Command a King's Ship (27 page)

“We'll set the spanker if the tops'l carries away. Tell the boat- swain to have his hands ready, there'll not be time for regrets if that one goes!”

He felt a bowline being bent around his waist, and saw Allday's teeth bared in a grin.

“You look after us, Captain. This'll take care of you.”

Bolitho nodded, the breath knocked out of him. Then he clung to the dripping nettings, peering through the painful needles of spray as he watched over his command. A lucky ship? Perhaps he had spoken too soon. Tempted fate.

Herrick gasped, “Could be over by first light, sir.”

But when dawn did come, and Bolitho saw the angry, copper- coloured clouds reflected upon the endless, jagged wavecrests, he knew it was not going to give up so willingly.

High above the deck, torn and broken cordage floated to the wind like dead creeper, and the solitary braced topsail looked so full-bellied that it could follow the fate of the other at any second.

He looked at Herrick, seeing the angry sores on his neck and hands where the blown salt had done its work. The other crouch- ing, battered figures nearby were no better. He thought of the other frigate, probably snug in a protected anchorage, and felt the anger welling up inside him.

“Get some hands aloft, Mr. Herrick! There's work to be done!”

Herrick was already clawing his way along the nettings to- wards the rail.

Bolitho wiped his face and mouth with his arm. If they could weather this one, he thought, they would be ready for anything.

13
NO
Q
UARTER

“S
OME
MORE
'ot coffee, sir?” Noddall held his pot above Bolitho's mug without waiting for a reply.

Bolitho sipped it slowly, feeling the scalding liquid running through him. A taste of rum, too. Noddall was certainly doing his best.

He eased his shoulders and winced. Every bone and fiber seemed to ache. As if he had been in actual battle.

He studied the weary figures who were moving about the up- per deck, made curiously ghostlike and unreal by the heavy vapour which rose from sodden planking and clothing alike.

It had been just that, he thought gravely. A battle, no less than if cannon had been employed. For three days and nights they had fought it out, their confined world made even smaller by the great roaring expanse of wavecrests, their minds blunted by the ceaseless shriek of the wind. Like him, the ship seemed to have had the breath knocked from her. Now, under barely drawing topsails, her littered decks steaming once more beneath an empty sky, she was thrusting only slowly above her reflection. In places paint had been pared away to display wood so bare it could have been the work of a carpenter. Everywhere men were at work, marlin spikes and needles, hammers and tackles, endeavouring to restore the ship which had carried them through such a frenzy that even Mudge had admitted it was one of the bitterest he had endured.

He came across the deck now, his coat steaming gently, his jowls almost hidden in white stubble.

“Accordin' to me reckonin', sir, we've overreached the Benua Group by a fair piece. When we checks the noon sights I'll be 'appier.” He squinted upwards towards the flapping pendant which had lost almost half its length in the storm. “But the wind's veered as I thought it might. I suggest we 'old your new course, nor' nor'-east until we gets a better fix of our position.” He blew his nose loudly. “An' I'd make so bold as to say 'ow well you 'andled 'er, sir.” He puffed out his cheeks. “A couple o' times I thought we was done for.”

Bolitho looked away. “Thank you.”

He was thinking of two men less fortunate. One had gone during the second night. Swept away without a sound. Nobody had seen him go. The other had slipped from the larboard cathead where he had been working feverishly to repair chafing lashings around the anchor stock. A solitary wavecrest had pulled him from his perch almost casually, so that for a while longer he had still imagined he would be saved. Willing hands reached out for him, but another wave had flung him not outwards but high in the air like a kicking doll before hurling him against the massive anchor with savage force. Roskilly, a bosun's mate, had insisted he had heard the man's ribs cave in before he had been dragged screaming into the frothing water alongside.

Including the man who had fallen from aloft, that made three dead, with some seven others injured. Broken bones; fingers torn raw by bucking, sodden canvas; skin inflamed by salt, by wind, and by lines snaking through clutching hands in pitch darkness made up most of the surgeon's list.

Herrick strode aft and said, “I'm having a new jib bent on now, sir. The other's only fit for patching.” He took a mug from Noddall and cradled it gratefully to his mouth. “Heaven help the poor sailorman!”

Bolitho looked at him. “You'd not change it.”

