Second to None

18. Of One Company

“HEAVE, LADS! Heave away!”

With both of Unrivalled’s capstans fully manned and every available seaman putting his weight on the bars, the cable was barely moving. Adam Bolitho stood by the quarterdeck rail, his hands clasped beneath his coat-tails, watching the strange light and the low, scudding clouds. The harbour walls, like the waterfront buildings, seemed to glow with a dull yellow texture, and although it was morning it seemed more like sunset.

The wind had risen slightly, hot against his face, and he tasted grit between his teeth, as if they were already standing off some desert shore. He heard Midshipman Sandell shout impatiently, “Start that man! Put some weight on the bars there!”

And, instantly, Galbraith’s curt, “Belay that! The cable’s moving at last!” He sounded impatient, frustrated, perhaps because of the time wasted here in Malta since Admiral Lord Rhodes had hoisted his flag, which had been followed by this sudden order to get the ships under way.

Clank. The iron pawl of the capstan dropped into position.

Clank, and then the next one.

Someone said, “Flagship’s cable is shortening, sir!”

Galbraith retorted, “They have six hundred idle hands to play with!”

Adam looked forward where Massie was peering through the beak-head to watch the bar-taut cable. All of Unrivalled’s tonnage and the pressure of wind, set against muscle and sweat.

Clank. Clank. As if to a signal he heard the scrape of a violin and then the shantyman’s quavery voice. So many times. Leaving harbour. For the sailor the future was always unknown, like the next horizon.

When first I went to sea as a lad…

Heave, me bullies, heave!

A fine new knife was all I had!

Heave, me bullies, heave!

Adam relaxed slightly. To sea again. But this time under the Flag. The fleet’s apron strings, as he had heard other frigate captains describe it.

And I’ve sailed for fifty years an’ three

Heave, lads, heave!

It was coming in faster now, the capstans turning like human wheels.

To the coasts of gold and ivory!

Midshipman Sandell hurried past, pointing out something to the new member, Midshipman Deighton.

He had heard Jago remark, “Look at ’im, will you? Cocking his chest like a half-pay admiral!”

Another memory. What Allday had often said to describe some upstart.

He thought of Admiral Rhodes’ hurried conference aboard the flagship. He had received news of another unwarranted attack on some innocent fishermen. A battery had fired on the vessels, and then chebecs had appeared as if from nowhere and had captured or massacred the luckless crews. One of the squadron’s armed schooners had been nearby and had attempted to offer assistance, only to be driven off herself. It had been a close thing, to all accounts.

Rhodes had been beside himself with anger. An example must be made, before the weather changed yet again. He would delay no longer; all available ships must be ready to sail.

The squadron had been reinforced by a bomb vessel named Atlas. She had sailed at first light with Matchless as escort.

Adam knew from experience that bomb vessels were difficult at the best of times, being clumsy and unhandy sailers. To use just one such craft without waiting for promised reinforcements would be asking for trouble, no matter how experienced her company might be.

At the captains’ conference aboard Frobisher he had said as much. Rhodes had turned on him instantly, as if he had been waiting for the chance.

“Of course, Captain Bolitho. I almost forgot! A frigate captain of your style and record would condemn the more controlled approach.”

Only Captain Bouverie of Matchless had laughed. The others had waited in silence.

Rhodes had continued, “No daring cutting-out, or some hand-to-hand skirmish with undisciplined renegades, so you consider this is not a useful undertaking!”

“I resent that, my lord.” The words had hung in the air, while Rhodes had made a point of studying one of his charts. “To break the Dey’s hold over the Algerine pirates, as he chooses to call them when it suits his purpose, a fleet action will be required.”

Rhodes had shrugged. “Knowledge is not necessarily wisdom, Captain Bolitho. I trust you will remember it.” He had looked pointedly at the others. “All of you.”

The shantyman’s reedy voice broke into his thoughts again.

And now at the end of a lucky life!

Massie yelled from the forecastle, “Anchor’s hove short, sir!”

Adam nodded, satisfied. “Loose the heads’ls!” He stared up at the braced yards. “Hands aloft and loose tops’ls!”

Midshipman Cousens, who had not lowered his telescope and was still watching the flagship, shouted, “Signal from Flag, sir!

General… Make haste! ”

Adam saw the wind feeling its way into the loosely brailed topsails. It was easy to contain your anger when the enemy was so obvious.

The shantyman ended with a flourish, “Well, still I’ve got that same old knife!”

