BEYOND THE REEF

11. A DAY TO REMEMBER

"EASY ALL!" Bolitho peered up at the stars and saw Allday's shadow move while he pushed the tiller-bar to windward. The oars rose dripping from the water and stayed motionless above it. It was strange to feel the boat still moving ahead, the tilt of the hull as the wind filled the sail, dark against the great panorama of stars.

It had gone better than Bolitho had dared to hope. They had refloated the boat before dusk and had pulled steadily, close inshore almost within an oar's length of some of the rocks, until they had headed out to sea. The anchored brig had been hidden out of sight on the other side of the island, and even when the jolly-boat had spread her sail in the darkening shadows, they had seen no lights, no movement at all.

Perhaps the brig's master had given up hope of discovering if anyone had survived the wreck, and was now intent only on gathering another human cargo, transferred perhaps from another slaver.

Ozzard whispered, "Last of the water, sir."

Bolitho thought of the rainwater Jenour's party had discovered. They had all but filled one barricoe, and after consuming a foul-tasting meal of shellfish and a mash of ship's biscuits they had each taken a mug of water. In ordinary times nobody would have touched it, but as Yovell had remarked, it seemed like wine.

Keen climbed up beside him and said, "We shall see the island clearly at first light. Two more miles, maybe less with this wind." He was calculating aloud. "At least we can survive there until we find help."

On the bottom boards Catherine stirred and took the cup from Ozzard, while in the bows they could hear Sophie retching. She was their only casualty from eating the raw shellfish. A fire had been out of the question with the brig so near.

Tojohns wiped his mouth with his hand. "I can hear surf, sir!"

Bolitho breathed out slowly and felt Catherine reach for him in the darkness.

He said, "That's it, Val. The outer spur. Once daylight comes we can follow it until we find a passage. All we have to do after that is make for the beach. There might even be a merchantman there, with a watering party ashore. It is a favourite place, and the streams are somewhat better than Stephen's gully!"

Surprisingly, someone laughed this time, and Sophie managed to control her retching to listen.

Bolitho gripped Catherine's hand. "Try to rest, Kate. You've done enough for ten able-bodied seamen."

She said quietly, "It's hard to accept that there is land out there."

Bolitho smiled. "Old hands will be able to smell it soon."

He made her comfortable and then climbed over to the nearest thwart to relieve Tojohns at his oar.

Allday said harshly, "Stand by! Give way all!"

He thought he already had the scent of the island, and marvelled at the way Bolitho and Keen had managed to get them this far. But they were not safe yet. He grimaced in the darkness. After coming all this way it would be the devil's work if they hit one of the smaller outflung reefs.

But once on the island he knew they could manage to keep going. After that other fearful place, the others all knew they could survive until Lady Luck took over. Lady Luck… He thought of Herrick, and wondered if he would ever make it up with Bolitho. After what Lady Catherine had done for Herrick's wife, and what she had given to all of them in this damned boat, he didn't much care either way. A sailor's woman; and even in her soiled breeches and shirt, her hair brailed up and clinging with salt, she was still a sight to make any man stare.

Catherine lay with one arm covering her face as men moved about the boat, retrimming the sail so that the bottom boards tilted even further. She was not asleep although she knew they all believed so, and in these moments of privacy she allowed herself reflection and despair. And thoughts… whether any of them would ever be the same, how long it might be before she saw Falmouth again. The leaves would have gone from the trees, and the petals from the roses she found so beautiful. She had clung to the memory in the hours and days in this pitching boat to prevent herself from breaking down and allowing her hopelessness to infect the others. Just let us reach there, she whispered, I will do the rest. But when, when…

There was another pause for it was hard work, and the time spent at the oars became shorter for each man.

She looked over her arm and saw Allday at the tiller, one elbow propped on the gunwale as if he was part of the boat. Bronzed faces, some with badly sunburned skins: men usually so clean and disciplined were now bearded with stubble, their hair as matted as her own.

She turned her head so that she could see Bolitho, his injured eye closed as he lay back on his loom, taking the stroke from the seaman Owen.

"Here comes the dawn."

"And there's part of the reef!" That was Jenour, unable as usual to hide his emotion.

Some strange gulls flew low overhead, their wings very white while the boat still lay in shadow. Allday murmured approvingly to Ozzard, "One o' those in th' pot'll do me!"

