Alexander Kent - Bolitho 26 Read online

  But the gamble and the skill had prevailed, and the battle had raged for most of the day. Ships had exploded and burned, men had fought to the death. He thought of the smartly handled frigate he had watched only this morning, shining in the early sunlight, and of Lord Exmouth’s words.

  / want you in the van. The same ship. He glanced again at the slim figure by the window, the black hair, the fine, sensitive features. The same captain.

  Adam could feel the scrutiny. He was used to it. The frigate captain: dashing, uncaring, not tied to the fleet’s apron strings. He knew well enough what they thought. Imagined.

  He opened the window slightly and looked down at a squad of Royal Marines paraded in the square below. New recruits from the local barracks, very stiff and aware of their scarlet uniforms. A sergeant, rocking back slightly on his heels, was saying, ”You obey orders without question, seel When the time comes you will be sent to a ship of the line, or a frigate maybe, like the one that came in this morning.” He had turned slightly to display the three bright chevrons on his sleeve. ”But remember this, it’s not the Colonel, or even the adjutant, who will decide.” He lifted his elbow a fraction. ”It will be me, see?”

  Adam closed the window, the cold air still on his lips.

  He thought of Corporal Bloxham, who was now a sergeant, a crack shot even with his ”Bess’, as he had affectionately called his musket that day. When he had fired one shot and had saved his captain’s life, and that of the boy who had lain helpless, his leg pinioned by the splinter. Another face he had come to know so well.

  The flag lieutenant said quickly, ”I think the visitor is leaving, sir.” They faced each other, and he added, ”It has been an honour to meet you, sir.”

  Adam heard voices, doors slamming, some one half-running, perhaps to summon a carriage for the departing visitor.

  He picked up his hat. ”I would that it were under better circumstances.” He thrust out his hand. ”But thank you. Yours is no easy role. I know from experience.”

  A bell tinkled somewhere, and the flag lieutenant seemed to make up his mind.

  ”Unrivalled will be docked, sir. But the reports have made it very clear that it will not be a quick overhaul like the last one.”

  Adam almost smiled. ”The last two? He touched his arm as they walked to the door; it reminded him of the court-martial after Anemone had been sunk. Prisoner and escort.

  ”Then I am not being replaced?”

  The lieutenant swallowed hard. He had already gone too far.

  He answered, ”My late father had a saying, sir, when things seemed against him. ”Look to a new horizon”.” He flushed as Adam turned to face him. He would never forget that expression.

  He called, ”Captain Adam Bolitho, Sir Robert!”

  Adam gripped the old sword and pressed it against his thigh. The reminder. He was not alone.

  Luke Jago, the captain’s coxswain, walked to the edge of the jetty and kicked a pebble into the water. He was restless, unsure of his feelings and unable to think clearly, which was almost unknown for him.

  He was the captain’s right-hand man, trusted by him, a position he had come to value more than he would ever have believed. It was sometimes hard to recall how it had been before that day, the handshake which had changed everything. The anger and bitterness were part of another life. He had been unjustly flogged at the order of a very different captain; even though an officer had spoken up for him and proved his innocence, it had been too late to prevent the punishment. There had been apologies, but the stripes of the ‘cat’ would remain on his back until the day he died. It was Jago’s nature to mistrust officers, and the younger they were the harder it became to overcome it. Green young midshipmen who might listen to his advice, tricks learned after his years at sea in one kind of ship or another, could suddenly turn and snap like spoiled puppies when they found their feet.

  He shaded his eyes and stared across at the anchored frigate. His ship, his home for just over two years. He should be used to it. There had been other days like this one.

  He had listened to it all the way from Gibraltar. Hard men and young hopefuls alike, going home, getting the prize money and slave bounty they knew was their due. In the navy it was always dangerous to hope too much, or take things for granted. When they had left Plymouth eight months back, he had seen all the laid-up ships, the hulks, once the pride of a great fleet. When Unrivalled had anchored yesterday they had still been here.

