"Nor I. Very new by the cut of her, and look at her teeth. Twenty-four-pounders if I'm any judge!"
Lewis the new third lieutenant said importantly, "I'd not want to tangle with her!" But he fell silent when Adam looked at him.
"Ship secured, sir!"
"Very well. Send away a guard boat in case some reckless Jack tries to desert to our big friend over there, and to the land of the free!"
He spoke bitterly and Martin wondered why.
A boatswain's mate called, They're sending a boat, sir! Officer on board!"
"Man the side!"
A tall lieutenant climbed up through the entry port, and after raising his hat casually to the quarterdeck said, "Do I have the honour of addressing the captain?"
"Captain Adam Bolitho of His Britannic Majesty's Ship Anemone."
"Captain Nathan Beer of the Unity sends his compliments, and has ordered me to extend an invitation to you to visit him at dusk, sir. A boat will be sent for your convenience." His eyes moved briefly across the deck. "I see that you do not carry too many yourself, sir."
"My compliments to your captain..." He hesitated. He should perhaps have said respects, but that would imply that he thought himself subordinate to the American. "I will be honoured." He smiled. "But I will attend in my own boat."
More salutes, and the American was gone. Adam said, "I will go ashore to make peace with the authorities. Lower another boat for the surgeon, and the purser's convenience. Medicine for the one maybe, and fresh fruit for the sick-bay."
But his mind was on his visitor. So it was to be captain to captain and nothing less formal. Nathan Beer his name if not his ship seemed familiar. He saw his gig being warped around to the side. Smart enough, but the American lieutenant might have noticed their strength or lack of it. He turned to his first lieutenant. "Take charge in my absence. Any doubts, and send someone for me." He let his words sink in. "But I have every faith in you." He walked to the entry port, where a side party had re-formed. "If a deserter tries to swim from the ship, signal the guard boat But no shooting if he does not give up. I'd rather have him drowned than shot." He nodded his head toward the big frigate. They will be watching. Enemy or not, they will never be our friends, so do not forget it!"
Captain Nathan Beer was a big man in every way, and met Adam at the entry port of his frigate with a jovial informality to match. With his broad, weathered face and unruly hair barely touched by grey, and twinkling blue eyes, in England he would have passed easily for a gentleman farmer. Amongst frigate captains Adam was more used to younger men, although some had been on the ladder for far longer.
Adam glanced along the broad gundeck. They were indeed twenty-four-pounders, and he was reminded of the new lieutenant's tactless remark when they had entered the anchorage. Unity would be a formidable opponent. He knew Beer was watching him but was making no attempt to prevent his professional scrutiny. Perhaps it was meant as a warning.
"Come below and share some madeira. I thought I should taste the stuff, but it's a mite sweet for me."
The after part of the ship was very spacious too. Even so, Beer had to duck his head between some of the deck head beams.
A cabin servant took Adam's hat and studied him with open curiosity as he was pouring the wine.
Beer was much older than Adam had expected. Despite his glowing health he was close to sixty, maybe more. In his fist, the glass looked like a child's toy.
"May I ask your business here, Captain Bolitho?"
"You may, sir. I came to collect stores, and of course to see what ship had caught my eye."
Beer grinned, his eyes almost disappearing into the crinkles. "An honest answer!"
Adam swallowed some of the wine. A glance around told him quite a lot. The fittings were expensive, and there was a portrait of a woman and two girls on the bulkhead beside Beer's dress sword.
"Have you been in command long, sir?"
Beer eyed him keenly. "Since she first tasted salt water at Boston. It was very exciting to see her grow, even for an old sailor like me. My home is in Newburyport, not too far away..." He broke off. "You know it?"
"I have been there."
Beer did not press him. "I'm very proud to be Unity's captain. There's not a ship that can stand up to her, not a frigate anyway. To the rest I can show a clean pair of heels if needs be!"
Adam heard a voice call something, which was followed by a gust of laughter. A happy ship then. He could well imagine it under this remarkable captain.
Beer was saying, "Ours is a small navy as yet. We are feeling our way forward. Our officers must be men of zeal and conviction. I was privileged to visit France recently how things change. Like my country, France was reborn out of revolution, but the tyranny there remains. Your successes on the Peninsula may bring back the old spirit perhaps."
Adam said, "They will be beaten as they have been at sea and are now being trounced in Spain."
Beer regarded him gravely. "Heavy thoughts for one so young, if I dare to say as much?" He picked up a refilled glass and did not look at Adam as he said, "You will be sailing with despatches for your Sir Richard Bolitho. It is common knowledge around here, ships coming and going, only too glad to share information after months at sea. Are you his son, by any chance? The name is not familiar to me, except for one other."
"I am his nephew, sir."
"I see. The man I knew was a renegade who joined with us against the British to win our independence."
