With All Despatch

by Alexander Kent

  The boy crouched down beside him. “Mr Paice is on deck, sir.”

  He remembered what Hoblyn had revealed, the information he had gained on a Whitstable landing. The need for secrecy. How had he got back to Telemachus ? He could remember none of it.

  His mind steadied and he looked at the boy. “You brought me here?”

  “It were nothing, sir.” For once he showed no excitement or shy pride.

  Bolitho seized his arm. “What is it? Tell me, Matthew.”

  The boy looked down at the deck. “It’s Allday, sir.”

  Bolitho’s brain was suddenly like clear ice. “What has happened?”

  Pictures flashed through his thoughts. Allday standing over him, his bloodied cutlass cleaving aside all who tried to pass. Allday, cheerful, tolerant, always there when he was needed.

  The boy whispered, “He’s gone, sir.”

  “Gone?”

  The door opened a few inches and Paice lowered his shoulders to enter the cabin.

  “Thought you should know, sir.” He added with something like the defiance he had shown at their first meeting, “He’s not borne on the ship’s books, sir. If he was . . .”

  “He’s my responsibility, is that what you mean?”

  Paice must have seen the pain in his face even in the poor light.

  “I did hear that your cox’n was once a pressed man, sir?”

  Bolitho ran his fingers through his hair as he tried to assemble his wits. “True. That was a long while ago. He has served me, and served me faithfully, for ten years since. He’d not desert.” He shook his head, the realisation of what he had said thrusting through him like a hot blade. “Allday would not leave me.”

  Paice watched, unable to help, to find the right words. “I could pass word to the shore, sir. He may meet with the press gangs. If I can rouse the senior lieutenant I might be able to stop anything going badly for him.” He hesitated, unused to speaking so openly. “And for you, if I may say so, sir.”

  Bolitho touched the boy’s shoulder and felt him shiver.

  “Fetch me some water and fresh coffee, Matthew.” His voice was heavy, his mind still groping.

  Suppose Allday had decided to leave? Bolitho recalled his own surprise when Allday had not insisted on accompanying him to the commodore’s house. It was all coming back. Bolitho felt his inner pocket and touched the written orders which the commodore had given him. It was a wonder he had not lost them on the way back to the cutter, he thought wretchedly.

  Allday might have felt the affair of the Loyal Chieftain badly. God knew he had put up with enough over the past months— and with what reward for his faith and his unshakeable loyalty?

  Now he was gone. Back to the land from which Bolitho’s own press gang had snatched him all those years back. Years of danger and pride, loss and sadness. Always there. The oak, the rock which Bolitho had all too often taken for granted.

  Paice said, “He left no message, sir.”

  Bolitho looked up at him. “He cannot write.” He remembered what he had thought when he had first met Allday in Phalarope. If only he had had some education Allday might have been anything. Now that same thought seemed to mock him.

  Somewhere a boatswain’s call twittered like a rudely awakened blackbird.

  Paice said heavily, “Orders, sir?”

  Bolitho nodded and winced as the hammers began again. Eating and drinking to excess, something he rarely did, and all the while Allday had been here, planning what he would do, awaiting the right moment.

  “We shall weigh at noon. See that word is passed to Wakeful. ” He tried to keep his tone level. “Do it yourself, if you please. I want nothing in writing.” Their eyes met. “Not yet.”

  “All hands! All hands! Lash up an’ stow!” The hull seemed to shake as feet thudded to the deck, and another day was begun.

  “May I ask, sir?”

  Bolitho heard the boy returning and realised that he would have to shave himself.

  “There is to be a run.” He did not know if Paice believed him, nor did he care now. “The commodore has a plan. I shall explain when we are at sea and in company. There will be no revenue cutters involved. They are to be elsewhere.” How simple it must have sounded across that overloaded table. And all the while the handsome youth in the white wig had watched and listened.

  Paice said haltingly, “I sent the first lieutenant ashore to collect two of the hands, sir. They were found drunk at a local inn.” He forced a grin. “Thought it best if he was out of the way ’til

  I’d spoken with you.”

