Passage to Mutiny

14. When, Not If

BOLITHO eased the tiller bar slightly and said, “We will drift for a while, Mr Pyper. Hail the other boat.”

Gratefully they hauled the long oars across the gunwales of the cutter and drooped over them like men at prayer. Getting the boats away from the pier without being seen or challenged had been child’s play compared with making a safe passage through the reefs. The undertow had been very strong, and as if to taunt their puny efforts the wind had attacked them around the headland with unexpected vigour, and it had taken every man’s strength to reach open water.

Now, with the sun already high in an empty sky, it was difficult to imagine it.

Bolitho looked along the boat, watching each man’s reaction, his adjustment.

Close astern the other cutter was pulling towards them, and he saw Keen at the tiller, pointing to one of the oarsmen, or advising somebody on how to get better results from his stroke.

In his own boat Bolitho could readily understand Keen’s problems. The two crews were as evenly matched as possible, with the few seamen spread between the rest, the marines and the injured.

He looked down at Viola’s hand on the gunwale. She had hardly said a word during their violent, tossing progress through the broken water, but when he had reached out for her she had looked up at him and had smiled. Just that. And yet it had offered him more confidence, more peace at that moment than he could remember.

He made himself think about his task. Five hundred miles. At the very best, with all in their favour and no one falling sick, it would take over a week. The boats had no sails, but Miller had discovered some scraps of canvas and had promised to try and rig something which might help steady the boat and spare the oarsmen some of the back-breaking strain.

What a mixed bunch, he thought, as he looked at each weary, stubbly face. Miller, and the marine, Blissett. Jenner, and Orlando, and two of the injured, the marine called Billy-boy and Evans, the ship’s painter.

He met Allday’s gaze from the stroke oar and nodded. If Allday showed resentment at crewing a boat instead of coxswaining it, he did not show it.

“At any other time it would make a fair sight, Captain.”

Bolitho looked abeam. The islands all seemed the same, blue and hazy in the morning sunlight.

He wondered if Hardacre was even now shouting his message to Raymond from the gates, telling him what these men were trying to do to save him and his cowardly guards.

He thought too of the moment when the cutter had surged past the still-smouldering wreck of the Eurotas. Only her blackened poop and taffrail remained above the surface, but it had been enough to make Viola seize his hand and press it against her in the darkness. The sight of that stark outline, surrounded with breaking spray and trailing fragments of cordage, must have brought it all back in an instant. It had been in the poop where she had faced Tuke. Where he had taunted and humiliated her.

“Boat your oars!” Keen leaned over the gunwale of his boat as it nudged alongside the other one. He said, “Wind’s dropped, sir.” He smiled at Viola. “I hope you were able to sleep, ma’am.”

But the smile only made him look sadder, Bolitho thought.

“I hope it remains so.” Bolitho kept his voice level and relaxed.

Unlike a ship, there was nowhere he could hide from those who depended on him. Like this moment. The beginning. Five hundred miles with neither chart nor sextant. All he had was a small boat’s compass, and the barest amount of food and water. Hardacre had managed to smuggle some wine and a flask of rum to him, and this he would keep for anyone whose health wilted under the torment of heat and exposure. They had six muskets between the two boats, and apart from the officers’ pistols there were some cutlasses and a boarding axe which Miller always carried in his belt. It was not much, but if they could keep up a regular daily total they had a chance. Any tropical storm, or sudden fever amongst the boats, and they had no chance at all.

To remind everyone of the need for care and vigilance, a shark had joined them at dawn, and even now was cruising lazily a cable or so astern.

Bolitho fixed the islands in his mind like an unmarked chart. The Levu Group, and then north like the point of the compass to the Navigator Islands, directly adjacent to which lay Rutara, and with luck, the Tempest.

He said, “We will keep our water ration the same in each boat, Mr Keen. But tomorrow I intend to beach in the best-looking bay or cove and supplement our stores with coconuts. We might even find some shellfish in the rocks.”

