The Darkening Sea

by Alexander Kent

  Bolitho had felt his pain. It was often like that when a battle was permitted to have personality, faces and names: when the cost was so high, and so personal.

  Bolitho had been glad to leave. He had been offered passage in a rakish little sixth-rate of twenty-six guns named Argyll. Her young captain was very aware of the importance of his passenger and the despatches he carried, and doubtless wondered why an officer of such seniority did not wait for a more comfortable vessel.

  There had also been a letter at Cape Town from Catherine. On the speedy journey from the Cape he had re-read it many times. He had experienced a powerful jealousy and apprehension when she had written of her visit to Sillitoe; even fear for her personal safety and reputation.

  I had to do it, for our sakes, yours and mine. I could never allow what has happened in my past to hurt you more than many have done already. You can always trust me, dearest of men, and there was nobody else I myself could trust, for whatever reason, to keep my secrets. There were times when I questioned my actions, but I need not have doubted. In some ways I believe that Sir Paul Sillitoe was surprised at his own sense of decency.

  At London Herrick left him to have further treatment for his amputation. So different from that other Herrick. Still gruff and afraid of showing his innermost feelings, he had said, ‘They might offer me something else, Richard.’ His bright blue eyes had dropped to his empty sleeve. ‘I’d have given a lot more that day if need be, just to regain your respect.’

  ‘And friendship, Thomas.’

  ‘Aye. I’ll never forget that. Not again.’ He had given a slow grin. ‘I’ll put things right. Somehow.’

  Bolitho eased his position on the seat and pulled his boat-cloak closer around his body. The change from the Indian Ocean to an English winter had been harsher than he had expected. Getting older? He thought of his face in the looking-glass when Allday had shaved him only this morning at an inn in St Austell. His hair was still black except for the hated lock over the scar above his right eye where the cutlass had hacked him down all those years ago.

  How would she see him? Might she have regretted her decision to stay with him?

  He thought of Yovell and Ozzard, who were travelling at a more leisurely pace in a second carriage with all their belongings. He glanced at the slumbering figure opposite. The ‘little crew’ had diminished still further when the carriage had stopped overnight in Dorset. Avery, his companion through so much, would be staying in Dorchester with his married sister. It had been a strangely awkward parting, and Bolitho guessed that his flag lieutenant was considering the promotion which he had offered him. It was not certain if he could be tempted to remain with a vice-admiral who might be unemployed for some time.

  Bolitho felt the carriage pause on the crest of a hill, the horses panting and stamping their feet.

  All those weeks at sea, re-living past ships and lost faces, then days on the road. He dropped the window and looked at the nearest field, the slate wall heavy with moss and damp. There was a hint of ice at the side of the road but there was hard sunshine too, and no sign of snow.

  He knew that Allday had awakened and was on the edge of his seat, watching him. Big and powerful he might be, but when required he could move like a cat.

  He faced him, remembering the despair in his voice when he had prevented him from pushing the surgeon’s mate Lovelace aside.

  ‘Hear that, old friend?’

  A slow understanding crossed Allday’s weathered features and he nodded.

  Bolitho said quietly, ‘Church bells. Falmouth!’

  Everything else seemed so distant here. Mauritius would be in English hands by now, with relief and gratitude on the part of the Honourable East India Company. Baratte’s privateers and pirates like Simon Hannay would have nowhere now to hide and seek shelter from the English frigates.

  He himself was so eager to get home, and yet his doubts rendered him uncertain. He touched his eye, unaware of Allday’s sudden apprehension, recalling Portsmouth Point where he had been pulled ashore from the little Argyll. In the sternsheets he had turned and looked back at the frigate as she rode at anchor, her passengers and responsibilities gone.

  It had been a clear morning like this one, with the frigate bright and sharp against the Isle of Wight and the cruising ranks of cats’ paws.

  Then he had covered his uninjured eye with his hand, the eye he had feared had been blinded by splinters, and had looked again.

  The ship had appeared to be covered with mist and the sea much darker.

  Allday leaned towards him. ‘Beggin’ your pardon, Sir Richard, I think I’ll not be wed after all!’

  Bolitho stared at him. ‘How so?’

  Allday gave his lazy grin. ‘Because I think mebbe you’ve too many worries to be left alone!’

  Bolitho looked at his hands. ‘I don’t know what I shall do, old friend.’ He felt a new elation running through him. ‘But wed you shall be!’ He thrust his head out of the window and called, ‘Guard! Sound your horn when you see Carrick Roads!’

