Cross of St George

4. Captains

AS EIGHT BELLS chimed out from the forecastle belfry, Captain James Tyacke climbed through the companion and onto the broad quarterdeck. The air, like everything else, was wet, clinging, and cold, and the ship seemed hemmed in by an unmoving curtain of fog. He gripped his hands tightly behind his back and listened to the staccato beat of hammers, and the occasional squeak of blocks as some item of rigging was hauled aloft to the upper yards. When he looked up, it was uncanny: the topmasts and topgallant spars were completely cut off by the fog, as if the frigate Indomitable had been dismasted in some phantom engagement.

He shivered, hating the climate, too used perhaps to the African sun and the south’s clear blue horizons.

He stopped by the empty hammock nettings and peered down at the water alongside. Lighters were moored there, and other boats were pulling this way and that like water-beetles, vanishing and reappearing suddenly in the mist.

This was Halifax, Nova Scotia. A busy and vital seaport, and a pleasant-looking town, from the little he had seen of it. He touched the nettings, like cold metal on this dismal day. But not for long, he told himself. Very soon this work would be completed, which, considering the winter’s bitter weather and the needs of all the other men-of-war sheltering here, was a record of which to be proud. Six months had passed since they had entered harbour after the savage battle with the two American frigates. The largest prize, Unity, had already left for England, and would be receiving all the attention she required. She had been so badly mauled that he doubted she would have survived the long Atlantic crossing if her pumps had not been kept going throughout every watch.

He gritted his teeth to prevent them from chattering. Some captains would have donned a thick boat-cloak to keep out the cold. James Tyacke did not entertain the idea. Indomitable ’s company had to work as best they could in their usual clothing, and he did not believe that he should take advantage of his rank. It was not some facile act to impress the men. It was merely Tyacke’s way.

Like the empty nettings. Ordinarily, when the hands were piped to show a leg and make ready for another working day in harbour, the hammocks were neatly stowed there, and kept in the nettings during the day: when the ship was called to battle they offered the only protection from flying splinters for the helmsmen and officers on the quarterdeck. But life was hard enough in a King’s ship, Tyacke thought, and here, when the only heating throughout Indomitable’s impressive one hundred and eighty feet was the galley stove, wet hammocks at the end of the day would have made things even more uncomfortable.

Figures loomed and faded in the mist, officers waiting to ask him questions, others wanting final instructions before they were pulled ashore to collect the quantities of stores and supplies required by this ship-of-war. My ship. But the satisfaction would not come, and the pride he occasionally allowed himself to feel kept its distance.

It was March, 1813. He stared along the deck. It was impossible to believe that next month he would have been in command of Indomitable for two whole years. What next? Where bound, and to what end? Indomitable was more powerful than most of her class. Built as a third-rate, a ship of the line, she had been cut down to perform the role of a heavily-armed frigate, and as she had proved in September when she had stood alongside the USS Unity, she was more than a match for the superior American firepower with her forty 24-pounders and four 18-pounders, as well as the other weapons she carried.

Surrounded by busy seamen whom he could barely see, Tyacke continued his walk, his forenoon solitude respected. He smiled briefly. It had not been easy, but he had welded them into one company. They had cursed him, feared him, hated him, but that was in the past.

The lessons had been learned. He looked down at the wet deck planking. They had paid for it, too. When the mist cleared as Isaac York, the sailing-master, had claimed it would, the repairs and replaced planks and timbers would be visible despite the caulking and the tar, the fresh paint and the varnish. Men had died aplenty that day in September. Matthew Scarlett, the first lieutenant, impaled on a boarding-pike, his last scream lost in the yells and the fury, the clash of steel and the crash of gunfire. Ships fighting, men dying, many of whom had probably already been forgotten by those who had once known them. And just there… he glanced at a newly painted shot-garland, Midshipman Deane, hardly more than a child, had been pulped into nothing by one of Unity’s massive balls. And all the while the admiral and his tall flag lieutenant had walked the scarred deck, allowing themselves to be seen by the men who, because of pressgang or patriotism, were fighting for their lives, for the ship. He smiled again. And, of course, for their captain, although he would never regard it in that light.

