Alexander Kent - Heart of Oak

He touched his leg again. Suppose a dream was all it had been?

Doors opening, horses stamping on cobbles, snorting as men ran to unfasten the harnesses, some one waving, a woman hurrying to throw her arms around the girl who had been so sick. The lawyer's clerk gesturing to the guard, saying something about baggage, but still clinging to his sealed case.

Napier peered up at the inn sign. The Spaniards. Again, like a voice from the past.

The horses were gone, the coach standing abandoned. He saw his midshipman's chest on the cobbles with an inn servant stooping to look at the label.

The guard joined him. His burly companion had already vanished into the taproom.

"End o' the road. For us, it is. "He glanced around. "You being met? It's no place to stand an' freeze!"

Napier felt in his pocket for some coins.

"No. Can I leave my chest here?"

He did not hear the answer. He was trying to think, clearly, coldly. He would walk to the house. He had done it with Luke Jago, the captain's coxswain. The hard man, who had taken him out to Audacity, and shouted his name as if he were enjoying it. "Come aboard to join!"

He felt now for the warrant with its scarlet seal of authority, which the young flag lieutenant had given him as he left the ship at Plymouth two days ago.

"Come along. We haven't got all day!"

Napier turned and saw the foul-tempered passenger beckoning to his daughter. He had remarked loudly on Napier's arrival that it was hardly fitting for a mere midshipman to travel in the same coach. The coachman had been unable to conceal his satisfaction when Napier had showed him the warrant bearing the vice-admiral's seal.

The girl brushed some hair from her forehead and smiled at him.

"Thank you again for your kindness. I shall not forget. "She reached out and put her gloved hand on his arm. "I am glad you are safe."

She could not continue, but turned away and walked deliberately past her father.

"No need fer me to fret about you, zur." The guard dragged off his battered hat, his weathered face split into a grin. Something to tell the lads…

A smart carriage, almost delicate compared to the stage, had halted, and a woman was stepping down, assisted by her own straight-backed coachman. People were turning to watch as she, slim and elegant in a dark red cloak, hurried to greet the midshipman.

Napier felt the arms around his shoulder, a hand on his face, his mouth. The tears against his skin.

She was saying, "A tree across the road… Francis had to fetch help. I prayed you'd still be here! "She tossed her head like a girl, but the laugh he had always remembered would not come.

Napier could feel the warmth of her embrace, her pleasure and her sadness. He wanted to tell her, to explain, but his voice came out like a stranger's.

"Lady Roxby, it all happened so quickly!"

But her hand was touching his mouth again and she was shaking her head, her eyes never leaving his. "Aunt Nancy, my dear. Remember? "She kept her voice level as she called to the coachman, "A hand here, Francis. Easy, now."

But Francis needed no such caution. He had served in the cavalry, and had not forgotten what the exhaustion of war looked like. And he had already seen the dark stain of blood on the midshipman's white breeches.

She stood by the carriage while Napier climbed with effort to the step. She was aware of the faces at the inn windows and on the street, discussing and speculating, but they could have been completely alone. She had last seen him as a boy, proud but shy in his new uniform, before he had left to join his ship.

She had learned most of what had happened from the letter which had reached England in a fast courier brig from the Caribbean; the rest she could guess or imagine. She was a sea officer's daughter, and the sister of one of England's most famous sailors, and had soon learned that pain and glory usually walked hand in hand.

Napier was gazing back at her, his eyes filling his face.

"Im I'm so sorry. I didn't mean it to be…" But Francis had edged past her and was easing the boy into a seat.

"He'll be all right now, m'lady."

She nodded. "Thank you, Francis. You may take us home."

Home.

Luke Jago, Captain Adam Bolitho's coxswain, stood beside one of the tall windows and stared down into the street. The carriage, and a carrier's cart which had brought him and some personal belongings here had already departed, and after the endless journey from Plymouth it was like being abandoned, cut off from everything he knew or could recognize.

The street was deserted and, like this house, too quiet to be alive. The buildings directly opposite were faceless and imposing. He took his hand from the curtain and heard it swish back into position. Like the room itself: everything in its place.

Overpowering. The ceiling seemed too high, out of reach. He thought of the flagship, Athena; even in the great cabin aft, you had to duck your head beneath the deckhead beams. Below on the gun decks it was even more cramped. How could these people ever understand what it was like to serve, to fight?

He relaxed very slowly, caught unaware by his own resentment.

The house felt empty, probably had been for most of the time. Everything in its place. The fine chairs, glossy and uncreased, a vast marble fireplace, laid with logs but unlit.

There were some flowers in a vase by another window. But this was February, and they were made of coloured silk.

Above a small inlaid desk there was a painting; he was surprised it had escaped his notice as he had entered the room.

A portrait of a sea officer holding a telescope. A young captain, not yet posted, but Jago could still recognize Sir Graham Bethune, Vice-Admiral of the Blue, who had left his flagship in Portsmouth in such haste, as if staging a race with the devil.

He sat down very carefully in one of the satin chairs, and tried once again to marshal his thoughts. Jago had a keen brain and usually a memory to match it, but after the battle with the slavers at San Jose and the murderous battering from their shore-sited artillery, one event seemed to merge with another.

Leading his boarding party to retake the schooner, and seeing the woman standing on the scarred deck staring past him at Athena, as if she were beyond pain, and her blood had been unreal. In action, memory can play many tricks. But Jago could still hear her calling out, as if with joy, in those last seconds before she fell dead.

The return to Antigua, the victors with their prizes, and the total, unnerving silence in English Harbour which had greeted them. Some of their people had been killed in the action and been buried at sea; others had been landed at Antigua and were still there under care.

Jago was hardened to sea warfare and its price. The long years of war with France and Spain were only a memory now, and they were at peace, although some might not see it that way. To the ordinary Jack, any man was an enemy if he was standing at the business end of a cannon, or holding his blade to your neck.

But that passage to Antigua still haunted Jago's mind.

A calm sea and light winds, lower deck cleared, and all work suspended on spars and rigging alike.

Jago had been in all kinds of fights, and had seen many familiar faces, some good, others bad, go over the side. But this was different. Her body stitched up in canvas, weighted with round shot, and covered with the flag. Our flag. Even some of the wounded had been on deck, crouching with their mates, or propped up against the hammock nettings to listen to the captain's voice, speaking the familiar words which most of them knew by heart.

And yet so different…

Even the regular thump of the pumps, which had not stopped since the first crash of cannon fire, had been stilled.