Bolitho's quarters already. It only added to Herrick's sense of nightmarish unreality.
Vibart looked up from the desk and stared at him.
`Two men for punishment.' Herrick saw Okes leaning against the stern windows, his face lost in thought.
Vibart leaned back in the chair. `Say 'sir' when you address me, Mr. Herrick.' He frowned. 'I can't imagine why you make such a point of worsening your positon?' He continued coldly, `Make a report in the log, Mr. Herrick. Punishment at eight bells tomorrow morning. Two dozen lashes apiece.'
Herrick swallowed. `But I have not told you their offence yet, sir!'
'No need.' Vibart gestured towards the open skylight. 'I happened to overhear your nonsensical conversation with Mr. Evans just now. And I must warn you I do not approve of your apparent wish to toady with men who lie and steal!'
Herrick felt the cabin closing in around him. 'Is that all?' He swallowed again. `Sir?'
`For the present.' Vibart looked almost relaxed. 'We will alter course to the south'rd in one hour. Try and make sure that the men do not slacken off during your watch.'
'Aye, aye, sir.' Herrick contracted his stomach muscles into a tight knot.
Outside the cabin he turned momentarily and looked back. The door was shut again and the marine sentry stared blankly in front of him beneath the swinging lantern. It was just as if Pomfret had returned and now sat back there in the big cabin. Herrick shook his head and mounted the ladder to the quarterdeck. It was all moving so much to a pattern again that he found himself wondering if Pomfret had been the controlling influence which had made the Phalarope into a living hell!
When he returned to the deck he saw that the sun had already moved closer to the horizon. The sea was empty, a great desert of silver and purple hues, with an horizon like a knife edge.
Out here a ship's captain was God indeed, he thought bitterly. Only under Bolitho had he felt the meaning of purpose and understanding, and after Pomfret it had seemed like a new chance of life.
He looked aft to the taffrail as if expecting to see Bolitho's tall shape watching the trim of the sails or just waiting for the sun to reach the horizon. Herrick had never disturbed Bolitho at those moments, but had drawn on each occasion to better his own understanding of the man. In his mind's eye he could still see the strong profile, the firm mouth which could be amused and sad almost at the same instant. It did not seem possible that such a man could be wiped out like something from a slate.
He resumed his slow pacing, his chin low on his chest. In this world, he thought, you could never depend on anything.
To the tired men in the longboat the night seemed cold and cheerless, and even those who had cursed the blazing sunlight and bemoaned their urgent thirst found no comfort from the darkness.
Bolitho groped his way aft to where Farquhar was sitting beside the tiller. With Stockdale's assistance. he had just dropped a dead seaman over the side while the other men had watched in silence. The sailor in question had been spared the worst of his wound and the suffering of pain and thirst by remaining almost unconscious from the moment he had been shot down by the sloop's deck watch. The longboat was moving so slowly under her small sail that it seemed to take an age for the corpse to bob astern. There was not even an anchor to weight the man's body. In fact there was not much of anything. Just a cask of rancid water and little more than a day's ration of a cup per man.
Bolitho sank into the sternsheets and stared up at the glittering ceiling of stars. `Keep her due south if you can.' He felt dry and aching with fatigue. 'I wish we could get a bit more wind in this wretched sail.'
Farquhar said, 'I think the boat would sink, sir! It feels rotten and worm-eaten!'
Bolitho eased his legs and thought back over the long, slow passage of time. If that was only the first day, he pondered, what would happen in the next? And the next after that?
The men were quiet enough, but that Too could be dangerous. The first relief at escaping from the French could soon give way to mistrust and recriminations. The misery of being a prisoner of war might soon appear comfort itself compared with a living death without food or water.
Farquhar said absently, 'In Hampshire there will be snow on the hills now, I expect. All the sheep will be brought down to their feed, and the farm workers will be drinking good ale by their firesides.' He licked his lips. 'A few will be thinking of us maybe.'