  He heard the boy Napier moving restlessly on the pile of baggage they had brought ashore less than an hour ago. His portly, round-shouldered companion was Daniel Yovell, who had volunteered to join the ship as captain’s clerk when he had heard that the previous one had died. Or soY ovell had claimed. Jago knew differently now. Yovell had been clerk to Sir Richard Bolitho, then secretary aboard his flagship. And his friend, an unlikely one to find in a man-of-war. Stooped, gentle and devout, he had been given his own cottage next to the old Bolitho house in Falmouth where he had helped in estate matters, things Jago could not begin to guess at. But something had drawn Yovell back to the sea, and he had brought with him volunteers when Captain Adam had been short of trained hands. Men from Sir Richard’s last ship, and some who had served him earlier during the wars. Jago kicked another pebble into the water. All those bloody enemies who were now supposed to be treated as allies.

  And the boy, Napier, what must he be thinking, he wondered. Like many before him, he had been signed into the navy by his mother. She had remarried, and was now in America with her new husband, if that was what he was; Jago knew of plenty such cases. With the offspring safely signed on, the interest faded. Napier was devoted to the captain, and Bolitho never seemed too busy to explain things to him. Whatever the fools on the mess deck believed, there was nobody in a King’s ship who was as lonely as her captain.

  Napier said suddenly, ”Boat’s casting off!” He sounded tense, anxious. He was always a serious sort of youth. Jago, who went where he chose as the captain’s coxswain, had seen life in the great cabin, beyond the screen doors and the scarlet-coated ‘bullock’. It had made him feel a part of it.

  He heard the distant splash of oars and the familiar creak of looms and found that he was clenching his fists. His mouth was very dry.

  What about me? Yovell would go to his cottage. The boy was staying with the captain. He stared at the anchored frigate again. And Unrivalled was going into the yard, as he had known she would. All those engagements, when she had shuddered and lurched to the enemy’s iron as it had smashed into the hull, often below the waterline.

  And that last time at Algiers, when so many had fallen, while the air quivered to cannon fire and splintering timbers had the fools forgotten that too? Or that on this last passage home, the pumps had been going throughout every watch?

  Unrivalled would be paid off. After that ... It would be decided by those who had never heard a full broadside, or risked everything just to hold a mate’s hand when his life was being torn from him.

  He would collect his pay and his bounty and take some time for himself. Some company maybe. A woman if she came his way. Captain Bolitho might not get another ship. He would not need a coxswain.

  He was sharply reminded of the captain’s face when he had returned from seeing the port admiral. He frowned. That had been yesterday. Jago had had the gig at this same jetty, the boat’s crew in their smartest rig, as always. A ship is always judged by her boats, some one had once said. He was right, whoever he was. And a captain’s crew had to be the best of all. It was not even Unrivalled’s proper gig; that had been too badly smashed by canister and musket fire to warrant repair. Like some of her original crew.

  It suddenly hit him. Captain Bolitho had walked down those same stone stairs. Millions of sea officers must have come and gone that way, to promotion, a new ship, to accept orders or face a court-martial. It was easy to imagine. But yesterday the captain had called him aside on this jetty, to tell him that he was being relieved of his command, and was
awaiting fresh orders. Not the first lieutenant, or any of the other officers. He told me first.

  He said abruptly, ”How’s the leg, David?”

  The boy looked at him, surprised by the use of his name. Like the captain.

  ”It’s getting better.” He walked carefully to the edge of the jetty, his eyes on the gig, the same one which had brought them and their kit ashore.

  Yovell was on his feet too, watching Jago, remembering their first meeting last year, when Jago had suggested that he was too old for a seagoing job of any kind. They had become friends since then, although neither would ever understand the other. Except today.

  Yovell had been there as Captain Adam Bolitho had gone through the final tasks before departure. Papers to be signed and witnessed by Lieutenant Galbraith before he assumed temporary command, probably the only command he would ever hold, although Yovell knew from the dictated letters that the captain had never stopped requesting it on Galbraith’s behalf.

