Second to None (15 page)

He leaned forward and tapped the roof with his sword.

‘What is it now? Why are we slowing down, man?'

William hung over the side of his perch.

‘Street's blocked, m' lord!' He sounded apprehensive; he had already had a taste of Sillitoe's temper on the drive to Chiswick House.

Sillitoe jerked a strap and lowered the window. So narrow here. Like a cavern. The smell of horses and soot . . .

He could see a mass of people, and what appeared to be a carriage. There were soldiers, too, and one, a helmeted officer, was already trotting towards them. Young, but lacking neither intelligence nor experience, his eyes moved swiftly to take in Sillitoe's clothing and the bright sash of the order across his chest, and then the coat of arms on the door.

‘The way is blocked, sir!'

William glared down at him.

‘“My lord”!'

The officer exclaimed, ‘I beg your pardon, my lord, I did not know . . .'

Sillitoe snapped, ‘Must get through to St Paul's. I do not have to explain why, I trust.' He could feel the anger rising again; this was only the calm before the storm. He studied the officer coldly. ‘Fourteenth Light Dragoons. I know your agent, at Gray's Inn, I believe?'

He saw the shot go home.

‘A vehicle has lost a wheel, my lord. It could not have happened in a worse place. I have already had to turn back one carriage – a lady –'

‘A lady?' It was Catherine. It had to be. He glanced at the shining helmets and restless horses, and said sharply, ‘I suggest you dismount those pretty warriors and remove the obstruction.'

‘I – I am not certain. My orders –'

Sillitoe leaned back. ‘If you value your commission. Lieutenant.'

It took only minutes for the dragoons to drag the vehicle to one side, and for William to drive the length of the street.

Deliberate? An accident? Or was it what Richard Bolitho had always called Fate?

He thought of her. On foot, hemmed in by gaping, curious faces. He looked out again and saw St Paul's. Close to, it dominated everything, so that the silence was all the more impressive.

‘Stop now!'

He knew William was against it, and was probably wishing the massive Guthrie was here with him, but he climbed down to calm the horses before they became troubled by the slow-moving crowds, and the unnatural silence.

What might they have done? Would they have dared to turn her back at the cathedral's imposing entrance, on some paltry excuse, perhaps because there was no record of her invitation? Catherine, of all people. On this damnable day.

He quickened his pace, used to staring eyes and peering faces, beyond their reach, or so he believed now.

A hand plucked at his coat. ‘Would you buy some flowers to honour his memory, sir?'

Sillitoe thrust him aside with a curt, ‘Out of my way!'

Then he stopped, as if he had no control of his limbs. It explained the silence, the complete stillness, the like of which this place had never witnessed.

Catherine, too, stood quite still, and erect, surrounded by people and yet utterly detached from them.

Across the cathedral steps was an uneven rank of men. Sailors, or they had been before they had been cut down in battle. Men without arms, or hobbling on wooden stumps. Men with burned and scarred faces, victims of a hundred different battles and as many ships, but today joined as one. Sillitoe tried to reason with it, coldly, as was his habit. They were probably from the naval hospital at Greenwich and must have come upriver for this occasion, as if they had been drawn to it by the same power which had stopped him in his tracks. All wore scraps of uniform, some displayed tattoos on their arms; one, in a sea officer's uniform, was wearing his sword.

Sillitoe wanted to go to her. Not to speak, but only to be beside her. But he did not move.

Catherine was aware of the silence; she had even seen the mounted dragoons ordered to remove the wrecked vehicle. But it was all somewhere else. Not here. Not now.

She stood, unmoving, watching the man in the officer's uniform as he stepped slowly forward from the watching barrier of crippled sailors. The ones with wooden spars. Half-timbered Jacks, as Allday called them. She trembled. But he always said it without contempt, and without pity, for they were himself.

The officer was closer now, and she realised that his uniform was that of a lieutenant. Clean and well-pressed, but the careful stitching and repairs were evident. He had one hand on another man's shoulder, and when she saw his eyes she knew that he was blind, although they were clear and bright. And motionless.

