Relentless Pursuit (36 page)

He heard the clock chime, more of a tremble than a sound, and refilled the glasses while he considered what he had done.

He would be blamed for warning her. His future would be in ruins. Perhaps a sea appointment might have saved him . . . He put down the bottle.

He saw her walk towards her carriage. She had paused once, and had asked quite calmly, “Are you in love with me, Graham?” He could not recall his answer, only her final dismissal. “Then you are a
fool.
”

Herrick said, “Can nothing be done?”

“Their lordships are too concerned with Algiers at the moment. Afterwards . . .” He shrugged. “Perhaps Lord Sillitoe will absolve himself.”

Herrick stood up carefully. “I must take my leave, Sir Graham. I am told that I will be required to return to Freetown shortly. That damnable place! And afterwards, I shall be put on the beach.” As if he could see it, face it, like a man with one foot on the scaffold.

Bethune said, “Will you go back to Kent?”

Herrick studied him. “I am a stranger there now.”

He watched the door, knowing that a servant was waiting, ready to spirit him out.

“I ask you, Sir Graham. Do what you can for Catherine. Sir Richard gave me my life. She gave me back my trust.”

Something seemed to hold him by the door. “Adam Bolitho. Is he at sea yet?”

“I am informed that
Unrivalled
left Plymouth yesterday.”

Herrick said, “How I envy him.”

The door closed, and Bethune picked up the bottle again, which was unlike him.

He raised the glass, and said aloud, “Yes, Catherine, I am a fool!”

He thought of her hand in his, her resistance. And something more.

The servant was back. “I thought to remind you, Sir Graham. We have an appointment with the First Lord at noon.”

“I see.” He glanced at the empty glasses. “Then we had better not keep him waiting.”

He was reminded sharply of the room he had seen in Malta, the last place she had joined Richard Bolitho.

He had used the same words then.
How I envy him.

It was not over.

Lieutenant Leigh Galbraith followed his captain into the stern cabin and waited by the door, half-expecting him to remember something and hurry to another part of the ship. It had been like that since his return, a boundless energy which was infectious, something you shared without knowing why.

Even O'Beirne had been at a loss for words, which was most unusual. He had redressed the wound and had snorted, “Riding a horse—I ask you, man. Does he have a death wish, this captain we follow?”

Yovell was here, coat draped on a chair, his table and some of the surrounding deck covered with folders and lists, and still more letters, Galbraith noticed.

He realised that the captain had halted by the stern windows, hands spread out on the lower sill as if embracing the anchorage.

“It's good to be without an admiral's flag to rule our days, eh? The fleet will be well on its way now.” Galbraith saw one hand pat the freshly painted wood. “Never fear, we'll soon catch them up.” He turned. “And you recommended Lawson for promotion to bosun's mate to replace . . .”

“Selby, sir. Lawson was cox'n of the jolly-boat, and a good all-round seaman. But if you think . . .”

Adam smiled. “I had thought that Sanders might be the right choice, but no, I agree with you. Lawson it is. I shall speak with him directly.”

“And the new midshipman, sir. Shall I deal with him?”

“No. I shall see him. It's important, I think.”

Galbraith watched him touch the wound again.

Napier came from the sleeping cabin, some clean shirts folded over one arm. He wore no shoes, and Adam knew the reason for it. O'Beirne had told him. There was a splinter in the boy's thigh, teak like the other, but deeper, and dangerous. All sailors hated teak.
Triton
had been a Dutch ship, and most of them were built of timber brought from far-off Dutch possessions.

Napier had said, “It will be all right, sir. I won't have a limp if . . .”
If
was always the threat.

Adam said, “I'm pleased with the ship, Leigh. And with what you've achieved while
Unrivalled
has been here.” He shook his head. “And I know what you're going to say about all the help steered our way by the admiral. I was a first lieutenant myself, and I have not forgotten who truly gets things done.” He smiled at him. “It will look well when I write your report.”

“Report, sir?”

Adam had turned to look at a passing yawl and did not see the sudden apprehension.

“When the time comes for promotion!” He swung round, half-blinded by the glare from the anchorage. “Be ready, man! It will come, or I'll know the reason why. And now let us go over that list again. Gun crews and their captains. Topmen and boat crews.” He remembered the shattered wheel, the mangled corpses clinging to the splintered spokes, and touched the fresh paint-work once more. As if the rest were only a memory.

Never again.

“Tell me about the new midshipman. Is there anything that might put him at his ease when we meet?”

He thought of the surprise, even the pleasure, he had seen in faces he thought he already knew.

He was back in command. And it mattered. A close thing, O'Beirne had said. Would they be watching him when next they were called to quarters?
Never question it. Do it.
Was it ever that simple?

Galbraith said, “His name is John Bremner, late of the frigate
Juno.
He is fifteen.”

“I remember
Juno.
A French prize, fifth-rate. When I last heard, she was about to be broken up. He should be experienced, anyway. What we need now.”

He watched the wind ruffle the water of the anchorage; Cristie said it would hold. Even he had been pleased, he thought.
“We owe that bugger one, sir!”
He had almost smiled.

He felt the strain running out of him. Even the wound was not painful, at the moment.

And they were leaving again. Tomorrow.

He saw a small boat pulling away from the side, the oarsman pausing to shade his eyes and peer up at the gilded gingerbread around the quarter.

They would make full use of the time on passage to join the fleet; gun drill would be paramount. He could almost hear the admiral's words.
Unrivalled
had been there. The others had not.

I want you in the van.

There was a tap at the door: the new midshipman. His most important time.
So it must be mine, too.

But it was Lieutenant Bellairs, his face scored by the sun even now.

