For My Country's Freedom (6 page)

He walked to the big doors and added, “It will be cleaner.”

Lieutenant Paul Ozanne, the burly, red-faced Channel Islander, held open the cabin door and looked aft to where Tyacke was sitting at his table, exactly as he had left him. How many times had he opened this door, at sea or at anchor, to report the sighting of a suspected slaver, or perhaps an enemy sail? Tyacke always seemed to know anyway, even before the masthead lookout.

He noticed that Tyacke's brass-bound sea-chest had gone, and despite what he had been told privately, it saddened him.

Tyacke had explained that when he left the ship Ozanne was to be promoted to commander and given
Larne
in his place. Ozanne could still not believe the swiftness of events, or what it would mean to him.

Tyacke had said, “You deserve it, I'd have no other. You ought to have been promoted long ago—I know no better seaman or navigator.” His tone had hardened. “But there are those in authority, and my guess is that there always will be, who consider a man not fit for high rank if he has soiled his hands with honest work!”

The news had gone through the little brig like a flame. Ozanne had seen it on their faces. Surprise, but certainly relief too.
Larne
was too intimate, and her people had been together longer than most, for some new broom to come amongst them.

Tyacke looked up from the bare table, his face in shadow.

Ozanne said, “They're waiting, sir.”

Tyacke nodded heavily. “Your commission is here . . .”

“Will you wait, sir?” He already knew the answer.

“No. I wish you well, I daresay we shall meet again. It is the way of things.” He became impatient. “Have them come in.”

Larne
's officers filed into the cabin and found places to sit. On chairs and on the stern bench seat: when the door was wedged shut the cabin was packed tight.
Larne
was well blessed with both officers and master's mates. She had taken many prizes, slavers and smugglers alike, and had always carried extra experienced men to sail their captures to the nearest friendly harbour.

There was plenty of cognac, and Ozanne recalled the day when Sir Richard Bolitho had come aboard, and later his flag-lieutenant. He had rarely seen his commander the worse for drink. Now he knew why it had happened, or one of the reasons, anyway.

Tyacke said, “Help yourselves.” They had no choice in such a crowded cabin. He watched them without expression. Flemyng and Robyns the lieutenants, Manley Pitcair the sailing-master and Andrew Livett the young surgeon, who accepted his miserly pay so that he could study tropical medicines and fevers. He had had plenty of experience on the slave coasts. The master's mates, bronzed and reliable. But no midshipmen. That would all change like everything else when he joined
Indomitable,
Bolitho's proposed flagship. She lay some two hundred yards distant but Tyacke, typically, had not gone to see her. He would begin after he had read himself in, and not before.

Everything would be different.
Indomitable
would carry a Royal Marine contingent like all men-of-war from sixth-rates upwards. Tyacke had not served alongside the Royals since the
Majestic.
He touched his scarred face and thought of Bolitho's eye, the way he had seen him rub it when he had been thinking of something else.
I should have guessed.
He looked round the cabin, so small and low-beamed, but after his first and only other command, the schooner
Miranda,
it had seemed like a palace. He had first met Bolitho in
Miranda,
when he had accepted all the discomfort and shared quarters without complaint. When she had been destroyed by a French frigate he had given him
Larne
without hesitation. The bond, broken only by distance and the demands of duty, had strengthened from then on. He thought of Avery's visit, his anger and despair.
I should have guessed.

He cleared his throat and every face looked aft.

“Today I shall leave this command to Mr Ozanne. It is hard to describe my feelings.” He twisted round in his chair and glanced through the thick stern windows. So many times. The thump of the rudder-post, the frothing sea rolling away from beneath the counter.
So many times. God, I shall miss you, girl!

But he said, “I have requested that Robert Gallaway be promoted to acting-lieutenant until it can be confirmed.” He saw the master's mate staring round with surprise and pleasure while his friends thumped him on the back. He would leave Ozanne to select a replacement for Gallaway. It would probably be his first duty. A pleasant way to begin a commission. The others were not even troubled by meeting his gaze. That, too, would be different in another ship. What had he expected? That he would be permitted to keep sailing the deep-water trade routes like a phantom? Now he would be out in the open for all to see.

He took a swallow from his goblet. He would stay at an inn Pitcair had told him about. Small, no questions asked. He smiled sadly. When he received his next allotment of prize-money he could buy land of his own.

He said, “We have done a great deal together, and we are all the better for it. The ocean is always there waiting for us, with a mood to suit every watch and occasion. But the ship . . .” Just once he reached out and touched the curved timbers. “There is never one like the last.” He heard a boatswain's call, unusually muted in the packed cabin. “All hands! All hands muster on deck!” Even the thudding of bare feet was subdued.

A seaman tapped the door and thrust his head inside. One of the older hands who had been allowed ashore because of Bolitho's request to the port admiral.

“Beg pardon, zur! But the carriage be alongside!”

Tyacke nodded. “Very well, Houston. I'll come up.”

The seaman hesitated, unsure amidst all of his lieutenants and warrant officers.

“What is it?”

The man named Houston dragged a bright gold dollar on a chain from his pocket.

“For a lady, zur—took it from that brigantine! Good luck, Cap'n!” Then he fled.

Tyacke stood up slowly, glad that he must bow his head between the beams and hide his face.

Thank God he was not being pulled ashore in the gig, which was what Ozanne would have arranged had they been at anchor instead of alongside the wall. Pulled ashore by his own officers. Ozanne was that kind of man.