Tyacke had always hated the thought of serving in a major war vessel, let alone one that wore an admiral’s flag. Bolitho had changed that. And strangely, in his absence, without the admiral’s flag at the mainmast truck, Tyacke felt no sense of independence or freedom. Being forced to remain in harbour undergoing repairs while they awaited orders had merely increased his feeling of confinement. Tyacke loved the open sea: more than most, he needed it. He touched the right side of his face and saw it in his mind as he did when he shaved every morning. Scored away, burned, like something inhuman. How his eye had survived was a mystery.

He thought again of those who had fallen here, not least the one-legged cook named Troughton. He could recall the moment when he had assumed command of Indomitable, his stomach knotted with nerves as he had prepared to read himself in to the assembled company. He had forced himself to accept the stares and the pity in his previous command, the brig Larne. Small, intimate, with every hand dependent on the others, she had been his life. Bolitho himself had once referred to her as the loneliest command imaginable. He had understood that solitude was what Tyacke needed more than anything.

He had known that first day aboard Indomitable that those who had waited in the silence for him were undoubtedly more worried about their new captain’s character than his disfigurement: he was, after all, the lord and master who could make or break any one of them as he chose. It had not made his ordeal easier, starting again under the eyes of strangers, in what had seemed a vast ship after Larne. A company of two hundred seventy officers, seamen and Royal Marines: a world of difference.

One man had made it possible for him: Troughton. Indomitable ’s company had watched in disbelief as their new and hideously scarred captain had embraced the man, who had been crippled by the same broadside that had burst in on Tyacke’s yelling, sweating gun crews, at what they now called the Battle of the Nile. Troughton had been a young seaman then. Tyacke had always believed him dead, as most of those around him had died when his world had exploded, and left him as he was now.

Now even Troughton was gone. Tyacke had not known until two days after the fight with the Americans. He did not even know where he had come from, or if there was anyone to mourn him.

He felt a slight movement against his cheek, the wind returning. York might be proved right yet again. He was fortunate to have such a sailing-master: York had served as master’s mate in this ship, and had won promotion in the only way Tyacke truly respected, through skill and experience.

So the fog would clear, and they would see the harbour once more, the ships and the town, and the well-sited central battery that would repulse any attempt, even by the most foolhardy commander, to cut out an anchored merchantman or some of the American prizes which had been brought here.

Forlorn, and in much the same condition as she had been after the battle, the American frigate Baltimore was beyond recovery. Perhaps she would be used as a hulk or stores vessel. But isolated and partly aground as she was now, she was a constant reminder of the day when America ’s superior frigates had been challenged and beaten.

Sir Richard Bolitho would be back soon. Tyacke hesitated in his regular pacing. Suppose he was directed elsewhere? The Admiralty was never averse to changing its collective mind. In despatches brought by the last courier brig Tyacke had been warned of Valentine Keen’s impending arrival in Halifax: he would hoist his flag in Valkyrie, another converted two-decker like Indomitable, with Adam Bolitho as his flag captain. It was still hard to fathom why he would want to come back to these waters. Tyacke was acquainted with Keen, and had attended his wedding, but he did not consider that he knew him as a man. This would be his first command as a flag officer: he might be out for glory. And he had recently lost both wife and child. Tyacke touched his burned face again. It could scar a man more deeply than others might realize.

He saw a guard-boat pulling abeam, the armed marines straightening their backs in the stern sheets as Indomitable took shape above them through the thinning fog.

He returned his mind to the Valkyrie, still invisible in the misty harbour. Peter Dawes was her present captain, and acting commodore until Keen’s arrival: he was a post-captain, young, approachable, competent. But there were limits. Dawes was an admiral’s son, and it was rumoured that he would be raised to flag rank as soon as he was replaced here. Tyacke had always nursed doubts about him, and had told Bolitho openly that Dawes might prove reluctant to risk his reputation and the prospect of promotion when they most needed his support. It was all written in the log now: history. They had fought and won on that terrible day. Tyacke could recall his own fury and despair: he had picked up a discarded boarding-axe and had smashed it into one of Unity’s ladders. His own words still came in the night to mock him. And for what?

