Alexander Kent - Command a King`s Ship

He walked slowly towards the entry port, seeing the watching seamen and marines as he passed. Familiar now, he could put a name and a value on all of them.

Midshipman Armitage was looking confused and embarrassed. 'Sir! The sharpshooters will not remove their coats, sir!' He blushed as some of the oarsmen in the boats nudged each other and chuckled.

Bellairs snapped, 'Can't have my fellows tramping about like damn vagrants, what?' He saw Bolitho and added quickly, 'I mean, can we, sir?'

Bolitho slipped out of his blue coat and tossed it to Noddall who was hovering by the quarterdeck ladder.

'It is all right.' He nodded to the unsmiling marines. 'If II can shed a little authority, I am certain your men can.' He saw the sergeant gathering up the red coats and shakos, honour apparently restored. He added, 'And it will be a rough climb, with who knows what at the end of it.'

He paused above the swaying boats, trying to think of some thing he might have missed or forgotten.

Herrick said quietly, 'Good luck, sir.'

Bolitho ran his glance along the crowded gangway and up to the men in the shrouds.

'And you, Thomas. Have the people stand-to, watch and watch about. You know what to do.'

He saw Armitage staggering between the oarsmen in the gig. It was almost cruel to take him. A liability. But he had to begin somewhere. It was a marvel he had ever got to sea at all with a mother like his. If Keen had been here, he would have taken him. He saw Penn peering wistfully from the gun deck. He would have gone with the boats like a shot. He smiled to himself. No wonder the seamen called him 'The Tiger'.

Then he climbed down into the gig. No ceremony this time. As the boats shoved away from the side he was conscious of sudden tension.

'Take the lead, Allday.'

He watched the rocky cliffs rising higher and higher with each pull of the oars, and could feel the strong undertow as the inshore swell frothed and mounted into seething lines of breakers. When he glanced astern he saw the cutter's stem lifting and plunging through the flashing spray, Davy's head and shoulders swaying above the oarsmen while he, too, peered at the land. What was he thinking about? Being killed in this Godforsaken place? Taking a step nearer that badly needed prize-money? Bolitho wiped the spray from his face and concentrated on the swift approach. There was more chance of being drowned than of anything in the immediate future.

He glanced at Allday who was standing in a half crouch, one fist gripping the tiller-bar, as he peered from bow to bow, gauging the set of the angry surf, the diagonal lines of breakers as they hurried noisily into the shadows below the cliffs. No need to warn him. Any suggestion at all might have the opposite effect and bring disaster.

Allday remarked, 'Very steep beach, Captain.' His sturdy figure swayed with the hull. 'Go in fast, put her bow round at the last moment t'wards the surf and beach her broadside-to.' He glanced down at him quickly. 'Does that sound fair, Captain?'

Bolitho smiled. 'Very fair.' It would also give them time to scramble ashore and help the cutter as she followed them in.

He felt a sudden chill and realised that the shadows had finally reached out to cover them, and he heard the slap of water, the creak of oars in rowlocks echoing back from the cliffs, as if there was a third and invisible boat nearby.

They almost planed across the last of the surf, the oars desperately keeping with the stroke until Allday yelled, 'Now!' And as he slammed the tiller hard round he added, 'Back-water to larboard!'

Floundering and tilting dangerously the gig came to the beach almost broadside, the keel grinding across loose pebbles and weed in a violent, protesting shudder.

But men were already leaping into the spray, holding the gunwale, guiding the gig to safety with sheer brutestrength.

'Clear the boat!'

Allday steadied Bolitho's arm as with Armitage and the others he waded, reeled and finally walked on to firm beach.

Bolitho ran to the foot of the cliffs, leaving Allday to supervise the business of getting the gig safely secured.

He waved his arm towards the three marines. 'Spread out! See if you can find a way to the top V

This, they understood, and with barely a glance towards the onrushing cutter they loped up the first crumbling rock-slide, their muskets primed and held ready.

Bolitho waited, staring up at the jagged clifftop, the pale blue sky above. No heads peering down. No sudden fusilade of musket balls.

He breathed moreevenly and turned to watch the cutter as it edged round and plunged wildly before driving on to the beach and amongst the waiting seamen.

Davy staggered towards him, gasping for breath, but loading his pistol with remarkably steady fingers.

Bolitho said, 'Muster the men, and send your three marines after the others.'

He looked for Armitage, but he was nowhere to be seen. 'In God's name!'

Davy grinned as the midshipman came round a large boulder, buttoning his breeches.

Bolitho said harshly, 'If you must relieve yourself at such times, Mr. Armitage, I would be obliged if you would remain in sight!'

Armitage hung his head. 'S-sorry, sir.'

Bolitho relented. 'It would be safer for you, and I will try and hide any embarrassment you might cause me.'

Allday crunched over the loose shingle, chuckling as he, too, loaded a brace of pistols with fresh, dry powder.

'Bless me, Mr. Armitage, but I can understand how you feel P

The youth stared at him unhappily. 'You can?'

'Why, once, I was hiding in a loft.' He winked at the cutter's coxswain. 'From the bloody pressgang, believe it or not, and all I could think of was pumping my bilges!'

Bolitho said to Davy, 'That seems to have helped his mind a little.'

He forgot Armitage's troubles and said, 'We'll leave four hands with the boats.'

He saw Undine swaying like a beautiful model, her sterq windows flashing in the sunlight, and imagined Herrick watch, ing their progress. He could send aid to the beached boats i f trouble arrived. He looked up at the cliffs again. Damp, clammy deceptively cool. That would change as soon as they reached the top and the waiting sun.

Bolitho waited for Davy to rejoin him. 'Best be moving off,'

He examined his landing party carefully as Allday waved them towards the cliffs. Thirty in all. Apart from Davy anti Armitage, he had brought a master's mate named Carwithen knowing the man would have resented being left behind after Fowlar's previous involvements. A dark, unsmiling man, he was, like Bolitho, a Cornishman, and hailed from the fishing, village of Looe.

He waited while they checked their weapons. His chain of command. Ship or shore, it made no difference to them.

Carwithen said, 'I hope they've a drop to drink when we get, t'other side.'

Bolitho noticed that hardly anybody smiled at his remark, Carwithen was known as a hard man, given to physical vio, lence if challenged. Good at his work, according to the master, but little beyond it. How different from Fowlar, Bolithc; thought.

'Lead your party to the left, Mr. Davy, but allow the marine; to set the pace.' He looked at Armitage. 'You keep with me.'

He saw a marine waving from a high ledge, indicating tht path up the first section of cliff.

It was strange how sailors always hated the actual moment of leaving the sea behind. Like having a line attached to your belt, dragging you back. Bolitho eased the sword further around his hip and reached out for the nearest handhold, Smoothed away by timeless weather. Stained with dropping; from a million sea-birds. No wonder ships avoided the place.

As he moved carefully up the fallen boulders he felt a small pressure against his thigh, the watch she had given him ir, Madras. He thought suddenly of that moment when she hay? offered him far more. And he had taken it without even smallest hesitation. How soft, how alive she had felt in hip arms.