Alexander Kent - Midshipman Bolitho and the Avenger

Hugh replied, `What's done is done, Mr Dancer. But I'm glad you are safe. I mean it.'

Mrs Bolitho brought a cup of hot soup. `Drink this, Martyn. Then bed.' She sounded composed again.

,Dancer looked at Bolitho. `I was blindfolded all the time. When I tried to get it off I felt them holding a hot iron close to my face. One of them said that if I did it again I would not need a blindfold. The iron would take care of my sight.'

He shivered as Nancy covered his shoulders with a woollen shawl.

Hugh Bolitho banged his fist against the wall. `They were clever. They knew you'd not recognize their faces, but thought you might recall where you were being held!'

Dancer got painfully to his feet and grimaced. He had cut them badly along the way before the troopers had found him.

`I know one of them.'

They all stared at him, thinking he was about to break down.

Dancer looked at Mrs Bolitho and held out his hands until she took them in hers.

`It was the first day. I was lying in the darkness, waiting to die, when I heard him. I don't think they'd told him I was there.' He tightened his grip on her hands. `It was the man I saw here, ma'am. The one called Vyvyan.'

She nodded slowly, her face full of sympathy.

`You've suffered enough, Martyn, and we have been very worried for you.' She kissed him gently on the lips. `Now to bed with you. You'll find everything you need.'

Hugh Bolitho was still staring at him as if he had misheard.

`Sir Henry? Are you certain?'

She exclaimed, `Leave it, Hugh! There's been harm enough done to this boy!'

Bolitho watched his brother's strength returning, like a sudden squall approaching a becalmed ship.

`A boy to you, Mother. But he is still one of my officers.' Hugh could barely conceal his excitement. `Right here under our noses. No wonder Vyvyan's men were always nearby and we never caught anyone. He had to rid himself of his so-called prisoner before an examining judge arrived. The man would have informed on him to save his own life.'

Bolitho felt his mouth go dry. Vyvyan had even had some of his own men shot down to make it look perfect. He was a monster, not a man at all. And it had nearly worked, might still work if Dancer's story was not believed.

Wrecker, smuggler and an important part of some planned uprising in America, it was like a growing nightmare.

Vyvyan had planned all of it, outwitted the

authorities from the very beginning. He had even put the idea of exchanging hostages in their minds.

To his brother Bolitho said, `What will you do?'

He gave him a bitter smile. `I am inclined to send word to the admiral. But now we will try to determine where this village is. It cannot be far from the sea.' His eyes shone like fires. `Next time, Richard, next time he will be less fortunate P

Bolitho followed Dancer up the stairs, past the watching portraits and into his room.

`In future, Martyn, I will never complain about serving in a ship of the line.'

Dancer sat on the edge of the bed and cocked his head to listen to the wind against a window.

`Nor I. ' He rolled over, worn out with exhaustion.

As his head lay in the glow of some candles, Bolitho thought of that other one, dead in the wet grass, and was suddenly grateful.

Colonel de Crespigny sat stiffly in the Avenger's stern cabin looking around with a mixture of curiosity and distaste.

He said, `As I have just explained to your, er, captain, I cannot take a risk on such meagre evidence.'

As both the midshipmen made to protest he added hastily, `I am not saying I disbelieve what you heard, or what you thought you heard. But in a court of law, and make no mistake, a man in Sir Henry's position and authority would go to the highest advocates, it would sound less than convincing.'

He leaned towards Dancer, his polished boots creaking on the deck.

`Think ofit yourself. A good advocate from London,,an experienced assize judge and a biased jury, your word would be the only voice of protest. The schooner's crew, can be held upon suspicion, although there is nothing so far to connect them with Sir Henry or any evil purpose. I am certain that fresh

evidence will come to hand, but against them, and not the man we are after.'

Hugh Bolitho lay with his shoulders against the cutter's side, his eyes half closed as he said, `It seems we are in irons.'

The colonel picked up a goblet and filled it carefully before saying, `If you can discover the village, and some good, strong evidence, then you will have a case. Otherwise you may have to rely on Sir Henry's support at any court of enquiry. Cruel and unjust it may be, but you must think of yourselves now.'

Bolitho watched his brother, sharing his sense of defeat and injustice. If Vyvyan was to suspect what they were doing, he might already have put some further plan into motion to disgrace or implicate them.

Gloag, who had been invited to the little meeting because of his experience if not for his authority, said gruffly, `There be a 'undred such villages an' 'amlets within five miles of us, sir. It might take months.'

Hugh Bolitho said harshly, `By which time the word will have penetrated the admiral's ear and Avenger will have been sent elsewhere, no doubt with a new commander!'

De Crespigny nodded. `Likely so. I have served in the Army for a long while and I am still surprised by the ways of my superiors.'

Hugh Bolitho reached for a goblet and then changed his mind.

`I have made my written report for the admiral, and to the senior officer of Customs and Excise at.Penzance. Whiffin, my clerk-in-charge, is making the copies now. I have sent word to the relatives of the dead and arranged for the sale of their belongings within the vessel.' He spread his hands. `I feel at a loss as to what else to do.'

Bolitho looked at him closely, seeing him as a far different person from the confident, sometimes arrogant brother he had come to expect.

He said, `We must find the village. Before they move the muskets and any other booty they've seized by robbing or wrecking. There must be a clue. There has to be.'

De Crespigny sighed. `I agree. But if I send every man and horse under my command, I'd discover nothing. The thieves would go to earth like foxes, and Sir Henry would guess we were on to him. But "capturing" that wrecker and then exchanging him was a master-stroke. It would convince any jury, let alone a Cornish one.'

Dancer exclaimed, `Sir Henry Vyvyan told you he knew the prisoner and would catch up with him one day.'

De Crespigny shook his head. `If you are right about Sir Henry, he will have killed that man, or sent him far away where he can do no harm.'

But Hugh Bolitho snapped, `No, Mr Dancer has made the only sort of sense I have heard today.' He looked about the cabin as if to escape. 'Vyvyan is too clever, too shrewd to falsify something which could be checked. If we can find out who the man was, and where he came from, we may be on our way to success!' He seemed to come alive again. `It is all we have, for God's sake!'

Gloag nodded with approval. ''E'll be from one of Sir 'Enry's farms, I'll bet odds on it.'

Bolitho could feel the flicker of hope moving around the cabin, frail, but better than a minute earlier.

He said, `We'll send to the house. Ask Hardy. He used to work for Vyvyan before- he came to us.'

De Crespigny stared. `Your head gardener? I'd need a higher trust than that if I had so much in the balance!'

Hugh Bolitho smiled. `But with respect, sir, you do not. It is my career in the scales, and the good name of my family.'

Avenger rolled lazily at her cable, as if she too was eager to be at sea again, to play her part.

Bolitho asked, `Well? Shall we try?'

Bill Hardy was an old man whose touch with his plants and flowers was better than his fading eyesight. But he had lived all his life within ten square miles and knew a great deal about everyone. He kept to himself, and Bolitho suspected that his father had taken him on because he was sorry for him, or because Vyvyan had never tried to hide his admiration for and interest in Mrs Bolitho.