The seaman named Bill Cuppage plucked his filthy shirt from his body, and stared with astonishment as something caught the dawn's first light and held it like a mirror. Jenour saw his expression and swung with a gasp. "Ship, sir!"

Bolitho squinted across the quarter and felt his jaw tighten with disbelief and disappointment.

He called sharply, "Easy, all! Take in the sail!"

With neither oars nor canvas to steady it, the jolly-boat slid down into the swell and broached-to in steep, sickening rolls.

Keen said hoarsely, "Brig, sir. All sails set."

Catherine had one hand across her mouth as she watched the distant masts with their pale, bellying sails. As yet, no vessel showed herself above the receding shadows.

"Might it be another, Val?"

Keen tore his eyes from the pyramid of sails and looked at her. "I fear not."

Allday muttered, "Might not see us. We're low in the water."

Ozzard climbed forward and handed a mug of brandy to Sophie.

"Here, drink this, miss. Give you strength."

She stared at him over the rim, "What shall we do?"

Ozzard did not answer but turned aft to watch as the brig's two masts began to turn, the sails in momentary confusion while she changed tack until she was bows-on towards them.

Bolitho said, "Make sail again! Man your oars! The brig won't risk passing through the reef at this stage."

There was a dull bang, and seconds later a ball splashed down astern of the slow-moving jolly-boat.

Tojohns lay back on his oar and said between his teeth, "That bugger don't need to!"

Catherine climbed on to a thwart and added her own strength to Yovell's oar, her bare feet pressing hard on a stretcher.

There was another bang, and this time the ball ricocheted across the water like an enraged dolphin before hurling up a tall, thin waterspout. Cuppage was a big man, but he moved like lightning. Tossing his oar away, he vaulted into the bows and gripped Sophie with his arm around her neck, his other hand producing a cocked pistol, which he pressed against her face.

"Let her go!" Bolitho saw the girl staring aft at him, her eyes wide with terror. "What use is this, man?"

"Use?" Cuppage flinched as another ball ripped across the water. "I'll tell you what! Yon brig's master will want a word with you, or he'll kill us all! It'd only take one ball!" He began to work his way along the boat, dragging the half-strangled girl with him.

Owen called, "I thought you was one of them, you bastard! Never saw you with the bosun's party!"

Cuppage ignored him, his teeth bared with exertion. "One move, an' she gets 'er 'ead blown off!"

Bolitho looked at him without emotion. He was beaten. Whether the slaver's master accepted Cuppage's story no longer mattered.

Aboard the brig they must have realised what was happening. She was shortening sail, tacking once more to remain well clear of the reef.

Allday said, "Changing sides again, matey?" He sounded very calm. "Well, don't forget your little bag."

Cuppage swung round and saw Ozzard holding the bag over the side.

Allday continued, "No gold, no hope-not for you, matey. They won't believe your yarn and they'll kill you with the rest of us!"

Cuppage yelled, "Give me that, you little scum!"

"Catch, then!" Ozzard flung it towards him and Cuppage gave a scream of fury as the bag flew past his outstretched hand and splashed into the sea.

Allday stopped in front of Catherine and spat out, "Don't look."

The knife flashed in the sunlight and Cuppage lolled against the gunwale, while Tojohns and Owen pulled the girl to safety.

Allday moved with surprising speed and reached Cuppage even as he fell gasping across the gunwale, and as he tugged his old knife from his back he exclaimed savagely, "Go and look for it, you bastard!"

Cuppage drifted away, his arms moving feebly until he vanished.

Keen said dully, "That was well done, Allday." He stared at the brig, which was shortening sail yet again as she ran down on the drifting jolly-boat.

Allday looked at Bolitho and the woman beside him. "Too late. God damn that bloody mutineer. But for him…"

Bolitho glanced towards the lush, green island. So near, yet a million miles away.

But all he could hear was her voice. Don't leave me.

He had failed.

Rarely had the Falmouth parish church of King Charles the Martyr seen so mixed and solemn a gathering. While the great organ played in the background the pews soon filled with people from all walks of life, from the governor of Pendennis Castle to lowly farm workers, their boots grubby and scraped from the fields on this early harvest. Many stood on the cobbles outside the church, watching out of curiosity, or to capture some private memory of the man whose life and service were to be honoured here today. Not some stranger, or mysterious hero of whom they had read or been told about, but one of their own sons.

