With All Despatch

by Alexander Kent

  He found little comfort in the varying successes of his recruiting parties and the press gangs although there had been a surprising increase in volunteers for the fleet, especially from the more inland villages where news of Bolitho’s victory over Delaval’s ships and gangs had preceded his visits.

  The news of the murdered girls had spread like wildfire, and fresh information had come from many different sources to prove that their wretched deaths had not been isolated incidents.

  After the first bloodbath in the streets of Paris the mobs had turned their hatred towards the professional classes, then lower still to mere shopkeepers and artisans. Anyone who was branded as a traitor to the revolution, a lackey to the feared and loathed aristos, was dragged to prison for harsh interrogation and the inevitable journey through the streets to the waiting guillotine. Some parents had tried to assist their children to escape by selling all they owned; others had attempted to bribe their way into small vessels in the hope of reaching safety in England. Some smugglers like Delaval had found the latter the most profitable of all. They would take everything from these poor, terrified refugees, then murder them in mid-Channel or in the North Sea. Dead men told no tales. If young girls were amongst their human cargo they could expect no mercy at all.

  Once, when supping with Major Craven at his small barracks, Bolitho had said angrily, “We are dealing with the scum of the earth. Any enemy who sails under a known flag, no matter what cause he represents, has more respect and honour.”

  And now there was not even the major to pass the time with. He and most of his regiment had been ordered to Ireland, in readiness for disturbances there after an overall famine had failed to produce food and warmth for the approaching winter.

  And winter was coming early, Bolitho thought. You could see it in the tide-race, and in the tossing white horses of the Channel.

  The new detachment of soldiers was composed mainly of recruits and some of the freshly-formed militia, more concerned with their drills and exercises than they were with Bolitho’s warnings about smugglers. But the Trade had slackened, if not died, since the Loyal Chieftain incident. It should have given him satisfaction, but when he walked the shoreline with Allday a constant companion, he found little consolation.

  From the urbane Lord Marcuard he had heard nothing. That had been the biggest disappointment of all. Perhaps it had been another ruse to keep him quiet. Even Craven’s removal might be connected in some way, although it was impossible to prove it. Officers and officials whom he was forced to meet if only to maintain the co-operation he had painstakingly built up, treated him with a certain wariness—respect or awe, he did not know.

  To some he seemed to represent the man of war, to others an interference with a life they knew would soon change but still refused to abandon.

  Rear-Admiral Drew’s departure had been swift after the meeting at Dover. He had left with an air of profound relief and perhaps a new determination to remain uninvolved in anything beyond the walls of Admiralty.

  There had been one hope when Drew had left written orders that he should not invade the property or privacy of Sir James Tanner without express instruction from higher authority. There was little point anyway, for it was said that Tanner was elsewhere, maybe out of the country altogether. But Bolitho had nursed the idea that the orders had come through Drew from Lord Marcuard. Even that was difficult to believe now.

  Late one afternoon Bolitho stood on a bluff watching a frigate working her way downstream towards Sheerness. Her paintwork shone in the grey light; the gilt gingerbread around her stern windows and counter was proof that the lucky man who commanded her had money to spare to present such a fine display. Like Bolitho’s Undine and Tempest had been when he had assumed command first of one, then the other, after the American Revolution.

  He watched her resetting her topsails, the men strung out like black dots on her braced yards. A ship to be proud of. The greatest honour of all. He thought of Viola’s animation and interest when she had made him speak freely of his ship, as he had done to no one before, or since.

  He heard Allday murmur, “A good ’un, Cap’n.”

  Bolitho smiled, moved by the supply of ruses which Allday used to prevent him brooding, or remembering too much.

  Suppose Allday had been killed? He felt a pain in his chest like a stab. Now he would have been quite alone.

  Bolitho turned and looked at him, his hat tugged down to cover his scar. She had touched and kissed that scar and had told him more than once that it was a mark of pride and honour, not something to shame him.

  “I wonder if she carries any of the people we gained as volunteers after we had offered them a choice?”

