Relentless Pursuit

17. The Only Key

Al' THE CLOSE of July, Lord Exmouth's fleet weighed and put to sea. It was an impressive armada, even to the eyes of those who had grown up in war, and Plymouth drew crowds from miles around to watch its departure. Because of indifferent winds it took a whole day for the ships to clear the Sound and take formation upon Queen Charlotte, the flagship. They left behind a powerful sense of anti-climax. For weeks anyone who could scull a dory or lay back on a pair of oars had pulled spectators around the anchored ships. Entertainers, and even a performing bear, had joined with pickpockets and tricksters to make the most of the unusual crowds.

Now, apart from local tradesmen and the usual idlers, Plymouth appeared strangely deserted. In the main anchorage only lifeless and laid-up vessels in ordinary and the hulks closer inshore remained. Except for one anchored frigate, lying apart from all the others, yards crossed, upperworks and rigging alive with seamen as they had been since her return with a hull scarred and blackened from that brief but pitiless encounter. True to his word, the port admiral had sent every spare shipwright and rigger to assist with Unrivalled's hasty overhaul, and now she seemed reborn. Only the experienced eyes of watermen and the old Jacks on the Hoe could see beyond the fresh tar and paint, and the neat patches on much of her canvas.

The carriage stood at the roadside below the wall of a local battery, the paired horses resting after the journey, the hills and the hot sunshine.

The coachman leaned outwards slightly and said, "Close enough, I think, Miss Lowenna."

The girl nodded but said nothing. Like all those who worked for Sir Gregory, the coachman was polite, but firm. He had his orders for this expedition, as he would if he had been transporting a valuable painting from one address to another.

He was concerned about the loitering crowds, she thought. Some were looking over now. A smart carriage, a liveried coachman… they were all men. She plucked at her gown; it was hot, and the leather was damp against her body. One of the men raised his hand in a mock salute, and she heard the coachman mutter something under his breath.

You saw them in every seaport. Men who had once served and fought in ships like the frigate now shimmering above her own reflection. They had suffered, lost an arm or a leg; two had patches covering empty eye sockets. And yet they always came to watch. To cling to something which had so injured or disabled them.

It was something no painter could recreate. She thought of the portrait again. The smile, about which Sir Gregory had at first been so adamant. Or was he merely testing her? Sounding out her strength?

Two more men had joined the group by the wall, but stood slightly apart, their clothing marking them out as shipyard workers.

One said, "She's up an' ready to go, Ben. Tomorrow first thing, if this wind 'olds."

The other one seemed less certain. "Under orders, then? I thought she was too badly knocked about when she first came in!"

His companion grinned. "My father's out there now with the freshwater lighter-she's sailin' right enough. I was talkin' with one of the ropemaker's men. Tells me 'er captain's a real driver! A firebrand to all accounts!"

Some of the others had moved closer to listen. As if they were jealous, she thought.

An older man, walking heavily on a wooden leg, said, "'Er cap'n is Adam Bolitho, matey."

"You were afore 'is time, eh?"

He ignored the laughter. "I served under 'is uncle, Sir Richard, in th' old Tempest, when 'e took fever in the Great South Sea. There was none better."

The girl gripped the lowered window. Nancy Roxby had mentioned that ship when she had come to see the portrait.

She looked towards the old sailor, the sudden determination making her head swim. She had seen the old-fashioned telescope under his arm.

"I'm getting down!" She held up her hand. "No. I shall be all right." She could not even remember his name. "I have to see…"

The coachman fastened the reins, and glanced around uneasily. He liked his work in spite of Montagu's changes of mood, and his demands for a carriage at any time he chose; there were few enough jobs, and too many men being discharged from the fleet and the army to be careless.

He saw the girl extending her hand to the burly, one-legged figure.

"May I have it?" They were staring at her, close enough to touch, to smell the strong tobacco, the tar. "Please?" The hand was steady, but felt as if it were shaking uncontrollably. She was even calm. The way Sir Gregory had taught her, insisted, for her own sanity.