He knew Bolitho had warned others about the difference. This was not a foreign enemy, no matter what the flags proclaimed. Not French, or Dutchman, or Spaniard, the old and familiar adversaries. You heard the same voices as your own from these settlers in the new world, who were fighting for what they considered their freedom. Accents from the West Country and the Downs, from Norfolk and Scotland: it was like fighting your own flesh and blood. That was the vital difference in this war.

On one of his visits to Valkyrie Tyacke had aired his views on Bolitho’s recall to London. He had not minced his words. Senseless, he had called it. Bolitho was needed here, to lead, and to exploit their hard-won victory.

He had paced the big cabin while Dawes had sat at his table, an expensive glass held in one hand. Amused? Indifferent?

Tyacke had added, “The weather will ease soon. The Yankees will need to move. If they can’t win by sea, they’ll press on by land. They’ll be able to bring artillery right up to the Canadian frontier.”

Dawes had shaken his head. “I think not. Some kind of settlement will be negotiated. You really should give Their Lordships more credit, both for what they are and what they know.”

Tyacke had barely heard him. “Our soldiers captured Detroit with the whole Yankee army defending it. Do you really think they’ll not use every means to retake it, and give our soldiers a bloody nose for their trouble?”

Dawes had been suddenly impatient. “There are great lakes to cross, rivers to navigate, forts to breach before they can do that. Do you imagine that our American cousins, the ‘Yankees’ as you so colourfully call them, will not measure the cost of such foolhardy action?”

Beyond discussing an invitation to the local army commander-in-chief ’s Christmas reception, which Tyacke had declined to attend, they had scarcely spoken since.

Becoming an admiral was more important to Dawes than anything, and it was beginning to look as if doing nothing and keeping the main part of the squadron tied up in Halifax was far more attractive than behaving with any initiative that might rebound on him personally, and be seen as folly or worse.

Tyacke began to pace again. Out there, like it or not, there were enemy ships, and they were a constant threat. Dawes had only permitted local patrols, and then had detached nothing larger than a brig, claiming that Adam Bolitho’s escape and vengeful attack in Zest, and Bolitho’s personal victory would have made the Americans think again before attempting once more to harass convoys between Halifax and the West Indies. Napoleon was on the retreat: the despatches were full of it. Tyacke swore angrily. He had been hearing that same story for so many years, from the time when Napoleon had landed his army in Egypt, and French fire had burned his face away.

It was all the more reason for the Americans to act now, and without further delay, while British forces and a whole fleet that could otherwise be released for these waters were concentrated on the old enemy, France.

And when peace came, that impossible dream, what would he do? There was nothing in England for him. He had felt like a stranger on his last visit, when he had been given Indomitable. Africa, then? He had been happy there. Or was that only another delusion?

He saw the first lieutenant, John Daubeny, waiting to catch his eye. Tyacke had toyed with the idea of accepting a more senior officer to replace Scarlett. Daubeny, like most of the wardroom, was young, perhaps too young for the post of senior lieutenant. Dawes had suggested that one of his own lieutenants be appointed.

Tyacke grinned fiercely. That must have decided it. In any case, Daubeny had matured on that September day, like most of them. It was the navy’s way. A man died or was transferred: another took his place. Like dead men’s shoes after a hanging. Even the pompous Midshipman Blythe, who had been confirmed lieutenant and was now the most junior officer aboard, had proved both efficient and attentive to detail, to Tyacke’s surprise, and his own division of seamen, who had known his arrogance as a midshipman, had shown him a grudging respect. They would never like him, but it was a beginning, and Tyacke was satisfied.

“Yes, Mr Daubeny?”

Daubeny touched his hat. “We shall complete stowage today, sir.”

