A Tradition of Victory

8. The Ceres

IT WAS a whole week before Bolitho was taken from his isolation and put into a shuttered carriage for the journey to his new prison. It had taken every ounce of his self-control and determination to endure the seven days, and he had thanked his hard upbringing in a King’s ship more than once as time seemed to stretch to an eternity.

His guards must have been hand-picked for their coarseness and brutality, and their ill-fitting uniforms only added to their air of menace.

Bolitho was made to strip naked while several of the guards searched him and removed every personal possession from his clothing. Not content with that, they’d removed his rear-admiral’s epaulettes and gilt buttons, presumably to be shared round as souvenirs. And all the while they had subjected him to every humiliation and insult. But Bolitho knew men as well as he understood ships, and had no illusions about his guards. They were seeking an excuse to kill him, and showed their disappointment when he remained silent and apparently calm.

Only once had his will almost cracked. One of the soldiers had dragged the locket from about his neck and had peered curiously at it for several moments. Bolitho had tried to appear unconcerned, even though he wanted to hurl himself at the man’s throat and throttle him before the others cut him down.

The guard had prised open the locket with his bayonet, and had blinked with astonishment as a lock of hair had blown across the floor and then out of the open door.

But the locket was gold, and he had seemed satisfied. He would never know what it had meant to Bolitho, the lock of Cheney’s hair which she had given him before he had left her for the last time.

Without a watch, or anyone to speak with, it was hard to mark the passing of time, even the pattern of events beyond the walls.

As he was led from the cell into the courtyard and saw the waiting carriage, he was grateful. If the new prison was worse, or he was about to face a firing-party instead of captivity, he was glad of an end to waiting.

Inside the darkened coach he found the others waiting for him. It was unexpected and moving for each one. As the carriage began to move and the mounted escort took station behind it, they clasped hands, barely able to speak as they examined each other’s faces in the chinks of sunlight through the shutters.

Bolitho said, “Your being here is my fault. Had I given my word you would have been sent home, soon perhaps. Now,” he shrugged, “you are as much a prisoner as I am.”

Allday seemed openly pleased, or was he relieved to find him still alive?

“By God, I’m fair glad to be rid of those scum, sir!” He held up his two fists like clubs. “Another few days o’ these mounseers an’ I’d have swung for ’em!”

Neale, propped between Browne and Allday, reached out and touched Bolitho’s hands. His head was heavily bandaged, and in the fleeting stabs of sunshine his face looked as pale as death.

He whispered, “Together. Now we’ll show them.”

Allday said gently, “He’s doing his best, sir.” He looked at Bolitho and gave a quick shake of the head. “Not changed a mite since he was a young gentleman, eh, sir?”

Browne said, “I was interrogated by two of the French officers, sir. They asked a lot about you. I heard them discussing you later, and I suspect they are worried.”

Bolitho nodded. “You did not let them know you speak and understand French?”

He saw Browne smile. He had almost forgotten about his flag-lieutenant’s other assets. A small thing, but in their favour.

Browne clung to a strap as the carriage gathered speed. “I heard some talk about more invasion craft being sent up to Lorient and Brest. Two types, I think. One is called a chaloupe de cannoniere, and the other is a smaller type, a peniche. They have been building them by the hundred, or so it sounds.”

Bolitho found he was able to relate this sparse information to his own predicament without despair. Perhaps the testing he had endured, alone in the cell, had given him the hatred he needed to think clearly, to plan how best to hit back.

He looked at Neale as he lolled against Allday’s protective arm. His shirt was open to the waist, and Bolitho could see the scratches on his skin where someone’s fingers had torn off the locket Neale always wore. It had contained a portrait of his mother, but they had seized it nonetheless. Poor, broken Neale. What was his mind grappling with now, he wondered, as the wheels clattered and bounced along the open road. Of his beloved Styx, of his home, or of his first lieutenant, the taciturn Mr Pickthorn, who had been an extension of his own command?

But for me, he would he safe in hospital.

