Authors: Alexander Kent
“I’m on my way, sir!” He took the telescope and after a slight hesitation slung it over his shoulder. He turned away, then halted. They all heard it. Five or six shots. Unhurried.
Adam stared up at the masthead pendant until the glare blinded him.
“Please God, let it hold!” And to Vincent, “All hands, Mark. I want every stitch she can carry.” He ran his hand along the rail. “Let her fly!”
Julyan the master watched him. The captain was speaking to his ship. Maybe nobody else noticed, or understood, but Julyan had served at sea all his life.
Since…
he glanced at Midshipman Walker, waiting with his slate…
I was your age.
And his oldest brother had been Sir Richard Bolitho’s sailing master in the
Black Prince.
Those were the days…
He heard the first shrill of calls, apparent confusion changing to order, and knew he would be needed in the chart room. He jumped through the hatch, and paused to look up at the sky, and the hard edge of the sea beyond the gangway. He had seen Deacon, the senior midshipman, already heading for his flag locker, and heard young Walker call after him, “What shall
I
do?”
Julyan closed the chart room door behind him and found he could laugh about it.
He answered aloud for Deacon.
“Just pray!”
Luke Jago judged the moment and hurried across the deck, a mug balanced in his hand. It took some getting used to. He peered up at the straining canvas, topsails and courses like metal. Not since the Western Approaches had she moved like this not since she had first tasted salt water. The men on watch were angled to the deck, and there were dark stains on the planking where spray had burst up and over the bulwark.
He saw the captain by the compass box, Vincent standing a few paces away. Two helmsmen on the wheel, the quartermaster loitering nearby in case he was needed.
“What is it?”
Then, “Forgive me. No call to bite
your
head off, Luke.”
Jago held out the mug. “Water, Cap’n.”
Adam sipped it. Warm and tasteless, from the cask on deck. It could have been anything.
Jago watched him. He knew him so well. The others around them only thought they did. Moaning all the time about extra work…What else would they be doing in this bloody place?
Adam said quietly, “Lady Luck seems to have deserted me this time, Luke.” He half turned. “Stand by to alter course. Two points to starboard.”
The quartermaster had been waiting for that. “East-by-south, sir. Standing by.”
Vincent remarked, “I think we’ll need more hands aloft.”
Jago swore under his breath. Was that all it meant to him? Everybody hated the third lieutenant, but at least Monteith showed some guts. He felt his dry mouth fold into a humourless grin.
Coming from me, of all Jacks!
“Deck there! Sail on th’ starboard bow!”
Adam stared aloft, the mug rattling unheeded across the deck.
“Well done!” Although Tucker was unable to see or hear him up there amongst the thudding canvas and rigging. He stared across the sea until his eyes watered: lively crests now, not dead calm like all those other days and sleepless nights.
Vincent was saying, “I’ll go aloft myself, sir. This time I’ll—” and Jago heard the captain cut him off with a curt, “I need you here. Young Tucker is doing well. Leave him to it.”
Jago stooped down to retrieve the mug from the scuppers. It gave him time. Captain Bolitho would have to watch his back. He touched his belt but the broad-bladed dirk was below, in the mess.
And so will you, matey!
Adam gazed aft again. The same group around the wheel, leaning together as the deck tilted to another thrust of wind, and elsewhere men climbing into the shrouds in an attempt to see what was happening. He shut them from his mind. The lookout had sighted another vessel. Very soon some one would realize that
Onward
was heading toward them under full sail. He thought of the shots. Small guns, but deadly. Probably swivels, which took longer to prime and reload than heavier cannons.
There had been no sound of any resistance. Maybe some luckless trader, caught unawares.
“Deck there! She’s a schooner!”
Vincent muttered, “What about the other one?”
Adam imagined Tucker in his lofty perch, training the telescope.
“T’ other vessel is dismasted!”
“Bloody pirates.” That was Meredith.
“Deck there!” And then silence, as if he were feeling the sudden weight of responsibility. “Schooner’s steerin’ southeast!”
Jago said, “Runnin’ for the shore, damn his eyes!” But he swung round as Adam drove one fist into his palm and exclaimed,
“Got you!”
