Bolitho 19 - Beyond the Reef (2 page)

Time and time again Keen had reminded himself of Catherine’s advice when he had visited her in London. He had confessed his doubts about Zenoria’s true feelings for him.

Catherine had said quietly, “Remember what happened to her. A young girl—taken and used, with no hope, and nothing to live for.”

Keen bit his lip, recalling the day he had first seen her, seized up, almost naked, her back laid open from shoulder to hip while the other prisoners had watched like wild beasts, as if it had been some kind of savage sport. So perhaps it was, after all, gratitude; and he should be satisfied, as many men would be merely to have her.

But he was not.

He saw the first lieutenant, James Sedgemore, striding aft towards him. He at least seemed more than pleased with his lot. Keen had promoted him to senior lieutenant after the tough Tynesider Cazalet had been cut in half on this same quarterdeck on that terrible morning. The enemy ship had been the San Mateo, a powerful Spaniard sailing under French colours, and she had crushed the convoy and its escorts like a tiger despatching rabbits. Keen had never seen Bolitho so determined to destroy any ship as he had been to put down San Mateo. She had sunk his old Hyperion. He had needed no other reason.

Keen often found himself wondering if Bolitho would have held to his threat to keep pouring broadsides into San Mateo, which had already been crippled in the first embrace at close quarters. Until they strike their colours. Thank God someone still sane enough to think and act in that hell of iron and screaming splinters had brought the flags tumbling down. But would he have continued, without mercy, otherwise?

I may never know.

Lieutenant Sedgemore touched his hat, his face red in the stinging air. “I shall be able to get the sails ready for bending-on tomorrow, sir.”

Keen glanced at the Royal Marine sentries by the hatchways and up on the forecastle. With the land so close there were always the reckless few who would try to run. It would be hard enough to get more hands, especially in a naval port, without allowing men the opportunity to desert.

Keen had much sympathy for his men. They had been kept aboard or sent directly to other ships to fill the gaps, without any chance to see their loved ones or their homes.

Keen had spent more time than was necessary on board, simply to show his depleted company that he was sharing it with them. Even as it crossed his mind, he knew that too was a lie. He had stayed because of his fear that he might make Zenoria openly reject him, unable even to pretend.

“Something wrong, sir?”

“No.” It came out too sharply. “Vice-Admiral Bolitho will be coming aboard at noon.” He looked across the nettings at the shining walls of the dockyard and harbour battery and on to the huddled buildings of Portsmouth Point, beyond which the Channel and the open sea were waiting. Bolitho might be over there already; at the old George Inn, perhaps? Unlikely. Catherine would be with him. He would not risk a snub or anything else which might distress her.

Sedgemore kept his young features impassive. He had never really liked his predecessor, Cazalet. A fine seaman, admittedly, but a man who was so coarse in his speech and behaviour that he had been hard to work with. He watched the bustling figures at the tackles, swaying up more bales and boxes from one of the lighters alongside.

Well, he was the first lieutenant now, in one of the navy’s newest and most powerful three-deckers. And with an admiral like Sir Richard Bolitho and a good captain like Keen, there would be no stopping them once they were at sea again. Promotion, prize-money, fame; there was no end to it, in his mind anyway.

It was the navy’s way, Sedgemore thought. If a dead man’s shoes were offered, you never waited for a second chance.

Keen said distinctly, “Tell my cox’n to prepare the barge, and have the crew piped at six bells. Inspect them yourself, although I doubt if Tojohns will leave anything to chance.”

He glanced at the open log again where the midshipman-of-the-watch was writing something, his tongue poking from one corner of his mouth with great concentration. Another picture crossed his mind. His coxswain, Tojohns, on his wedding day only two months ago, supervising the garlanded carriage which had been towed by the midshipmen and petty officers of this ship, his ship, with himself and his young bride inside.

He turned aft and stalked away beneath the poop to seek the one place he could be alone.