Dozing, and reawakening as if fearful that their reunification might be just one more taunt and part of the nightmare, they sustained each other, and endured the heat of the shuttered coach without knowing where they were or where they were bound.

Several times the coach halted, horses were watered or changed, some bread and wine were thrust into the carriage without more than a swift glance from one of the escorts, and they were off again.

“If we are separated again we must try to keep contact somehow.” Bolitho heard a carriage clatter past in the opposite direction. A wide road then, not some winding lane. “I intend to escape, but we shall go together.” He felt them looking at him, could even sense their awakened hope. “If one of us falls or gets taken, the others must go on. Get the news to England somehow, tell them the truth of the French preparations and their new signals system.”

Allday grunted. “Together, sir. That’s what you said. If I have to carry all of you, begging yer pardon, sir, we’ll stay together, an’ England will have to wait a mite longer.”

Browne chuckled, a welcome sound when they might all be shot dead before another day had passed.

He said, “Keep your place, Allday. You’re an admiral’s servant, not his cox’n, remember?”

Allday grinned. “I’ll never live it down.”

Bolitho put his finger to his lips. “Quiet!”

He tried to loosen one of the shutters but only managed to move it very slightly. Watched by the others, he knelt down on the floor, ignoring the pain in his wounded thigh, and pressed his face to the shutter.

He said softly, “The sea. I can smell it.” He looked at them, as if he had just revealed some great miracle. To sailors it was just that. The sea.

They would be taken out of the carriage and shut away once more in some stinking prison. But it would not be the same, no matter what privation or suffering they had to face. How many men must have seen the sea as an enemy, a final barrier to freedom. But any sailor nursed it in his heart like a prayer. Just get me to the sea, and somehow I’ll reach home.

The carriage stopped, and a soldier opened the shutters to let in some air.

Bolitho sat very still, but his eyes were everywhere. There was no sign of water, but beyond a series of low, rounded hills he knew it was there.

On the other side of the road was a great stretch of bare, barren looking land, across which, in rolling clouds of thick dust, troops of mounted horsemen wheeled and reformed, the spectacle like part of that huge picture in the commandant’s room.

Browne said softly, “Like the escort, sir. French dragoons.”

Bolitho heard the blare of a trumpet and saw the sun gleam across black-plumed helmets and breast-plates as the horses changed formation and cantered into another wall of dust. Open country. Very suitable for training cavalry, perhaps for invasion. Also, they represented a real threat to anyone trying to escape from captivity. As a boy, Bolitho had often watched the local dragoons parading and exercising at Truro, near his home in Falmouth. Had seen them too hunting some smugglers who had broken away from the revenue men, their sabres glittering as they had galloped in pursuit across the moor.

The shutters were replaced and the coach jerked forward. Bolitho knew the act had been a warning, not an act of compassion. No words could have made it clearer. Those proud dragoons shouted it from the skies.

It was dusk by the time they finally alighted from the carriage, stiff and tired after the journey. The young officer in charge of the escort handed some papers to a blue-coated official, and with a curt nod to the prisoners turned on his heel, obviously glad to be rid of his charges.

Bolitho looked past the official, who was still examining the papers as if he was barely able to read, and looked at the squat building which was to be their new prison.

A high stone wall, windowless, with a central tower which was just visible through the shadows of the gates.

An old fort, a coastguard station, added to and altered over the years, it might have been anything.

The man in the blue coat looked at him and pointed to the gates. Some soldiers who had been watching the new arrivals fell in line, and like men under sentence of death Bolitho and the others followed the official through the gates.

Another delay, and then an elderly militia captain entered the room where they had been left standing against a wall and said, “I am Capitaine Michel Cloux, commandant here.”

He had a narrow, foxy face, but his eyes were not hostile, and if anything he looked troubled with his command.

“You will remain as prisoners of France, and will obey whatever instruction I give without question, you understand? Any attempt to escape will be punished by death. Any attempt to overthrow authority will be punished by death. But behave yourselves and all will be well.” His small eyes rested on Allday. “Your servant will be shown what to do, where to go for your requirements.”