The man suddenly smiled. "But certainly, young lady. 'Tis a bit old an' dented-" He shook his head as if to exclude the others, especially the one who called, "Like you, eh, Ned?"

She raised the glass carefully, heard the coachman's boots slam down on the cobbles as the one-legged man put his arm around her, taking the weight of the telescope, as a marine will test the measure of his musket.

"There, miss." The hard hand tightened over her fingers. "There. "

She shook some hair from her eyes, feeling a trickle of sweat run down her spine, like an intruder. A memory.

Then she saw Unrivalled, and almost stopped breathing as the ship, slightly angled on the current now, swam into the lens, the raked masts and black rigging shining like glass in the sunlight, the loosely brailed-up sails, a long, tapering pendant occasionally whipping out from one masthead.

Tiny figures moving, apparently aimlessly, about the decks, but each having a purpose. Others motionless, officers perhaps. She felt the tension returning. Adam. He would be there. The stable boy had told him when the carriage had left, when she had asked Sir Gregory if she could be driven to Plymouth.

It was important, although even she did not know how important it was. Like opening a sealed room, with the only key.

"Not without me, you won't!" But his sharpness had been to cover something else. Something only they had shared. Until now.

She steadied the glass on the proud figurehead, the hands thrust behind her streaming hair. The uplifted breasts, like herself in the studio that day when he had walked in.

She lowered the telescope and saw the ship fall away, become only a fine model again.

"Someone you know aboard Unrivalled, miss?"

They were all looking at her, but there was no malice. No lust. No hands reaching out to hold and force her down, down…

She said quietly, "Yes." How can I say that? He will leave here, tomorrow, someone said, and in any case… "I would like to get a message to him. Is it possible?" She looked towards the coachman. "I can pay."

The coachman relaxed muscle by muscle. A patrol of soldiers was coming along the road. He was no longer alone.

He said, "I'll drive us down to the waterfront, Miss Lowenna. I can barter with the wherrymen there."

The one-legged man said firmly, "I can do it. I've got me own boat." There was a kind of defiance in his voice. Pride, too.

Then he looked at her, eyes taking in everything, reliving memories, perhaps.

"It'll be the cap'n, then?"

"Yes," she said.

"I can take you too, if you wishes it?"

She shook her head. "I will write a note, here and now."

She opened the little case she had brought with her. As if she had known.

It was impossible. It was madness.

And all at once it was done.

The man took it with great care and said, "My Cap'n Bolitho in Tempest, 'e had a fine lady like you. Lovely, she was."

She laid her hand on his ragged sleeve. "Was?"

"We buried 'er at sea. Same fever."

He gripped her hand and folded her fingers firmly over the coins she held ready for him.

"Not this time, missy. "'E's a lucky man, I'll give 'im that. None luckier, eh, lads?"

She climbed into the carriage, eyes blind to everything, even the anchored frigate.

If they knew, they would pity her. She bit her lip until the pain steadied her. Everyone did, who knew.

She recalled crying out in the night. Not caring.

It's love I want. Not pity, can't you see that?

Like the sealed room. The only key.

Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune waited for his servant to close the doors and said, "It was good of you to come, Thomas. I am aware that you are very busy at this time."

He watched his visitor sit carefully, holding his shoulder, and frowning as if in anticipation of pain. He looked tired, more so than on the previous visit.

RearAdmiral Thomas Herrick looked around the room, with its glittering chandeliers and a splendid portrait of Earl St Vincent as First Lord of the Admiralty.

Bethune knew Herrick disliked any contact with this seat of Admiralty; hated it, was a better description. He felt out of place here.

"I received your last report." Bethune paused, like a wildfowler testing his ground. "I found it very informative. Helpful, especially to me."

Herrick looked up at him, his blue eyes very steady. "Commodore Turnbull needs more ships, Sir Graham. And he needs them now. I doubt if we shall ever stop the slave trade completely, but without proper patrols we will be outmanoeuvred at every stage. A waste of time, and money too, if that is their lordships' only yardstick."