The rector was very aware of the importance of the occasion. There would of course be a grander memorial service in London with all the pomp of traditional ceremony. But this was Sir Richard's home, where his ancestors had come and gone, leaving only their historic records in stone along these same walls.

The whole county had been shocked by the news of Sir Richard Bolitho's death and of the manner in which he had died. But there had always been hope, and the speculation which this man's charisma had long encouraged. To fall in battle was one thing; to be lost at sea in some kind of accident was difficult for most of these people to accept.

The rector glanced at the fine marble bust of old Captain Julius Bolitho, who had fallen in 1664. The engraving seemed to fit the whole of this remarkable family, he thought.

The spirits of your fathers

Shall start from every wave;

For the deck it was their field of fame,

And ocean was their grave.

Today's service seemed to have killed the last of their simple faith, and many of the ships in Carrick Road had half-masted their ensigns.

He saw Squire Lewis Roxby guiding his wife Nancy to the family pew. Roxby looked grim, watching over her with a tenderness he rarely showed either as a magistrate or as one of the wealthiest men in the county. This was another side to the King of Cornwall.

Captain Keen's lovely young widow was seated between her husband's sisters, who had come all the way from Hampshire. One of them would be thinking of her own husband, who had been killed at sea a year or so earlier.

There was a very distraught couple who had taken the coach from Southampton to be here. They were Lieutenant Stephen Jenour's parents.

In another pew with members of the household and farm staff, Bryan Ferguson gripped his wife's hand and stared fixedly at the high altar. He discovered that his wife had the true strength today, and was determined to get him through it as the faces crowded into his mind.

All the memories, the comings and goings from the old grey house. He had been a major part of it, and as steward of the estate he was very conscious of Bolitho's trust in him. He wiped his eyes as he freed his only hand from her grip. Poor old John Allday. No more yarns, no more wets when he was home from sea.

He glanced across the aisle and recognised Lady Belinda with another woman, her oval face and autumn hair making the only colour against her sombre black. A few people bobbed to her-sympathy or respect, who could tell? Squire Roxby was receiving all of them in his great house afterwards. Afterwards. Even that made Ferguson bite his lip to steady himself.

Bolitho's older sister was here too, severe and grey, while her son Miles, formerly a midshipman aboard Bolitho's flagship Black Prince after having been dismissed from the Honourable East India Company's service under some sort of cloud, was now gazing around as if he expected everyone to be admiring him. He had even been required to leave the King's service, or as Keen had put it, face a court martial instead. Was he calculating how he might benefit from his uncle's death?

And there were uniforms a-plenty. The port admiral from Plymouth, some officers of the Coastguard, even a few dragoons from the garrison at Truro.

Overhead the bell began to toll; it sounded faraway from within the body of the church. But on the hillsides and in the harbour, men and women would be listening to its finality.

Others arrived: Young Matthew the head coachman, Tom the revenue officer, even Vanzell the one-legged sailor who had once served Bolitho, and been instrumental in freeing Lady Catherine from that stinking jail to the north of London. It was rumoured that Lady Catherine's husband had planned to have her falsely imprisoned and deported with the connivance of Bolitho's wife. What was she thinking now as she whispered to her elegant companion? Pride in her late husband? Or more incensed by the victory death had granted her rival?

Whenever she turned from her friend to stare around the church, Ferguson had the impression that it was with contempt, and no kind of regret for the life she had left in this ancient seaport.

And in months, maybe sooner, the legalities would have to be settled. Squire Roxby had never made any secret of his readiness to take over the Bolitho estate and add it to his own. That would certainly preserve it for his wife and their two children, if nothing else. Belinda would want a settlement to compensate for the lavish life and fashionable house she enjoyed in London. Ferguson felt his wife gripping his hand again as the straight-backed, solitary figure of Captain Adam Bolitho strode up the aisle to take his place in his family pew.

Ferguson believed him the one man who would save the estate and the livelihood of all those who depended on it. Even that reminded him of Allday again. His pride at living there when he was not at sea. Like being one of the family, he had so often proclaimed.

