He was said to have made influential friends during his captivity, and afterwards when he had been promoted to command a squadron in the West Indies. He had money in the City of London, property too in Jamaica. He did not sound like the kind of man who would fit easily into the plans of the government in Whitehall.
Bolitho grimaced at his reflection in the dusty glass. Not even if the plan was to be offered by someone of equal rank.
The carriage wheels dipped and shuddered through some deep ruts in the road and Bolitho winced as the pain of his wound dragged at his left thigh like a hot claw.
Belinda had even helped to dispel his self-consciousness about that. Occasionally when the pain was re- awakened he found himself limping and he had felt humiliated because of her.
He stirred on his seat as he recalled her touch in the night, her soft body against his, the secret words which had been lost in their passion for one another. She had kissed the wound where a musket-ball and the surgeon's probe had left an ugly scar and had made the injury more a mark of pride than a cruel reminder.
All this and more he was leaving behind with each turn of the wheels. Tonight it would be worse when the carriage stopped for the first change of horses in Torbay. It was better to join a ship and sail with the first possible tide and leave no room for regrets and longing.
He looked at Allday and wondered what he really thought about quitting the land yet again with his future as uncertain as the next horizon.
Flag at the fore. Allday was genuinely proud of it. That was something which the Admiral Sheaffes of this world could never understand.
2 'Old Katie'
Captain Valentine Keen walked from beneath the poop and crossed to the larboard nettings. Around him and along the upper gun-deck, and high overhead on the yards and rigging, the hands were hard at work.
The officer of the watch touched his hat to Keen and then moved to the opposite side of the deck. Like everyone else, he was careful to appear busy but unconcerned at his captain's presence.
Keen glanced along his new command. He had already been pulled around Achates in his gig to study her lines and her trim as she rocked gently above her black and buff reflection.
Ready for sea. It was every captain's personal decision as to when that possibility was a fact. There was no room for second thoughts once the anchor was catted and the ship standing out from the land.
It was warm and humid even for May, and the protective folds of the land were misty with haze. He hoped that some kind of wind would soon get up nonetheless. Bolitho would be impatient to get away, to cut his ties with the shore, although Keen knew his reasons were different from his own.
He shaded his eyes and looked up at the foremast truck. Achates had never worn an admiral's flag before. It would be interesting to see if it changed her.
He moved into a patch of shade by the poop ladder and watched the activity along the upper deck. The ship had a good feel to her, he thought. Something permanent and hard-won over the years. Several of her lieutenants had once served aboard as midshipmen, and most of her hard core of warrant officers, the backbone of any man- of-war, had been on the books for years.
There was an air of confidence about her, a lively eagerness to get away from the land before she too suffered the fate of so many others. Keen's own ship, Nicator, a seventy-four, which had distinguished herself at Copenhagen and later in the Bay of Biscay, was already laid up in ordinary. Unwanted, like her people who had fought so hard when the drums had beaten to quarters.
The previous captain had served in Achates for seven years. It was strange that he had commanded the ship for so long a period and had left no trace of his own personality in his quarters. Maybe he had invested it in his ship's company. They certainly seemed contented enough, although there had been the usual desertions during the overhaul here. Wives, sweethearts, children grown out of all recognition; Keen could hardly blame them for giving in to the temptation to run.
Keen ran his finger round his neckcloth and watched one of the ship's boats being swayed up and over the gangway and then lowered on to its tier. Every boat would have to be filled with water if this heat held to stop it from opening up.
Keen examined his feelings. He was glad to be leaving, especially with Bolitho. He had served under him twice before in other ships. First as midshipman, then as third lieutenant. They had shared the pain of losing loved ones, and now that Bolitho had married, Keen was still alone.
His thoughts wandered to his orders which Bolitho had sent to him.
A strange mission. Unique in his experience.
He glanced at the starboard line of black eighteen-pounders, run out as if for battle to allow the sailmaker and his crew maximum space on deck for stitching some canvas.
Peace or war, a King's ship must always be ready. Twice
Keen had served under Bolitho between the wars and had known the folly of over-confidence where a signed peace was concerned.
He heard feet on the companion ladder and saw Lieutenant Adam Pascoe climbing on deck.
It never failed to surprise Keen. Pascoe could have been Bolitho's young brother. The same black hair, although Pascoe's was cut short at the nape of the neck in the new naval fashion, the same restlessness. Grave and withdrawn one moment, full of boyish excitement the other.
Twenty-one years old, Keen thought. Without a war and its demands on lives and ships Pascoe would be lucky to gain advancement or a ship of his own.
'Good-day, Mr Pascoe. Is everything in the admiral's quarters to the flag-lieutenant's liking?'
Pascoe smiled. 'Aye, sir. With four of the after eighteen-pounders removed to the hold and replaced by Quakers, the admiral will have plenty of space.'
Keen looked at the quarterdeck and said, 'I have seen him content with ten paces of a deck. Back and forth, up and down, his daily stroll to arrange his ideas, to exercise his mind as well as his limbs.'
Pascoe said suddenly, 'I see no sense in this mission, sir. We fought the enemy to a standstill so that he needed a peace to lick his wounds. And yet our government has seen fit to give up almost all of our possessions which we won from the French. Everything but Ceylon and Trinidad we have let go and cannot even decide definitely to keep Malta. And now San Felipe is to go the same way, and the admiral's lot is to have the dirty task of doing it.'
Keen regarded him gravely. 'A word of advice, Mr Pascoe.'
He saw Pascoe's chin lift stubbornly. That wary glance Keen had grown to know in the past.
He said, 'In the wardroom the lieutenants and others can speak as they please provided their private views do not spread among the people. As captain I stand apart, so too does the flag-lieutenant. Despite your wish to serve your uncle, I suspect you accepted the post more to please him than yourself?'
Keen knew he had guessed correctly and saw the shot go home.
He added, 'Being a sea officer is totally different from being an admiral's aide. You have to be discreet, cautious even, for there will be others who might wish to win a confidence.'
He wondered if he should go further and decided it was too important to avoid.
'Some may want to harm your uncle. So stay clear of the rights and wrongs of something you cannot alter. Otherwise, hurtful or not, it were better for you to go ashore right now and beg a replacement from the port admiral at Spithead.'
Pascoe smiled. 'Thank you, sir. I deserved that. But I'd not leave my uncle. Not now. Not ever. He is everything to me.'
Keen watched the young lieutenant's unusual display of emotion. He knew most of the story anyway. How Pascoe had been born out of wedlock, the son of Bolitho's dead brother. Bolitho's brother had been a renegade, a traitor during the American War, and had commanded an enemy privateer with no less audacity than John Paul Jones. It must have been hard on Bolitho. And on this youthful officer who had been sent to seek out Bolitho by his dying mother as his only hope of a future.
Keen said quietly, 'I understand.' He clapped him on the shoulder. 'Better than you realize.'