Sedgemore watched him go and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

A post-captain—what Sedgemore himself would be one day if everything went well for him, and he managed to avoid Cazalet’s fate.

To be captain of a ship like Black Prince … He looked up and around him. There was no higher reward for any man. He would want for nothing.

He saw the midshipman staring at him and rasped, “Mr M’Innes, I’ll trouble you not to waste your time, sir!”

It was uncalled for; but it made him feel more like a first lieutenant.

Lieutenant Stephen Jenour caught his breath as he turned the corner above the shining dockyard stairs which led directly down to the landing stage. After two months ashore either working for Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho or visiting his parents in Southampton, he felt at odds with the sea and the bitter wind.

He thrust open a small door and saw a blazing fire shining a welcome across the room.

A uniformed servant asked coldly, “Your name, sir?”

“Jenour.” He added sharply, “Flag lieutenant to Sir Richard Bolitho.”

The man bowed himself away, muttering something about a warming drink, and Jenour was childishly pleased at his ability to command instant respect.

“Welcome, Stephen.” Bolitho was sitting in a high-backed chair, the fire reflecting from his gold lace and epaulettes. “We have a while yet.”

Jenour sat down and smiled at him. So many things had changed his young life since joining Bolitho. His parents had laughed at him for vowing that one day he would serve this incredible man who had been, until Nelson’s death at Trafalgar less than three years ago, the second youngest vice-admiral on the Navy List. Now he was the youngest.

He never tired of recalling each separate incident, even that stark moment when Black Prince had been about to leave Copenhagen in search of Herrick, and Bolitho had turned on him in pleading desperation and confirmed his worst fears. “I am losing my sight, Stephen. Can you keep a secret so precious to me?” And later when Bolitho had said, “They must not know. You are a dear friend, Stephen. Now there are other friends out there who need us.”

Jenour sipped the hot drink. There was brandy in it, and spices too, and his eyes smarted but he knew it was from that memory and nothing else.

A dear friend, and one of the few who knew the extent of the injury to Bolitho’s left eye. To be entrusted with such a secret was a reward greater than anything he had believed possible.

He asked carefully, “What will Captain Keen’s answer be, Sir Richard?”

Bolitho put down his empty goblet and thought of Catherine, imagined he could still feel the warmth of her body in his arms as they had parted this morning. She would be well on her way to London now, to the house she had bought by the river in Chelsea. Their private place as she had called it, where they could be alone together when they were required to be in the capital.

It was strange to be without Allday, but his coxswain—his “oak”—had gone with Yovell, his secretary, and Ozzard his little servant, in the same coach. Catherine was fearless, but Bolitho felt safer on her behalf knowing that she travelled with such a staunch escort.

He thought too of his last interview with Lord Godschale at the Admiralty, and Godschale’s attempts to soothe him whenever he touched on a point which might provoke controversy.

“Their lordships insist that you are the best choice of flag officer to go to Cape Town. You had, after all, a vital part in taking it from the Dutch—our people know you and trust you accordingly. It should not take long, but it needs your handling to establish regular patrols of smaller craft in the area, and perhaps to send more of the major men-of-war back to England. When you have installed a post-captain in overall charge there—acting-commodore if you like—you can return too. I will offer you a fast frigate, and do everything possible for you.” He had given the great sigh of one overburdened with responsibility. “Even while Admiral Gambier and your own squadron were in Copenhagen preparing the prizes for their passage here, Napoleon was already busy elsewhere. God damn the fellow—twice he has attempted to seize the Danish fleet, and he has even provoked Turkey to turn against his old ally the Tsar of Russia. As fast as we seal one door, he explores another.”

It was difficult not to admire Napoleon’s ever-changing strategy, Bolitho had often conceded. Shortly after Herrick’s hopeless fight to save his convoy, the French army had invaded Portugal, and by November was in Lisbon, with the royal family in flight to their possessions in Brazil. It was rumoured in Whitehall that Spain, another ally if an unwilling one, would be Napoleon’s next target. He would then become a ruler of overwhelming strength, a threat once again with all the riches of Spain to support him.

