Man of War

2. Their Lordship's Command

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

She had forgotten how long it had been since the coach had rattled

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lowenna.

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

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

Plymouth to join Lord Exmouth's squadron.

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

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

"Was he badly injured?"

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

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

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

She heard the rain, louder now, pattering against the windows.

She often thought of this room, and the women who had stood here and waited for a ship, the ship, which one day would not return.

The grave, watching faces lining the stairway told the full story.

Adam took her hands in his. "You see, Aunt Nancy, I am in love with that girl."

She waited, her inner voice whispering, don't be hurt again, Adam.

There were sounds on the stairs now. The youth, David Napier, who had come with Adam as on his previous visit, excited despite the loss of Unrivalled. His hero worship had moved her more than anything. Especially when the portly Daniel Yovell had whispered like a conspirator when Adam had gone out of the house, striding almost blindly, as if he had been searching, unable to accept what she had told him.

It had been before the Bolitho coach, with Young Matthew on the box, had even left Plymouth.

Yovell had described it, squinting, his gold-rimmed spectacles pushed up on to his forehead as she had seen them so often. "It was a tailor's shop in Fore Street, for naval and military gentlemen. Captain Adam bought that fine coat for the boy… Sir Richard had an account there also." He had overcome a sudden, poignant sadness. "The tailor comes out, rubbing his hands, m' lady, sharp as you please, and asks, "What will you be wanting this time, Captain Bolitho?" And then the Captain puts a hand on the lad's shoulder and says calmly, "Your services for this young gentleman. Measure him for a midshipman's uniform." And the lad staring at him, eyes filling his face, unable to believe what the Captain had done, been scheming, indeed, for months."

Nancy had understood immediately but had said nothing to Napier. Adam had acted despite what had awaited Unrivalled's return. It was what Richard might have done. The very thought made her eyes fill with tears.

She asked quickly, "When will you hear about a new appointment?"

Adam smiled, glad to break the uncertainty. "I was told that word will be sent from the Admiralty, direct to this house." He looked around the study again, and at the portrait near the window. All the Bolithos, except Hugh, his own father.

He put it from his thoughts. "It means there will be a ship."

"A frigate?"

"I am a frigate captain."

She turned away and adjusted a small vase of primroses. Dear Grace always managed to brighten the house with some sort of blossom, even in March, when a Bolitho was coming home from the sea.

She hung on Adam's words. They were what Richard had said when he had returned from the Great South Sea with the fever which had almost killed him.

And their lordships had given him, not a frigate, but the old Hyper ion.

Adam picked up a sketch from the desk, a mermaid and a passing ship. He felt a chill, like the whispered betrayal of a secret. Zenoria, who had flung herself to her death from the cliffs… like the little sketch his cousin Elizabeth had sent him. Richard's daughter. Tragic even to think of what had happened. The love and the hatred, a child in the middle of it.

He asked abruptly, "How is Elizabeth? Happy enough with you, I'll wager."

Nancy did not answer. Adam and the young daughter of the country's hero, my admiral of England, as Catherine had called him, had one thing in common.

They were quite alone.

On the opposite side of the house, by the stable yard, Bryan Ferguson stood at the window and watched Daniel Yovell finishing a bowl of soup which Grace had prepared.

"That should keep the cold out, my friend. There's a good fire in your cottage, too… we've kept an eye on things for you since you "volunteered" for service! "

Yovell put down the spoon. "That was a goodly welcome, Bryan." He nodded toward a pile of estate ledgers. "Perhaps I can give you some help with that?"

Ferguson sighed. "I'd not say no to that." He changed the subject. "We knew you were on your way home some days ago. The courier brig brought word. News travels fast around here."

Yovell loosened his coat and felt for his watch.

"We saw her leave when we were still at Gibraltar." He frowned. "She was bringing the reports of Unrivalled'?" damage to Plymouth. I think the Captain knew then, in his heart. He tried to shut it from his mind. Unrivalled meant so much to him. In my poor way I strive to understand, but a captain of any ship must see things quite differently."

Ferguson looked at the ledgers. As steward of the estate he tried to be meticulous, to miss nothing. But he was not a young man any more. He did not even glance at his pinned-up sleeve, nor consciously recall the Battle of the Saintes, where he had lost his arm thirty-five years ago. Grace had nursed him back to health and Captain Richard Bolitho had offered him the post of steward.