He wanted to add that a hot meal, no matter how frugal or coarse, was better than anything to keep the men in good health and spirits. As soon as they got ashore on one of the islands he would tell Keen. To shout it now over the lolling heads of his men would sound like an early acceptance of failure.

Miller looked up from his efforts with needle and palm. “I’ve got some canvas left over, sir.” He held a ragged piece about the size of a hammock across his knees. “It’d make a fine shelter for you, ma’am.”

She smiled. “I’ll not refuse such kindness.” She ran one finger around the neck of her gown. “It is strange that it should be hotter on water than on land!”

Miller chuckled. “Lord love you, ma’am, we’ll make a seaman of you yet!”

Some of the men in the other boat nodded and grinned like unshaven galley slaves. Bolitho watched them, and then touched her shoulder.

He said quietly, “You are worth a lot more than muscle. You make them smile, when they must be thinking of nothing but escape and sleep.”

Bolitho looked at the sun. “Take the tiller, Mr Pyper. I will have a turn on the oars.” To the marine he said, “Go aft and attend to the injured.” He waited for the man to look at him. “Then examine the weapons, and make sure our powder is protected.”

The two boats drifted apart, suddenly very small and frail on the great expanse of blue water.

Across Allday’s broad shoulder he saw her watching him, her eyes shaded by her straw hat, speaking to him as if with her voice.

Pyper cleared his throat, nervous, even with so much before him, at the prospect of giving orders to his captain.

“Out oars!” He looked down at the little compass. “Give way all! ”

With his shoulders propped against the side, the wounded marine squinted up at Viola Raymond. Like everyone else, he thought of her as “the Captain’s Lady”; it had a good ring to it. She was good to him. Had watched over his wounded leg better than any surgeon, and was as gentle as an angel. He could not distinguish her face because of the sun’s glare around the brim of her hat, but he could see the grime on her gown and shoes which she had gathered from the pier. A fresh pain lanced through his leg and he moved uneasily.

She asked, “How is it, Billy-boy?”

The marine grimaced. “Fair, ma’am. Just cramp.”

The other injured man, Evans the painter, said nothing. He was watching the woman’s ankle below her gown and imagined the smoothness of her leg beyond. Then he thought of his wife in Cardiff, and wondered how she was managing without him. She was a good girl, and had given him four fine daughters. He closed his eyes and let himself drift into sleep.

By Pyper’s feet, Blissett made sure the powder and shot were well stowed, and then looked up at the sleeping Evans. It was suddenly clear to him. As if a voice had shouted it in his ear. Evans had started to die. The realization frightened him, and he did not know why. Blissett had seen many men go. In battle, in brawls, or merely because they were taken by one bout of illness or another. But seeing Evans’s face, and knowing what he did, was like falling on another man’s secret, and it disturbed him deeply.

Behind Bolitho, the American called Jenner pulled and thrust easily with his oar, his mind lifting away on one of his many imaginary journeys. When he was paid off he would buy a farm in New England. Miles from anywhere. And settle down with a girl. He tried to picture her, and then started to create his perfect mate in his imagination.

Next was Orlando, using his oar with clumsy precision, taking his stroke from the others. He ducked as Miller stepped over his oar to take his place in the bow, his sailmaking put aside until the next rest. For with only five oars in use it needed all their strength. Miller laid back on his loom and grinned at the sky. It was like a fight. And to Jack Miller that was meat and drink in one.

And so it went on, under a pitiless glare, or partly masked in low haze, the two boats crawled like ungainly beetles. Men changed round at the oars, rations of biscuit and a cube of salt meat were issued and washed down with a pannikin of water from the barrico.

Release from heat and torment came with the night, but their efforts to make steady progress continued as before.

His back aching from the unfamiliar oar, his palms blistered, Bolitho sat at the tiller, Viola’s head cushioned across his knees. Once she gripped him with her fingers and moaned softly in her sleep as Bolitho brushed the hair from her mouth.

