BEYOND THE REEF

8. BREAKERS

BOLITHO sat on the bench below the Golden Plover's stern windows and stared out at the small, bubbling wake. One day passed very like the one before it, and he felt continually restless at being no part of the vessel's routine. It was noon, and on deck the heat would be scorching like the wind across an empty desert. At least down here there was some pretence of movement, the hull creaking occasionally to the lift and fall of the stem, the air stirring through the cabin space to help ease the discomfort.

At the opposite end of the bench young Sophie sat with one shoulder bared while Catherine massaged it gently with ointment she had brought with her from London. The girl's skin was almost red-raw where the sun had done its work during her strolls on deck.

Catherine had told her severely, "This is not Commercial Street, my girl, so try not to lay yourself open to the possibility of being burned alive."

The girl had given her cheeky grin. "I clean forgot, me lady!"

Jenour was in his cabin, either sketching or adding to the endless letter to his parents. Keen was probably on deck; brooding about Zenoria, wondering if he were taking the right course of action.

Bolitho had had several conversations with Samuel Bezant, Golden Plover's master. The man came originally from Lowestoft, and had begun life at sea at the age of nine, naturally enough in that port, aboard a fishing lugger. Now that he understood he could speak with Bolitho without fear of instant rebuke or anger he had explained that most of Golden Plover's troubles had been caused by the navy. To begin with, he had welcomed the offer of an admiralty warrant. But as he had explained, "What use is 'protection' if their lordships or some senior officer can take experienced seamen whenever they choose?" Bolitho knew it was useless to try and explain to any master what it was like for the captain of a man-of-war. If the press-gangs were lucky he might get a few good hands; he might even poach some prime seamen from an incoming merchant ship if her master was so mean that he had paid off his company even before the ship had reached her destination. To do so left those unfortunate sailors open to impressment, if the officer in charge of the party was fast enough. But mostly the new hands were either farm workers, "hawbucks" as most seamen contemptuously called them, or those who might otherwise have faced the public hangman.

Bezant had said on one occasion when Bolitho had joined him to watch the vivid sunset off the Canary Islands, as they had crossed the thirtieth parallel, "There's only the bosun left from the original afterguard, Sir Richard. Now the second mate's on the Rock I'm expected to run this vessel like a King's ship with men who have no feel for the sea!"

Bolitho asked, "What about your mate, Mr Lincoln? He seems capable enough."

Bezant had grinned. "He's a good seaman. But even he's only been in the Plover for six months!"

Perhaps by the time the sturdy barquentine had reached Good Hope, Bezant would have led or bullied his mixed collection of sailors into one team, as much a part of the vessel he so obviously loved as the canvas and cordage that drove her.

Bolitho saw a splash as some unknown fish fell back into the sea again, probably trying to escape from hidden predators.

Since leaving Gibraltar there had certainly been a run of misfortunes. A topman had fallen from aloft during a heavy squall and his body had smashed onto the lee bulwark, killing him instantly. He had been buried at sea the following day. Bolitho had never known the man, but as a sailor himself he had felt the same sense of loss as Bezant had rumbled slowly through his well-thumbed prayer book. We commit his body to the deep…

There had only been one sighting of the strange ship's topmasts, the day after they had weighed anchor in the Rock's shadow. After that they had seen nothing; and only on rare occasions, usually just after dawn, had they seen the hint of land. A group of islands, like low clouds on the horizon, and another time a solitary islet like a broken tooth, which Bezant had described as an evil place where no man could survive and would in any case go mad with loneliness. Pirates had been known to maroon their prisoners there. Bezant had remarked, "It would have been kinder to cut their throats!"

And all the while there remained the great presence of the African coastline. Invisible out of necessity; and yet each one of them was very aware of it.

Catherine glanced across the girl's reddened shoulder and saw his expression. Separate incidents stood out clearly as she gently massaged the ointment into Sophie's skin, and she wondered if he were sharing them.

The seaman who had fallen from an upper yard during the squall. And that other time when they had been sitting here, everyone unwilling to make the first move to turn in for the night, to be tormented again by the fierce, humid air between decks.

It had been very quiet and quite late, during the middle watch, Jenour had recalled.