Bolitho nodded, feeling his eyelids droop. 'A few.' He thought of his father in the big house and the row of watchful portraits. After this there would be no heir to carry on the family's name, he thought dully. Maybe some rich merchant would buy the house when his father died, and would find time to wonder at the portraits and the other relics of deeds and men soon forgotten. He said, 'I am going -to try and sleep for an hour. Call me if you need anything.'
He closed his eyes and did not even hear Farquhar's reply.
Then he was aware of his arm being tugged and of the boat swaying and rolling as the listless seamen came to life and crowded excitedly in the bows. For a moment longer he imagined that he was dreaming. Then he heard Farquhar shout, 'Look sir! She came to look for us after all!'
Bolitho staggered to his feet, his sore eyes. probing over the heads of his men as he tried to pierce the darkness. Then he saw.it. It was more an absence of familiar stars than an actual outline, but as he stared he began to see the contours of something darker and sharper. A ship.
He snapped, 'Make a light, Stockdale! Fire some of those rags!'
The sliver of moon struck silver from the distant sails, and against the night's dark backcloth Bolitho could see the darker tracery of raked masts and rigging. It was a frigate right enough.
The makeshift flare sizzled and then burst into flames, so that once more the eyes were blinded and limited to the small confines of the boat. Some men were cheering, others merely hugged each other and grinned like children.
'Now we shall get an answer to the mystery, Mr. Farquhar.' Bolitho pushed the tiller over as the ship changed shape and moved silently above them. He could hear the creak of yards, the sudden flurry of canvas as the frigate started to back her sails and heave to. He thought he heard a distant hail and the sound of running feet.
He said, 'Lower the sail, Stoekdale! You men forrard, get ready to catch a line!' But nobody needed any encouragement
from him.
The bowsprit swung dizzily barely feet away, and as Stockdale lit another crude flare Bolitho felt the grip of ice around his heart. The frigate's figurehead danced and flickered in the light as if it was- alive. A gilt-painted- demon wielding a pair of furnace irons like weapons of war.
Stockdale threw the flare into the water and turned to, stare at Bolitho. `Did you see, sir? Did you see?'
Bolitho let his arm go limp. 'Yes, Stockdale. It is the Andiron!'
The cheers and jubilation in the longboat died as suddenly as the flare, and the men stood or sat like stricken beings as lanterns shone down from the frigate's deck and a grapnel bit into the boat's gunwale.
His men stood aside to let Bolitho pass as he made his way to the bows and reached out for the dangling ladder which bad suddenly appeared. He was still too fatigued and too stunned by the change of events to mark a clear sequence of what was happening. His mind would only record brief, unreal images, magnified and distorted by patches of light from the circle of lanterns. Glittering bayonets, and pressing, curious faces.
As he stepped into the lamplight he heard a mixture of gasps and comments. An Irish voice called, 'It's an English officer!' Another with a twangy colonial accent broke in. 'Hell it is! It's a captain!'
One by one the Phalarope's men climbed up the side and were pushed into line against the ship's gangway. An officer in a dark coat and cocked hat pushed through the packed crowd and regarded Bolitho with amusement.
'Welcome aboard, Cap'n! A real pleasure!' He turned and shouted, 'Put the men under guard and drop a round shot through that coffin of a boat!' To a massive Negro he added, 'Separate any officers amongst them and take 'em aft!' Then to Bolitho he made a mock bow. 'Now if you will come with me, I am sure the captain will be glad to make your acquaintance.'
Even in the uncertain light of the lanterns Bolitho was able to distinguish the old, familiar details of the privateer's maindeck. He recalled with sudden clarity the last time he had visited the ship to see his friend Captain Masterman, a grave but friendly officer, who unlike many of his contemporaries had always been willing to share his knowledge and experience, and pleased to answer Bolitho's constant stream of questions.
The memory helped to drive back some of the gnawing despair, so that he automatically straightened his shoulders and was able to feel some bitter satisfaction at the scars and crudely repaired damage left from the
