Montresor got to his feet. Like Keen he had fair hair and the fresh complexion of a schoolboy.
He asked, “Are we to blockade the French at Toulon and the other ports, Sir Richard?”
Bolitho replied, “Not entirely. Our main task is to catch them if they break out, and destroy them. They will be testing us, remember, feeling our strength as well as our ability.” He saw Keen’s face. He alone knew what Bolitho had left until now.
“There is one French squadron, newly formed, but not yet reported in Toulon.”
Even as he said it he found it hard to believe, impossible to accept.
“Rear-Admiral Jobert commands it.” He saw their exchange of glances; for some it had not sunk in.
He looked round the great cabin. “This was his ship, gentlemen. We took it from him some five months ago.” How had Jobert managed it? To obtain an exchange with some British prisoner of equal rank perhaps, but Bolitho had heard of no such arrangement.
“He will know our movements, also that my flag flies above the squadron. He is a brave and resourceful officer and will be out for revenge.”
Inch leaned forward and bobbed. “We’ll finish him this time!”
Bolitho looked at the three junior officers. “Your importance is paramount. I have no doubt in my mind that Jobert was behind the trap laid for Barracouta.” It was little more than a guess, but fitted what he knew about Jobert. The look of gratitude on Lapish’s face more than made up for it. He would not repeat his mistake.
Bolitho said, “Jobert may intend to seek out any small, detached vessel and destroy her and so leave the flagship deaf and blind.”
With his ex-flagship and Helicon, another French prize, trailing their coats in his waters, Jobert would need little encouragement to level the score.
At the back of his mind Bolitho wondered if Admiral Sheaffe had known about this when he had last seen him. An encouragement for one was a goad for the other. Perhaps I am the bait?
Keen murmured bitterly, “We should have done for him there and then!” It was unusual for him to sound so vehement.
Worrying about the girl and what would become of her now that they were moving deeper into the Mediterranean? What should be done with her? Perhaps, after all, his plan had gone wrong and might eventually do her some real harm.
He thrust it from his mind. The war would not wait. It was something greater than any of them had known.
He said quietly, “So let us dine together, gentlemen.”
Inch beamed. “And think of our loved ones, eh?”
Captain Houston gave a thin smile. “Some can do more than think about them to all accounts.”
Keen looked pale but managed to remain silent.
Bolitho said, “Captain Houston, I am not sure if that was meant to be offensive? If so, then I am offended.” His grey eyes were suddenly hard. “I am waiting.”
The silence was oppressive like the humidity in the cabin.
Houston met Bolitho’s gaze and said hesitantly, “I meant no offence to you, Sir Richard.”
“I am glad to know it.” Bolitho turned aside. Houston was a fool. Worse, he might become the weak link in their slender chain.
He thought of Inch’s words which brought Houston’s response. I shall write to Belinda tomorrow. But the thought remained motionless in his mind, like a cloud.
As the others made their way towards the long table with its gleaming candles, Keen said urgently, “It is beginning, sir, I blame myself. I would not have had this happen—”
Bolitho faced him and, ignoring the others, gripped his arm with sudden force.
“Say no more on the matter. Tomorrow, next week maybe, we could join our lost friends, or be whimpering as our parts drop in Tuson’s wings and limbs tubs.” He tightened his grip still more. “It is something you could never have foreseen.” Then he smiled and released his hold. “In truth, Val, I damned well envy you.” He turned away before Keen could speak.
Two days later, as a lordly East Indiaman dropped anchor in the bay, Bolitho’s squadron weighed and put to sea in watery sunlight. Throughout the squadron every purser was worrying over fresh water and rations, and each captain considered the need to be sparing with cordage and canvas as they sailed farther and farther from the land.
A thousand miles ahead of the squadron the little brig Firefly lay hove-to under the flagship’s lee.
Adam Bolitho stood on the broad quarterdeck and glanced across at the other ships and then up at the vice-admiral’s flag at the fore. Like his uncle, and yet it was all so different. Several other visitors were aboard, and the flagship’s own captain had barely paused to offer him a nod.