  The boy put down a pot of coffee and groped about for a mug.

  Bolitho replied, “That was thoughtful of you, Mr Paice.”

  Paice shrugged. “I believe we may be of one mind, sir.”

  Bolitho stood up carefully and thrust open the skylight. The air was still cool and sweet from the land. Maybe he no longer belonged at sea. Was that what Allday had been feeling too?

  He glanced down and saw Matthew moving a small roll of canvas away from the cot.

  Paice backed from the cabin. “I shall muster the hands, sir. No matter what men may believe, a ship has no patience and must be served fairly at all times.”

  Bolitho did not hear the door close. “What is that parcel, Matthew?”

  The boy picked it up and shrugged unhappily. “I think it belonged to Allday, sir.” He sounded afraid, as if he in some way shared the guilt.

  Bolitho took it from him and opened it carefully on the cot where he had lain like some drunken oaf.

  The small knives, tools which Allday had mostly made with his own hands. Carefully collected oddments of brass and copper, sailmaker’s twine, some newly fashioned spars and booms.

  Bolitho was crouching now, his hands almost shaking as he untied the innermost packet and put it on the cot with great care.

  Allday never carried much with him as he went from ship to ship. He had placed little importance on possessions. Only in his models, his ships which he had fashioned with all the skill and love he had gained over the years at sea.

  He heard the boy’s sharp intake of breath. “It’s lovely, sir!”

  Bolitho touched the little model and felt his eyes prick with sudden emotion. Unpainted still, but there was no mistaking the shape and grace of a frigate, the gunports as yet unfilled with tiny cannon still to be made, the masts and rigging still carried only in Allday’s mind. His fingers paused at the small, delicately carved figurehead, one which Bolitho remembered so clearly, as if it were life-sized instead of a tiny copy. The wild-eyed girl with streaming hair, and a horn fashioned like a great shell.

  Young Matthew said questioningly, “A frigate, sir?”

  Bolitho stared at it until he could barely see. It was not just any ship. With Allday it rarely was.

  He heard himself murmur, “She is my last command, Matthew. My Tempest. ”

  The boy responded in a whisper, “I wonder why he left it behind, sir?”

  Bolitho turned him by the shoulder and gripped it until he winced. “Don’t you see, Matthew? He could tell no one what he was about, nor could he write a few words to rest my fears for him.” He looked again at the unfinished model. “This was the best way he knew of telling me. That ship meant so much to both of us for a hundred different reasons. He’d never abandon it.”

  The boy watched as Bolitho stood up to the skylight again, barely able to grasp it, and yet knowing he was the only one who was sharing the secret.

  Bolitho said slowly, “ God damn him for his stubbornness!” He bunched his hand against the open skylight. “And God protect you, old friend, until your return!”

  Marching in pairs the press gang advanced along yet another narrow street, their shoes ringing on the cobbles, their eyes everywhere as they probed the shadows.

  At the head a tight-lipped lieutenant strode with his hanger already drawn, a midshipman following a few paces behind him.

  Here and there the ancient houses seemed to bow across the lanes un
til they appeared to touch one another. The lieutenant glanced at each dark or shuttered window, especially at those which hung directly above their wary progress. It was all too common for someone to hurl down a bucket of filth on to the hated press gangs as they carried out their thankless patrols.

  The lieutenant, like most of them in the local impressment service, had heard all about the two officers being stripped, beaten and publicly humiliated on the open road, with no one raising a hand to aid them. Only the timely appearance of the post-captain and his apparent total disregard for his own safety had saved the officers from far worse.

  The lieutenant had been careful to announce his intentions of seeking prime seamen for the fleet, as so ordered. He slashed out angrily at a shadow with his hanger and swore under his breath. You might just as well ring the church bells to reveal what you were about, he thought. The result was usually the same. Just a few luckless ones, and some of those had been lured into the hands of the press gangs, usually by their own employers who wanted to be rid of them. A groom who had perhaps become too free with a landowner’s daughter, a footman who had served a mistress better than the man who paid for her luxuries. But trained hands? It would be a joke, if it were not so serious.

