Bolitho 19 - Beyond the Reef (17 page)

The captain shook his head. “I regret, the vessel was lost with all hands.”

Belinda walked to the stairs and sank down on to them.

“Lord Godschale wishes to offer his sympathy and the condolence of every King’s sailor in the fleet.”

Belinda could barely see through the mist in her eyes. She tried to accept it, to imagine it as it must have been, but instead she could only think of the two men she had just turned away. A penny, ma’am? Just a penny!

Her friend snapped at the maid, “Fetch the doctor for her ladyship!”

Belinda stood up very slowly. “No doctor.” Suddenly she knew; and the shock was overwhelming.

“Was Lady Somervell with him, Captain?”

The man bit his lip. “I believe so, my lady.”

She saw Catherine in the darkness of Herrick’s house, the contempt like fire in her eyes.

Even then, he would not come back to you.

At the end, they had still been together.

8

BREAKERS

BOLITHO sat on the bench below the Golden Plover’s stern windows and stared out at the small, bubbling wake. One day passed very like the one before it, and he felt continually restless at being no part of the vessel’s routine. It was noon, and on deck the heat would be scorching like the wind across an empty desert. At least down here there was some pretence of movement, the hull creaking occasionally to the lift and fall of the stem, the air stirring through the cabin space to help ease the discomfort.

At the opposite end of the bench young Sophie sat with one shoulder bared while Catherine massaged it gently with ointment she had brought with her from London. The girl’s skin was almost red-raw where the sun had done its work during her strolls on deck.

Catherine had told her severely, “This is not Commercial Street, my girl, so try not to lay yourself open to the possibility of being burned alive.”

The girl had given her cheeky grin. “I clean forgot, me lady!”

Jenour was in his cabin, either sketching or adding to the endless letter to his parents. Keen was probably on deck; brooding about Zenoria, wondering if he were taking the right course of action.

Bolitho had had several conversations with Samuel Bezant, Golden Plover’s master. The man came originally from Lowestoft, and had begun life at sea at the age of nine, naturally enough in that port, aboard a fishing lugger. Now that he understood he could speak with Bolitho without fear of instant rebuke or anger he had explained that most of Golden Plover’s troubles had been caused by the navy. To begin with, he had welcomed the offer of an admiralty warrant. But as he had explained, “What use is ‘protection’ if their lordships or some senior officer can take experienced seamen whenever they choose?” Bolitho knew it was useless to try and explain to any master what it was like for the captain of a man-of-war. If the press-gangs were lucky he might get a few good hands; he might even poach some prime seamen from an incoming merchant ship if her master was so mean that he had paid off his company even before the ship had reached her destination. To do so left those unfortunate sailors open to impressment, if the officer in charge of the party was fast enough. But mostly the new hands were either farm workers, “hawbucks” as most seamen contemptuously called them, or those who might otherwise have faced the public hangman.

Bezant had said on one occasion when Bolitho had joined him to watch the vivid sunset off the Canary Islands, as they had crossed the thirtieth parallel, “There’s only the bosun left from the original afterguard, Sir Richard. Now the second mate’s on the Rock I’m expected to run this vessel like a King’s ship with men who have no feel for the sea!”

Bolitho asked, “What about your mate, Mr Lincoln? He seems capable enough.”

Bezant had grinned. “He’s a good seaman. But even he’s only been in the Plover for six months!”

Perhaps by the time the sturdy barquentine had reached Good Hope, Bezant would have led or bullied his mixed collection of sailors into one team, as much a part of the vessel he so obviously loved as the canvas and cordage that drove her.

Bolitho saw a splash as some unknown fish fell back into the sea again, probably trying to escape from hidden predators.