“Anchor’s aweigh, sir!”

Adam walked to the opposite side to watch the land sliding away, as more men released from the capstan bars hurried to add their weight to the braces, to haul the yards round and capture the wind.

He took a telescope from its rack and trained it on the ancient battlements, and the gaping embrasures where cannon had once dominated the harbour. Where they had held one another. And had loved, impossible though it was to believe.

Galbraith had found him on deck during the morning watch, and had probably imagined he had risen early to see the bomb vessel and the weed-encrusted Matchless clearing the harbour.

Or had he guessed that he had been watching the third ship making an early departure, tall and somehow invulnerable with her spreading canvas. A merchantman, the Aranmore, bound for Southampton. Had she also been on deck to watch the anchored men-of-war, he wondered? Had she already forgotten, or locked it away, another hidden secret?

He said, “Take station on the Flag, Mr Galbraith, and lay her on the starboard tack once we are clear.” He tried to smile, to lighten it. “As ordered, remember?”

He paced to the compass box and back again. And then there was Catherine’s letter. Perhaps it would have been better to have sailed earlier, before the latest courier had anchored. My dear Adam…

What, after all, had he expected? She had nobody to care for her, to protect her from malicious gossip and worse.

He raised the glass again and waited for the image to focus on the first patch of windblown water. Frobisher. Much as she had been when she had quit Malta with his uncle’s flag at the main. He had felt it when he had walked her deck, sensed it in the watching faces, though few, if any, could have been aboard on that fatal day.

He lowered the glass and looked at his own ship, the seamen flaking down lines and securing halliards. In spite of everything, he had seen the bond grow and strengthen. They were one company.

Perhaps he was wrong about Rhodes, and a show of force was all that it needed. But in his heart he knew it was something else. Unsaid, like that which Bethune had left behind, as dangerous as

Unrivalled’s shadow on the seabed when they had entered the shallows.

He saw Napier coming aft with something on a covered tray. The boy who had trusted him enough to come and tell him of Lady Bazeley’s plight. He laid his palm briefly on the polished wood of the ladder where she had been lying helpless.

He should be able to accept it. Instead, he was behaving like some moonstruck youth.

He heard Cristie give a little cough, waiting to make his report, course to steer, estimated time of arrival. Then the purser would come: provisions and fresh water, and this time, no doubt with Forbes’ influence, some welcome casks of beer from the army.

“Signal from Flag, sir!” Midshipman Cousens sounded subdued. “Make more sail!”

“Acknowledge.” Adam turned away and saw Midshipman Deighton speaking with the newly-minted lieutenant, Bellairs. It gave him time to think, to recall Forbes’ words on board Frobisher. Not afraid to take a risk if you thought it justified.

He said, “Be patient, Mr Cousens. I fear you will be much in demand until we sight an enemy!”

Those around him laughed, and others who were out of earshot paused in their work as if to share it.

Adam looked through the great web of spars and rigging. Perhaps Rhodes was watching Unrivalled at this very moment.

Aloud he said, “I’ll see you damned, my lord!”

Bellairs watched the captain walk to the companion-way and then gave his attention to the new midshipman again. It was hard to believe that he had been one himself, and so recently given his commission. It would make his parents in Bristol very proud.

The war was over, but for the navy the fighting was never very far away. Like this new challenge, the Algerine pirates. He found violent death more acceptable than the prospect of life as one of those he had seen left wounded and hopelessly crippled.

He touched the fine, curved hanger at his side. He had been astounded when the first lieutenant had told him of the captain’s offer.

He suddenly realised what Midshipman Deighton had been asking him about the ship and her young captain.

He said simply, “I’d follow him to the cannon’s mouth.”

He touched the hanger again and grinned. A King’s officer.

Midshipman Cousens lowered the big signals telescope and dashed spray from his tanned features with his sleeve.

“Boat’s casting off from the flagship now, sir!”

Lieutenant Galbraith crossed to the nettings and stared at the lively, broken water, the crests dirty yellow in the strange glare. The weather had worsened almost as soon as they had left Malta, wind whipping the sea into serried ranks of angry waves, spray pouring from sails and rigging alike as if they were fighting through a tropical rainstorm. If the wind did not ease, the ships would be scattered overnight. As they had been last night, and they had struggled to reform to the admiral’s satisfaction.

As Cristie had often said, the Mediterranean could never be trusted, especially when you needed perfect conditions.