Herrick grimaced. “A few times back there I wondered if I'd get the choice!”

Davy, who had the watch, joined them by the rail.

“What are our chances of a landfall, sir?”

He looked older, less assured than he had before the action with the frigate. During the storm he had behaved well, so perhaps he still believed the only real menace came from a cannon's mouth.

Bolitho considered his question. “That will depend on fixing our position. Allowing for our drift, and the shifting of the wind, I'd say we might sight the islands before nightfall.”

He smiled, the effort making him more conscious of the strain he had been under.

Herrick said dourly, “The damned Frog will be laughing at us. Sitting in harbour under that bloody pirate's guns.”

Bolitho looked at him thoughtfully. The same idea had only left him occasionally, and that when he had needed all his thoughts elsewhere. To parley with the French captain was one thing. To accept that he was serving under Muljadi's flag meant far more. It would be an open admission of failure. An acceptance that Muljadi's sovereignty did exist. If Conway agreed to the latter, every other European power which had trading and protection rights in the Indies, especially the powerful Dutch East India Company, would see it as England's move to take all the advan- tages for herself. Which was exactly what the French would like.

What should he do if the French captain refused to be moved by Conway's message? Patrol up and down outside the islands and draw
Argus
into combat? It would be a one-sided affair. Le Chaumareys was an old hand in these waters, knew every islet and cove where he had once hidden to avoid British frigates in time of war. Equally, he would be well advised to lie at anchor, living off the land, until
Undine
was made to withdraw.

He felt his tiredness putting an edge to his anger. If only the politicians were here to see what their ideas of world strategy ac- tually represented in flesh and blood, in wood and canvas.

“Land ho! Fine on th' starboard bow!”

Davy rubbed his hands. “Nearer than you thought, sir.”

Mudge said quickly, “Never!” He fumbled with his slate and made some rapid calculations. “There's a small islet, some forty miles to the south'rd of the Benuas, sir.” He peered round until he had discovered Midshipman Penn's diminutive shape by the taffrail. “Aloft with ye, Mr. Penn, an' fetch the big glass for com- pany.” He eyed him fiercely. “Take a look, an' make me a sketch just like I taught you!”

He waited until the boy had scampered for the main shrouds and chuckled. “Cap'n Cook 'ad the right idea, sir. Sketch an' describe every damn thing you see. Time'll come when every man- o'-war will 'ave a complete set o' pictures to study.” He watched Penn's progress. “Not that some'll 'eed 'em, o' course.”

Bolitho smiled at Herrick. “Better than I had expected. We'll have a man in the chains and begin soundings as we pass this islet of the master's. The chart describes some nineteen fathoms here- abouts, but I'd prefer to be certain.”

Twenty minutes later Penn returned to the deck, his brown features sprinkled with sweat. He held out his grubby pad and stood back to watch Mudge's reactions.

Over his shoulder Davy said, “Looks like a whale to me.”

Mudge eyed him coldly. “So it does.” To Penn he said, “Fair work. It is 'ow I recalls it.” His small eyes returned to Davy. “Ex- actly like a great rocky
whale.
” The merest pause.
“Sir.”

“Anything there?”

Bolitho took a glass and trained it above the gun deck. As yet he could see nothing but the same, painful glare. He wondered momentarily where the storm had gone, how it could vanish after showing so much fury.

“Bless you, no, sir. ” Mudge beamed at Davy's discomfort. “Just a fistful o' rocks, like the tip of some undersea ridge, as no doubt it was one time. But I suppose it could be used as shelter in a full gale.”

Bolitho watched some seamen hauling a new length of hemp along the larboard gangway. Tired and unshaven perhaps, but there was something else, too. The way they worked together. Con- fidently.

He said, “We will alter course a point, Mr. Davy, and take a look at your whale.”

Davy hurried to the rail. “Mr. Penn! Pipe the hands to the braces!”

Herrick watched him, smiling easily. “Any reason, sir?”

Bolitho shrugged. “More of a feeling.”

He watched the men thronging along the decks, where the steamy vapour continued to drift amongst them. From forward he saw real smoke, as Bogle, the cook, got busy with the first hot meal they would have eaten since the storm had come and gone.