Tyacke grunted, picturing his ship at a distance, her trim in the water, gauging the feel of her.

He said, “Tell my cox’n to prepare the gig when it’s time. I’ll go around her once more. We might still have to move some of that extra powder and shot further aft.” He was not aware of the pride that had crept into his voice. “This lady will want to fly when she finds open water again!”

Daubeny had noticed. He knew he would never be close to the captain: Tyacke kept his emotional distance, as if he were afraid to reveal his true feelings. Only with Sir Richard Bolitho had Daubeny ever seen him change, had sensed the warmth, the unspoken understanding and obvious respect of each for the other. He recalled them together, here, on this same untroubled deck. It was hard to believe that it had happened, that such chilling sights were possible. His inner voice spoke for him. That I survived.

He said, “I shall be glad to see Sir Richard’s flag hoisted again, sir.”

He did not even flinch when Tyacke faced him, as he had once done. How much worse it must be for him, he thought. The stares, the revulsion, and yes, the disapproval.

Tyacke smiled. “You speak for us both, Mr Daubeny!”

He turned away as York, the sailing-master, emerged from the companion, without a glance at the receding fog.

“You were right, Mr York! You have brought better weather for us!” Then he held up his hand and said sharply, “Listen!” The hammering and the muted thuds between decks had stopped. Only six months since that last ball had smashed into the carnage of broken men. They had done well.

York studied him gravely. So many times in the last two years he had watched the captain’s moods, his anguish and his defiance. He had once heard Tyacke say of Sir Richard Bolitho, “I would serve no other.” He could have said the same himself, of this brave, lonely man.

He said, “Then we’re ready, sir!”

Daubeny was listening, sharing it. At first he had thought he would be unable to fill Lieutenant Scarlett’s shoes after he had fallen. He had even been afraid. That was yesterday. Now Scarlett was just another ghost, without substance or threat.

He stared up at the furled sails, moisture pouring from them like tropical rain. Like the ship, the Old Indom as the sailors called her, he was ready.

Three weeks outward-bound from Portsmouth, Hampshire, to Halifax, Nova Scotia, His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Wakeful was within days of her landfall. Even Adam Bolitho, with all his hard-won experience as a frigate captain, could not recall a more violent passage. February into March, with the Atlantic using every mood and trick against them.

Although it was Wakeful’s young captain’s first command, he had held it for two years, and two years in a frigate used almost exclusively for carrying vital despatches to flag officers and far-flung squadrons was equal to a lifetime in a lesser vessel. South-west and into the teeth of the Atlantic gales, with men knocked senseless by incoming seas, or in danger of being hurled from the upper yards while they kicked and fisted half-frozen canvas that could tear out a man’s fingernails like pips from a lemon. Watch keeping became a nightmare of noise and cruel discomfort; estimating their daily progress, unable even to stream the log, was based on dead reckoning, or, as the sailing-master put it, by guess and by God.

For the passengers down aft, it was uncomfortable but strangely detached from the rest of the ship and her weary company, piped again and again to the braces or aloft to reef the sails when they had only just been given a moment’s rest in their messes. Simply trying to carry hot food from the swaying, pitching galley was a test of skill.

Sealed off from the life of the ship, and her daily fight against the common enemy, Adam and his new flag officer remained curiously apart. Keen spent most of his time reading his lengthy instructions from the Admiralty, or making notes as he studied various charts beneath the wildly spiralling lanterns. They burned day and night: little light penetrated the stern windows, which were either streaming with spume from a following gale, or so smeared with salt that even the rearing waves were distorted into wild and threatening creatures.

Adam could appreciate all of it. Had Wakeful been an ordinary fleet frigate she would likely have been short-handed, or at best manned by unskilled newcomers, snatched up by the press or offered for duty by the local assize court. This required trained seamen, who had worked together long enough to know the strength of their ship and the value of their captain. He had thought often enough, as Anemone had been.

Whenever he could be spared from his duties Captain Hyde had made it his business to visit them. No wonder he had not hesitated to offer his own quarters for their use: Hyde spent as many, if not more, hours on deck than any of his men.

