Colours Aloft! (17 page)

He took her hands. “You will be safe, my dear. Stay with Ozzard in the hold. He will take care of you. Where is your companion?”

“Millie has already gone down.” She was staring up at him, her eyes very dark in the shaded lantern.

Keen adjusted the boat-cloak and felt her shoulder tense as he touched it. He said, “It will be cold below. This will help.”

He was conscious of the need to go, the seconds and the minutes. He said, “Don't be afraid.”

She shook her head. “I only fear for you. In case—”

He touched her mouth. “No. We shall be together soon.”

A man coughed in the darkness. That would be Hogg, his coxswain.

He held her against him very gently and imagined he could feel her heart beating and remembered holding her breast in his hand.

He murmured, “In truth, I do love you, Zenoria.”

She backed away and turned once to look at him. To remember, to reassure, he did not know.

He snatched up his hat and strode out towards the quarterdeck. He found Bolitho by the weather nettings, his body angled to the deck as
Argonaute
blundered her way on an uncomfortable larboard tack, as close-hauled as her yards would bear.

The quartermaster called, “Nor'-west, sir! Full an' bye!”

Keen could see it in his mind. All night the ship had clawed and beaten her way into the wind, to pass the cape well abeam and then turn again towards the land and the small gulf where the Frenchman was said to be lying. All the back-breaking work of resetting sails and changing tack a dozen times would offer them an advantage once they made their final approach. They would hold the wind-gage; even if the enemy managed to elude them there was only one course of escape, and he would find
Icarus
and
Rapid
blocking his path.

Keen thought of the girl in his arms, the crude comment made by
Icarus
' captain. He had made an enemy there, he thought.

Bolitho turned and asked, “How long?”

Keen watched the painful way he was holding his head and sensed his hurt like his own.

“I shall clear for action at dawn, sir.”

Bolitho clung to the nettings as the ship shuddered into a massive trough; it seemed to shake her from beak-head to taffrail.

“Will the people be fed?”

Keen smiled sadly. “Yes, sir. The galley is ready.” He had nearly answered “of course.” He had learned well under Bolitho.

Bolitho seemed to want to talk. “Are the women below?”

Keen said, “Yes, sir.” He thought of the Jamaican maid called Millie. He suspected she was having an unlawful liaison with Wenmouth, the ship's corporal, the very man chosen to protect her from harm.

He admitted, “I hate the thought of her being down there when we fight.”

Bolitho touched his bandage. “
If
we fight. But she is better here for the present, Val, than abandoned in some unknown harbour.” He tried to rouse his enthusiasm. “You are lucky to have her so near.”

The calls trilled between decks and petty officers bawled at all hands to lash up and stow their hammocks. In minutes the upper deck, which had been deserted but for the duty watch, was overflowing with men as they ran to the nettings to tamp down their pod-like hammocks where they would offer the best protection against splinters and musket balls.

There was a strong smell of frying pork from the galley funnel, and from one hatchway Bolitho heard the thin note of a fiddle. Time to eat, to change into fresh clothing, to share a tot and a song with a friend. For some it might be the last time.

Keen had gone forward to speak with the boatswain and Bolitho twisted round to seek the officer-of-the-watch.

“Mr Griffin!”

But the shadow was not the lieutenant but Midshipman Sheaffe.

Bolitho shrugged. “No matter. You can tell me what is happening.”

Sheaffe stood near him. “Mr Fallowfield says it will be first light in half an hour. It is cloudy, as you can see, sir—” He broke off and said, “I beg your pardon, Sir Richard.”

Bolitho replied, “I am getting used to it. But I shall be glad when the day comes.”

Eventually it was time. Keen came aft again and touched his hat.

“The galley fire is doused, sir. It was a hasty breakfast, I'm afraid.”

Bolitho smiled. “But a bracing one, I gather, from the smell of rum.”

Shadows moved about, merged and separated, and there was a new greyness in the light.

“Deck there! Land on the lee bow!”

Bolitho heard Fallowfield blow his nose. Probably out of relief.

Keen exclaimed, “A timely landfall, sir. I can wear ship presently, but first—”

Bolitho turned towards him, his hair blowing in the wind.

“Remember what I told you, Val. Clear your mind of everything but fighting this ship.” The hardness left him and he added, “Otherwise our brave Zenoria will be widowed before she is wed!”

Keen grinned. It was infectious.

He cupped his hands and then paused as a thin shaft of frail sunlight ran down the main-topgallant mast like liquid gold. Then he shouted, “Mr Paget! Beat to quarters and clear for action, if you please!”

Bolitho took a deep breath as the drums rolled and the calls trilled yet again to urge, guide and muster the ship's company into a single team.

Bolitho did not have to see it to know what was happening. The crashes and thuds below decks as screens were removed and personal belongings taken below. Powder from the magazine, sand scattered on the decks so that the gun crews would not slip, and to contain the blood if any was to be shed.

Bolitho felt Allday beside him and raised his arm for him to clip his sword into place.

Together.
Another fight, victory or failure, how much would it count in the end?

He tried not to think of the ceremony when he had been knighted. All those complacent pink faces. Did they really care about men like these, what it cost in lives to keep landsmen in comfort?

Paget's voice. “Cleared for action, sir!”

Keen said, “Well done, Mr Paget, but next time I want two minutes knocked off the time!”

“Aye,
aye,
sir.” It was a game. Captain and first lieutenant. Like me and Thomas Herrick, Bolitho thought.

He saw the nearest gangway taking shape, the lines of packed hammocks like hooded figures. The breeches of the upper deck's eighteen-pounders stood out sharply against the holystoned planking; life was returning to the ship.

