Bolitho found himself sitting on the edge of his chair. This strange man gripped his attention like a vice. His eyes, set wide apart, equally compelling, insistent.
Bolitho nodded. “Yes, sir. I do.”
Dumaresq looked up as two bells chimed out from forward.
“Go and have your meal. I’ve no doubt you’re hungry. Mr Palliser’s crafty schemes for recruiting new hands usually bring an appetite if nothing more.”
As Bolitho rose to his feet Dumaresq added quietly, “This voyage will be important to a lot of people. Our midshipmen are mostly from influential parents who are eager to see they get a chance to distinguish themselves when most of the fleet is rotting or laid up in-ordinary. Our professional warrant officers are excellent, and there is a strong backbone of prime seamen. The rest will learn. One last thing, Mr Bolitho, and I trust I will not have to repeat it. In Destiny, loyalty is paramount. To me, to this ship, and to His Britannic Majesty, in that order! ”
Bolitho found himself outside the screen door, his senses still reeling from the brief interview.
Poad was hovering nearby, bobbing excitedly. “All done, sir? I’ve ’ad yer gear stowed where it’ll be safe, just like you ordered.” He led the way to the wardroom. “I managed to ’old up the meal ’til you was ready, sir.”
Bolitho stepped into the wardroom and, unlike the last time, the place was noisy with chatter and seemingly full of people.
Palliser stood up and said abruptly, “Our new member, gentlemen!”
Bolitho saw Rhodes grinning at him and was glad of his friendly face.
He shook hands and murmured what he hoped was the right thing. The sailing master, Julius Gulliver, was exactly as Rhodes had described him, ill at ease, almost furtive. John Colpoys, the lieutenant who commanded the ship’s marine contingent, made a splash of scarlet as he shook Bolitho’s hand and drawled, “Charmed, m’dear fellah.”
The surgeon was round and jolly-looking, like an untidy owl, with a rich aroma of brandy and tobacco. There was Samuel Codd, the purser, unusually cheerful for one of his trade, Bolitho thought, and certainly no subject for a portrait. He had very large upper teeth and a tiny receding chin, so that it looked as if half of his face was successfully devouring the other.
Colpoys said, “I hope you can play cards.”
Rhodes smiled. “Give him a chance.” To Bolitho he said, “He’ll have the shirt off your back if you let him.”
Bolitho sat down at the table next to the surgeon. The latter placed some gold-rimmed glasses on his nose. They looked completely lost above his red cheeks.
He said, “Pork pie. A sure sign we are soon to leave here. After that”-he glanced at the purser-“we will be back to meat from Samuel’s stores, most of it condemned some twenty years ago, I daresay.”
Glasses clinked, and the air became heady with steam and the smell of food.
Bolitho looked along the table. So this was what wardroom officers were like when out of sight of their subordinates.
Rhodes whispered, “What did you make of him?”
“The captain?” Bolitho thought about it, trying to keep his memories in their proper order. “I was impressed. He is so, so…”
Rhodes beckoned Poad to bring the wine jug. “Ugly?”
Bolitho smiled. “Different. A bit frightening.”
Palliser’s voice cut through the conversation. “You will inspect the ship when you have eaten, Richard. Truck to keel, fo’c’sle to taffrail. What you cannot understand, ask me. Meet as many of the junior warrant officers as you can, and memorize your own divisional list.” He dropped one eyelid to the marine but not quickly enough for Bolitho to miss it. “I am certain he will wish to see that his men measure up to those he so skilfully brought us today.”
Bolitho looked down as a plate was thrust before him. There was little of the actual plate left visible around the pile of food.
Palliser had called him by his first name, had even made a casual joke about the volunteers. So these were the real men behind the stiff attitudes and the chain of command on the upper deck.
He raised his eyes and glanced along the table. Given a chance he would be happy amongst them, he thought.
Rhodes said between mouthfuls, “I’ve heard we’re sailing on Monday’s tide. A fellow from the port admiral’s office was aboard yesterday. He is usually right.”
Bolitho tried to remember what the captain had said. Loyalty. Shelve all else until there was time for it, when it could do no damage. Dumaresq had almost echoed his mother’s last words to him. The sea is no place for the unwary.
Feet clattered overhead, and Bolitho heard more heavy nets of stores being swayed inboard to the twitter of a call.
Away from the land again, from the hurt, the sense of loss. Yes, it would be good to go.
True to Lieutenant Rhodes’ information, His Britannic Majesty’s Ship Destiny of twenty-eight guns made ready to weigh anchor on the following Monday morning. The past few days had gone so swiftly for Bolitho he thought life might be quieter at sea than it had been in harbour. Palliser had kept him working watch-on, watch-off with hardly a break. The first lieutenant took nothing at face value and made a point of questioning Bolitho on his daily work, his opinions and suggestions for changing some of the men around on the watch and quarter bills. If he was swift with his sarcasm, Palliser was equally quick to put his subordinate’s ideas to good use.
Bolitho often thought of Rhodes ’ words about the first lieutenant. After a command of his own. He would certainly do his best for the ship and her captain, and be doubly quick to stamp on any incompetence which might eventually be laid at his door.
And Bolitho had worked hard to know the men he would deal with directly. Unlike the great ships of the line, a frigate’s survival depended on her agility and not the thickness of her timbers. Likewise, her company was divided into divisions where they could work with the best results for the ship’s benefit.
The foremast, with all its spread of canvas, course and topsails, topgallants and royals, with the additional foresails, jib and flying jib provided the means to turn with haste, through the wind’s eye if need be, or to luff and cut across an enemy’s vulnerable stern. At the opposite end of the ship the helmsmen and sailing master would use each mast, each scrap of canvas, to lay the vessel on the course required with the least need for manoeuvre.
Bolitho was in charge of the mainmast. The tallest in the ship, it too was graded like the men who would soon be swarming aloft when ordered, no matter how they felt or what the weather threw against them.
The nimble topmen were the cream of the company, while on the deck itself, working at braces and halliards and manning the capstan bars, were the landmen, the newly recruited, or old sailors who could no longer be expected to fight salt-hardened canvas a hundred feet and more above the hull.
Rhodes had the fore, while a master’s mate took charge of the mizzen-mast, supposedly the easiest one in any ship with its limited sail plan and where bodily strength was the first requirement. The afterguard, marines and a handful of seamen were sufficient to attend the mizzen.
Bolitho made a point of meeting the boatswain, a formidablelooking man named Timbrell. Tall, weatherbeaten and scarred like an ancient warrior, he was the king of the vessel’s seamen. Once clear of the land, Timbrell would work under the first lieutenant to rectify storm damage, repair spars and rigging, maintain the paintwork, ensure all the seams were free of leaks, and generally keep an eye on the professionals who would carry out those needs.
The carpenter and his crew, the cooper and the sailmaker, the ropemaker and all the rest.
A seaman to his fingertips, he was a good friend to a new officer, but could be a bad enemy if provoked.
This particular Monday morning had begun early, before daybreak. With the cook providing a hasty meal, as if he too was conscious of the need to get under way.
Lists were checked yet again, names to match voices, faces to put into jobs where they belonged. To a landsman it would have looked like chaos, with lines snaking across the decks, men working aloft astride the great yards as they loosened the sails, hardened overnight by an unexpected frost.
Bolitho had seen the captain come on deck several times. Speaking with Palliser or discussing something with Gulliver, the master. If he was anxious he did not show it, but strode around the quarterdeck with his sure-footed tread like a man thinking of something else beyond the ship.
The officers and warrant officers had changed into their faded sea-going uniforms, so that only Bolitho and most of the young midshipmen looked alien in their new coats and shining buttons.