The solitary epaulette counted for very little here, he thought. But the challenge and the thrill of making his first rendezvous in his own command still held him. Even sighting the Rock in all its majesty had seemed exciting and personal. And now he was here in the old Victory, ignored perhaps, but here.
He shaded his eyes to look across at his small command. She was young and alive, the way he felt.
He owed it all to his uncle, although he would be the first to deny it. Adam sighed. It was his uncle’s birthday tomorrow, although without someone to remind him he would let it pass unnoticed. He would more likely be thinking of the day after, two years exactly since he had married Belinda at Falmouth. They had been a hard two years, much of them spent at sea, as was the way of the Bolitho men. Now there was little Elizabeth, but something was missing.
The flag-lieutenant joined him on the quarterdeck and eyed him curiously.
“The secretary is completing the despatches you are to carry. It will not take long.”
“Thank you.”
“In the meantime Lord Nelson would be pleased to receive you. Please follow me.”
Adam walked aft, his mind awhirl. He was twenty-three years old and with Firefly had thought he had everything.
A voice announced, “Commander Adam Bolitho, my lord.”
In fact it was just beginning.
5 DARKNESS AT NOON
BOLITHO paced slowly along Argonaute’s handsome stern gallery, his neckcloth untied, his shirt open to his waist. October it might be, but the air was hot, with little more than a light breeze to fill the sails.
He liked the stern gallery, a luxury he had never enjoyed in an English-built ship. Beyond the tall windows of his day cabin, or above on the poop, was the ship and all the responsibility she represented. Here on this narrow catwalk there was complete privacy, no eyes to watch him, to study his confidence or lack of it. Even the sounds were more muffled here, masked by the surge of water below the counter, the creak of the rudder-head as the helmsmen held the two-decker on course.
One sound did intrude, however. The regular staccato roll of a drum, the agonizing pause, and the crack of the lash on a man’s naked back.
One more note in the punishment book, and little comment from the ship’s company. Discipline was discipline, less harsh in many ways than that meted out by the lower deck if they found someone stealing from their own kind.
Crack.
Bolitho thought of the girl, and wondered why he had not told Adam about her when Firefly had joined the labouring squadron just long enough to pass some despatches and collect letters for home. For Firefly was returning to England, Nelson’s link with a far-off Admiralty.
Adam had said wistfully, “I have only just come here, Uncle.” He had brightened when Bolitho had given him a letter for Belinda. “But I shall be back soon with any luck.”
Bolitho walked to the end of the gallery and rested his hand on the gilded shoulder of a life-sized mermaid, the twin of the one at the opposite side. He smiled. Well, almost. This one had been decapitated by a ball from Achates on that murderous day in May. Adam and Hallowes, who now commanded Supreme, had boarded this ship with a small handful of men, each knowing it was a last chance with the possibility of survival too unlikely to consider. Adam had told him about this mermaid and how he had clung to her before th
e last mad dash.
The old woodcarver at Plymouth who had fashioned a new head must have a sense of humour, he thought. He had given the mermaid a sardonic grin, as if she was enjoying a secret.
He had asked Adam of his impressions of Nelson and had seen him putting them together in his mind.
“He was not at all as I expected. He seemed restless, and in some pain from his arm. And although I am taller than his lordship, he seemed to fill the cabin. I cannot explain it. And his contempt for authority is astounding. The name of Admiral Sheaffe was mentioned and Nelson laughed. He said that Sheaffe’s oceans were made of paper and fine intentions, that he had forgotten that it took men to win wars.”
“You liked him, despite his outspokenness to a subordinate?”
Adam had seemed uncertain. “I am not sure, Uncle. Once I thought him vain, even shallow, and the next instant I was struck by his total grasp of the war out here.” He had grinned shyly. “I know now that I would follow him to hell and back if he required it of me. But I cannot say why. It is just something I know.”
It was much as others had said. Hated by most of his superiors, but loved by the men he led, the majority of whom had never laid eyes on him. Bolitho wished he had been there.
