'Sir Robert requests that you wait a few moments, Captain Bolitho.' His hand rested on the adjoining door. 'An unexpected visitor… you understand, sir.'
Adam walked into the other room, light and spacious, as he remembered it from previous visits. When he had been given Unrivalled, fresh from the builder's yard, the first to carry her name on the Navy List. And later, meeting Vice Admiral Valentine Keen, when Keen had held this command. And last year, in July, when he had joined Lord Exmouth's fleet for the inevitable attack on Algiers. In those eight months so much had happened, while here in Plymouth there was yet another admiral, Sir Robert Burch, probably in his last appointment.
The lieutenant was saying, 'We all watched you arrive, sir. It is some time since I have witnessed such crowds. Some must have been awake before dawn.'
Adam laid his hat on a chair and walked to a window. It was not the flag lieutenant's fault; it rarely was. He had been one himself. He bit his lip. Under his uncle. Another world, it seemed now. And his uncle…
Sir Richard Bolitho had died nearly two years ago, killed on the deck of his flagship Frobisher, cut down by a single shot. The memory still burned as if it were yesterday.
The other man watched his face closely, trying to miss nothing. The young frigate captain whose name had appeared in the Gazette so many times, fighting hand to hand against any foe which had offered itself, before the war had ended and the sworn enemies had moved into an uneasy alliance. How long might it last? And for what reason? Perhaps the battle of Algiers would come to be remembered as the last great battle under sail. Lord Exmouth had been a frigate captain, probably the most famous and successful to emerge from that everlasting war. He must have put all doubts aside to break the unwritten rule he had always followed: never force an action where ships are pitted against sited shore batteries, and in his case a thousand enemy guns.
But the gamble and the skill had prevailed, and the battle had raged for most of the day. Ships had exploded and burned, men had fought to the death. He thought of the smartly handled frigate he had watched only this morning, shining in the early sunlight, and of Lord Exmouth's words.
I want you in the van. The same ship. He glanced again at the slim figure by the window, the black hair, the fine, sensitive features. The same captain.
Adam could feel the scrutiny. He was used to it. The frigate captain: dashing, uncaring, not tied to the fleet's apron strings. He knew well enough what they thought. Imagined.
He opened the window slightly and looked down at a squad of Royal Marines paraded in the square below. New recruits from the local barracks, very stiff and aware of their scarlet uniforms. A sergeant, rocking back slightly on his heels, was saying, 'You obey orders without question, seel When the time comes you will be sent to a ship of the line, or a frigate maybe, like the one that came in this morning.' He had turned slightly to display the three bright chevrons on his sleeve. 'But remember this, it's not the Colonel, or even the adjutant, who will decide.' He lifted his elbow a fraction. 'It will be me, see?'
Adam closed the window, the cold air still on his lips.
He thought of Corporal Bloxham, who was now a sergeant, a crack shot even with his 'Bess', as he had affectionately called his musket that day. When he had fired one shot and had saved his captain's life, and that of the boy who had lain helpless, his leg pinioned by the splinter. Another face he had come to know so well.
The flag lieutenant said quickly, 'I think the visitor is leaving, sir.' They faced each other, and he added, 'It has been an honour to meet you, sir.'
Adam heard voices, doors slamming, some one half-running, perhaps to summon a carriage for the departing visitor.
He picked up his hat. 'I would that it were under better circumstances.' He thrust out his hand. 'But thank you. Yours is no easy role. I know from experience.'
A bell tinkled somewhere, and the flag lieutenant seemed to make up his mind.
'Unrivalled will be docked, sir. But the reports have made it very clear that it will not be a quick overhaul like the last one.'
Adam almost smiled. 'The last two? He touched his arm as they walked to the door; it reminded him of the court-martial after Anemone had been sunk. Prisoner and escort.
'Then I am not being replaced?'
The lieutenant swallowed hard. He had already gone too far.