He saw the cutter staggering clear of Frobisher’s glistening side; it was a wonder that it had not capsized in its first crossing. To use the gig had been out of the question. A cutter was heavier and had the extra brawn to carry her through this kind of sea.

He had been both doubtful and anxious when Captain Bolitho had told him he was going across to the flagship to see Rhodes in person, after three signals to the admiral requesting an audience. Each had been denied without explanation, as was any admiral’s right. But it was also the right of any captain to see his flag officer, if he was prepared to risk reprimand for wasting the great man’s time.

With his own coxswain at the tiller Bolitho had headed away, his boat-cloak black with spray before they had covered a few yards. It would not have been the first time a captain had been marooned aboard a flagship because of bad weather. Suppose it had happened now? The captain would have had to endure the sight of his own command hove-to under storm canvas, and another man’s voice at the quarterdeck rail. Mine.

He watched the cutter lifting, porpoising slightly before riding the next trough of dark water, the oars rising and dipping, holding the hull under control. At other times he could scarcely see more than the bowed heads and shoulders of the boat’s crew, as if they were already going under.

Galbraith felt only relief. He had heard the rumours about Bolitho’s disagreement with the admiral at the last conference, the hostility and the sarcasm, as if Rhodes were trying to goad him into something which would be used against him. It was something personal, and therefore dangerous, even to others who might be tempted to take sides in the matter.

The cutter plunged into a trough and then lifted her stem again like a leaping porpoise. Even without a glass he could see the grin on the captain’s face, stronger than any words or code of discipline. He had seen it at first hand in action, when these same men had doubted their own ability to fight and win, had seen how some of them had touched his arm when he had passed amongst them. The victors.

He called sharply, “Stand by to receive the captain!”

But the boatswain and his party were already there. Like himself, they had been waiting with their blocks and tackles, perhaps without even knowing why.

He saw a small figure in a plain blue coat, drenched through like the rest of them: Ritzen, the purser’s clerk. A quiet, thoughtful man, and an unlikely one to spark off a chain of events which might end in a court martial, or worse. But Ritzen was different from the others around him. He was Dutch, and had signed on with the King’s navy when he had been rescued by an English sloop after being washed overboard in a storm and left for dead by his own captain.

Ritzen had been ashore in Malta with Tregillis, the purser, buying fruit from local traders rather than spend a small fortune at the authorised suppliers. He had fallen in with some seamen from the Dutch frigate Triton which had called briefly at the island. Her captain, a commodore, had paid a visit to Lord Rhodes.

Galbraith could recall the moment exactly, after another long day of sail and gun drill, and a seemingly endless stream of signals, mostly, it appeared, directed at Unrivalled.

Everyone knew it was wrong, unfair, but who would dare to say as much? Galbraith had gone to the great cabin, where he had found the captain in his chair, some letters open on his lap, and a goblet of cognac quivering beside him to each thud of the tiller head.

Despair, resignation, anger: it had been all and none of them.

After reporting the state of the ship and the preparations for station-keeping overnight, Galbraith had told him about the purser’s clerk. Ritzen had overheard that the Dutch frigate was on passage to Algiers, her sale already approved and encouraged by the Dutch government. It had been like seeing someone coming alive again, a door to freedom opening, when moments earlier there had been only a captive.

“I knew there was something strange when I heard it aboard Frobisher! ” Adam had gone from the chair to the salt-stained stern windows in two strides, the dark hair falling over his forehead, the weight of command momentarily forgotten. “A commodore in charge of a single frigate! That alone should have told me, if nobody else was prepared to!”

Perhaps Rhodes had forgotten, or thought it no one else’s business. Maybe Bethune’s records had not been examined. Galbraith thought it unlikely, and when he had seen the light in the captain’s eyes he knew it for certain.

“I shall see the admiral…” He must have seen the doubt in Galbraith’s face. To risk another confrontation, and all on the word of the purser’s clerk, seemed reckless if not downright dangerous. But there had been no such doubt in Bolitho’s voice. “Such intelligence is valuable beyond measure, Leigh! To any sea officer, time and distance are the true enemies. This man spoke out, and I intend that his words should be heard!”

He had stared at the leaping spectres of spray breaking across the thick glass, and it had been then that Galbraith had seen the locket on the table beside the goblet. The beautiful face and high cheekbones, the naked shoulders. He had never laid eyes on her, but he had known that it was Catherine Somervell. That woman, who had scorned society and won the hearts of the fleet, and of the nation.

