Colours Aloft! (5 page)

Another boat ground alongside and he heard
Argonaute
's carpenter and his selected crew climbing aboard.

Keen turned away; he was needed aboard the flagship for a dozen things, but some last warning made him turn.

“If you are thinking, Captain Latimer, that it is a long, long way to New South Wales, let me assure you that you will not even see Gibraltar if you abuse your authority again.”

He climbed down into the cutter and waited to be pulled back to the ship.

He was breathing hard and thought his hands must be shaking. He saw the cutter's midshipman staring at him. He must have seen most of it.

Keen said, “You are all eyes today, Mr Hext.”

Hext, just thirteen years old, nodded and swallowed hard.

“I—I'm sorry, sir. But, but—”

“Go on, Mr Hext.”

Hext flushed crimson, knowing that the oarsmen were watching as they pushed and pulled on their looms.

“When I saw it, sir, I—I wanted to stand with you—”

Keen smiled, moved by the boy's sincerity. It was probably hero-worship and nothing deeper, but it did more to steady Keen's mood than he could have believed possible.

He had heard it said that Hext wrote many letters to his parents although there was little time to post any of them.

He said, “Never be afraid to help the helpless, Mr Hext. Think on it.”

The midshipman clung to the tiller bar and stared blindly at the towering masts and rigging of the flagship.

He would write about it in his next letter.

“Toss your oars!” he piped.

It was a moment he would never lose.

3
N
O DEADLIER ENEMY

B
OLITHO
was leaning on the sill of the great stern windows when Keen entered his cabin, his hat beneath one arm.

Astern of
Argonaute
the other ships tilted over on the larboard tack, the courses and topsails braced round to hold the wind. Apart, and yet still with her escort, the
Orontes
was making better progress with her jury rudder, but the squadron's speed was still severely reduced.

The ship felt cold and damp. Bolitho thought of the Mediterranean and the warmth they would find there.

It was a full day since the trouble aboard
Orontes
and Bolitho could imagine the speculation on the lower deck, wardroom too, about the girl in the sickbay.

Keen looked at him and asked, “You wished to see me, Sir Richard?”

It would not be lost on Keen that Ozzard and the others were absent. It was to be a private conversation.

“Yes. A letter has been sent to me by
Orontes
' master.”

Keen nodded. “My cox'n collected it, sir.”

“In it he protests at your behaviour,
our
behaviour since you are under my command, and threatens to take the matter to higher authority.”

Keen said softly, “I am sorry. I did not mean to involve you—”

Bolitho said, “I would have expected no other action from you, Val. I am not troubled by that oaf 's threat. If I were to press home a claim from his employers for salvage Captain Latimer would be on the beach before he knew it. His sort are scum, they work for blood-money, like their counterparts in slavery.”

Keen waited, half surprised that Bolitho had not taken him to task for interfering in the first place. He should have known.

Bolitho asked, “Have you spoken to this girl?”

Keen shrugged. “Well, no, sir. I thought it best to leave her with the surgeon until she recovers. You should have seen the whip, the size of the man who struck her—”

Bolitho was thinking aloud. “She will have to be cared for by another woman. I did consider Inch's ship after your suggestion, but I'm not sure. Officers' wives and a girl sentenced to transportation, though for what crime we cannot yet know. I will
ask
Latimer for details of her warrant.”

Keen said, “It is good of you to take the trouble, sir. If I had only known—”

Bolitho smiled gravely. “You would still have acted as you did.”

Feet thudded overhead and blocks squealed as the officer-of-the-watch yelled for the braces to be manned.

In a crowded King's ship a solitary woman could be seen as many things, not least bad luck. Landsmen might scoff at such beliefs. If they went to sea they would soon know differently.

“See the girl yourself, Val. Then tell me what you think. At Gibraltar we can shift her to the
Philomela.
From what you say, Latimer would certainly take his revenge otherwise.”

Keen made to withdraw. He had meant to visit the girl and speak with the surgeon further about her. No matter what she had done in her young life, she did not deserve the agony and humiliation of a flogging.

