Relentless Pursuit (29 page)

Too much cognac, or that red wine which rasped on the tongue. It was neither. He had hardly slept since leaving Plymouth. And now . . .

He stared at the partly shuttered lantern, and the empty table. It was still dark, but the sounds overhead were different. He sat upright, feeling his way. It must be eight bells. The morning watch was taking over.

He had been dreaming. He touched his neckcloth. In the dream she had been there, with him.

He saw the figure darkly outlined against the white paintwork. He pushed his fingers through his unruly hair and said, “You should have roused me, man!”

Luke Jago stood up and looked at him. “I would've. I just thought I ought to come.”

He was instantly wide awake. Like those other times, so many of them. Like a fox's scent of danger. Even his voice was clear, sharp.

“What is it? Trouble?”

Jago turned his head and glanced at the shuttered skylight, as if he could see the disruption in the order and discipline.

He said flatly, “Mr Sandell's gone missin', sir.”

Adam was on his feet. “Are you sure?” His mind was reaching out like a beam of light, a warning. Galbraith had had the middle watch. He would not leave it for somebody else to act.

Jago replied, “They've searched the ship, sir.”

Napier was here now, a jug of water held ready. Adam wiped his face and neck with a wet cloth, seeing it for himself. Sandell was in Galbraith's watch. The night was reasonably calm but for a steady wind; an unemployed person could not come on deck without being seen by one of the watchkeepers. An accident? Somebody would have seen that too.

He blinked as Jago unshuttered the lantern. It would be first light very soon, the ship coming awake to a new day.

Jago lifted a hand as someone shouted something, the voice carried away by the wind.

He said, “They've not found him, sir.”

Adam looked at him. Nobody liked Sandell; some hated him. He should never have been selected. He could guess what Jago thought about it.

He turned and faced the door, hearing Galbraith's familiar footsteps. The responsibility, as always, lay here, in this cabin.

He heard the sentry stamp his boots outside the screen door.

Accept it, then. It was murder.

Lieutenant Galbraith strode aft, his shoes sticking on the deck seams as the sun bore down on the anchored ship. It had been a long and slow approach to the anchorage, as if the Rock's majestic presence defied the wind to intrude. He squinted his eyes against the reflected glare at the other ships anchored nearby, and the guard-boat which had waited with tossed oars to mark their journey's end, rolling evenly above its own image.

He looked at the fortifications and batteries, which seemed like part of the Rock itself, a flag flapping listlessly above one of them. There was a lot to do. All boats would be lowered no matter how short their stay here, to seal the sun-baked hulls. The captain would expect windsails to be rigged, to draw what air there was into the cramped quarters between decks. Galbraith had known captains who would never have contemplated it, would have insisted that the ungainly canvas spoiled their ship's appearance, no matter what discomfort they averted. But not this captain. The gig was already being hoisted out over the starboard gangway, Jago's voice urging or threatening as required.

He saw Lieutenant Varlo speaking with Hastie, the master-at-arms, arranging another search, maybe. The captain had told the second lieutenant to carry out a final investigation, although it seemed unlikely that anything would be gained by it. But Galbraith could feel a difference in the ship and amongst the various sections of men he had come to know so well. Resentment, suspicion; it went deeper than these.

To many of them it would seem a betrayal of something personal and intimate, that bond in any fighting ship which made each man look out for his friends. Sailors owned little enough, and a thief, if caught by his fellows, would suffer a far harsher fate than that meted out by the Articles of War. And a man who would kill another in this ship was like something unclean. Midshipman Sandell would not be missed, but the threat would remain.

He saw the captain by the taffrail, a telescope trained towards the main anchorage, but unmoving, as if he was unwilling to let it go.

Galbraith touched his hat and waited. “Ship secured, sir. The gig is being lowered now.”

He followed Bolitho's telescope. A little apart from the other vessels, and larger than most of them: they had seen her on the last two cables before the anchor had plummeted down and the cable had taken the strain.

A receiving-ship, they called such vessels, used mainly as temporary accommodation for officers and personnel on passage to other appointments. Mastless, and with most of her upper deck covered by a protective awning, her gun ports empty and opened to attract any offshore breeze, she was another hulk. The last time they had seen her, she had worn an admiral's flag at the main-mast truck.
Was that only last year?
Even now, her “gingerbread,” the ornate scrollwork about her stern and counter, was still brightly gilded in the sunlight, and her name,
Frobisher,
was not to be forgotten. Least of all by the man at his side.

Adam said, “Is that all they could find for her, Leigh?” He closed the glass with a snap and looked directly at him.

“I saw my uncle's old coxswain when I went to Falmouth.” He looked at the ship again, but Galbraith knew he was seeing something else. “I am only thankful that John Allday is not here today to see
this!
”

He seemed to pull himself out of it with a great effort and said, “I will be going ashore directly. In the meantime, perhaps Mr Tregillis will loosen his purse strings again and attempt to obtain some fresh bread. The garrison will be the best chance.”

“I'll deal with that, sir.”

He looked down, surprised, as Bolitho's hand gripped his arm.

“What do
you
think happened to Midshipman Sandell?”

“Lucas, the maintopman accused of threatening him, denies all knowledge, sir. And in any case he was in the care of the ship's corporal, in irons during that watch.” He added bitterly, “
My
watch!”

Adam released his grip and stared at the towering Rock. There was mist or low cloud around the summit; Cristie had said it might promise a wind for the return passage.