Neale gave a groan and staggered against Browne for support.

The commandant glanced at his papers, apparently unnerved. In a gentler tone he added, “I will request aid from the military surgeon for er, Capitaine Neale, yes?”

“Thank you, I would be grateful.” Bolitho kept his voice low. Any sign that he was trying to assert his rank might destroy everything. Neale’s distress had made a small bridge. The commandant obviously had distinct instructions about the care and isolation of the prisoners. But he was probably an old campaigner who had lost comrades of his own. Neale’s condition had made more sense to him than some coldly worded orders.

The commandant eyed him warily, as if suspecting a trap.

Then he said, “You will attend your quarters now. Then you will be fed.”

He replaced his cocked hat with a shabby flourish.

“Go with my men.”

As they followed two of the guards up a winding stone stairway, supporting Neale in case he should slip and fall, Allday murmured, “They can’t steal anything from me here. I’ve naught left!”

Bolitho touched his throat and thought of the locket, her face as he had last seen her. And he thought too of Belinda the day he and Allday had found her in the overturned coach on the road from Portsmouth. Allday was probably right. The locket had been a link with something lost. Hope was all he had now, and he was determined not to lose it.

For Bolitho and his companions each day was much like the one which had preceded it. The food was poor and coarse, but so too was it for their prison guards, and the daily routine equally monotonous. They soon discovered they had the little prison to themselves, although when Bolitho and Browne were allowed to walk outside the gates with an armed escort, they saw a heavily pitted wall and some rough graves to show that previous occupants had met a violent end here before a firing-squad.

The commandant visited them every day, and he had kept his word about sending for a military surgeon to attend Neale.

Bolitho watched the surgeon with great interest. He was the same one he had seen at Nantes who had removed the young lieutenant’s arm. Later Browne told him that he had heard him saying he must get back to his barracks, a good three hours ride.

To men kept deliberately out of contact with the rest of the world, these small items of news were precious. They calculated that Nantes was to the east of their prison, twenty or thirty miles inland. That would fix the prison’s position no more than twenty miles or so north of where they had stumbled ashore from the wreck.

It made sense, Bolitho thought. They had been taken inland, then brought back to the coast again, but nearer to the Loire Estuary. In his mind’s eye Bolitho could see the chart, the treacherous reefs and sand-bars, the start and end of many a voyage.

He had noticed that the commandant only allowed two of them to take a walk or exercise outside the walls at any given time. The others remained as surety and hostages. Maybe the graves marked where others had tried to outwit the little commandant and had paid the price.

On one hot August morning Bolitho and Browne left the gates, but instead of heading for the road, Bolitho gestured westwards towards the low hills. The three guards, all mounted and well armed, nodded agreement, and with the horses trotting contentedly over the grass they strode away from the prison. Bolitho had expected the guards to break their usual silence and order them back, but perhaps they were bored with their duties and glad of a change.

Bolitho tried not to quicken his pace as they topped the first rise.

Browne exclaimed, “God, sir, it looks beautiful!”

The sea, a deeper blue than before, spread away on every side, and through the dazzling glare and drifting heat haze Bolitho could see the swirl of currents around some tiny islets, while to the north he could just discern another layer of land. The far side of the estuary, it had to be. He glanced quickly at the guards but they were not even watching. Two had dismounted, the other still sat astride his horse, a bell-mouthed blunderbuss resting across his saddle, ready for instant use.

Bolitho said, “There should be a church, if I’m right.”

Browne made to point, but Bolitho snapped, “Tell me!”

“To our left, sir. On the blind side of the prison.”

Bolitho shaded his eyes. A square-towered church, partly hidden by the hillside, and nestling into the ground as if it had been there since time had begun.

“We’ll go back now.” Bolitho turned reluctantly away from the sea. “Someone might be watching.”

Browne fell in step, completely mystified.