Since leaving Gibraltar there had certainly been a run of misfortunes. A topman had fallen from aloft during a heavy squall and his body had smashed onto the lee bulwark, killing him instantly. He had been buried at sea the following day. Bolitho had never known the man, but as a sailor himself he had felt the same sense of loss as Bezant had rumbled slowly through his well-thumbed prayer book. We commit his body to the deep …

There had only been one sighting of the strange ship’s topmasts, the day after they had weighed anchor in the Rock’s shadow. After that they had seen nothing; and only on rare occasions, usually just after dawn, had they seen the hint of land. A group of islands, like low clouds on the horizon, and another time a solitary islet like a broken tooth, which Bezant had described as an evil place where no man could survive and would in any case go mad with loneliness. Pirates had been known to maroon their prisoners there. Bezant had remarked, “It would have been kinder to cut their throats!”

And all the while there remained the great presence of the African coastline. Invisible out of necessity; and yet each one of them was very aware of it.

Catherine glanced across the girl’s reddened shoulder and saw his expression. Separate incidents stood out clearly as she gently massaged the ointment into Sophie’s skin, and she wondered if he were sharing them.

The seaman who had fallen from an upper yard during the squall. And that other time when they had been sitting here, everyone unwilling to make the first move to turn in for the night, to be tormented again by the fierce, humid air between decks.

It had been very quiet and quite late, during the middle watch, Jenour had recalled.

They had all heard the sound of dragging feet on the poop overhead and then, it seemed an age later, the frantic cry of “man overboard!” The master’s door had banged open and Bezant had been heard bawling out orders. Back the foretops’l! Stand by to come about! Man the quarter-boat! Catherine had accompanied Bolitho on deck, astonished by the eerie quality which a full moon had given to the taut canvas and quivering shrouds. The sea, too, had been like molten silver, unending and unreal.

Needless to say, the boat had returned empty-handed. The crew had been more frightened of losing their ship in that strange, glacial glow than of leaving someone to drown alone.

The mate, Lincoln, had been on watch. He explained to the master that he had been told one of the military prisoners was having some kind of fit, to the despair and anxiety of his companions.

Lincoln had described the scene, how out of pity for the prisoner and the need to quieten the others he had had the man brought on deck, thinking it would calm him. What had happened next was not clear. Without even a cry, the prisoner had broken from his escort and hurled himself over the bulwark. He had still been wearing manacles on his wrists, although this had not been reported until after the quarter-boat had been sent on its fruitless search.

Catherine watched Bolitho’s hand resting on his thigh. The hand that knew her so intimately, that could tease her to the height of passion until neither could wait.

Then there had been the incident of the flogging, a rare occurrence, she had guessed, aboard the Golden Plover. A seaman had been found drunk on watch, and had set about Britton, the boatswain, who had discovered him sprawled in the forecastle when he should have been at his station.

She had seen Keen’s face, like a mask as the sound of the lash had penetrated this sealed cabin. Imagining Zenoria as she must have been, enduring the bestiality of the transport’s captain and the excitement of many of the prisoners who had swarmed to watch her punishment, the whip laid across her naked back.

She said, “There you are, my girl.” She smiled as Sophie modestly refastened her clothing. “Now be off with you and help Ozzard prepare some food.”

Alone with Bolitho, Catherine said, “I love to watch you.”

“Are you bored, Kate?”

“Being with you? Never.”

Bolitho pointed abeam. “In a few days, if the wind is kind, we shall pass the Cape Verde Islands to starboard, and the coast of Senegal over yonder.” He smiled. “I doubt if we shall see either!”

“You have memories of these parts, Richard?”

He looked at the blue water astern. “A few. I was a midshipman at the time in the Gorgon, an old 74 like Hyperion.”

“What age were you?”

She saw the sudden pain in his grey eyes. “Oh, about sixteen, I think.”

“You were with your friend then?”

He faced her. “Aye. Martyn Dancer.” He tried to shake it off. “We were chasing slavers even then. I expect that damnable fortress is still there to this day. Different flag, but the same foul trade.”

The door opened slightly and Ozzard peered in at them. He saw Catherine and was about to withdraw when Bolitho asked, “What is it? Please speak freely.”