Whenever possible Adam had sat with Keen in the cabin, and had washed down the wardroom fare with a plentiful supply of wine. To expect anything hot to drink was out of the question. The wine, however, had added no intimacy to their conversations.

Hyde must have noticed that Keen had made no impossible demands, and had not once complained of discomfort, nor had he requested a change of tack to seek out calmer waters even at the expense of losing time. It was obviously something which had surprised Hyde, in spite of Adam’s first description of the admiral.

On one rare occasion when Hyde had given up the fight, and Wakeful had lain hove-to under storm canvas waiting for the weather to ease, Keen had seemed willing to share his confidences. Afterwards, Adam thought it might have been easier for both of them if they had been total strangers.

Keen had said, “I cannot tell you how pleased I was to have your letter of agreement to this appointment. We have known one another for a long time, and we have shared and lost many good friends.” He had hesitated, perhaps thinking of Hyperion; he had been Bolitho’s flag captain when the old ship had gone down, with her flag still flying. “We have seen fine ships destroyed.” They had listened to the wind, and the sea hissing against the stern windows like a cave of serpents. “The sea is no less a tyrant than war, I sometimes think.”

He had seemed to want to talk, and Adam had found himself studying his companion with new eyes. When Keen had been piped aboard at Portsmouth with full honours, and the port admiral to welcome him in person, Adam had felt the old hurt and resentment. Keen had worn no mark of mourning, either then or since. Nor had he mentioned Zenoria, other than to acknowledge the port admiral’s meaningless murmurs of condolence.

Keen had said, “When I was your uncle’s flag captain, even though I had known him since I was a lowly midshipman, I was uncertain of the measure of confidence between us. Perhaps I did not understand the true difference between the position of flag captain, and a captain like our youthful Martin Hyde. Sir Richard showed me the way, without favour, and without overriding my own opinions merely to exercise the privileges of rank. It meant a great deal to me, and I hope I did not disappoint his trust.” He had smiled, rather sadly. “Or his friendship, which means so much to me, and which helped to save my mind.”

He could not think of them together. Keen, always so outwardly assured, attractive to women, his hair so fair that it looked almost white against his tanned features. But… as lovers… He was repulsed by it.

The boy John Whitmarsh, legs braced against the movement of the deck and lower lip pouting with concentration, had carried more wine to the table.

Keen had watched him, and after he had departed had said absently, “A pleasant youth. What shall you do with him?” He had not waited for, or perhaps expected, an answer. “I used to plan things for my boy, Perran. I wish I had had more time to know him.”

The table had been cleared by Whitmarsh and one of the captain’s mess men. He had said quietly, “I want you to feel you can always speak your mind to me, Adam. Admiral and captain, but most of all friends. As I was, and am, with your uncle.” He had seemed uneasy, disturbed then by some thought. “And Lady Catherine-that goes without saying.”

And then, eventually, Wakeful had changed course, north-west-by-north to take full advantage of the obliging Westerlies as, close-hauled, they started on the last leg of their journey.

Of Halifax Keen had remarked, “My father has friends there.”

Again a note of bitterness had crept into his voice. “In the way of trade, I believe.” Then, “I just want to be doing something. Peter Dawes might have fresh information by the time we arrive.”

On another occasion, when they had been free to walk the quarterdeck, and there had even been a suggestion of sunlight on the dark, rearing crests, Keen had mentioned Adam’s escape, and John Allday’s son, who had risked everything to help him, only to fall in the battle with Unity. Keen had paused to watch some gulls skimming within inches of the sea’s face, screaming a welcome. He had said, “I remember when we were together in the boat after that damned Golden Plover went down.” He had spoken with such vehemence that Adam had felt him reliving it. “Some birds flew over the boat. We were nearly finished. But for Lady Catherine I don’t know what we would have done. I heard your uncle say to her, tonight those birds will nest in Africa.” He had looked at Adam without seeing him. “It made all the difference. Land, I thought. We are no longer alone, without hope.”