  The lieutenant snapped, “Close up in the rear!” It was unnecessary; they always kept together, their heavy cudgels and cutlasses ready for immediate use if attacked, and he knew they resented his words. But he hated the work, just as he longed for the chance of a ship. Some people foolishly wrung their hands, and clergymen prayed that war would never come.

  The fools. What did they know? War was as necessary as it was rewarding.

  There was a sudden crash, like a bottle smashing.

  The lieutenant held up his hanger, and behind him he heard his men rouse themselves, like vixens on the scent of prey.

  The midshipman faltered, “In that alley, sir!”

  “I know that!” He waited until his senior hand, a hard-bitten gunner’s mate, had joined him. “Did you hear that, Benzie?”

  The gunner’s mate grunted. “There be a tavern through there, sir. Should be closed now, o’course. This be th’only way out.”

  The lieutenant scowled. The idiot had left the most important fact to the end. He swallowed his revulsion and said softly, “Fetch two men and—”

  The gunner’s mate thrust his face even closer and whispered thickly, “No need, sir, someone be comin’!”

  The lieutenant thankfully withdrew his face. The gunner’s mate’s breath was as foul as any bilge. Chewing tobacco, rum and bad teeth made a vile mixture.

  “Stand to!” The lieutenant faced the narrow alley and cursed Their Lordships for the absurdity of it. The hidden figure with the slow, shambling gait was probably a cripple or as old as Neptune. What use was one man anyway?

  The shadow loomed from the shadows and the lieutenant called sharply, “In the King’s name, I order you to stand and be examined!”

  The gunner’s mate sighed and tightened his hold on the heavy cudgel. How the navy had changed. In his day they had clubbed them senseless and asked questions later, usually when the poor wretch awoke with a split head to find himself in a man-of-war already standing out to sea. It might be months, years, and in many cases never, that the pressed man returned to England. Who would care anyway? There had even been a case of a bridegroom being snatched from the steps of a church on his wedding day.

  But now, with regulations, and not enough ships ready for sea, it was unsafe to flout the Admiralty’s rules.

  He said, “ Easy, matey!” His experienced eye had taken in the man’s build and obvious strength. Even in this dawn light he could see the broad shoulders and, when he turned to stare at the press gang, the pigtail down his back.

  The lieutenant snapped, “What ship?” His nervousness put an edge to his voice. “Answer, or you’ll be the worse for it, man!”

  The gunner’s mate urged, “There be too many o’us, matey.” He half-raised his cudgel. “Tell the lieutenant, like wot ’e says!”

  Allday looked at him grimly. He had been about to give up his hazy plan, when he had heard the press gang’s cautious approach. Were it not so dangerous it might have made him smile, albeit secretly. Like all those other times when he had dodged the dreaded press in Cornwall, until the day when His Britannic Majesty’s frigate Phalarope had hove into sight. Her captain had been a Cornishman, one who knew where landsmen ran to ground whenever a King’s ship topped the horizon. It was strange when you thought of it. If a Frenchie ever drew close inshore every fit man would stand to arms to protect his home and country from an enemy. But they would run from one of their own.

  Allday said huskily, “I don’t have a ship, sir.” He had spilled rum over his clothing and hoped it was convincing. He had hated the waste of it.

  The lieutenant said coldly, “Don’t lie. I told you what would happen if—”

  The gunner’s mate gestured at him again. “Don’t be a fool!”

  Allday hung his head. “The London, sir.”

  The lieutenant exclaimed. “A second-rate, so you are a prime seaman! Yes? ” The last word was like a whip-crack.

  “If you say so, sir.”

  “Don’t be bloody insolent. What’s your name, damn you?”

  Allday regarded him impassively. It might be worth it just to smash in the lieutenant’s teeth. Bolitho would have a useless pip-squeak like him for breakfast.

  “Spencer, sir.” He had neglected to invent a name, and the slight hesitation seemed to satisfy the officer that it was because of guilt.