Adam had said, “He asked of you, Uncle, and wished you well.”
Now Firefly was gone, speeding to Gibraltar and then on to Spithead.
Without effort Bolitho could see Portsmouth as he had left it. Cold and wet, but so strong in his life.
He began pacing again. Nelson had left him in no doubt as to a suitable watering-place for his ships. Sardinia, and a small group of islands at the eastern end of the Straits of Bonifacio. The Madalena Islands as they were named lay less than two hundred miles from Toulon. Trust “Our Nel” to know such things. No wonder he could thumb his nose at men like Sheaffe. Until his luck ran out.
Pipes trilled like distant birds. Without seeing it Bolitho knew the hands were being dismissed, the flogged man cut down, the gratings unrigged and swabbed clean. Justice had been done.
Bolitho thought of his instructions. It made him smile to himself. As a captain you received orders. A flag-officer had to discover his own solutions.
The squadron had been given a two-hundred-mile sector, west of Toulon and the main blockade to the Spanish frontier. It was of course possible that if the French did break out in force they might try again for Egypt and the Nile. It had been a very close thing the last time. If they succeeded in a new attempt, Bonaparte would look further to India. It would be like opening a vast sack of booty, to say nothing of a tactical advantage. Bolitho thought it just as likely that the French fleet would head for the Strait of Gibraltar and force their way to Biscay and double the size of their squadrons there.
If he had read Nelson’s mind correctly, no matter what Adam thought, Nelson would want the lion’s share of the fight for himself.
The sea seemed empty without half his ships. He had sent Inch with Despatch in company with Lapish’s frigate as scout and go-between. Icarus, her sails filling and then emptying in the weak breeze, followed astern, her gunports open as the sour-faced Captain Houston drilled his crews. The cutter was like a pale shark’s fin far to windward, and Rapid was visible only from the masthead as she led her big consorts like beasts on a line.
Far to starboard the horizon looked deep purple. Corsica. He leaned on the rail and looked at the water as it bubbled from the rudder. In these light airs it would take longer than he had hoped to find anchorage and take on fresh water. The nearness of land would do wonders for the seamen and marines, he thought.
A door opened onto the gallery and Allday said apologetically, “Cap’n Keen’s respects, sir, an’ Rapid has sighted a sail to the east’rd. Masthead reports it’s just in sight.”
Bolitho nodded. “I’ll wait down here.” It was strange, he had heard nothing. Like his new chair, the gallery was private and personal.
He grinned at his reflection in the windows. Must be getting old.
Keen came down a few minutes later.
“A schooner, sir. Genoese according to Mr Paget—he went aloft with a glass.”
Bolitho walked into the cabin and crossed to his chart.
“So long as she’s not Spanish. The Dons may not be in the war, not yet at least, but they are still an enemy and will tell the French everything they can about us.”
Keen suggested, “She’ll be a trader hereabouts, sir. I’d like to speak with her myself when we’re up to her.”
Bolitho thought of Rapid’s commander, Quarrell. A good officer, but, like Lapish, he lacked experience.
“Yes, you go. The trader may know something.” He said with sudden anger, “Like groping in the dark. I wonder what he’s up to?”
Keen watched him. Jobert was rarely mentioned by name but he was always on Bolitho’s mind.
Bolitho was saying, “These islands, there are quite a few hiding places amongst them. It will be well to keep a sharp lookout until we know they are secure.” He tapped the chart with some dividers. “On this hill for a beginning. A good man could see for miles from there.”
Keen waited, knowing there was more to come.
Bolitho rubbed his chin. “I’d like to see for myself. Once you have investigated this schooner, signal Supreme to close on the flag. I intend to board her and go on ahead.” He saw Keen’s uneasiness and added, “Don’t worry, Val, I have no intention of becoming a prisoner-of-war a second time!”
Keen should have been used to Bolitho’s unorthodox methods but he always seemed to have something new up his sleeve. It would certainly keep the cutter’s little company jumping with their admiral dropped amongst them.
