Alexander Kent - THE INSHORE SQUADRON

Old Grubb rumbled, 'Better day today. Fine an' clear.' He lapsed into silence again, his hands thrust deeply into his shabby watch-coat.

Wolfe saw Pascoe on the larboard gangway and called harshly, 'Would you go aloft, Mr Pascoe. Take a glass and see what you can determine.'

Pascoe threw his hat to a seaman and ran to the weather shrouds. He was amongst the black tangle of rigging and beyond the mainyard before Bolitho could watch his progress. Bolitho thought of his own hatred for heights, what it had cost him at Pascoe's age. He felt his mouth lift in a smile. It would sound ridiculous to tell somebody that one of the fruits of his promotion had been that he no longer had to climb up those headspinning shrouds.

Pascoe called down, his voice clear above the drumming beat of canvas and rigging.

'Lookout has grappled, sir! The other one is a brig. She wears

no flag but they are hoisting our colours now!'

Several of the idlers on the gangways and gundeck cheered,

and Herrick exclaimed

'So soon. Well done. Well done.'

Bolitho nodded. `You trained your old first lieutenant well, Thomas.'

Lieutenant Browne appeared through the after companion, buttoning his coat and saying, 'I heard something. What is happening?'

Wolfe said to the sailing master, 'A lot of use he'll be!' Herrick answered, 'We have taken a prize, Mr Browne. I fear you have missed it.'

Several of the nearby seamen were grinning and nudging each other. Bolitho sensed the change. There was a better feeling already.

'Deck there! Land on the lee bow!'

Herrick and the master bustled to the chart room beneath the poop to consult their findings.

That would be The Skaw. As far as the strange brig was concerned, it had been a near thing. An hour earlier and she would havee slipped away unseen.

Bolitho said, `I will take breakfast now. Let me know when Lookout is near enough to exchange signals.'

Herrick stood by the chart room entrance, shading his eyes as if he expected to see the other vessels.

'Mr Grubb thinks we should be off The Skaw before noon if the wind stays with us.'

'I agree. Once there you may signal the squadron to anchor in succession.' Bolitho nodded to the other officers and made his way aft.

Herrick gave a great sigh. He tended to worry when Bolitho was nearby, but he worried all the more when he was gone.

Pascoe slithered down to the deck and retrieved his hat. He was about to approach the quarterdeck when a small figure stepped from between two eighteen-pounders and said, `Excuse me, sir!' It was Midshipman Penels.

`Yes?' Pascoe paused and studied the boy. Was I ever 'like that?

'I – I don't know how to explain, sir.'

He sounded and looked so despairing that Pascoe said, 'Speak out.'

It was virtually impossible to find any privacy in a ship-ofwar. Apart from the captain, and possibly a man deep in the ship's cells, there was always a crowd.

Pascoe knew very little about the newest midshipman. He was from Cornwall, and that was all he had to go on.

He said, 'You are from Bodmin, I believe?'

'Yes, sir.' Penels looked around like a trapped animal. 'There's someone in your division, sir. Someone I grew up with back in England.'

Pascoe stood aside as a file of marines stamped past on their way to one of their complicated drills.

Penels explained, 'His name is John Babbage, sir. He was taken by the press-gang at Plymouth. I didn't know until we were at sea. He worked for my mother after my father died, sir. He was good to me. My best friend.'

Pascoe looked away. It was not his place to interfere. In any case, Penels should have gone to the first lieutenant or the master.

But he remembered his own beginning. The long, hungry walk from Penzance to Falmouth. Just a boy, and quite alone.

`Why did you approach me, Mr Penels? The truth now.'

'My friend said you are a good officer, sir. Not so sharp as some.'

Pascoe formed a mental picture of this unfortunate Babbage. A wild-eyed youth, nearer his own age than Penels', he would have thought.

`Well, we are with the squadron now, Mr Penels. Had you come to me in port I might have been able to do something.' He thought of Wolfe and knew it would have made little difference even then.

A ship needed men. Every hand she could get. Wolfe was a good officer in many ways, but he was short of sympathy for any catch brought aboard by the press.

But it. must be hard for both Penels and his friend of boyhood days.

In the same hull, yet neither knowing the other was aboard until the ship was standing out to sea. Separated not only by rank and station, but also by the ship's own geography. Penels served with the afterguard for sail drill and duty with the quarterdeck nine-pounders. Babbage was classed as a landman in his own division at the foremast. Babbage was young and agile. With luck he should soon learn to run aloft with the topmen, the aristocrats of seamanship.

He heard himself say, 'I will look into it. I'll not promise anything though.'

He strode away, unable to bear the gratitude in Penels' eyes.

Commander Matthew Veitch arrived in Bolitho's cabin and looked around him curiously. On his left shoulder the single epaulette denoting his rank glittered in bright contrast to his shabby sea-going coat. Veitch had served with Bolitho before and knew he would get no thanks for wasting time to change his clothing before he reported to the flagship.

Bolitho said, 'Sit down and tell me about it.'

It felt strange to be at anchor again. The four ships of the line were all lying to their cables in close formation, with the Danish coast clearly visible through the quarter windows. The frigates were still on patrol, like watchdogs, they rarely rested.

The sloop, with her prize, were also at anchor off Skaw Point, which in recent months had become the fleet's general rendezvous and resting place.

Veitch stretched his long legs. 'The prize is a merchant brig, sir, the Echo out of Cherbourg. Slipped through our patrols in a storm last week, her master says: She made a run for it, so I raked her promptly.'

Bolitho glanced at the bulkhead door. Beyond it Browne, who had a good knowledge of French, was busy going through the Echo's papers which Veitch had brought aboard.

A French brig. Without obvious cargo or passengers. She had taken considerable risk in running the blockade, more again when she had attempted to outsail the Lookout.

'Where bound?'

Veitch shrugged. 'Her master had false papers, I suspect. But the charts were found stuffed in the lazarette by one of my midshipmen with the boarding party.' He grinned. 'The lad was searching for food, no doubt, but I'll not spoil his glory because of that!' He became serious again. 'Two points were marked, sir. Copenhagen and Stockholm.'

Herrick moved restlessly away from the quarter windows and said, 'It smells, sir.'

Bolitho looked at him. 'You think as I do, Thomas? The French are in some way mixed up with Tsar Paul's discontent?'

Herrick replied, 'I feel certain of it, sir. The more they can put under arms, the better it is for them. We'll have the whole world against us if they have their way!'

The door opened and Browne entered the cabin. He held one letter in his hand, the broken seal shining dully like blood.' He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

'What does it say?' Bolitho had noticed that Browne never shared a single word of information with anyone else present without his permission.

'It is addressed to a French government official in Copenhagen, sir.'

They all looked at each other. It was like some prearranged gathering of friends and enemies alike.

Browne continued in his unemotional tone, 'It is from the military commander in Toulon, and has reached this far via Paris and Cherbourg.'