Bolitho had received two letters from his mother, both together from the Falmouth Mail. He could picture her as he had last seen her. So frail, and so lovely. The lady who had never grown up, some local people said. The Scottish girl who had captivated Captain James Bolitho from their first meeting. She was really too frail to carry the weight of the house and the estate. With his elder brother Hugh at sea somewhere, back aboard his frigate after a short period in command of the revenue cutter Avenger at Falmouth, and their father not yet home, the burden would seem doubly hard. His grown-up sister Felicity had already left home to marry an army officer, while the youngest in the family, Nancy, should have been thinking of a coming marriage of her own.
Bolitho crossed to the gangway where the hands were stowing
the hammocks brought up from below. Poor Nancy, she would be missing Bolitho’s dead friend more than anyone, and with nothing to keep her mind free of her loss.
Someone stood beside him and he turned to see the surgeon peering at the shore. The time he had found to speak with the rotund surgeon had been well spent. Another strange member in their company. Ship’s surgeons, in Bolitho’s experience, had been of the poorest quality, butchers for the most part, and their bloody work with knife and saw was as feared by sailors as any enemy broadside.
But Henry Bulkley was a world apart. He had been in a comfortable living in London, at a prestigious address where his clients had been wealthy but demanding.
Bulkley had explained to Bolitho during the quiet of a dog-watch, “I got to hate the tyranny of the sick, the selfishness of people who are only content if they are ill. I came to sea to escape. Now I repair and do not have to waste my time on those too rich to know their own bodies. I am as much a specialist as Mr Vallance, our gunner, or the carpenter, and I share their work in my own way. Or poor Codd, the purser, who frets over each mile logged and sets it against his stores of cheese and salt beef, candles and slop clothing.”
He had smiled contentedly. “And I enjoy the pleasure of seeing other lands. I have sailed with Captain Dumaresq for three years. He, of course, is never sick. He would not permit it to happen!”
Bolitho said, “It is a strange feeling to leave like this. To an unknown destination, a landfall which only the captain and two or three others may know. No war, yet we sail ready to fight.”
He saw the big man called Stockdale mustering in line with the other seamen around the trunk of the mainmast.
The surgeon followed his glance and observed, “I heard something of what happened ashore. You have made a firm convert in that one. My God, he looks like an oak. I say that Little must have tripped him to win his money.” He shot a glance at Bolitho’s profile. “Unless he wanted to come with you? To escape from something, like most of us, eh?”
Bolitho smiled. Bulkley did not know the half of it. Stockdale had been allotted to the mizzen-mast for sail drill, and the quarterdeck six-pounders when the ship cleared for action. It was all in writing and signed with Palliser’s slashing signature.
But somehow Stockdale had managed to alter things. Here he was in Bolitho’s division, and would be stationed on the starboard battery of twelve-pounders which were in Bolitho’s charge.
A quarter-boat pulled strongly from the shoreline, all the others having been hoisted inboard on their tier before the first cock had even considered crowing.
The last link with the land. Dumaresq’s final letters and despatches for the courier. Eventually they would end up on somebody’s desk at the Admiralty. A note would be passed to the First Sea Lord, a mark might be made on one of the great charts there. A small ship leaving under sealed orders. It was nothing new, only the times had changed.
Palliser strode to the quarterdeck rail, his speaking-trumpet beneath his arm, his head darting around like a bird of prey seeking the next victim.
Bolitho looked up at the mainmast truck and was just able to discern the long red masthead pendant as it snapped out towards the quarter. A north-westerly wind. Dumaresq would need at least that to work clear of the anchorage. Never easy at the best of times, and after three months without sea-going activity, it would only require some forgetful seaman or petty officer to relay the wrong order and a proud exit might become a shambles in minutes.
Palliser called, “All officers lay aft, if you please.” He sounded irritable, and was obviously conscious of the importance of the moment.
Bolitho joined Rhodes and Colpoys on the quarterdeck, while the master and the surgeon hovered slightly in the background like intruders.
Palliser said, “We shall weigh in half an hour. Take up your stations, and watch every man. Tell the boatswain’s mates to start anyone shirking his work, and take the name of each malingerer for punishment.” He glanced at Bolitho curiously. “I have put that Stockdale man with you. I am uncertain as to why, but he seemed to feel it was his place. You must have some special gift, Mr Bolitho, though for the life of me I cannot see it!”
They touched their hats and walked away to their various stations.
Palliser’s voice followed them, hollow and insistent through the speaking-trumpet.
“Mr Timbrell! Ten more hands on the capstan! Where is that damn shantyman?”
The trumpet swivelled round like a coachman’s blunderbuss. “Hell’s teeth, Mr Rhodes, I want the anchor hove short this morning, not next week! ”
Clink, clink, clink, the pawls on the capstan moved reluctantly as the men threw themselves on the bars. Whippings and lashings had been cast off from the various coils of halliards and other running rigging, and while the officers and midshipmen were placed at intervals along the decks, like blue and white islets amongst a moving tide of seamen, the ship seemed to come alive, as if she too was aware of the time.
Bolitho darted a glance at the land. No more sun, and a light drizzle had begun to patter across the water, touching the ship and making the waiting men shiver and stamp their bare feet.
Little was whispering fiercely to two of the new seamen, his big hands stabbing out like spades as he made some point or other. He saw Bolitho and sighed.
“Gawd, sir, they’re like blocks o’ wood!”
Bolitho watched his two midshipmen and wondered how he should break the barrier which had sprung up as he had appeared on deck. He had spoken only briefly to them the previous day. Destiny was the first ship to both of them, as she was to all but two of the ‘young gentlemen’. Peter Merrett was so small he seemed unable to find a place amidst the straining ropes and panting, thrusting seamen. He was twelve years old, the son of a prominent Exeter lawyer, who in turn was the brother of an admiral. A formidable combination. Much later on, if he lived, little Merrett might use such influence to his own advantage, and at the cost of others. But now, shivering and not a little frightened, he looked the picture of misery. The other one was Ian Jury, a fourteen-year-old youth from Weymouth. Jury’s father had been a distinguished sea officer but had died in a shipwreck when Ian had still been a child. To the dead captain’s relatives the Navy must have seemed the obvious place for Jury. It would also save them a great deal of trouble.
Bolitho nodded to them.
Jury was tall for his age, a pleasant-faced youth with fair hair and a barely controlled excitement.
Jury was the first to speak. “Do we know where we are bound, sir?”
Bolitho studied him gravely. Under four years between them. Jury was not really like his dead friend, but the hair was similar.
He cursed himself for his brooding and replied, “We shall know soon enough.” His voice came out more sharply than he had intended and he said, “It is a well-kept secret as far as I am concerned.”
Jury watched him, his eyes curious. Bolitho knew what he was thinking, all the things he wanted to ask, to know, to discover in his new, demanding world. As he had once been himself.
Bolitho said, “I shall want you to go aloft to the maintop, Mr Jury, and watch over the hands as they work. You, Mr Merrett, will remain with me to pass messages forrard or aft as need be.”
He smiled as their eyes explored the towering criss-cross of shrouds and rigging, the great main-yard and those above it reaching out on either beam like huge long-bows.
The two senior midshipmen, Henderson and Cowdroy, were aft by the mizzen, while the remaining pair were assisting Rhodes by the foremast.
Stockdale happened to be nearby and wheezed, “Good mornin’ for it, sir.”
Bolitho smiled at his haltered features. “No regrets, Stockdale?”
The big man shook his head. “Nah. I needs a change. This will do me.”
