Keen answered, “No, sir, I do not.”
“Thomas?” Bolitho watched his friend, the emotions on his open face. “I must know.”
Herrick bit his lip. “Perhaps not, sir. But to assume the ship to be in wrong hands, well…”
Bolitho turned away. “Do any of us know Captain Lloyd? Have we ever spoken with Eurotas before?” He swung round, making Keen start. “There is no other reason for such careful deception!”
Herrick rubbed his chin. “That being the case, sir, I think we should make haste.” He sighed. “If you’re wrong…”
“And if I’m not?” He watched him gravely. “What then, Thomas?”
Lakey called, “All ready aft, sir!”
His voice broke the spell.
Bolitho said, “Once clear of the next headland I want you to set the t’gallants, Mr Herrick. Now send your topmen aloft and let us be about it, eh?”
Awkwardly at first, until her yards were braced round to receive the freshening wind, Tempest tilted to the pressure and began to turn her jib boom towards the next headland. High above the decks the seamen worked busily and expertly, untroubled by the menace which Viola Raymond’s message had thrown amongst them.
By early evening the Island of Five Hills lay sprawled far astern across the larboard quarter, its shape and outline lost in haze and reflected glare.
In the cabin Bolitho sat at his table, an untouched meal pushed to one side.
The wind had backed still further, and it would take some while to beat round the northern tip of the tiny island they had just left. But equally, the wind would prevent Eurotas from sailing.
He thought about the attacking war canoes. An accidental encounter, or an attempted settlement of past scores? But without them it was doubtful if they would have discovered Eurotas’s anchorage. Her captain, whoever he was, would have had lookouts ashore, and they must have seen Tempest’s patient and persistent search amongst the islands. If he had not been forced to fire guns at the canoes, and remained silent, Tempest might have missed the little island completely.
But there were too many ifs. Bolitho moved restlessly to the stern windows and sought out the dorsal fin close astern. There had been a firm link between the two ships which the other captain could not have suspected in any way. He touched the watch in his pocket.
The fear was that the brave gesture might already have cost her life.
4. After the Storm
TRUE to the sailing master’s prediction the weather began to worsen rapidly soon after midnight. The wind, although hot and without freshness, mounted in power, and as moon and stars vanished beyond low layers of scudding cloud Tempest prepared to fight it out.
Even Bolitho found it an eerie experience. After heat and searing glare, the slow and patient changes of tack to use what little wind they had had at their bidding, this violent motion, the distorted roar and hiss of waves were unnatural. Their world had shrunk again, confined to familiar objects and handholds about the decks, while beyond the bulwarks the water seethed and boiled like a cauldron before fading into the surrounding darkness.
He found plenty of time to pity the men working aloft on the quivering, thrumming yards and shrouds. Occasionally during a brief lull in the wind’s strange moaning he heard the topmen and their petty officers yelling to one another, high above the deck, voices distorted and wild, like demented spirits.
Herrick lurched up the tilting quarterdeck and shouted, “All secure, sir!” He waved one arm, his blurred outline gleaming dully with blown spray. “She should ride it out well enough if all holds together!” He ducked, cursing as a frothing wave rolled along the weather side and burst over the nettings, drenching everyone in reach. “With all respects to the late and lamented Captain Cook, sir, I think he was wrong to name these the Friendly Islands! God damn them, I say!”
Bolitho groped his way aft to where Lakey and his mates and three helmsmen who were lashed to the wheel swayed and bobbed in a tight, breathless group. He peered at the compass bowl, unnaturally bright in the tiny lamp, and tried not to consider what this delay might mean. He was thinking like the French captain he had fought. Le Chaumareys had started to plan too much beyond the present. At sea you could not take even the next minute for granted.
He pictured his command, reeling and plunging, with spars and cordage under savage pressure. He could have run with the wind, and even now might have been well clear of the worst of it. But if the wind continued to rise, Tempest might have been driven many miles to the north, with little hope of getting back to the island in time to act. These violent tropical storms were frequently followed by intense calms, and if that happened Bolitho knew the chances of a quick passage were destroyed. As it was, his ship was standing into the wind as well as could be expected. Under her great maintopsail only, shortened and under constant watch, she was lying-to like a floundering, glistening hulk.
He heard the occasional clank of pumps, but knew they were being used merely to clear the water which swept over the weather side and thundered along the gundeck like surf before finding its way below. Any other frigate Bolitho had known would have been working badly in this sea, and the pumps would have been manned and busy through each backbreaking minute. But Tempest, with all her faults in manoeuvrability, was as tight as a powder cask, and her stout teak timbers barely leaked a drop.
Bolitho watched the water sluicing down the lee side, cascading over each tethered twelve-pounder, eager to catch a spluttering, half-blinded seaman and knock him senseless into the scuppers as it passed.
He gripped the hammock nettings and tried to think, although he felt half-numbed by sea and wind.
The Eurotas should be safe in her sheltered anchorage. But if her cables carried away she could go aground and break up even there.
Suppose after all this he was wrong? That Keen had been mistaken in what Viola had said to him, or had tried to invent something just to please him. Maybe she had blended her message with sarcasm that only he would understand, so that should they meet again he would stand clear and keep his place.
Or perhaps she did want to see him, and thought such a message would bring him back anyway.
He pushed his hair from his eyes as the spume and ragged spray drifted through the mizzen ratlines like darts.
No. If he was right about her, he had to be equally so about Eurotas.
He felt Herrick lurching to the nettings beside him.
“Mr Lakey stakes his reputation that this’ll last till noon, sir!” Herrick waited, squinting into the darkness. “But at least we’ll be able to see what we’re about! I’ve trebled the lookouts, but we’re drifting too much for comfort!” He sounded raw from shouting orders. “Maybe we should’ve gone closer to the Eurotas. Grappled her, and to hell with the weather.” He was thinking aloud. But it sounded like criticism. “I’m not sure of anything now.”
Bolitho replied, “If I’m right, Thomas, I think both ships would have been in danger. The passengers, the convicts, who knows how many more might have been murdered, or killed in the attack.”
Herrick wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Aye. I suppose so. My guess is that the convicts were released out of humanity when the ship struck, and then seized control.” He turned, waiting for Bolitho’s opinion.
“If the ship struck, Thomas. There’s something too clean about all this.”
Starling, one of the master’s mates by the compass, yelled, “I heard somethin’ carry away aloft, sir!”
As if to mark his warning two heavy blocks and some fifty feet of cordage clattered across the quarterdeck like a twin-headed snake.
Starling was already bellowing for extra hands to get up the treacherous shrouds and secure the damage. It was small enough, but if unchecked might spread to something worse.
Bolitho listened to the master’s mate and marvelled. Starling had been hoisted inboard with his cutter at the last possible moment so that his leadsman could give the ship as much speed as possible to clear the reefs. A misjudgement, or a man losing his nerve, and the cutter might have been left astern. In this sea it would be unlikely to survive.
And yet Starling, who had begun life as a drummer boy in a foot regiment, and had run off to join a King’s ship for preference, had showed little excitement when he had reported to the quarterdeck.
