Alexander Kent - Bolitho 20 Darkening Sea

by Darkening Sea [lit]

  So many times. Leaving harbour had always roused him, enlivened his young mind as a midshipman or lieutenant. A ship coming to life, the hands ready to dash to their stations where every yard and mile of cordage had its proper place and use. An equal strain on all parts as one old sailing master had explained to him many times.

  He heard feet in the passageway, heavy, authoritative steps. As expected, it was the captain.

  "Ready to proceed, Sir Richard." His deepset eyes were questioning, bleak.

  "I shall come up." It occurred to him that he had hardly been on deck since Valkyrie had weighed at Plymouth.

  He glanced around the cabin and saw Ozzard's small shadow beyond the pantry door. "I hope that Anemone can make up some time along the way." It was only a thought spoken aloud as he might have done to Keen or Jenour.

  "I expect he will have an explanation of sorts, Sir Richard. Anemone's captain is your nephew, I believe?"

  That is so." He met Trevenen's cold stare. "Just as my flag lieutenant is the nephew of Sir Paul Sillitoe, the prime minister's adviser. I am constantly surprised by such connections."

  He brushed past him, feeling stupidly childish that he had used Trevenen's own tactics against him. A challenge then? So be it.

  "Hands aloft! Loose tops' is

  Bolitho saw Allday by the nettings, his face grim as he watched the bare-backed seamen swarming up the ratlines like monkeys. Many of them had scars on their skin, some pale with age, others still livid from the cat.

  "Anchor's hove short, sir!"

  Trevenen said abruptly, "Start those laggards on the capstan bars, Mr. Urquhart! They are like old women today!"

  As a boatswain's mate moved towards them with his rope starter, the men at the bars used every ounce of strength, their naked feet digging into the grips like claws.

  "Anchor's aweigh, sir!"

  Bolitho saw the first lieutenant's obvious relief. The men had been saved further beatings. This time.

  Topsails and jib, then her great fore course filling out and hardening to the wind, Valkyrie turned her stern towards the Rock, her high lee side comfortably clear of the water.

  Before she was out of the anchorage her pyramid of fair-weather canvas towered above her busy deck as an indication of the power which drove her through the water. Bolitho saw the other frigate tacking round to follow in their wake, a creature of beauty and challenge.

  He stared across the taffrail and made out a low shadow of land. Spain. Some there were at peace under English protection; others would still be too terrified of Napoleon's regiments to surrender. Bolitho recalled those optimistic words at Hamett-Parker's reception: "The war is all but won." How many times had he seen these shores, knowing that many telescopes were trained on the ships leaving this great natural fortress. Fast horses ready to take their messengers at top speed to lookouts and coastal batteries. The English ships are out. He had known the Spanish as reluctant allies and then as enemies. He had felt safer with the latter.

  He said to Allday, "Come aft with me." He knew that the watch keepers on the quarterdeck were listening with astonishment and perhaps disbelief. Another part of the legend. The vice-admiral who could at the snap of his fingers sail them all to hell if he wished, a man so well-known in the navy, and yet there were few who had ever seen him, let alone served with him. Now he was going down the companion ladder with his burly coxswain as if they were old friends, shipmates like themselves.

  They reached the comparatively cool air between decks and walked aft to where the marine sentry stood between the two doors of Trevenen's and his own quarters. A blank, ordinary face, a bayonetted musket at his side, his eyes looking straight past them.

  Inside the cabin Ozzard was ready and waiting. Hock for the vice-admiral, rum for his coxswain.

  Bolitho sat on the bench seat and stared at the creaming water bubbling up from the rudder.

  "What is the matter with them, old friend?"

  Allday held up the tankard and blinked in the sunlight. "I seen an old dog once, the way it cowered when its drunken master raised a stick to it." His voice was faraway, reliving it. "Then one day it went for him. That bugger never laid a hand on him again!" He swallowed a mouthful of rum and added reflectively, "An' there's more'n one dog in this ship!"

  Captain Adam Bolitho came on deck and glanced first at the compass and then at the set of each individual sail. Anemone was making full use of a fine north-westerly wind that had whipped the blue-grey water into a million cruising white horses, and now filled the sails to the hardness of white metal.

  The deck was a scene of busy activity, for although it was not long after dawn the hands were washing down the main deck on the lee side where seas occasionally dashed through the open gun ports to gurgle around their bare legs before surging into the scuppers. On the quarterdeck other seamen were busy with the heavy holystones, cleaning and smoothing the pale planking before the sun gained height and softened the seams to make such work impossible.

  To the new men Adam probably did not look much like a successful frigate captain. Hatless and without even his faded sea-going coat, his dark hair flying in the wind, he might appear more like a pirate.