Bolitho waited until he heard the jingle of harness behind him and then said, “I know exactly where we are, Oliver. And if I’m not mistaken, that church tower is occupied by French sailors rather than priests!” He glanced at the lieutenant, the urgency making his voice desperate. “I would lay odds that it is the last semaphore link this side of the estuary.” He strode towards the prison, his hands clasped behind him. “If only we could break out long enough to destroy it.”

Browne stared at him. “But they will build another, surely, sir, and we…”

“I know. Executed. But there has to be a way. If our ships attack, and I believe they will, if only to prove Beauchamp’s plan too hazardous, they will be completely destroyed. And as to time, my friend, I think there may be little enough of it left. England will know of Styx ’s loss, and efforts begun to obtain exchanges at least for the surviving officers.”

Browne bit his lip. “Captain Neale will be reported missing, some of Styx ’s people are bound to speak out and say what happened to him and ourselves.”

Bolitho smiled gravely. “Aye. Neutral sources will soon be selling that information to the right ears. My guess is that the French intend to delay matters over releasing any of Styx ’s people until they are ready and their new invasion fleets are in position. Admiral Beauchamp was right.”

“He chose wisely for his commander,” said Browne.

Bolitho sighed. “I would like to think so, Oliver. The longer I remain in captivity and useless, the more I think about that attack. I should have seen the flaw in the plan, ought to have allowed for it, no matter what intelligence the Admiralty was able to offer.” He stopped and looked Browne squarely in the eyes. “When I saw Phalarope stand away, I nearly cursed her captain’s soul to damnation. Now I am not so convinced. He may have acted wisely and with some courage, Oliver. I have always said a captain should act on his initiative if his set orders tell him nothing.”

“With respect, I must disagree.” Browne waited for a rebuke then hurried on. “Captain Emes should have risked a hopeless battle against odds rather than leave Styx unaided. It is what you would have done, sir.”

Bolitho smiled. “As a captain perhaps. But when my flag fell, Emes took over command. He really had no choice at all.”

Bolitho could feel Browne’s disagreement more strongly than a shouted argument.

Allday was waiting in the upper part of the tower, and as the two officers, sweating from their walk in the sunlight, climbed the curving stairway, he said, “The surgeon’s been back, sir. Cap’n Neale is pretty bad.”

Bolitho brushed past him and hurried into the larger of the two rooms. Neale lay on his back, his eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling, while his chest heaved and fell as if it would burst. One of the guards was removing a bucket which contained some bloodstained dressings, and Bolitho saw the little commandant standing by the barred window, his face grave.

“Ah, Contre-Amiral Bolitho, you are here. Capitaine Neale is worsening, I fear.”

Bolitho sat carefully on the rough cot and clasped Neale’s hand. It was like ice, in spite of the room’s warmth. “What’s this, John? Come on, my lad, speak to me.” He squeezed his hand very gently but there was no response. Not you too. God in heaven, not you.

The commandant’s voice seemed to come from far away. “I have orders to transfer you to Lorient. There, Captain Neale will be in safer hands.”

Bolitho looked at him, his mind grappling with his words, what they meant. It was for nothing. Neale was going to die, and they were being sent to Lorient where there would be no chance to escape and wreck one of the towers.

He protested, “M’sieu, Captain Neale cannot survive another coach journey!”

The commandant turned his back and stared towards the sea. “I am ordered to send you to Lorient. The surgeon knows of the risks, but assures me that only by remaining with you does the young capitaine hold on to life at all.” His tone softened as it had at their very first meeting. “But you will travel by sea. It is little enough, m’sieu amiral, but my influence is equally small.”

Bolitho nodded slowly. “Thank you. I shall not forget. None of us shall.”

The commandant squared his narrow shoulders, embarrassed perhaps at their sudden contact.

“You will be put aboard ship tonight. After that…” He shrugged. “It is out of my hands.”

He left the room, and Bolitho bent over Neale again. “Did you hear that, John? We’re taking you somewhere where you’ll get proper care. And we shall all keep together, eh?”

Neale’s eyes moved towards him, as if even that effort was too much.