  Allday gave a lazy grin. “Just so long as their cap’n knows how to treat ’em!”

  Bolitho turned up the collar of his boat-cloak and watched the frigate again as she changed tack towards more open water. It was tearing him apart. Where bound? Gibraltar and the Mediterranean? The West Indies and the dark green fronds which lined each perfect beach?

  He sighed. Like the young lieutenant who had offered himself for a ship, any ship, he felt cut off. Discarded, as Hoblyn had been. He ground his heel on the loose sand. No. Not like Hoblyn.

  He asked, “And you never saw the man in the carriage that night, the one who ordered you to kill the sailor from the press?”

  Allday watched the rebirth of something in those searching, grey eyes

  “Not a peep, Cap’n. But his voice? I’d recognise that even in hell’s gateway, so to speak. Like silk it was, the hiss of a serpent.” He nodded fervently. “If I hears it again I’ll strike first, ask the wherefores afterwards—an’ that’s no error!”

  Bolitho stared towards the frigate but her lee side was already clothed in deepening shadows. By tomorrow, with favouring winds, she would be abreast of Falmouth. He thought of the great house. Waiting. Waiting. How small the family had become. His sister Nancy, married to the “King of Cornwall,” lived nearby, but his other sister Felicity was still in India with her husband’s regiment of foot. What might become of her, he wondered?

  There were too many little plaques and tablets on the walls of Falmouth Church which recorded the women and children who had died of fever and native uprisings, in places few had even heard of. Like the Bolitho tablets which filled one alcove in the fine old church, each one reading like part of the navy’s own history. From his great-great-great-grandfather, Captain Julius, who had died in 1646 during the Civil War which Lord Marcuard had touched upon, when he had been attempting to lift the Roundhead blockade on Pendennis Castle itself. And his great-grandfather, Captain David, who had fallen to pirates off the shores of Africa in 1724. Bolitho’s fingers reached under his cloak and touched the old hilt at his side. Captain David had had the sword made to his own specifications. Tarnished it might be, but it was still lighter and better-balanced than anything which today’s cutlers could forge.

  Bolitho walked towards the sunset, his mind suddenly heavy. After his own name was added to the list, there would be no more Bolithos to return to the old house below the headland and its castle.

  Allday’s eyes narrowed. “Rider in a hurry, Cap’n.” His fist dropped to the cutlass in his belt. The land had made him wary and suspicious. In a ship you knew who your friends were, whereas—he exclaimed, “By God, it’s Young Matthew!”

  The boy reined his horse to a halt and dropped lightly to the ground.

  Bolitho asked, “What is it, lad?”

  Young Matthew fumbled inside his jerkin. “Letter, sir. Came by courier.” He was obviously impressed. “Said it must be handed to you, an’ you only, sir.”

  Bolitho opened and tried to read it but the dusk had made it impossible. But he picked out the gold crest at the top, the scrawled signature, Marcuard, at the foot of the page and knew it had not all been a figment of imagination, or some plan to keep him in the background until he could be discreetly disposed of.

  The others were staring at him, the horse loomin
g over the boy’s shoulder as if it too wanted to be a part of it.

  Bolitho had managed to read just three words. With all despatch.

  Afterwards he remembered that he had felt neither anxiety nor surprise. Just a great sense of relief. He was needed again.

  Wakeful’s gangling first lieutenant groped through the waiting figures and eventually found Queely standing beside the compass.

  He said quietly, “I have been right through the ship, sir, as ordered. All lights doused.” He peered blindly across the bulwark at the occasional fin of white spray and added, “I’ll not argue when we come about for open water!”

  Queely ignored him and stared first at the reefed mainsail, then the tiny flickering glow of the compass light.

  The air was cold like steel, and when spray and spindrift pattered over the deck he could feel winter in it.

  He said, “My respects to Captain Bolitho. Please tell him we are in position.”