Keen shouted, “Alter course, three points to starboard! Steer north by west!”

Paget raised his speaking-trumpet. “Man the braces there!”

Keen gripped the quarterdeck rail and watched as the great yards were hauled round while the rudder went over. It was not much, but it took the strain out of the sails and shifted the wind more across the quarter.

As the bows lifted he saw a hint of land for the first time, tilting to larboard as if to slide the ship to windward. He turned to inform Bolitho but said nothing as he saw the vice-admiral standing as before, with Allday close behind him. Bolitho had seen nothing, and Keen was both moved and troubled.

Allday gave him a brief glance, but it told Keen everything. It said,
I shall be here.

Keen said, “Aloft with you, Mr Griffin, and tell me what you can see.”

He saw Midshipman Sheaffe and his signals party by the halliards and a huge French Tricolour trailing across the deck.

Keen took a telescope and climbed into the shrouds. The land was touched with sunlight, but without much substance. They were steering almost parallel with it and about two miles distant. The whole gulf was only ten miles across, and at the end of it the craggy-nosed cape leaned out protectively to make a perfect shelter or anchorage.

Bolitho called, “Any ships?”

“None yet, sir.”

Bolitho sighed. “Bit different from our last commission together at San Felipe, eh?”

Then he seemed to lift from his mood. “Run up the flag, and then get the t'gallants on her. We shall need all our agility today if we are to be lucky.”

Keen gestured to the first lieutenant but paused as the voice from the masthead made them all look aloft.

“Deck there! Ship, dead ahead!”

Keen stared up until his eyes watered, fretting with impatience until Lieutenant Griffin yelled, “Sail of the line, sir! At anchor!”

Keen saw the big Tricolour break out from the gaff, while men swarmed up the ratlines to set more canvas.

The anchored ship was not visible from the deck, but even allowing for Griffin's telescope they could be up to her within the hour.

“Steady as she goes, sir! Nor' by west!”

Keen heard Bolitho say quietly, “And it seems we are to be lucky after all.”

By the time the sunlight had reached the upper deck Bolitho could feel the tension rising about him while the lookouts called down their reports. He was torn between asking Keen what he was doing phase by phase or leaving him unimpeded by his questions.

Keen joined him suddenly and shaded his eyes to look at the set of the sails. Beyond them the clouds had broken up slightly to allow the sun to colour the ship and the sea around it.

He said, “The Frenchman is anchored by the bow only, not fore and aft.” He let his words sink in so that Bolitho could form his own picture. With the wind still from the south the other ship would be swinging towards them as if on a converging tack, only her larboard bow exposed.

Keen added, “No sign of excitement. Yet. Mr Griffin says there are craft alongside, a water-lighter for one.”

Bolitho thought suddenly of
Supreme,
of Hallowes holding his hand in death.

“That is very apt.”

“I intend, with your assent, sir, to pass between her and the land. There is ample depth there. Then we can hold the advantage, and rake her as we cross her bows.” A corner of his mind recorded the hoarse shouts of the gun captains, the harsher tones of the fearsome gunner's mate Crocker. He was with the first division starboard side. He would enjoy that.

“Ship, sir! Larboard bow!”

Keen snatched a glass from Midshipman Hext. Then he said, “Spaniard. One of their corvettes.”

Stayt murmured, “Having a job to close with us, sir. She's almost in irons.”

Keen said, “Watch for her hoist, Mr Sheaffe. She'll challenge us soon.” He raised his voice. “You, on deck! Keep your eyes on the Frenchman, not on this little pot of paint!” Someone laughed.

Bolitho said, “My guess is that there'll be no signal. The Dons won't want to be too open about their collusion.”

The little corvette was changing tack, the choppy water seething along her gunports as if she had run aground.

Beyond her the land looked high and green, a few white specks here and there to mark isolated dwellings.

There might be a battery, but Bolitho doubted that. The nearest garrison of any size was said to be in Gerona, only twenty miles inland. Enough to deter any would-be invader.

The small Spanish man-of-war was within a cable's length now. Bolitho heard the clatter of tackle from
Argonaute
's forecastle as an anchor was loosened at its cathead as if they were preparing to drop it. Many eyes must be watching
Argonaute
from the Frenchman. Her preparations, like her design, would be noted.

Bolitho fretted at his inability to see. He took a telescope from Stayt and trained it across the nettings. He saw the corvette, watched her heeling over, her red and yellow ensign streaming almost abeam as she came up into the wind. He could ignore the blindness, forget that without the glass he would be helpless again. Tuson would rebuke him severely for straining his good eye. But the surgeon was in his sickbay, waiting for the next harvest.

Bolitho thought of the girl, her lovely eyes as she had exchanged glances with Keen. Could they ever find happiness? Would they be allowed to?

Fallowfield growled, “Be God, sir, the wind's a veerin'!”

Men ran to braces and halliards again and Keen said, “From the sou'-west by my reckoning, sir.”

Bolitho nodded, fixing the chart's picture in his mind. Veering. Lady Luck, as Herrick would have said, was with them.

Keen shouted, “Be ready to brail up the forecourse, Mr Paget!”

A thin voice floated across the water from the corvette.

Bolitho said, “Wave your hat to them!”

Keen and Stayt waved to the Spaniard, who was being rapidly driven towards the larboard quarter.

A mile to go. Bolitho gripped the rail and peered through the crossed rigging and straining jibsails. He could see the enemy, angled towards the starboard bow just as Keen had described her.