Bethune walked to a window and looked down at the carriages and the riders heading towards the park, seeing that other stretch of parkland, the leafless trees that marked the old duelling site.

He had spoken to Catherine just a few days ago. There had been more people about, and she had seemed surprised that he had come to meet her wearing his uniform. He touched the gold lace on his sleeve. It had been a reckless thing to do, but he had already read Herrick's report and had acted swiftly. He had not even stopped to consider what it must have cost Herrick to break his silence.

He tried to put it from his mind. Herrick was not doing it for him, but for Catherine and Catherine's lover, Richard Bolitho.

He said, "I hope you will take a glass with me, Thomas, We shall not be disturbed."

Herrick shrugged. It could have meant anything.

But Bethune was ready. He knew Herrick well enough by now. I think I do. Stubborn, single-minded, loyal. The navy was his whole life, and, like an hourglass, it was running out.

He opened a cupboard and poured two glasses of cognac. From the dusty shop in St James's where Catherine had bought wine for Richard…

He saw her face again, her eyes flashing when he had mentioned Baron Sillitoe of Chiswick.

"We are not lovers. But I owe him so much. He stood by me when others did not. I would have died but for him."

Herrick took the glass and studied it gravely. "Early for me, Sir Graham." Always the title, like a last harrier, just as he never used "Lord" in connection with Sillitoe, either in his report or in this room.

"It seems certain that Lord Sillitoe is deeply involved with business affairs in the West Indies." Bethune hesitated. "And in Africa?"

Herrick said, "No doubt about it. The offices in the City of London have confirmed it. Sillitoe may have been unaware of the extent to which it was tied to the slave trade, but ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law." He added with sudden bitterness, "Anyone who has faced a court martial will say as much!"

Bethune turned back to the window. He must have been mad; Catherine had been right. So near the Thames, where anyone might have seen them. A promising flag officer, well placed for further promotion, with a wife and children, and still young enough to rise to the new demands of the navy in peacetime. He thought of the fleet which had sailed from Plymouth, to an inevitable confrontation with the Dey of Algiers. Hardly peace, and there was growing friction between the new allies over the slave trade.

He had even touched her, held her hand, prevented her from pulling it away.

"I don't want you to go, Catherine. You could remain here, in London. I can make certain of your privacy."

He had seen her eyes.

"As your mistress, Graham? Another scandal? I have too much respect for you to ruin your whole life."

Herrick asked abruptly, "Is there news of Catherine?"

Bethune faced him. "I spoke with her. A few times." He saw the disbelief, then the caution. "She intends to go with Lord Sillitoe to the West Indies." He thought suddenly of the Nile medal, her relief when he had told her that it had been delivered safely to the Bolitho house in Falmouth.

He heard the clock chime, more of a tremble than a sound, and refilled the glasses while he considered what he had done.

He would be blamed for warning her. His future would he in ruins. Perhaps a sea appointment might have saved him… He put down the bottle.

He saw her walk towards her carriage. She had paused once, and had asked quite calmly, "Are you in love with me, Graham?" He could not recall his answer, only her final dismissal. "Then you are a fool."

Herrick said, "Can nothing he done?"

"Their lordships are too concerned with Algiers at the moment. Afterwards…" Ile shrugged. "Perhaps Lord Sillitoe will absolve himself."

Herrick stood up carefully. "I must take my leave, Sir Graham. I am told that I will be required to return to Freetown shortly. That damnable place! And afterwards, 1 shall he put on the beach." As if he could see it, face it, like a man with one foot on the scaffold.

Bethune said, "Will you go hack to Kent?"

Herrick studied him. "I am a stranger there now."

He watched the door, knowing that a servant was waiting, ready to spirit him out.

"I ask you, Sir Graham. Igo what you can for Catherine. Sir Richard gave me my life. She gave me back my trust."

Something seemed to hold him by the door. "Adam Bolitho. Is he at sea yet?"