Varlo seemed to be enjoying his investigation, had even made a sketch showing where every man would or should have been stationed in what he had calculated was the last half hour of Sandell's life. At the second eighteen-pounder on the starboard side he had discovered that two balls were missing from the shot garland. Enough to carry a body swiftly down before the keel had had time to pass over it. And up forward, so close to the lively bow wave, it would hardly make a sound.

Sandell had had the makings of a tyrant, given the opportunity. But it could have been anybody.

You never spoke of it, but it was always there. When you realised that if the worst happened and you were sailing alone, only the afterguard and the thin line of marines stood between a captain and mutiny.

He saw Jago at the top of the ladder, his dark features expressionless. Waiting.

“I want both counts of punishment to be stood down. One man was drunk, and you know from experience that flogging has never yet cured a drunkard. As for Lucas, he is a
good hand.
Remember how he saved two raw landmen from falling to the deck when we first commissioned? A man of spirit and courage, and I'll not see him broken without proper evidence.”

“Sandell's people are quite important, I believe, sir?”

Adam was looking at the
Frobisher
again. “They shall have the truth, Leigh. When I know it.”

He walked to the rail and joined his coxswain.

“Man the side! Attention on the upper deck!”

Rist, master's mate, stood with the others while the calls trilled and the captain went quickly down the side into his gig.

He said, “You reckon Mr Sandell's gone to the sharks?”

Cristie overheard and said calmly, “If I was a shark I'd throw the little bastard right back at us!”

Rist forced a smile, but turned away as the calls shrilled once more and work recommenced.

He thought about it again; he had done little else since it had happened. It would soon be forgotten, and as everybody knew but would not say, Midshipman Sandell with his arrogance and secretive cruelty was no loss to anyone.
Think of it, man.
The fleet was growing again, you could see that for yourself at Plymouth, and here beneath the Rock there were more craft than on their last visit. The real cutting down was over. For now, anyway. Rist was not young, but young enough for promotion if it was offered or fell his way. To sailing master like old Cristie, or maybe to a command of his own, no matter how small, just given the time and the chance.

He watched the first lieutenant speaking to Partridge, the boatswain. He liked and respected Galbraith, trusted him also.

He faced it for the hundredth time. How long would that last if he revealed that he had witnessed the murder?

He had to go down to the chart room. It was no use just going over it again. He felt the fine new spyglass the youth Ede had made for him.
Put yourself first.
But it would not go away.

Luke Jago perched his buttocks against a massive stone bollard and picked his teeth with a piece of whalebone. The stone was still warm, and yet looking across the dark, heaving water there were already lights showing on some of the ships, like fireflies at his home in Dover. What he could still remember of it.

The gig's crew was close by, where he could keep a weather eye open for some last-minute chancer, although he had to admit they had become a fairly reliable boat's crew. He heard someone kicking stones into the water. Midshipman Deighton, doing his share on this duty. A “young gentleman,” and one day he would be a lieutenant, and maybe another jumped-up slave driver. But he had to admit that he liked him, shared something which even his keen mind could not define or accept. Always ready to listen and learn, never threw his weight about even with the most junior hands, but it went deeper than that. Like the one most important thing which had brought them together, the fact that Jago had been there when Deighton's father had died. Shot down by one of his own men, although nobody ever spoke of it. Not even the captain.

He thought of the missing midshipman. San
dell.
He smiled grimly. San
dell,
as he had always insisted. Nobody spoke much about that, either. Deighton was affected by it, although he had never liked the other midshipman. It was like a presence moving between decks.

Captain Bolitho had been ashore for most of the day, but had sent word by messenger that the gig would not be needed.
Until now.

He watched the passing throng of people; it was always the same at the Rock. It was funny when you thought about it. A few years back and you could imagine the Dons, just over the water at Algeiras, waiting to spy on ships arriving and leaving here, ready to send fast horsemen with the news,
where from?
or
where bound?
The enemy. Now there were ships of a dozen flags at anchor here. He could recall all too easily when there was only one flag. The rest were the foe.

But they were not making much of a secret of their presence here; he had heard the first lieutenant say as much to young Bel-lairs. Why
Unrivalled?
Any fast schooner or courier brig could have done it. They did it every day somewhere or other.

He hid a smile in the dying sunlight.

Two sailors from another vessel had looked at the gig, and had asked what was their ship?

When he had told them, one had exclaimed, “That's Captain Bolitho's ship, matey!”

Jago had been forced to give in to a feeling of pride, which before would have been laughable.

Neither of those two Jacks had ever laid eyes on the captain. But the name was enough.

Deighton stood up and brushed his white trousers. “The captain's coming.”

Jago pushed himself away from the bollard and spat the whale-bone into the water.
Must be getting old.
Deighton had seen him first.

He could sense the impatience, anger even, as the captain stepped down into the nodding boat.

Jago gauged the mood. Took a chance.

“We sailin' again, sir?”

He saw the upturned face, the dark eyes framed by the hair, the familiar cocked hat. He had gone too far this time.

But Adam said quietly, “We are so, my friend. In Falmouth I heard of an errand boy who rose to be a rich and powerful man. Now you can see a captain who has become an errand boy!”

The boat's crew shifted on their thwarts, sharing it, some without understanding. Midshipman Deighton rested one hand on the tiller to lean forward and listen. So very different, yet these two men had filled his life when he had believed himself to be alone.