They had all heard the sound of dragging feet on the poop overhead and then, it seemed an age later, the frantic cry of "man overboard!" The master's door had banged open and Bezant had been heard bawling out orders. Back the foretops'l! Stand by to come about! Man the quarter-boat! Catherine had accompanied Bolitho on deck, astonished by the eerie quality which a full moon had given to the taut canvas and quivering shrouds. The sea, too, had been like molten silver, unending and unreal.

Needless to say, the boat had returned empty-handed. The crew had been more frightened of losing their ship in that strange, glacial glow than of leaving someone to drown alone.

The mate, Lincoln, had been on watch. He explained to the master that he had been told one of the military prisoners was having some kind of fit, to the despair and anxiety of his companions.

Lincoln had described the scene, how out of pity for the prisoner and the need to quieten the others he had had the man brought on deck, thinking it would calm him. What had happened next was not clear. Without even a cry, the prisoner had broken from his escort and hurled himself over the bulwark. He had still been wearing manacles on his wrists, although this had not been reported until after the quarter-boat had been sent on its fruitless search.

Catherine watched Bolitho's hand resting on his thigh. The hand that knew her so intimately, that could tease her to the height of passion until neither could wait.

Then there had been the incident of the flogging, a rare occurrence, she had guessed, aboard the Golden Plover. A seaman had been found drunk on watch, and had set about Britton, the boatswain, who had discovered him sprawled in the forecastle when he should have been at his station.

She had seen Keen's face, like a mask as the sound of the lash had penetrated this sealed cabin. Imagining Zenoria as she must have been, enduring the bestiality of the transport's captain and the excitement of many of the prisoners who had swarmed to watch her punishment, the whip laid across her naked back.

She said, "There you are, my girl." She smiled as Sophie modestly refastened her clothing. "Now be off with you and help Ozzard prepare some food."

Alone with Bolitho, Catherine said, "I love to watch you."

"Are you bored, Kate?"

"Being with you? Never."

Bolitho pointed abeam. "In a few days, if the wind is kind, we shall pass the Cape Verde Islands to starboard, and the coast of Senegal over yonder." He smiled. "I doubt if we shall see either!"

"You have memories of these parts, Richard?"

He looked at the blue water astern. "A few. I was a midshipman at the time in the Gorgon, an old 74 like Hyperion."

"What age were you?"

She saw the sudden pain in his grey eyes. "Oh, about sixteen, I think."

"You were with your friend then?"

He faced her. "Aye. Martyn Dancer." He tried to shake it off. "We were chasing slavers even then. I expect that damnable fortress is still there to this day. Different flag, but the same foul trade."

The door opened slightly and Ozzard peered in at them. He saw Catherine and was about to withdraw when Bolitho asked, "What is it? Please speak freely."

Ozzard tiptoed into the cabin and carefully shut the screen door behind him.

Catherine placed her hands on the sill of the stern window and stared out at the empty ocean. "I shall not listen, Ozzard."

Ozzard looked at her body, framed against the sparkling water. Her long dark hair was piled on her head, held in place by a large Spanish comb, "brailed up" as Allday had called it. He watched her partly-bared shoulder, the fine arch of her neck. It was like being bewitched. Constantly reminded and tortured by that other hideous memory.

He said abruptly, "I've been in the after hold, Sir Richard. I was getting some of that hock her ladyship brought from London. It stays cool there."

Bolitho said, "We shall look forward to it." He felt the little man's desperation: it was something almost visible. "And what happened?"

"I heard voices. I found a vent and listened. It was those prisoners. One said, 'With that gutless fool out of the way, we can stand together, eh, lads?'" He was reliving his discovery, his face screwed up as if afraid of missing something. "Then the other man said, 'You'll not be sorry. I'll see to that!'"

Catherine did not turn from the ocean but asked gently, "Who was it? You know, don't you?"

Ozzard nodded wretchedly. "It was the mate, Mr Lincoln, Sir Richard."

"Go and find Captain Keen, if you please." He held out one hand. "Walk, Ozzard. We do not want to rouse suspicion, eh?"

As the door closed she moved across the deck and sat by him. "Did you know, Richard?"

"No. But I did notice that all the incidents happened during either Lincoln's watch or Tasker's." He was the new mate who had come aboard at Gibraltar.

