Honour This Day

by Alexander Kent

  It had been hot, dusty but unexpectedly exhilarating, and had almost been worthwhile just to see the expressions of passers-by as they had galloped along in the hazy sunshine.

  It was dark now, dusk came early to the islands, and Bolitho had to study himself very carefully while his ear recorded the sound of violins, the muffled murmur of voices from the grand room where the reception was being held.

  Ozzard had brought fresh stockings from the ship, while Allday had collected the fine presentation sword to replace the old blade Bolitho had been wearing.

  Bolitho sighed. Most of the candles were protected by tall hurricane glasses so the light was not too strong. It might hide his crumpled shirt, and the stain left by the saddle on his breeches. There had been no time to return to Hyperion. Damn Glassport and his reception. Bolitho would much rather have stayed in his cabin and sifted through all which the frigate captain had told him.

  Captain Matthew Price was young to hold command of so fine a vessel. The Consort of thirty-six guns had been working through some shoals when she had been fired on by a coastal battery. She had been that close inshore when she had unfortunately run aground. It was much as Glassport had described. A schooner had taken off many of Consort’s people, but had been forced to run, her task incomplete, as Spanish men-of-war had arrived on the scene.

  Captain Price was so junior that he had not even been posted, and if a court martial ruled against him, which was more than likely, he would lose everything. At best he might return to the rank of lieutenant. The worst did not bear thinking about.

  As Price sat in a small government-owned house to await the calling of the court martial he had plenty to ponder about. Not least that it might have been better had he been taken prisoner, or killed in battle. For his ship had been refloated and was now a part of His Most Catholic Majesty’s fleet at La Guaira on the Spanish Main. Frigates were worth their tonnage in gold, and the navy was always in desperate need of them. When Bolitho had been in the Mediterranean there were only six frigates available between Gibraltar and the Levant. The president of Price’s court martial would not be able to exclude that fact from his considerations.

  Once, in desperation, the young captain had asked Bolitho what he thought of the possible outcome.

  Bolitho had told him to expect his sword to point towards him at the table. To hazard his ship was one thing. To lose it to a hated enemy was another entirely.

  There had been no sense in promising Price he could do something to divert the court’s findings. Price had taken a great risk to discover the Spanish intentions. Laid beside what Bolitho already knew, his information could be invaluable. But it would not help the Consort’s captain now.

  Bolitho said, “I suppose it is time.” He looked at a tall clock and added, “Are our officers present yet?”

  Jenour nodded, then winced as the ache throbbed through his thighs and buttocks. Bolitho was a superb horseman, but then so was he, or so he had believed. Bolitho’s little joke about people from Hampshire being excellent riders had acted as a spur, but at no time had Jenour been able to keep pace with him.

  He said, “The first lieutenant arrived with the others while you were changing, Sir Richard.”

  Bolitho looked down at the immaculate stockings and remembered when he had been a lowly lieutenant with only one fine pair for such occasions as this. The rest had been darned so many times it had been a wonder they had held together.

  It gave him time to think about Captain Haven’s request to remain aboard ship. He had explained that a storm might spring up without warning and prevent his return from the shore in time to take the necessary precautions. The air was heavy and humid, and the sunset had been like blood.

  Hyperion’s sailing-master, Isaac Penhaligon, a fellow Cornish-man by birth at least, had insisted that a storm was very unlikely. It was as if Haven preferred to keep to himself, even though someone at the reception might take his absence as a snub.

  If only Keen was still his flag captain. He had but to ask, and Keen would have come with him. Loyalty, friendship, love, it was something of each.

  But Bolitho had pressed Keen to remain in England, at least until he had settled the problems of his lovely Zenoria. More than anything else Keen wanted to marry his dark-eyed girl with the flowing chestnut hair. They loved and were so obviously in love that Bolitho could not bring himself to separate them so soon after they had found each other.

  Or was he comparing their love with his own house?

  He stopped his thoughts right there. It was not the time. Maybe it never could be now.

  Perhaps Haven did not like him? He might even be afraid of him. That was something Bolitho had often found hard to believe in his own days as a captain. When he had first stepped aboard a new command he had tried to hide his nervousness and apprehension. It had been much later when he had understood that a ship’s company was far more likely to be worried about him and what he might do.

  Jenour asked politely, “Shall we go, Sir Richard?”

  Bolitho wanted to touch his left eye but stared instead at the nearest hurricane glass and the tendril of black smoke which rose straight up to the ceiling. It was clear and bright. No shadows, no mist to taunt him and take him off-guard.

  Bolitho glanced at Allday. He would have to speak to him soon about his son. Allday had said nothing about him since the young sailor had left Argonaute on their return to England. If I had had a son perhaps I would have wanted too much. Might have expected him to care about all the same things.

  A pair of handsome doors were pulled open by footmen who had hitherto been invisible in the shadows.

  The music and babble of voices swept into the room like surf on a reef, and Bolitho found himself tensing his muscles as if to withstand a musket ball.

  As he walked down the pillared corridor he pondered on the minds and the labour which had created this building on such a small island. A place which through circumstances of war had many times become a vital hinge for England’s naval strategy.

