Alexander Kent - Command a King`s Ship

He let his mind drift as he listened to bare feet padding overhead, the sluice of water and the clank of a pump as the decks were washed down for another day.

Noddall was right, he had eaten a good breakfast. Thinly sliced fat pork, fried pale brown with biscuit crumbs. Always his favourite. Helped down with strong coffee and some treacle.

Herrick tapped on the door and entered the cabin.

'Wind's holding steady from the sou'-west, sir.' He looked alert and clear-eyed.

Bolitho smiled. 'Good, Thomas. Have some coffee.'

It was always strange how Herrick relaxed once there was a, set plan to perform. If he really guessed how hazy it was in his captain's mind he gave no sign.

'Mr. Mudge informs me that we are logging some ten knots, sir.' Herrick took a mug from the servant and grinned. 'He's up there beaming away as if he's just won a fortune at the tables.'

Bolitho frowned. 'That means we should make a landfall at any time now. If yesterday's wind had been more than a snail's pace we could have been there now.' He spread his arms, feeling the touch of a clean shirt against his chest and back. 'But there was plenty to do.'

Herrick smiled. 'Mr. Davy's well on his way to Pendang Bay by now.'

Bolitho replied, 'Aye. He'll be feeling like a post-captain, if I'm not mistaken.'

When he had put Davy in charge of the schooner, and had sent him back to Conway, he had seen his face come alight, as if from within. He must have looked like that himself once, he thought. He had been put in charge of a prize when he had been a lieutenant, far younger than Davy. The first step to real command was said to be the greatest, so perhaps it would work for Davy, too.

He looked up at the open skylight as a voice pealed, 'Deck there! Land on the lee bow!'

Bolitho smiled, feeling the chill on his spine. 'If the Argus is elsewhere, I will have to think again.'

The door opened slightly and Midshipman Armitage reported, 'Mr. Soames's respects, sir. Masthead has sighted land on the lee bow.'

Bolitho said, 'Thank you, Mr. Armitage.'

He saw the deep hollows around his eyes, the nervous way his fingers twitched against his patched breeches. Unlike any of the others who had returned, he was unable to hide his real feelings. His fear. His knowledge that he could no longer contain it.

'My compliments to Mr. Soames. Tell him we will exercise both watches at gun drill in half an hour.' He hesitated and added, 'If there is anything troubling you, it would be as well to confide in the first lieutenant here, or myself, if you feel it might help.'

Armitage shook his head. 'N-no, sir. I am better now.' He hurried away.

Bolitho looked at his friend and asked quietly, 'What are we to do about that one?'

Herrick shrugged. 'You cannot carry them all, sir. He may get over it. We've all had to go through it at one time or another.'

'Now then, Thomas, that does not sound like you at all!' He smiled broadly. 'Admit you are concerned for the lad!'

Herrick looked embarrassed. 'Well, I was thinking of having a word with him.'

'I thought as much, Thomas. You haven't the right face for deceit!'

Another knock at the door announced the surgeon had arrived.

'Well, Mr. Whitmarsh?' Bolitho watched him framed in the doorway, the early sunlight from the cabinn hatch making a halo around his huge head. 'Is our prisoner worse?'

Whitmarsh moved through the cabin like a man in a prison, ducking under each beam as if seeking a way of escape.

'He is well enough, sir. But I still believe, as I told you when you returned to the ship, that he should have been sent back to the settlement in the schooner.'

Bolitho saw Herrick's jaw tighten and knew he was about to silence the surgeon's aggressive outburst. Like the other officers, Herrick found it hard to cover his dislike for him. Whitmarsh was little help in the matter either.

Bolitho said calmly, 'I cannot answer for a prisoner if he is there and we are here, surely?'

He watched the beads of sweat trickling down the man's forehead and wondered if he had taken a drink this early. It was a wonder it had not killed him already.

Above his head he heard the regular stamp of boots, the click of metal, as the marines mustered for morning inspection.

He made himself say, 'You must trust my judgement, Mr. Whitmarsh, as I do yours in your own profession.'

The surgeon turned and glared at him. 'You are admitting that if you'd sent him back to Pendang Bay he would have been seized and hanged!'

Herrick retorted angrily, 'Damn your eyes, man, the fellow is a bloody pirate!'

Whitmarsh eyes him fiercely. 'In your opinion, no doubt!'

Bolitho stood up sharply and walked to the windows.

'You must live in reality, Mr. Whitmarsh. As a common pirate he would be tried and hanged, as well you know. But if he is the son of Muljadi he is something more than a cat's-paw, he could be used to bargain. There is more at stake here, more lives in peril than I feared. I'll not falter because of your personal feelings.'

Whitmarsh seized the edge of the table, his body hanging over it like a figurehead.

'If you'd suffered as I have-'

Bolitho turned on him, his voice harsh. 'I know about your brother, and I am deeply sorry for him! But how many felons and murderers have you seen hanging, rotting in chains, without even a thought?' He heard someone pause beside the open skylight and lowered his voice. 'Humanity, I admire. Hypocrisy, I totally reject!' He saw the fury giving way to pain on the surgeon's flushed features. 'So take care of the prisoner. If he is to be hanged, then so be it. But if I can use his life to advantage, and in doing so save it, then amen to that!'

Whitmarsh moved vaguely towards the door and then said thickly, 'And that man Potter you brought from the schooner, sir. You have put him to work already!'

Bolitho smiled. 'Really, Mr. Whitmarsh, you do not give up easily. Potter is with the sailmaker as his assistant. He will not be worked to death, and I think that keeping busy will be a quicker cure than brooding over his recent sufferings.'

Whitmarsh stalked from the cabin, muttering under his breath.

Herrick exclaimed, 'What impertinence! In your shoes I'd have laid about him with a belaying-pin!'

'I doubt that.' Bolitho shook the coffee pot, but it was empty. 'But I feel that I'll never win his confidence, let alone his trust.'

Bolitho waited for Noddall to bring his dress coat and best cocked-hat, feeling rather ridiculous as the servant fussed and tugged at cuffs and lapels.

Herrick said bluntly, 'I think it's a bad risk, sir.'

'One I'll have to take, Thomas.' He saw Noddall pull a long strand of hair from one of the buttons. Her hair. He wondered if Herrick had noticed. He continued, 'We have to trust the French captain. All the rest is so much supposition.'

Noddall had taken the old sword from its rack on the bulkhead, but held it across his arm, knowing by now it was more than his life was worth to usurp Allday's ritual.

Bolitho thought of Whitmarsh's anger, and knew that much of it had good foundation. Had the prisoner been sent back in the schooner he would doubtlessly have been taken by Puigserver, if he was still at the settlement, or held in irons until he could be sent to the nearest Spanish authority. Then, if he was lucky, he would certainly be hanged. If not, his fate hardly bore thinking about. Like father, like son.

As it was, the schooner's surviving crewmen, a savagelooking collection of half-castes, Javanese and Indians, would meet a swift fate before much longer.

How many lives had they taken, he wondered? How many ships plundered, crews murdered, or broken into husks like Potter, the Bristol sailmaker? The bargain was probably onesided.

He walked from the cabin, still pondering the rights and wrongs of instant justice.