She felt his hands tighten around her body, pressing the damp skin beneath her gown. She said, "Have no fear for me, Richard. We have been in peril before."

Bolitho looked over her shoulder, his mind racing from one possibility to the next. Whichever way you considered it, at best it was mutiny, at worst piracy. Neither crime would permit the survival of witnesses. And there was Catherine.

She said very calmly, "It is because of me that you are here and not in some King's ship with all the power to do your bidding. Tell me what to expect, but never think of defeat for my sake. I am by your side." She held the flashing ring to the sunlight. "Remember what this means? Then so be it."

When Keen entered he saw nothing untoward until Bolitho said, "We must talk, Val. I believe there will be an attempt to seize this vessel and then make a rendezvous with our 'shadow,' which I am convinced is still somewhere close by."

Keen glanced at Catherine, trying to put her possible fate out of his mind.

"I am ready, sir." Whatever lay ahead, he was surprised to discover that he was unmoved by it.

The following day passed without incident until late in the afternoon. Another hard, cloudless sky, with the sea and the vivid horizon too bright to look at. Bolitho stood with Keen abaft the wheel and watched the slow-moving activity of the watch on deck.

Bezant had taken sun-sights with his sextant and now seemed satisfied with his vessel's progress. The warm north-westerly wind filled every sail, and was strong enough to throw white pellets of spray high over the bowsprit.

"Will you tell him, sir?"

Bolitho glanced toward Catherine and her maid sitting on a makeshift seat beneath a canvas canopy. Sophie knew nothing of their suspicions, and it was better so. And what of Bezant? He had seemed genuinely surprised to discover the status of his passengers when Jenour had gone ahead to inform him at Falmouth. Usually he carried minor officials, garrison officers and sometimes their wives. The vice-admiral and his lady could hardly be classed as ordinary.

"Tell him?" He watched the fish leaping astern. "When you tell your best friend a secret, Val, it is no longer a secret. And Bezant, capable though he must be, is no friend."

Keen said evenly, "Ozzard might have made a mistake. Or perhaps the mate was genuinely trying to calm the prisoners after what had happened."

Bolitho smiled and saw Catherine look away. "But you do not think so, eh?"

Keen tried not to stare as a seaman paused near them. Every move seemed suspicious. Who was friend or possible enemy?

Bolitho saw Jenour appear from the companion-way, his sketching book in his hand.

He crossed the slanting deck and joined them.

"What did you discover, Stephen?"

Jenour shaded his eyes as if to search for some new subject for his collection.

"This vessel was originally pierced for some four-pounders. There is a gunport directly beneath the mizzen chains. Allday found it. He says he can force it open if need be. It's only sealed with tar."

Keen frowned. "I do not see the point."

Bolitho turned aside. They should separate soon. They must not appear to be forewarned conspirators.

"There is a swivel-gun mounted on the starboard bulwark, Val. It is always loaded. Not uncommon in small merchantmen sailing alone. It could be trained inboard as well as out."

Jenour made a few scratches in his book. "Allday says it would need someone thinner than himself to get through." He gave an uncertain smile. "It seems I am exactly the right size!"

More pictures flashed through Bolitho's mind. In his frigate Phalarope, where there had once been a mutiny, he could recall a small midshipman named John Neale; Bolitho and some others had covered his naked body with grease to force him through a vent to raise the alarm. John Neale's face changed in the next picture. A young frigate captain, as Adam was now, but dying of his wounds when he and Bolitho had been taken prisoner in France. We Happy Few. It seemed to strike back and mock him.

Bolitho said abruptly, "It may prove to be smoke without fire this time. By tomorrow…" With the others he peered up as the masthead lookout yelled, "Deck there! Sail to th' north!"

Bezant strode over to join them. "That damned rascal is back with us again!"

"What are your usual duties, Captain?"

He saw Bezant's mind grappling with this new complication. "Duties, Sir Richard?" He rubbed his chin noisily. "Gibraltar, then sometimes to Malta with stores and despatches for the fleet there. In better times we used to enter the Baltic, get work from Swedish ports-anything that paid."

"Could it be that this strange ship waited off Gibraltar to make certain you were not continuing to Malta?"

