'Be off with you now. My regards to your father when next you see hiss.' He turned away and moved aft towards the compass.
Bolitho touched his hat to the quarterdeck, and clutching his hanger to his hip hurried down into the boat.
The oars dipped into the water, and immediately Trojan fell away, the men on the gangways turning to continue with their work while others ran up the ratlines to loose the topsails again.
Couzens stared back at the ship, his eyes watering in the wind. It looked as if he was crying. Unknown to Bolitho, it was the happiest day in the midshipman's short life.
Bolitho raised his hand, and saw Cairns doing the same. Of Pears there was no sign. Like the Trojan, he was letting go.
Bolitho turned his back and studied the White Hills. His for
so short a time. But his.
As Bunce had predicted, the wind rose rapidly to gale force, and with it the sea changed its face from cruising white horses to long, violent troughs with ragged yellow crests.
The prize-crew got down to work in grim earnest, bringing the ship's head to the south as the wind backed and pushed them hard over, the yards braced round until they would not shift another inch.
Bolitho discarded his hat and coat and stood beside the unprotected wheel, his ears ringing to the roar of wind and sea, his whole body soaking with spray.
It was lucky the White Hills carried a spare main-topsail, he thought. The one which had been torn apart by Trojan's first shot had been saved for patching but was useless for anything more.
Under reefed topsails and jib, the White Hills ran closehauled to the south, away from the islands and danger.
Quinn, stiff-faced and barely speaking, worked with the hands on deck, and without him Bolitho wondered what he would have done. Couzens had the determination and loyalty of ten men, but experience in handling rigging and sails in a full gale he had not.
Stockdale came aft and joined the two hands at the wheel. Like Bolitho he was drenched to the skin, his clothing stained by tar and salt. He grinned through the drifting streamers of spindrift and bobbed his head at Bolitho.
'Real little lady, ain't she?'
For most of the day they ran with the wind, but towards sunset the strength fell away, and later still the bruised and breathless seamen managed to get aloft and set both mainsail and forecourse. The additional bulging area of canvas pushed the hull over further still, but held her steadier, and more firmly on course.
Bolitho shouted to Quinn, 'Take over! I'm going below!'
After the noise and confusion on deck it seemed almost quiet once he had lowered himself through the companionway.
How small she seemed after Trojan's great girth. He groped his way aft to the cabin, a miniature of Pears' quarters. It was barely large enough to contain Pears' table, he thought. But it looked inviting, and too new to show signs of a previous owner.
He reeled as the sea boiled and thundered along the quarter, and then managed to reach the stern windows. There was nowhere in the cabin, apart from a battened-down skylight, where he could stand upright. What it was like in the messes, he could well imagine. As a midshipman he had once served in a brig very similar to this one. Fast, lively, and never still.
He wondered what had happened to Tracy's other command, the captured brig which he had renamed Revenge. Still attacking British convoys and stalking rich cargoes for ready prizemoney.
The cabin door banged open and Moffitt lurched through it carrying a jug of rum.
He said, 'Mr Frowd thought you might like a drop, sir.'
Bolitho disliked rum, but he needed something. He swallowed it in a gulp, almost choking.
'Mr Frowd, is he all right?' He must visit him soon, but now he was needed and would have to return to the deck.
Moffitt took the empty goblet and grinned at it admiringly. 'Aye, sir. I've got him propped in a cot in his cabin. He'll be safe enough.'
'Good. Get Buller for me.'
Bolitho lay back, feeling the stern rising and then sliding down beneath him, the sea shaking the rudder like a piece of driftwood.
Buller came into the cabin, his head lowered to avoid the beams.
'Zur?'
'You take charge of the victuals. Find someone who can cook. If the wind drops some more we'll get the galley fire re-lit and put something hot into our bellies.'
Buller showed his strong teeth. 'Right away, zur.' Then he too was gone.
Bolitho sighed, the aroma of rum around him like a drug. Chain of command. And he must begin it. No one else was here to goad or encourage his efforts.
His head lolled and he jerked it up with sudden disgust. Like George Probyn. That was a fine beginning. He jumped up and gasped as his head crashed against a beam. But it sobered him even more quickly.
He made his way forward, swaying and feeling his balance with each jubilant lunge of the brig's bowsprit.
Tiny cabins on either side of a small, square space. The wardroom. Stores, and shot garlands, swaying ranks of pod-like hammocks. The ship smelt new, right down to her mess tables, her great coils of stout cable in the tier forward.
He found the wounded Tracy in a cot, swinging in a tiny cabin which was still unfinished. A red-eyed seaman sat in one corner, a pistol between his feet.
Politho peered at the figure in the cot. About thirty, a powerful, hard-faced man, who despite his terrible wound and loss of blood still looked very much alive. But with his arm torn off at the point of the shoulder he would not be much trouble.
He glanced at the sentry and said, 'Watch him, all the same.'
The other wounded men were quiet enough, bandaged, and cushioned from the fierce motion by spare hammocks, blankets and clothing from the brig's store.
Ire paused by a wildly swinging lantern, feeling their pain, their lack of understanding. Again, he was ashamed for thinking of his own reward. They on the other hand knew only that they were being carried away from their ship, which good or bad, had been their home. And to where? Some home-bound vessel, and then what? Put ashore, just another cluster of crippled sailors. Heroes to some, figures of fun to others.
'There'll be some hot food along soon, lads.'
A few heads turned to look at him. One man he recognized as Gallimore, a seaman employed as a painter aboard the Trojan. He had been badly injured by canister during the attack on the yawl. He had lost most of his right hand, and had been hit in the face by wood splinters.
He managed to whisper, 'Where we goin', sir?'
Bolitho knelt down on the deck beside him. The man was dying. He did not know how he knew, or why. Others nearby were more badly hurt, yet bore their pain with defiant, even surly resignation. They would survive.
He said, 'English Harbour. The surgeons there will help you. You'll see.'
The man reached out, seeking Bolitho's hand. 'Oi don't want to die, sir. Oi got a wife an' children in Plymouth.' He tried to shake his head. 'Oi mustn't die, sir.'
Bolitho felt a catch in his throat. Plymouth. It might just as well be Russia.
'Rest easy, Gallimore.' lire withdrew his hand carefully. 'You are with your friends.'
He walked aft again to the companionway, bent almost double in the space between decks.
The wind and spray were almost welcome. He found Couzens with Stockdale by the wheel, while Quinn was groping along the forecastle with two seamen.
Stockdale said gruffly, 'All 'oldin' firm, sir. Mr Quinn is lookin' at the weather braces.' He peered up at the dark sky. 'Wind's backed a piece more. Fallin' off, too.'
The bows lifted towards the sky, then came down in a trough with a shuddering lurch. It was enough to hurl a man from the yards, had there been one up there.
Stockdale muttered, 'Must be bad for the lads below, sir.'
Bolitho nodded. 'Gallimore's dying, I think.'