  He heard Jenour’s heels tapping on the floor, and half-smiled as he recalled the lieutenant’s eagerness to ride neck-and-neck with him. More like two country squires than King’s officers.

  He saw the overlapping colours of ladies’ gowns, bare shoulders, curious stares as he drew closer to the mass of people. They had had little notice of his coming, Commodore Glassport had said, but he guessed that any official visitor or a ship from England was a welcome event.

  He noticed some of Hyperion’s wardroom, their blues and whites making a clean contrast with the red and scarlet of the military and Royal Marines. Once again he had to restrain himself from searching for familiar faces, hearing voices, as if he still expected a handshake or a nod of recognition.

  There were some steps between two squat pillars, and he saw Glassport peering along the carpet towards him. Relieved no doubt that he had actually arrived after his ride. One figure stood in the centre, debonair and elegant, and dressed from throat to ankle in white. Bolitho knew very little of the man he had come to meet. The Right Honourable the Viscount Somervell, his Majesty’s Inspector General in the Caribbean, seemed to have little which equipped him for the appointment. A regular face at Court and at the right receptions, a reckless gambler some said, and a swordsman of renown. The last was well-founded, and it was known that the King had intervened on his behalf after he had killed a man in a duel. To Bolitho it was familiar and painful territory. It hardly qualified him for being here.

  A footman with a long stave tapped the floor and called, “Sir Richard Bolitho, Vice-Admiral of the Red!”

  The sudden stillness was almost physical. Bolitho felt their eyes following him as he walked along the carpet. Small cameos stood out. The musicians with their fiddles and bows motionless in mid-air, a young sea-officer nudging his companion and then freezing as Bolitho’s glance passed over him. A bold stare from a lady with such a low-cut gown that she need not have covered herself at all, and another from a young gir
l who smiled shyly then hid her face behind a fan.

  Viscount Somervell did not move forward to greet him but stood as before, one hand resting negligently on his hip, the other dangling at his side. His mouth was set in a small smile which could have been either amusement or boredom. His features were of a younger man, but he had the indolent eyes of someone who had seen everything.

  “Welcome to—” Somervell turned sharply, his elegant pose destroyed as he glared into a trolley of candelabra which was being wheeled into the room behind him.

  The sudden glare of additional light at eye-level caught Bolitho off-balance just as he raised his foot to the first of the steps. A lady dressed in black who had been standing motionless beside the Viscount reached out to steady his arm, while through the mass of candles he saw staring faces, surprise, curiosity, caught like onlookers in a painter’s canvas.

  “I beg your pardon, Ma’am!” Bolitho regained his balance and tried not to shade his eye as the mist swirled across it. It was like drowning, falling through deeper and deeper water.

  He said, “I am all right—” then stared at the lady’s gown. It was not black, but of an exquisite green shot-silk which shone, and seemed to change colour in its folds and curves as the light that had blinded him revealed her for the first time. The gown was cut wide and low from her shoulders, and the hair he remembered so clearly as being long and as dark as his own, was piled in plaits above her ears.

  The faces, the returning murmur of speculative chatter faded away. He had known her then as Catherine Pareja. Kate.

  He was staring, his momentary blindness forgotten as he saw her eyes, her sudden anxiety giving way to an enforced calm. She had known he was to be here. His was the only surprise.

  Somervell’s voice seemed to come from a great distance. He was calm again, his composure recovered.

  “Of course, I had forgotten. You have met before.”

  Bolitho took her proffered hand and lowered his face to it. Even her perfume was the same.

  He heard her reply, “Some while ago.”

  When Bolitho looked up she seemed strangely remote and self-assured. Indifferent even.

  She added, “One could never forget a hero.”

  She held out her arm for her husband and turned towards the watching faces.

  Bolitho felt an ache in his heart. She was wearing the long gold filigree earrings he had bought her in that other unreal world, in London.

  Footmen advanced with trays of glittering glasses, and the small orchestra came to life once again.

  Across the wine and past the flushed, posturing faces their eyes met and excluded everyone.

  Glassport was saying something to him but he barely heard. After all that had happened, it was still there between them. It must be quenched before it destroyed them both.

  3 KING’S RANSOM

  BOLITHO leaned back in his chair as a white-gloved hand whisked away the half-emptied plate and quickly replaced it with another. He could not remember how many courses he had been offered nor how many times the various goblets and fine glasses had been refilled.

  The air was full of noise, the mingled voices of those present, at a guess some forty officers, officials and their ladies with the small contingent from Hyperion’s wardroom divided amongst them. The long room and its extended table was brightly lit by candles, beyond which the shadows seemed to sway in a dance of their own as the many footmen and servants bustled back and forth to maintain a steady supply of food and wine.

  They must have garnered servants from several houses, Bolitho thought, and he could gather from the occasional savage under-tones of the senior footman that there had been several disasters between kitchen and table.