Pyper had taken one of the oars, and Miller was bailing water from the bottom of the boat. They sounded worn out, half beaten already. He tightened his jaw. And this was the first full day.

After the cutter’s pitching motion the firm sand at the top of the beach felt as if it too was moving.

Bolitho watched Keen and Miller making sure both boats were properly secured, and heard Sergeant Quare ordering lookouts to either side of the small cove. Again, it looked and felt idyllic. Lush greenery with the regular swish and gurgle of breakers along the pale sand. But he knew how deceptive it could be, just as he knew of the vital need for watchfulness.

Pyper came to him, his face seared by the sun. “Shall we unload the boats, sir?”

“Not yet.” Bolitho trained his small telescope on the far side of the cove, suddenly tense. But what he had thought to be a plume of smoke proved to be nothing more dangerous than a swaying cloud of insects. “We will wait a while and see if we are discovered here.”

He wanted to unload the boats, if only to lighten them and stop their unnecessary pounding in the surf. But he felt uneasy. Apprehensive. He tried to tell himself he was being over-cautious, that the need for rest before the challenge of the final haul to Rutara was more important.

He saw Evans and a seaman called Colter lying beneath some shady palms. The other injured man, the marine, was propped against a tree, helping Viola to unpack some dressings. The rest of the small party moved about restlessly, feeling their way, recovering their wits after the hard work at the oars. He watched her smiling at Evans, wiping his forehead and trying to make him comfortable. Looking back over their day and two nights in an open boat, he was deeply moved. She had not once complained, nor had she asked for the slightest privilege. Before a boat half full of strained and anxious men she had performed her own needs with only Miller’s crude screen to offer a pretence of privacy. Now she was on the beach with the wounded men. If she knew Evans was dying she was hiding her dismay very well.

Quare strode across the sand. “All clear, sir.” He gestured, along the curving wall of trees. “I’ll put the hands to work getting nuts.” He forced a wry smile. “I could manage a gallon of Devon ale right now, sir.”

Keen joined them. “Shall we start a fire, sir?” He rubbed his hands and gave a great yawn. “Maybe we could kill a bird or two. Frazer had the fine sense to bring a cooking pot with him from the village.”

Bolitho nodded. “Directly. Shellfish, and some cubes of salt pork, any sort of fowl, too. It would not go down well at an admiral’s table, but something hot, no matter how doubtful, will do our people a power of good.”

He sat down and rested his head in his hands, grappling with the problems of his journey, the mounting strain it would make on all of them. He looked at her again. Especially on a woman. Yet in some ways she had more inner reserves and courage than any of them.

He heard a man laugh, and another respond with a stream of obscenity as a coconut was dropped on to his head. The luckless man on the ground swung round and gasped, “I begs yer pardon, ma’am!”

She laughed at his confusion. “My father was a soldier. I’ve heard worse from him!”

Her words struck another note for Bolitho. How little he really knew about her. She had gained more knowledge of him by reading the Gazette and speaking with his superiors, and yet in five years of separation his love had gained rather than faded.

Allday trudged towards the boats carrying a net of coconuts. He paused, drew out his cutlass and then selected a nut with great care.

“Here, Captain.” The blade flashed in the sunlight, lopping off the top of the nut like a scalp. “A local brew!” It seemed to amuse him.

Bolitho raised it to his lips and let the milk run over his tongue.

“Thank you. It is like…” He put the nut on the sand between his legs, his mind racing. “Allday.” Bolitho’s tone made him stiffen. “Do not turn. On the other side of the cove. Right by the water. I saw a face.”

Allday nodded and called to Frazer, “Big Tom! Put these in the boat.” He turned and walked back up the beach, pausing only by Viola Raymond to pass a brief message.

Bolitho stood up slowly and stretched his arms. There it was again. A quick movement amongst the thick fronds, the sun’s glitter on something bright.

It was taking too long. Men were walking back towards the water, stiff-legged, like players in a travelling band of mummers.