“I'm sorry to trouble you, sir. But I thought it might be important.”

Adam looked at him and knew he had Galbraith's full attention as well. Bellairs, only recently a midshipman himself, had changed since young Cousens had been killed. They had been close, and Bellairs had helped to train the other midshipman in flags and signals before his own promotion to lieutenant. As if he had hardened, matured almost overnight, not the Bellairs who had blushed when telling him about the girl named Jane who lived in Dartmouth.

He opened the small, hastily-folded cover.

For a moment the cabin was gone. The faces, the individual concerns and responsibilities were at another's door.

A clear, unfamiliar hand, but he knew it instantly.

I was here. I saw you. God be with you.

He stared at the wind-ruffled water, just in time to see the boat vanishing around two hulks.

It was not possible. Like the dream, when he had almost lost his mind in pain and despair. When she had always been with him . . .

He faced them again.

“Thank you for that, Mr Bellairs.”

He sat down, in the chair which he had brought from Falmouth.

“Send in Mr Bremner, will you?”

He was leaving someone. And that, too, mattered.

“Steady she goes, sir! Sou'-west by south!”

Adam braced his legs on the wet planking as
Unrivalled
ploughed her stem into the curling breakers of the Channel, levelling the glass with care, measuring the distance, the bearing of the last jutting spar of land. Penlee Point, the sea lively there too, spray drifting like pink shadows in the morning light.

He lowered the glass. Cristie was right; they would weather the headland with half a mile to spare. You could take no chances with a lee shore. He walked up the tilting deck, feeling the ship quiver as she lifted and then bit into deeper water. What she did best. And wide across the bows lay open water.

All hands had been piped before dawn, the last mail and despatches were lowered to the guard-boat, and after a hasty meal the capstan was manned, the shantyman doing his best above the rising south-easterly wind.

During the ship's stay at Plymouth, Galbraith had managed to find seven recruits to fill the dead men's shoes. Surprisingly, they were all prime seamen, so that would make up the difference far more than mere numbers. Perhaps it was because
Unrivalled
was the last ship to leave port, with only the listing hulks to remind men of hard times ahead? With all boats stowed, and the anchor hove short, she had left as the day was just dawning, giving colour to the land.

He strode aft, men dodging out of his way, rigging groaning and taking the strain, experienced eyes watching new and old cordage for weakness, or a job too hastily completed in harbour.

He thought of the new midshipman, only fifteen but already well trained in his previous ship. A dark, serious-looking youngster, a little too serious perhaps, probably comparing Adam with his previous captain. There were no passengers in a frigate, and the real personality would soon be forced to emerge. It would help to take the minds of the other midshipmen from Cousens and the missing Sandell.

He came out of himself and called, “Mr Galbraith, get the courses on her, once we are clear of the Point.” He stared up at the sloping masts, the angled yards where topmen were already spread out like monkeys, indifferent to the height or the sea boiling along the weather side.
One hand for the King.
It was the first lesson for any true seaman. The other one you kept for yourself.

He turned away as Galbraith yelled his orders to the boatswain's party waiting by the foremast.
Leaving port.
Would he never get used to it? The excitement, the small pictures you never left behind. Fishermen standing in their frail craft to wave, their cheers soundless in the din of canvas and feet running to halliards and braces. A small packet ship under French colours, dipping her flag as they had passed her. The old enemy; the sea, perhaps, was the only true thing they held in common.

He had levelled his glass on the land, the Sound already swallowed up astern, and imagined her as she must have been, writing the note, some sudden whim or determination making her give it to some waterman for delivery. Maybe she was already regretting it, fearing it might be misinterpreted or worse. He had put his own letter to her in the guard-boat. It would be delivered to Bryan Ferguson; if she had not already gone away, he would find her.

He heard one of the helmsmen curse quietly, saw him gesture at something on the big double wheel, the replacement for one shot to pieces.

He touched his side again. There might have been no letter. He thought, too, of the marine who had died, dropping his musket. A man well liked, and remembered because he had once served under the young Captain Nelson in the
Agamemnon,
“
Old Aggie,”
as she was affectionately known.

Was there someone left, perhaps in Plymouth, who would grieve for him? Or would it be yet another lost name, like the
Paradox
's boatswain, who had come from St Keverne overlooking the Manacles, which they had discussed while he lay dying. So many. Too many.

He had contained a sudden and, he knew, unreasonable anger when he had read the letter from a retired rear-admiral who had served with Sandell's father, and had sponsored the boy for his appointment as midshipman. No sadness, no pity. If anything, only a resentful disapproval that a would-be officer had been lost at sea, without proper investigation, a fault, surely, of his captain. Would he have cared so much for procedure if a lowly landman had been missing overboard?

He saw Midshipman Deighton standing by the flag locker with his chosen hands, frowning slightly as he studied his signals card, then he smiled at something said by a master's mate. And he saw Lieutenant Bellairs turn from his station with the after-guard, to watch with, he thought, a certain sadness, as if seeing someone else. Then he was with his men again. He would get over it. There was no other way.

He seized the hammock nettings as the ship crashed into a long, unbroken roller. And what would be the outcome of this venture? It was the admiral's total responsibility; his was the decision whether to call the Dey's bluff, or commit all his ships and men to the onslaught of battle. No ship could match gun for gun with a carefully sited shore battery. And there might be heated shot, and fire, every sailor's only real fear. According to the written orders, the Dey had mounted a thousand cannon or more, perhaps in those same old crumbling batteries he had seen for himself when he had cut out an enemy ship from the anchorage, and afterwards when Admiral Lord Rhodes had made his attack with bomb vessels and his own heavier ships in support. But too far out to find and destroy those hidden guns.