His companion murmured something, and he removed his cocked hat with a flourish. His grey hair and threadbare uniform did not belong to this moment; he was the young lieutenant again. And these were his men.

He held out his hand and for an instant she saw him falter, until she reached out to him and took it in hers.

‘You are welcome here.' Very gently, he kissed her hand. Still no one spoke or moved. As if this vignette were caught in time, like these ragged, proud reminders who had come to honour her.

Then he said, ‘We all knew Sir Richard. Some of us served with or under him. He would have wished you to be so met today.'

She heard a step beside her and knew it was Sillitoe.

She murmured, ‘I thought . . . I thought . . .'

He slipped his hand beneath her elbow and said, ‘I know what you thought. What you were intended to think.'

Without looking above or beyond the watching figures, he knew that the great doors had opened.

He said, ‘Thank you, gentlemen. No admiral's lady could ever have a braver guard of honour!'

There were smiles now, and one man reached out to touch Catherine's gown, muttering something, beaming at her while tears streamed down his cheeks. She removed her black veil, and stared up the steps.

‘I do not have the words, Lieutenant. But later . . .' But there was no grey-haired officer, or perhaps her eyes were too blurred to see. A ghost, then. Like those who lay with Richard.

‘Take me in, please.'

She did not hear the stir of surprise that ran through that towering place like a sudden wind through dry leaves, nor see the admiration, or outrage, or the angry disappointment, as Sillitoe guided her to his pew, which otherwise would have been empty.

She gripped her left hand in her right, feeling the ring her lover had placed there on Zenoria Keen's wedding day.

In the eyes of God, we are married.

She could not look ahead, and dared not think of what was past, that which she could never regain.

It was a proud day, for Richard, and for all those who had loved him.

And, only for this moment, they would be together.

It was just before dawn that the full force of the wind made itself known. Joshua Cristie,
Unrivalled
's taciturn sailing master, found no comfort in the fact that his predictions had proved right, for this was the enemy. Others might fear the cannon's roar and the surgeon's knife, but Cristie was a sailor to his fingertips, like most of his forebears, and saw the weather's moods as his foes. As he gripped a stanchion to steady himself on the lurching deck he watched the sky, burning like molten copper, with long, dark clouds scudding beneath it as if they were already ashes.

They had shortened sail during the middle watch; he had heard the captain giving orders as he had hurried to the chart room to collect his precious instruments.

The captain seemed well able to make his immediate demands understood. On the face of it,
Unrivalled
was a smart and disciplined ship.
On the face of it.
But Cristie knew that it was only on the surface. Until men were truly tested to the limit, they would not know. She was still a new ship, and like any other was only as strong as the men who served her, and the chain of command which directed them as surely as any rudder.
Unless
.

The captain was here now, his old seagoing coat flapping in the wind, the dark hair pressed against his face by the flying spray. Even that looked like droplets of copper in the strange light.

‘Let her fall off a point, Mr Cristie! Steer south-west-by-south!'

More men ran across to halliards and braces, some only half-dressed after the urgent call for all hands.

Cristie shouted, ‘Still backing a piece, sir! She'll not hold this close to the wind for much longer!'

The captain seemed to hang on to his words, then swung round to face him. Cristie tested the moment, as he would a sounding or a compass bearing.

‘We could come about and run with it, sir.' He hesitated, his mind grappling with the crack and thunder of canvas, the drone of straining rigging. ‘Or we could lie-to under close-reefed main tops'l!'

Galbraith was yelling for more hands, and a few anonymous figures were in the mizzen top, cutting away broken cordage.

Cristie heard the captain say, ‘
No.
We'll hold as close as we can.' He was staring up at the swaying yards, the sickening motion making each plunge seem as if the ship were out of control.

But there were two more men on the big double-wheel, and as a solid curtain of spray burst over them and the quartermasters, they looked like survivors clinging to a capsizing wreck.

Adam Bolitho watched a party of seamen securing the hammock nettings. It was not vital. Seamen had slept in sodden hammocks before, and they would again. But it gave them a sense of purpose, kept them occupied when, even now, fear might be striding amongst them.

