Alexander Kent - Man of War

Yovell loosened his coat and felt for his watch.

"We saw her leave when we were still at Gibraltar." He frowned. "She was bringing the reports of Unrivalled'?" damage to Plymouth. I think the Captain knew then, in his heart. He tried to shut it from his mind. Unrivalled meant so much to him. In my poor way I strive to understand, but a captain of any ship must see things quite differently."

Ferguson looked at the ledgers. As steward of the estate he tried to be meticulous, to miss nothing. But he was not a young man any more. He did not even glance at his pinned-up sleeve, nor consciously recall the Battle of the Saintes, where he had lost his arm thirty-five years ago. Grace had nursed him back to health and Captain Richard Bolitho had offered him the post of steward.

As if reading his thoughts, Yovell said, "D'you still see much of JohnAllday?"

"He comes over from Fallowfield for a wet every week. We go down to the harbour sometimes. He likes to watch the ships. He still feels it, very badly." He walked to the fire and poked it; it was spitting in the rain lancing down the squat chimney.

He paused to pat the cat, dozing as usual by the hob, and added, "Captain Adam's coxswain… he looks a hard one." It was a question.

Yovell smiled, his glasses slipping down again. "Chalk and cheese, some might say, but they hit it off from from the start. Not another Allday, though! "

They both laughed.

Outside, sheltering beneath the overhanging stable roof, David Napier turned his head to listen. It was getting dark already. He knew he should be tired after the drive from Plymouth. Drained. But he could not throw off the feeling of confused disbelief. The welcome had been genuine and overwhelming. Grace Ferguson had almost smothered him, demanding to know about his wounded leg; she had shown even more concern than on the occasion of his previous visit. At the request of his captain. He had gone over it again and again. Like the second operation on his leg, which the Irish surgeon O'Beirne had carried out at sea just before the bloody battle at Algiers. The wound had become poisoned, and the alternative was death. He could not believe that he

had not been afraid. The sudden agony of the knife, hands pinning him down on the table, the pain mounting to match the screams he knew had been his own; he had nearly choked on the strap between his teeth until merciful darkness had saved him.

And then, through it all, he had remembered the Captain's arm on his bare, sweat-soaked shoulder. And his voice, saying something about a pony ride. He turned and peered into the stable at Jupiter, the pony, high-spirited and contemptuous of his untrained efforts to ride him on that first visit to this great house, which he dared now to think of as a home.

Jupiter snorted and stamped, and Napier withdrew his hand. The coachman they all called Young Matthew, although he must be years older than the captain, had told him about the pony's habit of biting whenever he saw the opportunity. What would his mother think if she could see him here? He shut his mind. She would not care.

The rain was stopping. He would find the kitchen and see if he could help the cook with something.

He licked his lips. It would not go away. That moment when the coach had swayed to a halt outside a shop and the Captain had said, almost sharply, "Come with me. This won't take long."

Even then he had believed the Captain was in distress about the ship, still suffering those last moments which he had endured alone, with the final handshake and the gig bearing off from the jetty. He would have understood that well enough.

But when the Captain had said to the beaming tailor with his gaudy waistcoat and dangling tape measure, for this young gentleman, he had not been joking. He had known that, seeing Yovell's obvious delight, A midshipman's uniform.

Part of a dream. Unreal. He might change his mind. This young gentleman.

And why did he believe he could rise to the incredible offer of a new life?

"You there is anybody about today?"

Napier swung round, shading his eyes with his wrist in a shaft of watery sunshine. He had not even heard the approaching horse, he had been so deep in his thoughts.

It was a young woman, riding side-saddle and dressed all in red, the habit the colour of some of the wine he sometimes served his captain. She had dark hair, tied back with a scarf, and was soaked with rain.

She tossed her head. "Are you going to help me, or are you just going to stare?"

A door banged open and old Jeb Trinnick, who, Napier had been told, had been in charge of the stables since any one could remember, limped on to the cobbles. A giant of a man, his appearance was made more fierce some by his solitary eye, the other having been lost in a carriage accident so long ago that the story had grown into legend.

He glared at the mounted girl and said, "Lady Roxby won't be none too pleased about you comin' 'ere all alone, Missy. What's become of young "Arry?"

Again the scornful toss of the head. "He couldn't keep up." She gestured to a mounting block. "Help me down, will you?"

Napier reached up as she slid from the saddle, and old Jeb Trinnick led the horse away, still muttering to himself.

She stepped down to the ground and glanced at him. "New here, aren't you?"

Not a woman after all. No more than a girl. Napier was not a good judge of ages, especially of her sex, but he guessed she was, like himself, fifteen or close enough. She was very pretty, and her hair, which he had thought dark, was drying to the colour of chestnuts in the fading light.

"I'm with Captain Bolitho, miss."

He noticed the way she stood and moved, confident, impatient. He did not see her start at the sound of the Captain's name.

"His servant." She nodded. "Yes, I think I heard something about a visit. Last year? You fell off a donkey."

"I can take you to him, if you wish, miss?"

She watched the stalls being opened.

"I think I can find my way." But she was staring at the nearest loose box, at the powerful horse shaking its head in the direction of an approaching stable boy.

She was about to leave. Napier said, "A fine mare, miss. She's called Tamara."

The girl stopped on the steps and looked directly into his face. It was the first time he had seen her eyes. Grey-blue, like the sea.

She said, "I know. It killed my mother."

Old Jeb Trinnick came past and watched her walk up to the house.

"Stay clear of that one, my son. Too good for the likes of us, or so she thinks, I daresay."

Napier was looking at the big mare, which was watching the boy with the bucket.

"Was that true about her mother?"

"Her fault." The eye swivelled round to another boy forking scattered straw. "Lady Bolitho, Sir Richard's widow, she was." His rugged features creased into a smile. "Good to have the young Cap'n here again. But I suppose you'll be off soon? The way of sailor men He turned away as some one called his name.

It was then that it hit Napier, like opening a door and coming face to face with a nightmare. On board Unrivalled he had seen several midshipmen join for the first time. Young, eager, some completely inexperienced. He had heard them meeting the Captain. He gripped the stable door tightly.

If he was to become a midshipman, he would be facing it alone.

They would not be sailing together. Not this time. Perhaps never.

His own words came back to mock him. We take care of each other.

"Still on yer feet, then? I'd have thought you'd be tucked up in a nice soft cot somewheres, while you've still got the chance! "

Napier swung round guiltily, wondering if he had spoken his thoughts aloud.

But it was Luke Jago, a heavy chest over one shoulder as if it weighed nothing, and in contrast holding a long, delicate clay pipe in his other hand.