ALEXANDER KENT: In Gallant Company

He glared at the shantyman with his fiddle. 'Play up, you bugger, or I'll'ave you on th' pumps!'

From forward came the cry, 'Anchor's hove short, sir!'

'Hands aloft! Loose tops'ls!' Cairns ' voice, magnified by the trumpet, pursued and drove them like a clarion. 'Loose the heads'ls!'

Released to the wind the canvas erupted aid flapped in wild confusion, while spread along the swaying yards like monkeys the topmen fought to bring it under control until the right moment.

Sparke called, 'Man your braces! Mr Bolitho, take that man's name!'

'Aye, sir!'

Bolitho smiled into the drizzle. It was always the same with Sparke. Take that man's name. There was nobody in particular, but it gave the seamen the idea that Sparke had eyes everywhere.

Again the hoarse voice from the bows, 'Anchor's aweigh, sir!'

Released from the ground, her first anchor already hoisted and catted, Trojan side-stepped heavily across the wind, her sails.spreading and thundering like a bombardment as the men hauled at the braces, their bodies straining back, angled down almost to the deck.

Round and further still, the yards swinging to hold the wind, the sails freed one by one to harden like steel breastplates until the ship was thrusting her shoulder in foam, her lower gunports awash along the lee side.

Bolitho ran from one section to the next, his hat knocked awry, his ears ringing with the squeal of blocks and the boom of canvas, and above all the groaning and vibrating chorus from every stay and shroud.

When he paused for breath he saw the outline of Sandy Hook sliding abeam, some men waiting in a small yawl to wave as the great ship stood over them.

He heard Cairns ' voice again. 'Get the t'gan'sls on her!'

Bolitho peered up the length of the mainmast with its great bending yards. He saw midshipmen in the tops, and seamen racing each other to set more canvas. When he looked aft again he saw Bunce with his hands thrust behind him, his face like carved rock as he watched over his ship. Then he nodded very slowly. That was as near to satisfaction as Bolitho had ever seen him display.

He pictured the ship as she would look from the land, her fierce, glaring figurehead, the Trojan warrior with the redcrested helmet. Spray bursting up and over the beakhead and bowsprit, the massive black and buff hull glistening and reflecting the cruising whitecaps alongside, as if to wash herself clean from the land.

Probyn's voice sounded raw as he shouted at his men to secure the second anchor. He would need plenty to drink after this, Bolitho thought.

He looked aft, past his own seamen as they slid down stays and vaulted from the gangways to muster again below the mast. Then he saw the captain watching him. Along the ship, over all the bustle and haste their eyes seemed to meet.

Self-consciously, Bolitho reached up and straightened his hat, and he imagined he saw the captain give a small but definite nod.

But the mood was soon broken, for Trojan rarely gave much time for personal fancies.

'Man the braces there! Stand by to come about!'

Sparke was shouting, 'Mr Bolithol'

Bolitho touched his hat. 'Aye, I know, sir. Take that man's name! '

By the time they had laid the ship on her chosen tack to both the captain's and Bunce's satisfaction the land was swallowed in mist and rain astern.

Lieutenant Richard Bolitho crossed to the weather side of the quarterdeck and gripped the hammock nettings to hold his balance. Towering above and ahead of him, Trojan's great pyramids of sails were impressive, even to one accustomed to the sight. Especially after all the frustration and pain in the last four and a half days, he thought.

The wind which had followed them with such promise from Sandy Hook had changed within hours, as if driven or inspired by the devil himself. Backing and veering without warning, with all hands required to reef or reset the sails throughout each watch. It had taken one complete, miserable day just to work round and clear of the dreaded Nantucket shoals, with sea boiling beneath the long bowsprit as if heated by some force from hell.

Then after raising their progress to four and even five knots the wind would alter yet again, bellowing with savage triumph while the breathless seamen fought to reef the hard canvas, fisting and grappling while their pitching world high above the decks went mad about them.

But this was different. Trojan was standing almost due north, her yards braced round as far as they would to take and hold the wind, and along her lee side the water was creaming past as evidence of real progress.

Bolitho ran his eyes over the upper gundeck. Below the quarterdeck rail he could see the hands resting and chatting, as was the custom while awaiting to see what the cook had produced for the midday meal. By the greasy plume which fell downwind from the galley funnel, Bolitho guessed that it was another concoction of boiled beef hacked from salted casks,

mixed with a soggy assortment of ship's biscuit, oatmeal and scraps saved from yesterday. George Triphook, the senior cook, was hated by almost everyone but his toadies, but unlike some he enjoyed the hatred, and seemed to relish the groans and curses at his efforts.

Bolitho felt suddenly ravenous, but knew the wardroom fare would be little better when he was relieved to snatch his share of it.

He thought of his mother and the great grey house in Falmouth. He walked away from Couzens, his watchful midshipman, who rarely took his eyes off him. How terrible the blow had been. In the Navy you could risk death a dozen ways in any day. Disease, shipwreck or the cannon's roar, the walls of Falmouth church were covered with memorial plaques. The names and deeds of sea-officers, sons of Falmouth who had left port never to return.

But his mother. Surely not her. Always youthful and vivacious. Ready to stand-in and shoulder the responsibility of house and land when her husband, Captain James Bolitho, was away, which was often.

Bolitho and his brother, Hugh, his two sisters, Felicity and Nancy, had all loved her in their own different and special ways. When he had returned home from the Destiny, still shocked and suffering from his wound, he had needed her more than ever. The house had been like a tomb. She was dead. It was impossible to accept even now that she was not back in Falmouth, watching the sea beyond Pendennis Castle, laughing in the manner which was infectious enough to drive all despair aside.

A chill, they had said. Then a sudden fever. It had been over in a matter of weeks.

He could picture his father at this very moment. Captain James, as he was locally known, was well respected. as a magistrate since losing his arm and being removed from active duty. The house in winter, the lanes clogged with mud, the news always late, the countryside too worried by pressures of cold and wet, of lost animals and marauding foxes to heed much for this far-off war. But his father would care. Brooding as a ship-ofwar anchored or weighed in Carrick Roads. Needing, pining for the life which had rejected him, and now completely alone. It must be a million times worse for him, Bolitho thought sadly.

Cairns appeared on deck, and after scrutinizing the compass and glancing at the slate on which a master's mate made his half-hourly calculations he crossed to join Bolitho.

Bolitho touched his hat. 'She holds steady, sir. Nor' by east, full and bye.'

Cairns nodded. He had very pale eyes which could look right through a man.

'We may have to reef if the wind gets up any more. We're taking all we can manage, I think.'

He shaded his eyes before he looked to larboard, for although there was no sun the glare was intent and harsh. It was difficult to see an edge between sea and sky, the water was a desert of restless steel fragments. But the rollers were further apart now, cruising down in serried ranks to lift under Trojan's fat quarter to tilt her further and burst occasionally over the weather gangway before rolling on again towards the opposite horizon.