Alexander Kent - The Darkening Sea

A fine ship's company. It had taken patience and a few knocks, but Adam was proud of them. His blood still ran like ice-water when he recalled how Anemone had been lured into the range of a shore battery firing heated shot by a vessel carrying French soldiers. It had been as near as that. He glanced along the clean length of the maindeck where the men now waited at the braces and halliards for the run up to the anchorage. Heated shot would have turned his beloved Anemone into a pillar of fire: the sun-dried sails and tarred rigging, the stores of powder and shot would have been gone in minutes. His jaw tightened as he recalled how they had gone about to pull out of range, but not before he had poured a devastating broadside into the enemy's bait and given her the terrible end intended for his own ship.

He remembered too how Captain Valentine Keen had been ordered to return home in this same ship, but then at the last moment had sailed in a larger frigate accompanying the captured French admiral, Baratte. It had been a near thing. Bolitho had never revealed his innermost thoughts about

Herrick's failure to support him in that engagement when he had so needed help against great odds.

Adam gripped the quarterdeck rail until the pain steadied him. God damn him to hell. Herrick's betrayal must have hurt Bolitho so deeply that he could not talk about it.

After all he had done for him as he has done for me.

His mind returned warily to Zenoria. Did she hate him for what had happened?

Would Keen ever discover the truth?

It would be sweet revenge if I ever have to quit the navy as my father once did, if only to protect those I love.

The first lieutenant murmured, "The admiral's coming up, sir."

"Thank you, Mr. Sargeant." He was bound to lose him when they reached Portsmouth, and some other valuable men as well. He saw the lieutenant watching him and added quietly, "I have been hard on you, Peter, over the past months." He touched his sleeve as Bolitho would have done. "A captain's life is not all luxury, as you will one day discover! "

They turned and touched their hats as Bolitho walked into the sunlight. He was dressed in his best frock coat, with the glittering silver stars on either epaulette. The vice-admiral again: the image the public, and for that matter most of the navy, cherished and recognised. Not the man in the flapping shirt and shabby old sea-going coat. This was the hero, the youngest vice-admiral on the Navy List. Envied by some, hated by others, the talk and the topic of gossip in the coffee houses and at every smart London reception. The man who had risked everything for the woman he loved: reputation, security. Adam could not begin to measure it.

Bolitho was carrying his cocked hat as if to hold at bay the last trappings of authority, so that his hair was dishevelled by the wind. It was still as black as Adam's own, except for the one rebellious lock above his right eye where a cutlass had almost ended his life. The lock over the scar was greyish white, as if he had been branded.

Lieutenant Sargeant watched them together. It had been a revelation to him when, like the rest of the wardroom, he had overcome his nervousness at the prospect of having a man so famous and so admired by the navy in general amongst them, sharing the intimate life of a fifth-rate, and he had been able to observe his admiral at close quarters. Admiral and captain might have been brothers, so strong was the family resemblance. Sargeant had heard many remark on this. And the warmth of their regard for one another had put the wardroom at ease. Bolitho had gone around the ship, 'feeling his way' as his burly coxswain had described it, but never interfering. Sargeant was aware of Bolitho's reputation as one of the navy's foremost frigate captains, and knew in some way he must have been sharing Adam's joy in Anemone.

Adam said gently, "I shall miss you, Uncle." His voice was almost lost in the squeal of blocks and the rush of hands to the cathead, ready to let go one of the great anchors. He too was holding on to this moment, willing to share it with nobody.

"I wish you could come to the house, Adam." He studied Adam's profile as his eyes moved aloft and then to the helmsmen, from the masthead pendant streaming out like a lance to the slope of Anemone's deck as the wheel and rudder took command.

Adam smiled, and it made him look like a boy again. "I cannot. We must take on fresh water and depart with all despatch. Please convey my warmest greetings to Lady Catherine." He hesitated. "And any who care for me."

Bolitho glanced over and saw Allday watching him, his head on one side like a shaggy, questioning dog.

He said, "I shall take the gig, Allday. I'll send it back for you and Yovell, and any gear we may have overlooked."

Allday, who hated to leave his side, did not blink. He understood. Bolitho wanted to meet her alone.

"Ready to come about, sir! "

With her courses already brailed up and under reefed topsails, Anemone curtsied around in the freshening breeze. It was the sort of weather she had always relished.

"Let go! "

A great burst of spray shot above the beak head as the anchor plummeted down for the first time since the sun and beaches of the Caribbean. Men, starved of loved ones, homes and perhaps children they had barely known, stared around at the green slopes of Cornwall, the tiny pale dots of sheep on the hillsides. There were few who would be allowed ashore even when they reached Portsmouth, and already there were scarlet-coated marines on the gangways and in the bows, ready to fire on anyone foolish enough to try to swim to the shore.

Afterwards he thought it was like a dream sequence. Bolitho heard the trill of a call as the gig was hoisted out and lowered alongside, its crew very smart in checkered shirts and tarred hats. Adam had learned well. A man-of-war was always judged first by her boats and their crews.

"Man the side! "

The Royal Marines fell in by the entry port, a sergeant taking the place of their officer, who had died of his wounds and now lay fathoms deep in that other ocean.

Boatswain's mates moistened their calls with their lips, eyes moving occasionally to the man who was about to leave them, the man who had not only talked with them in the dog watches but also had listened, as if he had really needed to know them, the ordinary men who must follow him even to the cannon's mouth if so ordered. Some had been perplexed by the experience. They had been expecting to find the legend. Instead they had discovered a human being.

Bolitho turned towards them and raised his hat. Allday saw his sudden distress as a probing shaft of sunlight lanced down through the shrouds and neatly furled sails to touch his injured eye.

It was always a bad moment, and Allday had to restrain himself from stepping up to help him over the side where the gig swayed to its lines, a midshipman standing in the stern-sheets to receive their passenger.

Bolitho nodded to them, and turned his face away. "I wish you all good fortune. I am proud to have been in your midst."

Vague impressions now, the cloud of pipe clay above the bayonetted muskets as the guard presented arms, the piercing twitter of calls, the fleeting anxiety on Allday's rugged features as he reached the gig in safety. He saw Adam by the rail, his hand half-raised, while behind him his lieutenants and warrant officers sought to be the first to take his attention. A man-of-war at sea or in harbour was never at rest, and already boats were putting off from the harbour wall to conduct, if they could, every kind of business from the sale of tobacco and fruit to the services of women of the town, if a captain would permit them on board.

"Give way all! " The midshipman's voice was a squeak. Bolitho shaded his eyes to see the people on the nearest jetty. Faintly, above the scream of gulls circling some incoming fishing boats, he heard the church clock strike the half-hour. Old Partridge had been right about the time of their arrival. Anemone must have anchored exactly at four bells as he had predicted.