He watched Captain Adam shaking hands with the rector. It was about to begin. A day they would all have cause to remember, and for such diverse reasons. He saw Keen's young wife lean out towards Adam. He was to be posted next month, and had been so looking forward to seeing his uncle with the coveted second epaulette on his shoulder, when Bolitho had returned from his mission.

Ferguson had been troubled by Adam's frequent visits to the house. But for his vehement insistence that Bolitho was still alive and somehow, even by a miracle, would return home, Ferguson might have suspected some unexpected liaison between him and Zenoria Keen.

The bell had stopped and a great silence had fallen over the church; the glittering colours of the tall windows were very bright in the noon sunlight.

The rector climbed into the old pulpit and surveyed the crowded pews. Not many young faces, he thought sadly. And with the war already reaching into Portugal and perhaps Spain, many more sons would leave home, never to return.

At the very back of the church, seated on two cushions so that she could see over the shoulders of those in front of her, the widow of Jonas Polin, one-time master's mate in the Hyperion, was aware of the people all around her in this grand place, but could think only of the big, shambling man who had rescued her that day on the road. Now the admiral's coxswain would never call on her at the Stag's Head at Fallowfield. She had told herself not to be so stupid. But as the days had dragged past after the news had broken over the county, she had felt the loss even more. Like being cheated. She closed her eyes tightly as the rector began, "We are all very aware of why we are come here today…"

Ferguson stared blindly around him. And what of Catherine Somervell? Did nobody grieve for her? He saw her on the cliff walk, her face brown in the sun, her hair on the wind from the sea like a dark banner. He thought of what Allday and the others had told him, how she had risked her life to help Herrick's dying wife. A thousand things; most of all what she had done for her Richard, as she called him. Dearest of men. Unlike so many, they had been together when death had marked them down. He half-listened to the drone of the rector's voice, let it wash over him as he relived so many precious moments.

One man sat in an almost empty pew, shielded from the great mass of people by a pillar, his hooded eyes inscrutable while he paid his respects in his private fashion. Dressed all in grey, Sir Paul Sillitoe had arrived uninvited and unannounced, his beautiful carriage bringing many curious stares when he had reached the church.

Ferguson need not have worried on Catherine's behalf. Sillitoe had driven all the way from London and, although he had greatly respected Bolitho, he was more shocked by his grief at the loss of Bolitho's mistress, for reasons he could not define, even to himself.

The rector was saying, "We must never lose sight of the great service this fine local family has offered…" He broke off, aware from long experience that he no longer held the attention of the congregation.

There was a distant noise, and shouting, like a tavern turning out, and Roxby was glaring round, flushed and angry as he hissed, "These oafs! What are they thinking of?"

Everyone fell silent as Adam Bolitho stood up suddenly, and without even a customary bow to the altar strode quickly back down the aisle. He glanced at nobody, and as he passed Ferguson thought he looked as if he had no control over what he was doing. "In a trance," he would later hear it described.

Adam reached the great, weathered doors and dragged them wide open so that the din flooded into the church, where everyone now was standing, their backs to the rector marooned in his pulpit.

The square was crammed, and a recently arrived mail coach was completely surrounded by a cheering, laughing mob. In the centre of it all two grinning sea officers on horseback, their mounts lathered in sweat from a hard ride, were being hailed like heroes.

Adam stood quite still as he recognised one of them as his own first lieutenant. He was trying to make himself heard above the noise, but Adam could not understand him.

A man he had never seen before ran up the church steps and seized his hands.

"They'm alive, Cap'n Adam, sir! Your officer's brought word from Plymouth!"

The lieutenant managed to fight his way through, his hat knocked awry.

"All safe, sir! A bloody miracle, if you'll pardon my saying so!"

Adam led him back into the church. He saw Zenoria with Keen's sisters standing in the aisle, framed against the high altar. He asked quietly, "All my uncle's party? Safe?"

He saw his lieutenant nod excitedly. "I knew my uncle could do it. The fairest of men… I shall tell the rector myself. Wait for me, please. You must come to the house."

The lieutenant said to his companion, "Took it well, I thought, Aubrey?"

"He had more faith than I did."

Adam reached the others and held out his hands. "They are all safe." He saw Zenoria sobbing in the arms of one of Keen's sisters, and beyond her Belinda, now strangely out of place in her sombre black.