Quare hurried towards Bolitho, his musket over his shoulder. “Where, sir?”

As if to a signal, several figures began to emerge from amongst the thick foliage, fierce-looking natives, totally unlike those Bolitho had seen around the settlement. From North Island or elsewhere hardly mattered now. They had probably hidden themselves much earlier, even before the boats had been hauled ashore. He counted them. More than twenty, and all armed with spears and short, wide-bladed knives. One, obviously a leader of some kind, was adorned with several strings of glass beads. In the reflected sunlight they had betrayed his hiding place.

Bolitho measured the distance. From the top of the beach to the boats. From the silent, watching natives to his own men.

He said quietly, “Stand still, lads. They are trying to discover what we are about. If they think we are from a ship nearby they may go. If not, we could have a fight on our hands.”

Pyper said desperately, “There are some more yonder, sir. By the red flowers.”

No wonder Quare’s lookouts had not seen them. They must have crept along the water’s edge and through the surf itself to bypass the tired sentries.

The one with the beads raised his hand and called something in a thin voice. Then he pointed at Bolitho, recognizing him too as a leader, and then very slowly turned his arm towards Viola Raymond. He bobbed his head and grimaced, then poked his bushy black hair, while those around him did likewise and grinned. He was fascinated by the colour of her hair, and yet his simple mime was more menacing than any open attack.

Bolitho held up his hand. “Friend!”

A few of the natives wandered vaguely by the hissing surf, and Bolitho saw the pattern changing even as he said, “Fall back to the boats, but do it slowly!” He had seen that the apparently aimless movement was an attempt to get between the sailors and the boats, or separate them from the little group beneath the trees.

He thought suddenly of Herrick. This time there was no lastminute help or swivel guns to strike fear into the silent figures on the beach.

He said, “Mr Keen, we will use my boat only. Take charge of it now and get it launched. Sergeant Quare, have some men aid the injured.” He saw Allday and Miller watching him. “We will stand here. Make no further move.”

Bolitho heard the cutter’s keel grating, on sand, the heavy gasps from those who were manhandling it into deeper water. To try and escape with both boats would be madness. It was probable the natives had canoes nearby and would soon overhaul the slow pulling boats and attack them individually. You could not pull an oar and fight at the same time when you were so shorthanded.

The natives were starting to move nearer, and he heard them murmuring between themselves, the sound strangely inhuman, like the twittering of birds.

Allday said, “Something to the left, Captain. More of the buggers. This lot must have been waiting for reinforcements. Just to be on the safe side.”

Bolitho called sharply, “Lively, lads!”

Then he turned as several figures separated from the main group and streaked across the sand towards Viola and the helpless Evans. The wounded marine swung up his musket like a crutch and fired, the ball hitting the first native in the stomach and hurling him down to spatter the pale sand with blood.

The sudden move and the crack of the musket acted like a clarion call, and with a great whoop of frenzy and hatred the natives hurled themselves towards the boats, the air instantly alive with spears and jagged pieces of stone.

Sergeant Quare dropped to one knee and fired, followed immediately by the other muskets. The effect was immediate, and still yelling and whooping the attackers fell back into the green foliage, leaving three of their number dead or dying.

Bolitho drew his pistol and shouted to Pyper, “Get those men down here!”

A spear flitted across his vision and stuck quivering in the wet sand.

The second wave would come at any moment. He saw Blissett and another marine reloading beside Quare, and their wounded comrade hopping down the slope towards the boats, his face twisted with pain and exertion. Orlando was carrying Evans, who was moaning and struggling weakly in his arms, while the other injured seaman was being bustled into the cutter by Frazer and Lenoir.

“Here they come again!”

This time it was more determined, the rocks and stones raining down on the reeling, dazed seamen and marines, and then spears from two angles at once.

But the muskets replied briskly, and Bolitho fired his pistol at a screaming native who had weaved around the crouching marines and was charging straight at the boat. He was knocked sideways, his limbs flailing as he fell into the surf, turning it bright pink.

