Alexander Kent - Signal-Close Action!

"Now, Thomas." Bolitho took a glass and held it to a deckhead lantern. "I know what you are about to say. Let me speak first." He sipped the claret slowly, hearing the sea sluicing along the lower hull and dashing spray against the closed port. "You think I feel my nephew's disappearance so grievously that I am prepared to throw my life away as a gesture. To say I do not feel it would be a lie. Equally, it would be false of me to say that my upbringing, my very way of life, would not stop me from such a vanity. Like you, Thomas, I have seen too many good men, so many fine ships and ideals thrown to the winds because of the conceit of perhaps only one man in authority. I swore I would never allow my own feelings to make others suffer, and for the most part I have, I think, been true to that."

He was on his feet, pacing slowly the few yards along the length of the cabin. Herrick sat on the breech of a nine-pounder, his eyes glinting in the yellow light as he followed his restless movements.

"When my wife, Cheney, died-" He broke off, aware for the first time that he was moving round the cabin. "Enough of that. You shared it all. You brought news of her death, a burden for any man to carry, let alone a friend."

Herrick looked at him wretchedly. "I know."

"I suppose that Adam has come to mean so much because of my loss. I told myself that if or when I fell in battle, or died of some other cause, he would gain the advantages of the Bolitho family, advantages which should have come his way by happier circumstances." He shrugged helplessly. "You never think that fate might take one and leave the other behind, Thomas."

Herrick rolled the glass in his fingers, searching for the right words.

"That is why I ask the chance to go with the marines." He stopped, seeing the refusal in Bolitho's grey eyes.

"No. The day after tomorrow we will land on an enemy coast. Not some rock or island, or an outpost in the Indies, but in Europe. Do you think it right to commit our people to such a venture without leadership?" He laid one hand on Herrick's shoulder. "Come along, Thomas, be honest. Were there not many times in the past when you have maligned your senior officer for leaving you to take the cuffs and stabs while he stayed clear of danger?" He shook him gently. "I asked for honesty!"

Herrick gave a half smile. "On some occasions." 'some?" Bolitho watched him with sudden affection. "By heaven, you took me to task enough, let alone a commodore or admiral!"

Herrick controlled the smile. "That was different." "Because you are you, Thomas. And I am the same man as I was then."

Herrick put down his glass. "And Mr. Gilchrist?"

"I need an experienced sea officer." His tone hardened slightly. "He sent young Adam into that boat. Perhaps because he had experience of battle despite his years. Or maybe for some other, less praiseworthy reason."

Herrick looked at the deck. "I find that hard to believe, sir." He faced him again, his features more determined than they had been since the ship had left Gibraltar. "But if I discover a truth in it, he will know it." His eyes were like a stranger's. "And pay."

Bolitho smiled gravely. "Easy now. Perhaps I am speaking hastily." He moved to the door and heard the marine sentry drawing his boots together. "But we had best concentrate on the immediate future. Otherwise we will all be made to pay for it!"

Allday thrust the hair from his eyes and said hoarsely, "It seems we have arrived, Mr. Pascoe." His lips were so dry from thirst that he could barely speak, and the sun across his head and shoulders burned as mercilessly as it had all day, and the one before that.

Pascoe nodded and lurched against him. Behind them the five gasping seamen staggered like drunkards staring without comprehension at the lip of the hill track, the hard, glittering horizon beyond. The sea once again.

The forced march had been a nightmare, and while the mounted troopers had made a show of drinking as much as they pleased, they had made certain their prisoners were given hardly anything. When two wrinkled peasant women had offered some water by the roadside the horsemen had ridden at them threateningly, driving them away, laughing when one had gone sprawling in the dust like an untidy bundle.

They had lost one more of their number. A seaman called Stokes. He had sat watching the troopers on the previous evening as they had prepared to make camp for the night. He had been unable to drag his eyes from the great skin of coarse red wine which was being handed round amongst the troopers, his raging thirst, the pain of his lacerated feet making him a picture of misery and despair.

After a muttered conversation the troopers had beckoned him over, and to the other prisoners" astonishment and envy had offered him the skin of wine, gesturing and grinning at him to take his fill

When they had finally realised what was happening it was already too late. As Stokes drank and drank to his capacity, his face and chest soaking in spilled wine, the soldiers urged him on, and then supporting him bodily, while others poured more into his gaping mouth.

Starved, sun-dried and already terrified as to what his fate might be, Stokes had changed in that instant into a raving madman. Capering and reeling, vomiting and falling in all directions, he was pitiful to watch. And whenever he had dropped choking on the ground they had begun allover again.

This morning, as the prisoners had been freed from their ropes and herded on to the rough track, they had seen Stokes still lying where he had last fallen, his body surrounded in a great red stain of dried wine, like blood, his face a mask of flies.

When Pascoe had tried to reach him he had been kicked back to the others. None of the troopers even went to see if Stokes was still breathing. It was as if they had tired of a game and wished only to get on towards their destination.

Allday shaded his eyes and studied the blue sea beyond the hill rise. What a barren place it was. Mountains in-land, and this part all ups and downs in stony gullies. His torn feet told him he had walked every inch of it.

A whip cracked, and once more they started to shuffle forward. As they panted up the last slope Allday said breathlessly, 'ships, by God!" -

Pascoe nodded. "Three of them!" He seized Allday's arm…

"Look at all those people!"

The track which led down to the foreshore and joined another, better-made road was alive with tiny moving figures. Like ants, which at a distance appear to move without purpose or direction, it was evident as they drew nearer that the activity was well ordered. Dotted about were armed soldiers and civilian supervisors who stood like rocks amidst the tide of human movement.

Pascoe said, "Prisoners."

'slaves, more like."

Allday saw the whips in the hands of the guards, the fearful way the ragged prisoners moved around each vigilant figure. He turned his head towards the ships. Two brigs and one larger vessel, a transport. All three anchored close inshore; and the water between them and a newly constructed pier was an endless coming and going of oared boats and lighters. There were lines of neat tents by the hillside, and across the bay, scored out of the grass and gorse of a low headland, was what appeared to be a battery, the flag of Spain lifting and curling high above it.

Pascoe murmured, "The ships look well laden. "

They fell silent as the senior horseman cantered towards them, his whip trailing down his leg and along the road. He pointed at the seamen and barked an order. Two troopers dismounted and gestured with drawn sabres towards the first line of tents. The whip swung round, separating Pascoe and Allday from the others and at the same time pointing to another, smaller line of tents.

Outside one Allday saw an officer watching them, shading his eyes with his arm as the horseman urged them towards him. Allday silently thanked God. The officer might be a Spaniard, but he was far better than their captors.