Signal Close Action

by Alexander Kent

  He heard Allday speaking to the boat’s crew and tried not to keep plucking the shirt away from his body. It was wringing with sweat, and he felt strangely light-headed. The wine? Some of the food he had eaten last night? Inwardly, another more likely reason was already forming and it was all he could do to conceal his sudden anxiety.

  It was improbable, surely. He gritted his teeth, willing Allday to finish with the boat and follow him into some shadow. But it was not impossible. Nearly nine years ago, in the Great South Sea. The fever had all but killed him. He had had a few bouts of it since, but not for a year or so. He almost cursed aloud. It could not be. It must not happen now of all times.

  Allday said, ‘Ready, sir.’

  ‘Good. Now let us find that address and finish the matter.’ He swayed and touched Allday’s shoulder. ‘Damn!’

  As he pushed his way through a group of chattering traders, Allday watched him with sudden alarm.

  Larssen asked, ‘The capitan? Is he not well?’

  Allday gripped his arm tightly. ‘Listen, and listen good. If it’s what I think it is, he’s going to be all aback within the hour. Stay with me and do whatever I do, see?’

  The Swede shrugged. ‘Yes, sir, Mr. All-Day!’

  Mercifully the address was not far from the harbour stairs. In fact, the whitewalled building was attached to one of the smaller fortresses as if for support, and from a broad balcony Bolitho could see the end of a large telescope trained across the anchorage like a gun.

  He felt beneath his coat to make sure his pistol was loose and ready to draw. He was taking a great gamble. Perhaps this French agent already knew of the vessel’s fate which had been entrusted with this letter. The convoy which Buzzard had chased, and with which the ship had been sailing, might have been into Malta, left word and gone on to its intended destination.

  But he still believed it unlikely. A letter of such importance, if such it was, would have been carried by one of the French escorting frigates and then sent ashore by boat, probably at night.

  He said shortly, ‘Come along. We shall have to make haste.’

  The lower part of the building was filled with wine casks and mounds of straw for packing bottles. A few Maltese labourers were rolling empty barrels down a ramp to a cellar, and a bored-looking man with a ruffled shirt and mustard-coloured breeches was writing in a ledger on the top of another cask.

  He looked up, his eyes wary. ‘Si?’ He could have been almost anything, from Greek to Dutchman.

  Bolitho said, ‘I only speak English. I’m master of the American ship which has just anchored.’

  The man did not reply at once, but there was no doubt in his eyes, no lack of understanding.

  Then he said, ‘American. Yes. I understand.’

  Bolitho cleared his throat and tried to keep his voice steady. ‘I wish to see M’sieu Gorse.’

  Again the unwavering stare. But no cry of alarm, no rush of feet from this man’s assistants.

  He replied eventually, ‘I am not certain that I can arrange it.’

  Allday stepped forward, his face bleak. ‘If the cap’n says he wants to see him, that’s it, matey! We ain’t come all this way with a goddamn letter just to be kept waiting!’

  The man gave a tight smile. ‘I ’ave to be careful.’ He looked meaningly at the harbour. ‘So do you.’

  He closed the ledger and beckoned them to some narrow stone steps.

  Bolitho looked at Allday. ‘Stay here with Larssen.’ His mouth was completely dry, and the roof of it was burning like hot sand. He shook his head with sudden impatience. ‘No arguments! If things go wrong now, one will have as much of a chance as three!’ He tried to smile, to reassure him. ‘I’ll call soon enough if need be.’

  He turned his back and followed the man up the steps. Through a door and into a long room, one side of which was open to the harbour and the spread of ships and buildings which shimmered in the sunlight like a great tapestry.

  ‘Ah, Capitaine!’ A white figure moved from the balcony. ‘I ’alf expected it would be you.’

  Yves Gorse was short and rotund. He had a thick black beard, as if to compensate for his complete baldness, and small, delicate hands which were never still.

  Bolitho eyed him calmly. ‘I would have been here sooner, but I ran foul of a British frigate. Had to throw my papers overboard, but managed to shake the bastard off in a storm.’

  ‘I see.’ Gorse pointed one delicate hand to a chair. ‘Please be seated. You look unwell, Capitaine?’