As if reading his thoughts, Yovell said, "D'you still see much of JohnAllday?"

"He comes over from Fallowfield for a wet every week. We go down to the harbour sometimes. He likes to watch the ships. He still feels it, very badly." He walked to the fire and poked it; it was spitting in the rain lancing down the squat chimney.

He paused to pat the cat, dozing as usual by the hob, and added, "Captain Adam's coxswain… he looks a hard one." It was a question.

Yovell smiled, his glasses slipping down again. "Chalk and cheese, some might say, but they hit it off from from the start. Not another Allday, though! "

They both laughed.

Outside, sheltering beneath the overhanging stable roof, David Napier turned his head to listen. It was getting dark already. He knew he should be tired after the drive from Plymouth. Drained. But he could not throw off the feeling of confused disbelief. The welcome had been genuine and overwhelming. Grace Ferguson had almost smothered him, demanding to know about his wounded leg; she had shown even more concern than on the occasion of his previous visit. At the request of his captain. He had gone over it again and again. Like the second operation on his leg, which the Irish surgeon O'Beirne had carried out at sea just before the bloody battle at Algiers. The wound had become poisoned, and the alternative was death. He could not believe that he

had not been afraid. The sudden agony of the knife, hands pinning him down on the table, the pain mounting to match the screams he knew had been his own; he had nearly choked on the strap between his teeth until merciful darkness had saved him.

And then, through it all, he had remembered the Captain's arm on his bare, sweat-soaked shoulder. And his voice, saying something about a pony ride. He turned and peered into the stable at Jupiter, the pony, high-spirited and contemptuous of his untrained efforts to ride him on that first visit to this great house, which he dared now to think of as a home.

Jupiter snorted and stamped, and Napier withdrew his hand. The coachman they all called Young Matthew, although he must be years older than the captain, had told him about the pony's habit of biting whenever he saw the opportunity. What would his mother think if she could see him here? He shut his mind. She would not care.

The rain was stopping. He would find the kitchen and see if he could help the cook with something.

He licked his lips. It would not go away. That moment when the coach had swayed to a halt outside a shop and the Captain had said, almost sharply, "Come with me. This won't take long."

Even then he had believed the Captain was in distress about the ship, still suffering those last moments which he had endured alone, with the final handshake and the gig bearing off from the jetty. He would have understood that well enough.

But when the Captain had said to the beaming tailor with his gaudy waistcoat and dangling tape measure, for this young gentleman, he had not been joking. He had known that, seeing Yovell's obvious delight, A midshipman's uniform.

Part of a dream. Unreal. He might change his mind. This young gentleman.

And why did he believe he could rise to the incredible offer of a new life?

"You there is anybody about today?"

Napier swung round, shading his eyes with his wrist in a shaft of watery sunshine. He had not even heard the approaching horse, he had been so deep in his thoughts.

It was a young woman, riding side-saddle and dressed all in red, the habit the colour of some of the wine he sometimes served his captain. She had dark hair, tied back with a scarf, and was soaked with rain.

She tossed her head. "Are you going to help me, or are you just going to stare?"

A door banged open and old Jeb Trinnick, who, Napier had been told, had been in charge of the stables since any one could remember, limped on to the cobbles. A giant of a man, his appearance was made more fierce some by his solitary eye, the other having been lost in a carriage accident so long ago that the story had grown into legend.

He glared at the mounted girl and said, "Lady Roxby won't be none too pleased about you comin' 'ere all alone, Missy. What's become of young "Arry?"

Again the scornful toss of the head. "He couldn't keep up." She gestured to a mounting block. "Help me down, will you?"

Napier reached up as she slid from the saddle, and old Jeb Trinnick led the horse away, still muttering to himself.

She stepped down to the ground and glanced at him. "New here, aren't you?"

Not a woman after all. No more than a girl. Napier was not a good judge of ages, especially of her sex, but he guessed she was, like himself, fifteen or close enough. She was very pretty, and her hair, which he had thought dark, was drying to the colour of chestnuts in the fading light.

"I'm with Captain Bolitho, miss."

He noticed the way she stood and moved, confident, impatient. He did not see her start at the sound of the Captain's name.

"His servant." She nodded. "Yes, I think I heard something about a visit. Last year? You fell off a donkey."

"I can take you to him, if you wish, miss?"

She watched the stalls being opened.

"I think I can find my way." But she was staring at the nearest loose box, at the powerful horse shaking its head in the direction of an approaching stable boy.

