Alexander Kent - THE INSHORE SQUADRON

By the forward companion, Purvis Spreat, the Benbow's purser, was speaking confidentially with Manley, the fifth lieutenant. More food for the wardroom perhaps? Too much madeira being consumed? It might have been anything. Spreat looked a typical purser, Bolitho thought. Sharp-eyed, suspicious, just honest enough to stay out of trouble. He had to feed, clothe and supply every man aboard, with no excuses for bad weather or faulty navigation to sustain him.

The marines were standing easy in two long scarlet lines, swaying from side to side in the ship's regular motion. Bolitho watched them, putting names to faces, trying to gauge the skills or the lack of them. Major Clinton, with Lieutenant Marston, his junior, walked slowly along the ranks, listening to whatever Sergeant Rombilow was telling them about each man and his duties in the ship.

The marines were a strange breed, Bolitho thought. Jammed as tightly as the seamen in the Benbow's fat hull and yet completely apart, so different in their ways and customs. Bolitho had seen them in America during the Revolution, when as a youthful lieutenant he had taken the first step towards his own command. In the Mediterranean or the Caribbean, the Atlantic and the East Indies, they all had one thing in common. Reliability.

Bolitho saw the afternoon watch gathering below the quarterdeck in readiness to take over the ship for the next four hours.

Here and there a jaw was still champing on the first good, hot meal for days. A few eyes were studying the changing weather with professional interest or, in the case of the new men, obvious relief.

But most of the men were darting glances at their rearadmiral as he paced restlessly along the weather side of the quarterdeck. They were quick to look away whenever Bolitho turned towards them. The usual mixture. Interest, curiosity, resentment. Bolitho knew from past experience that if he wanted more it was up to him to earn it.

He heard Pascoe's voice as he strode aft and touched his hat to Speke, the second lieutenant, who was about to be relieved.

'The watch is aft, sir.'

Across on the other ships it would be the same. Routine and tradition. Like a well-tried play where everyone had changed roles on many occasions until he was word-perfect.

The two lieutenants examined the compass, the log, the set of the sails, while the other players moved round them to their stations. The helmsmen and quartermaster, the midshipman of the watch. Bolitho frowned. What was his name? Penels, that was it. The youngest aboard. Just twelve, and a fellow Cornishman. He smiled. Hardly a man.

'Relieve the wheel, if you please.'

Eight bells chimed out from the forecastle and the forenoon watchkeepers hurried to their messes for their food and a good, strong tot.

Bolitho crossed the quarterdeck and said, `You are looking well, Adam.'

They moved away from the double-wheel and its three helmsmen and walked side by side to the weather nettings.

'Thank you, sir.' Pascoe shot him a sideways glance. `Uncle. You, too.'

When Bolitho eventually pulled out his watch he realized he had been speaking with his nephew for an hour. It had seemed like minutes, and yet they had conjured up a far different picture from the one around them. Not sea and sky, spray and taut canvas, but country lanes, low cottages and the grey bulk of Pendennis Castle.

Pascoe was very tanned, as dark as a gipsy.

Bolitho said, 'We shall all be shivering soon, my lad. But perhaps we may be able to set foot ashore. That was why I could never stand blockade duty in the Bay. The British people become moist-eyed when they speak of their "wooden walls", the weatherbeaten ships which keep the French fleet bottled up in port. They would speak less warmly if they knew what hell it can be.'

Midshipman Penels called nervously, 'Signal from Styx, sir.' He purposefully looked at Pascoe. `Man overboard, sir.'

Pascoe nodded and seized a telescope to train it on the distant frigate.

Acknowledge. I will tell the captain presently."

He watched the frigate's shape shortening as she came up into the wind, her sails aback and in confusion. It was to be hoped she could get her quarter boat away in time to recover the luckless man.

Bolitho watched Pascoe's expression as he studied the frigate's swift manoeuvre. He thought, too, of her captain, John Neale. He had been Penels' age when the mutiny-had broken out aboard his Phalarope during the American Revolution. A small, plump youth, he could see him clearly. He could even smile about it now. How he and Herrick had rubbed the naked midshipman all over with rancid butter to force him through a vent hole to free him from the mutineers and rouse assistance. Neale had been small, but it had been a hard struggle all the same.

Now Neale was a post-captain, and he knew exactly what Pascoe was thinking as he watched his ship-handling through the glass.

Bolitho said quietly, `As soon as possible, Adam. I'll do what I can. You've earned it.'

Pascoe stared at him, his eyes wide with astonishment. `You knew, Uncle?'

Bolitho smiled. `I was a frigate captain once, Adam. It is something you never quite lose.' He looked up at his rearadmiral's flag streaming from the mizzen truck. 'Even when it is taken from you.'

Pascoe exclaimed, `Thank you- very much. I I mean, I want to be with you. But you know that. I just feel I am marking time in a ship of the line.'

Bolitho saw Ozzard hovering below the poop, his thin body screwed up against the damp wind. Time to eat.

He chuckled. 'I think I said much the same, too!'

As Bolitho ducked below the poop, Pascoe began to pace slowly up and down the weather side, his hands clasped behind him as he had seen Bolitho do so often.

Pascoe would not have said anything about his hopes to either Bolitho or Herrick. He should have known he could not hide a secret from either of them.

He quickened his pace, his thoughts exploring the future, which no longer seemed an idle dream.

It was another full day before Bolitho's lookouts sighted Admiral Damerum's squadron,. and then because of the lateness of the hour an extra night passed before they could make contact.

Throughout the following morning, while Bolitho's ships changed tack to run down on the larger formation, Bolitho studied the admiral's squadron through a powerful telescope and wondered at the sense of keeping such a force employed in this fashion. The British fleets, in summer and winter alike, were expected to blockade the Dutch men-of-war along the coastline of Holland, the Spanish at Cadiz and, of course, the powerful French bases of Brest and Toulon. Apart from that, they were entrusted to patrol the vital trade routes from the East and West Indies, to protect them from the enemy, from privateers and even common pirates. It was an almost impossible task.

And now, because Tsar Paul of Russia, who had little liking for Britain and a mounting admiration of Bonaparte, might be expected to break his neutrality, even more desperately needed squadrons were wasted here at the approaches to the Baltic.

Herrick joined him and said, `The third ship, sir, that'll be Sir Samuel Damerum's.'

Bolitho moved his glass slightly and trained it on the one which wore the Union Flag at her mainmast truck. He was very conscious of the difference between the slow-moving vessels and his own small squadron. Patched canvas, weather-beaten hulls, in some cases whole areas of paint stripped away by wind and sea, they made a marked contrast with his newly refitted twodeckers.

Far beyond the heavier ships Bolitho could just make out the topgallants of a patrolling frigate, the admiral's 'eyes', and he guessed that their lookouts could also see the Danish coast.

`Call away my barge, Thomas. We will be up to them within the hour. See that the stores for the admiral are sent across in another boat directly.'