“No… use. They’ve… done… for… me… this… time.”

Bolitho felt Neale trying to grip his hand. To see him try to smile almost broke his heart.

Neale whispered, “Mr Bundy will want to speak about his charts again.” He was rambling, his gaze blurred with pain. “Later…”

Bolitho released his hand and stood up. “Let him rest.” To Browne he added, “Make sure we leave nothing behind.” He was speaking to give himself time. They had nothing to leave behind, as Allday had already pointed out.

Allday said quietly, “I’ll take care of Captain Neale, sir.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Bolitho crossed to the window and pressed his forehead against the sun-warmed bars. Somewhere to his left was the church tower, although he could not see it. It would take days to get the attacking ships into position, but mere minutes to send a signal by semaphore to summon reinforcements to destroy them.

Nobody knew. Perhaps nobody would ever know. And Neale with so many of his men would have died for nothing.

He pressed his face still harder until the rough iron steadied him. Neale was not dead, and the enemy had not won.

Browne watched him anxiously, wanting to help, and knowing there was nothing he could do.

Allday sat down and peered at Neale. His eyes were closed and his breathing seemed easier.

Allday thought of the French ship which would take them to Lorient, wherever in hell that was. He despised the “mounseers” as he called them, but any ship was better than a carriage and a lot of damn soldiers.

Anyway, he did know that Lorient was to the north, and that was nearer to England.

The little commandant waited by the doorway and looked at Bolitho curiously.

“It is time, m’sieu.”

Bolitho glanced round the room, their prison for such a short time. Neale, strapped unconscious to a stretcher, and with Allday close by his side, had been carried out earlier that afternoon. Without him and his desperate efforts to cling to life, the room already seemed dead.

Browne said, “Listen to the wind.”

That too was like an evil omen. Within an hour of Neale being carried away the wind had started to rise. The weather’s moods were always very noticeable in the prison’s central tower, but now as they stood by the door it sounded wild and menacing. It sighed around the prison and moaned through the small windows like a living force, eager to find and destroy them.

Bolitho said, “I hope Neale is safely aboard.”

The commandant led the way down the curving stairway, his boots fitting into the worn stones without conscious effort.

Over his shoulder he remarked, “It must be tonight. The ship will not wait.”

Bolitho listened to the rising gale. Especially now, he thought.

Outside the prison gates the contrast to that morning when he and Browne had walked to the hillside was even more impressive. Low scudding clouds, with occasional shafts of silver light from the moon to make the picture stark and savage. Lanterns bobbed around him, and at a shouted command they moved towards the rear of the prison. Ahead of them the commandant strode unerringly with neither moonlight nor lantern to guide him. They were taking almost the same path they had discovered that morning, although in the darkness and buffeted by the wind it might have been anywhere.

He could feel the guards watching him, and recalled the commandant’s last warning. “You will leave my care like officers not thieves. Therefore I will not put the irons on your hands and feet. But if you try to escape…”

The closeness of the guards and long bayonets required no further explanation.

Browne said, “We’re descending now.”

The path curved to the right and dipped steeply. As it did so the hiss and moan of the wind faded slightly, cut off by a wall of cliff.

Bolitho stumbled and heard a metallic click behind him. They were that watchful. Ready to shoot him down if he ran for it. Then he heard the sea, rebellious against the beach, and with only an occasional necklace of foam to betray its direction. He found he was counting the seconds and minutes, as if it was vital to know the exact place where he would leave the land and head for another destination.

Another group of lanterns swayed up the beach and boots squeaked on wet sand.

Bolitho heard a boat’s keel grating in the shallows and wondered where the ship lay at anchor. The shelter afforded by the headland told him that the wind had not only risen but had also shifted considerably. From the east? It seemed likely. You never really knew in Biscay.

The commandant’s face floated out of the darkness in a beam of lantern light.

“Farewell, m’sieu. I am told your Capitaine Neale is safely on board the Ceres.” He stood back and touched his hat. “Good luck.”

The light vanished and with it the commandant.

