“Egmont was a fool. By remaining quiet he aided Garrick. Garrick was trying to help the French at Martinique against us, and that makes Egmont’s silence all the more serious. However, if he has any sense he will tell the captain all he knows. But for us he’d be dead. He’ll be thinking of that just now.”
He turned to leave, his movements showing little of the strain he had been under. He was still wearing his old sea-going coat which now had the additional distinction of a blood-stain on one shoulder where he had rested his sword.
Bolitho said, “I should like to put Stockdale’s name forward for advancement sir.”
Palliser came back and lowered his head to peer at Bolitho beneath a deck-beam.
“Would you indeed?”
Bolitho sighed. It sounded rather like the old Palliser again.
But Palliser said, “I’ve already done that. Really, Mr Bolitho, you’ll have to think more quickly than that.”
Bolitho smiled, despite the ache in his limbs and the confusion in his thoughts which the girl named Aurora had roused with a kiss.
He entered the wardroom, his body swaying to the frigate’s heavier motion.
Poad greeted him like a warrior.
“Sit you down, sir! I’ll fetch something to eat and drink.” He stood back and beamed at him. “Right glad we are to see you again, sir, an’ that’s the truth!”
Bolitho lay back in a chair and allowed the drowsiness to flow over him. Above and around him the ship was alive with bustling feet and the clatter of tackle.
A job had to be done, and the seamen and marines were used to obeying orders and holding their private thoughts to themselves. Across the darkening water the brig was also busy with working sailors. Tomorrow the Rosario would make her way towards safety, where her story would be retold a thousand times. And they would speak of the quiet Englishman with the beautiful young wife who had lived amongst them for years, keeping to themselves and outwardly content with their self-imposed exile. And of the frigate with her grotesque captain which had come to Rio and had slunk away in the night like an assassin.
Bolitho stared up at the deck head, listening to the ship’s noises and the sound of the ocean against her hull. He was privileged. He was right in the midst of it, of the conspiracy and the treachery, and very soon now she would be here, too.
When Poad returned with a plate of fresh meat and a jug of madeira he found the lieutenant fast asleep. His legs were out-thrust, the breeches and stockings torn and stained with what appeared to be blood. His hair was plastered across his forehead and there was a bruise on his hand, the one which had been gripping his hanger at the start of the day.
Asleep, the third lieutenant looked even younger, Poad thought. Young, and for these rare moments of peace, defenceless.
Bolitho walked slowly up and down the quarterdeck, avoiding flaked lines and the mizzen bitts without conscious effort. It was sunset and a full day since they had parted company with the battered Rosario to leave her far astern. She had looked forlorn and as mis-shapen as any cripple with her crude jury-rig and such a sparse display of sails it would take her several days to reach port.
Bolitho glanced aft at the poop skylight and saw the glow of lanterns reflecting on the driver-boom above it. He tried to picture the dining cabin with her there and the captain sharing his table with his two guests. How would she feel now? How much had she known from the beginning, he wondered?
Bolitho had seen her only briefly when she had been brought across from the brig with her husband and a small mountain of luggage. She had seen him watching from the gangway and had made to raise one gloved hand, but the gesture had changed to less than a shrug. A mark of submission, even despair.
He looked up at the braced yards, the topsails growing darker against the pale fleecy clouds which had been with them for most of the day. They were steering north-northeast and standing well out from the land to avoid prying eyes or another would-be follower.
The watch on deck were doing their usual rounds to inspect the trim of the yards and the tautness of running and standing rigging alike. From below he heard the plaintive scrape of the shantyman’s fiddle, the occasional murmur of voices as the hands waited for their evening meal.
Bolitho paused in his restless pacing and grasped the nettings to steady himself against the ship’s measured roll and plunge. The sea was already much darker to larboard, the swell in half shadow as it cruised slowly towards their quarter to lift Destiny’s stern and then roll beneath her keel in endless procession.
He looked along the upper deck at the regularly spaced guns lashed firmly behind the sealed ports, through the black shrouds and other rigging to the figurehead’s pale shoulder. He shivered, imagining it to be Aurora reaching out like that, but for him and not the horizon.
Somewhere a man laughed, and he heard Midshipman Lovelace reprimanding one of the watch who was probably old enough to be his father. It sounded even funnier in his high-pitched voice, Bolitho thought. Lovelace had been awarded extra duties by Palliser for skylarking during the dog-watches when he should have been pondering on his navigational problems.
Bolitho recalled his own early efforts to study, to keep awake and learn the hard-won lessons laid down by his sailing master. It all seemed so long ago. The darkness of the smelly orlop and the midshipman’s berth, trying to read the figures and calculations by the flickering light of a glim set in an old oyster shell.
And yet it was no time at all. He studied the vibrating canvas and marvelled at the short period it had taken to make so great a step. Once he had stood almost frozen with fear at the prospect of being left alone in charge of a watch. Now he felt confident enough, but knew if the time came he would and must call the captain. But no one else. He could not turn any more to seek out his lieutenant or some stalwart master’s mate for aid or advice. Those days were gone, unless or until he committed some terrible error which would strip him of all he had gained.
Bolitho found himself examining his feelings more closely. He had been afraid when he had believed he was going to go down, trapped below decks in the Heloise. Perhaps the closest to terror he had ever been. And yet he had seen action before, plenty of times, even as a twelve-year-old midshipman in his first ship he had gritted his teeth against the thunder of the old Manxman’s massive broadside.
In his cot, with the flimsy screen door of his cabin shut to the rest of the world, he had thought about it, wondered how his companions saw and judged him.
They never seemed to worry beyond the moment. Colpoys, bored and disdainful, Palliser, unbreakable and ever-watchful over the ship’s affairs. Rhodes appeared carefree enough, so perhaps his own ordeal in the Heloise and then aboard the brig had made a deeper impression than he had thought.
He had killed or wounded several men, and had watched others hack down their enemies with apparent relish. But surely you could never get used to it? The smell of a man’s breath against your own, the feel of his body heat as he tried to break your guard. His triumph when he thought you were falling, his horror as you drove your blade into muscle and bone.
One of the two helmsmen said, “Steady as she goes, sir. Nor’-nor’-east.”
He turned in time to see the captain’s thickset shadow emerging from the companionway.
Dumaresq was a heavy man but had the stealth of a cat.
“All quiet, Mr Bolitho?”
“Aye, sir.” He could smell the brandy and guessed the captain had just finished his dinner.
“A long haul yet.” Dumaresq tilted on his heels to study the sails and the first faint stars. He changed the subject and asked, “Are you recovered from your little battle?”
Bolitho felt stripped naked. It was as if Dumaresq had been reading into his very thoughts.
“I think so, sir.”
Dumaresq persisted. “Frightened, were you?”
“Part of the time.” He nodded, remembering the weight across his back, the roar of water through the deck below where he had been trapped.
“A good sign.” Dumaresq nodded. “Never become too hard. Like cheap steel, you’ll snap if you do.”
Bolitho asked carefully, “Will we be carrying the passengers all the way, sir?”
“To St Christopher’s at least. There I intend to enlist the governor’s aid and have word sent to our senior officer there or at Antigua.”
“The treasure, sir. Is there still a chance of recovering it?”
“Some of it. But I suspect we may recognize it in a very different form from that originally intended. There is a