Galbraith stood back from the dripping hammock nettings. He was soaked to the skin, but he had felt nothing. He suppressed a shiver, but it was not cold or fear. It was something far stronger.

“After you have secured the cutter, Mr Partridge, pass my compliments to the purser and have a double tot issued to the boat’s crew.” He saw the little clerk staring up at him. “And also for Ritzen.”

And, as suddenly as he had departed, the captain was here on the streaming deck with his gasping, triumphant oarsmen.

He shook his cocked hat and tossed it to his servant.

“All officers and warrant ranks aft in ten minutes, if you please.” The dark eyes were everywhere, even as he pushed the dripping hair from his face. “But I must speak first with you.”

Galbraith waited, remembering the moment when Bazeley’s wife had offered her hand to be kissed. The notion had touched him then: how right they had looked together. He had wanted to laugh at his own stupidity. Now, he was not so sure.

Then Adam spoke quietly, so softly that he could have been talking to himself. Or to the ship, Galbraith thought.

“I pray to God for a fair wind tomorrow.” He touched his lieutenant’s arm, and Galbraith knew the gesture was unconscious. “For then we must fight, and only He can help us.”

Lieutenant Massie looked around the crowded cabin, his swarthy features expressionless.

“All present, sir.”

Adam said, “Sit where you can, if you can.” It gave him more time to think, to assemble what he would say.

The cabin was full; even the junior warrant officers were present, some of them staring around as if they expected to discover something different in this most sacred part of their ship.

Adam could feel the hull moving heavily beneath him, but steadier now, the wind holding her over, all sounds muffled by distance.

He could picture Galbraith moving about the quarterdeck overhead, and recalled his face when he had outlined the possibilities of action, as he had to Lord Rhodes.

Now Galbraith was on watch, the only officer absent from the cabin.

The two Royal Marine officers, a bright patch of colour, the midshipmen in their own whispering group, and young Bellairs standing with Lieutenant Wynter and Cristie, the taciturn sailingmaster. The surgeon was present also, dwarfing the scrawny figure of Tregillis the purser. Despite the lack of space the other warrant officers, the backbone of any fighting ship, managed to keep apart. Stranace the gunner stood with his friend the carpenter, “Old Blane” as he was known, although he was not yet forty. Neither of them could work out a course or compass bearing on a chart, and like most professional sailors they were content to leave such matters to those trained for it. But lay them alongside an enemy ship and they would keep the guns firing, and repair the damage from every murderous broadside. And the master’s mates: they would keep the ship under command, knowing they were prime targets for any enemy marksman. The flag and the cause were incidental when it came to surviving the first deadly embrace.

He knew without looking that his clerk, Usher, was at the table, ready to record this rare meeting, with a handkerchief balled in one fist to muffle the cough which was slowly killing him.

The only missing face was that of George Avery. Even as Adam had outlined his convictions to Admiral Rhodes he had thought of Avery, as if he had been speaking for him.

So many times they had talked together, about his service with

Sir Richard, his friendship with Catherine. Galbraith had touched upon it too, only a few moments ago in this same cabin.

I think he knew he was going to die, sir. I think he had given up the will to live.

He glanced along the cabin’s side. The big eighteen-pounders were held firmly behind their sealed ports, but dragging at the stout breeching ropes with the sway of the deck. As if they were restless, eager.

But instead he saw Frobisher’s stern cabin, the great ship riding almost disdainfully across the broken water. Where his uncle had sat and dreamed; had believed, perhaps, that a hand was reaching out at last.

The surprising part had been the admiral’s frowning silence while he had explained the reason for his visit.

Avery again… How he had described their meeting with Mehmet Pasha, the Dey’s governor and commander-in-chief in Algiers. Face to face, with no ships to support them but for the smaller twenty-eight gun frigate Halcyon. She was out there now, riding out the same weather, with the same young captain who had served under James Tyacke as a midshipman, in this very sea at the Battle of the Nile.

Avery had forgotten nothing, and had filled a notebook with facts of every kind, from the barbarous cruelties he had witnessed, not so far from where they had cut out La Fortune, a thousand years ago, or so it felt, even to the names of ships moored there, and the Spanish mercenary, Captain Martinez, who had changed sides too many times for his own good. This command would be his last, one way or the other. Adam seemed to hear Lovatt’s despairing voice while he lay dying, here, just beyond the screen of his sleeping quarters. Where he had held the boy Napier circled in his arm, to make himself believe he was the son who had turned away from him.