Ozzard tiptoed into the cabin and carefully shut the screen door behind him.

Catherine placed her hands on the sill of the stern window and stared out at the empty ocean. “I shall not listen, Ozzard.”

Ozzard looked at her body, framed against the sparkling water. Her long dark hair was piled on her head, held in place by a large Spanish comb, “brailed up” as Allday had called it. He watched her partly-bared shoulder, the fine arch of her neck. It was like being bewitched. Constantly reminded and tortured by that other hideous memory.

He said abruptly, “I’ve been in the after hold, Sir Richard. I was getting some of that hock her ladyship brought from London. It stays cool there.”

Bolitho said, “We shall look forward to it.” He felt the little man’s desperation: it was something almost visible. “And what happened?”

“I heard voices. I found a vent and listened. It was those prisoners. One said, ‘With that gutless fool out of the way, we can stand together, eh, lads?’” He was reliving his discovery, his face screwed up as if afraid of missing something. “Then the other man said, ‘You’ll not be sorry. I’ll see to that!’”

Catherine did not turn from the ocean but asked gently, “Who was it? You know, don’t you?”

Ozzard nodded wretchedly. “It was the mate, Mr Lincoln, Sir Richard.”

“Go and find Captain Keen, if you please.” He held out one hand. “Walk, Ozzard. We do not want to rouse suspicion, eh?”

As the door closed she moved across the deck and sat by him. “Did you know, Richard?”

“No. But I did notice that all the incidents happened during either Lincoln’s watch or Tasker’s.” He was the new mate who had come aboard at Gibraltar.

She felt his hands tighten around her body, pressing the damp skin beneath her gown. She said, “Have no fear for me, Richard. We have been in peril before.”

Bolitho looked over her shoulder, his mind racing from one possibility to the next. Whichever way you considered it, at best it was mutiny, at worst piracy. Neither crime would permit the survival of witnesses. And there was Catherine.

She said very calmly, “It is because of me that you are here and not in some King’s ship with all the power to do your bidding. Tell me what to expect, but never think of defeat for my sake. I am by your side.” She held the flashing ring to the sunlight. “Remember what this means? Then so be it.”

When Keen entered he saw nothing untoward until Bolitho said, “We must talk, Val. I believe there will be an attempt to seize this vessel and then make a rendezvous with our ‘shadow,’ which I am convinced is still somewhere close by.”

Keen glanced at Catherine, trying to put her possible fate out of his mind.

“I am ready, sir.” Whatever lay ahead, he was surprised to discover that he was unmoved by it.

The following day passed without incident until late in the afternoon. Another hard, cloudless sky, with the sea and the vivid horizon too bright to look at. Bolitho stood with Keen abaft the wheel and watched the slow-moving activity of the watch on deck.

Bezant had taken sun-sights with his sextant and now seemed satisfied with his vessel’s progress. The warm north-westerly wind filled every sail, and was strong enough to throw white pellets of spray high over the bowsprit.

“Will you tell him, sir?”

Bolitho glanced toward Catherine and her maid sitting on a makeshift seat beneath a canvas canopy. Sophie knew nothing of their suspicions, and it was better so. And what of Bezant? He had seemed genuinely surprised to discover the status of his passengers when Jenour had gone ahead to inform him at Falmouth. Usually he carried minor officials, garrison officers and sometimes their wives. The vice-admiral and his lady could hardly be classed as ordinary.

“Tell him?” He watched the fish leaping astern. “When you tell your best friend a secret, Val, it is no longer a secret. And Bezant, capable though he must be, is no friend.”

Keen said evenly, “Ozzard might have made a mistake. Or perhaps the mate was genuinely trying to calm the prisoners after what had happened.”

Bolitho smiled and saw Catherine look away. “But you do not think so, eh?”

Keen tried not to stare as a seaman paused near them. Every move seemed suspicious. Who was friend or possible enemy?