  “Then you are taken. Come with my men, or be dragged in irons—the choice is yours.”

  The press gang parted as Allday moved amongst them. Their eagerness to be gone from this deserted street was almost matched by their relief.

  One of the seamen muttered, “Never mind, mate, could be worse.”

  Somewhere, far away, a trumpet echoed on the morning air. Allday hesitated and did not even notice the sudden alarm in their eyes. He had done it. At this moment Bolitho might be looking at the little Tempest. But would he see a message there? Allday felt something like despair; he might see only desertion and treachery.

  Then he squared his shoulders. “I’m ready.”

  The lieutenant quickened his pace as he heard someone drumming on a bucket with a piece of metal. The signal for a mob to come running to free their capture.

  But this patrol at least had not been entirely wasted. Only one man, but obviously an experienced sailor. No excuses either, nor the last-moment, infuriating production of a Protection like those issued to apprentices, watermen, and the likes of the H.E.I.C.

  The gunner’s mate called, “Wot’s yer trade, Spencer?”

  Allday was ready this time. “Sailmaker.” Chosen carefully, not too lowly, so that they might have disbelieved him, nor too senior, so that they might have sent him back to the London, a ship he had never laid eyes on.

  The man nodded, well satisfied. A sailmaker was a rare and valuable catch.

  They topped a rise and Allday saw the masts and crossed yards of several men-of-war, their identities still hidden in deep shadow. Bolitho was there. Would they ever meet again?

  If not it will be because I am no longer alive.

  Strangely enough the realization brought him immediate comfort.

  5. OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES . . .

  BOLITHO gripped the swivel-gun mounting on the weather bulwark, and used it to steady himself as Telemachus dipped and lifted to a steady north-easterly, her forward rigging running with spray. Eight bells had just chimed out from the forecastle and as in any man-of-war, large or small, the watches changed to a routine as old as the navy itself.

  Lieutenant Triscott touched his hat to Paice. “The watch is aft, sir.”

  Bolitho sensed the stiffness in his manner, something unusual for one so young and usually so buoyant.

  “Relieve the wheel, if you please.”

  The helmsman chanted, “West Nor’-West,
sir! Full an’ bye!”

  The members of the last dogwatch hurried to the hatchway while the relief took over and began to check running rigging, and the lashings of countless pieces of equipment and the guns which lined either side.

  It was not just the first lieutenant who was showing strain, Bolitho thought. It was never easy in a small overcrowded hull at the best of times, and he was well aware of their resentment as day followed day, beating up and down, holding on to visual contact with Wakeful running far down to leeward, and preparing for what most of them thought was another empty rumour.

  Bolitho blamed himself for much of it. It was Paice’s command, but he watched everything himself, and tried to plan for whatever lay ahead.

  Paice had had little to do with Commodore Hoblyn and was unwilling to voice an opinion as to the value of his information. Perhaps he was still brooding over the murder of his own informant and the calculated arrogance with which Delaval had displayed the man’s corpse. Or he might place Hoblyn in the category of senior officers who had been too long ashore to understand the stealth and cunning of this kind of work.

  Whenever he was alone in his cot Bolitho was unable to lose himself in his plans. Allday would return to his thoughts again and again, so that he lay tossing and turning until he fell into an exhausted sleep, his anxieties still unresolved.

  He noticed that neither Paice nor Triscott ever mentioned Allday in his presence. Either they were afraid to arouse his displeasure, or, in the way of sailors, they were convinced that Allday was already dead.

  Paice crossed the narrow poop and touched his hat, while his eyes watched the clear sky of evening.

  “Might get some mist later, sir.” His gaze moved to Bolitho’s profile, assessing the mood. “But we can hold contact with Wakeful for a few more hours before we tell her to close with us for the night.”

  Bolitho glanced up at the quivering mast where the lookouts squatted on the topsail yard. They had the other cutter in sight, but down here on deck the sea might have been empty.

  They had twice met with a revenue lugger. Once she had carried a curt despatch from the commodore, a confirmation that his information was still valid.