For My Country's Freedom (12 page)

He saw her hand on his sleeve and heard her say, “You don't say much, and I've no right to pry, but you've carried a deal of worry these past years, I can tell.” She gave his arm a gentle squeeze. “And sad though it is, it isn't the loss of your sister I'm speaking of!”

He took the work-worn hand and kissed it. It smelt of fruit and flour.

She stood beside her brother and watched Allday hoist the lieutenant's chests into the trap.

As the pony clattered across the yard, out of the inn's shadow and into the bright April sunlight, she said wretchedly, “Oh, John, why must it be?”

Her brother, also called John, wondered if she were speaking to him.

He said quietly, “You told him yet?”

She shook her head. “It wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be right.” She laid her hand across her apron. “He'll have enough to worry about, fighting them Yankees. I won't have him fretting over me at the same time.” She smiled. “Sides, I don't know for sure, do I? Bit late in life to have a babe of my own.”

Her brother put his arm around her. “You'll be brave, lass.”

Unis shaded her eyes, but the trap had vanished beyond the hedgerow where some swifts were performing like darts.

She said suddenly, “My God, John, I'll miss him so.”

He saw her sudden determination and was proud of her.

“But I'll not let on, or make a big show of it.” She thought of the grave-faced lieutenant with the tawny eyes. Allday had told her that Avery had read her letters for him. She had been deeply touched, especially now that she knew the lieutenant better. There was a woman behind his sadness; she was certain of it. Perhaps when he read her letters to Allday he was pretending they had been written to him.

Someone called from the inn and she tidied her hair before going to serve him.

“I'll go, lass. You stay an' dream a while.”

She smiled. It was like the sun breaking through cloud. “No, I'll deal with
him!
You chop some wood.” She glanced again at the empty road. “It'll blow cold off the river tonight.”

Then she squared her shoulders and marched through the door.

The man uppermost in her thoughts sat in the back of the trap, one leg swinging above the narrow road while he watched the passing countryside. He had known leaving would be hard. Some dogs were rounding up sheep in one field and he thought of his time as a sheep-minder, when
Phalarope
had put a press-gang ashore on Pendower and caught several men who were trying to keep their distance.
Including me.
Nobody had realised that the frigate's young captain was a local man, born and raised in Falmouth before being packed off to sea like all the other Bolithos. A lot of water since then. Young Adam a successful frigate captain himself now . . . He sighed, remembering how his own son had quit the navy and gone to settle in the promised land of America. It still hurt him. It always would, the way his son had turned away from him, instead of continuing as Adam's coxswain.

And now Richard Bolitho was a full admiral.
An' I'm an admiral's coxswain, as I promised him.
Flag at the main. Time, he thought, troubled by its swift passage; where did it all go?

Avery was also watching the scenery. But he was thinking of Unis Allday's words. A deal of worry. How did she know?

Two farm workers plodding in the opposite direction waved and yelled, “Yew give them buggers a quiltin'!”

Avery raised his hat to them, remembering Bolitho's bitter words when they had joined the unhappy
Valkyrie
at Plymouth.

What did men like these care who they were going to fight? Dutch, French or Dons, it was all the same to them. So long as their bellies were full and they did not have to go to sea or follow the drum, what did it signify to them? He gave a wry smile.
I am becoming cynical, like Sir Richard.
To take his mind off it, he twisted round and looked at his companion. “You've a fine wife, Allday. I envy you.”

Allday's eyes crinkled. “Then we'll have to do something about that, won't we, sir?”

Avery smiled easily. He would never have believed it possible for this kind of relationship to exist within the rigid strictures of the navy.

Allday asked, “You sorry to leave, sir?”

Avery thought about it and remembered his sister's last, desperate embrace.
If only I had known.

He shook his head. “No. There's nobody to leave.”

Allday studied him. Most people would think Lieutenant Avery had all that a man could need. Aide to England's most famous sailor, with all the chances of rank and prize-money denied to others. But, in fact, he had nothing.

He was both surprised and saddened by his discovery, and said awkwardly, “Perhaps you would have the goodness to write a letter for me once we weighs anchor, sir?”

Avery's clear eyes settled on him. It was like seeing a man reaching for a lifeline.

“It would be an honour.” He almost added,
old friend.

Catherine Somervell was crossing the yard with a sheaf of flowers over one arm when they arrived. She shaded her eyes and watched as they climbed from the trap. “Why, Mr Avery—and John Allday! I was not expecting two such important visitors!” She held out her hand and Avery took it; not like Sillitoe, she thought, nor like the Prince Regent either. He kissed it and she sensed his hesitancy; he was still uncertain about something, perhaps herself and her relationship with Bolitho. It was possible that she would never know.

She greeted Allday with affection. “Why, John Allday, I swear you have filled out a little! Good food and affection do wonders for a man, body and soul.”

Allday said uneasily, “I have to get back, m'lady. But tomorrow . . .”

She said, “Ah, yes, tomorrow. We shall have to make the best of it.”

From an upstairs window Bolitho watched them. His Kate walking between the two uniforms. She looked so at ease with them, so right. He thought of her in the night: the eager desperation of one for the other. Love, passion, and the unspoken dread of parting.

