Alexander Kent: With All Despatch

To proceed to the Nore . The great River Medway, the towns which marked the miles to the Royal Dockyard at Chatham, and then on to the open sea.

To command what? As far as he could discover he was under the local control of a Commodore Ralph Hoblyn. His name at least was familiar, and he had served with distinction in the Americas before being badly wounded at the decisive battle of the Chesapeake in '81. Another misfit perhaps?

Ferguson yawned and then collected his wits.

"Must be close to Rochester, sir?"

Bolitho pulled his watch from his breeches and felt his jaw stiffen as he flicked open the guard. She had given him the watch to replace one lost in battle. Viola Raymond. He had tried to recapture her in his thoughts a million times. To hear her laugh, see the light dance in her eyes because of something he had said. Dear, lovely Viola. Sometimes in the night he would awake, sweating, calling her name, feeling her slip from his arms as she had on that terrible day in the open boat. She above all, who had shared the misery of what had appeared a hopeless passage under relentless sunlight, deprived of food and water with some of the men half-mad in their suffering. She had somehow sustained all of them, wearing his coat, bringing grins to their scorched faces and cracked lips. The Captain's Lady, they called her.

Then, on that final day, when Bolitho knew they had found Tempest again, she died without even a murmur. In the night-mares which had followed, one scene always stood out stark and terrible above all else. Allday, holding her slim body, and with a boat's anchor tied about her waist, lowering her into the sea. Her figure, white in the dark water, fading and fading, then nothing. But for Allday, he would have gone mad. He was still unable to think of her without pain.

He stared at the watch in his palm, the engraved inscription which he knew by heart.

"Conquered, on a couch alone I lie

Once in dream's conceit you came to me

All dreams outstripped, if only thou wert nigh-"

Bolitho said, "We shall see the Medway directly."

Something in the dullness of his voice made Ferguson watch him uneasily. The same dark, intelligent features, the eyes which could laugh or show compassion; and yet something was lost. Perhaps forever.

Old Matthew called out to the leading post-boy and the carriage came slowly to a halt where the road met with the gradient of a shallow hill.

Old Matthew disliked using post-boys when he had handled four horses, even six at a time, from the age of eighteen in the Bolitho service. But it was a long journey back to Falmouth, to the last inn where he would recover his own two pairs of chestnut horses, which he was said to love more than his wife.

Bolitho heard Allday mutter, "Not here, matey. I can manage without his blessing!"

The carriage moved forward again, the horses scraping their shoes on the damp ground and shaking their harness like sleigh bells.

Bolitho lowered a window and saw the reason for his coxswain's agitation.

They were at a dreary crossroads; a stone which read, To London, thirty miles shared the deserted place with a gibbet which swung slightly in the wet breeze.

A tattered, eyeless thing hung in irons. It was hard to believe it might have once lived and loved like other men. A felon, a common thief, now denied even the dignity of burial.

Bolitho climbed down from the carriage and stamped his feet to restore the circulation. He could smell salt from here, and beyond a ragged procession of trees he saw the great curving outline of the river. It looked flat and unmoving, more like pewter than water hurrying to join the sea.

Through the haze of distant rain he saw the old town of Rochester, the ruins of some ancient fortification near the water's edge. A town which, like many others around this part of Kent, lived off the navy and its great dockyard and victualling jetties. In times of war the townspeople listened at their locked doors when darkness fell, for fear of the hated press gangs which roamed the streets in search of men for the fleet. To begin with they combed the inns and lodging houses for prime seamen, but as the toll of war mounted, and every King's ship cried out for still more hands, the press gangs had to be content with anyone they could find. Ploughmen and boys, tailors and saddlemakers, none was spared.

Many a ship would be forced to put to sea with only a third of her company trained seamen. The remainder, punched, threatened, and chased by boatswain's mates with their "starters," learned the hard way. Many were killed or injured in the process long before their captain had to face an enemy. Falls from aloft in a screaming gale, bones broken by waves surging inboard to sweep a man against a tethered cannon, and those who merely vanished, lost overboard with nobody able to help, or even to hear them go.

And now, with the clouds of war rising above the Channel, the press gangs were out again. This time they were seeking deserters and unemployed seamen. The press would never be popular, but as yet there was no other way. England needed ships; the ships needed men. The equation had not altered in a hundred years.

Bolitho looked up and felt a shaft of watery sunlight touch his cheek. A captain of his own ship. Once an impossible dream, the greatest step anyone could make from wardroom to the privacy of the great cabin. But to gain it and then have it taken away was even harder to accept.

His new command consisted of three topsail cutters, fast, highly manoeuvrable craft similar to those used by the Revenue Service. One was completing a refit in the dockyard, and the others doubtless awaited his arrival with curiosity or displeasure, and probably wondered why their world was to be invaded by a post-captain.

Bolitho had studied all the available reports with care, hoping to discover some glimmer of purpose which might make this appointment bearable. But it seemed as if in south-east England, and the Isle of Thanet in particular, the cat and the dog lived side by side. The revenue cutters hunted for smugglers, and the press gangs searched for unwilling recruits and deserters. The law-breakers, the smugglers who in many cases seemed better equipped and armed than their opposite numbers, seemed to do much as they pleased.

Bolitho remounted the coach and saw Allday watching him, his pigtail poking over the collar of his coxswain's blue jacket.

Their eyes met. "Back again, Cap'n. Frigate or no, 'tis still the sea. Where we belong."

Bolitho smiled up at him. "I shall hold to that, old friend."

Allday settled down again and watched the horses lean forward to take the strain.

He had seen the tightening of Bolitho's jaw. Like those other times when the deck had been raked with the enemy's iron, and men had fallen on every side. And when he had forced himself to accept that his lady had gone, fathoms deep, to a peace he had been too late to offer her. And like the times when they had ventured from the old grey house, for those first pitiful walks together after the fever had released its grip. A few yards at first, and the next day, then the next, until Bolitho had thrust him away, pleading with him to let him go the rest of the way unaided. Once he had fallen in sight of the headland where the sea surged endlessly amongst the rocks. He had cried out brokenly, "She would have liked it here, old friend!"

And together they had won the battle. The hardest one Allday had ever shared.

Now he was back, and God help anyone who tried to stand against him. Allday touched the heavy cutlass beneath his seat. They'll have to take me first, and that's no error.

But they had not even driven into the outskirts of Rochester before trouble showed itself.