Bolitho 19 - Beyond the Reef (37 page)

Seabirds flashed past the lights from the wardroom windows and he thought of that night in the open boat.

Tonight they will nest in Africa.

What price survival then?

He summoned her face, and the memory of unexpected love, which had left them both dazed with disbelief. For the first time in his life, there was someone waiting for him.

He recalled her last embrace, the warmth of her body against his.

“Captain, sir?” The lieutenant hovered on the top of the poop ladder.

“What is it?”

“Mr Julyan’s respects, sir, and he thinks the wind is getting up from the west’rd.”

“Very well, Mr Daubeny. Inform the first lieutenant and pipe the larboard watch.”

As the lieutenant hurried down the ladder Keen pushed all else to the back of his mind.

As he had heard Bolitho say on occasions, “That was then. This is now.”

He was the captain again.

16

POWER OF COMMAND

LADY CATHERINE SOMERVELL stood by one of the tall windows in the library and looked across the garden. The snow was heavier now, and the wheel-tracks of Lewis Roxby’s smart phaeton had almost vanished in just half an hour. Kneeling on a rug before a crackling fire, Nancy was finishing her story of Miles Vincent’s disappearance, and how it was later discovered that he had been taken by the press-gang and put aboard a man-of-war in Carrick Road.

Catherine watched the persistent snow and thought of Black Prince as she had last seen her standing out to sea, taking her heart with her.

She had spoken to some of the old sailors who worked on the estate, men who had served Richard in the past, before they had been cut down in battle; she was even jealous of them when they spoke of days she had never, could never share. One of them calculated that given the time of year and the inexperience of her company, Black Prince should have reached the Indies by now. A world away. Her man, doing things he had been ordered to do, hiding his own worries so that his men would see only confidence.

She turned away from the snow and asked guiltily, “I’m sorry, Nancy—what did you say?”

“I shouldn’t burden you with it, but she is my sister, one of the family … and despite her shortcomings I feel responsible for her, especially with her husband dead.” She looked up as though uncertain. “I was wondering, dear Catherine, if you could tell Richard about it when next you write. Lewis is doing all he can, of course, as it was obviously a mistake.”

Catherine studied her thoughtfully. What Richard’s mother must have been like. Fair, with clear fresh skin. She had a pretty mouth, perhaps all that remained of the young girl who had been in love with Richard’s friend.

Nancy took her silence for disagreement. “I know Miles does not make a favourable impression, but …”

Catherine walked to the fire and sat on the edge of a stool, feeling the heat on her face, imagining him here with her, now.

She said, “When I first met him, I found him glib, with a higher opinion of himself than I would have thought healthy. What I have heard of him since has not improved that image.”

She saw Nancy’s dismay and smiled. “But I will tell Richard in my next letter. I write every few days, in the hope they will reach him in some sort of order.” Inwardly she believed that the young Miles Vincent had probably got what he deserved. He had apparently been at a cock-fight somewhere out towards the Helford River, and the press-gang had burst in on it. They had only found three men who did not possess a legal protection —one of them had been Vincent. She thought of his arrogance, the way he had stared at her during Roxby’s dinner, with the smirk of a conceited child. She thought of Allday and others like Ferguson and the estate workers, seized by the hated press without pity or consideration. The navy needed men, and always would as long as the war dragged on. So men would be taken from the farms and the taverns, from the arms of their loved ones, to rub shoulders with those who had escaped the gallows for the sea at the assizes.

Nancy was saying, “Lewis has already written to his friend, the port admiral at Plymouth … but it might take so long.”

Catherine adjusted her gown and Nancy exclaimed, “My dear—I can still see that place where the sun burned you!”

“I hope I never lose it. It will always remind me.”

“Will you come for Christmas, Catherine? I would be so unhappy to think of you alone here. Please say you will. I would never forgive myself otherwise.”

Catherine reached out and pressed her arm. “Sweet Nancy, you are all responsibilities today! I shall think about it …” She turned as her maid entered the room. “What is it, Sophie?”

“A letter, me lady. The boy just brought it.”

Nancy watched her as she took the letter and saw her eyes mist over as she quickly scanned the handwriting.

“I shall leave, Catherine. It is no moment to share …”

Catherine opened the letter and shook her head. “No, no—it is from Adam.” The handwriting was unfamiliar, and yet similar. It was a short impetuous letter, and somehow typical of him: she could see his grave dark features as he had written it, from Portsmouth it appeared, no doubt with his Anemone coming to life all around him as she completed storing and made ready for sea.

He wrote, “You have been much in my mind of late, and I would that I had been free to speak with you as we have done in the past. There is no one else with whom I can share my thoughts. And when I see what you have done for my beloved uncle I am all gratitude and love for you.” The rest of the letter was almost formal, as if he were composing a report for his admiral. But he ended like the young man who had grown up in war. “Please remember me to my friends at Falmouth, and to Captain Keen’s wife should you see her. With affectionate regard, Adam.” She folded it as if it were something precious.

Nancy said, “What is it?”

“It seems that the French are out. The foul weather was their friend, not ours … Adam is ordered to the West Indies with all haste.”

“How do they know with such certainty that the French are heading there?”

“They know.” She stood up and walked back to the window. Two grooms were reharnessing a fine pair of horses to the phaeton, and as the snow drifted down on them they flicked their ears with obvious displeasure.

Nancy came up beside her and put her arm around her waist. Afterwards Catherine thought it could have been the act of a sister.

“So they will all be together again?”

Catherine said, “I knew in my heart it would happen. We both believe in fate. How else could we have lost each other and then come together again? It was fate.” She turned her head and smiled at her. “You must be glad that your man has his feet on dry land.”