She was about to leave. Napier said, "A fine mare, miss. She's called Tamara."

The girl stopped on the steps and looked directly into his face. It was the first time he had seen her eyes. Grey-blue, like the sea.

She said, "I know. It killed my mother."

Old Jeb Trinnick came past and watched her walk up to the house.

"Stay clear of that one, my son. Too good for the likes of us, or so she thinks, I daresay."

Napier was looking at the big mare, which was watching the boy with the bucket.

"Was that true about her mother?"

"Her fault." The eye swivelled round to another boy forking scattered straw. "Lady Bolitho, Sir Richard's widow, she was." His rugged features creased into a smile. "Good to have the young Cap'n here again. But I suppose you'll be off soon? The way of sailor men He turned away as some one called his name.

It was then that it hit Napier, like opening a door and coming face to face with a nightmare. On board Unrivalled he had seen several midshipmen join for the first time. Young, eager, some completely inexperienced. He had heard them meeting the Captain. He gripped the stable door tightly.

If he was to become a midshipman, he would be facing it alone.

They would not be sailing together. Not this time. Perhaps never.

His own words came back to mock him. We take care of each other.

"Still on yer feet, then? I'd have thought you'd be tucked up in a nice soft cot somewheres, while you've still got the chance! "

Napier swung round guiltily, wondering if he had spoken his thoughts aloud.

But it was Luke Jago, a heavy chest over one shoulder as if it weighed nothing, and in contrast holding a long, delicate clay pipe in his other hand.

Jago did not wait for an answer. "They've fixed me up with a room in Bryan Ferguson's cottage. Grace is goin' to bake some-thin' special tonight, just for me."

Napier was always surprised that Jago could accept or overcome almost anything. He spoke of the steward and his wife as if he had known them for years. A hard man, dangerous if crossed, but always fair. A man without fear, and, he thought, a man you would never really know.

Napier said, "I'm looking at the horses."

Jago peered at his pipe. "Bryan an' me will take a walk down to a little inn he's told me about. Might get Mr. Yovell to toddle along too." It seemed to amuse him. "Though the Bible's probably more to his taste! "

They both turned as another horse was led out of the stables.

Jago remarked, "Dirty weather for somebody to be out on the roads."

Napier saw the groom adjust the reins, and test the girth straps while the horse stamped impatiently on the cobbles. Even in the dying light he could see the dark blue saddle cloth, the gold wire crest in one corner.

"The Captain's horse." He thought of the girl in the wine-red habit. It was a strange time to go out riding, with his aunt and his young cousin to welcome him home.

Napier said softly, "He's badly troubled. Losing the ship…"

Jago was watching him curiously. "Not all he's bothered about from what I've heard, my lad." He grinned. "Sorry. Before too long now I'll have to call you "mister", 'ow about that, eh?"

Napier did not respond to his raillery. "But we'll work some-thin' out, if you does as I tells you! "

Napier looked at him.

"I want to do the right thing, you see…" and Jago knew it was serious. The danger, his wound, which should have cost him a leg, would have with most seagoing sawbones he had known, were nothing compared with this next challenge.

He put one hand on the boy's shoulder, and said, "Keep yer nose clean, an' do right by the lads who will have to look up to you, God 'elp 'em." He shook him gently and added, "You'll be on the quarterdeck afore you knows it! "

They heard boots on the cobbles and Adam Bolitho paused to look at them, walking toward the restive horse.

The groom called, "Keep an eye open on them roads, Cap'n Adam, zur. War or no war, there still be footpads about! "

Adam showed his teeth in a smile, but Napier recognized the anger in his eyes.

To Napier he said, "Feel like testing Jupiter, David? Tomorrow, perhaps? I thought I might ride over to Fallowfield, see John Allday and his family."

"I could ride Jupiter now, sir." But he knew that the Captain was not hearing him; his mind was elsewhere.

Then he was up and mounted, an old boat cloak flapping like a banner in the wet breeze. He swung round and looked up at a window, Napier could not see which one, and shouted, "I shall be back in time tell the kitchen! " Then he was away, the hooves striking sparks from the worn cobbles.

Jeb Trinnick had joined them, soundlessly for a big man with a limp. When he saw Jago's pipe he pulled a pouch from beneath his leather apron.

"Try some o' this. Got it off a Dutchie trader last week. Seems fair enough."

