Alexander Kent - Stand into Danger

Dumaresq bit his lip. “Good. So be it.” He swung round and called, “Pass the word for Mr Palliser.” He saw Bolitho and said, “You have the dog-watches today. Make certain you gather plenty of lanterns near the mizzen. I want our ‘friend’ to see our lights later on. They will give him confidence.”

Bolitho watched the change in the man, the power running through him like a rising wave, a need to crush this impudent follower.

Palliser came striding aft, his eyes questioning again as he saw Dumaresq speaking with his junior lieutenant.

“Ah, Mr Palliser, I have work for you.”

Dumaresq smiled, but Bolitho could see from the way a nerve was jumping at the corner of his jaw, the stiffness in his back and broad shoulders, that his mind was less relaxed.

Dumaresq made a sweeping gesture. “I shall require the launch ready for lowering at dusk, earlier if the light is poor. A good man in charge, if you please, and extra hands to get her mast stepped and sails set as soon as they are cast off.” He watched Palliser’s inscrutable face and added lightly, “I want them to carry several of the large lanterns, too. We shall douse ours and darken ship completely as soon as the launch is clear. Then I intend to beat hard to wind’rd, come about and wait.”

Bolitho turned to look at Palliser. To tackle another vessel in the dark was not to be taken flippantly.

Dumaresq added, “I shall flog any man aboard who shows so much as a glow-worm!”

Palliser touched his hat. “I’ll attend to it, sir. Mr Slade can take charge of the boat. He’s so keen on promotion it’ll do him good.”

Bolitho was astounded to see Dumaresq and the first lieutenant laughing together like a pair of schoolboys, as if this was an everyday occurrence.

Dumaresq looked at the sky and then turned to stare astern. Only from the masthead could you see the other vessel, but it was as if he was able to reach beyond the horizon itself. He was calm again, in control of his feelings.

He said, “Something to tell your father about, Mr Bolitho. It would appeal to him.”

A seaman tramped past carrying a great coil of rope across his shoulder like a bundle of dead snakes. It was Stockdale. As the captain vanished below he wheezed, “We goin’ to fight that one, sir?”

Bolitho shrugged. “I-I think so.”

Stockdale nodded heavily. “I’ll grind an edge on my blade, then.” That was all it apparently meant to him.

Left alone to his thoughts, Bolitho crossed to the rail and looked down at the men already working to free the launch from the other boats on the tier. Did Slade, he wondered, yet realize what might become of him? If the wind rose after they had dropped the launch, Slade could be driven miles off course. It would be harder than finding a pin in a haystack.

Jury came on deck, and after some hesitation joined him by the rail.

Bolitho stared at him. “I thought you were sent aft to do poor Lockyer’s work?”

Jury met his gaze. “I asked the first lieutenant if he would send Mr Midshipman Ingrave instead.” Some of his composure collapsed under Bolitho’s gaze. “I’d prefer to stay in your watch, sir.”

Bolitho clapped him on the shoulder. “On your head be it.” But he felt pleased all the same.

The boatswain’s mates hurried from hatchway to hatchway, their silver calls trilling in between their hoarse cries for the watch below to assist in swaying out the launch.

Jury listened to the shrill whistles and said, “The Spithead nightingales are in full cry this evening, sir.”

Bolitho hid a smile. Jury spoke like an old sailor, a real sea-dog.

He faced him gravely, “You’d better go and see what is being done about the lanterns. Otherwise Mr Palliser will have the both of us in full cry, I’m thinking.”

As dusk came down to conceal their preparations the masthead lookout reported that the other sail was still in sight.

Palliser touched his hat as the captain came on deck. “All ready, sir.”

“Very well.” Dumaresq’s eyes shone in the reflected glare from the array of lanterns. “Shorten sail and stand by to lower the boat.” He looked up as the main-topsail filled and boomed sullenly from its yard. “After that, every stitch she can carry. If that ferret back there is a friend, and merely seeking our protection on the high seas, we shall know it. If not, Mr Palliser, he shall know that, I promise you!”

An anonymous voice whispered, “Cap’n’s comin’ up, sir!”

Palliser turned and waited for Dumaresq to join him by the quarterdeck rail.

Gulliver’s shadow moved through the gloom. “South by east, sir. Full and bye.”

Dumaresq gave a grunt. “You were right about the clouds, Mr Gulliver, though the wind’s fresher than I expected.”

Bolitho stood with Rhodes and three midshipmen at the lee side of the quarterdeck ready to execute any sudden order. More to the point, they were able to share the drama and the tension. Dumaresq’s comment had sounded as if he blamed the master for the wind.

He looked up and shivered. Destiny, after thrashing and beating her way to windward for what had seemed like an eternity, had come about as Dumaresq had planned. With a stiff wind sweeping over the larboard quarter she was plunging across a procession of breaking white-horses, the spray rising above the weather rigging and sweeping on to the crouching seamen like tropical rain.

Destiny had been stripped down to her topsails and jib with her big forecourse holding two reefs in readiness for a swift change of tack.

Rhodes murmured, “That other vessel is out there somewhere, Dick.”

Bolitho nodded and tried not to think of the launch as it had vanished into a deepening darkness, the lanterns making a lively show on the water.

It was an eerie feeling, with the ship so quiet around him. Nobody spoke, and the heavily greased gear was without its usual din and clatter. Just the sweeping sea alongside, the occasional rush of water through the lee scuppers as Destiny dropped her bows into a deep trough.

Bolitho wanted to forget what was happening around him and to concentrate on what he had to do. Palliser had selected the best seamen in the ship for a boarding party if it came to that. But the sudden upsurge of wind might have changed Dumaresq’s ideas, he thought.

He heard Jury moving restlessly by the nettings, and Rhodes ’ midshipman, Mr Cowdroy, who had been in the ship for two years. He was a haughty, bad-tempered youth of sixteen who would be impossible as a lieutenant. Rhodes had had cause to report him to the captain more than once, and the last time he had been ignominiously caned across a six-pounder by the boatswain. It did not seem to have changed him. Little Merrett made up the trio, trying to keep out of sight, as usual.

Rhodes said softly, “Soon now, Dick.” He loosened the hanger in his belt. “Might be a slaver, who knows?”

Yeames, master’s mate of the watch, said cheerfully, “Not likely, sir. You’d smell a blackbirder by now!”

Palliser snapped, “Be silent there!”

Bolitho watched the sea curling above the dipping side in a frothing white bank. Beyond it there was nothing but an occasional jagged crest. As black as a boot, as Colpoys had remarked. His marksmen were already aloft in the tops, trying to keep their muskets dry and watching for the first sight of the stranger.

If the captain and Gulliver had timed it correctly, the stranger should appear on Destiny’s starboard bow. The frigate would hold the wind-gage and the other vessel would have no chance of slipping away. The men at the starboard battery were ready, the gun captains on their knees as they prepared to run out as soon as the word came from aft.

To a civilian sitting by his hearth in England it might all seem like a kind of madness. But to Captain Dumaresq it was something else entirely, and it mattered. The other vessel, whatever she was, was interfering with the King’s affairs. That made it personal, not to be taken lightly.