He saw the yards swinging to the pull of the braces, heard the helmsman cry, “Nor'-east by north, sir!”

Davy hurried past to consult the binnacle and the set of the sails. “Another pull on the weather mainbrace, Mr. Shellabeer!” He dabbed his streaming face. “Now belay!”

Bolitho smiled. When Davy was irritated he always performed his duties better, for some reason.

He said, “Put another good lookout aloft, if you please. I want that islet watched until we are up to it.”

He glanced at the sun's blinding patterns beyond the gently pitching bowsprit.

“I am going below to shave and to bribe Noddall into finding a clean shirt.”

Later, as he lay back in a chair while Allday busied himself with his razor, he found time to wonder what he would do if or when he met with
Argus
's captain.

The hastily heated water, the skilful movement of the blade against his skin was making him relax, muscle by muscle, and he could feel the air from the open stern windows across his bare shoulders like a soothing embrace.

All around the world the King's captains were going about their affairs. Fighting scurvy and disease, carrying despatches for an admiral or some lonely outpost not marked on any schoolboy's map. Or pondering behind a cabin bulkhead in dread of mutiny, or planning some diversion to prevent one. Fighting maybe, with some dissident ruler who had attacked the King's subjects, defiled the flag, butchered men and women. He smiled. And some would be like himself. A tiny extension to a half-formed plan.

Through the open skylight he heard the lookout's cry, “Deck there! Ship at anchor close inshore!”

He jumped to his feet, seizing the clean shirt and using it to dab away the soap from his chin.

Allday stood aside and grinned admiringly. “By God, Captain, you must have more wiles than a farmyard cat! How did you know there was a ship?”

Bolitho was tucking the crumpled shirt inside his breeches. “Magic, Allday!”

He hurried for the door, and then forced himself to wait until Midshipman Penn appeared in the entrance.

“A ship, sir! Mr. Davy's respects, and he believes it may be a schooner.”

“Thank you, Mr. Penn.” It was all he could do to appear calm. “I will come up when I have completed dressing. My compliments to the first lieutenant, please ask him to meet me on the quarterdeck.

He turned and saw Allday hiding a smile.

“Is something amusing you?”

“Why, no, Captain.” Allday watched him gravely. “But I am always ready to see my betters at their affairs.”

Bolitho smiled. “Then I hope you learn from it.”

He walked into the passageway and made for the ladder.

Herrick greeted him excitedly. “A schooner, sir! The man in the foremast crosstrees is my best lookout, and I had a glass sent aloft to him.” He stared at Bolitho with open astonishment. “It is uncanny!”

Bolitho smiled shortly. “A fair guess, if the truth be told. But it was a bad storm, and when the master suggested this small isle as a place for shelter I began a'thinking.”

He took Penn's telescope and trained it towards the bows. There was the islet now, an uneven blob of grey/blue. The mast- head would be able to see much more.

“Where is the wind?”

Davy said, “From the south-west, sir.”

Bolitho let his mind move accordingly. “Alter course and lay her on the larboard tack.” He crossed to the binnacle, seeing the helmsmen watching him curiously. “We will steer nor' nor'-west.”

He waited as a bosun's mate dashed to pipe the hands to the braces again.

Then to Herrick and Davy he added slowly, “This way we will keep the isle between us and the other vessel and hold our advan- tage to wind'rd. Get the courses on her, but keep the t'gallants furled for the present.”

Herrick understood at once. “Aye, sir. The less canvas we display, the less likely they are to sight us.”

Bolitho glanced at Mudge, who had appeared with Fowlar beside the helm.

“You put the thought in my mind. I have always wondered why Muljadi has good warning of our movements. I think we shall soon know his methods.” He looked at the washed-out blue sky above the tapering masts. “But for the storm we would have approached from the east'rd. Thanks to the weather's rough mood we have gained something for once.”

Herrick asked softly, “What of the admiral's instructions, sir?” Then he grinned. “I can see from your expression that you intend to choose your own moment, sir.”

Bolitho smiled. “One cannot bargain if one is a beggar. I have learned that long since.”

He looked up as with sails cracking and shivering to the new tack
Undine
tamed purposefully to larboard, the small, humped islet mov- ing away from the weather bow as if released from an anchor.

“Nor' nor'-west, sir. Full an' bye!”