Jago brightened. Another bridge crossed.

"That's matey of you! "

Napier asked, "Is the Captain going far?" He wiped some droplets of rain from his face, like tears. Like that day, all those months ago, when he had seen him with that beautiful woman, driving a smart little pony and trap.

He heard Jeb Trinnick say dourly, "If I'm any judge he'll be makin' for the Old Glebe House." He nodded, the single eye gauging the trail of smoke rising from Jago's pipe. "Evil it is, or was. My youngest brother used to live over Truro way, afore he went over the side after Camperdown. Full o' spirits, he said. Even the Church was glad to rid itself of the place to the first buyer it could get. Old Sir Montagu, that was."

Jago puffed out more smoke. "Good baccy, Jeb."

Somehow, Napier knew it was because of that same woman; he remembered the Captain's face when he had read the little note she had sent out to Unrivalled before they had sailed to join the admiral.

Jeb Trinnick made up his mind. "All the same, I'll send one of my lads after 'im." He grinned. "Just to be on the safe side! "

Napier watched him limp into the shadows. A man who could deal with everything that came his way. He felt despair closing around him again. Better to be like Trinnick, or Jago. Not to care…

Suddenly he heard the snap of Jago's delicate-looking pipe, which he had carried so carefully and filled for the first time with Trinnick's Dutch tobacco. It lay in fragments on the ground, rain splashing over it, dousing the smoking ash.

It mattered to Jago too, more than he would ever allow himself to show. He had hardened himself against it, perhaps because of other captains he had served. Looked up to, admired, hated; and one he had described as second only to God.

But this one mattered. And to David Napier, who was all but fifteen years old, it was a lifeline.

The courier arrived at the old grey house around noon, a week almost to the hour since Unrivalled had dropped anchor in Plymouth.

Ferguson had been in the stable yard, watching Napier riding the pony Jupiter slowly but confidently, back and forth, 'gaining an understanding' as Grace had put it.

The courier was known to Ferguson, as he was to many sea officers who lived around Falmouth. Ferguson had reached out to sign for the canvas envelope, but the courier had said almost curtly, "Not this one. Captain Bolitho himself, or I shall have to wait until he returns."

Ferguson heard his wife call, "Tell the captain, Mary! " She would stay with him until they all knew. She never changed; nor would she.

The courier relaxed and climbed down from his mud-spattered horse. All the way from Plymouth, and before that; how far had that envelope travelled, Ferguson wondered?

The wheels had probably started to turn when a guard ship or keen-eyed coast guard had reported Unrivalled beating her way up Channel A sight of home.

Grace Ferguson said, "You've time for a glass, or a hot posset afore you leave?"

The courier shook his head. "No, ma'am, but thank you. I've another call yet. Old Cap'n Masterman's place at Penryn. Bad news, I'm afraid. His son is reported missing. His ship foundered on a reef, I'm told."

Ferguson turned, hearing the step on the cobbles. It was a familiar enough story in Cornwall.

Adam Bolitho took it in at a glance: the courier standing with his mount, Young Matthew who had been supervising Napier with the pony, Ferguson and Grace the housekeeper, and Yovell who had stopped in his tracks by the gate to the rose garden. Catherine's roses, or soon would be again.

Like badly rehearsed players, but joined by something which none of them properly understood.

The courier had produced a small writing tablet from beneath his stained cloak, the pen already dipped. What Lowenna must have used that day when she had been there to see Unrivalled weigh and stand out to sea.

He thought of the Old Glebe House, how it had looked that night when he had ridden over to see it. How the horse had whinnied and shied, perhaps because of the stench of sodden ashes and charred timbers. Or because of something more sinister. The burned-out windows, stark and empty against the racing clouds, of the room where she had kept her harp, next to the roofless studio where he had first seen her chained to the imaginary rock. The sacrifice…

He had gone back again in daylight. It had been even worse. He had wanted to go alone but Nancy had accompanied him, had insisted, as if she needed to share it.

The main part of the house was too unsafe to explore. Ashes, blackened glass from those tall windows he remembered so vividly, broken beams jutting like savage teeth. A few charred canvases. Impossible to tell if they had been empty or partially finished when the fire had raged into the studio.