Bolitho had said, “I think that this time he may have overreached himself. He has turned Portugal into an enemy, and will surely incite Spain to rise against him. It will be our one chance. A place to land an army where it will find friendship, and be treated as a liberation force.”

Godschale had looked distant. “Perhaps, perhaps.”

Another secret. Jenour knew; so did Yovell and Allday. Bolitho had refused to take passage in a frigate and had seen Godschale’s heavy features go almost purple as he had exclaimed, “Do you mean to say that you are going to take Lady Catherine Somervell with you on passage to Cape Town?”

Bolitho had been adamant. “A ship of war is no place for a lady, my lord. Although I am sure Lady Catherine would accept without hesitation.”

Godschale had mopped his face. “I will arrange it. A fast packet under Admiralty warrant. You are a damned difficult fellow to deal with, Sir Richard. What people will say when they discover—”

“We shall simply have to ensure they do not, my lord.”

When he had told Catherine she had been surprisingly excited about it.

“To be there with you, dearest of men, instead of reading of your exploits in the Gazette, to be part of it all … I ask for nothing more.”

The door opened and the servant peered in at them. “I beg your pardon, Sir Richard, but it is reported that your barge has just left Black Prince.”

Bolitho nodded and remarked to Jenour, “I’ll wager Captain Keen will be surprised to find that I am not staying aboard.”

Jenour followed him from the snug shelter of the senior officers’ waiting room.

He knew that Keen cared for Bolitho as much as he did himself. Would he leave Black Prince in exchange for some obscure position in Cape Town as captain in command of all local patrols? It would mean a broad-pendant, and the real possibility of promotion to rear-admiral after that, if everything went well. But it would also mean leaving his bride behind so soon after their marriage, as well as severing his close links with the man who was even now standing at the top of the dripping stairs, peering across the tossing array of whitecaps.

I am fortunate that the choice is not mine. Not yet, in any case …

Bolitho pulled his boat-cloak around his body and watched the green-painted barge pulling lustily across the choppy water, the oars rising and falling as one, the bargemen very smart in their checkered shirts and tarred hats. Keen’s coxswain would be in charge today, and Bolitho was suddenly uneasy, knowing that Allday would not be there.

He thought of Catherine’s happiness at the prospect of their journey, when before, when he had told her about Cape Town, there had been only anger and despair. “Is there nobody else they can send, Richard? Must it always be you?”

When Godschale’s acceptance of his request that she accompany him had been delivered to Falmouth, she had thrown her arms about him like a child. Together. The word which had become a symbol to both of them.

Ever since Keen’s wedding they seemed to have spent days on the terrible winter roads: London, Falmouth and London again.

He thought of their last night at a small secluded inn Allday had recommended; as, seated in the waiting room before Jenour had arrived, he had stared into the fire, remembering it. The need of one for the other, until they had lain by the fire in the inn’s private room, unwilling to waste the night in sleep.

The bargemen tossed their oars and sat stiffly facing aft while the bows were made fast to the stairs. The first lieutenant stepped lightly on to the wet stairs and raised his hat, his eyes everywhere, puzzled as he realised there was no chest or luggage to be stowed aboard.

“Good day, Mr Sedgemore.” Bolitho gave a brief smile. “As you see, mine is a short visit this time.”

He and Jenour settled themselves in the sternsheets and the barge cast off, shipping water over the stem as they quit the shelter of the wall.

“Repairs going well, Mr Sedgemore?”

The lieutenant swallowed hard. He was unused to casual conversation with a vice-admiral.

“Aye, Sir Richard. It will be a month or so yet, I’m told.”

Bolitho watched the passing dockyard boats, and a yawl towing a new mast for some ship undergoing refit. If Napoleon did invade Spain, the naval blockade would have to be tighter than ever until they could put an army ashore to meet the French in open battle. He thought sadly of Herrick. Even his poor, battered Benbow might be sent back into the fray.