Nancy looked at her very directly. Her eyes, Catherine thought, were the colour of lavender, opened to the sun, and they did not blink as she said quietly, “I once thought to become a sailor’s wife.” Then she threw her arms around her. “I am so selfish—”

“That you are not.” She followed her into the adjoining room and picked up the old cloak she sometimes wore when riding; Richard had once taken it to sea with him, in that other world.

Ferguson, muffled against the weather, was talking with the grooms and helped Nancy into the carriage, noting the tears and the brightness of her eyes as he did so.

As the horses thudded across the packed snow Catherine said, “Do you wish to see me?”

Ferguson followed her through the doors. “I wondered if there was anything I could do, my lady?”

“Take a glass of something with me.” He looked uneasily at his filthy boots but she waved him down. “Be seated. I need to talk.”

He watched her as she took two glasses from a cabinet, her hair shining like glass in the firelight. He still could not picture her in a boat with only some ragged survivors for company.

He stiffened as she said over her shoulder, “You heard about young Miles Vincent, I daresay.”

Did she know of his visit to Roxby? Was that what the squire’s wife had been here about?

“Yes, I did hear something. I didn’t want to trouble you.” He took the glass gratefully. “He was put aboard the Ipswich, according to one of the coastguards. She was off to the Caribbean soon afterwards, it seems. But never fear, m’lady, I am sure her captain will deal fairly with the matter.” He hoped it sounded convincing.

Catherine barely heard him. “The West Indies, you say? It seems everyone is going there, except us. I heard from Captain Adam, you see—he is probably out there off the Lizard at this very moment.”

For the first time Ferguson realised he was drinking brandy. He tried to smile. “Well, here’s to Sir Richard, m’lady, and all our brave fellows!”

She let the cognac run across her tongue like fire.

The French are out. How many times had they heard that? She looked up the staircase where the candlelight flickered on the stern faces of those who had gone from here before, to meet that same challenge. The French are out.

“Oh, dear God, that I was with him now!”

It was, as Ferguson later said to his wife, a cry torn from her heart.

“Land ho!”

Captain Adam Bolitho pressed his hands on the chart and stared at the neat calculations that marked their progress. Beyond the tiny chart-room he knew there would be excitement as the call came from the masthead. Beside him Josiah Partridge, Anemone’s bluff sailing-master, watched his young captain’s face, noting the pride he obviously felt for his command and at the fast passage they had almost completed. In mid-Atlantic they had met with fierce winds, but the frigate seemed to have a charmed life, and once into the sun they had lost no time in sending down the heavy-duty canvas and replacing it with the lighter sails that seemed to make Anemone fly.

Adam said, “You’ve done well, Mr Partridge! I never thought we’d do it. Four thousand miles in seventeen days—what say you about that?”

Old Partridge, as he was called behind his back, beamed at him. Adam Bolitho could be very demanding, perhaps because of his illustrious uncle, but he never spared himself like some. Day and night he had been on deck, more often than not with both watches turned-to while the wind had screamed around them, matched only by the insane chorus of straining rigging and banging canvas.

Then into the friendly north-east trade winds, with the final run across the Western Atlantic where the sunshine had greeted them like heroes. It had been wild and often dangerous, but Anemone’s company had come to trust their youthful captain. Only a fool would try to deceive him.

Adam tapped his brass dividers on a small group of islands to the south of Anguilla. French, Spanish and Dutch, often visited by ships sailing alone, but rarely fought over. Those nations, like the English, had far more important islands to protect in order to keep their sea-lanes open, their trade prospering.

“What about this one, Mr Partridge? It is as close to the passage we must take as makes no difference.”

The sailing-master bent over the table, his purple nose barely inches away; Adam could smell the rum but would overlook it. Partridge was the best sailing-master he had ever known. He had served in the navy in two wars, and in between had made his way around the world in everything from a collier brig to a convict ship. If there was to be foul weather he would inevitably inform his captain even before the glass gave any hint of change. Uncharted shallows, reefs which were larger than previous navigators had estimated, it was all part of his sailor’s lore. He rarely hesitated, and he did not disappoint Adam now.

“That ‘un, zur? That be Bird Island. It’s got some fancy dago name, but to me it’s always been Bird Island.” His round Devonian accent sounded homely here, and reminded Adam of Yovell.

“Lay off a course. I shall inform the first lieutenant. Lord Sutcliffe will not be expecting us anyway, and I doubt if his lordship would think we could make such a speedy passage even if he were!”

Partridge watched him leave and sighed. What it was to be young. And Captain Bolitho certainly looked that, his black hair all anyhow, a none-too-clean shirt open to the waist—more like someone playing the part of a pirate than a skilled frigate captain.

On the quarterdeck, Adam paused to stare up at the great pyramid of sails, so fresh and bright after the dull skies and patched canvas of the Western Ocean.

Many of the men on deck probably thought they were carrying secret despatches of the greatest importance to the Commander-in-Chief, that he should drive his ship so hard. At one time the great main-yard had been bending like a bow under the wind’s powerful thrust, so that even Old Partridge had expected to lose a spar if not the entire mast.

In the whole ship, nobody knew the devil that drove him. Whenever he had snatched time to sleep or bolt down some food, the torment had returned. It was never far away, even now. In his sleep it was worse. Her naked body writhing and slipping from his grip, her eyes angry and accusing as she had pulled away. The dreams left him gasping in his wildly swinging cot, and once, the marine sentry at the screen door had burst in to his assistance.

He strode up the tilting deck and stared across the glistening water, like ten million mirrors, he thought. The gulls were already quitting their islands to investigate the frigate.