Bezant stared at him without comprehension. "For what purpose? I can outsail that bugger once we're clear of Cape Blanco. There's the reef, y'see."

Bolitho nodded, his eyes slitted against the glare, the injured one already sore and pricking, "Yes, Captain, the reef. It runs a hundred miles out from Cape Blanco and has torn the guts out of many a fine ship."

Bezant answered stiffly, "I am well aware of it, Sir Richard. I intend to change tack and run for the shore once we have weathered the reef."

Bolitho glanced past him at Keen's intent features. As Bezant stamped resentfully away to examine his chart, he said gently, "I can tell him nothing." He heard Catherine laugh, the sound churning through him like pain. "We must take no chances, Val. There would be none of us left to tell the tale." He gazed at Catherine so that their eyes seemed to lock across the sun-bleached planking. "My guess is that Lincoln, and that new mate we took aboard at the Rock-what is his name?"

Keen smiled despite the tension. The admiral asking his flag captain for information again.

"Tasker, sir."

"Well, I believe he was already known by Mister Lincoln."

Keen ran his fingers through his fair hair. "They have probably never carried so much coin and gold before, and they may never be ordered to do so again." He made up his mind. "It will be tomorrow then. For if Lincoln intends to turn thief and worse, he will need the support of that damned brig to wind'rd of us."

Jenour wandered away with his book. Like the rest of them, he was unarmed, in his shirt and breeches alone. Any sign of a weapon would cause instant bloodshed.

"Perhaps the people will remain loyal to their master?"

Bolitho clapped his arm so that several faces turned to watch their outwardly casual exchange.

"With the promise of a share of the spoils, Val? Greed is the master here!"

As the sun began to dip over the western horizon the wind became stronger, and reefs were set in the forecourse and topsail. The sea's face broke into long advancing ranks of white horses but as the sun continued to go down, they, too, were painted like molten metal, like the cargo Golden Plover carried in her hold.

In the cabin they tried to do everything as usual. Any sign that something was wrong would be like a spark in a gunner's store.

In a dark corner Catherine was pushing some things into two bags, watched with alarm by Sophie.

Catherine had told her quietly, "There may be trouble, Sophie, but you will be safe. So stay with me until it is over."

Keen sat at the table playing cards with Yovell. It could not be an easy game. But anyone on watch could see them through the cabin skylight.

Bolitho found Allday breathing heavily in the spare cabin, which was being used for sea-chests and unwanted belongings.

"Here, Sir Richard!" He hauled on a line and Bolitho felt the salt air sweep into the musty space as the disused gunport opened a few inches. He could see moonlight on the tumbling water, hear the creak and clatter of rigging, an occasional call from the helmsman.

A ship already doomed. Bolitho felt a surge of sudden anger. Keen was right. It was tomorrow or not at all. Even Bezant would quickly recognise any further attempts to slow the Golden Plover's progress, and after that it would be too late.

Allday's breathing sounded very loud and unsteady. He said, "Old Tojohns is castin' a weather eye on the companion ladder, Sir Richard." He signed and added wistfully, "I wonder what Jonas Polin's little widow is called? In the heat of things I clean forgot to ask." He shook his head, "I am gettin' old, an' that's no error!"

Bolitho reached out in the darkness and seized his massive arm. He could find no words, but each understood the other.

There had been no unusual sound, and he never knew what had roused him to a state of instant readiness. One second he had been dozing in a chair beside Catherine's swinging cot and the next he was wide awake, his ears groping for some clue to the reason.

He moved softly to the door and stared aft through the open screen. The first light of dawn was showing through the stern windows, the bluffed horizon like an unending silk thread.

He saw Keen, who had been keeping watch with Tojohns, on his feet; and although his features were lost in shadow Bolitho could sense the presence of danger like some evil spirit right here amongst them.

A pale shape moved from a corner and almost collided with him. He seized her quickly, one hand across her mouth as he said in a sharp whisper, "Rouse your mistress, Sophie, but not a word!"

Keen took a few paces towards him, keeping well clear of the skylight's pale rectangle. "What is it, sir?"

"Not sure." It was hot and clammy in the cabin but the shirt against his spine felt as if it had been drawn across ice.