At the rear of the church Sir Paul Sillitoe picked up his hat and then turned as he saw the woman who had been just behind him. She was crying now, but not with grief.

He asked kindly, "Someone very dear to you, is he?"

She curtsied and wiped her eyes. "Just a man, sir."

Sillitoe thought of Adam's expression when he had reentered the church, of the sudden ache in his own heart when the news had broken over them like a great, unstoppable wave.

He smiled at her. "We are all just men, my dear. It is better not to forget that sometimes."

He walked out into the jostling, noisy square and heard the peal of bells following him.

He thought of their first encounter at one of Godschale's ridiculous receptions. Like no other woman he had ever met. But at this moment in Falmouth his own words to her were uppermost in his mind. She had protested that Bolitho was being ordered back to immediate duty after all he had suffered, and suggested angrily that some other flag officer be sent instead. Sillitoe seemed to hear himself, in memory. Fine leaders-they have the confidence of the whole fleet. But Sir Richard Bolitho holds their hearts.

He looked round for his carriage, at these simple, ordinary people who were a far cry from those he knew and directed.

Aloud he said, "As you, my dear Catherine, hold mine."

His Britannic Majesty's brig Larne of fourteen guns rolled untidily in a steep offshore swell, sailing so close to the wind that to any landsman her yards would appear to be braced almost fore-and-aft. The island lay enticingly abeam, its greenness shimmering in heat-haze, the nearest beaches pure white in the sunshine. But like an evil barrier between the island and the sturdy brig lay the protective reef, showing itself every so often in violent spurts of broken spray.

Right aft in Larne's stern cabin her captain lay sprawled on the bench seat beneath the open windows, so that the quarter-wind stirred the stale air and gave his naked body a suggestion of refreshment. Commander James Tyacke was staring up at the dancing reflections that played across the low deckhead. The cabin was like a miniature of the stern cabin in a frigate, but to Tyacke it still seemed spacious. He had previously commanded the armed schooner Miranda and had taken part in the recapture of Cape Town, and it had been then that he had first served alongside Richard Bolitho. Tyacke had never held much respect for senior officers, but Bolitho had changed many of his views. When Miranda had been sunk by a French frigate and her crew left to die, Tyacke, who had already lost so much, had felt that he had nothing more to live for.

That was something else Bolitho had done to give him back his dignity and his pride: he had asked him to command the Larne.

Ordered to the newly formed anti-slavery patrols, Tyacke imagined that he had at last found the best life still had to offer him. Independent, free of the fleet's apron strings and the whims of any admiral who chose to accost him, the role had suited him very well.

Larne was well-found and manned by some excellent seamen. And as for the wardroom, if you could rate it as such, Tyacke had three lieutenants and a sailing-master and rarest of all, a fullyqualified doctor who had accepted the poor rewards of service as a ship's surgeon in order to enhance his knowledge of tropical diseases. Dealing with slaves and slavers alike, he was getting plenty of experience.

Larne even boasted five masters' mates, although there were only two aboard at present, the others having been sent away as prize-masters in some of Tyacke's captures.

And then, without any sort of warning, the news had hit him like a mailed fist. They had met with a courier schooner and Tyacke had learned of Bolitho's loss at sea.

He knew them all: Valentine Keen, Allday, who had tried to help him, and of course Catherine Somervell. Tyacke had last spoken to her at Keen's wedding at the start of the year. He had never forgotten her, or the way she had conversed with him so directly, and looked at him without flinching. Tyacke stood up abruptly and walked to the mirror above his sea-chest. He was thirty-one years old, tall and well built, and his left profile was strong, with the grave good looks which might catch any woman's glance. But the other side… he touched it and felt only disgust. The Arab slavers called him the devil with half a face. Only the eye lived in it. A miracle, everyone told him. It could have been so much worse. But could it? Half his face burned away and he had no idea how it had happened. His world had exploded at the Nile, while all those about him had been killed. It could have been worse…

But Bolitho had somehow put him together again. A vice-admiral, one of England's heroes even if he had outraged many of his contemporaries, who had taken passage in Tyacke's tiny Miranda and never once complained at the discomfort, Bolitho had got to know him as a man, not as a victim, and had taken the trouble to care.