Bolitho pulled his shirt away from his damp skin.
“How are things, Val?”
Keen replied, “She is well, sir. If only there was a way to reassure her.” He shrugged, the gesture one of helplessness. “We do not even know ourselves—”
There was a rap at the door and after a small hesitation Midshipman Sheaffe looked into the cabin.
“Mr Paget’s respects, sir. The schooner is hove-to.”
Bolitho said, “We shall be up to her before dusk. We don’t want to lose her.”
Keen smiled in spite of his thoughts. What Bolitho really meant was he needed to get started now that he had decided on something.
Bolitho saw Sheaffe’s eyes watching, perhaps comparing them, and wondered what he would say if he knew what Nelson had said of his father. Sheaffe was very like his father in one way. Keen said that he had made no friends and in fact avoided any close contact. Not an easy thing in an overcrowded ship of the line.
Bolitho said, “Mr Sheaffe will come with me. Good experience.”
“Thank you, Sir Richard.” Either Sheaffe did not care what he was being told to do or he had been listening at the screen door.
Allday protested as soon as the others had gone, “You can’t go without me, sir!”
“Don’t be such an old woman, Allday.” He smiled. “I may go ashore, and I’ll not have you undoing all the good the surgeon did by dragging you up a mountain.” He saw the stubborn light in Allday’s eyes and added, “Besides, I think my, er, second cox’n should be given the chance, eh?”
Allday nodded slowly but said mistrustfully, “If you says so, sir.”
Bolitho had been right about timing. It was nearly dusk by the time they had the shabby schooner lying under their lee, and when Keen returned he had little to offer. “The master says he sighted a frigate four days ago, sir, could have been a Frenchie. He did not loiter to find out. He is making for Lisbon.”
“In that?” Bolitho shook his head. Not only men-of-war had their problems.
But a solitary frigate must be assumed to be an enemy. Nelson had only two, otherwise there was just Barracouta. Spanish then? Unlikely to be sailing without company in these disputed waters. He marked the place on the chart which Keen had gleaned from the trader. Out of Toulon, or trying to get back into that port?
He made up his mind. “I’ll go over to Supreme before night closes in. See to it, will you, Val.”
Keen could manage very well without him, and Inch would be well able to take care of the rest of the squadron if anything happened.
He heard the calls shrilling and the clatter of tackles above the boat tier.
He felt sorry for Allday, but there was no point in overtaxing his strength. The savage wound had healed, but it had not gone away.
He waited while Ozzard fussed about with his seagoing coat and the hat with the tarnished lace.
In his heart Bolitho knew he needed to be alone, away from those he trusted, even loved.
“Barge alongside, Sir Richard.”
A last glance around the cabin. It seemed to be watching him. Waiting maybe for its old master to return.
Bolitho allowed Allday to clip the old sword to his belt.
Never in a thousand years, he thought. Then he loosened the blade in its scabbard and thought of those other times.
Aloud he said, “I’ll see him dead first.”
At the entry port where the side party had assembled Bolitho took Keen aside and said quietly, “I shall see you at our rendezvous.” He glanced at the sky. “We are in for a blow, so make sure that Icarus stays in close company.”
Keen opened his mouth to speak and changed his mind. The breeze barely pushed the reefed topsails against the shrouds as the ship lay hove-to, and apart from a few arrowhead clouds the sky was as before.
Old Fallowfield, the sailing-master, was nearby and walked towards his helmsman. Even he was impressed. He glared at a midshipman who was watching the vice-admiral open-mouthed and growled, “Wait till you can fathom out the weather like that, Mr Penton, but I see no chance o’ you learnin’ nothin’!”
Keen touched his hat. “Aye, sir. I’ll send Rapid after you if need be.”
Bolitho glanced up to his flag. “This would be a private ship but for my presence, Val. Use my quarters while I am away. They would have been yours.”
He tugged down his hat and clambered over the side as the boatswain’s mates trilled their salute.
Colours Aloft! Page 7