As the miles rolled away in Wakeful’s lively wake, Adam had shared few other confidences with his new rear-admiral. Others might look at him and say, there is a favoured one, who has everything. In fact, his rank was all he had.

And then, on that last full day when they had both been on deck, the air like knives in their faces.

“Have you ever thought of getting married, Adam? You should. This life is hard on the women, but I sometimes think…”

Mercifully, the masthead had yelled, “Deck there! Land on th’ weather bow!”

Hyde had joined them, beaming and rubbing his raw hands. Glad it was over, more so that he was ridding himself of his extra responsibilities.

“With good fortune we shall anchor in the forenoon tomorrow, sir.” He had been looking at the rear-admiral, but his words had been for Adam. The satisfaction of making a landfall. Even the ocean had seemed calmer, until the next challenge.

Keen had walked to the quarterdeck rail, oblivious to the idlers off-watch who were chattering, some even laughing, sharing the same elation at what they had achieved. Men against the sea.

He had said, without turning his head, “You may hoist my flag at the mizzen at first light, Captain Hyde.” Then he did turn and face them. “And, thank you.” But he had been looking past them, through them, as if he had been speaking to someone else.

Hyde had asked, “May I invite you and Captain Bolitho to sup with my officers and me, sir? It is quite an occasion for us.”

Adam had seen Keen’s face. Empty, like a stranger’s.

“I think not, Captain Hyde. I have some papers to study before we anchor.” He made another attempt. “My flag captain will do the honours.”

Perhaps it had been then, and only then, that the impact of his loss had really struck him.

It would have to be a new beginning, for them both.

Richard Bolitho walked across the cabin deck, and paused by the table where Yovell was melting wax to seal one of the many written orders he had copied.

“I think that will be an end to it for today.” The deck was rising again, the rudder-head thudding noisily as the transport Royal Enterprise lifted and then ploughed into another criss-cross of deep troughs. He knew Avery was watching him from the security of a chair which was lashed firmly between two ringbolts. A rough passage, even for a ship well used to such violence. It would soon be over, and still he had not reconciled himself, or confronted his doubts at the prospect of returning to a war which could never be won, but must never be lost. He was holding on, refusing to surrender, even when they were separated by an ocean.

He said, “Well, George, we will dine directly. I am glad I have a flag lieutenant whose appetite is unimpaired by the Atlantic in ill temper!”

Avery smiled. He should be used to it, to the man, by now. But he could still be surprised by the way Bolitho seemed able to put his personal preoccupations behind him, or at least conceal them from others. From me. Avery had guessed what the return to duty had cost him, but when he had stepped aboard the transport at Plymouth there had been nothing to reveal the pain of parting from his mistress after so brief a reunion.

Bolitho was watching the last of the wax dripping onto the envelope like blood before Yovell set his seal upon it. He had not spared himself, but he knew very well that by the time they reached Halifax and rejoined the squadron everything might have changed, rendering their latest intelligence useless. Time and distance were the elements that determined the war at sea. Instinct, fate, experience, it was all and none of them, and ignorance was often fatal.

Avery watched the sea dashing across the thick stern windows. The ship had been more comfortable than he had expected, with a tough and disciplined company used to fast passages and taking avoiding action against suspicious sails instead of standing to fight. The Admiralty orders made that very clear to every such vessel and her master: they were to deliver their passengers or small, important cargoes at any cost. They were usually underarmed; the Royal Enterprise mounted only some nine-pounders and a few swivels. Speed, not glory, was her purpose.

They’d had only one mishap. The ship had been struck by a violent squall as she was about to change tack. Her fore-topgallant mast and yard had carried away, and one of her boats had been torn from its tier and flung over the side like a piece of flotsam. The ship’s company had got down to work immediately; they were used to such hazards, but her master, a great lump of a man named Samuel Tregullon, was outraged by the incident. A Cornishman from Penzance, Tregullon was intensely proud of his ship’s record, and her ability to carry out to the letter the instructions of the men at Admiralty who, in his view, had likely never set foot on a deck in their lives. To be delayed with such an important passenger in his care, and a fellow Cornishman at that, was bad enough. But as he had confided over a tankard of rum during a visit to the cabin, another transport, almost a sister ship of his own, the Royal Herald, had left Plymouth a few days after them, and would now reach Halifax before them.