He looked up, gauging the wind. If the schooner had tacked up to windward,
Onward
would have lost her. This time there was nowhere to run, except to hide in one of those small coves or inlets which he and Julyan had marked so carefully on the chart. Vague and dangerous…
He looked over at Vincent. “We’ll hold this course until we’re ready to change tack. We can outsail him now, whatever he does!” He walked to the larboard side again, reaching for his telescope before remembering where it was.
“Here, sir!” It was Napier with another.
Adam felt his mouth crack into a smile. “You’re not going to forget that, are you?”
He trained it across the opposite bow, blurred faces springing across the lens, a sailor shouting or laughing soundlessly, then out across the open sea. Then he found and held the tiny image until his eye felt raw. Stern-on, sails fully spread and filling, the dull shoreline like a far-off curtain beyond. He closed the glass with a snap. “
Too
clever this time!”
Squire was the first to speak. “The same schooner, sir? A pirate, maybe?”
Adam said, “Bring Tucker down here, and put another good man in his place.” He seemed to recall Squire’s question. “I intend to find out.” He looked toward the bows again. “But first, some people will need our help.”
Tucker came running aft, his bare feet thudding along the gangway like boots. He was not even breathless.
“Same one, sir!” He looked around as if he expected an argument. “Watched her all the way to Gibraltar—not likely to forget!”
“And the other vessel?”
“Local craft, I reckon, sir, a big dhow of some kind. Dismasted. But they’re tryin’ to re-rig one of ’em.”
Julyan said, “Probably after the cargo. Otherwise…”
Adam shut the speculation from his mind. The schooner might still take a chance and run for it, even though the wind was against her. Her master would know this stretch of coast like the back of his hand. But why run and risk capture, when you could shelter and be safe, until the next time?
It could prove to be worthless, but the schooner might reveal something. He thought of the commodore:
bad news rides a fast horse.
Surely it was better than no news at all?
Tucker said suddenly, “The other vessel bein’ a dhow, they’re helpless when they tries to claw to wind’rd. No chance at all.” He might have blushed under his deep tan. “Sorry, sir. Not my place to go on about it!”
Adam smiled briefly. “Who better?” He saw the surgeon and one of his assistants climbing to the quarterdeck. Murray must have sensed he might be needed.
Vincent said, “I’ll have the second cutter ready for lowering.”
“Jolly-boat, Mark. We shall need both cutters for sterner work.”
He saw the comprehension dawn in Vincent’s face.
“You intend to cut out the schooner? Under their noses?”
“Too risky?”
“With respect, sir, it’s better than waiting for our commodore to decide!”
They both laughed, then Adam said, “So be it. Volunteers only.” He turned his back on the misty shoreline, deliberately. “But first, an act of mercy.”
Midshipman Napier jumped clear as more men threw their weight on the topsail braces, bodies angled to the deck as
Onward
turned into the wind. Nobody fell, unlike in those early days, and hardly an order had to be repeated. He peered up at the reefed topsails, each one fisted and kicked into submission, the boom of canvas drowning out the curses of the seamen spread along the yards. He could see the jolly-boat being manhandled from the tier and hoisted out, ready for lowering. He dashed spray from his face, surprised that it could feel so cold when his shirt was clinging to his skin with sweat.
The jolly-boat was smaller than a cutter or gig, a maid-of-all-work, but he had seen the surgeon in his shapeless white smock, ready to be taken across to the drifting dhow. It would be a rough passage. He had already heard some one shout out to one of the boat’s crew, “Hang on to yer belly, Bert, or ye’ll lose yer pork!”
Busy though he was, Guthrie the boatswain found time to retort, “You’ll lose more than that, Barker, my lad, if I ’ears another peep out o’ you!”
But somebody laughed.
Napier stared across at the other vessel. One of the big lateen sails was already half hoisted again, but badly torn, the wind exploring the shot-holes. He could see some of the crew trying to hoist a second mast, some one obviously in charge, and not a face turned to watch the oncoming frigate. There were more scars along the hull: canister, he thought.
He smiled self-consciously.
Watching and listening.
He had come a long way.
He thought of the schooner, and his friend David Tucker, who had come aft to see the captain. Surprised, proud. Sharing it.
