Alexander Kent - With All Despatch

Paice had been married a short time to a girl he had known for several years. On her way home from visiting her father and mother she had been horrified to see a dozen or more known smugglers attacking a solitary revenue officer. A crowd of people, too afraid or too indifferent to interfere, had watched them beating the man to death. Paice's wife had called the onlookers to assist, and when they had hung back she had tried to drag one of the smugglers off the revenue officer who was by then dead.

One smuggler had raised his pistol and shot her down. A savage warning to all those who watched, far more chilling than the death of a revenue man.

"I-I'm fair sorry, sir." Chesshyre looked away. "I was forgetting-"

"Well, don't! Not now-not ever, while you serve in my ship!"

There was a step on the companion ladder and Bolitho climbed up beside them. He was hatless, and his black hair rippled in the wind as he studied the hard press of canvas, the sea boiling along the leeside. Like his brother's cutter Avenger, so long, long ago.

The acting-master touched his forehead. "I'll attend the helm, sir."

He made to move aft but Bolitho asked, "You are from Kent?"

"Aye, sir." Chesshyre watched him warily, Paice's heated outburst momentarily forgotten. " Maidstone, sir."

Bolitho nodded. His voice, the easy Kentish accent, had so reminded him of Thomas Herrick, who had been his first lieutenant; his firm friend. Even Chesshyre's eyes, clear blue, were much the same. So many times he had watched Herrick's eyes change. Stubbornness, concern, hurt; and Bolitho had been the cause of most of it. They had parted when Tempest had set sail for England after that last savage battle with Tuke's ships. Bolitho, half-dead from fever, had followed at a more leisurely pace in a big Indiaman. Where was Herrick now, he wondered? At sea somewhere. Remembering what they had done and suffered together.

He realised that he was staring at the acting-master. "You reminded me of a friend. Did you ever meet a Lieutenant Herrick?"

For a brief moment Bolitho saw the man's caution change to warmth. Then he shook his head. "No, sir." The contact was broken.

Paice said, "We can come about in two hours, sir." He glanced at the sky. "After that, it will be too dark to see anything."

Bolitho glanced at his strong profile. "You think me mistaken?" He did not wait for a reply; it was wrong to make Paice commit himself. He smiled tightly. "Mad too, probably."

Paice watched him although his mind was still grappling with his inner pain. Would he ever forget how she had died?

He said, "There are some who may ask why you care so much, sir."

Bolitho wiped his face with the sleeve of his old coat. "I realise that smuggling is a great temptation and will remain so. You can hang for it, but in some parishes you can dangle from the gibbet for stealing a chicken, so where's the comparison?" He shivered as spray pattered against his shoulders. "The navy must have men. Smugglers or not, a firm hand will soon break them to our ways!"

During his brief passage in Wakeful her commander with the falcon's features had told him about Paice's wife. Bolitho had heard Paice's voice as he had left the cabin, but had only guessed the content.

He said, "Like me, you grieve. Some think it leaves you vulnerable." He gripped a swivel gun on the bulwark as the deck slanted down again and added sharply, "But I believe it makes you-care, as you put it."

Paice swallowed hard. It was like being stripped and made defenceless. How did he know? What memory did he carry to distress him?

He said gruffly, "Never fear, sir, I'm with you-"

Bolitho touched his arm and turned away. He seemed to hear the admiral's words in his brain. Use them as you will within the scope of your orders. Spoken words, not written ones. Valueless if things went wrong.

He said, "You may live to regret that, Mr Paice, but I thank you.

Allday appeared from the companionway, a tankard held carefully in one fist while he waited for the deck to rear upright again.

He held it out to Bolitho, his eyes swiftly examining the men nearby, Chesshyre the master, with his mate Dench who was shortly taking over the watch. Luke Hawkins the boatswain, a great cask of a man. It was hard to see him at the tender age of seven when he had been packed off to sea as a ship's boy. Telemachus carried no purser as she did not rate one. The clerk, Percivale Godsalve, a reedy little man whose pale features had defied all the months at sea, did duty as purser too. Evans, a tough gunner's mate, had said to Allday, "No passengers in this ship, matey! We all does a bit of everythin'!"

Allday knew most of what was said about Bolitho being aboard. They saw him as a threat, something from the other navy that only a few of the petty officers knew anything about.

Deep in his heart Allday thought Bolitho, a man he had nearly died for and would do so again without a second's thought, was wrong to press on with this task. He should take things quietly-hell's teeth, he had earned it ten times over. Let others take the risks and the blame, which, unlike prize money, were equally shared out.

Allday would never have returned to the sea but for Bolitho. But Bolitho loved the navy; it was his whole life. Only once had Allday seen that love waver, but now the Captain's lady was gone. Only the sea was left.

He watched Bolitho swallow the steaming coffee gratefully. They had seen so much. Allday stared out at the frothing yellow wave crests. They'd get another ship together. If only…

"Deck there! Sail ho! "

Paice stared up at the two waving lookouts, his face creased with disbelief.

The voice pealed down again. "Fine on the lee quarter, sir!"

Bolitho saw the instant change in the tall lieutenant as he snatched a telescope from its rack and swung himself on to the weather ratlines with the agility of a cat.

Bolitho tried to contain the shiver of excitement as it coursed through him like icy water.

It was probably nothing, or a ship, alone and running for shelter before darkness closed in. The Channel was a treacherous place on any night, but in these times it was a blessing to hear the anchor safely down.

Bolitho recalled his own desperate efforts to go aloft without the awful fear of it. Many were the times he had had to force himself up the madly shaking ratlines, clinging to stay and trying not to peer down at the deck and the creaming water far below.

Paice had no such qualms. But he was soon clambering on to the deck again, and his face, masklike in the dying sunlight, was composed by the time he had strode aft.

He said, "She's the Loyal Chieftain, sir. A Deal vessel. Know her well." He spat out the words. " Loyal -the last word I'd use for that pig!"

There was no time for further discussion. At any moment the other vessel would see Telemachus' s sails.

Bolitho said, "Bring her about, Mr Paice. As fast as you will."

"Hands aloft and loose tops'l!"

"Stand by to come about!"

Feet padded over the streaming planks, and more figures crowded up from between decks as the calls shrilled through the hull,

"Let go an' haul!" Hawkins's thick voice made the men lie back on the braces and halliards to bring the boom over.

"Helm alee!"

Bolitho gripped a stanchion and watched the sails flapping like insane banners as the rudder was heaved over, the helmsmen backed up by two more hands as the ship fought against sea and wind. Then all at once they were round, and running with the breakers, the spray bursting beneath the stem so that they seemed to be flying.

Paice mopped his face and shouted above the thunder of more canvas as the topsail filled and hardened from its yard like a breastplate. "'Nother minute and the bugger would have slipped across our stern!" He saw Bolitho's expression and said, "Her master is Henry Delaval, a known smuggler, but he's never been taken with any evidence, God rot him! His vessel's a brig, well found and armed," Here was the bitterness again. "That's no crime either, they say!"