He was saying now to the others, “Wait on deck, please, gentlemen.”

Then, when they had filed out, he stood by the door. “I'll never forget what you done for me, James. Never fret, I'll take good care of her. You'll be that proud when you see her again.”

Tyacke gripped his hand. “I know that, old friend.” What Bolitho called his coxswain. He wanted to say aloud,
I'm afraid. Maybe I can't do it.
But all he said was, “She can still outsail the best of them!”

Then, followed by Ozanne, he climbed the companion ladder, and hesitated by the coaming.

My men. No, not any more.

They were clinging to the shrouds and ratlines, framed against a clear bright sky. There were no dockyard workers to be seen. This was
Larne
's moment and they would share it with nobody.

The carriage with the big sea-chest on its roof waited amongst the dockyard litter. Tyacke measured the distance with his eye. It was probably the longest journey he would ever take.

He shook hands with the officers and the men of the side party. A murmur here and there, firm, rough hands, questioning glances; he had to press his sword against his thigh with all his strength to contain himself.

Lastly Paul Ozanne,
Commander
Ozanne. Only their eyes spoke: no words would come.

Tyacke raised his hat and climbed on to the brow. The calls twittered and then someone yelled, “Huzza for the Captain, lads!
Huzza!
”

People hurried to the sides of other vessels nearby as the wild cheering echoed and re-echoed against the old stone walls. For such a small ship's company, the din was enough to drown every other sound. Straight-backed, his sword at his side, Tyacke walked steadily towards the carriage, the cheers washing around him like breakers on the reefs.

He climbed into the carriage and the driver flicked his whip.

He did not look back. He dared not.

Catherine was waiting at the foot of the stairs when Young Matthew drove Bolitho back from the Admiralty after yet another meeting. She watched him anxiously, looking for a sign, some hint that he was over-taxing himself.

He took her in his arms, his mouth touching her hair, her neck.

“It's settled, Kate. I am to command the new squadron.” He searched her face as she had studied his. “We can soon return to Falmouth. It will be a while yet before my ships are ready.” He smiled. “And Young Matthew complains that London is too noisy and dirty for his tastes.”

She linked her arm through his and turned him towards their room at the rear of the house with its tiny walled garden.

“How is George Avery?”

“Relieved, I think.”

“I have written to him about his sister. I did not even know he had a family. He said not when I first met him.”

“I know. There is another story there, I believe. By ‘family' I think he may have meant somebody like you.”

He saw the brandy on the table and wondered if Tyacke had left
Larne
yet. He could remember his own farewells only too vividly.

“For me, Richard, will you visit the surgeon before we leave Chelsea?”

He kissed her lightly. “For you, anything.”

She watched him pour some brandy. He was looking better than she had expected, his face showing once again the benefit of their being together for over two months, but last night she had been unable to comfort him, and sleep had been denied to both of them.

She said, “Perhaps there will be no war across the Atlantic?”

“Perhaps.”

She saw his fingers playing with her locket beneath his shirt. He had worn it deliberately for this latest visit to the Admiralty. His protection, he had called it.

“How was Sir Graham Bethune today?” She had felt his hurt and jealousy at the beginning, but Bethune had stood by her man against the pack. Sillitoe too, although she was doubtful if his motives were so easily defined.

“He was fair and helpful. He has given me most of what I requested. Maybe I will have the rest when the extent of my orders is realised.”

He did not mention that he would be sailing first to English Harbour in Antigua. The Leeward Squadron, as Bethune had dubbed it, would establish itself there. But he could not tell her. Not yet. There would be pain enough in parting, and Antigua held so many memories. Where he had found her again, and rediscovered the love which had changed his life. His eye fell on a sealed envelope with a coat of arms adorning it.

“When did this arrive?”

“I thought I would leave it until later. A footman delivered it after you had gone this morning.”

Bolitho picked it up and stared at it. “Will they never give up? Can they not understand that we belong to each other? Are they so hypocritical that they really expect me to go to Belinda?” He ripped it open with a knife. “I shall see them in damnation first!”

She watched his change of expression. At a loss, astonished as if he were a small boy again.

“It is from the Prince Regent, Kate. An invitation to dine . . .”

She said, “Then you must go, Richard. Your position demands that you . . .”

He leaned over her and pulled down the back of her gown and kissed her bare shoulder.

He said quietly, “
We
are invited, Kate.” He held out the heavily embossed card and she read aloud,
“Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho, KB, and Catherine, Lady Somervell.”
She exclaimed, “It must be a mistake. Carlton House indeed . . . They have even given you the wrong rank.”

He said, almost shyly, “I forgot to tell you, darling Kate. I have been promoted.”

In the kitchen Sophie, her maid, and the cook both stared at the wall as Catherine shouted,
“You forgot!”
She flung her arms around him. “Bless you, darling—no wonder they all love you!
You forgot!
” Her fine dark eyes flashed. “But all my clothes are in Falmouth. There is no time for . . .” She gripped his hand with both of hers. “Except for the green silk. You remember.”

He smiled at her. “Antigua. Oh yes, I remember.”

She could not look at him. “Take me upstairs. I have to remind you. How it is. How it will always be. Together.”

In the kitchen they heard Catherine's familiar laughter. Then there was silence.

The cook glanced at the hob and shook one of the pots.

“They'll be supping late, in my opinion.” She looked at Sophie. “Disgraceful, annit?” Then she smiled. “Bless 'em!”