Bolitho thrust the pistol away and drew his sword.

“Hurry!”

He turned, sickened, as the marine with Blissett gave a terrible shriek and fell on his side, a spear driven hard into his chest.

“This way, sir!”

Keen was standing in the cutter’s bows, firing his own pistol and waving for the others to clamber aboard. Bolitho saw Viola’s hair blowing above the gunwale and realized that he and the marines were the only ones still on the beach.

Blissett was trying to drag his companion towards the surf, but Quare punched his shoulder and yelled, “Leave him! He’s done for! Get his musket and move yourself, my lad!” He fired as he spoke and sent another dark figure sprawling.

The next few minutes were a confusion of desperate purpose mixed with revulsion as their attackers turned on the dead marine and started to slash and hack him into an unrecognizable bundle.

Then the oars were out and the cutter was moving swiftly into deep water, the speed of the stroke laying bare their horror and their fear.

“No canoes in sight, sir.”

Bolitho nodded, unable to answer as he sucked in air. By his feet he saw a net full of coconuts, but by having to abandon the other boat they had lost half their supply of food and water.

Sergeant Quare said roughly, “Marine Corneck was a good hand, sir. Came from the next village to me.”

Blissett lay across an oar, his eyes smarting. He had never liked the dead marine much. But to see him cut apart like a carcass made him burn with anger and disgust.

Bolitho watched their varying reactions and matched them against his own. Some small warning had prevented all of them ending up like Corneck. A few more minutes and he might have ordered the boats to be unloaded, fires to be lit. He met her gaze along the boat as she tied a bandage around Jenner’s head. He had been badly cut by a piece of rock. She looked very calm, but her eyes were misty with suppressed emotion. But for the wounded marine’s swift action they might have seized her and dragged her away before anyone could intervene. Even the thought of it made him feel sick.

The only compensation was that there were more men to work the oars and so allow small snatches of respite for the others. Against that… he looked at Evans, who was now barely conscious, and at Penneck, the ship’s caulker, who had received a bad gash on the neck from a spear. He took out the flask of rum, feeling their eyes on it, seeing Big Tom Frazer look away to hide his own want.

“A tot each to Evans and Penneck.” He looked at her across their heads. “And, I think, for the lady.”

Keen said hoarsely, “Aye, sir. She most of all.”

But she shook her head. “No. Rum is something I have not been able to admire.”

Several of the men laughed, haltingly at first, and then in a tide of uncontrolled noise which none seemed able to stop.

Bolitho touched Keen’s shoulder. “Let them get it out of their souls. They have enough to face.” He saw Pyper joining with the rest, his laughter changing to helpless tears which ran unheeded down his face like rain.

After a while they pulled themselves together, some surprised, others ashamed, but not one making any comment on their behaviour. The oars began to move up and down again, and within another hour the small cove was lost in a blur of haze which covered the islands astern like fine netting.

Then they rested, issued rations, drank their water, looked around at the sea and each other with dulled acceptance.

Ahead and on either bow the islands were breaking up and growing smaller. They would have to land again and find water, gather supplies. And all the time the sun pursued them, seared down on them, burning away their determination, their will to survive.

And when night eventually found them it was without comfort. For after the shock and fear of their experience on the island, and the heat of the long day, the air seemed like ice, so that those not employed on the oars clung together in shivering cold.

The next day, despite all their caution, the same danger showed itself. Behind the lush vegetation of one island watching eyes followed their weary approach. When they prepared to beach the boat they were attacked as before, beaten and almost knocked senseless by rocks and flying stones, until they were forced to pull into deeper water to find refuge.

Bolitho watched Keen and Pyper issuing the rations, and looked for resentment or mistrust in the faces of the others. The rations had to be exact. One sign of greed or favouritism and these same loyal and disciplined men might fall on each other like crazed wolves.

If only they had been able to get more food before leaving. But if Raymond had found out what they were intending, either from his guards or from the village, they would not even have reached the pier.