Or being repaired. Like the one of Catherine, which she herself had commissioned to hang beside Sir Richard's portrait, in 'their room' as most of the household still called it. Dressed in a seaman's smock and little else, what she had been wearing in the open boat when she and her Richard had been shipwrecked. Allday, when he could be persuaded to speak of it, had painted his own picture of Catherine and Bolitho, who had won the heart of the country when they had endured the open boat which might have ended everything. Her courage, her example, a woman amongst desperate men in fear of their lives, had left an indelible impression on Sir Richard's old coxswain. "She even got me to sing a ballad or two! " He had laughed about it, proudly.

He had never known Nancy to hide her thoughts from him. She had suddenly faced him in the overgrown drive, the blackened building and chapel a grim backdrop, with the sea beyond. Always waiting. Perhaps a new horizon.

"It was Mary, the upstairs maid, who found it, Adam." She always added a title, like a label, to any member of the household, in case he should forget between visits. Like the lesson which had been handed down to him over the years, when speaking of his sailors, the people, as Richard Bolitho called them. Remember their names, Adam, and use them. A name is sometimes all they can call their own.

Mary had run screaming to the kitchen. The portrait of Catherine had been slashed, again and again. Only the face had been left intact. As if that some one had wanted the world to know who it was.

Sir Gregory Montagu had not been optimistic, but he had taken the damaged canvas to his studio. Now they would never know.

Adam had thought about it ever since. There had been gypsies in the area, more of them than usual, but it was not their way of things. Food, money, something to sell; those were different. He had hated himself for even considering Belinda's daughter Elizabeth. She would see Catherine as the enemy, the marriage wrecker, but she had been visiting a friend over the border in Devon at the time.

He realized that he had signed for the envelope and that the courier was climbing into his saddle again.

He knew that Yovell and Ferguson had followed him into the house, wanting to help, yet keeping their distance.

He entered the study and picked up the knife that lay beside Elizabeth 's sketch of the mermaid, thinking of the watch which had once stopped a musket ball, and the little mermaid engraved on its case. Just a shell now, and he knew that the boy Napier still carried it like a talisman.

For a moment longer the knife hesitated, the seal and Admiralty stamp blurred in the thin sunlight. The knife had belonged to Captain James Bolitho. Sir Gregory Montagu had been here then, asked to paint an empty sleeve on the portrait over the stairs, after Captain James had lost an arm in India. Perhaps he was watching the last Bolitho from that portrait now, the son of the man who had betrayed his father's trust. And his country.

He heard the envelope fall to the floor, although it must have opened itself; he did not remember returning the knife to the desk.

The beautiful handwriting, so familiar and precise in its terms. And without heart.

Addressed to Adam Bolitho, Esq. On receipt of these orders, will proceed with all despatch… His eyes hurried on. But no ship's name or title leaped out at him like a voice, like a picture. Like that first command, the little brig Firefly. Or Anemone. He tried again. Or Unrivalled…

To place yourself at the convenience and service of Sir Graham Bethune, Knight of the Bath, Vice-Admiral of the Blue, and to await further instructions. There was more, and a smaller note with details of travel, lodgings, and other matters which seemed meaningless.

Yovell was the first to speak.

"Is it good, sir?"

Ferguson was pouring something into a glass. His hand was shaking. Something else I should have noticed.

"The Admiralty, Daniel. Their lordships wish to see me. It is a command, not a request." He added with sudden bitterness, "Nor a ship! "

The heavy document had fallen beside its envelope. Despite his girth, Yovell picked it up and said quickly, "Do you see, sir? There is writing on the reverse."

Adam took it. A captain without a ship. God alone knew there were so many like him. No ship.

He stared at the writing, but saw only the face. Vice-Admiral Bethune. He had met him several times, lastly at Malta. Bethune had begun his service as a young midshipman in the little sloop-of-war Sparrow, Sir Richard Bolitho's first command. A man easy to like, and to follow, and, in his day, the youngest vice-admiral since Nelson. Once a frigate captain himself, then promotion, and lastly the Admiralty.

I am sending you a letter very shortly; it concerns some proposals which were brought to my notice. You will treat all instructions with utmost secrecy. On that, I am depending. Then his signature. Adam turned the sheet to the light. Bethune had written, almost like- an afterthought, Trust me.

He replaced the glass on the desk. Claret or cognac? It could have been anything.

Yovell said, " London, sir." He shook his head and smiled sadly. "Sir Richard never cared for the place. Not until…"

Adam walked past him, but briefly touched his plump arm. "Until, Daniel. What a span that one word covers."

