Alexander Kent - With All Despatch

Then, as the carriage gathered speed, he folded his arms and asked the rescued men gently, "Now tell me in your own time what happened."

As they spoke he had to clutch his arms tightly to his body to prevent them from shaking. It had been a near thing, although right from the beginning he had known instinctively that on such a deserted road the incident had been carefully planned for his benefit.

He smiled at his reflection in the rain-streaked glass. They had not been prepared for his reaction. And neither was I.

Ferguson saw the brief smile. For a few moments he had imagined everything was about to end. Now he saw that it was, for Bolitho, a beginning.

CAPTAIN Richard Bolitho stood with his shoes sinking into the wet sand of a sloping foreshore and stared across the widening stretch of the River Medway. The sun was hard and bright, so that the trees on the opposite bank were almost lost in steaming haze. But it was without warmth, although to look at it was like being reminded of a tropical shore elsewhere. He moved his shoulders inside his coat and wondered if he would ever feel warm again. Even the breeze from the river was cool and damp.

He tried to push the thought aside. It was a typical spring day; he had to keep remembering that. He was the one at fault with his memory forever rooted in another place, another time.

Allday, standing a little apart and a few paces behind him on the slope, remarked casually, "Well, Cap'n, there's one of your brood right enough." He waited, gauging the mood as he had since their arrival here.

Bolitho nodded and shaded his eyes to study the little ship which lay above her own reflection beyond an islet and two shining sandbars. A topsail cutter, Telemachus, the one which had been undergoing a refit in the dockyard upriver from here.

Bolitho looked at her spartan outline, a vessel so different when under full sail. It was hard to realise that these cutters, so small after a frigate, had for their size a bigger sail area than any other craft afloat. They might not be able to outrun all the rest, but in any sort of wind they could outmanoeuvre anything.

One of his brood. Allday, in spite of his forced casualness, must know what he was thinking. Comparing her with Tempest, the Great South Sea, everything. Without effort he could picture the three tall pyramids of pale, fair-weather canvas, reaching up to the cloudless blue sky. The deck seams sticking to your shoes as you moved about in search of a shadow while the horizon lay sharp and empty in all directions. A real ship. A thoroughbred. Yes, Allday would know and feel it too.

Bolitho had reported his arrival to the admiral in command at the Royal Dockyard, a distant but affable man, who had seemed to regard the affair on the road with the two bound and humiliated officers as little more than an irritation.

He had said, "The midshipman-well, he knew less than nothing, but the lieutenant in charge should have known better than to search premises and arrest suspected deserters without first informing the local authorities. I shall make my displeasure felt, of course, and I dare say that someone might be made to pay a fine, but-" He did not need to continue.

Bolitho had persisted, "I am told that the same thing happened at Rochester last year, sir. Then it was no less than the mayor who led a mob to attack the guardhouse where some pressed men were awaiting an escort."

The admiral had frowned. "That's true. The devil even fined our officers heavily before he would release them." He had become angry. "But they'll sing a different tune when the Frogs are on the rampage again. It will be good old Jack Tar then, sure enough, when these self-righteous hypocrites think that their rotten skins are in danger once more and they whimper for sailors to defend them!"

Bolitho had not yet met Commodore Hoblyn. The admiral had explained that he was visiting some local shipyards with a view to the Admiralty's purchasing small, handy craft, in the event of war. The admiral had commented wryly, "With letters of marque no doubt, to enlist a few more cutthroats for the King!"

Bolitho had left the admiral's house, his final words still in his ears. "Don't take it so to heart, Bolitho. You have three fine cutters at your command. Use them as you will, within the scope of your orders."

It was strange, Bolitho thought, that in the two days since his arrival here he had sensed more than once that every move he made was being watched. More so perhaps because of the efforts some had made to look away when he had passed. Which was why he had sent his carriage with a protesting Ferguson back to Falmouth. He had even arranged for the local dragoons to provide a small escort until they were out of Kent and on the road to London and beyond.

Bolitho looked down the slope again and saw the boy, Young Matthew, peering at the anchored cutter, barely able to stand still with his excitement.

That had been almost the hardest part, he thought. The boy had pleaded with his grandfather to be allowed to go with Bolitho as a servant, a groom, anything.

The old coachman had blown his nose and had said eventually, "Well, sir, 'e's more trouble underfoot than 'e knows. Mebbee a bit o' time with some discipline will tame the little puppy!" But his eyes had told another story, and his voice had been as heavy as his heart.

Allday murmured, "I'll go an' hail the vessel, Cap'n."

"Aye, do that." He watched Allday stride down the slope to join the boy at the water's edge. Probably thinks I'm imagining all of it. It was why Bolitho had asked for a carriage to bring him here, instead of joining the Telemachus in the dockyard. They knew too much already. He needed a few surprises of his own.

The other two cutters, named Wakeful and Snapdragon, were already lying downriver towards Sheerness, where the Medway surged out into the great estuary with the Thames.

Small ships perhaps, but each one a private world like every vessel in the fleet.

He shaded his eyes again. Telemachus was just a few inches short of seventy feet but had the surprisingly ample beam of twentyfour feet. Sturdily built with a rounded bow, the after part narrowed down to a typical mackerel-tail shape. How she shone above her own image, the cat's-paws rippling down her side, more like a toy than a ship-of-war. The sunlight played on her buff hull with its single, broad black wale below the gunports. But it was always the rig which took a sailor's attention, he decided. A single, large mainmast mounted forward of midships, made even taller by a tapering fidded topmast. She had a long, horizontal bowsprit and a boom to carry the huge loosefooted mainsail which protruded well beyond her low counter. With all her canvas furled or brailed up to the topsail yard she looked unfinished. But once at sea…

Bolitho sighed. Enthusiasm, like warmth to his body, defied him.

Allday's powerful voice echoed across the water, and after a few seconds some faces appeared at the Telemachus' s bulwark. Bolitho wondered what the cutter's commander must think of this unorthodox arrival.

He saw a jolly-boat appear around the stern, the oars taking charge as a deceptively slow current carried them clear of the hull. There were already many more people on deck now. A visitor, a break in the monotony.

A fraction under seventy feet and yet she carried a complement of sixty souls. It was hard to accept that they could cram themselves into that hull and share it with guns, powder, shot and stores enough to sustain them, and still find room to breathe.

He saw Allday watching the jolly-boat with a critical eye.

"Well?"

Allday shrugged one massive shoulder. " Looks smart enough. Still-"