A new voice shouted harshly, “Dans la chaloupe, vite!”

Led, pushed and dragged, they found themselves in the sternsheets of a longboat, and even as they were squeezed between two invisible seamen the hull was pushed into deep water, the oars already thrashing wildly to regain control.

Once clear of the land it was like riding on the back of a porpoise. Up and plunge, the oarsmen working in desperate rhythm, urged on occasionally by the coxswain at the tiller.

It was a rough night, and would get worse. Bolitho thought of Neale and hoped he would find peace in more familiar surroundings, French or not. He could sense the difference around him. The smell of tar and brandy, the sweat of the oarsmen as they fought against their constant enemy.

Ceres. He had heard her name before somewhere. A frigate, one of those used to pierce the British blockade and carry despatches between the various fleets. If the French continued to extend their semaphore system, the frigate’s life would be an easier one.

Browne touched his arm, and he saw the French ship loom out of the darkness, the sea boiling around her stem and anchor cable as if she had just risen from the depths.

After three attempts the boat hooked on to the chains, and Bolitho, followed by Browne, jumped for his life as the boat fell away into another surging trough.

Even so, they arrived on the frigate’s deck soaked to the skin, their coats, stripped of buttons and insignia, hanging around them like rags from a scarecrow.

Bolitho sensed the urgency and the need to get under way; equally he was impressed that the vessel’s captain, pre-warned of his passenger’s rank, took time from his duties to meet him at the entry port.

Then it was done, and Bolitho found himself being led down ladders and beneath low-beamed deckheads to the world he knew so well.

The motion between decks was violent, and he could feel the ship jerking at her cable, eager to get away from the surrounding rocks and seek open water.

As they descended another ladder to the orlop deck, Bolitho heard the clink of a capstan, orders carried away by the wind as the seamen prepared to make sail.

Stooping figures passed through the shadows, and Bolitho saw dark stains on the deck which could only be blood. Not all that recent, but too deep to be scrubbed away. Like any other orlop, he thought grimly. Where the surgeons managed as best they could while the guns thundered overhead and their screaming victims were pinioned to a table for the saw or knife.

He saw Neale in a cot by one of the great frames, and Allday rising to meet him as if their reunion was all that mattered in the world.

Allday said quickly, “She’s the Ceres, thirty-two, sir.” He led the way to some old sea chests which he had covered with canvas and fashioned into seating for them. He added, “She was in a fight with one of our patrols a while back. The cook told me.” He grinned. “He’s Irish. Anyways, sir, she’s on passage to Lorient.” He cocked his head as the wind roared against the side. “Shorthanded they are too. Hope they runs aground, damn them!”

“How’s Captain Neale?”

Allday became serious again. “Sometimes he thinks he’s back in Styx. Keeps giving orders. Other times he’s quiet, no trouble.”

More far-off cries and then the deck tilted violently. Bolitho sat on a chest, his back pressed against the timbers, as the anchor broke from the ground and the Ceres began her fight to beat clear. He noticed that Allday had piled some old canvas in a corner, but enough to hide the manacles and leg irons which in turn were attached to chains and ring-bolts. One more reminder that they were prisoners and would be treated harshly if there was any sort of trouble.

Allday looked at the deckhead, his eyes and ears working like a cat in the dark.

“They’re aweigh, sir. Close-hauled by now, I reckon.” As an afterthought he said, “They have plenty to drink, sir. But no real ale.” He wrinkled his nose with disgust. “Still, what can you expect?”

Bolitho looked at Neale and then at Browne. Both were asleep, each trapped in his own thoughts and so momentarily secure.

Around them the ship groaned and plunged, every timber straining, while the wind endeavoured to break the hold of helm and seamanship. Again and again Bolitho heard the sea thunder against the side, and could imagine it leaping over the gangways and sweeping unwary and tired men in its path like leaves.

He thought of Belinda, of the house beneath Pendennis Castle, of Adam, and his friend Thomas Herrick. He was still trying to determine their faces when he too fell into an exhausted sleep.