He licked dry lips, aware of the silence, the intent, watching faces, barely able to accept that he had been talking to these men for several minutes. Even the shipboard noises seemed muted, so that the scrape of Usher’s pen seemed loud in the stillness.

He said, “I believe we shall fight. The main attack will be carried out by the flagship and Prince Rupert, and at the right moment by the bomb vessel Atlas. Perhaps this is merely a gesture, one worth risking ships and lives. It is not my place to judge.” He held the bitterness at bay, like an enemy. “ Unrivalled’s place will be up to wind’rd. Ours is the fastest vessel, and apart from the two liners the best armed.” He smiled, as he had done in the cutter to give his oarsmen heart for the return pull. “I do not need to add, the best ship! ”

Rhodes would have his way. The bombardment would be carried out without delay after yet another reported attack on helpless fishermen and the murder of their crews. It might make a fitting beginning to the admiral’s appointment.

He thought of the Dutch frigate again. Expedience, greed, who could say? The great minds who planned such transactions never had to face the brutal consequences of close action. Maybe the Dutch government had fresh plans for expansion overseas. They already held territories in the West and East Indies, so why not Africa, where rulers like the Dey could obstruct even the strongest moves of empire?

Such deals were left to men like Bazeley… his mind faltered for a second… and Sillitoe. He saw Lieutenant Wynter watching him fixedly. Or his father in the House of Commons and those like him.

“The Dutch frigate Triton, or whatever she may now be called, is a powerful vessel…”

He heard Rhodes again, his confidence and bluster returning like a strong squall.

“They would not dare! I could blow that ship out of the water!”

He continued, “I know not what to expect. I merely wanted to share it with you.” He paused, and saw O’Beirne glance around as if he expected to see a newcomer in the cabin. “For we are of one company.”

He had already seen the doubt on Massie’s dark countenance. He knew the chart, the notes in Cristie’s log, and now he knew

Unrivalled’s holding station, well up to windward. Rhodes could not have made it plainer.

“Be content to watch the flank for a change!”

Even the flag captain had warned him openly before he had climbed down to the pitching cutter.

“You’ve made an enemy there, Bolitho! You sail too close to the wind!”

He would, of course, deny any such remark at a court martial.

They were filing out of the cabin now, and Usher bowed his head in a fit of coughing.

O’Beirne was the last to leave, as Adam had known he would be. They faced one another, like two men meeting unexpectedly in a lane or on some busy street.

O’Beirne said, “I am glad I wear a sword only for the adornment, sir. I consider myself a fair man and a competent surgeon.” He tried to smile. “But command? I can only watch at a distance, and be thankful!”

The surgeon walked out into the daylight, and was surprised to see the planking steaming in the warm wind as if the very ship were burning. There was so much he had wanted to say, to share. And now it was too late. Before sailing from England he had met Frobisher’s previous surgeon, Paul Lefroy; they had known one another for years. He smiled sadly. Lefroy was completely bald now, his head like polished mahogany. A good doctor, and a firm friend. He had been with Sir Richard Bolitho when he had died. O’Beirne had pictured it in his friend’s words, just as he had seen some of it in his youthful captain’s face, and he glanced aft now as if he expected to see him.

Lefroy had said, “When he died, I felt I had lost a part of myself.”

He shook his head. For a ship’s surgeon, even after several glasses of rum, that was indeed something.

But for some reason the levity did not help. The image remained.

Napier, the captain’s servant, watched O’Beirne leave, and knew his captain would be alone, perhaps needing a drink, or simply to talk, as he did sometimes. Perhaps the captain did not understand what it meant to him. The boy who had wanted to go to sea, to become someone.

And now he was.

He touched his pocket and felt the broken watch, its guard punched in two by a musket ball, where the little mermaid had been engraved.

The captain had seemed surprised when he had asked if he could keep it, instead of pitching it outboard.

He turned as he heard the sound of a grindstone and the rasp of steel. The gunner was back, too, supervising the sharpening of cutlasses and the deadly boarding-axes.

He found that he could face it. Accept it.

He touched the broken watch again and smiled gravely. He was no longer alone.

Joseph Sullivan, the seaman who had taken part in the Battle of Trafalgar and who was Unrivalled’s most experienced lookout, paused in his climb to the crosstrees and glanced down at the ship. It took some men years to become used to the height from the deck, the quivering shrouds and treacherous rigging; some never did. Others were never afforded the chance. Falls were common, and even if the unfortunate lookout fell into the sea it was unlikely that he would recover. If the ship hove-to in time.

