Alexander Kent - With All Despatch

Paice rubbed his chin fiercely even though he was still bent over in the doorway.

"Surely you don't think-"

Bolitho felt the shivers again up his spine.

"I don't know Delaval, but I do understand men like him. He showed no interest in me, not even curiosity-it was you he wanted to humiliate and impress-do you not see that?"

Paice nodded grimly. "I'm afraid I do, sir."

Bolitho said, "Let us take a glass together before you change tack." He reached over and impetuously touched the big lieutenant's arm.

"The battle's not lost after all. But I fear for the casualties when the fight is over!"

Allday heard the change in Bolitho's voice, could almost see his shoulders lifting again.

He gave a slow grin as Bolitho added, "So let's be about it, eh?"

THE HOUSE which Commodore Ralph Hoblyn occupied and used as his personal headquarters was an elegant, square building of red brick with a pale, stone portico.

Bolitho reined in his horse and looked at the house for a full minute. It was not an old building, he decided, and the cobbled driveway which led between some pillared gates was well kept, with no trace of weeds to spoil it. And yet it had an air of neglect, or a place which had too many occupiers to care. Behind him he heard the other horse stamping its hooves on the roadway and could almost feel Young Matthew's excitement as he shared the pride and privilege of accompanying Bolitho on this warm, airless evening.

Bolitho recalled the angry waves and the brig's sail being ripped apart by it. It could have been another ocean entirely. There was a smell of flowers in the air, mixed as ever with that of the sea which was never far away.

The house was less than a mile from the dockyard at Sheerness where the two cutters had returned that morning.

A lieutenant had brought the invitation to Bolitho. It had been more like a royal command, he thought grimly.

He saw the glint of steel and the scarlet coats of two marines as they stepped across the gateway, attracted possibly by the sound of horses.

He had seen several pickets on the way here. It was as if the navy and not the local felons and smugglers were under siege. His mouth tightened. He would try to change that-always provided Commodore Hoblyn did not order him to leave.

He tried to recall all he could about the man. A few years older than himself, Hoblyn had also been a frigate captain during the American Rebellion. He had fought his ship Leonidas at the decisive battle of the Chesapeake, where Admiral Graves had failed to bring de Grasse to a satisfactory embrace.

Hoblyn had engaged a French frigate and a privateer single-handed. He had forced the Frenchman to strike, but as he had closed with the privateer his own ship had exploded in flames. Hoblyn had continued to fight, and even boarded and seized the privateer before his ship had foundered.

It had been said that the sight of Hoblyn leading his boarders had been enough to strike terror into the enemy. His uniform had been ablaze, one arm burning like a tree in a forest fire.

Bolitho had met him only once since the war. He had been on his way to the Admiralty to seek employment. He had not even looked like the same man. His arm in a sling, his collar turned up to conceal some of the terrible burns on his neck, he had seemed a ghost from a battlefield. As far as Bolitho knew he had never obtained any employment. Until now.

Bolitho urged his mount forward. "Come, Matthew, take care of the horses. I shall have some food sent to you."

He did not see the awe on the boy's face. Bolitho was thinking of Allday. It was so out of character not to ask, to demand to accompany him. Allday mistrusted the ways of the land, and hated being parted from Bolitho at any time. Perhaps he was still brooding over their failure to catch the smugglers. It would all come out later on. Bolitho frowned. But it would have to wait.

He had spoken with Lieutenant Queely aboard Wakeful before leaving Sheerness. It was like a missing part of a puzzle. Wakeful had seen nothing, and the revenue men had had no reports of a run. Testing him out? Like Delaval's elaborate and calculated display of the dead man, Paice's informant. Cat and mouse.

He nodded to the corporal at the gate who slapped his musket in a smart salute, the pipeclay hovering around him in the still air. Bolitho was glad he had declined a carriage. Riding alone had given him time to think if not to plan. He smiled ruefully. It had also reminded him just how long it was since he had sat a horse.

Young Matthew took the horses and waited as a groom came forward to lead him to the stables at the rear of the house. Bolitho climbed the stone steps and saw the fouled anchor above the pillars, the stamp of Admiralty.

As if by magic the double doors swung inwards noiselessly and a dark-coated servant took Bolitho's hat and boat cloak, the latter covered with dust from the steady canter along an open road.

The man said, "The commodore will receive you shortly, sir." He backed away, the cloak and hat carried with great care as if they were heated shot from a furnace.

Bolitho walked around the entrance hall. More pillars, and a curved stairway which led up to a gallery. Unlike the houses he had seen in London, it was spartan. No pictures, and few pieces of furniture. Temporary, that described it well, he thought, and wondered if it also indicated Hoblyn's authority here. He looked through a window and caught the glint of late sunlight on the sea. Or mine. He tried not to think about Queely. He could be guilty, or one of his people might have found a way to pass word to the smugglers. News did not travel by itself.

It was like being in a dark room with a blind man. Uniform, authority, all meaningless. A fight which had neither beginning nor end. Whereas at sea you held the obedience and efficiency of your ship by leadership and example. But the enemy was always visible, ready to pit his wits against yours until the final broadside brought down one flag or the other.

Here it was stealth, deceit, and murder.

As a boy Bolitho had often listened to the old tales of the Cornish smugglers. Unlike the notorious wreckers along that cruel coastline, they were regarded as something vaguely heroic and daring. The rogues who robbed the rich to pay the poor. The navy had soon taught Bolitho a different story. Smugglers were not so different from those who lured ships on to the rocks where they robbed the cargoes and slit the throats of helpless survivors. He found that he was gripping his sword so tightly that the pain steadied his sudden anger.

He felt rather than heard a door opening and turned to see a slim figure framed against a window on the opposite side of the room.

At first he imagined it was a girl with a figure so slight. Even when he spoke his voice was soft and respectful, but with no trace of servility.

The youth was dressed in a very pale brown livery with darker frogging at the sleeves and down the front. White stockings and buckled shoes, a gentle miniature of most servants Bolitho had met.

"If you will follow me, Captain Bolitho."

He wore a white, curled wig which accentuated his face and his eyes, which were probably hazel, but which, in the filtered sun-light, seemed green, and gave him the quiet watchfulness of a cat.

Across the other room and then into a smaller one. It was lined from floor to ceiling with books, and despite the warmth of the evening a cheerful fire was burning beneath a huge painting of a sea-fight. There were chairs and tables and a great desk strategically placed across one corner of the room.

Bolitho had the feeling that all the worthwhile contents of the house had been gathered in this one place.