It was as if the ship had already been abandoned. At some time during the night watches that same evil presence had removed every other living soul, so that the vessel was sailing on with only a phantom to guide her.

The loose flap of canvas and the occasional crack of halliards certainly gave the impression that little heed was being paid to the trim and handling of Golden Plover's progress.

Bolitho felt her come into the cabin, her perfume touching his face as she brushed against him.

She was fully dressed and had replaced the Spanish comb in her hair. He could see it glinting slightly as the light strengthened through the skylight overhead.

Bolitho took her arm as the deck rolled sluggishly in the swell. He had faced the risk of death and the dread of a surgeon's knife too often not to recognise the lurking fear that attended it. Two men-of-war approaching one another on a converging tack, the sea otherwise empty. Or other vessels scattered in disarray like yeomen on the field of battle, who pause in the bloody business of war to watch their lords and masters kill each other in single combat.

The waiting: always the waiting. That was the worst part. Like now. The madness would follow, if only to keep that same mortal fear at bay.

He heard Allday's breathing outside the screen door, where he and Keen's coxswain Tojohns would be watching the companion ladder, waiting perhaps for the stab of a pistol shot, or the stealthy approach of men with blades.

When it came it was both startling and terrible. It was unreal, out of place in this morning watch off the coast of Africa.

There was a sudden crash of glass, and a great, unearthly yell which broke instantly into a torrent of wild and uncontrollable laughter.

Keen exclaimed, "They've broached the rum!"

A door flung open and they heard Bezant's powerful voice raised in a furious bellow, so loud he could have been here in the cabin.

"You bloody scum! What in hell's name are you doing?"

Somebody else laughed, high-pitched, the cry of one who had already gone beyond reason.

Something heavy, a belaying pin perhaps, clattered across the deck, and Bezant roared, "Get back, you whore's bastard!" He must have fired a pistol, and as the echo of the shot rebounded from the bulkhead Bolitho heard the laughter change to a terrible scream.

Bezant again, as if with relief. "Ah, here you are, Jeff!" Then in astonishment, "In God's name, think what you're doing!" There was another shot, seemingly from high up, and a body crashed across the deck above like a heavy log.

"Ready?" Bolitho took her wrist. "Don't provoke anyone." His eyes flashed in the dimness. "One wrong move…" He did not finish it. Someone drove a musket-butt through the skylight and yelled down, "Come on deck! No trouble, y'hear, or we'll cut you down!"

Bolitho saw Jenour slithering into the unused cabin where Ozzard was already waiting to cover the gunport with some of the stored cabin goods and chests.

Wild thoughts ran through his mind. Suppose Jenour could not get through it? And even if he did, what were his chances?

He saw Allday and Tojohns at the foot of the ladder, the shadows of other figures who were waiting on deck to confront them.

He took Catherine's arm and turned her towards him. "Remember, Kate, I love thee."

Keen passed them. "I shall go first, sir." He sounded completely calm. Like a man facing a firing squad when all hope is gone, and even fear can find no cause to gloat. "Then we shall know. If I fall, I pray to God that He will protect you both."

Then he walked to the foot of the ladder and took the handrails without hesitation. He paused just once by the small polished coaming, which was folded back when not in use, but which, in rough weather, was supposed to prevent incoming seas from cascading down the ladder to the deck below. Not even Bolitho saw the deft movement as he touched the butt of the pistol he had lodged there during the night.

On deck, even though it was only dawn, the sight that awaited Keen was as sickening as it was predictable. Bezant the master lying on his side gripping his thigh as blood poured on to the pale planking around him. A corpse sprawled wide-eyed in the starboard scuppers, with a gaping hole in his throat where Bezant's pistol had found its mark. Small groups of men, some armed and threatening the others, the rest staring around as if still expecting to be rudely awakened from a nightmare.

Up in the weather shrouds a man was casually reloading his musket. He must have marked Bezant down the moment he had burst on deck. The mate, Jeff Lincoln, faced Keen, his beefy hands on his hips; there was blood on one sleeve but it was not his own.

"Well, Captain?" He watched him for any hint of danger. "Are you alone?"

