lace!' Allday eyed him angrily. 'I know. He does, too. He also knows we are depending on himtoday, andthatmeans seeinghim.' Mudge shook his head. 'Mad. You're all mad!'
'Deck there! Schooner fine on th' weather bow!' Keen called, 'Hoist the signal to recall her!'
Allday was standing with his arms folded, his eyes on the spreading carpet of early light as it reached towards the islands. 'Mr. Herrick won't see it.'
Davy glared at him. 'It will be light enough very soon now.' 'I know, sir.' Allday looked at him sadly. 'But he'll not see it.
Not Mr. Herrick.'
Without furniture or fittings the cabin felt strangely hostile, like an empty house which mourns a lost master and awaits another. Bolitho stoodbythe shuttered stern windows, his arms limp at his sides, while Noddall clucked around him and patted the heavy dress coat into position. Like the boat cloak, it had been made by a good London tailor with some of his prize-money.
Through the wide gap left by the screens, which had now been bolted to the deckhead, he could see straight out along the gun deck, the shapes and restless figures still only shadows in the frail light. Even here, in the cabin where he had found peace in solitude, or had sat with Viola Raymond, or shared a pipe with Herrick, there was no escape. The chintz covers had gone from the twelve-pounders and had followed the furniture to a safer stowage below the waterline, and by the guns on either beam the crews stood awkwardly, like unfinished statuary, conscious of his presence, wanting to watch him as he completed dressing, yet still held apart by the rigidity of their calling.
Bolitho cocked his head to listen to the rudder as it growled and pounded in response to the helm. The wind was fresher, heeling the ship over and holding it so. He saw the nearest gun captain checking his firing lanyard and noted how his body was angled to the deck.
Noddall was muttering, 'More like it, sir. Much more like it.' He said it fervently, as if repeating a prayer. 'Cap'n Stewart was always most particular, afore a fight.'
Bolitho wrenched his mind back from his doubts and misgivings. Stewart? Then he remembered. Undine's last captain. Had he felt the same, too, he wondered?
Feet stamped over the deck above, and he heard someone shouting.
He snapped, 'That will have to suffice.'
He snatched up his hat and sword and then paused to pat Noddall's bony shoulder. He looked so small, with his hands held in front of him like paws, that he felt sudden compassion for him.
'Take care, Noddall. Stay down when the iron begins to fly. You're no fighting man, eh?'
He was shocked to see Noddall bobbing his head and tears running down his face.
In a small, broken voice he said, 'Thankee, Cap'n!' He did not hide his gratitude. 'I couldn't face another battle. An' I'd not want to let you down, sir.'
Bolitho pushed past and hurried to the ladder. He had always taken him for granted. The little man who fussed over his table and darned his shirts. Content in his own small world. It had never occurred to him that he was terrified each time the ship cleared for action.
He ran up the last steps and saw Davy and Keen with telescopes trained towards the bows.
'What is the matter?'
Davy turned, and then stared at him. He swallowed hard, his eyes still on Bolitho's gold-laced coat.
'Schooner has not acknowledged, sir!'
Bolitho looked from him to the streaming flags, now bright against the dull topsails.
'Are you sure?'
Mudge growled, 'Yer cox'n seems to think she won't neither, sir.'
Bolitho ignored him, his eyes exploring the spread of land across the bows. Still lost in deep shadow, with only an occasional lip of light to betray the dawn. But the schooner was clear enough. Indirect line with Undine's plunging jib-boom, her canvas looked almost white against the cliffs and ragged hills.
Herrick must have seen the recall. He would have been anticipating it as soon as the wind veered. He peered up at the masthead pendant. God, how the wind had gone round. It must be west-south-west.
He shouted, 'Hands aloft, Mr. Davy! Get the t'gallants on her!'
He swung round, seeing them all. in those brief seconds. Mudge's doubts. Carwithen behind him, his lips compressed into a thin line. The helmsmen, the bare-backed gun crews, Keen with his signal party.
The calls shrilled, and shadows darted up the ratlines on either beam as the topmen hurried to set more canvas.
Davy shouted, 'Maybe Mr. Herrick intends to go ahead with the plan, sir!'
Bolitho looked at Allday, saw the way he was watching the schooner.
He said quietly, 'It would seem so, Mr. Davy.'
Under a heavier press of sail Undine thrust her shoulder into the creaming water with added urgency, the spray hurling itself above the forecastle and nettings in long spectres of foam. The hull shook and groaned to the pressure, and when he peered aloft Bolitho saw the upper yards bending forward to the wind. From the peak the ensign was clearly visible, like the marines' tunics as they stood in swaying lines by the hammock nettings, or knelt in the tops by their muskets and swivels. Like blood.
He heard himself say, 'Repeat the signal, Mr. Keen!' He barely recognised his own voice.
Soames stood on the breech of a twelve-pounder, gripping the gangway with both hands as he stared towards the land.
Then he looked aft at Bolitho and gave a brief shrug. In his mind, Herrick was already dead.
Keen said huskily, 'It will not work! The wind'll carry the schooner clear! At best she'll explode in the centre of the channel!'
Penn shrilled from the gun deck. 'I heard a trumpet!'
Bolitho wiped his eyes, feeling the salt, raw and smarting. A trumpet. Some sentry on the fortress had left the protection of the wall to look seaward. He would see the schooner immediately, and Undine within the next few minutes.
The sea noises seemed louder than ever, with every piece of rigging and canvas banging and vibrating in chorus as the ship drove headlong towards the land, and the pale arrowhead which marked the entrance to the channel.
A dull bang echoed across the water, and a man yelled, 'They've opened fire, sirl'
Bolitho reached out for a telescope, seeing the grim faces of the seamen by the nearest guns. Waiting, behind closed ports. Hoping. Dreading.
He trained the glass with difficulty, his legs well braced on the swaying, slippery planking. He saw the schooner's masts swim past the lens, the patch of scarlet which had not been there before. He felt himself smiling, although he wanted to weep, to plead unheard words across those two miles of tossing white-horses. Herrick had hoisted his own ensign. To him, the schooner was not merely a floating bomb, she was a ship, his ship. Or perhaps he was trying, with that one simple gesture, to explain to Bolitho, too. To show he understood.
Another bang, and this time he saw the smoke from the battery before it was whisked away. A feather of spray lifted well out beyond the schooner to mark where the massive ball had fallen.
He kept his glass on the schooner. He saw the way the deck was leaning over, showing the bilges above the leaping spray, and knew Herrick could not lash the tiller for the final, and most dangerous, part of the journey.
Davy yelled, 'That ball was over, sir!'
Bolitho lowered the glass, Davy's words reaching through his anxiety. The fortress lookout must have sighted Undine and not Herrick's little schooner. And by the time Muljadi's men had realised what was happening, Herrick had tacked too close inshore for the gunners to depress their muzzles sufficiently to hit him.
He looked again as a double explosion shuddered across the water. He saw the flashes only briefly, but watched the twin waterspouts burst skyward directly in line with the schooner, but on the seaward side of her.
Captain Bellairs forgot his usual calm and gripped the sergeant's arm and shouted, 'By God, Sar'nt Coaker, he's goin' to sail her aground himself!'
It took a few more seconds before the truth filtered the length and breadth of the frigate's decks.
Then, as the word moved gun by gun towards the bows, men stood and yelled like maniacs, waving their neckerchiefs, or capering on the sanded decks like children. From the tops and the forecastle others joined, and