"Did he command a frigate named AndironT
"He was your father? I knew it! The same eyes, his manner. I did not know him well but I knew his reputation enough to be saddened by news of his death."
Then you have a privilege which I did not share." A warning voice was telling him to say nothing. Perhaps the secret had been bottled up too long, but the truth of how his father had really died he would never release.
Beer said, "He was not a happy man, I think. The trouble with renegades is that nobody ever trusts them." He forced a grin. "Take John Paul Jones, for instance!" But the humour would not come.
Adam asked, "And what of you? Is it your mission to carry despatches also?"
Beer answered levelly, "We are spreading our wings. The British Navy commands the high seas, but such awesome power has taken a heavy toll. The French could still have another trick to play. Napoleon has too much to lose to bow down in submission."
"So have we, sir."
Beer went off at a tangent. "This news about American ships being stopped by your patrols and searched for contraband -in my view it is to seize seamen for your fleet. Our President has twice made his strong displeasure known and has received promises of a sort from His Majesty's government. I hope it is true."
Adam smiled for the first time. "Would you join with France against us again?"
Beer stared at him and then grinned hugely. "You are much as I was at your age!"
"We speak the same language, sir. I think it is the only similarity."
Beer tugged out his watch. "I am sailing on the tide, Captain Bolitho. Next time we meet I hope we can sup together."
As if to a signal they both picked up their hats and went out into the cool gloom of the upper deck.
Adam thought of the crowded anchorage and twisting course Beer would have to steer. No one but the best captain and seamen could do it in the dark.
"Give my regards to your uncle, Captain. Now he is a man I would gladly meet!"
The side lanterns were playing across Anemone's gig as it loitered on the swell, its hull outlined by twisting streamers of phosphorescence. Dunwoody, the senior midshipman at sixteen years old, was at the tiller.
Beer rested one big hand on the breech of the nearest gun.
"Let that meeting not be over the muzzle of those beauties!"
They doffed their hats and Adam climbed down into the boat. He could hear the capstan working busily, and some of the sails had been freed from their yards and were billowing and cracking against the great ceiling of sta
rs.
The boat pulled clear and Unity became an anonymous shadow like the others. Another coincidence? Or had Beer kept him aboard so that Anemone would have no time to up anchor and go after him? He gave an unexpected smile. Just as well with such a new company.
He asked, "What news, Mr. Dunwoody?"
The boy was smart and alert, an obvious choice for the important world of fleet signals. If the war dragged on he might be a lieutenant in a year. Dunwoody would be more than aware of that.
The boats brought ten more seamen on board, sir. They all have protection, as they are of the Honourable East India Company." The boy leaned forward to watch a passing fishing boat. "The first lieutenant says they are all prime seamen, sir."
They would be. John Company prided itself on its sailors. Good conditions, fair pay, and the ships were well-armed enough to drive off even a man-of-war. Everything the navy should be. Could be. These ten extra hands were a godsend. They had probably been drunk and had missed their ship's departure.
Adam asked, "Did they think we are sailing for England?"
The boy frowned, recalling Lieutenant Martin's wry smile, and repeated what he had said. "He told them we were, but that they would work ship until we got there."
Adam smiled in the darkness. Martin was learning fast.
"Well, we are returning to England. Eventually!"
ill
He heard shouts from the big American frigate and thought about her impressive captain.
And he knew my father. He glanced at the midshipman, afraid for an instant that he had spoken out loud. But the boy was peering across the glittering black water at Anemone's riding light floating above it.
"Boat ahoy!"
The midshipman cupped his hands. "Anemone!"
For his dead father or for his ship he did not know, but all Adam could feel was pride.
Back aboard the big frigate men were spread out on the yards, while others worked steadily at the capstan as the cable grew tighter and steeper. The senior lieutenant watched his massive captain.
He asked quietly, "That Cap'n Bolitho. He going to give us any trouble?"
Beer smiled. "His uncle maybe, but not him, I think."
"Anchor's aweigh, sir!"
All else was forgotten as the ship heeled to the wind's thrust. Free of the ground, away from the land to her proper element.
Once clear of the anchorage the same lieutenant made his report to the quarterdeck.
"Man the braces." Beer looked at the swinging compass. "We'll alter course again in about ten minutes. Pass the word."
The lieutenant hesitated. "And you knew his father in the war, sir?"
"Yes." He thought of the young captain's grave features, driven by something he could barely suppress. How could he tell him the truth? It no longer mattered. The war, as his second-in-command had called it, was over long ago. "Yes, I knew him. He was a bastard but that is between us alone."
The lieutenant strode away, surprised and yet pleased that his formidable captain had taken him into his confidence.
By midnight under all plain sail, Unity was steering due south, with the ocean to herself.
