Dumaresq picked up the heavy necklace and examined it sadly.
“ Murray, he saw it?”
Palliser nodded. “He was wounded. I sent him in the schooner before he could speak with Mr Bolitho.”
Dumaresq walked to the windows again and watched the little schooner turning stern on, her sails as gold as the necklace in his hand.
“That was thoughtful. For what he has said and done, Murray will be discharged when he reaches England. I doubt if his path will ever cross with Mr Bolitho’s again.”
He shrugged. “If it does, the pain will be easier to bear by then.”
“You’ll not tell him, sir? Not let him know that she is dead?”
Dumaresq watched the shadows reaching across the heaving water to cover the schooner’s hull.
“He’ll not hear it from me. Tomorrow we must fight, and I need every officer and man to give all he has. Richard Bolitho has proved himself to be a good lieutenant. If he survives tomorrow, he’ll be an even better one.” Dumaresq raised one of the windows and without further hesitation tossed the necklace into Destiny’s wake. “I’ll leave him with his dream. It’s the very least I can do for him.”
In the wardroom Bolitho sat in a chair, his arms hanging at his sides as the resistance ran out of him like fine sand from a glass. Rhodes sat opposite him, staring at an empty goblet without recognition.
There was still tomorrow. Like the horizon, they never reached it.
Bulkley entered and sat down heavily between them. “I have just been dealing with our stubborn marine.”
Bolitho nodded dully. Colpoys had insisted on staying aboard with his men. Bandaged and strapped up so that he could use only one arm, he had barely the strength to stay on his feet.
Palliser came through the door and tossed his hat on to a gun. For a moment he looked at it, probably seeing it tomorrow with this place stripped bare, the screens gone, the little personal touches shut away from the smoke and fire of battle.
Then he said crisply, “Your watch, I believe, Mr Rhodes? The master cannot be expected to do everything, you know!”
Rhodes lurched to his feet and grinned. “Aye, aye, sir.” Like a man walking in his sleep he left the wardroom.
Bolitho barely heard them. He was thinking of her, using her memory to shield his mind from the sights and deeds of that day.
Then he stood up abruptly and excused himself from the others as he went to the privacy of his cabin. He did not want them to see his dismay. When he had tried to see her face there had been only a blurred image, nothing more.
Bulkley pushed a bottle across the table. “Was it bad?”
Palliser considered it. “It’ll be worse yet.” But he was thinking of the jewelled necklace. On the sea-bed astern now. A private burial.
The surgeon added, “I’m glad about Murray. It’s a small thing in all this misery, but it’s good to know he’s clear of blame.”
Palliser looked away. “I’m going to do my rounds and turn in for a few hours.”
Bulkley sighed. “Likewise. I’d better request to borrow Spillane from clerk’s duties. I shall be short-handed, too.”
Palliser paused in the doorway and regarded him emptily. “You’d best hurry then. He’ll maybe hang tomorrow. Just to stoke Garrick’s anger further. He was his spy. Murray saw him searching old Lockyer’s body at Funchal when it was brought aboard.” Weariness was slurring Palliser’s words. “Spillane guessed, and tried to incriminate him over Jury’s watch. To drive a wedge be-tween fo’c’sle and quarterdeck. It’s been done before.” With sudden bitterness he added, “He’s as much a murderer as Garrick.”
He strode from the wardroom without another word, and when Bulkley turned his head he saw the first lieutenant’s hat was still lying on the gun.
Whatever happened tomorrow, nothing would ever be the same again, he thought, and the realization saddened him greatly.
When darkness finally shut out the horizon and the flattened hill above Fougeaux Island had disappeared, Destiny’s lights still shone on the water like watchful eyes.
16. Into Battle
OVERNIGHT Fougeaux Island seemed to have shrunk in size, so that when the first faint light filtered down from the horizon it looked little more than a sand-bar across Destiny’s starboard bow.
Bolitho lowered his telescope and allowed the island to fall back into the shadows. Within an hour it would be bright sunlight. He turned his back and paced slowly up and down the quarterdeck. The business of preparing the ship for battle had been unreal, an almost leisurely affair carried out watch by watch during the night.
The seamen knew their way around the masts and hull so well that they had little left to do which required daylight. Dumaresq had thought that out with the same meticulous care he planned everything he did. He wanted his men to accept the inevitability of a fight, the fact that some if not all of them would never make another voyage in Destiny. There was only one alternative passage, and it was marked on the master’s chart. Two thousand fathoms, straight down.
Also, Dumaresq intended his people to be as rested as possible, without the usual nerve-wrenching stampede of clearing for action when an enemy showed himself.
Palliser appeared on the quarterdeck, and after a cursory glance at the compass and each sail in turn he said, “I trust the watch below is completing breakfast?”
Bolitho replied, “Aye, sir. I have ordered the cooks to douse the galley fire as soon as they are done.”
Palliser took a glass from Midshipman Henderson, who had been assisting with the morning-watch.
Midshipman Cowdroy had been similarly employed during the night. As next in line for promotion, they might find themselves as acting-lieutenants before Destiny’s cooks relit their fires.
Palliser scrutinized the island carefully. “Terrible place.” He returned the glass to Henderson and said, “Aloft with you. I want to be told the moment Garrick tries to leave the lagoon.”
Bolitho watched the midshipman swarming up the ratlines. It was getting lighter rapidly. He could even see the boatswain’s topchains which he had slung on each yard, the additional tackles and lines hauled up to the fighting- tops for urgent repairs when needed.
He asked, “You believe it is today, sir?”
Palliser smiled grimly. “The captain is certain. That’s enough for me. And Garrick will know it is his only chance. To fight and win, to get away before the squadron sends support.”
Vague figures moved about the upper deck and between the guns. Those black muzzles, now damp with spray and a night mist, would soon be too hot to touch.
Petty officers were already discussing last-moment changes to crews, to replace those who had died or were on their way to safety aboard the captured schooner.
Lieutenant Colpoys was right aft by the taffrail with his sergeant as seamen trooped along the gangways to pack the hammocks tightly in the nettings as protection for those who shared the quarterdeck in times like these. An exposed, dangerous place, vital to any ship, an aiming-point for marksmen and the deadly swivelguns.
Midshipman Jury took a message at the quarterdeck ladder and reported, “Galley fires doused, sir.”
He looked very young and clean, Bolitho thought, as if he had taken great care over his dress and bearing.
He smiled. “A fine day for it.”
Jury looked up at the masthead, searching for Henderson. “We have the agility if nothing else, sir.”
Bolitho glanced at him, but saw himself just a year or so back. “That’s very true.” It was pointless to add that the wind was only a breeze. To tack and wear with speed you required the sails drawing well. Wind and canvas were the stuff of a frigate.
Rhodes climbed up to the quarterdeck and glanced curiously at the smudge of land beyond the bowsprit. He was wearing his best sword, one which had belonged to his father. Bolitho thought of the old sword which his father wore. It appeared in most of the portraits of the Bolitho family at Falmouth. It was destined to be Hugh’s one day,