  It had taken longer than he had anticipated to clear Spithead and put a small press-gang ashore. They returned with only three men, none of whom had ever been to sea. Off Portsmouth Point he had been more fortunate, when quite by chance Anemone had run down on a topsail cutter under the command of a notorious lieutenant who controlled the press-gangs there. The lieutenant had been so resourceful that he often followed home-bound merchant ships making for the Solent or Southampton Water. He had long ago discovered that the meaner ship masters often paid off all but the minimum of hands required, to save themselves money. Once paid off and the lieutenant usually watched the proceedings through a huge signals telescope the cutter would swoop alongside and the luckless sailors, some almost within sight of home, were snatched up by the press and taken to the guard ship

  Adam had obtained twelve hands, all seamen: still not enough, but it had eased the lot of his lieutenants and warrant officers. The delay had taken him off course, however, and when he had reached Gibraltar he discovered that his uncle and the other frigate had already sailed.

  The first lieutenant approached him and touched his forehead.

  "Sou' west by south, sir. Steady as she goes."

  Adam thought of his sealed orders, which he would eventually deliver to his uncle. Over six thousand miles, with a call at Freetown on the west coast of the African continent. It could have been to the moon: one small ship, his ship, free to act as she pleased and without anyone to say otherwise.

  Lieutenant Martin watched him anxiously. The captain had never been an easy one to serve when things went wrong. But his predecessor Sargeant, who had been sent to his own command, had managed very well despite his youth. He had stood between captain and company as any first lieutenant should, and out of it had come a friendship which Martin accepted was not yet his privilege to be offered.

  He said, "I was wondering, sir... shall we set the stuns' is when the people have had their breakfast?"

  Adam glanced up at the tapering studding-sail booms, which were lashed beneath the yards. Once extended, with the extra sails giving even more power to the ship, Anemone might gain a few more knots.

  He noticed the greasy smell of cooking from the galley funnel and was suddenly aware of the uncertainty of his second-in-command. To Martin's astonishment he clapped him on the arm and smiled. "I am bad company, Aubrey. Stand by me, for I am in irons at the moment."

  Martin's face flooded with relief but he was sensible enough not to ask the reason for his captain's despair.

  Adam remarked, "I am in no hurry to catch up with the others, and that is the truth of it."

  "But your uncle, sir?"

  Adam showed his teeth in a grin. "He is still the flag officer, and I never allow myself to forget it." He swung round as the sailing master appeared from the companion hatch.
"Ah, Mr. Partridge, I have a task for you."

  The old master grunted. "I be ready, sir."

  "If you lay a course to Madeira, allowing for the wind holding, what time will we anchor at Funchal?"

  Partridge did not even blink. "Why, sir, I thought it was to be a tiresome difficult question!" He beamed at his captain, who was less than half his age, although nobody was quite sure how old Partridge himself was.

  He said, The masthead should be sighting land presently, sir. I'll go and work on the chart."

  He shambled away and Adam shook his head in admiration.

  "What a man. If I ordered him to take us to the Barrier Reef he would not flinch."

  The first lieutenant, who had seen nothing in the sailing orders or Admiralty Instructions about calling at Madeira, asked, "May I ask why that place, sir?"

  Adam walked to the quarterdeck rail and watched the two helmsmen at the big double wheel. At times like these he could forget that his company was still short of hands, and all the other problems of command. But for the girl who haunted his thoughts he might even be happy.

  He said, "Madeira is an oasis, Aubrey, a water-hole for brave merchant captains as well as the predators like us. Where vessels of all flags pause to do repairs, to take on stores, to replenish their wine. Also, there are usually a few seasoned sailors who because of one mistake or tother have been left behind by their ships!" He grinned, and was a boy again. "So send the watch below to their breakfast, the smell of which has already turned my stomach. After that, we will alter course for Funchal, the last land we shall touch until Sierra Leone." They both looked up as the hail came down from the mainmast. "Deck there! Land on the larboard bow!"

  Old Partridge reappeared, containing his satisfaction. "There, sir, what did I say?"

  His lieutenant ventured, "Suppose the authorities there object to our search for men?"

  Adam smiled. "We shall ask, for volunteers naturally!"

  They both laughed and some of the seamen glanced at each other as the pipe came for the watch below to dismiss to their messes.

  As Adam strode to the companion-way the old master grunted, "That's more like it, Mr. Martin. It's put the sparkle back in his eye. Better for us too!"

  "What has been troubling him, do you think?"

  Old Partridge puffed out his weathered cheeks and answered scornfully, "A woman, o' course! Officers should know about them things!"

  In his cabin where his servant waited to serve him breakfast, Adam thought suddenly of his uncle, and the great love he had envied so much. Bolitho had been in Madeira and had taken a fan and some lace to Catherine. Perhaps if he himself went ashore he might find a piece of silver, some jewellery maybe... He swung to the stern windows so that the servant should not see his face. She would never wear it, nor would she take it from him. After her stinging rebuff he was a madman even to consider it.

  From somewhere in the length of his command someone was playing a lively jig on a fiddle, and another was keeping him company on a whistle. They would be crossing the equator soon after Freetown, when King Neptune and his court would be welcomed aboard, and the uninitiated would be roughly handled in a ceremony that had been held in every King's ship for as long as anybody could remember.

