguson had dissuaded him from going over to Fallow-field to see John Allday at the Old Hyperion. In a quiet moment, Ferguson had told him something Allday had said about that day when Richard Bolitho had been marked down by a sharpshooter.

  He had spoken of Allday’s pain when he had been trying to explain his own feelings, how, despite the aftermath of battle, and the people all around them, he and his admiral . . . his friend . . . had been “quite alone.”

  He was going fast, Bryan. Then suddenly he looks up at me an’ asks, where was Herrick? Somehow he expected him to be there, y’ see?

  His oldest friend.

  Adam shook himself free of the memory, and said, “Let’s get it over with, shall we?”

  Jago shrugged. Another mood. He had seen Captain Bolitho like a young lion in the heat of a fight, yet still able to take the hand of a dying man. He had heard him exclaim in a moment of despair, “Can’t they be allowed to die with dignity? Is that so wrong?” And another time, he had heard the catch in his voice when reading over the sea burial of a man he hardly knew.

  He heard the sentries stamp their boots together. Plymouth, Gibraltar, or on the deck of a flagship, the bullocks never changed.

  He smiled. Even in the heat. No sense, no feeling.

  “Captain Bolitho, sir?” A lieutenant had come to greet them, his face set in a practised smile.

  Adam said, “I’ll not be long, Luke.”

  That was the other thing. He would use your name, natural, like a friend, not like an officer at all, let alone a post-captain. As if he really knew you, and that you would never take advantage of it. Not like some. Like most.

  Jago watched him vanish into the shadows of the entrance and glanced around for a suitable place to wait. People would look at the captain and see only the trimmings, he thought. The frigate captain who had everything, who would turn any woman’s head. He thought of the one they called Lady Bazeley, so proud and beautiful. Knew it, too. And when he had seen them together, her half-naked, her robe plastered to her body, he had known there would be more to it. He looked around as two native women walked past, each with a huge basket balanced easily on her head, saw the way they rolled their eyes at the two sweating sentries. Just what the captain needed. He grinned and patted his jacket. He was not the only one.

  Adam followed the lieutenant along a passageway, their heels strangely loud on a tiled floor. An old building, he thought, one accustomed to temporary occupation and function. It was not hard to imagine this place when there had been only the sea and jungle for company. Who had come first? Traders, and merchants, missionaries perhaps? Eventually the military would arrive to protect them. It had happened many times. The traders and missionaries might leave; the military and the flag always remained.

  “Here, sir.” The lieutenant opened a door and announced, “Captain Bolitho, sir.” In a quieter, almost confidential tone he added, “About ten minutes, sir.”

  As the door closed behind him Adam found himself in semi-darkness, or so it seemed after the walk from the landing stage.

  A long, narrow room, with a window filling most of one wall. It was heavily shuttered, the slats tilted to allow a minimum of sunlight, so that he had to stand motionless for several seconds to find his bearings. Then he saw Rear-Admiral Thomas Herrick by the far end of the window, his head half-turned as if he were listening for any sounds from the harbour.

  “Do sit down.” He gestured to a table. “I can offer some ginger beer, and I owe that small luxury to the army hereabouts!”

  The same voice. But as his eyes grew accustomed to the shadows Adam could scarcely believe it was the same man. He had been prepared for some of it. He knew how Herrick had suffered after his arm had been amputated, how the death of his beloved wife Dulcie had broken his heart. But in his mind he had always held on to the man he had known for most of his service, and what he had heard from others, mainly his uncle. Brave, loyal, and stubborn to a point of maddening obstinacy, but always a man you could trust with your life. Herrick must be approaching sixty, this man who had never expected to be posted because of his humble beginnings, let alone reach the rank of flag officer.

  Adam said, “Are you well, sir?”

  Herrick dragged at a cord beside him and opened the blinds a little further. Adam could see the effort, the way he bent his shoulder, as if the stump of his right arm still troubled him greatly. His hair was completely grey, but as he turned away from the glare he glimpsed the same bright blue eyes he had always remembered.

  Herrick said, “Unrivalled will make a fine addition to the force here. A “temporary arrangement ,” more like a show of force than anything which might suggest a breach in the agreement. I understand Commodore Turnbull has a plan of action. I shall see him again presently.”

  Adam tensed. So Turnbull had already been here to see Her-rick. Before anyone could dispute his appraisal of the brutal murders of slaves and British seamen alike.

  Herrick continued in the same unemotional tone, “They will need a lot of smaller, faster vessels to compete with the trade. I am informed that at least one new barque is operating along this coastline. Fast, well armed, and able to carry three hundred or more slaves for a quick and profitable voyage. And there are others, one of which you apprehended with Unrivalled.”

  Adam waited. It was not a question. Herrick had been busy since his arrival in Freetown.

  Herrick walked to the table and poured a glass of ginger beer. “Albatroz is a slaver, make no mistake on it. But she is owned by Portugal, and she is not hampered by the equipment clause which our government is trying to make universal. Manacles are an indication, but no longer, it would appear, a proof.” This time he did not attempt to contain his contempt. “Piracy is a very different matter, but I don’t have to tell you that. People in England do not begin to understand the misery and depravity of this foul traffic. Like the highwayman, who may appear a hero to some, but not to those who suffer at his hands! I used to warn . . .” He stopped abruptly and walked back to the window, leaving the ginger beer untouched.

  Adam felt pity for the first time. He had almost said her name.

  Herrick said, “I’d never shed a tear when they dance the Tyburn jig!”

  Adam recalled the bitte
rness his uncle had shown on one occasion, when Herrick had displayed his disapproval of his “liaison” as he had called it, with Catherine.

  And yet when Herrick’s wife Dulcie had lain dying of typhus, which she had caught when trying to help Spanish prisoners of war from some nearby hulks, she would have been alone but for Catherine. Yovell, who was even now out there in the harbour, had been with her when she’d called at the house to see Herrick’s wife; she had refused to allow him to stay and risk his own life, but had sent him to fetch help and medical assistance. And Catherine had remained to the end. Caring for her every need, washing and changing her soiled clothing, knowing as she did so that every hour was putting her in greater peril.

  His uncle had spoken of it with both anxiety and pride. Now, in this dim, airless room, with a fan swaying back and forth overhead to the pull of some unseen hand, it seemed like yesterday.

  Adam said, “We have taken on a tremendous task, sir.”

  Herrick looked at him directly, perhaps suspiciously. “I accepted it because I could stand the inactivity no longer!” His voice was stronger, as he relived something still too close to put aside. “Their lordships suggested my name for the position. An officer who could be trusted to perform the task without fear or favour, as I have always tried to do in my duty.” He swung away, his pinned-up sleeve all the more apparent against the filtered sunshine. “And a suitable scapegoat, of course, should the need arise!”

  There were voices in the passageway, and Adam could imagine the lieutenant listening outside the door.

  Herrick said, “You will receive your orders from the commodore within two days. At no time will you discuss the proposed exercise except with your officers, and then only the bones of your instruction.”