Bolitho waited for the door to close and then sat down again beneath the stern windows.

Time and time again he kept thinking of Falmouth, of the sheer happiness of his home-coming, holding his new and only child Elizabeth in his arms, so awkwardly that Belinda had laughed at him.

Bolitho had always understood how difficult it must be for any woman to cross the threshold of the Bolitho home. Too many shadows and memories, so much expected of a newcomer. And in Belinda's case she had been replacing Cheney, or so it would seem to her.

It had hit Bolitho hardest when he had discovered that Cheney's portrait, the companion to the one she had had done of him, had been removed from the room where the two pictures once hung together. She with the headland behind her, her eyes like the sea, and he in his white-lapelled coat, as the captain she had loved so much. His portrait now hung with the others, alongside that of his father, Captain James.

He had said nothing; he had not wanted to hurt her, but it still disturbed him. Like a betrayal.

He kept telling himself that Belinda only wanted to help him, to make others appreciate his worth to the country.

But Falmouth was his home, not London. He could almost hear the words so harsh in that quiet room.

He sighed and turned his thoughts to Allday. He had probably felt the new atmosphere at Falmouth. It was impossible to guess what he made of it. Or maybe Allday had been so concerned with the discovery of his son that he had had no time for speculation.

He pictured the two of them as they had stood here in the cabin. Allday, powerful, proud in his blue jacket with the prized gilt buttons, head cocked to listen and watch as Bolitho spoke with the young sailor, John Bankart.

Bolitho could remember when Allday had been brought aboard his frigate
Phalarope,
a victim of the press-gang. It was twenty years ago although it did not seem possible. Ferguson, Bolitho's steward now at Falmouth, had been dragged aboard with him. No wonder they had remained so close.

Allday had been very like this young sailor. Clear-eyed, honestlooking, with a sort of defiance just below the surface. He had met with a recruiting party and signed on with little hesitation when he was around eighteen. He disliked farm life, and knew that as a volunteer he would get better treatment than pressed men in a King's ship.

His mother had never married. Allday had hinted uncomfortably that the farmer had often taken her to his bed, under the threat that otherwise he would get rid of her and her bastard son.

It had touched a nerve for Bolitho. The memory of Adam's arrival on board his ship after walking all the way from Penzance when his mother had died. It was too similar not to move him.

Bankart had already proved himself a good seaman and could reef, splice and steer, equal to many his senior in age and service. As second coxswain he would have little contact with his admiral. His duties would be confined to maintaining the readiness and appearance of the barge, going on errands to ships and the shore, and helping Allday in any way that he could. It seemed a satisfactory solution for the present.

He got up and walked into his sleeping compartment, then, after a slight hesitation, he opened a drawer and took out the beautiful oval miniature. The artist had caught her expression perfectly. Bolitho replaced it under his shirts.

What was the matter with him?

He was happy. He had a lovely wife ten years his junior, and now a daughter. And yet—

He turned away and re-entered the day cabin.

When they joined the fleet things would be different. Action, danger, and the rewards of victory.

He stared at his reflection in the salt-encrusted windows and smiled wryly.

Sir Richard,
yet at the actual moment the King had seemingly forgotten his name.

Bolitho tried to gather his thoughts for the months ahead, how Lapish would react the first time the squadron's only frigate was called to arms, but it eluded him.

He thought instead of the portrait which had gone from the room which looked towards the sea, and wished suddenly he had brought it with him.

Far beneath Bolitho's spacious quarters and the view astern from its gilded gallery,
Argonaute
's sickbay seemed airless. For the orlop deck, below the level of the waterline, was completely sealed, a place of leaping shadows from the swaying, spiralling lanterns where the massive deckhead beams were so low a man could not stand upright. From the day the ship had been built, the orlop had not, and would never see the light of day.

Tiny hutchlike cabins lined part of the deck where warrant officers clung to their privacy with barely room to move. Nearby was the midshipmen's berth where the “young gentlemen” lived their disordered lives and were expected to study for promotion by the light of a glim, an oiled wick in a shell or an old tin.

