Alexander Kent - Command a King`s Ship

Long trailers of strange weed, writhing to the current far below the ship as if in a tired sort of dance. But to larboard, as the ship swung to her cable he saw other shapes, browns and greens, like stains in the water. Reefs. Mudge was right to be so careful. Not that anyone would need reminding after Nervion's fate.

Alongside, the first boats had already been swayed out, and Shellabeer, the boatswain, was gesticulating with his fists at some Spanish seamen who were baling one of them. It would do the frail hulls good to be afloat again, Bolitho thought.

He said absently, 'I shall go with the boats, and you will keep a good watch in case of trouble.'

He could almost feel Herrick's unspoken protest, but added, 'If anything goes wrong ashore it might help some of our people if they see I'm sharing it with them.' He turned and clapped Herrick's shoulder. 'Besides which, I feel like stretching my legs. It is my prerogative.'

On the gun deck Davy was striding back and forth inspecting the men mustered for the boats, checking weapons and the tackle for hoisting and lowering water casks when the work was begun.

Overhead the sky was very pale, as if the sun had boiled the colour from it and had spread it instead across the glittering stretch of sea between ship and shore.

Bolitho marvelled at the stillness. Just an occasional necklace of white surf along the nearest beach and at the foot of the headland. It was as if it was holding its breath, and he could imagine a thousand eyes watching the anchored frigate from amongst the trees.

There were loud thumps as the swivel guns were lowered into the bows of launch and cutter, and more shouted orders while the bell-mouthed musketoons found their proper mountings in gig and pinnace. The jolly boat was to remain with the ship. It was too small for the great casks, and might be needed in an emergency.

He rubbed his chin and stared at the land. Emergency. It appeared safe enough. All the way along the coast, as they had slipped past one bay or inlet after another, and all of which had seemed identical to everyone but Mudge, he had waited for some sign, a hint of danger. But not a boat drawn up on the sand, not a wisp of smoke from a fire, not even a bird had broken the stillness.

'Boats ready, sir!' Shellabeer tilted his swarthy face in the glare.

Bolitho walked to the rail and looked down at the gun deck. The seamen seemed altered yet again. Perhaps because of their cutlasses, the way they glanced at each other, their torment of thirst momentarily put aside. Most of them were very different from the men who had first joined the ship. Their bared, backs were well browned, with only an occasional scar of sunburn to mark the foolish or the unwary.

He called, 'Over yonder is Africa, lads.' He felt the rustle of excitement expanding like a wind over corn. 'You'll be seeing many more places before we are homeward bound again. Do as you are bid, stay with your parties, and no harm should come to you.' He hardened his tone. 'But it is a dangerous country, and the natives hereabouts have had little cause to like or trust the foreign sailorman. So keep a good watch, and work well with the casks.' He nodded. 'Man your boats.'

Mudge joined him at the gangway as the first men swung their way down the side.

'I should be a'goin' with you, sir. I've told me best master's mate, Fowlar, what to look for, an"e's a good man, that 'e be.'

Bolitho lifted his arms as Allday buckled on his sword.

'Then what troubles you, Mr. Mudge?'

Mudge scowled. 'Time was when I could swim 'alf a mile an' then march another with a full load on me back!'

Herrick, grinned. 'And still have the wind to bed a fine wench, I'll be bound!'

Mudge glared at him. 'Your time'll come, Mr. 'Errick. It ain't no pleasure, gettin' old!'

Bolitho smiled. 'Your value is here.'

To Herrick he said, 'Rig boarding nets during our stay. With only an anchor watch and the marines at your back, you might be in bother if someone tries to surprise you.' He touched his arm. 'I know. I am over-cautious. I can read your face like a chart. But better so than dead.' He glanced at the shore. 'Especially here.'

He walked to the entry port. 'The boats will return two by two. Send the rest of the men as soon as you can. They'll tire easily enough in this heat.'

He saw Puigserver wave to him from the gangway, and Raymond watching from right aft by his wife's little canopy. He touched his hat to the side party and climbed quickly down into the gig where Allday waited by the tiller.

'Shove off!'

One by one the boats idled clear of the frigate's shadow, and then with oars moving in unison turned towards the land. Bolitho remained standing to examine his little flotilla.

Lieutenant Soames with the launch, Undine's ' largest boat, every inch of space filled with men and casks, while in the bows a gun captain crouched over the loaded swivel like some kind of figurehead. Then the cutter, also deeply laden, with Davy in control, his figure very slim against that of Mr. Pryke, Undine's portly carpenter. As was proper, Pryke was going ashore in the hopes of finding timber suitable for small repairs about the ship.

Midshipman Keen, accompanied by little Penn, had the pinnace, and Bolitho could see them bobbing about with obvious excitement as they pulled steadily across the water.

Bolitho glanced astern at his ship, seeing the figures on her deck already small and impersonal. Someone was in the cabin, and he guessed it was Mrs. Raymond, watching the boats, avoiding her husband, probably neither.

Then he looked down at the men in the gig, at the weapons between their straddled legs, at the way they avoided his scrutiny. Right forward he saw a man moving the musketoon from side to side to free the mount from caked salt, and realised it was Turpin, the one who had tried so desperately to deceive Davy at Spithead. He saw Bolitho watching him and held up his arm. In place of his hand he had a hook of bright steel. He called, 'The gunner had it fixed up for me, sir!' He was grinning. 'Better'n the real thing!'

Bolitho smiled at him. He at least seemed in good spirits.

He watched the slow moving hulls. About eighty officers and men with more to follow when he could spare the boats. He sat down and shaded his eyes with his hat. As he did so he touched the scar above his eye, remembering that other watering party he had been with so long ago. The sudden charge, screams all about him, that great towering savage brandishing a cutlass he had just seized from a dying sailor. He had seen it only for a second, and then fallen senseless, his face a mask of blood. It had been a close-run thing. But for his coxswain, it would have been the end.

Herrick probably resented his landing with this watering party. It was work normally given to a lieutenant. But that memory, like the scar, was a constant reminder of what could go wrong without any sort of warning.

'Cable to go, Captain!' Allday eased the tiller bar slightly.

Bolitho started. He must have been dreaming. Undine looked far away now. A graceful toy. While right across the bows and reaching out on either hand like huge green arms, was the land.

Once again Mudge's memory proved to be sure and reliable. Within two hours of beaching the boats and sorting the hands into working parties, the master's mate, Fowlar, reported finding a little stream, and that the water was the freshest thing he had tasted for years.

The work was begun immediately. Armed pickets were placed at carefully chosen vantage points, and lookouts sent to the top of the small hill, below which Mudge's stream gurgled away into the dense jungle. After the first uncertainty of stepping on to dry land, with all the usual unsteadiness to their sealegs, the sailors soon settled down to the task. Pryke, the carpenter, and his mates quickly assembled some heavy sledges upon which the filled casks would be hauled down to the boats, and while the cooper stood watchfully at the stream the other men were busy with axes, clearing a path through the trees under Fowlar's personal supervision.