  The horses roused themselves and the brake went down as the carriage rolled on to the sloping road.

  At the echoing blast of the horn, clouds of rooks rose squawking from the fields and a few gulls flapped angrily overhead.

  Some farm workers repairing one of the low walls turned to stare at the unfamiliar carriage with its coachwork caked in dried mud, until one of them pointed and called out something to his companions.

  A Bolitho is back. A Bolitho is back. As men of Falmouth had been saying for generations.

  Bolitho leaned out of the window, heedless of the sting in his injured eye, all else forgotten while the cold air drove away his fatigue.

  Then he saw her: the fine mare Tamara which he had given her coming along the last mile of the coach-road at a gallop. Bolitho called, ‘Stop the carriage!’

  Catherine wheeled the horse around until her face was almost touching his as he leaned from the window.

  She was breathless, her hair broken free and whipping in the breeze as the fur-lined hood of her cloak fell away.

  He was on the road, and felt her waist in his grasp as she dropped easily from the stirrup.

  ‘I knew, Richard! I knew you were coming to me!’

  He tasted the tears on her cold skin, felt the welcome and the longing in her arms while they clung to one another, oblivious to the coachman and guard. To everything but this moment.

  A Bolitho is back.

  John Allday and Unis Polin were married in the tiny parish church at Fallowfield just a week before Christmas 1810.

  Ozzard had proclaimed many times that it was a good thing, if only to stop Allday from getting on everybody’s nerves with his anxiety and constant worrying.

  The day was fine, clear and bright, and many who came to wish the couple well were able to walk in the pale sunshine to the church, well wrapped up against the sharp south-westerly from Falmouth Bay.

  The little church had never known such a gathering, and the young preacher was obviously more nervous than the couple he was about to marry. It was not merely the number of people, for Allday was a popular man and always welcomed whenever he returned from sea, but their variety, from England’s naval hero and Falmouth’s favourite son and his lovely lady, to the people who lived and worked in the port and on the farms. There were few sailors present, but most of the estate workers, local coastguards and excisemen, farmers, coachmen and probably a poacher or two filled the place to overflowing.

  Fallowfield lay on Lewis Roxby’s estate, and although he did not attend the wedding he arranged to have a huge barn decorated with garlands and flags so Allday and his bride could entertain all and sundry with room to spare.

  Roxby also provided enough geese and beef out of his own pocket to, as Allday described it, ‘Feed the whole of the Iron Duke’s army!’

  Bolitho had felt the eyes upon himself and Catherine as the packed pews had roared out another hymn. Unis Polin had been given away by her brother, proud
and straight-backed, striding along the aisle with hardly a limp despite his wooden leg. Allday, supported by Bryan Ferguson, was outwardly composed, and very smart in a new jacket which Bolitho had made certain he had had fitted in good time. He wore gilt buttons, with a white silk neckerchief to mark this very special occasion.

  There would be a few women in Falmouth who might still have hoped Allday would choose differently.

  There had been one other sea-officer present. Lieutenant George Avery had come from Dorset as promised to witness the marriage, and to remember how Allday’s courage and strength, and his total independence had helped to change his own life. Like James Tyacke when Val Keen had married his Zenoria, Avery had slipped into the church even as the small organ had creaked into life. Withdrawn, even remote as he struggled with his own doubts and loyalties, Avery was still very much aware that he was one of them. The Few.

  Once during a lull in the service Bolitho had seen Catherine brush her fingers against her eyes. She had been looking at Avery, his features hidden in the shadow of a pillar.

  ‘What is it?’

  She had shaken her head. ‘For a second only, I thought of Stephen Jenour.’

  There had been humour too, when the preacher had asked the all-important question, ‘Do you, John Allday, take this woman …’ His words had almost been drowned by Allday’s loud, ‘Aye, Reverend, an’ that’s …’

  There had been a ripple of laughter and a frown of disapproval from the preacher. Bolitho had guessed that but for his bronzed face Allday would have been seen to blush.

  And then it was done, and Allday with his smiling bride were towed in style in a carriage, not by seamen and marines, but by the men employed on the Bolitho estate. Many of them had been thrown on the beach after being disabled or crippled in one of Bolitho’s own ships. There could have been no escort more fitting, and Allday’s face was a pleasure to see.