Blissett picked up his musket. “Permission to fire, sir!” He was watching a circling sea-bird, his eyes alive with sudden excitement.

Bolitho nodded. “Wait until it is closer. Otherwise our friend will have it.” He glanced astern at the tell-tale dorsal fin. He could accept it now without fear or curiosity. It was just part of the whole. One more hazard.

The bird fell neatly to the first ball. It was a booby, about the size of a duck.

They all stood or crouched staring at it until Bolitho said quietly, “We will divide it. But the blood must be given to the weakest.”

Revolted at first, the men took their little portions and then devoured them with sudden desperation. The blood, carried carefully through the swaying boat, was given to Evans, the wounded seaman called Colter and finally Penneck.

Just before sunset, and another bitter night, they sighted some fast-moving canoes to the north-east. Like harrying dogs, Bolitho thought. Running them down into weakness so they could be killed at leisure. Maybe they thought them to be some of Tuke’s men and were trying to wreak a terrible vengeance. Or they might even be acting for Tuke under threat or promise of reward.

Miller had constructed a sea-anchor with the last scrap of canvas, and Bolitho decided to give everyone a chance to have a brief rest, unbroken by the groan and clatter of oars.

As the boat lifted and rolled across a succession of troughs, Bolitho sat in the sternsheets, his coat around Viola’s shoulders, one arm encircling her and protecting her from the motion.

Once she said, “I am not asleep. I was looking at the stars.”

He held her firmly, needing her, fearing for her.

Then she said, “Stop discovering blame, Richard. I wanted to be here with you. Nothing is changed.”

When he made to answer he found she was asleep again.

As the dawn opened up the sky once more they saw even fewer islands, and the ocean seemed far greater and more invincible. They found too that Evans had died in the night.

Bolitho trained his small glass on the nearest land. It was very green, but without any sign of a beach. But it might be their last chance. He looked at Evans’ body, lying on the bottom boards as if asleep. They could bury him there. It would prevent the shark from snatching him away, and so save his men from seeing it happen to one of their own.

When they got ashore they were not attacked, and although Quare’s lookouts did find some old fire places, it looked as if they had lain unused for years. It was so difficult to get a boat inshore without pounding it against the rocks that perhaps native canoes stayed away, too frail to take the risk.

They found a tiny pool with some fresh water. It was from a rainfall, and barely enough to fill Frazer’s cooking pot. But with some of their dwindling supply of salt pork, a collection of small oysters which Pyper discovered amongst the rocks, and a few ship’s biscuits to give it body, Allday and Miller set about preparing their first hot meal. There was dried wood in plenty, and with Allday’s tinder-box and a small magnifying glass which they removed from Evans’ body they used the sun to get a good blaze going.

The little Welshman was buried on a slope under some trees, and the shallow grave covered with flat stones. It was a strange resting place for the Tempest’s painter, Bolitho thought. As he sat with his back against a palm and wrote carefully in a small notebook which was now becoming his log, he wondered how he would describe the place. Not that anyone would ever read about it.

Viola was lying in the shade beside him, the hat across her face.

“Call it Evans’s Isle, Richard.”

He smiled. “Yes. After all, he’s the only one who will be staying here.”

Keen’s voice came from the rocks where the boat was being watched and guarded. “Just sighted some more canoes, sir!”

Bolitho thrust the little book inside his shirt. “Very well. Douse the fire and collect the men. We’re safer in the boat than up here.”

In grim silence they pulled away from the only place which had made them welcome. Sustained for a while by their meal and a brief rest, they turned the stem towards the north once more, leaving Evans alone with his last and only possession.

Like a dying water-beetle the cutter, her oars partly withdrawn and unmoving, rolled across an unbroken swell which stretched as far as an eye could reach.

Bolitho sat with his arm on the tiller bar, breathing very slowly and trying not to look at the sky. The heat was so fierce that the sea had no colour, and merged into the sky like blinding silver.