Bolitho had commented afterwards to Avery, “Another old Cornish rivalry. I’ll lay odds that neither of them can remember how it all began.”

Bolitho had asked him about London, but he had not pressed the point, for which Avery was grateful. During the long night watches when he had lain awake, listening to the roar of the sea and the protesting groan of timbers, he had thought of little else.

He had felt no sense of triumph or revenge, as he had once believed he would. Had she been amusing herself with him? Playing with him, as she had once done? Or had he imagined that, too? A woman like her, so poised, so confident amongst people who lived in an entirely different world from his own… Why would she risk everything if she had no deeper feeling for him?

None of the repeated questions had been answered.

He should have left her. Should never have gone to the house in the first place. He looked across at Bolitho, who was speaking warmly with Yovell, more like old friends than admiral and servant. What would he think if he knew that his wife Belinda had been there that day, obviously just as at home in that elegant and superficial world as all the others?

Yovell stood up, and grimaced as the deck swayed over again. “Ah, they were right about me, Sir Richard. I must be mad to share the life of a sailor!”

He gathered his papers and prepared to leave, perhaps to join Allday and Ozzard before the evening meal. Allday would be feeling the separation badly, and there would be a long wait for that first letter, which Avery knew he would bring for him to read aloud. Another precious link in the little crew: Allday was a proud man, and Avery had been touched by the simplicity and dignity of his request that Avery read to him the letters from Unis that he could not read for himself.

Would Susanna ever write to him? He wanted to laugh at his own pathetic hopes. Of course she would not. Within weeks she would have forgotten him. She had money, she had beauty, and she was free. But he would think of her again tonight… He had tried to compare his position with that of Bolitho and his mistress, although he knew it was ridiculous. There was no comparison. Apart from that one memory, what had happened was a closed door, the finish of something which had always been hopeless.

He looked up, startled, afraid that he had missed something or that Bolitho had spoken to him. But they were as before, framed against the grey stern windows, the sea already losing its menace as the fading light obscured it.

Bolitho turned and looked at him. “Did you hear?”

Yovell steadied himself against the table. “Another storm, Sir Richard.”

“The glass says otherwise.” He tensed. “There. Again.”

Yovell said, “Thunder?”

Avery was on his feet. So unlike a ship-of-war; too long at sea with nothing but the sea to challenge you. Day after day, week in, week out. And then the boredom and the noisy routine were forgotten.

He said, “Gunfire, sir.”

There was a rap on the door and Allday stepped into the cabin. He moved so lightly when he wanted to, for such a big man, and one who was in more pain from his old wound than he would ever admit.

Bolitho said, “You heard, old friend?”

Allday looked at them. “I wasn’t sure, an’ then.” He shook his shaggy head. “Not a thing to lie easy on your mind, Sir Richard.”

Avery asked, “Shall I go and speak with the master, sir?”

Bolitho glanced at the screen door. “No. It is not our place.” He smiled at Ozzard, who had also appeared, a tray of glasses balanced in his hands. “Not yet, in any case.”

Eventually Samuel Tregullon made his way aft, his battered hat clutched in one beefy hand like a scrap of felt.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, Zur Richard, but ye’ll be knowing about the guns.” He shook his head as Ozzard offered him a glass, not because he was involved with his ship but because he usually drank only neat rum. A sailor, from his clear eyes to his thick wrists and the hands that were like pieces of meat. Collier brig, Falmouth packet, one-time smuggler and now a King’s man: what Bolitho’s father would have described as all spunyarn and marline spikes.

