Alexander Kent - Cross of St George

“I think that will be an end to it for today.” The deck was rising again, the rudder-head thudding noisily as the transport Royal Enterprise lifted and then ploughed into another criss-cross of deep troughs. He knew Avery was watching him from the security of a chair which was lashed firmly between two ringbolts. A rough passage, even for a ship well used to such violence. It would soon be over, and still he had not reconciled himself, or confronted his doubts at the prospect of returning to a war which could never be won, but must never be lost. He was holding on, refusing to surrender, even when they were separated by an ocean.

He said, “Well, George, we will dine directly. I am glad I have a flag lieutenant whose appetite is unimpaired by the Atlantic in ill temper!”

Avery smiled. He should be used to it, to the man, by now. But he could still be surprised by the way Bolitho seemed able to put his personal preoccupations behind him, or at least conceal them from others. From me. Avery had guessed what the return to duty had cost him, but when he had stepped aboard the transport at Plymouth there had been nothing to reveal the pain of parting from his mistress after so brief a reunion.

Bolitho was watching the last of the wax dripping onto the envelope like blood before Yovell set his seal upon it. He had not spared himself, but he knew very well that by the time they reached Halifax and rejoined the squadron everything might have changed, rendering their latest intelligence useless. Time and distance were the elements that determined the war at sea. Instinct, fate, experience, it was all and none of them, and ignorance was often fatal.

Avery watched the sea dashing across the thick stern windows. The ship had been more comfortable than he had expected, with a tough and disciplined company used to fast passages and taking avoiding action against suspicious sails instead of standing to fight. The Admiralty orders made that very clear to every such vessel and her master: they were to deliver their passengers or small, important cargoes at any cost. They were usually underarmed; the Royal Enterprise mounted only some nine-pounders and a few swivels. Speed, not glory, was her purpose.

They’d had only one mishap. The ship had been struck by a violent squall as she was about to change tack. Her fore-topgallant mast and yard had carried away, and one of her boats had been torn from its tier and flung over the side like a piece of flotsam. The ship’s company had got down to work immediately; they were used to such hazards, but her master, a great lump of a man named Samuel Tregullon, was outraged by the incident. A Cornishman from Penzance, Tregullon was intensely proud of his ship’s record, and her ability to carry out to the letter the instructions of the men at Admiralty who, in his view, had likely never set foot on a deck in their lives. To be delayed with such an important passenger in his care, and a fellow Cornishman at that, was bad enough. But as he had confided over a tankard of rum during a visit to the cabin, another transport, almost a sister ship of his own, the Royal Herald, had left Plymouth a few days after them, and would now reach Halifax before them.

Bolitho had commented afterwards to Avery, “Another old Cornish rivalry. I’ll lay odds that neither of them can remember how it all began.”

Bolitho had asked him about London, but he had not pressed the point, for which Avery was grateful. During the long night watches when he had lain awake, listening to the roar of the sea and the protesting groan of timbers, he had thought of little else.

He had felt no sense of triumph or revenge, as he had once believed he would. Had she been amusing herself with him? Playing with him, as she had once done? Or had he imagined that, too? A woman like her, so poised, so confident amongst people who lived in an entirely different world from his own… Why would she risk everything if she had no deeper feeling for him?

None of the repeated questions had been answered.

He should have left her. Should never have gone to the house in the first place. He looked across at Bolitho, who was speaking warmly with Yovell, more like old friends than admiral and servant. What would he think if he knew that his wife Belinda had been there that day, obviously just as at home in that elegant and superficial world as all the others?

Yovell stood up, and grimaced as the deck swayed over again. “Ah, they were right about me, Sir Richard. I must be mad to share the life of a sailor!”

He gathered his papers and prepared to leave, perhaps to join Allday and Ozzard before the evening meal. Allday would be feeling the separation badly, and there would be a long wait for that first letter, which Avery knew he would bring for him to read aloud. Another precious link in the little crew: Allday was a proud man, and Avery had been touched by the simplicity and dignity of his request that Avery read to him the letters from Unis that he could not read for himself.

Would Susanna ever write to him? He wanted to laugh at his own pathetic hopes. Of course she would not. Within weeks she would have forgotten him. She had money, she had beauty, and she was free. But he would think of her again tonight… He had tried to compare his position with that of Bolitho and his mistress, although he knew it was ridiculous. There was no comparison. Apart from that one memory, what had happened was a closed door, the finish of something which had always been hopeless.

He looked up, startled, afraid that he had missed something or that Bolitho had spoken to him. But they were as before, framed against the grey stern windows, the sea already losing its menace as the fading light obscured it.

Bolitho turned and looked at him. “Did you hear?”

Yovell steadied himself against the table. “Another storm, Sir Richard.”

“The glass says otherwise.” He tensed. “There. Again.”

Yovell said, “Thunder?”

Avery was on his feet. So unlike a ship-of-war; too long at sea with nothing but the sea to challenge you. Day after day, week in, week out. And then the boredom and the noisy routine were forgotten.

He said, “Gunfire, sir.”

There was a rap on the door and Allday stepped into the cabin. He moved so lightly when he wanted to, for such a big man, and one who was in more pain from his old wound than he would ever admit.

Bolitho said, “You heard, old friend?”

Allday looked at them. “I wasn’t sure, an’ then.” He shook his shaggy head. “Not a thing to lie easy on your mind, Sir Richard.”

Avery asked, “Shall I go and speak with the master, sir?”

Bolitho glanced at the screen door. “No. It is not our place.” He smiled at Ozzard, who had also appeared, a tray of glasses balanced in his hands. “Not yet, in any case.”

Eventually Samuel Tregullon made his way aft, his battered hat clutched in one beefy hand like a scrap of felt.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, Zur Richard, but ye’ll be knowing about the guns.” He shook his head as Ozzard offered him a glass, not because he was involved with his ship but because he usually drank only neat rum. A sailor, from his clear eyes to his thick wrists and the hands that were like pieces of meat. Collier brig, Falmouth packet, one-time smuggler and now a King’s man: what Bolitho’s father would have described as all spunyarn and marline spikes.

Tregullon nodded briefly as Ozzard replaced the glass with a tankard. “Never fear, Zur Richard. I’ll get you to Halifax as I was ordered, an’ take you there I will. I can outsail any felon, theirs or ours!” He grinned, his uneven teeth like a broken fence. “I’m too old a hand to be caught aback!”

After he had gone, the distant gunfire continued for half an hour and then stopped, as if quenched by the sea itself.