  He had seen the other side of things when some post had been brought aboard from a courier brig, letters they might have missed several times in the Mediterranean. But not letters he had been expecting, hoping for. Like the small scrap of paper he kept in his personal log book, from the girl he had met on that last visit to Plymouth.

  He had never spoken her name. But Yovell had seen her just once, when he had been at the old Bolitho house in Falmouth, and a courier had come with orders for Unrivalled and her captain. In a little pony-drawn trap, side by side before she had driven away alone. He had seen him kiss his own wrist, where some tears had splashed down. Like lovers, he had thought. Perhaps another dream?

  He put his hand on Napier’s shoulder and said, ”The hardest part.”

  Who was he speaking to?

  He saw the gig turning slowly toward the jetty steps. At another time it might have been manned entirely by captains of the fleet or squadron. But today, only the abandoned hulks were the spectators.

  Jago’s lip curled. ”What a crew!” He almost spat on the cobbles. ”Officers!”

  The lieutenants Galbraith, Varlo, and young Bellairs, who had been a midshipman when Unrivalled had first commissioned. Luxmore, the captain of marines, Partridge the boatswain, even Old Blanc the carpenter. Midshipmen too, with Deighton at the tiller by the captain’s shoulder.

  The bowman, another midshipman, shipped his oar and scrambled into the bows with his boat hook but almost pitched headlong.

  ”Toss your oars!”

  In the sudden silence there was cheering, unbroken but faint in the cold offshore breeze.

  Yovell felt the boy’s shoulder shiver under his hand. He was an imaginative youth; perhaps he was thinking the same. That the cheers might have come from those listless, empty ships.

  Captain Adam Bolitho stood up carefully and waited for the gig to come fast against the stairs.

  He heard and saw none of it. It was like a confused dream, and yet each phase stood out as a separate picture. Handshakes, faces thrusting through a mist to speak, to call something, a fist reaching out as he had found his way to the entry port. Even the shrill of calls had sounded different, as if he were an onlooker, somewhere else.

  If he had given in ... He gripped his sword more tightly. He had seen it happen to others, and it had happened to him.

  He glanced through the tossed oars and saw the ship. His ship.

  The cheering did not stop. All those faces. But this was not the moment. Turn away. Do not look back. How it was. Had to be in the navy, if you wanted to survive. And now emotion was the greatest enemy.

  He stepped on to the jetty. Nobody spoke. The boat cast off.

  Never look back. But he did, then he raised his hat, not soon enough to shield his eyes from the hard glare. They were smarting anyway. Do not look back. He should have known.

  Jago was here. ”You decided then, Luke?”

  Jago watched him impassively, then thrust out his hand. ”Like before, eh, Cap’n?”

  Adam nodded to the others. The carriage would be here from Falmouth; the admiral had made the arrangements, barely able to conceal his relief that their brief meeting was over.

  He looked again, but the gig was hidden by the jetty wall. Tonight Galbraith would sit in the great cabin and drink alone.

  In the same breath, he knew he would not.

  He looked at Napier and was moved by his obvious distress.

  He gripped his shoulder. ”Get some hands to carry our gear, eh?”

  He saw Yovell half lift one hand, as he usually did when he wanted to remind him of something.

  He shook Napier’s shoulder and said, ”I had not forgotten.”

  Had he really expected that the lovely girl called Lowenna would somehow be here to see the ship come to anchor, as she had watched them leave? After all the months, and the news of the battles, had he still believed in miracles?

  He realized that Napier was looking at him, and had asked him something. He tried again, but all he could hear were the flag lieutenant’s words.

  He said quietly, ”We must look to a new horizon together.” They began to climb the stairs. Jago waited until some seamen ran down to collect the baggage and the captain’s sea-chest. Only then did he turn his back on the sea. And the ship.

  2

  Their Lordship’s Command

  Nancy, Lady Roxby, stood very still by the open door of the study, wanting to go to him, but afraid to move or touch him.