He left the study and found himself staring into another log fire. Unseen hands always seemed to keep them blazing.

"I shall need Young Matthew for the first leg to Plymouth. After that…" He moved to the fire and held out his hands. "It will all be laid down in the instructions." A long, tiring and uncomfortable journey. And at the end of it? It might be nothing. Or perhaps he would merely be required to describe Unrivalled'^ part in the attack and final victory at Algiers. "I shall need more kit than usual. I must tell Napier…"

He broke off abruptly. Napier would not be going to London. Bethune's innocent enough note had been added for a reason. He looked directly at the round shouldered figure of Yovell across the hall. "Send word to the tailor for me, will you?" He saw Napier watching him from the passage which led to the kitchen. He knew. His eyes said it all.

Adam thought of Bethune again. It was all he had.

Trust me.

Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune moved some papers on his broad desk and stared at the ornate clock on the opposite wall, with its wind indicator and simpering cherubs.

He had walked to the Admiralty, across the park for some of the way, declining the offer of a carriage or, as was sometimes his habit, riding his own horse. It was not conceit, but a sense of purpose which carried him through each day.

He stood up, surprised that the exercise had not calmed his nerves. It was absurd; he had nothing to worry about.

He walked across the room and paused to study the painting of a frigate in action. It was his own, pitted against two big Spanish frigates. Bad odds even for a daring young captain, as he had been then. He had nevertheless run one of them aground and taken the other. Unconsciously, his hand touched the gold lace on his sleeve. Flag rank had followed almost immediately, and then the Admiralty. Routine, lengthy meetings, conferences with his superiors and sometimes the First Lord; he had even been called to elaborate upon various plans and operations to the Prince Regent.

And it had suited him, like the uniform, and the respect which went with it.

It had been wet in the park, but there had been all the usual horsemen and women about. He often expected to see Catherine there, riding herself, or in the carriage with the Sillitoe crest emblaloned on it. Like that last, arranged meeting. He bit his lip. The final one.

He stood by a window and looked down at the jostling carriages, carriers' carts and horses, always alive, moving.

It was a life he had grown used to, accepted, and one he lived with a zeal which often surprised his contemporaries. He took care of himself; although he enjoyed good wine with the company to match it, he was always careful not to slide into overindulgence. He had seen too many senior officers deteriorate and age before their time. It was sometimes impossible to imagine them, sword in hand, walking their own decks while death whined and stung all around them. He moved to the desk again, the restlessness stronger than before.

And what of me?

Some chose to ignore it, imagined perhaps that rank and seniority were everlasting. He touched the folder uppermost on the desk. And upon his mind.

At the close of the previous year the Navy List had carried two hundred admirals, and eight hundred and fifty captains. Commanders and mere lieutenants added up to another five thousand. The great fleet and all the squadrons, even those commanded by highly successful or famous officers, had been cut to the bone. Whole forests had been felled to build those ships, and now every anchorage and waterway had its sad reminders.

And what of me?

There was not an admiral left under the age of sixty, so that all promotion was at a standstill. A captain, if he was lucky enough still to be employed, could remain thirty years in that rank without moving.

He grimaced. Or survive on half-pay, shadowy figures who walked the se afront watching. Remembering. Dreading.

He thought of his wife. Lady Bethune. It was hard now to think of her any other way. "You can retire when you wish it, Graham. You're not a pauper. You can see more of the children." Their two 'children' were adults, and they met like pleasant strangers. His wife was in control. Like the night at that reception when she had smiled while Catherine Somervell had been humiliated. The night Catherine might have been raped, even killed, but for the intervention of Sillitoe and some of his men.

Bethune still relived it, again and again. He had entertained her here in this opulent room in the seat of Admiralty. The youngest vice-admiral on the Navy List since Nelson. And might remain so if things got even worse.

And she, the woman who had outraged society when she and Sir Richard Bolitho had lived openly together.

He looked at the chair where she had been seated, remembering her scent of jasmine. Her eyes when she smiled. Laughed, then… Maybe he could obtain an appointment in one of the dockyards, like Valentine Keen. He had also served under Richard as a midshipman; now his flag flew over the Nore. But a navy without ships was no inspiration. The old, eternal enemies were uneasy allies now, in name anyway.

Like the anti-slavery campaign, which many had believed over after Exmouth's victory at Algiers.