Keen saw the wavering muskets, and more professional handling by men who were obviously the released soldiers. All except one. He sat against the mainmast trunk, crooning to himself and taking long swallows of rum from a stone jug.

Keen said, "My companions are coming up, Mister Lincoln. If you lay a finger…"

Lincoln shook his head. "You give no orders here, sir. I understand you have lately taken a young wife?" He saw Keen flinch. "So let us not make her a widow so soon, eh?"

There was a lot of laughter, a wild sound: men committed without realising yet what they had done.

Keen regarded them. "You could still relent. Any court would show mercy under the circumstances." He did not look at the big, beetle-browed mate. He wanted to strike out at him. Kill him before he himself was hacked down. He continued, "You know the navy's ways, Mr Lincoln." He saw the new mate Tasker staring at him, his eyes shifting quickly between them, and continued relentlessly, "Mutiny is a bad thing, but to seize people as important as my vice-admiral and his lady…"

Tasker said hoarsely, "We didn't know they were going to be aboard!"

Lincoln swung on him and snarled, "Shut your face, man! Can't you see what this bloody aristocrat is trying to do?" To Keen he said, "I command here." He glared at the wounded master. "If you want to save him, and yourself, lend that old bull a hand!"

Keen knelt down beside the groaning master and tied his neckcloth tightly above the wound. The ball was lodged there, small and deep, and from a musket, so that it had probably deflected against bone.

All these things passed through his mind, but his eyes were on the hatch measuring the distance, one last strike at the enemy if all else failed.

He saw the boatswain, Luke Britton, being supported by two of his men, blood running from his forehead where he had been savagely attacked. At least he had stayed loyal, as were the men around him. Frightened maybe, because mutiny was as much feared as yellow jack. But more so, perhaps, of what would happen to them when they were caught.

The released prisoners were the most dangerous. Men who knew harsh discipline were usually the first to run wild if that same control was broken. They had nothing to lose but their lives. They had all known that when they enlisted, or had been coaxed into taking the King's shilling in exchange for a brief, drunken taste of freedom.

Lincoln's shadow passed over them. "'Ere, fetch a cask!" To Keen he added, "Get this bugger to sit up beside the wheel. I can keep an eye on him there."

An unknown seaman shambled aft and shouted, "He gave me the cat, the bastard! Give him to me, I'll lay his back in ribbons!"

Lincoln faced him with cold contempt. "Can you navigate these waters, you oaf? You asked for that punishment-if the master hadn't ordered it, damn your eyes, I'd have laid into you meself!" The sailor staggered back as if he had been punched.

Everyone fell silent as Catherine and Bolitho came on deck, the maid clutching her mistress's hand while she stared fixedly at the deck. Catherine turned slowly and looked at the watching figures. "Rabble."

Lincoln glared. "Enough o' that!" He saw Bolitho's old sword at his hip and said, "I'll have that, if you please." Something in Bolitho's grey stare must have warned him that his plan might go astray before it had really begun, and he relented. Instead his fist shot out and he seized Sophie's wrist and dragged her to his side where she began to shake like a puppet.

Catherine said, "Are you so brave?" She gently released herself from Bolitho's restraining grip and stepped towards him. "If you need a surety, then take a lady, not a child."

Several of the onlookers laughed, and a soldier yelled, "An' I'm the next after you, matey!"

Catherine forced herself to show no emotion; nor did she look at Bolitho. The least sign, the smallest action and he would lose his self-control. She said, "Go to Mr Yovell and the others, Sophie. I will remain with this gentleman."

Bolitho stood beside Keen, his mind held in a vice. He said to the groaning Bezant, "They will kill us-you know that, don't you?"

"I-I don't understand." He seemed more shocked than angry now that it had happened. "I've always been a fair man."

"It's over." He tightened his hold around Bezant's bulky shoulders and stared hard through the spokes of the wheel. "You are the only one who can prevent it." He felt Keen tense suddenly as Lincoln touched one of Catherine's earrings, his thick fingers playing on the edge of her gown and against her skin. Any second now and all reason would go. Not even a mutiny, but brutality and murder at its worst.

He heard her say in reply to something Lincoln had asked or implied, "I value my life more than precious things."