  She had forgotten how long it had been since the coach had rattled around the drive, the horses steaming after their journey from Plymouth. Now the coach stood as if abandoned in the stable yard, the horses gone to the comfort of their stalls. It was raining, the sky beyond the familiar line of bare trees dull and threatening. And yet her nephew was still wearing his coat, the shoulders black with rain, his boots muddy. He was even still holding his hat, as if he were unprepared to stay, to accept what had happened.

  She waited while he strode to the portrait, which was hanging in its new place by the window opposite the broad staircase. It would catch the light there, but be sheltered from glare and damp. She doubted if he had seen it.

  He said suddenly, ”Tell me again, Aunt Nancy. I had no news, no letters at all except yours. You never forget, no matter how it may damage your peace of mind.”

  Then she saw him reach up and touch the portrait, his fingers gently tracing the single yellow rose which the painter had added after the girl Lowenna had pinned it on his coat. She moved closer and studied him. The same restlessness, which her brother Richard had likened to that of a young colt. The youth was still there, the ghost of the midshipman, and the young sea officer who had gained his first command, a brig, at the age of twenty-three. But there were lines, too. Strain, authority, danger, perhaps fear also. Nancy was a sailor’s daughter, and the sister of one of England’s most famous. Loved. Without turning or breaking this precious contact, she could feel all the familiar faces, paintings, watching from the stairwell and the dark landing. As if to judge this latest portrait of the last Bolitho.

  She said, ”It was a month ago, Adam. I wrote to you when I had found out all I could. We all knew what had happened, Algiers, and before that. I wanted everything to be better for you.”

  He turned and looked at her, his eyes very dark. Pleading. ”There was a fire at the Old Glebe House. Was she .. . ?”

  She held up her hand. ”I saw her. I had already told her that I wanted her to come to me whenever she felt she needed .. . a friend.” She calmed herself. ”Sir Gregory had ordered some work done on the old building, and the roof over his studios. It was a foul day, a squall off the bay .. . They were melting lead, for the guttering, I was told. Then the fire started. In that wind it spread like a wildfire in summer.”

  Adam imagined it yet again. The Old Glebe House had been abandoned, then sold by the church authority at Truro; most of the locals had thought Sir Gregory Montagu mad when he had bought it. He had visited the place only occasionally, having property in both Lo
ndon and Winchester. Adam could see it as if it were yesterday: the famous painter guiding him through one of the many gaunt, littered rooms to avoid another visitor, his nephew. When he had seen the girl poised and motionless, her naked body chained to an improvised rock constructed of crumpled sheets draped over a trestle. Andromeda, held captive as sacrifice to the sea monster. Like a perfect statue, she had not even appeared to be breathing. Her eyes had met his, then dismissed him.

  Lowenna.

  He had written to her, hoping the letters would find her. That she would feel something, some emotion or memory, the yellow rose, or the time he had been thrown from his horse and his wound had burst open. She had come to him, and something had broken down the barrier. Perhaps she had written; it was common for letters to go astray, ships missing one another, others wrongly directed.

  He had laughed at himself for keeping the fragment of paper she had sent over to Unrivalled when they had sailed from

  Plymouth to join Lord Exmouth’s squadron.

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

  Nancy was saying, ”Sir Gregory was a stubborn man. None more so. You saw that for yourself. He insisted on being taken to London.”

  ”Was he badly injured?”

  ”He was burned, trying to help Lowenna. There was a lot of smoke. She did not stay for long. She wanted to be with him for the journey to London.”

  Adam put his arms around her, moved by the familiar way she had used the girl’s name. All those years, since the day he had walked from Penzance armed only with Nancy’s address and a letter written by his dying mother. All those years, and Nancy was still like a haven.

  They walked arm in arm into the study, where there was a good fire blazing, making the shadows dance across the paintings and the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. She noticed that everything was clean and polished, even the ranks of old books, shining from some housemaid’s duster rather than use. But a room so well-known to her, and lovingly remembered, in this house where she and her two brothers and sister had first drawn breath.