  ‘I’m well enough.’

  ‘Per’aps.’ Gorse walked to the window and stared down at the water. ‘And you are called?’

  ‘Pascoe. It’s a Cornish name.’

  ‘I am aware of that, Capitaine.’ He turned with remarkable lightness. ‘But I am not aware of any Capitaine Pascoe?’

  Bolitho shrugged. ‘In this game we must learn to trust each other, surely?’

  ‘Game?’ Gorse moved around the room. ‘It was never that. Although your country is still too young to appreciate the dangers.’

  Bolitho retorted angrily, ‘Have you forgotten about our Revolution? I seem to recall it came a goodly few years before yours!’

  ‘Touché!’ Gorse smiled, showing small but perfect teeth. ‘I meant no offence. Now this letter. May I ’ave it?’

  Bolitho pulled it from his pocket. ‘You see, M’sieu, I trust you.’

  Gorse opened the letter and held it in a patch of sunlight. Bolitho tried not to watch him, to search for some sign that Gorse had noticed how the letter had been re-sealed. Gorse, however, seemed satisfied. No, relieved was more the word for it.

  He said, ‘Good. Now per’aps you will take some wine. Better than the muck you will be carrying toer, where are you bound?’

  Bolitho clenched his fingers in his pockets to control his limbs. They felt as if they were shaking so badly that Gorse must surely have noticed. This was the moment. If he tried to fence with Gorse, or attempted to trick him further, the man would know immediately. Gorse was a trusted enemy agent. His outward cover of wine merchant and chandler would have been built up carefully over many years. Which meant he would have no wish to return to France, a country very different from the one he must have left a long while ago. Many of his fellow merchants had breathed their last while staring down into a bloodied basket and waiting for the blade to drop.

  Malta stood like an awkward sentinel in the gateway between the western and eastern Mediterranean. His work in gathering intelligence for France would stand him in good stead, especially when that fleet sailed from Toulon, as sail it must.

  He replied casually, ‘Corfu of course. There’s no change. I’d have thought my friend John Thurgood would have anchored here in his Santa Paula. He had the same destination, as I expect you well know.’

  Gorse smiled modestly. ‘I know many things.’

  Bolitho tried to relax, to find comfort that his lie was accepted. But he was feeling much worse, and he knew his breathing was getting faster. Visions flashed across his mind like parts of a nightmare. The pale beaches and waving palms at Tahiti, and beyond to other islands. Pictures at odds with men dying horribly of fever, and the remainder drawing together in terror and despair.

  He heard himself ask, ‘The letter, was it good news?’

  ‘It was, Capitaine. Although the Maltese people may think otherwise when the time comes.’ He appeared concerned. ‘Really, I must insist that you rest. You do not seem well at all.’

  Bolitho said, ‘Fever. Long time ago. Coming back again.’ He had to speak in short sentences. ‘But I will be ready to sail.’

  ‘But there is no ’urry. You can rest –’ A look of alarm crossed his face. ‘Unless it is dangerous to others?’

  Bolitho stood up and steadied himself against the chairback. ‘No. Call my men. I will feel better aboard the ship.’

  ‘As you wish.’ He snapped his fingers to someone outside the door.

  Even through his dizziness Bolitho was able to grasp that
Gorse had been prepared to kill him, had posted men out of sight for the purpose, if he had failed to convince him.

  He managed to ask, ‘Do you wish me to carry any letters to Corfu, M’sieu?’

  ‘No.’ Gorse regarded him worriedly. ‘My next letters will come by more direct means.’

  Allday loomed into the room, the Swede at his back.

  Gorse snapped, ‘Your captain is ill.’

  Bolitho felt Allday gripping his arm. ‘Easy, sir! We’ll soon have you safe!’

  Down the steep steps and out into the merciless sunlight again. He was more carried than aided, and he was dimly aware of passing Maltese grinning at the three sailors who had emerged so unsteadily from a wine store.

  Allday barked, ‘Go on ahead, Larssen, an’ signal for the boat!’ He added harshly, ‘If you’re not at the jetty when we gets there, I’ll find you if it takes a lifetime!’

