Alexander Kent - COLOURS ALOFT!

He broke off as Keen said gently, "Cut her down. Cover her with something."

A seaman called, "She'm fainted, sir!"

Keen made himself cross to the grating. He saw the way her slight figure was dragging on her bound wrists, the blood running down her spine. Her breasts were pressed into the grating, and he could see where her heart pumped against the scrubbed wood.

She had fainted, but the pain would be waiting for her.

Hogg had appeared on deck and Keen heard him sheathe his cutlass. He must have thought the worst to quit his gig and come aboard without an order. A riot, a mutiny, Hogg was ready to save his captain. Like Allday had done for Bolitho.

Hogg strode over and cut the bonds and caught her as she fell, the last of her blood-spattered clothing gathered up in his arms as he hid her body from the silent onlookers. The ship's master said thickly, "I have a surgeon."

Keen eyed him. "I can well imagine." It must have been the way he looked rather than what he said, because the master fell back as if he had seen his own danger in Keen's eyes.

"Take her to the gig, Hogg, and return to the ship. You go with the boat, Mr Stayt. I have work to do here." He saw the barest hint of resentment in the lieutenant's dark eyes. He wanted to shoot, to kill the man with the whip. Anyone. Keen knew that look. Perhaps I have it also?

"Now, Captain Latimer." Keen was surprised he had remembered the man's name, when moments earlier he had wanted to smash him to the deck. "I intend that you shall put your best hands to work on a jury rudder. I will supply more men when required, but you will waste no more time, do you understand?"

"The girl?" The earlier anger showed itself. "I'm responsible for every living soul aboard."

Keen eyed him coldly. "Then God help them. There are women in Captain Inch's ship, wives of the Gibraltar garrison officers. They can take care of the girl for the present, after my surgeon has examined her."

The other man knew his authority was dwindling with each second.

"It must be said, Captain, you've not heard the last o' this."

Keen raised one hand and saw the man flinch. But he tapped his blue lapel and said, "Nor you, I can promise that."

Another boat ground alongside and he heard Argonautes carpenter and his selected crew climbing aboard.

Keen turned away; he was needed aboard the flagship for a dozen things, but some last warning made him turn.

"If you are thinking, Captain Latimer, that it is a long, long way to New South Wales, let me assure you that you will not even see Gibraltar if you abuse your authority again."

He climbed down into the cutter and waited to be pulled back to the ship.

He was breathing hard and thought his hands must be shaking. He saw the cutter's midshipman staring at him. He must have seen most of it.

Keen said, "You are all eyes today, Mr Hext."

Hext, just thirteen years old, nodded and swallowed hard.

"I-I'm sorry, sir. But, but-"

"Go on, Mr Hext."

Hext flushed crimson, knowing that the oarsmen were watching as they pushed and pulled on their looms.

"When I saw it, sir, I-I wanted to stand with you-"

Keen smiled, moved by the boy's sincerity. It was probably hero-worship and nothing deeper, but it did more to steady Keen's mood than he could have believed possible.

He had heard it said that Hext wrote many letters to his parents although there was little time to post any of them.

He said, "Never be afraid to help the helpless, Mr Hext. Think on it."

The midshipman clung to the tiller bar and stared blindly at the towering masts and rigging of the flagship. He would write about it in his next letter. "Toss your oars!" he piped. It was a moment he would never lose.

BOLITHO was leaning on the sill of the great stern windows when Keen entered his cabin, his hat beneath one arm.

Astern of Argonaute the other ships tilted over on the larboard tack, the courses and topsails braced round to hold the wind. Apart, and yet still with her escort, the Orontes was making better progress with her jury rudder, but the squadron's speed was still severely reduced.

The ship felt cold and damp. Bolitho thought of the Mediterranean and the warmth they would find there.

It was a full day since the trouble aboard Orontes and Bolitho could imagine the speculation on the lower deck, wardroom too, about the girl in the sickbay.

Keen looked at him and asked, "You wished to see me, Sir Richard?"

It would not be lost on Keen that Ozzard and the others were absent. It was to be a private conversation.

"Yes. A letter has been sent to me by Orontes' master."

Keen nodded. "My cox'n collected it, sir."

"In it he protests at your behaviour, our behaviour since you are under my command, and threatens to take the matter to higher authority."

Keen said softly, "I am sorry. I did not mean to involve you-"

Bolitho said, "I would have expected no other action from you, Val. I am not troubled by that oaf's threat. If I were to press home a claim from his employers for salvage Captain Latimer would be on the beach before he knew it. His sort are scum, they work for blood-money, like their counterparts in slavery."

Keen waited, half surprised that Bolitho had not taken him to task for interfering in the first place. He should have known.

Bolitho asked, "Have you spoken to this girl?"

Keen shrugged. "Well, no, sir. I thought it best to leave her with the surgeon until she recovers. You should have seen the whip, the size of the man who struck her-"

Bolitho was thinking aloud. "She will have to be cared for by another woman. I did consider Inch's ship after your suggestion, but I'm not sure. Officers' wives and a girl sentenced to transportation, though for what crime we cannot yet know. I will ask Latimer for details of her warrant."

Keen said, "It is good of you to take the trouble, sir. If I had only known-"

Bolitho smiled gravely. "You would still have acted as you, did."

Feet thudded overhead and blocks squealed as the officer-of-the-watch yelled for the braces to be manned.

In a crowded King's ship a solitary woman could be seen as many things, not least bad luck. Landsmen might scoff at such beliefs. If they went to sea they would soon know differently.

"See the girl yourself, Val. Then tell me what you think. At Gibraltar we can shift her to the Philomela. From what you say, Latimer would certainly take his revenge otherwise."

Keen made to withdraw. He had meant to visit the girl and speak with the surgeon further about her. No matter what she had done in her young life, she did not deserve the agony and humiliation of a flogging.

Bolitho waited for the door to close and then sat down again beneath the stern windows.

Time and time again he kept thinking of Falmouth, of the sheer happiness of his home-coming, holding his new and only child Elizabeth in his arms, so awkwardly that Belinda had laughed at him.

Bolitho had always understood how difficult it must be for any woman to cross the threshold of the Bolitho home. Too many shadows and memories, so much expected of a newcomer. And in Belinda's case she had been replacing Cheney, or so it would seem to her.

It had hit Bolitho hardest when he had discovered that Cheney's portrait, the companion to the one she had had done of him, had been removed from the room where the two pictures once hung together. She with the headland behind her, her eyes like the sea, and he in his white-lapelled coat, as the captain she had loved so much. His portrait now hung with the others, alongside that of his father, Captain James.

He had said nothing; he had not wanted to hurt her, but it still disturbed him. Like a betrayal.

He kept telling himself that Belinda only wanted to help him, to make others appreciate his worth to the country.