He thought of writing something in his little book, and knew it was getting harder every time to concentrate on the useless, empty words.

The oarsmen lay across the looms, faces pressed on their arms, the others either crouched against the side of the hull to try and find some shade or slept where they sat, like dead men.

Viola Raymond was beside and a little below him. She was wearing his uniform coat, having removed her torn and stained gown to wash it in salt water. As he looked down at her, seeing the autumn-coloured hair tied back across the collar, he thought she could have been a captain.

She seemed to feel him looking at her and reached out to touch his hand. But she did not look up. Like her companions, she found the glare too painful, too demanding on whatever energy she still had.

“How much rest will you give them?” Her voice was low, but it no longer mattered. No eyes watched them together, and when they touched or held hands it was accepted. Part of their total strength, as it was part of his.

He slitted his eyes, measuring the sun’s angle. “Not much longer, Viola. We are making less headway every day.”

He wiped his forehead with his sleeve, the movement making the sweat pour down his chest and thighs. It had been four agonizing days since they had left the little island where they had buried Evans. Days and nights of unrelenting, sapping work. Pulling and bailing. Trying to snatch a few moments for sleep and then starting all over again. He considered their present circumstances. They had left the pier eight days ago. It was incredible even to think of the slow, wretched miles which marked their progress. The water was down to a gallon, if that. The salt pork was merely a fistful of rock-hard fragments. He had issued most of the wine in small cupfuls, and they had been lucky enough to hit and kill a noddy two days back. The bird had been divided as before and the blood given to the worst-off. The latter now included a seaman called Robinson who was suffering severely from both sun and thirst, and Penneck, whose spear wound showed signs of poisoning. The ship’s caulker was the only one who was rarely silent. Day or night he moaned and sobbed, feeling his dressing around his throat and occasionally falling into semiconsciousness, still groaning.

Bolitho tightened the grip on her fingers, his eyes smarting as he thought of her husband and his callous indifference, his refusal to think of anything but himself.

“How do you feel?” He waited, knowing she was preparing her reply, then added, “The truth now.”

She returned the pressure on his hand. “Well enough, Captain.” She looked up at him, shading her eyes. “Do not fret so. We will get there. You’ll see.”

Allday stirred and shook himself like a dog. “Ready, lads?”

Penneck started to groan again, and Blissett said savagely, “Stow it, matey, in the name of pity!”

Quare removed his red coat and folded it carefully before taking over an oar. “Easy now, Blissett! The poor devil can’t help himself!”

“Out oars!”

Bolitho watched them, seeing their despair as they struggled with the long oars. Even thrusting them out through the rowlocks seemed as much as they could manage now.

“Give way all!”

Bolitho peered down at the compass. North. Maybe they would all die, and Tuke would fall upon the settlement just as he had always intended. Bolitho had once found a drifting boat full of dead sailors. He often wondered who was the last to die, what it must have been like to drift helplessly with men you had known, and having seen them go one by one, wait for your own summons.

He tried to shake himself out of his depression and concentrated on Miller’s makeshift sail. It did little to add to their speed, but by helping to steady the hull it made the oarsmen’s work a bit easier.

Bolitho took out his glass and trained it across the starboard beam. Just over the sea’s edge he saw a hint of purple. A long, flat island. He felt his heart quicken. They were not lost. He remembered it from the description on his chart.

She stirred against him. “What is it?”

He kept his voice level. “Another island. Many miles away, and too far to use what strength we have to visit it. But it means we are making progress. Once or twice I thought…” He looked down at her and smiled. “I should have trusted your judgement.”

He turned his attention to his men again. Pyper was doing his best not to show it, but he was in a bad way. Blistered by the sun, his shoulder like raw meat through a rent in his shirt, he looked near to collapse. None of them had any moisture in their bodies. Perhaps Evans was the lucky one after all.

Quietly he said, “We must have water. I can’t ask these men to go on until they drop.”

She nodded slowly. “I will pray.”