  Bolitho felt himself being helped into some shade. His body was streaming with sweat, but unlike the previous time it was ice-cold, so that he could not stop shivering.

  He gasped, ‘Must . . . get . . . on.’ It was no use. His strength was fading fast. ‘Must . . . tell . . . the . . . squadron.’ Then he collapsed completely.

  Four seamen, led by Larssen, came running up from the harbour and stared at Allday with surprise.

  Allday rapped, ‘Lively, carry him to the boat!’ He pulled off his coat and wrapped it round Bolitho. ‘And don’t stop for anyone!’

  It seemed an endless stretch of water between jetty and ship, and every foot of the way Allday held Bolitho against his body, his eyes on the Segura’s loosely furled sails, willing them closer.

  As far as he was concerned, the squadron, the French and the whole bloody world could go their own way. If anything happened to Bolitho, nothing else would matter.

  12

  Divided Loyalties

  ALMOST INDENTICAL IN a relentless heat-haze, the three ships of the line lay quietly at anchor within a cable’s length of the land.

  Captain Thomas Herrick crossed to the larboard side of Osiris’s quarter-deck and stared at the unfamiliar hills, the lush greens and the hostile crags where some of the headland had fallen into the sea below. Syracuse, remote, even unfriendly, so that their powerful presence anchored amongst the unhurried movements of small coastal craft made the impression doubly vivid in Herrick’s mind.

  He bit his lip and toyed with the idea of going below again. But the great stern cabin always seemed to be waiting, lying there like a trap. Part of Farquhar. He shifted his gaze to Lysander and felt the old longing and despair welling up to join his other constant anxiety.

  They had been at anchor for over two weeks. The Syracuse garrison commandant had been aboard Lysander several times, accompanied on each occasion by a rotund, worried-looking Englishman, John Manning, who was, as Herrick understood it, one of His Brittanic Majesty’s last official representatives in the island. For even if Sicily showed no sign of helping France, she was equally determined not to display open friendship to King George.

  Herrick moved restlessly about the deck, only partly aware of the blazing heat across his shoulders whenever he showed himself beyond one of the awnings.

  When he had first heard of Bolitho’s intention to find and contact a French agent in Malta, it had already been too late to protest. Segura had been swallowed up in the darkness, and from that moment on Herrick had fretted and worried continuously. And now it was all of three weeks since Segura had parted company. Not a sign of the prize ship, nor any word from the British representative in Syracuse that she had entered or left Valletta harbour.

  John Manning was more concerned about finding reasons for the three seventy-fours to stay at anchor in a port which was officially neutral. Repairs, taking on food and water, all the usual reasons had been sent ashore. And still no word came.

  Bolitho must have been seized by the Maltese authorities. They were even more frightened of the French than the Sicilians, if half Herrick had heard was true. Or the enemy agent might have caught and killed him. Herrick looked towards the open sea until his eyes watered. Bolitho’s place was here, in a world he understood. Where he was known by name, if not by personal contact, by most of the men in the fleet.

  He thought suddenly of Javal, and found himself hating him. He had not come into Syracuse at all. After his own passage through the Messina Strait he had been ordered to rendezvous with the squadron off Malta. Failing that, and Bolitho had always given them plenty of alternatives, he would anchor here and await developments. Perhaps he, too, had run foul of an enemy force?

  But if only he would come. Farquhar would have no choice then but to send Buzzard in search of Segura and her small crew.

  Herrick had visited Lysander several times, without being invited, to discover what Farquhar intended to do. As always, he was met by a blank wall, a manner and attitude which rarely failed to rouse and confuse him. Farquhar was imperturbable. If he was troubled at Bolitho’s absence, he was certainly hiding it very well.

  His visits to his old ship had been made more painful by the obvious pleasure of those who had hurried to greet him. Leroux, and old Grubb, and Yeo, the boatswain. In Gilchrist he had seen the biggest change of all since Farquhar’s taking command. Like a man on a razor’s edge, someone who rarely found time to rest or be at ease, he was almost a stranger.

  Quite unlike Osiris’s first lieutenant, he thought bitterly. Lieutenant Cecil Outhwaite, a bland young man in his middle twenties, was very like a frog in appearance. Low forehead, wide mouth, and eyes which were very dark and limpid. He had a slight lisp, and went about his duties as if bored by the whole business. Outhwaite, like Farquhar, came of a powerful family, and why he ever became a sea officer was beyond Herrick completely.