The man called Tasker said urgently, "Tell 'em what to do! They're 'alf-stupid with drink already, God damn them!" He turned on Catherine and said quietly, "I shall give you a time to remember, my bloody ladyship! I was in a slaver afore this, an' I've learned a trick or two on them long passages with our black ivory!"

Lincoln pushed him aside, angry or jealous at his intrusion, it was hard to tell. All Bolitho could think of was her lovely body in their hands, her despair and agony acting only as encouragement to men such as these.

Bezant took a grip on himself. "You don't know what you're asking of me. You of all men should know!"

Bolitho stepped away from him and murmured, "Remember what I said."

Lincoln stood on a hatch cover, his legs braced against the deck's uneven roll. To one of the soldiers he said, "Watch our master at the wheel. If I order you to shoot him, then do it. I'll not risk an ounce of gold for a few moments of drunken lechery." His eyes moved quickly to the woman who stood just below him. He would tame her. She might fight all she could, but he would do it. A creature like her, the kind of woman he had never seen or known in his whole life.

He took a grip on himself. "Begin hoisting the boxes from the hold." He pointed at the boatswain with the bleeding wound on his head. "Take charge of rigging tackles and see to it that each box is secured and guarded." Again the casual signal to the soldier. "If he disobeys, kill him!"

Bolitho looked at Allday. "Bear a hand with the tackles, John." He spoke easily, seeing the instant anxiety in his eyes. "It will give you something to do."

John. He had called him by name. Allday felt it touch him like a cold hand. In minutes, they could be dead. Or perhaps nothing would happen until rum and the thought of two women in their midst finally broke down the last barricade of Lincoln's control.

Tasker walked to the scuppers and bent over the corpse. After removing a money-pouch from the dead man's belt he gestured with his thumb. "Over with him!" He did not even turn as the corpse hit the water alongside and drifted rapidly towards the stern. He was still imagining that proud, arrogant woman, just as he had seen the screaming black slave girls when he had turned his men on to them.

Below his feet, Jenour put his weapons on to the deck and peered out through the open gunport. It was all moving too fast; the sea so bright, and so early.

He gave Ozzard a quick nod. The little man was obviously terrified. It seemed suddenly important that he should not leave him without a word, some crumb of support.

"I'll do a sketch of you when this is over, eh?" He touched his shoulder as he had seen Bolitho do so often; the contact he always seemed to need, when people who did not know or understand him thought he wanted for nothing.

Ozzard did not seem to hear. "Take care, Mr Jenour, sir. We're all very fond of you."

Jenour stared at him and then began to worm his shoulders through the port. It was not going to be easy. He had never imagined it would be. He looked down and saw the hull's copper sheathing gleam in the frothing water below him, then up to the mizzen chains, and a glimpse of the blocks and tarred cordage beneath the quivering ratlines. The gun was very near there, but as yet out of sight.

He cringed against the warm timbers as a corpse heaved over the bulwark just by the shrouds struck the water beneath him. One flapping hand casually brushed his arm as it dropped past him, and he waited with sick horror for the sound of a shot, or the agonising thrust from one of the boarding pikes he had seen stacked around the mizzen trunk.

He stared down as something glided into the cresting water cut back by the barquentine's raked stem. For only a few seconds he saw the black, empty eyes watching him before the shark turned deftly and plunged after the drifting corpse.

Jenour gritted his teeth and pulled himself to the chains and then swung himself round and up on to the mizzen channel. He waited for an eternity before he dared to raise his head. The bulwark was only feet away-at any moment a curious face might look down and see him. Perhaps, although he had heard no sound, all of his companions had been butchered. He thought of the letter which was still unfinished, the sketches his family in Southampton would never see. He felt his eyes smarting; his body was shaking, so that he had to force himself to look directly down again into clear water. There were two sharks now. He gave a quick sob. They would not have long to wait. He whispered, "God bless you!" He did not know to whom.

On deck, the first of the heavily-barred boxes was swayed up into the full view of the expectant mutineers. They gave a wild cheer, and more rum was already being broached from the other hold.

Catherine saw some of the men watching her and looked away, her eyes meeting with Bolitho's as if to some unspoken word.