He turned away and walked aft to the open windows again. Ten days ago, while they had been searching for a well-known slaver who was said to be in the area, the lookouts had sighted a drifting longboat, the cutter from the Golden Plover. Andrew Livett, Larne's surgeon, had earned his keep that day. The survivors had been almost finished, mostly because the cutter's water supply had been inadequate, and they had been in too much of a hurry abandoning the wreck to replenish it.

Tyacke had sat, face in shadow, in this cabin and listened to the senior survivor, Luke Britton the boatswain, describing the mutiny, the sudden change of fortune while Bolitho had turned the tables on the men who had betrayed their master.

He had told of the jolly-boat entering the reef itself, while his own cutter, loaded as it was with some twenty hands, had been carried away to the other side. Tyacke had pictured it as the man blurted out each item of tragedy: the mutineers' boat being smashed by falling spars, the sharks gorging on the floundering, screaming sailors.

All plans to capture the slaver, the notorious Raven, had gone. Instead, Tyacke had laid a new course in a giant triangle to search along the reef and look for signs of life on the small, scattered islands, or perhaps even smoke signals, which might indicate that some of the party had survived. There had been nothing, and Tyacke had been forced to admit what his first lieutenant, a Channel Islander named Paul Ozanne, had believed from the beginning. A fruitless search; and with two women on board, what hope could there be?

And now Larne was herself dangerously short of water and the fruit which any King's ship needed to prevent scurvy in these sweltering waters.

He half-listened to the chant of his two leadsmen in the chains, watching out for the reefs while their best lookouts manned both mastheads for an hour at a time, before the glare rendered them useless.

What more can I do?

His people would not let him down; he knew that now. At first he had found this new command and her different company hard to know, but eventually he had won them over, just as he had done in his beloved Miranda. However, if anyone else discovered that he had abandoned his hunt for the Raven, they might be less understanding.

There was a tap at the screen door and Gallaway, one of the master's mates, peered in at him.

"What is it?" He tried to keep the despair and grief out of his voice.

"The master sends 'is respects, sir. It will be time to wear ship in about 'alf an hour." He showed no surprise at seeing his captain naked, nor did he drop his eyes when Tyacke looked directly at him. Not any more.

So it was over. When Larne came about he would have to take her to Freetown to receive new orders, to replenish stores and water supply. All the rest was a memory: one he would never lose, like the wound on his face.

"I'll come up." Tyacke pulled on a shirt and breeches and glanced at the cupboard where the thirteen-year-old cabin boy kept his rum and brandy. He rejected the idea. His men had to manage; so would he. Even that reminded him of Bolitho. Leadership by example, by a trust which he had insisted went both ways.

On deck it was scorching, and his shoes stuck to the tarred deck-seams. But the wind, as hot as if it blew across a desert, was strong enough. A glance at the compass, a critical examination of the yards and flapping canvas as his ship heeled over to the close-hauled sails, then he looked along the deck. Both watches were assembling in readiness to change tack. A few raw youngsters but mostly seamen, glad to get away from the harsh discipline of the fleet, or some tyrannical captain. He smiled sadly. And no midshipmen, none. There was no room on anti-slavery work for untrained, would-be admirals.

The first lieutenant was watching him, his face troubled. He knew about Tyacke and the vice-admiral. A powerful relationship, although Tyacke could rarely be drawn to speak of it. But Larne could not stand away from the land for much longer; they were on halved rations as it was. In the same breath, Ozanne knew that if his captain required it he and the others would drive the brig to eternity. Ozanne himself was no stranger to risk, or to dedication: he had once been the master of a lugger running out of St Peter Port in Guernsey, but French men-of-war and privateers had made trade impossible for such small craft, and he had gone into the navy, becoming a master's mate, and eventually a lieutenant.

Tyacke did not notice his scrutiny. He was shading his eyes to study the nearest island. Nothing. He tried not to think of the sharks Golden Plover's boatswain had described. Better that than to be taken by natives or Arab slavers, especially the two women. He wondered who the other one was-surely not Keen's young wife?

He said, "Change the lookouts, Paul. I'd anchor inshore despite the danger and send a watering party over. But it would take more time."