Unrivalled
was leaning hard over, her lee bulwark almost awash, water spurting past the forward carronades and knocking men off their feet like skittles.

He held his breath, counting seconds as the bows dipped yet again, the hull quivering as it smashed into solid water, as if she had driven ashore.

He cupped his hands. ‘Fore t'gan's'l's carried away!' He
saw Galbraith staring at him. ‘
Leave it!
Not worth risking lives!'

He watched the sail destroy itself, being ripped apart as if by giant, invisible hands until there were only shreds.

Men were clambering across the boat-tier now, urged on by the boatswain's powerful bellow. If a boat came adrift it would run amok on the deck, maiming and killing if not secured.

He heard Partridge shout, ‘Make a bloody seaman of ye yet, damned if I don't!'

Old Stranace would be down there too. Dragging himself from gun to gun, checking each breeching rope, making sure that
his
equipment was not being lost or damaged.

Adam shivered, and felt the icy water exploring his spine and buttocks. But it was not that. It was a wildness, an elation he had not felt since he had lost
Anemone
.

The ship's backbone, the professionals. They never broke.

Midshipman Fielding was knocked sideways by a block swinging from a severed halliard. A seaman caught his arm and pulled him to his feet. Adam recognised the man as one of those due to be flogged.
Today
 . . . He even saw the man grin. Like Jago. Amused. Contemptuous.

He seemed to hear John Allday's voice, when they had served together. His summing up of a ship's ability or otherwise.

Aft the most honour, mebbe, but forrard the better men!

He could see the horizon now, blurred with spray, writhing in the fierce light. Men's faces, bodies soaked and bruised, some with nails torn out by the tormented canvas they had fisted and kicked into submission, their world confined to a dizzily swaying yard, their strength that of the men up there with them.

But was it worth it? To risk so much, everything, on a frail belief?

A boatswain's mate ran past him, one arm outthrust, his mouth a soundless hole as the wind's fury increased to an insane scream. Adam thought he had seen something fall, probably from the main topsail yard, hardly making a splash as it hit the sea and was swamped by the water surging back from the stem.

Not even a cry. The fall had probably killed him. But
suppose he lived long enough to break surface and see his ship already fading into the storm?

It happened often enough, something which landsmen never considered when they saw a King's ship passing proudly at a safe distance.

Midshipman Bellairs wiped his face with his sleeve and gasped, ‘It can't go on!'

Cristie heard him, and exclaimed harshly, ‘Later on you'll remember this, my lad! When you're striding your own deck and making poor Jack's life a bloody misery! Leastways I hope you'll remember, for all our sakes!'

He watched the captain, his body angled to the quarterdeck, his voice carrying above the wild chorus of wind and sea.

‘It's what
you
want to be, right?' He liked Bellairs; he would make a good officer, given the chance. He glanced at the captain again.
And the example.
Cristie had seen the best and the worst of them in his day. His own family had grown up in Tynemouth, in the next street to Collingwood, Nelson's friend and second-in-command at Trafalgar.

He heard Lieutenant Massie say, ‘I'll not answer for the jib if we try to come about!'

Cristie nudged the midshipman and repeated, ‘
Remember it,
see!'

He moved away as the captain strode towards him.

‘What say you, Mr Cristie? Do you think me mad to drive her so?'

Cristie did not know if Bellairs was listening, nor did he care. It was nothing he could mark on his chart, or record in the log. And nobody else would understand. The captain, the one who drove himself and everybody else, who had not hesitated to lead his own men on a cutting-out raid which had seemed an almost certain disaster, had
asked
him. Not told him, as was every captain's right.

He heard himself say, ‘There's your answer, sir!' He watched his face as he looked at the widening bank of blue sky as it spread from horizon to horizon. The wind had lessened, so that the rattle of broken rigging and the flapping tails of torn canvas intruded for the first time. Soon the sun would show above the retreating cloud, and steam would rise from these wet, treacherous decks.