EIGHT
Friends and Enemies
A week after leaving Gibraltar the frigate Valkyrie and her consort anchored at Freetown in Sierra Leone. After a swift passage, the final day was the longest Bolitho could remember. Searing heat that drove the bare-backed seamen from one patch of shadow to the next, and a glare so fierce it was almost impossible to discern the dividing line between sea and sky.
At one point the light airs deserted them completely, and Captain Trevenen immediately lowered boats to take the great frigate in tow in the search for a wind to carry them towards the unending span of green coastline.
Bolitho knew from hard experience that the tides and currents and the perversity of the winds off these shores could make even the most experienced sailor lose his patience. It did not help Trevenen's temper when Laertes, although only some two miles off the starboard quarter, filled her sails and began to overhaul the senior ship without difficulty.
Monteith, the fifth lieutenant, clambered into the beak head beneath the flat, listless jibs and with a speaking trumpet shouted to the three towing longboats.
"Use your starters! Mr. Gulliver, get them to put their backs into it!" As if he could sense the anger around him he added hastily, "Captain's orders!"
Bolitho heard it from the cabin and saw Allday look up as he was giving a ritual polish to the old sword.
It was like a furnace on deck. Out there in the unprotected boats it would be far worse. No boat could offer more than steerage way, especially with a ship as big as Valkyrie.
He stared astern at the undulating swell, and at the sky which was without colour, as if it had been burned out of it.
"Send for my flag lieutenant." He heard Ozzard leave the cabin. It had been a difficult passage. Valkyrie was not a proper flagship, and yet he was more than a passenger.
He had lurched from his sleep one airless night, trapped in his cot as the nightmare came at him again. The hundred-mile reef, Golden Plover rearing on to its jagged spines with her masts torn from her, then the sea boiling around the wreck, the foam suddenly blood-red as the sharks drove in amongst the drowning seamen, most of whom had been too dazed and drunk to know what was happening.
In the nightmare he had been trying to reach Catherine, but another held her, had been laughing as the sea had closed over him.
It was the first time he had really got to know something of George Avery, his new flag lieutenant. He had woken to see him sitting near him in the cabin's darkness, while the rudder-head had thudded dully like a funeral drum.
"I heard you cry out, Sir Richard. I brought you something."
It had been brandy and he had drained it in two swallows, ashamed that Avery should see him like this. He had been shivering so badly that for one terrible instant he had believed the old fever was returning, the one which had all but killed him in the Great South Sea.
Avery had said, "I thought it were better me than another." He had obviously been observing Trevenen very closely, something that made his apparent remoteness a lie.
After some time Avery told him that he himself had been dogged by nightmares after losing his schooner to the French. As a prisoner of war, and badly wounded at that, he was more of a nuisance to his captors than a triumph. He had been held in a small village, and been visited by a local doctor who had done little to help him. It was not that the French had been cruel or full of hatred towards one of the enemy, but simply that they had believed his death was inevitable. And after the Terror, death no longer had much power to frighten them.
Eventually, when he had begun to recover, some of the villagers had taken pity on him, and when he was released following the Peace of Amiens they had supplied him with warm clothing and fresh bread and cheese for the journey home.
As Bolitho had regained his own composure and shared some of the brandy with this quiet-spoken lieutenant, Avery had told him of his distress when he had been court-martialled Even aboard the old Canopus some of his fellow officers had shunned him, as if by a closer contact with him they might somehow become tainted, their own hopes of advancement dashed.
Bolitho had heard of many lieutenants who had served in several campaigns, some with distinction, who had never been selected for promotion. Perhaps Avery would be one of those, and the little armed schooner Jolie had been the nearest he would ever come to a command of his own.
Of Sillitoe he had said, "My mother was his sister. I think he felt obliged to do something for her memory. He did little enough when she needed him. Too proud, too stubborn... those were characteristics they shared."
"And your father?"
He might have shrugged: it had been too dark to see.
"He was at Copenhagen, Sir Richard, the first battle. He was serving in the Ganges, seventy-four."
Bolitho had nodded. "I knew her well. Captain Fremantle."
&
nbsp; Avery had said quietly, "I know there were many killed. My father was one."
The following day after he had been conferring with Yovell over some signals, Avery had spoken to him again. He had said suddenly, "When my uncle told me of this possible appointment I wanted to laugh. Or cry. With respect, Sir Richard, I could hardly imagine you accepting me no matter what you thought of my record, when so many dozens of lieutenants would kill for the chance!"
Now, with the last order still hanging in the airless heat of the cabin, Bolitho reached for his coat but changed his mind. Nobody seemed to know much of Trevenen's background, but it was more obvious than ever that he owed this command to
Alexander Kent - Bolitho 20 Darkening Sea Page 13