He walked past the chair and tried again to shut it, and her, from his mind. Sillitoe was her protector, although many hinted that they were lovers also. He, too, had made a fool of himself when he had expressed his feelings and his fears for her.

He recalled the meetings he had had with the First Lord.

"Slavery will not go just go away because of an Act of Parliament, Graham. Too many fortunes have been made from it, and survive on it still… Their lordships and I have considered it deeply and often. A new command, entrusted with a difficult and possibly dangerous task. A show of force, enough to make plain our determination, but fluid enough not to antagonize or disrupt our "allies" in this matter.

"You will know, Graham, that there is no shortage of applicants." He had let the words hang in the air. "But I would prefer you to take it."

Bethune was at the window again, looking down at the endless movement. People and the din of traffic, horses and iron-shod wheels. Another world, in which he would be a stranger; and some one else would be sitting here in this room.

He liked the company of women, and they his. But a risk was a risk all the same. And in any case, he might retain this present position for months. He sighed. Years.

He tugged down the front of his waistcoat and stared at his reflection in the rain-dappled glass, and thought of Richard Bolitho again. As if it were yesterday. His eyes as he had watched an oncoming enemy, the pain there when he considered the cost in lives. His decision, and a voice very level. So be it, then.

There was a tap at the ornate doors, timed to the minute.

"Well, Tolan?"

"Captain Adam Bolitho is here, Sir Graham."

The shadow moved over the rich carpet, his face as Bethune remembered it. Like a younger version of Richard; even then, people had often taken them for brothers.

The same firm handshake; the elusive smile. And something else, desperation. It would have been uppermost in his thoughts all the way from Cornwall. The journey would have taken almost five days, changing horses, sharing a carriage with strangers, and, all the time, wondering…

Adam Bolitho had more than proved his worth, his skill, and his courage. The armchair strategists at the Admiralty had described him as reckless. But then, they would.

He recalled his own uncertainty, which had made him write Trust me on the back of the orders to this dark, youthful man. I was like him. The frigate captain. That was then.

To prolong this meeting which could be the start of many, or the last, would be insulting to both of them.

He said, more abruptly than he had intended, "I have been given a new appointment, Adam, and I want you for my flag captain." He held up his hand as Adam seemed about to speak. "You have done a great deal, and you have won the approval of my senior officers, as well as the un stinting praise of Lord Exmouth. I, too, have seen you in action, which is why I want…" He reconsidered. "I need you as my flag captain."

Adam realized that the elderly servant had dragged up a chair for him and vanished into an adjoining room.

It was all he could do to put events into some kind of order. The endless journey, his arrival here at the Admiralty. Blank faces, and heads bowed to listen, as if he were speaking a foreign language.

He looked up at the gilded ceiling as somewhere high in the roof a clock began to chime, and he was aware of birds flapping in alarm, although they must hear the same sound at every half-hour.

He massaged his eyes and tried to clear his mind, but the images remained. He had told Young Matthew to take a different route into Plymouth, where he had been instructed to change carriages.

He could see the words like blood. Never look back.

With a telescope he had eventually found Unrivalled, not far from her previous anchorage. In a week she had changed almost beyond recognition, topmasts and standing rigging gone, her decks littered with discarded cordage and spars, crates and casks piled where the eighteen-pounders had once been ranged like marines at their sealed ports. The ports empty. Dead.

Only the figurehead remained intact and unchanged. Head flung back, breasts out thrust proud and defiant. And, like the girl in the studio, helpless.

Never look back. He should have known.

Bethune was saying in his quiet, even voice, "You have been in commission for a long time without much rest, Adam. But time is not on my side. Your appointment will take effect as soon as convenient to their lordships."

Adam was on his feet, as if invisible hands were forcing him to leave.

Instead he asked, equally quietly, "What ship, sir?"

Bethune breathed out slowly, half-smiling. "She's the Athena, seventy-four. She is completing fitting-out at Portsmouth." He glanced at the painting of the embattled ships, a flicker of regret crossing his features. "Not a frigate, I'm afraid."

Adam reached out and clasped his hand. Was it said so easily, the most important moment for any captain? He looked at Bethune and thought he understood.

For both of us.

He said, "Perhaps not a frigate, sir. But a ship."

A goblet, chilled in readiness, was put into his hand.

Her name meant nothing to him. Probably an old two-decker, perhaps like the one where it had all begun for him. But a ship.

He touched the sword at his thigh.

He was not alone.