  “No need. I am here.” Bolitho’s shadow detached itself from the nearest group and moved closer. He wore his boat cloak, and Queely saw that he was hatless, only his eyes visible in the gloom.

  It was halfway through the middle watch, as near to two o’clock as their cautious approach to the Dutch coastline could make possible.

  Queely turned away from the others and said abruptly, “I am not content with these arrangements, sir.”

  Bolitho looked at him. From the moment he had stepped aboard Queely’s command and had ordered him to the secret rendezvous, this scholarly lieutenant had not once questioned his instructions. All the way across the bleak North Sea to a mark on the chart, and he had held his doubts and apprehensions to himself. For that Bolitho was grateful. He could only guess at the danger he was walking into, and was glad that whatever confidence he retained was not being honed away. Paice might have tried to dissuade him, but Telemachus was still in the dockyard completing the refitting of her rigging, and the replacement of her lost topmast. He saw Paice’s strong features in his thoughts in the moments which had followed Loyal Chieftain’s capture.

  Paice had exclaimed, “We didn’t lose a man, sir! Neither did Wakeful! ”

  It was strange, but nobody else had even asked him about that, not even Drew. He smiled grimly as he recalled the rear-admiral’s agitation; especially him, might be more apt.

  It was like the reports in the newssheets after a great battle or a storm’s tragedy at sea. A flag officer or individual captains might be mentioned. The people and their cost in the ocean’s hazards were rarely considered.

  He replied, “It is all we have, Mr Queely.” He guessed what he was thinking. Lord Marcuard’s information had taken weeks to reach him, longer again to be studied and tested. In the meantime anything might have happened. Holland was still standing alone, but it would not be difficult for French spies to infiltrate even the most dedicated circle of conspirators. “I shall remain ashore for four days. You will stand away from the land until the exact moment as we planned. That will prevent any vessel becoming suspicious of your presence and intentions.” He did not add that it would also stop anyone aboard Wakeful from spreading gossip, willingly or otherwise. Queely was a quickwitted officer. He would recognise the unspoken reason.

  He persisted, “I think you should be accompanied to the shore at least, sir.”

  “Impossible. It would double your time here. You must be well clear before dawn. If the wind should back or drop—” There was no point in further explanations.

  Queely held his watch close to the feeble compass glow.

  “We will soon know.” He peered around for his lieutenant. “Mr Kempthorne! Silence on deck.” He raised a speaking trumpet and held it to his ear to try to shut out the restless sea.

  Bolitho felt Allday beside him and was glad of his company, moved that he should be prepared to risk his life yet again.

  Allday grunted. “Mebbe they’ve changed their minds, Cap’n.”

  Bolitho nodded and tried to remember each detail of the chart and the notes he had studied on the passage from Kent.

  A small country, and not many lonely places suitable enough for a secret landing. Here it was supposed to be a waterlogged stretch of low land, not unlike the marshes and fens of southeast England. Eventually the hard-working Dutch would reclaim the land from the sea and perhaps farm it. They rarely wasted any of their overcrowded resources. But if the French came—

  Bolitho tensed as a light shuttered across the heaving water. In the blackness of night it seemed like a beacon.

  Queely muttered, “Hell’s teeth! Why not just fire a welcome salute!”

  It was the first hint that he was more anxious than his manner had revealed.

  “Bear up a point! Stand by, forrard! We don’t want to run them down!” In a whisper he added, “Depress that swivel, Robbins! If it’s a trick we’ll leave a card to be remembered by!”

  The other boat seemed to rise from the seabed itself, and several attempts to take heaving lines and stave off a collision made even more noise, although Bolitho doubted if it would carry more than a few yards.

  He noticed muffled figures rising and falling in the swell, a stumpy mast with a loosely brailed-up sail. Above all, the stench of fish. Something was handed to one of the seamen and passed swiftly aft to Bolitho. It was part of an old bone coat-button. Bolitho withdrew his piece from his pocket and held them both together. They were parts of the same button. He wondered what might have happened if one of the sailors had dropped it in the darkness. Would trust have overcome suspicion? It was a crude but tested form of recognition, far less complicated or dangerous than a written message.