"I am informed that Unrivalled left Plymouth yesterday."

Herrick said, "How I envy him."

The door closed, and Bethune picked up the bottle again, which was unlike him.

He raised the glass, and said aloud, "Yes, Catherine, I am a fool!"

He thought of her hand in his, her resistance. And something more.

The servant was hack. "I thought to remind you, Sir Graham. We have an appointment with the First Lord at noon."

"I see." He glanced at the empty glasses. "Then we had better not keep him waiting."

He was reminded sharply of the room he had seen in Malta, the last place she had joined Richard Bolitho.

He had used the same words then. How I envy him.

It was not over.

Lieutenant Leigh Galbraith followed his captain into the stern cabin and waited by the door, half-expecting him to remember something and hurry to another part of the ship. It had been like that since his return, a boundless energy which was infectious, something you shared without knowing why.

Even O'Beirne had been at a loss for words, which was most unusual. He had redressed the wound and had snorted, "Riding a horse-I ask you, man. Does he have a death wish, this captain we follow?"

Yovell was here, coat draped on a chair, his table and some of the surrounding deck covered with folders and lists, and still more letters, Galbraith noticed.

He realised that the captain had halted by the stern windows, hands spread out on the lower sill as if embracing the anchorage.

"It's good to be without an admiral's flag to rule our days, eh? The fleet will be well on its way now." Galbraith saw one hand pat the freshly painted wood. "Never fear, we'll soon catch them up." He turned. "And you recommended Lawson for promotion to bosun's mate to replace…"

"Selby, sir. Lawson was cox'n of the jollyboat, and a good allround seaman. But if you think…"

Adam smiled. "I had thought that Sanders might be the right choice, but no, I agree with you. Lawson it is. I shall speak with him directly."

"And the new midshipman, sir. Shall I deal with him?"

"No. I shall see him. It's important, I think."

Galbraith watched him touch the wound again.

Napier came from the sleeping cabin, some clean shirts folded over one arm. He wore no shoes, and Adam knew the reason for it. O'Beirne had told him. There was a splinter in the boy's thigh, teak like the other, but deeper, and dangerous. All sailors hated teak. Triton had been a Dutch ship, and most of them were built of timber brought from far-off Dutch possessions.

Napier had said, "It will be all right, sir. I won't have a limp if…" If was always the threat.

Adam said, "I'm pleased with the ship, Leigh. And with what you've achieved while Unrivalled has been here." He shook his head. "And I know what you're going to say about all the help steered our way by the admiral. I was a first lieutenant myself, and I have not forgotten who truly gets things done." He smiled at him. "It will look well when I write your report."

"Report, sir?"

Adam had turned to look at a passing yawl and did not see the sudden apprehension.

"When the time comes for promotion!" He swung round, half-blinded by the glare from the anchorage. "Be ready, man! It will come, or I'll know the reason why. And now let us go over that list again. Gun crews and their captains. Topmen and boat crews." He remembered the shattered wheel, the mangled corpses clinging to the splintered spokes, and touched the fresh paintwork once more. As if the rest were only a memory.

Never again.

"Tell me about the new midshipman. Is there anything that might put him at his ease when we meet?"

He thought of the surprise, even the pleasure, he had seen in faces he thought he already knew.

He was back in command. And it mattered. A close thing, O'Beirne had said. Would they be watching him when next they were called to quarters? Never question it. Do it. Was it ever that simple?

Galbraith said, "His name is John Bremner, late of the frigate Juno. He is fifteen."

"I remember Juno. A French prize, fifth-rate. When I last heard, she was about to be broken up. He should be experienced, anyway. What we need now."

He watched the wind ruffle the water of the anchorage; Cristie said it would hold. Even he had been pleased, he thought. "We owe that bugger one, sir!" He had almost smiled.

He felt the strain running out of him. Even the wound was not painful, at the moment.

And they were leaving again. Tomorrow.

He saw a small boat pulling away from the side, the oarsman pausing to shade his eyes and peer up at the gilded gingerbread around the quarter.

