Bernard Cornwell - Sea Lord

“Damn you,” I said to Jennifer Pallavicini. “Damn you, damn you, damn you.” The ties of duty, unavoidable duty, were wrapping about me. I could desert Stowey, I could watch my mother die and not shed a tear because of it, but Georgina was different. The only people who had ever been able to pierce that tremulous insanity had been Nanny, myself and Charlie. Now she needed me.

“Sir Leon” – Jennifer Pallavicini could not resist a small smile as she played her ace – “is willing to guarantee a secure future for the Lady Georgina whether the painting is retrieved or not.”

I said nothing. I was remembering the spitefulness with which Elizabeth had treated Georgina as a child. It wasn’t a deliberate spitefulness, merely a reflection of Elizabeth’s impatience. But, deliberate or not, it was unthinkable that Georgina should be put into Elizabeth’s care.

Jennifer Pallavicini watched me, then opened her handbag and took out an air ticket which she laid on the thwart beside me. “If you go to your family’s solicitors, my lord, you can doubtless stop this nonsense instantly.”

I picked up the ticket. It was for a first-class seat, Azores to Lisbon and Lisbon to London. “When it comes to my family,” I said haughtily to Jennifer Pallavicini, “I don’t need your damned help.” I tore the ticket into shreds, then scattered the scraps into the water. “Goodbye, Miss Pallavicini.”

I had angered her, but I had also succeeded in surprising her. She took a few seconds to recover, then tried to turn the screw on my guilt. “It will be no good writing to your solicitors, my lord. Your objections to the Lady Georgina’s fate won’t be taken seriously unless you’re in England to take some personal responsibility for her.”

“I said I don’t need your help to look after my family, Miss Pallavicini. So, goodbye.”

“You’re not going to help your younger sister?” she asked incredulously.

I smiled at her. “I’m going to sail away, Jennifer.” I suddenly clicked my fingers as though I had been struck with a brilliant and timely idea. “Would you like to sail with me? You can cook, can’t you?”

She stood up. “I cannot believe,” she said with a frigid dignity, “that you could be so careless of your younger sister’s future.” She paused, evidently seeking some final and crushing farewell. “You are undoubtedly the most selfish and unfeeling man I have ever met.”

“And you’re cluttering up my boat. So if you don’t want to come with me, go away.”

She went away.

An hour later, as I was taking off the mainsail cover, I saw her being ferried out to Ulf’s yawl. I assumed she was going to pay her informant his reward, so I wrestled my fibreglass dinghy over the guardrails, took the outboard from the stern locker, and motored over to join the happy party. I ignored Miss Pallavicini, instead I killed the small engine, drifted alongside the yawl, and told Ulf that he was a slime-bag.

“Johnny, how nice to see you! You know Miss Pallavicini, I think? You would like a drink with us?”

“I wouldn’t drink your bloody prune juice if I was dying of constipation.” I climbed out of the dinghy, hitched it to one of his shrouds, and walked down his scuppers. “I told you to keep your Swedish mouth shut.”

Jennifer Pallavicini’s eyes were wide with alarm. She clutched her handbag to her belly, but otherwise seemed unable to move. She doubtless believed that the huge Swede was about to pulverise me, and doubtless, in principle, she approved of that pulverisation, but it’s one thing to want someone beaten up and quite another to see real blood on the deck. I also believed that Ulf would pulverise me, but I was fed up with the bastard and wanted to hit him.

“It was only a business arrangement,” Ulf said smugly.

“And this is your profit.” I jumped into his scrubbed cockpit and punched him in the belly. He gasped, but did not hit back, so I smacked him hard across the mouth. The blow jarred his head and brought a fleck of blood to his lips.

He still wouldn’t fight. “Johnny!” He wiped his mouth. “This is not like you.”

“That’s because you don’t know me. So listen. If you ever open your mouth about me again, anywhere, to anyone, I’ll find your rotten carcass and I’ll feed it to the bloody fish. Do you understand me?”

He had backed away. Jennifer Pallavicini’s face showed utter horror. She made a small noise of protest, but I ignored her. Ulf waved a placatory hand. “I was only trying to help you, Johnny. Maybe it was important to you, yes?”

“Maybe it wasn’t your business, you Swedish bastard.” His reward money, in Portuguese escudos, was strewn across the cockpit grating.

“It was just business, Johnny, just business.” He sounded miserable, while I was mildly astonished to discover that he had a streak of jelly instead of a backbone. I’d expected one hell of a fight from him, but he was plainly scared. Nor was there any point in hitting him again, because he wasn’t going to fight back. “You’re a creep, Ulf. You’re a real pain in the arse.”

He nodded eager agreement with my judgment. “But you are a real English earl, Johnny, yes?” He had backed to stand beside the mizzen mast at the far end of his cockpit, from where he nodded towards Jennifer Pallavicini to prove the source of his information.

“And you’re queen of the bloody fairies, Ulf. Piss off.”

I had hardly acknowledged Jennifer Pallavicini’s presence though, if I was honest with myself, I knew I’d been showing off to her. These days women might claim that they prefer enlightened men who can change nappies, do the ironing, and whip up tasty little soufflés, but in truth I suspect they prefer men who can beat the shit out of loathsome Swedes.

I motored back to Sunflower . The confrontation had made me feel much better, which was some consolation. Two hours later I cast off, hoisted my sails, and did what I had promised to Jennifer Pallavicini.

I sailed away.

Part Three

I sailed away, but I didn’t go south. I went north. It was a bastard of a voyage into the teeth of a nasty wind, and a voyage made worse by a persistent equinoctial gale that tried to drive Sunflower into Biscay. Luckily we had enough westing to weather the two days and nights of wind, but it made the approach to the Channel a long fight against the northwesterlies that followed the storm. Once again I saw Sunflower ’s reluctance to go to England: she blew out the clew of the storm jib, the topping lift broke, and a pin came out of a sheave in the self-steering gear. They were all simple enough repairs, but were best done in calmer weather. That weather came as we passed the Lizard. The wind died and there was only a long, long greasy swell from the west over which we crept on Sunflower ’s motor.

I passed Salcombe by. I couldn’t face Charlie. He had repaired my boat, provisioned me, and I knew all that generosity had been a vicarious adventure for Charlie. He could not be a sea-gypsy any more, so he had made it possible for me to go back to the deep waters in his place; but now I was crawling back with my tail between my legs. The time would come when I’d explain everything to him, but for now I could not bear to see the disappointment on his face, so I sailed up the Devon coast to the anonymity of the River Exe where I moored Sunflower at a vacant buoy. The sky clouded over at dusk and, by nightfall, it was raining. Welcome to England.

I was woken at three in the morning by an irate man who had just motored from Guernsey and wanted his mooring buoy back. I obliged him, anchoring Sunflower in what seemed like a vacant patch of the river instead. At five in the morning I was woken again as the falling tide grounded me. By seven Sunflower was lying canted on her starboard chine in the middle of a drying sandbank. It was still raining.