Sullivan was completely at ease working aloft, and always had been. He looked briefly into the fighting-top he had just passed, where some Royal Marines were occupied with a swivel-gun and checking their arms and powder. Marines were always busy, he thought.

Sullivan took the weight on his bare soles, so hardened and calloused over the years that he scarcely felt the tarred ratlines, and linked an arm through the shrouds.

The ship had been up and about since before first light, as he had known she would be. He could still taste the rum on his tongue, the pork in his belly. It was a hard life, but he was as content as any true sailor could be.

He peered up at the black shrouds, the big maintopsail filling and emptying while the wind tried to make up its mind. No need to hurry. It was too dark to see more than a few yards. He shifted the knife which he carried across his spine like most seamen, where it could not snare anything, but could be drawn in a second.

He smiled. Like the Jack in the shantyman’s song when they had weighed anchor, he thought. Sullivan had been in the navy for as long as he could remember. Good ships and foul ones. Fair captains and tyrants. Like the shanty. The old knife was about the only possession he still owned from those first days at sea.

He could smell smoke and grease and heard a splash alongside. The galley fire had been doused; the ship was cleared for action. He sighed. From what he had heard, Unrivalled would be well out of it when the guns started to roar. He thought of the captain’s face. He was feeling it. He grinned. A real goer, like his uncle to all accounts. But a man. Not afraid to stop and ask one of his men what he was doing, or how he felt. Rare, then.

He began the final climb, pleased that he was not breathless like some half his age. He saw the masthead pendant streaming away to leeward towards the larboard bow. Lifting, then curling again, undecided. He grinned again. Like the bloody admiral.

He reached his position in the crosstrees and hooked his leg around a stay. The wind was steady enough, from the north-east, but the bluster had gone out of it. That would mean that overnight the other ships would have drifted off their stations.

A bombardment, they said. He rubbed his chin doubtfully. It was to be hoped that the admiral knew what he was about. A two-decker made a fine target. It only needed some heated shot to upset the best-laid plans.

He shaded his eyes as the first sunlight played across the sails and braced yards; it was a view which never failed to stir him. People you knew, moving about the deck like ants, and other, isolated scarlet coats like those in the maintop. Marks of discipline, like the blue and white uniforms on the quarterdeck and down by the foremast at the first division of eighteen-pounders. His eyes crinkled as he recalled his captain climbing up to join him. No fuss, no swagger. He had just sat here with him. Not too many could say that.

He could see the coloured bunting scattered over the deck by the flag lockers. Signals to be made and answered, once Frobisher was in sight. He could see some of the others now, the bigger Prince Rupert, sails apparently limp and useless, and a frigate just off her starboard quarter. That would be Montrose, although she was well off station.

He felt the mast shiver, shrouds murmuring as the wind pressed into the topsails again. Unrivalled was standing well up to windward, while nearer the coast the whole squadron might become becalmed.

He stared beyond the larboard bow again, but the coast was still little more than a shapeless blur. There could be a mist, too.

He turned his head as a cloud of sea birds took off suddenly from the water and circled angrily over the ship. The spirits of dead Jacks, they said. Surely, he thought, they could find something better to come back as?

He laughed and began to whistle softly to himself. Whistling was forbidden on board a man-of-war, because it could be mistaken for the pipe of a boatswain’s call. They said. It was more likely because some old admiral in the past had said as much.

That was another part of it. The freedom. Up here, you were your own man. Experience taught you the shades and colours of the sea that governed your life. The depths and the shoals, the sandbars and the deeps. Like when young Captain Bolitho had taken her right through that narrow strait… Even Sullivan had felt uneasy about that.

He peered down again and saw one of the midshipmen training his telescope, adjusting it for a new day. And he remembered the captain’s surprise, that time when he had proved his skill as a lookout.

He glanced at his arm, the tattoos of ships and places he could scarcely remember. They all swore that they hated it, but what else was there? Perhaps when Unrivalled eventually paid off… He shook his head, dismissing it. How many times had he said that?

He looked up again and the whistle died on his lips. For only a moment longer he held on to the view, the wheeling gulls, the pale deck far below, the men who were his companions from choice or otherwise.

He held one hand to his mouth, surprised that he had been caught out.

“Deck thar! Sail on th’ starboard bow!”

He was too old a hand to consider pride. He was, after all, a good lookout.