They would make full use of the time on passage to join the fleet; gun drill would be paramount. He could almost hear the admiral's words. Unrivalled had been there. The others had not.

I want you in the van.

There was a tap at the door: the new midshipman. His most important time. So it must be mine, too.

But it was Lieutenant Bellairs, his face scored by the sun even now.

"I'm sorry to trouble you, sir. But I thought it might be important."

Adam looked at him and knew he had Galbraith's full attention as well. Bellairs, only recently a midshipman himself, had changed since young Cousens had been killed. They had been close, and Bellairs had helped to train the other midshipman in flags and signals before his own promotion to lieutenant. As if he had hardened, matured almost overnight, not the Bellairs who had blushed when telling him about the girl named Jane who lived in Dartmouth.

He opened the small, hastily-folded cover.

For a moment the cabin was gone. The faces, the individual concerns and responsibilities were at another's door.

A clear, unfamiliar hand, but he knew it instantly.

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

He stared at the wind-ruffled water,.just in time to see the boat vanishing around two hulks.

It was not possible. Like the dream, when he had almost lost his mind in pain and despair. When she had always been with him…

lie faced them again.

"Thank you for that, Mr Bellairs."

He sat down, in the chair which he had brought from Falmouth.

"Send in Mr Bremner, will you?"

He was leaving someone. And that, too, mattered.

"Steady she goes, sir! Sou'-west by south!"

Adam braced his legs on the wet planking as Unrivalled ploughed her stem into the curling breakers of the Channel, levelling the glass with care, measuring the distance, the bearing of the last jutting spar of land. Penlec Point, the sea lively there too, spray drifting like pink shadows in the morning light.

tie lowered the glass. Cristie was right; they would weather the headland with half a mile to spare. You could take no chances with a lee shore. Ile walked up the tilting deck, feeling the ship quiver as she lifted and then hit into deeper water. What she did best. And wide across the bows lay open water.

All hands had been piped before dawn, the last mail and despatches were lowered to the guardboat, and after a hasty meal the capstan was manned, the shantyman doing his best above the rising south-easterly wind.

During the ship's stay at Plymouth, Galbraith had managed to find seven recruits to fill the dead men's shoes. Surprisingly, they were all prime seamen, so that would make up the difference far more than mere numbers. Perhaps it was because Unrivalled was the last ship to leave port, with only the listing hulks to remind men of hard times ahead? With all boats stowed, and the anchor hove short, she had left as the day was just dawning, giving colour to the land.

He strode aft, men dodging out of his way, rigging groaning and taking the strain, experienced eyes watching new and old cordage for weakness, or a job too hastily completed in harbour.

He thought of the new midshipman, only fifteen but already well trained in his previous ship. A dark, serious-looking youngster, a little too serious perhaps, probably comparing Adam with his previous captain. There were no passengers in a frigate, and the real personality would soon be forced to emerge. It would help to take the minds of the other midshipmen from Cousens and the missing Sandell.

He came out of himself and called, "Mr Galbraith, get the courses on her, once we are clear of the Point." He stared up at the sloping masts, the angled yards where topmen were already spread out like monkeys, indifferent to the height or the sea boiling along the weather side. One hand for the King. It was the first lesson for any true seaman. The other one you kept for yourself.

He turned away as Galbraith yelled his orders to the boatswain's party waiting by the foremast. Leaving port. Would he never get used to it? The excitement, the small pictures you never left behind. Fishermen standing in their frail craft to wave, their cheers soundless in the din of canvas and feet running to halliards and braces. A small packet ship under French colours, dipping her flag as they had passed her. The old enemy; the sea, perhaps, was the only true thing they held in common.

He had levelled his glass on the land, the Sound already swallowed up astern, and imagined her as she must have been, writing the note, some sudden whim or determination making her give it to some waterman for delivery. Maybe she was already regretting it, fearing it might he misinterpreted or worse. He had put his own letter to her in the guardboat. It would be delivered to Bryan Ferguson; if she had not already gone away, he would find her.