  He was seated at Catherine’s right hand, and as the conversation and laughter swirled around them he was very aware of her, although she gave little hint of her own feelings at his presence. At the far end of the table Bolitho saw her husband, Viscount Somervell, sipping his wine and listening with apparent boredom to Commodore Glassport’s resonant and thickening tones. Occasionally Somervell appeared to glance along the table’s length, excluding everyone but his wife or Bolitho. Interest, awareness? It was impossible to determine.

  As the doors swung open from time to time to a procession of sweating servants Bolitho saw the candles shiver in the smoky air. Otherwise there was little hint of movement, and he pictured Haven, safe in his cabin, or brooding over his possible role in the future. He might show more animation when he learned what was expected of him and his command.

  She turned suddenly and spoke directly to him. “You are very quiet, Sir Richard.”

  He met her gaze and felt his defence falter. She was just as striking, more beautiful even than he’d remembered. The sun had given her neck and shoulders a fine blush, and he could see the gentle pulse of her heart where the silk gown folded around it.

  One hand lay as if abandoned beside her glass, a folded fan close by. He wanted to touch it, to reassure himself or to reveal his own stupidity.

  What am I? So full of conceit, so shallow that I could imagine her drawn to me again after so long?

  He said instead, “It must be seven years.”

  Her face remained impassive. To anyone watching she might have been asking about England or the weather.

  “Seven years and one month to be exact.”

  Bolitho turned as the Viscount laughed at something Glassport had said.

  “And then you married him. ” It came out like a bitter accusation and he saw her fingers move as if they were listening independently.

  “Was it so important?”

  She retorted, “You delude yourself, Richard.” Even the use of his name was like the awakening of an old wound. “It was not so.” She held his gaze as he turned again. Defiance, pain, it was all there in her dark eyes. “I need security. Just as you need to be loved.”

  Bolitho hardly dared to breathe as the conversation died momentarily around him. He thought the first lieutenant was watching them, that an army colonel had paused with his goblet half-raised as if to catch the words. Even in imagination it felt like a conspiracy.

  “Love?”

  She nodded slowly, her eyes not leaving his. “You need it, as the desert craves for rain.”

  Bolitho wanted to look away but she seemed to mesmerise him.

  She continued in the same unemotional tone, “I wanted you then, and ended almost hating you. Almost. I have watched your life and career, two very different things, over the past seven years. I would have taken anything you offered me; you were the only man I would have loved without asking for security in marriage.” She touched the fan lightly. “Instead you took another, one you imagined was a substitute—” She saw the shot strike home. “I knew it.”

  Bolitho replied, “I thought of you often.”

  She smiled but it made her look sad. “Really?”

  He turned his head further so that he could see her clearly. He knew others might watch him for he appeared to face her directly, but his left eye was troubled by the flickering glare and the swooping shadows beyond.

  She said, “The last battle. We heard of it a month back.”

  “You knew I was coming here?”

  She shook her head. “No. He tells me little of his government affairs.” She looked quickly along the table and Bolitho saw her smile as if in recognition. He was astonished that the small familiarity with her husband should hurt him so much.

  She returned her gaze to his. “Your injuries, are they— ?” She saw him start. “I helped you once, do you not remember?”

  Bolitho dropped his eyes. He had imagined that she had heard or detected his difficulty in seeing her properly. It all flashed through his mind like a wild dream. His wound, the return of the fever which had once almost killed him. Her pale nakedness as she had dropped her gown and folded herself against his gasping, shivering body, while she had spoken unheard words and clasped him to her breasts to repulse the fever’s torment.

  “I
shall never forget.”

  She watched him in silence for some moments, her eyes moving over his lowered head and the dangling lock of hair, his grave sunburned features and the lashes which now hid his eyes, glad that he could not see the pain and the yearning in her stare.

  Nearby, Major Sebright Adams of Hyperion’s Royal Marines was expounding on his experiences at Copenhagen and the bloody aftermath of the battle. Parris, the first lieutenant, was propped on one elbow, apparently listening, but leaning across the young wife of a dockyard official, his arm resting against her shoulder which she made no attempt to remove. Like the other officers, they were momentarily free of responsibility and the need to keep up any pretence and the posture of duty.

  Bolitho was more aware than ever of a sudden isolation, the need to tell her his thoughts, his fears; and was revolted at the same time by his weakness.

  He said, “It was a hard fight. We lost many fine men.”

  “And you, Richard? What more did you have to lose that you had not already abandoned?”

  He exclaimed fiercely, “Let it be, Catherine. It is over.” He raised his eyes and stared at her intently. “It must be so!”

  A side door opened and more footmen bustled around, but this time without new dishes. It would soon be time for the ladies to withdraw and the men to relieve themselves before settling down to port and brandy. He thought of Allday. He would be out there in the barge with his crew waiting for him. Any petty officer would have been sufficient, but he knew Allday. He would allow no other to wait for him. He would have been in his element tonight, he thought. Bolitho had never known any man able to drink his coxswain under the table, unlike some of the guests.

  Somervell’s voice cut along the littered cloth although he seemed to have no problem in making it carry.

  “I hear that you saw Captain Price today, Sir Richard?”

  Bolitho could almost feel the woman at his side holding her breath, as if she sensed the casual remark as a trap. Was guilt that obvious?