He watched her bowed head, the hot breeze ruffling her hair across the blue coat, and almost broke down. He had brought all of them to this. She especially would suffer because of her love. The remainder would die because he had decreed it.

“There.” She looked up at him. “It is done. Now I will see to the dressings.” She touched her gown as it lay drying on the thwart. “I will use some of this after today. Poor Penneck has used almost the last of the bandages.” She stood up, swaying with the boat until Keen put up his hand to steady her.

She smiled at him. “Thank you, Val.”

It was her special name for him, and Bolitho saw her receive the same grateful look. Next to himself, Keen had better cause than anyone to remember her kindness.

Sergeant Quare had to clear his parched throat twice before he could speak. “Will I start to divide the rations, sir?” Even he looked dejected. Almost beaten.

Bolitho felt suddenly desperate. “Yes. One cup per man. Half water, half wine.” He nodded heavily. “I know, Sergeant. It is the last of it.”

As Viola reached the sick and injured men Penneck seized her borrowed coat and babbled wildly, “Don’t let me die! Please don’t let me die!” He was pleading, his voice rising to a thin shriek.

Colter, the wounded seaman, snarled, “I wish to God ’e would die! ’E’ll drive us all mad, that ’e will!”

“That will do!” Bolitho stood up, his mind aching and throbbing. “Orlando, hold that man’s arms while his dressing is changed!”

He watched her above the slow-moving oars. In her captain’s coat, her legs as bare as any sailor’s, she looked even more beautiful. She paused with her work while Orlando pushed Penneck against the gunwale, and thrust some loose hair from her face. Again their eyes met, and she smiled at him.

Blissett pulled his oar across the boat and snatched up a musket. “’Nother bird, sir!” He fired, but the bird continued as before.

Quare flung another musket to him, and with barely a pause Blissett fired again. The sea-bird dropped close abeam, and within ten minutes had been divided and eaten.

As they sipped their watered wine and tried not to swallow it in one gulp, Pyper said brokenly, “When I get back to the ship I’ll never complain again!”

Bolitho watched him, seeing how close he was to breaking.

Almost gently he said, “You will be all right, Mr Pyper. You said when, not if. Hold on to it with all your strength, and that applies to the rest of us. Thank you, Mr Pyper. I feel somewhat better now.”

Allday looked up from his oar and smiled sadly. Inwardly he felt he could weep. For the lady in his captain’s coat, for young Pyper, for Billy-boy who was trying so desperately not to show his distress from his wounded leg. But most of all for the captain. He had watched him, day after rotten day, using every trick, everything he had learned and experienced since first going to sea at the age of twelve, just to hold them all together.

In the line of battle it was terrible, but the suffering and hardship made some sort of sense to the survivors. But this was a side of the Navy which landsmen never knew of and cared about even less. And yet the rules were the same, and the burden to each commander just as definite.

Bolitho looked at him, perhaps feeling his thoughts.

“Ready for another pull, Allday?”

Allday smiled, sharing the game.

“Aye, Captain, if you’d care to join us poor sailormen.”

Jenner managed to give a croaking laugh, and Miller said, “Anyway, sir, you don’t wear a captain’s coat no longer, eh?”

Bolitho seated himself on the thwart beside Allday, while Pyper took over the tiller.

He had to ask. “What d’you think, Allday?”

The broad shoulders gave a slight shrug. “They say the devil looks after his own. I reckon we stand a chance, and that’s no error.”

Bolitho laid back on the oar, shutting his eyes to the pitiless sun. No more water, and just a few coconuts and some biscuits. And yet they still trusted him. It did not make any sense.

He thought of Pyper’s pathetic courage and made himself say, when, not if.

His oar blade collided with another, and he realized he had almost fallen asleep or into a daze. The realization helped to sharpen his thoughts again, and he heaved on the oar with unexpected vigour.

When next he glanced outboard he saw there was quite a sharp wash coming back from the stem to mark their efforts. He closed his eyes tightly and thrust down on his loom.

When, not if.