  Bolitho said, “I am leaving now, Mr Queely.” He gripped his arm tightly. “You know what to do if—”

  Queely stepped aside. “Aye, sir. If. ”

  Then they were scrambling down the cutter’s side and into the small fishing boat. Rough hands reached out to guide them through the dangerous traps of nets and pots, stacked oars, and what felt like the entrails of gutted fish.

  The sail banged out from its boom and the boat swayed steeply in a welter of fine spray.

  When Bolitho looked again, Wakeful had disappeared, without even the disturbed white horses to betray her position.

  Allday settled down on a thwart and muttered, “I’ll never grumble at a King’s ship again!”

  Bolitho glanced at the purposeful figures around them. Nobody had said a word, or offered any sort of greeting.

  Marcuard’s words seemed to ring out in his ears. Be doubly careful.

  As he strained his eyes for a first glimpse of land Bolitho knew he would not need reminding again.

  The journey to the rendezvous took longer than Bolitho had expected. He and Allday were transferred to a different craft, the final one being so cramped that it was necessary to remain almost bent double in the forepeak.

  From the chart and what he had gathered from his sparse orders Bolitho knew they had passed Walcheren Island before the transfer, then after they had entered the Ooster Scheldt River they had touched sides with the second boat, barely pausing even to exchange a grunted greeting. The place seemed to be a mass of waterways and inlets although the crew were careful not to encourage Bolitho to look closely at their route.

  A desolate, flat landscape, Bolitho thought, marked here and there by tall windmills, like giants against the sky. There were plenty of small craft on the move, but he had seen nothing of any uniforms which might indicate a naval or military presence.

  When night closed in for the second time, the boat was pulled and manhandled into some long reeds, so that but for the gentle motion they could have been on a patch of dry land. It was too dark to see anything, with just a few tiny stars showing occasionally between the clouds. The wind had changed slightly, but not too much to concern Wakeful, he thought.

  Allday craned his head over the side and listened to the regular creak of another great windmill. There was a strong smell too. “Pigs,” he said without enthusiasm. “Are w
e here, Cap’n?”

  Bolitho heard voices, then two figures approached the boat— so there must be a spit of land hereabouts, he thought.

  One figure was the boat’s skipper, a round-faced Dutchman with an eye-patch. The other was stepping delicately over the wet reeds, a handkerchief clasped to his nose.

  He stared down at them and then said, “Er, Captain Bolitho? You are most prompt!” His English was almost flawless but Bolitho knew he was French.

  Bolitho climbed from the boat and almost slipped into deeper water. As he eased his cramped muscles he asked, “And whom do I have the honour—”

  The man shook his head. “We have no names, Captain. It is safer that way.” He gave an apologetic shrug. “And now I am afraid I must blindfold you and your—” he glanced warily at Allday’s powerful figure, “—companion.” He sensed their instant caution. “You might see something, no matter how unimportant it may be in your eyes, which could be dangerous for us all, yes?”

  Bolitho said, “Very well.” The man was nervous. One of gentle breeding. Certainly no soldier. An experienced campaigner would have blindfolded them hours ago. He shivered. If he had to, he knew he could find his way back here without difficulty. Boyhood in the county of Cornwall, and years of service in small vessels had left him its own heritage.

  They sloshed through the reeds and then on to rough ground, the windmill’s regular groans then being joined by another. Bolitho knew that someone from the boat was walking in the rear. Apart from the wind it was very still, the air as keen as sleet.

  The man held Bolitho’s elbow, murmuring occasional warnings about their progress. Bolitho sensed they were close to a large building, but not one of the windmills.

  His guide whispered, “You are meeting Vice-Admiral Louis Brennier.” He seemed to feel Bolitho’s sudden attention. “You know him?”

  He did not reply directly. “I thought there were to be no names, m’sieu?”

  The man hesitated, then said, “It is what he wishes. His life has no value but to this great cause.”