Ozanne pondered on it. What did the captain mean, "more time?" Did he still intend to carry on with the search? Some of the men would soon be getting worried, he thought. They had seen the state of the survivors from the cutter. One had already died, and another had gone since they had been snatched from the sea.

They were quite alone, and with three prize crews taking their captures back to Freetown they were short-handed. He trusted his men, but he never trusted what the sea might make them do.

Tyacke waited for the new lookouts to climb aloft and then said, "Both watches, if you please, Paul. We'll come about and steer sou'-east-by-south."

Ozanne stood his ground. He was older than Tyacke, and would never go any higher in the navy. But this suited him; and he found he wanted to comfort Tyacke in some way.

"You done your best, sir. It's God's will-I believe that."

"Aye, mebbe." He was thinking of the girl he had been hoping to marry. He persistently told himself that no one could blame her for rejecting him when he went home with his terrible scars. But it still hurt him deeply, more than he could rightly understand. Was that God's will, too? What would all these sunburned seamen think of him if they knew he still had her portrait in his sea-chest, and the gown he had once bought for her in Lisbon?

He was suddenly angry with himself. "Stand by on deck!"

Pitcairn the sailing-master joined the first lieutenant by the wheel.

"Takin' it badly, is he?"

"He's… lost something. I'm not certain what."

"Off tacks and sheets! Stand by! Man the braces, lively there!"

Men crouched and stooped over braces and halliards were suddenly changed into living statues as the distant crash of gunfire echoed across the reefs.

"Belay that order!" Tyacke snatched a telescope from the rack. "Get the t'gallants on her!"

"Hands aloft!" A master's mate had to push one man bodily to the shrouds.

Tyacke studied the sweeping green arm of the island as it began to dip down towards the eye-searing water.

Another shot. He gritted his teeth. It might be anything. Come on, old lady, you can fly when it takes you thus!

"Deck there! Sail on the lee bow! Brig, she is!"

Tyacke shouted impatiently, "What other vessel?"

The man, even at that height, sounded puzzled. "None, sir!"

"They've sighted us, sir."

Tyacke gripped his hands behind him until the pain steadied him.

"Clear away larboard battery! Stand fast all other hands!"

Men stumbled from their various stations and ran to the seven guns of the larboard battery.

Then, as the land fell completely away, Tyacke saw the other brig. He said almost in a whisper, "She's the bloody Raven, by God."

Ozanne rubbed his hands. "We'll dish that bugger up afore he knows it!" He turned away and did not see Tyacke's expression. "Run up the Colours! Mr Robyns, a shot across her snout, and the next into 'er belly if she fails to heave-to!"

The forward gun lurched inboard and seconds later a ball splashed down some fifty feet beyond the Raven's bowsprit.

But Tyacke had shifted his glass, the slaver almost forgotten as he saw the low shape of the jolly-boat.

"Raven's shortening sail, sir!"

Tyacke moved the glass with elaborate care on to the pitching boat and flapping sail.

"It's them. It can't be, but it is." He turned to the lieutenant, his eyes shining. "God's will, after all!"

Ozanne shook his head. "I've been at sea too long. I just can't take it in."

Tyacke tried to drag his mind from the picture in his powerful telescope.

"Heave-to and send a boarding party across to the Raven." He heard the boat already being hoisted over the side, the clatter of weapons as the armed men clambered after it. "And Mr Robyns-don't let them know how short-handed we are. Tell that bloody slaver that if he tries to rid himself of evidence, I'll not wait till Freetown to see him dance!"

Lieutenant Ozanne remarked, "So that is the famous Bolitho."

Tyacke watched the oars coming to life, the jolly-boat labouring round towards the drifting Larne.

Ozanne observed, "Not many of them, sir." He glanced at Tyacke's face, the tension and intensity in his uninjured profile. What was it, he wondered. Instinct? Somehow he knew it was more; much more. He shaded his eyes. "Who's the young officer beside him, sir?"

Tyacke turned toward him, and his hideous face split into a great grin of relief. "My God, Paul, you have been at sea too long!" He handed him the glass. "Take a look-even you might recognise a woman after all this time!" He touched his arm. "The admiral's lady… and ours is the honour."

Someone called, "They've run up our flag over the Raven, sir!" But Tyacke did not even hear. "Man the side, Paul. This is a day to remember."