He had heard the first lieutenant asking for volunteers for some separate action against the schooner, and seen his undisguised astonishment when so many had shouted their names. Napier had been going around the ship with Lieutenant Squire, making a list. Like those other times…He saw little Walker hurrying past with a message. There were a lot of
Onward
’s company who had not experienced those other times.
The arms chest was open, a gunner’s mate watching over the issue of weapons. Cutlasses and boarding axes, but no pistols, for fear of a misfire which would ruin any hope of surprise attack, if that was being planned. One wag had suggested it was in case “Mister bloody Monteith” was taking part, as he would be the first target!
He watched the jolly-boat cast off, veering away from the side, oars in disarray until the first stroke.
Squire was standing by the tiller, swaying easily with each plunge of the boat.
Some one said grudgingly, “Knows ’is stuff, does that one.”
And another: “Well, one of us, wasn’t he?”
Napier felt a shoulder near his and knew it was Huxley. Still quiet, withdrawn, but they had become closer because of what had happened. In the midshipmen’s berth he was usually studying notes on navigation and seamanship, and keeping up his diary, a compulsory burden if eventually he appeared before the Examination Board for promotion. Perhaps such relentless activity was keeping the reality of his father’s suicide at bay. As if by some unspoken agreement, nobody in the mess ever mentioned it.
Huxley was watching the jolly-boat, the surgeon’s white figure clambering up the side of the dhow after two previous attempts. He said, “They won’t accept any help, David. Except maybe with the repairs.”
“Why do you say that? They might all have been killed!”
He said distantly, “I heard it somewhere.”
Napier looked over at the dhow again.
Heard it from his father.
“They’re coming back.”
The jolly-boat had cast off, rising to the swell like a leaf in a mill-race, the white smock still upright, one hand raised in salute or farewell.
Huxley asked, “Have you got a girl, back in England?” He turned to face him with sudden intensity. “I mean, a
proper
girl, just for you?”
Napier watched the jolly-boat’s progress; the surgeon was seated now. But instead, he was seeing her in the stable yard. Aloof, haughty. Unreachable. But she had kissed him, and not like a young girl.
And the lovely Lowenna, who had lain beside him to drive away the fear and the memories.
Our secret.
How could he forget? “I met some one…”
Huxley shook his head. “But not…
that
way.”
A call shrilled; men were moving again, tackle squeaking as the jolly-boat was hoisted inboard.
“Hands aloft! Loose tops’ls!”
“Man the braces!
Move yerselves!
”
They both hurried aft along the gangway, the sea surging alongside. But Huxley’s words stayed with him. He had become used to the brutal and often lurid humour of the lower deck. At first he had been shocked by it, as was intended. This was not the same.
What is it like?
He saw the captain by the rail, speaking to Maddock the gunner, shaping something with his hands, listening, and then nodding in agreement. He turned to watch the sails as the quartermaster shouted a new compass course, and only for an instant their eyes met. The Captain…Napier had seen him in every sort of mood. Angry, resentful, depressed, or at peace, with that rare, transforming smile. He was smiling now, but some one else was already calling to him.
Napier thought of him with her. Together.
What is it like?
The gunner’s mate beckoned with his fist. “First lieutenant says you should arm yourselves, gentlemen!” He showed his missing teeth in a broad grin. “Just in case, eh?”
Napier picked up a well-worn hanger. Not intended for display, or receiving an admiral on board. The curved blade had been crudely sharpened on the ship’s grindstone. It was like a razor.
He hurried after his friend. Once he paused and looked for the drifting dhow. Tomorrow they might still be struggling to complete their repairs. But they would be alive, and free. He tightened his grip on the hanger, his troubled spirit calmed. Accepting it.
It was too soon to think of tomorrow.
Lieutenant Vincent leaned forward on the thwart and stared beyond the measured rise and fall of oars. Despite the muffled looms and thickly greased rowlocks, each stroke seemed to invite disaster. He knew it was only in his imagination, but the sound seemed louder now, closer to the shore. He could even hear the stroke oarsman’s steady breathing, see his eyes as he lay back to take another pull, the blade slicing the water, timing every stroke.