  But then the two ships were totally unlike each other also. Off watch in Lysander, the seamen had skylarked and found time to joke about their lot under all but the most harsh circumstances. In this ship there was no such feeling. Like Outhwaite, the sailors went about their work cat-footed, and when below were as silent as monks.

  Herrick had tried to ease this unnerving tension aside, but as with Osiris’s last captain, he was met at every level by an unbreachable wall. Farquhar had run the ship to the highest point of efficiency, cleanliness and appearance. For the people who made all that possible he had allowed nothing.

  And yet some, especially Outhwaite, showed a ready respect for him. ‘He don’t tolerate fools, y’know.’ The froglike face had watched him curiously. ‘An’ he’s a damn quick temper for the scoundrels, too!’

  The officer of the watch snapped, ‘Ship rounding the point!’ He saw Herrick and added harshly, ‘Take the lookout’s name for not reporting sooner!’

  Herrick snatched a glass and hurried to the nettings. For a while longer the newcomer’s topsails were riding lifelessly above a drifting curtain of haze, and then as her jib boom and beakhead thrust into view Herrick knew she was the sloop of war Harebell.

  He pounded one fist into the other, his eyes misting with strain. At last. Her commander, Francis Inch, would do anything for Bolitho. And his little sloop was even better suited for looking for him.

  ‘Ah, sir, I see you have sighted her.’ Outhwaite joined him by the rail, his hat tilted rakishly over his eyes.

  He was an odd bird, Herrick thought. He wore his dull brown hair in a queue so long that the end of it was level with his sword belt. When most sea officers followed the new army custom of wearing their hair shorter, Outhwaite apparently intended to retain his grip on the past.

  ‘Harebell.’

  Herrick watched the sudden activity aboard Lysander, the signal flapping listlessly from her yards. Farquhar would want to know what was happening elsewhere, and as quickly as it took Inch’s gig to cross the water.

  ‘Harebell’s dropped her hook, sir.’ Outhwaite showed only mild interest. ‘She’s too soon back from her mission to have visited England. So we’ll not know how things are in London, eh?’
<
br />   Herrick did not know what things in London were, nor did he care.

  ‘I’m going below, Mr. Outhwaite. Call me the moment that Lysander signals for captains to repair aboard.’

  ‘Aye, sir.’

  Outhwaite smiled and touched his hat. He felt an unusual admiration for Captain Herrick. Rather like his father did for a rustic gamekeeper or groom. Reliable but quaint. The way he was so obviously worried about the commodore’s disappearance, for instance. Outhwaite could not imagine what sort of experiences and dangers they must have shared in the past to create such a bond. A bond which even Bolitho’s action about a change of commands had not diminished.

  He watched the boat pulling away from Harebell towards the flagship, Inch’s gold-laced hat in the sternsheets. Somewhat different from Charles Farquhar, he thought. He looked on one man’s loss as an opening for his own gain. Outhwaite nodded. As it should be.

  But for most of the afternoon, while Herrick sat or paced restlessly in Farquhar’s beautifully equipped cabin, no signal came, nor any rumour of what Harebell had carried with her to Syracuse.

  With a telescope he had examined the sloop more than once through the quarter gallery, and had seen the great scars of bared woodwork where the sea had done its best to hamper her, the patches in her loosely furled sails as evidence of Inch’s determination to lose no time with his despatches.

  He glared at the skylight as someone stamped overhead. Damn Farquhar to hell! Even this moment he was unwilling to share with his fellow captains.

  There was a sharp rap at the door and a midshipman stared in at him. ‘Beg pardon, sir, but Mr. Outhwaite sends his respects and –’

  Herrick stood up. ‘The flagship has signalled for me at last?’ He did not bother to hide his sarcasm.

  ‘N-no, sir.’ The midshipman stared at him warily. ‘Captain Farquhar is coming to us.’

  Herrick snatched his hat. ‘I will come up.’

  He tried to imagine what was happening. Whatever it was had moved Farquhar to act swiftly at last.