When next he opened his eyes he was instantly aware that things had changed. As his mind grappled with his surroundings, he realized he must have been asleep for hours, for he could see creeping fingers of grey light playing down one of the companion ladders.

Allday was sitting bolt upright on his canvas, and Browne too was rubbing his eyes and yawning, as if he thought he was still dreaming.

Bolitho leaned forward and felt the ship moving unsteadily beneath his feet. What had awakened him?

He said, “Go to that ladder, Oliver. Tell me if you can hear anything.”

Allday asked uneasily, “Can’t be there already, can we?”

“No. Offshore gale, and in these waters, it will double the passage.”

He saw Browne cling to the ladder as a voice echoed from the deck above.

“En haut les gabiers! En haut pour ferler les huniers!”

Browne hurried over, his body steeply angled to the deck like a man on a hillside.

“They’re reefing topsails, sir.”

Bolitho heard the stumbling feet overhead as the watch off duty ran to obey the last order. It made no sense. Shorthanded, Allday had said, so why wear out men further by reefing now? If only he could see what was happening.

A lantern cast a yellow glow down the ladder, and Bolitho saw a lieutenant and two armed petty officers hurrying towards him.

The lieutenant was young and looked worried. The two old hands wasted no time in snapping the manacles over Bolitho’s wrists and ankles, and then did the same to Browne. As they moved towards Allday, the lieutenant shook his head and gestured towards Neale. Allday, it seemed, was being kept free to continue looking after the injured captain.

Bolitho looked at the iron manacles and said, “I do not understand.”

The ship leaned further to one side, whilst overhead voices yelled back and forth and blocks squealed like pigs at a slaughter. The captain was trying to change tack, but from the violent motion, Bolitho doubted if he had succeeded. Without topsails he… Bolitho sat bolt upright until restrained by the chain.

The French captain had wanted to remain unseen, and had taken in his upper sails to help conceal his ship against the tossing backcloth of waves.

Like an echo to his own thoughts he heard a voice shout, “Tout le monde a son poste! Branle-bas de combat!”

Browne stared, wide-eyed. “They’re clearing for action, sir!”

Bolitho listened to the increasing jumble of sounds as the frigate’s company began to remove screens and hammocks, and the rumble of gun trucks being man?uvred in readiness for the order to load.

They looked at one another as if unable to believe what was happening.

Then Allday said fervently, “It’s one of ours, sir! By God, it must be!”

Shadowy figures bustled past, heads bowed beneath the beams. Lanterns were lit and hung in a spiralling circle, and more chests were dragged to the centre of the deck and quickly secured with lashings. Light gleamed briefly on long aprons and across the glittering array of instruments as the surgeon’s mates laid out the tools of their trade.

Nobody paid any attention to the three men in the shadows or the swaying cot beside them.

Bolitho tugged at the manacles again. So it was not over after all. It would be a cruel ending to go to the bottom in these manacles after being in battle with a King’s ship.

The deck steadied slightly, and one of the surgeon’s mates laughed. But the sound was without humour. Even he would know that the steadier motion meant that their captain had set more sail, that the ruse to conceal his ship had failed. He was going to fight, and soon these same men would be too busy to care for mere prisoners.

Neale opened his eyes and called in a surprisingly clear voice, “Sentry! Fetch the master-at-arms!” But nobody turned to stare or wonder.

Bolitho leaned back and tried to adjust his mind. “Allday!”

“Sir?”

“Be ready.”

Allday looked at the lighted door of the sickbay, the absence of any sort of axe or weapon.

But he said hoarsely, “I’ll be ready, sir. Don’t you fret on it.”

The waiting got worse, and some of the surgeon’s assistants prowled inside the circle of swinging lanterns as if performing some strange ritual.

“Chargez toutes les pieces!”

It was the order to load, and as if he was responding to a prearranged signal, the surgeon left his sickbay and walked slowly towards the lights.

Bolitho licked his lips and wished he had something to drink.

Once again others had decided what the next hours would bring.