until they reached the high poop. Then she stood facing the wind, repeatedly pushing her fingers up and through her hair, and taking long breaths as if each was to be her last.
Bolitho could only watch her. Afraid for her. Wanting to help.
He made himself ask, “Your husband? Is he safe?”
She nodded slowly and then turned towards him. “But where is your ship?”
He replied, “It was too great a risk. They would have killed everyone by the time Tempest worked into the bay.”
She walked across the deck, her gown swishing on the worn planking. She did not speak, but kept her eyes on him until their bodies touched.
Then, and only then, did she break down, sobbing into his chest, oblivious to the ship and everyone around her.
Keen paused with one foot on top of the poop ladder, his mouth set to frame a dozen questions for his captain. Seeing them together he changed his mind and returned to the maindeck, his voice suddenly firm after the madness he had seen and shared.
“Lay aft, Mr Ross. Mr Swift, tend to the wounded, and then report to me!”
Allday watched him, remembering him as the young midshipman he had once saved from an agonizing death. Now he was a man. A King’s officer.
Then he turned and glanced towards the poop. Well he should be a good one, he thought. He had the best there was as his example.
6. Revenge
BOLITHO put down the pen and stretched his arms. It was early evening. Too soon for a lantern, but not bright enough for any more writing. He glanced around Eurotas’s big cabin, picturing it as it had been when he had burst through the door. Now, with the deck cleared of looted boxes and clothing, it looked almost normal.
He stood up and walked to the tall windows. Away on the starboard quarter, leaning to a fresh breeze, his own ship, Tempest, made a perfect sight, her topsails and topgallants pale pink in the sunlight, her stem throwing up spray as she ploughed indifferently across each rank of rollers.
Herrick was holding Tempest well up to windward, just in case there should be another attack. If anyone was foolhardy enough to make such an attempt, he would bring the frigate dashing down at full speed, presenting the other face Bolitho had seen just three days back.
As he had taken Eurotas carefully from her anchorage in the bay, Tempest had tacked around the headland, exactly as he and Herrick had originally planned. It was the first time Bolitho had seen his own ship cleared for action from outboard. She had looked more than hostile with her guns run out like black teeth, her big courses brailed up to the yards to reveal the crouching marines in the tops and against the hammock nettings, muskets already trained on the slow-moving merchantman.
As Herrick had explained later when he had come aboard, he was taking no chances. Even Eurotas’s flag hastily run up to the peak, and Swift’s signals from the deck, had not convinced him. His best gun captains had dropped two twelve-pound balls almost alongside even as Tempest had made the signal to heave to and receive boarders.
While he had listened to Bolitho’s story, and had seen the chaos and disorder for himself, Herrick had reacted much as Bolitho had expected. His relief at finding Bolitho alive, and the attack completed successfully, had given way to reproach.
“You should have waited for us, sir. Anything might have happened. You could have been killed or taken by those scum.”
Even when Bolitho had explained how the American, Jenner, had discovered one of the pirates hiding in a magazine with a lighted slow-match and had forced a confession from him that his orders were to blow up the ship and everyone aboard, Herrick remained stubbornly critical.
Bolitho smiled grimly, recalling Herrick’s attempts to maintain his sternness. It never lasted for long.
In the three days it had taken to stand clear of the islands and head towards Sydney again he had done a great deal of thinking; also he had examined the evidence and made out a report for the governor, and for Commodore Sayer.
The attack had broken out within the ship after fire had been reported in a forward hold. In the ensuing confusion, which had been hardly surprising in a vessel filled with civilians and deported prisoners, the poop had been rushed and seized by some of the “passengers” who had boarded Eurotas at Santa Cruz where she had put in for fruit and wine for the long voyage around the Horn. Eurotas’s comings and goings must have been watched and checked for many months.
By the time the crew had discovered the fire to be nothing more than oiled rags in a large iron pot, the ship was in new hands. Some of the prisoners had been brought on deck and had immediately gone over to the attackers. Some had tried to protect their wives and had been instantly killed. Captain Lloyd had been ordered at pistol-point to change tack and head towards the islands. That had apparently been a bad moment for the pirates as they had been sighted and had received recognition signals from a mail packet en route to Sydney.
Once within sight of the islands all hopes of retaking the vessel or putting up any sort of resistance were dashed. A large, heavily armed schooner had escorted them to the bay, and had sent aboard two boatloads of men.
As one of the loyal seamen had exclaimed, “The most terrible villains you ever seed, sir!”
It had been then that the real horror had begun. Looting and drunkenness had been the order of the day. While some of the pirates had directed the unloading of cargo and weapons, money and stores, using the dazed and frightened prisoners like slaves, others had gone on a wild rampage through the ship. Several people had been beaten or hacked to death, women and young girls raped time and time again in a frenzy of brutal cruelty.
Captain Lloyd, no doubt dismayed that his own lack of vigilance had allowed it all to come about, had made a final attempt to overcome his guards and rally the loyal men to his aid.
It had been in vain, and the next day there had been no sign of Lloyd or his mates, or indeed most of his senior men.
Bolitho found himself moving round the cabin, recalling Viola’s eyes as she had described the nightmare. Every hour was filled with despair and terror. The pirates came and went, abusing men and women like beasts, sometimes fighting with each other in a daze of brandy and rum.
Although battened down on the orlop, she was convinced there was also another ship in the bay for part of the time. She had heard the guns being moved from the Eurotas and into a ship alongside. It sounded as if the vessel was lower than Eurotas, perhaps the same size as the schooner.
She had been imprisoned in the little cabin on the orlop for much of the time, sharing it with a young girl who had been deported for theft.
Every day the girl had been dragged screaming from the cabin, while the pirates had left Viola in no doubt that the fate reserved for her was to be the worst.
Only once had she broken down as she had described the sacking of the Eurotas. It had been when she had recalled her feelings as Tempest appeared in the bay.
Eurotas had been harried and attacked by hostile natives, and she had heard it was because the schooner had raided one of the islands and had left more carnage behind them there.
Viola had said quietly, “I knew you had come, Richard. I have been following your career, watching for fresh appointments in the Gazette. When I saw young Valentine Keen appear over the side I knew it was your ship.”
She also described how the leader of the pirates left to guard the Eurotas had threatened them all with instant death by firing the magazine if one made the slightest attempt to warn the boarding party.
“I could not just stand there, Richard. That brute had paraded a handful of passengers to make it appear normal. He and some of the others had donned company uniforms. There had been so much killing. So many terrible things.” She had raised her chin, the brightness in her eyes making her sudden defiance fragile. “Had it been any other ship but yours, Richard, I could have done nothing. But the watch. I knew you would remember.”
“It was a terrible risk.”