His eyes moved, just once, and she turned her head very slightly. She felt her heart pounding, and put her hand to her breast. She had seen what Bolitho had intended: Jenour's grimy, bloodied fingers feeling up for the lower ratlines, while directly beneath the mounted swivel-gun two of the armed seamen were resting in the shade. At any second Jenour might make some sound and bring them down on him.

Lincoln swallowed a mug of rum and gasped noisily, his reddened eyes on the hand against her breast.

"That should be my place, my lady!"

She turned aside and reached up to adjust her piled hair.

She felt his breath, stinking of rum, smelt the dirt and sweat of his body as he gripped her waist and stared wildly at the shadow between her breasts.

It was all she could do to look at him as she felt his hands moving on her body.

Then she said, "I must loosen my hair!"

If she thought of Bolitho now, all would be lost.

Deftly she pulled the long comb from her hair and even as it tumbled over her shoulders, she raised the comb and drove it into Lincoln's eye.

He fell backwards, screaming, the decorated comb protruding from his eye like an obscene growth.

Someone dropped a musket and it exploded, so that men who had been yelling and running for weapons froze in their tracks and watched with sick disbelief while Lincoln rolled on his back, his heavy seaboots drumming on the deck while his blood encircled his agony.

Tasker, the new mate who had once been a slaver, dragged out his pistol and shouted, "Leave him! Take the others below and shackle them, 'til we can deal with 'em properly!"

He looked at the tall, dark-haired woman who, despite the levelled weapons, had walked to Bolitho's side.

Tasker laughed. "That pig-sticker of a sword won't help you now, Admiral!"

Bolitho gripped his sword, but felt only her arm against his side. He was even surprised at the unemotional tone of his voice, when just an instant ago he had been about to throw himself to her defence.

He said, "Help is here now." He saw Tasker's astonishment as he slipped the old sword back into its scabbard, then watched it change to stunned understanding as the swivel-gun swung inboard and was depressed on to the bulk of the mutineers.

Allday had torn a cutlass from one of the sailors guarding the loyal hands and now ran aft, bending almost double in case Jenour should jerk the lanyard and rake the deck into a bloody shambles with a full charge of canister.

Bolitho shouted, "Throw down your arms! In the King's name-or I swear to God I will order my lieutenant to fire!"

Keen stood up from the companion-way and cocked his hidden pistol. Tojohns had also produced a pair from another hiding place.

Keen found time to notice Bolitho's voice, the intensity of his stare, recalling the moment when he had ordered them to continue pouring broadsides into the enemy that had destroyed Hyperion in another sea.

If they do not strike they will die! He was still not sure whether Bolitho would have continued to fire if the French flags had not come down.

He had that same expression now.

The men on deck stared at one another, some probably already planning how they would defend their actions by pleading that they had intended to overthrow the mutineers. A few of the loyal men wondering, perhaps, how their circumstances might have indeed changed had they thrown in their lot with the others. Gold to keep them free of danger and want, the rigours of the common seaman.

There was one man in the ship who had not been consulted or threatened either way, nor even considered when the others had been fanned into an uprising.

He was a seaman from Bristol by the name of William Owen, who had been aloft in the crosstrees, the first masthead lookout at the start of this new and terrible day.

Throughout the fighting on deck, he had witnessed the astounding sight of his messmates turning upon one another after the master had been shot down and the military prisoners released; then, it seemed, in the twinkling of an eye, the roles had been reversed. He had seen the admiral's lady, her bearing defiant even from this high perch, and had sensed the seething cauldron of mutiny as more and more rum had flung reason to one side. Now, his hands shaking badly, he twisted round and peered across the quarter for the other ship's topsails. He rubbed his eyes as relief flooded through him. He was safe, and the other vessel was stern-on as she went about on an opposite tack.

Safe. He had taken part in nothing. He had been doing the job he knew best, for Owen was the most experienced lookout in the Golden Plover's company.

He shaded his eyes again and stared until they watered. He knew all the signs but had never before witnessed it, and he had been at sea for fifteen years.

Stretching away beyond the bows, it made the sea change colour without breaking the surface. Like fast-moving smoke, or steam from a kettle, as if the sea were boiling in its depths…

He leaned over and peered down at the deck, his voice carrying above all else. The cruelty and the greed were forgotten.

"Deck there! Breakers ahead!"