He found he was trembling, and it was all he could do to prevent a grin from splitting his face in two. The dark green launch, the oarsmen in their checked shirts and white trousers, it was all there. Like a homecoming.
The oars rose in the air and stood like twin lines of swaying white bones, while the bowman made fast to the jetty and aided a smart midshipman to step ashore.
The latter removed his hat with a flourish and said, 'At your service, sir.'
It was Midshipman Valentine Keen, a very elegant young man who was being appointed to the Undine more to get him away from England than to further his naval advancement, Bolitho suspected. He was the senior midshipman, and if he survived the round voyage would probably return as a lieutenant. At any rate, as a man.
'My boxes are yonder, Mr. Keen.'
He saw Allday standing motionless in the sternsheets, his blue coat and white trousers flapping in the wind, his tanned features barely able to remain impassive.
Theirs was a strange relationship. Allday had come aboard Bolitho's last ship as a pressed man. Yet when the ship had paid off at the end of the war Allday had stayed with him at Falmouth. Servant; guardian. Trusted friend. Now as his coxswain he would be ever nearby. Sometimes an only contact with that other, remote world beyond the cabin bulkhead.
Allday had been a seaman all his life, but for a period when he had been a shepherd in Cornwall, where Bolitho's pressgang had found him. An odd beginning. Bolitho thought of his previous coxswain, Mark Stockdale. A battered ex-prizefighter who could hardly speak because of his maimed vocal cords. He had died protecting Bolitho's back at the Saintes. Poor Stockdale. Bolitho had not even seen him fall.
Allday clambered ashore.
'Everything's ready, Captain. A good meal in the cabin.' He snarled at one of the seamen, 'Grab that chest, you oaf, or I'll have your liver!'
The seaman nodded and grinned.
Bolitho was satisfied. Allday's strange charm seemed to be working already. He could curse and fight like a madman if required. But Bolitho had seen him caring for wounded men and knew his other side. It was no wonder that the girls in farms and villages around Falmouth would miss him. Better though for Allday, Bolitho decided. There had been rumours enough lately about his conquests.
Then at last it was all done. The boat loaded, the idler and servants paid. The oars sending the long launch purposefully through the tossing water.
Bolitho sat in silence, huddled in his cloak, his eyes on the distant frigate. She was beautiful. In some ways more so than Phalarope, if that were possible. Only four years old, she had been built in a yard at Frindsbury on the River Medway. Not far from Herrick's home. One hundred and thirty feet long on her gun deck, and built of good English oak, she was the picture of a shipbuilder's art. No wonder the Admiralty had been loath to lay her up in ordinary like so many of her consorts at the end of the war. She had cost nearly fourteen thousand pounds, as Bolitho had been told more than once. Not that he needed to be reminded. He was lucky to get her.
There was a brief break in the scudding clouds, and the watery light played down along Undine's gun ports to her clean sheathing as she rolled uneasily in the swell. Best Anglesey copper. Stout enough for anything. Bolitho recalled what her previous captain, Stewart, had confided. In a fierce skirmish off Ushant he had been raked by heavy guns from a French seventy-four. Undine had taken four balls right on her waterline. She had been fortunate to reach England afloat. Frigates were meant for speed and hit-and-run fighting, not for matching metal with a line of battleship. Bolitho knew from his own grim experience what that could do to so graceful a hull.
Stewart had added that despite careful supervision he was still unsure as to the perfection of the repairs. With the copper replaced, it took more than internal inspection to discover the true value of a dockyard's overhaul. Copper protected the hull from many sorts of weed and clinging growth which could slow a ship to a painful crawl. But behind it could lurk every captain's real enemy, rot. Rot which could change a perfect hull into a ripe, treacherous trap for the unwary. Admiral Kempenfelt's own flagship, the Royal George, had heeled over and sunk right here in Portsmouth just two years ago, with the loss of hundreds of lives. It was said that her bottom had fallen clean away with rot. If it could happen to a lofty first-rate at anchor, it would do worse to a frigate.
Bolitho came out of his thoughts as he heard the shrill of boatswain's calls above the wind, the stamp of feet as the marines prepared to receive him. He stared up at the towering masts, the movement of figures around the entry port and above in the shrouds. They had had a month to get used to seeing him about the ship, except for the unknown quantity, the newly recruited part of the company. They might be wondering about him now. What he was like. Too harsh, or too easy-going. To them, once the anchor was catted, he was everything, good or bad, skilful or incompetent. There was no other ear to listen to their complaints, no other voice to reward or punish.
'Easy all!' Allday stood half poised, the tiller bar in his fist. 'Toss your oars!'
The boat thrust forward and the bowman hooked on to the main chains. at the first attempt. Bolitho guessed that Allday had been busy during his stay in London.
He stood up and waited for the right moment, knowing Allday was watching like a cat in case he should slip between launch and ship, or worse, tumble backwards in a welter of flailing arms and legs. Bolitho had seen it happen, and recalled his own cruel amusement at the spectacle of his new captain arriving aboard in a dripping heap.
Then, with the spray barely finding time to catch his legs, he was up and on board, his ears ringing to the shrill of calls and to the slap of marines' muskets while they presented arms. He doffed his hat to the quarterdeck, and nodded to Herrick and the others.
'Good to be back, Mr. Herrick.' His tone was curt.
'Welcome aboard, sir.' Herrick was equally so. But their eyes shone with something more than routine formality. Something which none of the others saw, or shared.
Bolitho removed his cloak and handed it to Midshipman Penn. He turned to allow the fading light to play across the broad white lapels of his dress coat. They would all know he was here. He saw the few hands working aloft on last minute splicing, others crowded on gangways and down on the main deck between the twin lines of black twelve-pounder guns.
He smiled, amused at his own gesture. 'I will go below now.'
'I have placed the orders in your cabin, sir.'
Herrick was bursting with questions. It was obvious from his flat, formal voice. But his eyes, those eyes which were so blue, and which could look so hurt, made a lie of his rigidity.
'Very well, I will call you directly.'
He made to walk aft to the cabin hatchway when he saw some figures gathered just below the quarterdeck rail. In mixed garments, they were in the process of being checked against a list by Lieutenant Davy.
He called, 'New hands, Mr. Davy?'
Herrick said quietly, 'We are still thirty under strength, sir.'
'Aye, Sir.' Davy squinted up through the light drizzle, his handsome face set in a confident smile. 'I am about to get them to make their marks.'
Bolitho crossed to the ladder and ran down to the gun deck. God, how wretched they all looked. Half-starved, ragged, beaten. Even the demanding life aboard ship could surely be no worse than what had made them thus.
He watched Davy's neat, elegant hands as he arranged the book on top of a twelve-pounder's breech.
'Come along now, make your marks.'
They shuffled forward, self-conscious, awkward, and very aware that their new captain was nearby.
Bolitho's eye stopped on the one at the end of the line. A sturdy man, well-muscled, and with a pigtail protruding from beneath his battered hat. One prime seaman at least.
He realised Bolitho was watching him and hurried forward to the gun.
Davy snapped, 'Here now, hold your damn eagerness!' Bolitho asked, 'Your name?' He hesitated. 'Turpin, sir.'
Davy was getting angry. 'Stand still and remove your hat to the captain, damn your eyes! If you know anything, you should know respect!'
But the man stood stockstill, his face a mixture of despair and shame.
Bolitho reached out and removed an old coat which Turpin had been carrying across his right forearm.
He asked gently, 'Where did you lose your right hand, Turpin?'
The man lowered his eyes. 'I was in the Barfear, sir. I lost it at the Chesapeake in '81.' He looked up, his eyes
