Up to this instant he had been considering the Hyperion only as a different way of life. Now, as the band fell into sudden silence and a tall, grave-faced lieutenant stepped forward to meet him, he understood his real purpose. The realisation both surprised and humbled him. Here within her fat, onehundred-and-eighty-foot hull the Hyperion contained a whole new world. A strange imprisoned existence in which some six hundred officers and men lived, worked and, if required, died together, yet stayed apart in their own segments of discipline and seniority. It was hardly surprising that many captains of such ships as Hyperion were overwhelmed by their sense of power and self- importance.
He realised that the tall officer was watching him intently, his face set in an expressionless mould. He said, 'Lieutenant Quarme, sir. I am the senior aboard.'
Bolitho nodded. 'Thank you, Mr. Quarme.' He reached inside his coat and drew out his commission. The noise and sudden excitement had left him feeling faint. After the weeks of waiting and fretting all at once he needed to find the privacy of his new quarters. This Quarme looked a competent enough officer, he thought. He had a sudden picture of Herrick, his old first lieutenant in the Phalarope and the Tempest, and wished with all his heart that he and not Quarme had stepped forward to greet him.
Quarme moved quietly along the rank of officers, murmuring names and adding small additions about their duties. Bolitho kept his face quite impassive. It was fat too early for smiles and general acknowledgments. The real men would emerge later from behind these stiff, respectful faces. But they seemed a general enough collection, he decided vaguely, but so many of them after a frigate. He walked along the rank, past the lieutenants and senior warrant officers to where the midshipmen waited, with fascinated attention. He thought of young Seton and wondered what he was thinking of this awesome spectacle. Terrified, most likely.
Two marine officers stood rigidly before the scarlet ranks with their white crossbelts and silver buttons, and across the main press of figures beyond were the other warrant officers, the professionals who decided whether a ship would live or die. The boatswain and the carpenter, the cooper and all the rest.
He felt the sun very warm across his cheek and hurriedly opened his papers. He saw the watching figures crowd forward to hear and see better, and others dropped their eyes as he looked towards them, as if afraid of making a bad impression at such an early moment.
He read the commission briskly and without emotion. It was addressed to Richard Bolitho, Esquire, from Samuel Hood, Admiral of the Red, and required him to take upon him the charge and command of captain in His Britannic Majesty's ship Hyperion. Most of the men had heard such commissions read before, some no doubt many times, yet as he read through the neat, formal phrases he was conscious of the silence. As if the whole ship were holding her breath.
Bolitho rolled up the papers and returned them to his pocket. From one corner of his eye he saw Allday move slightly aft towards the quarterdeck ladder. As always he was ready to mark the way for his retreat from formality and discomfort.
In spite of the sun across the tops of the hammock nettings he felt light-headed and suddenly chilled. But he gritted his teeth and forced himself to remain quite motionless in front of the marines. This was a crucial moment in his life. His impression on his men might later decide their fate as well as his own. He had a sudden, sickening picture of himself falling in a fresh bout of fever with every eye watching his disgrace and humiliation, and surprisingly the mental scene helped to steady him.
He raised his voice. 'I will not keep you long from your duties, as there is much to do. The water lighters will be alongside directly, for I intend to hold this favourable wind and make sail this afternoon,' He saw two of the lieutenants exchange quick glances and added in a harder note, 'My orders require me to take this ship and join Lord Hood's squadron off Toulon without delay. Once there, we. will make every effort to contain the enemy within his harbours, but if possible, and whenever possible, we will seek him out and destroy him.'
A slight murmur moved through the packed seamen, and Bolitho guessed that even up to the last moment when the ship was detached from the Brest blockade and ordered to Gibraltar to receive a new captain many hopeful souls aboard had retained the belief that the Hyperion would be returning home. His words, his new commission, had killed that hope stone dead. Now, with the first fragment of spread canvas and the merest puff of wind, every mile which dragged beneath the weed-covered keel would carry them further and further away from England. For many it might be a one-way journey.
He added more calmly, ' England is at war with a tyrant. We need every ship and every loyal man to overthrow him. See to it that each one of you does his best. In my part I will do mine.'
He turned on his heel and nodded curtly. 'Carry on, Mr. Quarme. Detail water parties and make sure the purser has plenty of fresh fruit aboard.' He stared across the mist'shrouded bay towards Algeciras. `With Spain our new ally it should not be too difficult.'
The first lieutenant touched his hat. Then he called, 'Three cheers for King George!'
Bolitho walked slowly aft, feeling drained and ice cold. The answering cheers were ready enough, but more from duty than feeling.
He climbed the ladder and walked across the spacious quarterdeck. As he lowered his head beneath the poop Allday said quietly, 'No need to duck here, sir.' He was grinning. 'Plenty of room for you now.'
Bolitho did not even hear him. Ignoring the rigid marine sentry he stepped over the coaming and into his wide stern cabin. His private world. He was still thinking of the ship as Allday closed the door and began to unpack one of his boxes.
Richard Bolitho pushed some of the litter of papers across his desk and sat back to rest his eyes. When he examined his pocket watch he realised with a start that he had been poring over the ship's books and records for almost six hours without respite, his busy mind conscious the whole time of the noises beyond the closed door and across the deck above.
More than once he had almost broken his concentration to go out into the sunlight, if only to satisfy himself that the ship's routine was functioning normally, but each time he had forced himself to sit still and to carry on with his study of the Hyperion's affairs.
Time and experience would show him the real strength and weakness of his new command, but with just a few hours alone in his quarters he had already built up a working picture in his mind. From what he had read and examined it seemed as if the Hyperion under the command of the late Captain Turner had been the essence of normality. The punishment book, which Bolitho had inspected first, and which he always considered to be the safest measure of a ship's captain if not the performance of his command, showed the usual list of petty offenders, with the punishments of flogging and disrating no more or less than one might expect. On the West Indies station there had been various deaths reported from fever and careless shipboard accidents, and the daily log books showed nothing out of the ordinary.
Bolitho leaned back still further in his chair and frowned. It was all so normal, even dull, for a ship of the Hyperion's past and record that it sensed of indifference.
Again he looked around his new quarters, as if to glean some small picture of its late occupant. It was a spacious, even elegant place, he decided, and after the close confines of a frigate seemed palatial.
The day cabin where he was sitting ran the whole width of the stem, over thirty feet from side to side, and the tall stem windows below- which was stationed the handsome carved desk shone in the afternoon sunlight and threw the wide harbour and its anchored shipping across his vision in a colourful panorama.
There was an equally large dining cabin, and on either beam a smaller separate compartment, one for sleeping and the other for the charts.
On a sudden impulse he stood up and walked to the mahogany dining table. It contained six additional leaves, so it seemed that Turner had been a lavish entertainer. All the chairs, as well as the. long bench seat below the stem windown, were of finely tooled green leather, and lying across the normal deck covering of black and white squared canvas was a rich carpet, the price of which Bolitho imagined could have paid a frigate's company of seamen for several months.
He tried to relax his tired mind, to tell himself that it was a lack of self-confidence rather than a true cause for concern which left him so apprehensive.
He stared at himself in a bulkhead mirror, noting the frown which creased his forehead, the patches of sweat across his shirt. Unconsciously he brushed at the lock of black hair above his eye, his fingers touching the deep diagonal scar beneath it and which ran upwards into his hairline. It was odd to think that when the wildly swinging cutlass had cut him down and left him marked for life the Hyperion had even then been sailing within' a few miles of where the fight had occurred.