A shaft of sunlight pierced through the leaves in the light offshore breeze, and he put his hand to his eye as if it had been stung. Holding one hand over it he looked again, and after a few seconds his vision seemed to clear and sharpen. It must be the effect of the drops the doctor had given him. Beneath the windows, she turned between two of the most important men in his life. She was as tall as Avery, and perhaps a little taller than Allday.

She must have felt his eyes upon her. She looked up, searching his face, perhaps sensing what had just happened.

She held up the flowers and blew him a kiss.

But all he heard was her voice on the wind.
Don't leave me.

Captain James Tyacke stood by the quarterdeck rail and watched the throng of bustling figures, which to any ignorant landsman would seem like chaos. He laid one sunburned hand on the rail and was surprised to see it so still even though his whole body seemed to be trembling with an excitement he had rarely known.

It was not recklessness. Not exactly, but he had had to discover what his ship and his unknown company could do.

Shortly after
Indomitable
had hoisted anchor and successfully beat clear of the Sound, the wind had risen slightly, and by the time she had been laid on her new south-westerly course down-Channel spray was bursting over the beak-head, soaking even the upper yards where dazed and uncertain figures were being pushed and dragged from one task to the next.

Lieutenant Scarlett had ventured, “We are thirty hands short, sir.”

Tyacke had given him a brief glance. “In a sea-fight we could lose that many in minutes.”

“I—I know, sir.”

Tyacke had retorted sharply, “I
know
you know, but most of these people do not. So get the hands aloft and make all plain sail!”

As the wind and quarter-sea had mounted, the
Indomitable,
big though she was, had seemed to bound from trough to trough like the lion she followed, spray and spindrift pouring from the bulging canvas like tropical rain. Tyacke had glanced at the sailing-master, his slate-grey hair flapping in the wind, his arms folded as he watched his helmsmen and master's mates. He had felt his captain's scrutiny and looked up, his eyes gleaming as he had called,
“She can do it, sir!”

Tyacke had seen Scarlett and Daubeny the second lieutenant clinging to the stays and staring at him. He said, “Stun's'ls, Mr Scarlett!”

Like giant ears the studding-sails were eventually run out from their yards, men slithering and clutching wildly for handholds.

Now, as he looked up at the squared yards and furled sails, at the gulls circling noisily around the ship hoping for scraps, he was amazed by what he had done, what they had all managed to do, one way or the other. Every spar had held, although he had seen the great main-yard bending like an archer's bow under the tremendous pressure of wind. Here and there cordage had parted, snapping above the din like musket shots, but that was not uncommon with new ropes and halliards. The stretched and seasoned rigging had taken all the strain with no complaint save the clatter and bang of flapping canvas.

Tyacke walked to the taffrail and back again. That was it, why
Indomitable
was so different from any other ship. It was her power through the water even in half a gale. The noise, frightening to the untrained landmen, had been exhilarating; with each great plunge into sunburst clouds of spray it had been staggering, a sound he could liken to a great gale through a forest, menacing and then rising to a wild shriek of triumph. Isaac York the master had claimed they had logged some fifteen knots, when under those conditions most vessels would have been tempted to shorten sail—or, if undermanned, to lie-to under reefed topsails until it was all over.

As they had closed with the land Tyacke had touched the first lieutenant's arm, and was certain he had started with alarm.

“Shorten sail, if you please, Mr Scarlett.”

He saw the other man's confusion, thinking perhaps he had misunderstood the order. Tyacke had pointed at the larboard battery of twenty-four-pounders. “You decide. If we fight, and I should fall,
you
will command here. Can you do it?”

Scarlett had stared at him. There had been a lot of coastal shipping moving in and out of the harbour, and the distance between the two headlands, Pendennis Point and St Anthony, had probably looked no wider than a farm gate.

But with York close by, Scarlett had not hesitated.

On the starboard tack with all sails clewed up except topsails and jib,
Indomitable
must have made an impressive entrance.

But now, safely at anchor, he might well ask himself why he had done it. Even if Scarlett had collided with another vessel or put the ship aground, the responsibility would lie with her captain. As it should.

Scarlett was here again. “All secure, sir.”

“Very well, sway out the barge and put my cox'n in charge.” He almost smiled. “I have no doubt that Allday will bring the barge back himself.”

He saw no understanding on Scarlett's face. Like these others, the legend had passed him by. He would be part of it soon enough. He heard a yelp of pain and saw a man hurrying forward, holding his shoulder where a boatswain's mate had obviously struck him with his starter. Nearby, the junior lieutenant Philip Protheroe stood watching the land. He had ignored the incident.

Tyacke said, “Remind that young man of what I said when I took command. An officer must be obeyed. He must also set an example.” Unwittingly his hand had gone to his disfigured face. “Even if you have been badly used, it does not give you the right to abuse others who cannot answer back.”

Scarlett said, “I understand, sir.”

He said curtly, “I am glad to know it!”

He watched the new green-painted barge being hoisted and swayed over the starboard gangway, and then lowered slowly into the water alongside, and beckoned to the gun captain who had been chosen for his coxswain. He was a short, completely square man with a puggy face and a chin so blue it must defy every razor.