Tregullon nodded briefly as Ozzard replaced the glass with a tankard. “Never fear, Zur Richard. I’ll get you to Halifax as I was ordered, an’ take you there I will. I can outsail any felon, theirs or ours!” He grinned, his uneven teeth like a broken fence. “I’m too old a hand to be caught aback!”

After he had gone, the distant gunfire continued for half an hour and then stopped, as if quenched by the sea itself.

The master returned, grim-faced, to say that he was resuming course and tack. It was over.

Bolitho said suddenly, “Yours is an experienced company, Captain Tregullon. None better at this work, I think you said?”

Tregullon eyed him suspiciously. “I did, Zur Richard. That I did.”

“I think we should make every effort to investigate what we have heard. At first light the sea may ease. I feel it.”

Tregullon was not convinced. “I have my orders, zur. They comes from the lords of Admiralty. No matter how I feels about it, I am not able or willing to change those orders.” He tried to smile, but it evaded him. “Not even for you, zur.”

Bolitho walked to the stern windows and leaned against the glass. “The lords of Admiralty, you say?” He turned, his face in shadow, the white lock of hair above his eye like a brushstroke. “We’re all sailors here. We all know there is someone far higher who controls our lives, and listens to our despair when it pleases Him.”

Tregullon licked his lips. “I knows that, zur. But what can I do?”

Bolitho said quietly, “There are men out there, Captain Tregullon. In need, and likely in fear. It may already be too late, and I am well aware of the risk to your ship. To you and your company.”

“Not least to you, zur!” But there was no fight in his voice. He sighed. “Very well. I’ll do it.” He looked up angrily. “Not for you, with all respect, zur, an’ not for His Majesty, bless his soul.” He stared at his crumpled hat. “For me. It has to be so.”

Bolitho and Avery ate their meal in silence: the whole ship seemed to be holding her breath. Only the creak of the rudder and the occasional thud of feet overhead gave any hint that everything had changed.

At first light, as Bolitho had expected, the wind and sea eased; and with every available telescope and lookout searching for the presence of danger Tregullon shortened sail, and, arms folded, watched the darkness falling away and the sea eventually tinge with silver to mark each trough and roller.

Avery joined Bolitho on the broad quarterdeck, where he was standing in silence by the weather side, his black hair blowing unheeded in the bitter air. Once or twice Avery saw him touch his injured eye, impatient, even resentful that his concentration was interrupted.

Captain Tregullon joined him, and said gruffly, “We tried, Zur Richard. If there was anything, we were too late.” He watched Bolitho’s profile, seeking something. “I’d best lay her on a new tack.”

He was about to shamble away when the cry came down, sharp and crisp, like the call of a hawk.

“Wreckage in th’ water, sir! Lee bow!”

There was a lot of it. Planks and timber, drifting cordage and broken or upended boats, most of it charred and splintered by the fierceness of the bombardment.

Bolitho waited while the ship came into the wind, and a boat was lowered with one of the master’s mates in charge.

There were a few dead, lolling as if asleep as the waves carried them by. The boat moved slowly amongst them, the bowman pulling each sodden corpse alongside with his hook and then quickly discarding it, unwilling, it seemed, to interrupt such a final journey.

Except for one. The master’s mate took some time with it, and even without a glass Avery could see the dead face, the gaping wounds, all that was left of a man.

The boat returned and was hoisted inboard with a minimum of fuss. Avery heard the master pass his orders for getting under way again. Heavy, unhurried: the ship, as always, coming first.

Then he came aft and waited for Bolitho to face him. “My mate knew that dead sailor, Zur Richard. I expect we knew most of ’em.”

Bolitho said, “She was the Royal Herald, was she not?”

“She was, zur. Because of our losing the t’gallant mast she overreached us. They was waiting. They knew we was coming.” Then he said in a hoarse whisper, “It was you they was after, Zur Richard. They wanted you dead.”

Bolitho touched his thick arm. “So it would seem. Instead, many good men died.”

Then he turned and looked at Avery, and beyond him, Allday. “We thought we had left the war behind, my friends. Now it has come to meet us.”

There was no anger or bitterness, only sorrow. The respite was over.