Alexander Kent - Sword of Honour

The strain of weeks at sea without activity was telling on Frobisher's people. Ships and men being paid off: a sailor's dream rather than a safe reality, but it gave rise to flarings of temper and outbreaks of violence, even in a well- disciplined company. He could hear Gilpin the boatswain, bawling out to some of his working party. A grating was to be rigged immediately after the despatches had been passed across, and Frobishefs own mail sent into Tireless in exchange. It was anyone's guess when those letters would reach their destinations.

He knew Tyacke hated the ritual of punishment, as much as he did himself. But he, more than most, knew the dangers of sailing alone when the ringing phrases of the Articles of War were not always enough. The Royal Marines of the after guard and the lash, were the only known alternative.

Yovell stood by the other door, his spectacles on his forehead.

"Everything has been signed and sealed, Sir Richard. I've had the satchel sent on deck." Unruffled, unchanged, and yet the one man he might have expected to remain a misfit. Amused, gentle, devout: they were not qualities common in a man-of-war.

Allday was there, too. Pretending to examine the two swords on their rack, but obviously fretting more than ever about the possibility of a letter from that other, quiet world of the Helford River. Avery would read it to him as usual, if it arrived; theirs was an odd and a warm relationship, upon which neither of them ever remarked. Avery would be thinking of the fair Susanna. In vain… And Sillitoe, the one man he had never expected to become involved on his behalf. He could hear Catherine's voice in the darkness, remember her warm breath on his shoulder, while she had spoken of that night in Chelsea. distancing herself from it. more like an impartial witness than one who had been face to face with terror. He had wanted to feel doubt, suspicion, even hatred. But Sillitoe remained as before, remote, even in the desire he so obviously felt for Catherine.

And all the while I remain here in the Mediterranean, waiting. Probably with no less intolerance than the seaman who would be flogged at six bells of the forenoon watch.

Avery entered by the screen door and removed his hat.

"Tireless is shortening sail, Sir Richard." He glanced briefly at Allday. "She has signalled that her captain is coming aboard." He added. "Penrose, Lieutenant." And then, more lightly, "I would have thought he'd be here and gone, in case his admiral finds him some errand!"

Bolitho laughed. Avery had not forgotten.

"Very well. Bring him aft, and I'll speak with him myself."

It took another hour for the ships to draw close enough for a boat to be put down and pulled over to the flagship, where young Lieutenant Harry Penrose was received with no less respect than if he were a post-captain.

Two seamen carried the satchels of mail and the despatches, and when Allday finally returned to the great cabin Bolitho knew that he had been lucky. Just a nod. That was all it took.

Lieutenant Penrose had a small bag of letters for Bolitho.

"From the courier-brig when I was last at the Rock, Sir Richard." He became almost confidential. "Her captain made me promise that I would deliver them personally."

Bolitho took the letters; there seemed to be four of them. The link, the lifeline. He would make them last.

Penrose was saying, "I fell in with the frigate Halcyon, Sir Richard. Captain Christie was making for Malta, but sent word to you in case I found you beforehand."

He raised his eyes from the letters.

"What "word"?"

"The two frigates reported in Algiers have put to sea." Penrose looked suddenly troubled, as if it were his fault.

Avery watched Bolitho as he slit open the first, crumpled letter, saw the way he turned his head as if to read it better, the damaged eye now obviously useless. By his appearance, one would never guess, and to share the knowledge was both moving and terrible.

He recalled the moment when Catherine had left Malta. He thought it had been Tyacke's idea; they had sent Frobisher's barge for her, each oar pulled by a captain or one of the squadron's officers, with the admiral's own coxswain at the tiller.

As people saw them, and remembered them; as they spoke of them in the alehouses and the coaching inns from Falmouth to London. The admiral and his lady.

Bolitho looked up at him. "I thought we might learn something of their intentions, but we were unlucky. They could be anywhere, under any flag. It would take a fleet to break into Algiers, not merely this squadron, and even then……"

Avery said, "Even then, nobody would thank you for beginning another conflict, though it would seem inevitable, whichever aspect presents itself."

Penrose coughed politely. "I must take my leave, Sir Richard. The wind favours me, and……"

Bolitho held out his hand. "My best wishes to your company, Mr. Penrose. When next we meet, I shall expect to see epaulettes on your shoulder."

The door closed as Avery led the schooner's captain away.

Yovell remarked, "That was kindly said, Sir Richard. That young man will remember this day."

He heard the trill of calls, and imagined the schooner's gig pulling away from the flagship's side. Tireless would soon be gone. Meeting and departure. Their world.

Then the calls shrilled a different tune.

"All hands! All hands lay aft to witness punishment!" The immediate response of hurrying feet, the boots of the Royal Marines as they took up their stations across the poop.

Allday passed him without a word to close the cabin skylight, so that the sound of the punishment would be muffled.

It was a strange fact about Allday, Yovell thought. He loathed officers who abused their authority, but showed no sympathy for any man who raised his hand against it.

Bolitho said, "I shall dictate orders for the squadron. Some will already know, but if the two frigates intend to reinforce the Barbary corsairs against allied commerce, it is essential that each captain recognises them as the enemy."

He looked at her letters. She must have written every day. So that he could live her life with her, and share it, week by week, season by season. He clenched his fingers again as the drums beat out their staccato roll. Then the lash, a loud crack across the naked flesh, followed by the shout from M'Clune, the master-at-arms. "One!"

Then the drums again, and the sharp crack of the cat. One of the ship's hard men, Tyacke had said, who had threatened a petty officer.

"Two!"

Yovell looked at his interlaced fingers below the table. It only took one rotten apple, Allday had often proclaimed.

"Three!"

Yovell glanced up again, and then stared as Bolitho got abruptly to his feet, a canvas envelope still gripped in one hand.

He said, with great anxiety, "What is it, Sir Richard?" conscious only of the expression on Bolitho's tanned face. Surprise, disbelief, but above all, a release which he had rarely seen before.

Bolitho seemed to hear him for the first time.

He answered quietly, and yet even the urgent drums could not quench it, "From the Admiralty." He turned, and looked for Allday. "We are to pay off, old friend. We're going home."

Allday let out his breath, very slowly. "Well, that's it an' all about it!" The waiting was over.

Yet another forenoon watch was ending, working parties preparing to gather up their tools and equipment, eyes alert for any over-zealous petty officer. The sail maker and his crew had squatted cross-legged in any shade they could find, needles and palms moving busily like back street tailors. The carpenter and his men had continued their endless search for material in need of repair. At times like this, the upper deck was aptly known as the market-place.