  Adam sat down and stared at the greasy pork on his plate as it moved with a life of its own to the ship's steep motion.

  Officers were not exempt. He could recall when as a lieutenant he had been stripped naked and almost choked with the mess they had used to 'shave' him. It was a simple thing, but sailors were simple men. It might help to draw his untried company together. He knew Old Partridge was to be Neptune. He pushed the food aside. He could not keep the girl out of his mind.

  Under shortened sail, the frigate Anemone changed tack yet again for the final approach. The island of Madeira was shining in afternoon sunlight, its towering, flower-covered hills like a place in a fable.

  "Deck there!" Some of the off-duty men looked up, but most of them stared hungrily at the land.

  The lookout sounded surprised even from his dizzy perch in the cross trees

  "Man-o'-war, sir! Ship-o'-th'-line!" Lieutenant Martin asked, "One of ours, sir?" Adam stared at the distant island. "I can't think what a liner would be doing here. I've no information about it. Where would she be from? The blockading squadron, on passage from the Caribbean? Most unlikely." He picked up a telescope. "I'll go aloft myself, Aubrey. You keep the ship on course unless I say otherwise."

  He swung himself out and on to the ratlines, the telescope slung around his shoulder. Then he looked down at his first lieutenant and said quietly, "At least it will show the people they are not commanded by a cripple!"

  Heights had never troubled him, not even as a young midshipman, unlike his beloved uncle who had confided his youthful fears of being ordered aloft. Once he glanced down and saw the pale wave creaming back from the bows, the tiny figures on the quarterdeck and along the gangway nearest the island. Volunteers and pressed men, the good and the bad, and some who had barely escaped the hangman's halter. There was only one thing to weld them together: they had to be tested, to make the ship the thing most worthwhile in their lives.

  He reached the main cross trees and nodded to the lookout, an older seaman named Betts who had eyes like a skua.

  Adam said, "You are troubled, Betts?" He opened the telescope and locked one leg around a stay.

  "I dunno, sir. She's the look of a two-decker, but..."

  Adam levelled the telescope and waited for Anemone to rise from a lazy trough.

  "She's a frigate, Betts. You were right to be confused." He blinked to clear his vision. Perhaps she was the Valkyrie, of which he had heard so much. He dismissed it immediately. His uncle would have left word of any change of plans at Gibraltar. French, then? They would not dare; it would be as dangerous as lying on a lee shore if an English ship like Anemone hove into sight. He extended the glass once again and caught his breath as a small gust of wind lifted the flag at the other ship's poop, the starred and striped colours of the new American navy.

  He snapped the glass shut and watched the scene that had been so clear fall into the distance. And yet this old seaman Betts had seen everything with his eyes alone, but for the flag.

  He slid down a backstay and joined his officers aft, aware of the curious stares of men who for the most part he barely knew. Yet.

  He faced the others. "She's a Yankee. Big too."

  Jervis Lewis, the newly-appointed third lieutenant, fresh from another ship's gunroom, asked, "Shall we run out, sir?"

  Martin looked at him with scorn. "We're not at war, you idiot!"

  The master mumbled unhelpfully, "Far as we knows, sir."

  Adam smiled grimly. "There was no activity aboard her. She's a visitor." To the first lieutenant he added, "Remember? Predators."

  He walked to the rail and glanced along the main deck at the long eighteen-pounders, so jet-black beneath each gangway. "Have the ship prepared to enter harbour, Mr. Martin." He looked round for the signals midshipman. "And, Mr. Dun-woody, bend on a new ensign to show our good intentions and prepare your crew. Be ready to make and receive any formal signals!"

  The officers hurried away, glad to be doing something. Adam considered it. Glad to be told what to do.

  Lieutenant Martin watched his captain. She, whoever she was, if the master was right, would be proud to see her man like this.

  Adam said, "I shall go below and change. Tell that servant to find me a clean shirt." He took a last glance at the island and thought he could smell flowers amongst the drift of salt. It was probably nothing, but some inner warning had roused him from his brooding thoughts like the touch of steel.

  The great anchor splashed into the clear water exactly as two bells chimed out from the forecastle.

  With the sun high over the spiralling mastheads Adam was soon aware of his heavy dress coat. His shirt, found by the servant who was certainly no Ozzard, was already moulded to his skin.

  There were
plenty of ships at anchor and alongside the jetties. Flags of every kind, vessels as mixed as the men who served them.

  The American frigate towered above all of them. Across her broad counter and below the curling striped flag was her name in gold letters, Unity. When Anemone took the strain on her cable and swung sedately above her reflection Adam saw the ship's beak head painted blue and decorated with bright gold stars. The figurehead was a citizen with a folded scroll in his outilling hand, probably a hero or a martyr of their revolt against King George.

  Lieutenant Martin lowered his speaking trumpet as the last sail was furled and lashed tightly to its yard. They were getting better and faster, he thought, but not much.

  He said, "I've not heard of her, sir."