The hanging magazine and powder stores, where a single spark could bring disaster, shared the deck with them, and below them the great holds carried everything to sustain the ship for many months if need be.

Right aft at the foot of a companion ladder the sickbay seemed bright by comparison with its white paint and racks of jars and bottles.

Keen strode towards it, his head automatically lowered to avoid the beams, his epaulettes glittering as he passed from one lantern to the next. Dark shapes and vague faces loomed and faded in the gloom, that other world away from sea and sky.

He saw James Tuson, the surgeon, speaking with his assistant, a tall, pallid Channel Islander named Carcaud. The latter was more Breton than English, but was intelligent and could both read and write. Keen knew that Tuson, who had been
Achates
' surgeon, took a great interest in his lanky assistant and had taught him as much as he could. They even played chess together.

Keen liked the silver-haired Tuson, although he knew him no more than in their previous ship. He was a fine surgeon, twenty times better than most of his profession who served the King's ships. But he kept to himself, not an easy thing in this teeming world between decks, and often went to the wardroom only for meals.

A marine, his crossbelts very white in the poor light, straightened his back and made Tuson turn towards the captain. It had been a wise precaution to place a sentry at the door, Keen thought. Many of the hands had been aboard one ship or another without a break for many months. Any woman might be at risk. One labelled a felon even more so.

Tuson murmured something and his assistant, bent almost double, melted into the shadows.

Keen said, “How is she?”

Tuson unrolled his shirt sleeves and considered the question.

“She says nothing, to me anyway. She's young, under twenty I'd wager, and her skin is fine, and her hands have not worked in a field.” He turned away from the rigid sentry whose leather hat seemed to be wedged against the deckhead, and dropped his voice. “There are several bruises. I fear she may have been raped or savagely molested.” He sighed. “I'd not risk an examination under the circumstances.”

Keen nodded. The girl had suddenly become a person, someone real and not just a victim.

The surgeon was watching him thoughtfully; he rarely smiled.

“She can't stay here, sir.”

Keen avoided the issue. “I'll speak with her.” He hesitated, “Unless you advise to the contrary?”

The surgeon led the way towards the small, bright place.

“She knows where she is, but be patient, I beg you.”

Keen stepped into the sickbay and saw the girl lying face down on a pillow and covered with a sheet. She appeared to be sleeping, but Keen could tell by her quick breathing that she was pretending. The surgeon pulled down the sheet and Keen saw her back tense.

Tuson said in his soft, matter-of-fact tones, “The scar is healing, but—” He lifted a loose dressing and Keen saw the deep cut left by the whip. If he had not acted promptly, or had not gone over to the ship at all, she would be crippled or dead. In the lantern light the scar looked black.

Tuson pointed to hair which was long and dark brown; it was matted and tangled and as he touched it Keen saw her stiffen again.

He said, “She needs a bath and some fresh clothing.”

Keen said, “I'll send a lieutenant over to the
Orontes
as soon as we anchor. She must have some possessions surely.”

His words seemed to strike her like the whip and she rolled over violently, covering her breasts with the sheet and oblivious to the immediate droplets of blood which broke from her scar.

“
No, not back there!
Please, not back to that, that place!”

Keen was taken aback by the outburst. The girl was almost beautiful, something which bruises and disordered hair could not conceal. She had small, well-shaped hands, and eyes so wide they were almost starting from her face as she pleaded with him.

He said, “Easy, girl. Easy now.” He reached out to steady her but saw Tuson give a quick shake of his head.

The surgeon said, “This is the captain. He saved you from the flogging.”

She looked at Keen's anxious face and said, “
You,
sir?” It was little more than a whisper. “It was you?”

She had a soft, West Country voice. It was impossible to imagine her standing trial and being transported in that filthy vessel with the other prisoners.

“Yes.” Around him the ship kept up her continuous chorus of creaks and groans with the occasional boom of water beyond the massive timbers as the keel crashed into a trough. But Keen was conscious only of stillness, as if all time had suddenly stopped.

He heard himself ask, “What's your name?”

She glanced quickly at the surgeon, who nodded encouragingly.