hear where his friend had gone. It needed no words.
The soldier faced the coachman and his companion and held out his hand. It was neither arrogant nor servile, and strangely moving. The coachman hesitated and then fumbled inside his heavy coat.
At that moment another figure ran lightly down some steps and wrenched open the coach door. He was well attired against the cold, and the buckles on his shoes held the watery sunlight like diamonds. He stared at the soldier and then snapped angrily at his coachman. The servant ran to the horses' heads, and within seconds the coach was clattering away into the busy press of carriages and carts. The soldier stood staring after it and then gave a weary shrug. He returned to his companion, and with linked arms they moved slowly around the next corner.
Bolitho struggled with the window catch, but it was stuck fast, his mind reeling with anger and shame at what he had just seen.
A voice asked, 'May I help, sir?' It was the messenger again.
Bolitho replied, 'I was going to throw some coins to two crippled soldiers.' He broke off, seeing the mild astonishment in the messenger's eyes.
The man said, 'Bless you, sir, you'd get used to such sights in London.'
'Not me.'
'I was going to tell you, sir, that Sir John will see you now.'
Bolitho followed him into the passageway again, conscious of the sudden dryness in his throat. He remembered so clearly his last visit here, a month ago almost to the day. And that time he had been summoned by letter, and not left fretting and fuming in a waiting-room. It had seemed like a dream, an incredible stroke of good fortune. It still did, despite all the difficulties which had been crammed into so short a time.
He was to assume command immediately of His Britannic Majesty's Ship Undine, of thirty-two guns, then lying in the dockyard at Portsmouth completing a refit.
As he had hurried from the Admiralty on that occasion he had felt the excitement on his face like guilt, aware of the other watching eyes, the envy and resentment.
The task of taking command, of gathering the dockyard's resources to his aid to prepare Undine for sea, had cost him dearly. With the Navy being cut down to a quarter of its wartime strength, he had been surprised to discover that it was harder to obtain spare cordage and spars rather than the reverse. A weary shipwright had confided in him that dockyard officials were more intent on making a profit with private dealers than they were on aiding one small frigate.
He had bribed, threatened and driven almost every man in the yard until he had obtained more or less what he needed. It seemed they saw his departure as the only way of returning to their own affairs.
He had walked around his new command in her dock with mixed feelings. Above all, the excitement and the challenge she represented. Gone were the pangs he had felt in Falmouth whenever he had seen a man-of-war weathering the headland below the castle. But also he had discovered something more.
His last command had been Phalarope, a frigate very similar to Undine, if slightly longer by a few feet. To Bolitho she had been everything, perhaps because they had come through so much together. In the West Indies, at the battle of the Saintes he had felt his precious Phalarope battered almost to a hulk beneath him. There would never, could never, be another like her. But as he had walked up and down the stone wall of the dock he had, sensed a new elation.
Halfway through the hurried overhaul he had received an unheralded visit from Rear Admiral Sir John Winslade, the man who had greeted him at the Admiralty. He had given little away, but after a cursory inspection of the ship and Bolitho's preparations he had said, 'I can tell you now. I'm sending you to India. That's all I can reveal for the moment.' He had run his eye over the few riggers working on yards and shrouds and had added dryly, 'I only hope for your sake you'll be ready on time.'
There was a lot in what Winslade had hinted. Officers on halfpay were easy to obtain. To crew a King's ship without the urgency of a war or the pressgang was something else entirely. Had Undine been sailing in better- known waters things might have been different. And had Bolitho been a man other than himself he might have been tempted to keep her destination a secret until he had signed on sufficient hands and it was too late for them to escape.
He had had the usual flowery-worded handbills distributed around the port and nearby villages. He had sent recruiting parties as far inland as Guildford on the Portsmouth Road, but with small success. And now, as he followed the messenger towards some high gilded doors he knew Undine was still fifty short of her complement.
In one thing Bolitho had been more fortunate. Undine's previous captain had kept a shrewd eye on his ship's professional men. Bolitho had taken charge to discover that Undine still carried the hard core of senior men, the warrant officers, a first class sailmaker, and one of the most economical carpenters he had ever watched at work. His predecessor had quit the Navy for good to seek a career in Parliament. Or as he had put it, 'I've had a bellyful of fighting with iron. From now on, my young friend, I'll do it with slander!'
Rear Admiral Sir John Winslade was standing with his back to a fire, his coat-tails parted to allow the maximum warmth to reach him. Few people knew much about him. He had distinguished himself vaguely in some single-ship action off Brest, and had then been neatly placed inside the Admiralty. There was nothing about his pale, austere features to distinguish him in any way. In fact, he was so ordinary that his gold-laced coat seemed to be wearing him rather than the other way round.
Bolitho was twenty-seven and a half years old, but had already held two commands, and knew enough about senior officers not to take them at face value.
Winslade let his coat-tails drop and waited for Bolitho to reach him. He held out his hand and said, 'You are punctual. It is just as well. We have much to discuss.' He moved to a small lacquered table. 'Some claret, I think.' He smiled for the first time. It was like the sunlight in Whitehall. Frail, and easily removed.
He pulled up a chair for Bolitho. 'Your health, Captain.' He added, 'I suppose you know why I asked for you to be given this command?'
Bolitho cleared his throat. 'I assumed, sir, that as Captain Stewart was entering politics that you required another for…'
Winslade gave a wry smile. 'Please, Bolitho. Modesty at the expense of sincerity is just so much top-hamper. I trust you will bear that in mind?'
He sipped at his claret and continued in the same dry voice, 'For this particular commission I have to be sure of Undine's captain. You will be on the other side of the globe. I have to know what you are thinking so that I can act on such despatches as I might receive in due course.'
Bolitho tried to relax. 'Thank you.' He smiled awkwardly. 'I mean, for your trust, sir.'
'Quite so.' Winslade reached for the decanter. 'I know your background, your record, especially in the recent war with France and her Allies. Your behaviour when you were on the American station reads favourably. A full scale war and a bloody rebellion inAmerica must have been a good schoolroom for so young a commander. But that war is done with. It is up to us,' he smiled slightly, 'some of us, to ensure that we are never forced into such a helpless stalemate again.'
Bolitho exclaimed, 'We did not lose the war, sir.'
'We did not win it either. That is more to the point.'
Bolitho thought suddenly of the last battle. The screams and yells on every side, the crash of gunfire and falling spars. So many had died that day. So many familiar faces just swept away. Others had been left, like the two ragged soldiers, to fend as best they could.
He said quietly, 'We did our best, sir.'
The admiral was watching him thoughtfully. 'I agree. You may not have won a war, but you did win a respite of sorts. A time to draw breath and face facts.'
'You think the peace will not last, sir?'
'An enemy is always an enemy, Bolitho. Only the vanquished know peace of mind. Oh yes, we will fight again, be sure of it.' He put down his glass and added sharply, 'Now, about your ship. Are you prepared?'
Bolitho met his gaze. 'I am still short of hands, but the ship is as ready as she will ever be, sir. I had her warped out of the dockyard two days ago, and she is now anchored at Spithead awaiting final provisioning.'
'How short?'
Two words, but they left no room for manoeuvre.