He heard one of the helmsmen curse quietly, saw him gesture at something on the big double wheel, the replacement for one shot to pieces.

He touched his side again. There might have been no letter. He thought, too, of the marine who had died, dropping his musket. A man well liked, and remembered because he had once served under the young Captain Nelson in the Agamemnon, "Old Aggie, " as she was affectionately known.

Was there someone left, perhaps in Plymouth, who would grieve for him? Or would it he yet another lost name, like the Paradox's boatswain, who had come from St Keverne overlooking the Manacles, which they had discussed while he lay dying. So many. Too many.

He had contained a sudden and, he knew, unreasonable anger when he had read the letter from a retired rearadmiral who had served with Sandell's father, and had sponsored the boy for his appointment as midshipman. No sadness, no pity. If anything, only a resentful disapproval that a would-be officer had been lost at sea, without proper investigation, a fault, surely, of his captain. Would he have cared so much for procedure if a lowly landman had been missing overboard?

He saw Midshipman Deighton standing by the flag locker with his chosen hands, frowning slightly as he studied his signals card, then he smiled at something said by a master's mate. And he saw Lieutenant Bellairs turn from his station with the afterguard, to watch with, he thought, a certain sadness, as if seeing someone else. Then he was with his men again. He would get over it. There was no other way.

He seized the hammock nettings as the ship crashed into a long, unbroken roller. And what would be the outcome of this venture? It was the admiral's total responsibility; his was the decision whether to call the Dey's bluff, or commit all his ships and men to the onslaught of battle. No ship could match gun for gun with a carefully sited shore battery. And there might be heated shot, and fire, every sailor's only real fear. According to the written orders, the Dey had mounted a thousand cannon or more, perhaps in those same old crumbling batteries he had seen for himself when he had cut out an enemy ship from the anchorage, and afterwards when Admiral Lord Rhodes had made his attack with bomb vessels and his own heavier ships in support. But too far out to find and destroy those hidden guns.

Exmouth was a frigate man. Had been. How would he perceive, and accept, a challenge which might end in disaster?

He saw Galbraith studying him, trying not to show it. He, too, was changed in some way. Troubled by his captain? Unsure of him, after what had happened?

Adam faced into the wind, coming harder now across the quarter, tasting it. Like the tears that day, fallen on his hand.

Whatever happened they must be ready, for treachery and for traps.

A voice seemed to insist, You must be ready. You.

He called, "Get the courses on her, Mr Galbraith! Another hand on the helm, too!"

He saw him lift his speaking-trumpet, men poised and ready to respond to his orders, their bodies stripped and shining with spray. Like those warriors to whom she had alluded, in the myths and traditions of ancient times of which he knew so little. She had described him as a man of war. Perhaps she had not truly understood how apt that had been. There had never been opportunity or leisure to become anything else, for the boy who had walked from Penzance to Falmouth. The frigate captain.

lie heard the thunder of released canvas as it filled and hardened to the wind. Unrivalled was standing hard over, every eighteenpounder on the weather side throwing its weight on the breechings.

They might walk together again. And she would share it with him.

lie stared into the wind until the spray almost blinded him.

She must know. It came like a fist from nowhere. Why she had written that brief note, which now seemed to hold such urgency.

God he with you. It was like hearing her voice.

"More hands on the weather forebrace, Mr Fielding! Move yourselves.",

Adam stared at the land again, almost lost now in the wind and spray. A green haze, without real form or substance. It would soon he gone once they changed tack.

He waited for the ship to steady, the sails shining like metal breastplates, then he strode to the quarterdeck rail and gripped it with both hands.

Fear was an enemy, but it could he held at hay. When others looked to you, there was never any choice. The faces sometimes came back to remind him. He had seen it in Bellairs just now, Galbraith also. Seeking something, other than trust.

It was a long time ago, another voice. I don't want to die. Please, God, not now.

But the voice was his own.