Alexander Kent - Second to None

“I’d wager a wet on it, sir.”

A wet. What John Allday would say. Where was he now? How would he go on? The old dog without his master.

Adam smiled. “A wager it is then. A wet you shall have!” He seized a stay and began to slide towards the deck, heedless of the tar on his white breeches. Instinct? Or the need to prove something? When he reached the deck the others were waiting for him.

“Sir?” Galbraith, poised and guarded.

“Spanish brigantine. He’s a damned good lookout.”

Galbraith relaxed slowly. “Sullivan? The best, sir.”

Adam did not hear him. “That vessel is following us.” He looked at him directly. It was there. Doubt. Caution. Uncertainty. “I shall not forget that craft, Mr Galbraith.”

Wynter leaned forward and said eagerly, “An enemy, sir?”

“An assassin, I believe, Mr Wynter.”

He swung away; Jago was holding his hat for him. “See that the wardroom mess provides a double tot for Sullivan when he is relieved.”

They watched him walk to the companion-way, as if, like the two midshipmen he had seen earlier, he did not have a care in the world.

Midshipman Fielding stood examining the telescope which the captain had just returned to him. He would put it in the next letter to his parents, when he got round to it. How the captain had spoken to him. No longer a stranger… He smiled, pleased at the aptness of the phrase. That was it.

He recalled the time he had gone to waken the captain when Lieutenant Wynter had been concerned about the wind. He had dared to touch his arm. It had been hot, as if the captain had had a fever. And he had called out something. A woman’s name.

He would leave that out of the letter. It was private.

But he wondered who the woman was.

It was like sharing something. He thought of the captain’s easy confidence when he had slithered down to the deck like one of the topmen. Perhaps the others had not noticed it.

He smiled again, pleased with himself. No longer a stranger.

Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune walked to the quarter window of the great cabin and observed the activity of countless small craft in the shadow of the Rock. He had visited Gibraltar many times throughout his career, never thinking that one day his own flagship would be lying here, with himself at the peak of his profession. Although a frigate captain earlier in the war, he had been surprised and not a little dismayed to discover how his post at the Admiralty had softened him.

He glanced at the dress coat with its heavy gold-laced epaulettes which hung on one of the chairs, the measure of the success which had brought him to this. He was one of the youngest flag officers on the Navy List. He had always told himself that he would not change, that he was no different from that young, untried captain in his first serious encounter with the enemy, with only his own skills and determination to sustain him.

Or from the midshipman. He stared at the shadowed side of the Rock. Aboard the little sloop-of-war Sparrow, Richard Bolitho’s first command.

He still could not come to terms with it. He could remember the signal being brought to his spacious rooms at the Admiralty, the writing blurring as he had read and understood that the impossible had happened: Napoleon had surrendered. Abdicated. It had ended. A release for so many, but for him like a great door being slammed shut.

He stared around the cabin, the rippling reflections of water on the low deckhead. It had seemed so small, so cramped after his life in London. He had changed.

He could hear the movement of the men on the upper deck, the creak of tackles as stores sent across from one of the supply vessels from England were hoisted inboard.

His thoughts returned to Catherine Somervell, from whom they were never far away. That night at the reception at Castlereagh’s home, when Admiral Lord Rhodes had stunned the guests by calling Bolitho’s wife to join him and share the applause for her absent husband. When Bethune had begged to be allowed to escort Catherine to her Chelsea house, she had refused. She had been composed enough to consider him; there was enough scandal. Later he had heard of the attack at her home, a disgusting attempt to rape her by a Captain Oliphant, apparently a cousin of Rhodes. After that, things had moved quickly. Rhodes had not become First Lord as he had hoped and expected, and his cousin had not been heard of since.

He looked at the heavy coat again. And I was ordered here. In command of a small group of frigates entrusted with patrol and search operations, too late to relieve Sir Richard Bolitho at Malta, nor even in England when the news of his death had broken. No wonder he had changed. He had once imagined himself comfortably, if not happily, married to a woman who suited his role and shared his ambitions. Now even their life together had been soured by those events, and he suspected his wife had been a willing partner in Rhodes’ attempt to humiliate and insult Catherine at that reception for Wellington.

He crossed to the opposite quarter and shaded his eyes against the glare to gaze at the mainland. Spain. It was hard not to think of it as the enemy; in Algeciras there had always been eyes watching for the arrival of a new sail, with riders ready to gallop to the next post where the message could be relayed. Another ship from England. Where bound? For what purpose?

And there were many who still believed Spain harboured enemies who had already taken advantage of Napoleon’s downfall to settle old scores in these waters, to resume piracy and the running of slaves to a ready market in America and the Indies, despite the laws so piously passed to forbid it. The new allies. Would it last? Could they ever forget?

A cutter pulled strongly past the counter and the crew tossed oars in salute, a midshipman in charge rising to remove his hat within the shadow of the flagship. His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Montrose of forty-two guns was little different from any other frigate to the casual observer, but Bethune knew that his blue command flag at the fore made her unique.

He heard voices beyond the screen door. His flag captain, Victor Forbes, was a brisk, no-nonsense man who was very aware that this was no longer a private ship, and that flag had made all the difference to him in particular; he had even had to vacate these quarters for his admiral. Bethune had seen the seamen and marines glancing at him when he took his regular walks up and down the quarterdeck. A far cry from the Thames Embankment or the London parks, but it was better than nothing. He touched his stomach. He would not let himself go to seed like some of the flag officers he knew. In case… In case what?

Tomorrow Montrose would weigh and return to Malta, unless new orders came to direct otherwise. It was becoming ever more difficult to keep a part of his mind in the world of the Admiralty, to assess or disregard the next possible strategy, which had once been so clear to him. Even to know the true deployment of the allied armies, or whether Napoleon was indeed fighting a rearguard action.

Today he might receive fresh information. That was the irony of it. The ship which had been sighted just an hour ago was Unrivalled. He had felt a certain involuntary shock when he had seen his flag lieutenant’s report in the log, Unrivalled (46). Captain Bolitho. Not like a step forward; rather, looking back. The names, the faces…

And now Adam Bolitho was here. In a new ship. At least I was able to send word of that before he was struck down.

He clenched his fists. He had heard one of the seamen saying to his mate when they had been splicing below the quarterdeck:

“I tell ’ee, Ted. We’ll ne’er see his like again, an’ that’s God’s truth!”

The sailor’s simple tribute, shared by so many. And yet, like so many, that unknown sailor had never laid eyes on Richard Bolitho.