He answered, 'My late father had a saying, sir, when things seemed against him. 'Look to a new horizon'.' He flushed as Adam turned to face him. He would never forget that expression.
He called, 'Captain Adam Bolitho, Sir Robert! '
Adam gripped the old sword and pressed it against his thigh. The reminder. He was not alone.
Luke Jago, the captain's coxswain, walked to the edge of the jetty and kicked a pebble into the water. He was restless, unsure of his feelings and unable to think clearly, which was almost unknown for him.
He was the captain's right-hand man, trusted by him, a position he had come to value more than he would ever have believed. It was sometimes hard to recall how it had been before that day, the handshake which had changed everything. The anger and bitterness were part of another life. He had been unjustly flogged at the order of a very different captain; even though an officer had spoken up for him and proved his innocence, it had been too late to prevent the punishment. There had been apologies, but the stripes of the 'cat' would remain on his back until the day he died. It was Jago's nature to mistrust officers, and the younger they were the harder it became to overcome it. Green young midshipmen who might listen to his advice, tricks learned after his years at sea in one kind of ship or another, could suddenly turn and snap like spoiled puppies when they found their feet.
He shaded his eyes and stared across at the anchored frigate. His ship, his home for just over two years. He should be used to it. There had been other days like this one.
He had listened to it all the way from Gibraltar. Hard men and young hopefuls alike, going home, getting the prize money and slave bounty they knew was their due. In the navy it was always dangerous to hope too much, or take things for granted. When they had left Plymouth eight months back, he had seen all the laid-up ships, the hulks, once the pride of a great fleet. When Unrivalled had anchored yesterday they had still been here.
He heard the boy Napier moving restlessly on the pile of baggage they had brought ashore less than an hour ago. His portly, round-shouldered companion was Daniel Yovell, who had volunteered to join the ship as captain's clerk when he had heard that the previous one had died. Or soY ovell had claimed. Jago knew differently now. Yovell had been clerk to Sir Richard Bolitho, then secretary aboard his flagship. And his friend, an unlikely one to find in a man-of-war. Stooped, gentle and devout, he had been given his own cottage next to the old Bolitho house in Falmouth where he had helped in estate matters, things Jago could not begin to guess at. But something had drawn Yovell back to the sea, and he had brought with him volunteers when Captain Adam had been short of trained hands. Men from Sir Richard's last ship, and some who had served him earlier during the wars. Jago kicked another pebble into the water. All those bloody enemies who were now supposed to be treated as allies.
And the boy, Napier, what must he be thinking, he wondered. Like many before him, he had been signed into the navy by his mother. She had remarried, and was now in America with her new husband, if that was what he was; Jago knew of plenty such cases. With the offspring safely signed on, the interest faded. Napier was devoted to the captain, and Bolitho never seemed too busy to explain things to him. Whatever the fools on the mess deck believed, there was nobody in a King's ship who was as lonely as her captain.
Napier said suddenly, 'Boat's casting off! ' He sounded tense, anxious. He was always a serious sort of youth. Jago, who went where he chose as the captain's coxswain, had seen life in the great cabin, beyond the screen doors and the scarlet-coated 'bullock'. It had made him feel a part of it.
He heard the distant splash of oars and the familiar creak of looms and found that he was clenching his fists. His mouth was very dry.
What about me? Yovell would go to his cottage. The boy was staying with the captain. He stared at the anchored frigate again. And Unrivalled was going into the yard, as he had known she would. All those engagements, when she had shuddered and lurched to the enemy's iron as it had smashed into the hull, often below the waterline.
And that last time at Algiers, when so many had fallen, while the air quivered to cannon fire and splintering timbers had the fools forgotten that too? Or that on this last passage home, the pumps had been going throughout every watch?
Unrivalled would be paid off. After that… It would be decided by those who had never heard a full broadside, or risked everything just to hold a mate's hand when his life was being torn from him.
He would collect his pay and his bounty and take some time for himself. Some company maybe. A woman if she