  Bolitho had used Ferguson’s little trap for the journey to the church. He had wanted it to be a day for Allday, one he would always remember. Their day. Young Matthew and the Bolitho carriage had been put at the disposal of the bride and groom.

  Catherine had said quietly, ‘It is so typical, Richard, and you do not even notice. To step down, to avoid the bows and the curtsies … nobody else would do it.’

  They went to the barn to share in a toast to the bride and her man of the sea.

  Bolitho thought now of the cheerful simplicity of the wedding, and wondered if Catherine resented that they could never be married.

  As was so often the case she seemed to read his thoughts, just as she had known he was coming into Falmouth in that unfamiliar carriage.

  She pulled off her glove and laid her hand on his cuff so that the rubies and diamonds he had given her in the church after Keen’s marriage flashed in the filtered sunlight. ‘This is my wedding ring, Richard. I am your woman, no matter who or what may try to come between us. And you are mine. It will always be so.’

  Bolitho saw the men preparing to serve the food and drink, a group of fiddlers waiting to strike up for the dancing. It was time to leave. His presence here was like that of a senior officer visiting a wardroom: they were polite, friendly, curious, but unable to be themselves until after the great man had gone.

  It was a moment he knew he would remember, and he could feel Catherine watching as he said his farewell to Allday and his wife. But Catherine knew that he was speaking only to his coxswain, the man she had grown to know and respect, even to love for his care and his qualities of courage and loyalty, which he had given her man for over twenty years.

  ‘Good-bye, old friend. Don’t be a stranger from now on.’

  Allday gripped his hand, his eyes suddenly troubled. ‘But you’ll be needing me soon, Sir Richard?’

  Bolitho nodded slowly. All those lost faces. Battles and ships he would never be allowed to forget. He had tried not to become too closely involved, to guard against the pain of loss when in his heart he knew there was no such defence. Like the midshipman Dunwoody, whom Adam had wanted to help, and who had died with all the others.

  ‘I shall always do that, old friend. Be certain of it.’ The handclasp broke. It was done.

  Outside in the keen air Catherine said, ‘Now we are alone.’ She allowed him to help her into the little trap. Then she shook the reins and waved to some people who were still walking down from the church.

  She said, ‘I am so happy, Richard. When you left, the parting almost broke my heart. An eternity, and yet I had expected far worse. Now you are with me. I am yours, and soon it will be Christmas. I remember you once told me when you shared Christmas with me that it was the first you had had ashore since you were a midshipman. And the New Year – we can face that together too. The country still at war, the King insane … nothing makes any reason or sense but ourselves.’

  He put his arm around her and felt his longing for her, as in the dreams he had shared with her even though they had been apart.

  She threw back her head and allowed her long dark hair to be free. When she looked towards the sea beyond Rosemullion Point she said softly, ‘All our friends are out there somewhere. Val, poor Adam, James Tyacke and the rest, and others who will never come back.’ She looked at him, her eyes flashing. ‘But we can remember them!’

  The mood changed, and she pulled at the reins to turn the pony on to a narrow side-track.

  She said, ‘I have visited Unis Polin several times. She is a good woman, right for him. He needs love as much as we do.’

  Bolitho held her arm. ‘You are all mystery, Kate!’

  She tossed her head but did not look at him. ‘But for this icy wind I would take you to our private cove. And I would give you mystery which would shock you!’

  They turned a corner where the small inn stood, strangely deserted, and Bolitho guessed that most of the local folk were celebrating in Roxby’s barn.

  The Stag’s Head would be waiting for Allday from now on.

  He stared at the inn sign moving very gently in the breeze. Except that it was no longer called the Stag’s Head. It was a perfect painting of a ship-of-the-line in half a gale, her gunports almost awash, and he knew Catherine must have arranged it. The inn’s name had become The Old Hyperion.

  She said, ‘I heard John Allday speak of your old ship so often. She was, after all, a very special one for some of us. She brought you to me at Antigua when I thought I had lost you.’ All the time she was watching his face. ‘Through her, Unis met her previous husband, and because of her Allday discovered the love of his life.’

  Bolitho watched the swaying sign, as if the old ship were really alive.

  He said, ‘The ship that refused to die, they used to say.’

  She nodded, satisfied. ‘Now she never will.’ She handed him the reins and nestled against him. ‘Now take us home, please. Where we belong.’

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  Copyright © Highseas Authors Ltd 1993

  Alexander Kent has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

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