Allday stirred and shook himself like a dog. “Ready, lads?”
Penneck started to groan again, and Blissett said savagely, “Stow it, matey, in the name of pity!”
Quare removed his red coat and folded it carefully before taking over an oar. “Easy now, Blissett! The poor devil can’t help himself!”
“Out oars!”
Bolitho watched them, seeing their despair as they struggled with the long oars. Even thrusting them out through the rowlocks seemed as much as they could manage now.
“Give way all!”
Bolitho peered down at the compass. North. Maybe they would all die, and Tuke would fall upon the settlement just as he had always intended. Bolitho had once found a drifting boat full of dead sailors. He often wondered who was the last to die, what it must have been like to drift helplessly with men you had known, and having seen them go one by one, wait for your own summons.
He tried to shake himself out of his depression and concentrated on Miller’s makeshift sail. It did little to add to their speed, but by helping to steady the hull it made the oarsmen’s work a bit easier.
Bolitho took out his glass and trained it across the starboard beam. Just over the sea’s edge he saw a hint of purple. A long, flat island. He felt his heart quicken. They were not lost. He remembered it from the description on his chart.
She stirred against him. “What is it?”
He kept his voice level. “Another island. Many miles away, and too far to use what strength we have to visit it. But it means we are making progress. Once or twice I thought…” He looked down at her and smiled. “I should have trusted your judgement.”
He turned his attention to his men again. Pyper was doing his best not to show it, but he was in a bad way. Blistered by the sun, his shoulder like raw meat through a rent in his shirt, he looked near to collapse. None of them had any moisture in their bodies. Perhaps Evans was the lucky one after all.
Quietly he said, “We must have water. I can’t ask these men to go on until they drop.”
She nodded slowly. “I will pray.”
He watched her bowed head, the hot breeze ruffling her hair across the blue coat, and almost broke down. He had brought all of them to this. She especially would suffer because of her love. The remainder would die because he had decreed it.
“There.” She looked up at him. “It is done. Now I will see to the dressings.” She touched her gown as it lay drying on the thwart. “I will use some of this after today. Poor Penneck has used almost the last of the bandages.” She stood up, swaying with the boat until Keen put up his hand to steady her.
She smiled at him. “Thank you, Val.”
It was her special name for him, and Bolitho saw her receive the same grateful look. Next to himself, Keen had better cause than anyone to remember her kindness.
Sergeant Quare had to clear his parched throat twice before he could speak. “Will I start to divide the rations, sir?” Even he looked dejected. Almost beaten.
Bolitho felt suddenly desperate. “Yes. One cup per man. Half water, half wine.” He nodded heavily. “I know, Sergeant. It is the last of it.”
As Viola reached the sick and injured men Penneck seized her borrowed coat and babbled wildly, “Don’t let me die! Please don’t let me die!” He was pleading, his voice rising to a thin shriek.
Colter, the wounded seaman, snarled, “I wish to God ’e would die! ’E’ll drive us all mad, that ’e will!”
“That will do!” Bolitho stood up, his mind aching and throbbing. “Orlando, hold that man’s arms while his dressing is changed!”
He watched her above the slow-moving oars. In her captain’s coat, her legs as bare as any sailor’s, she looked even more beautiful. She paused with her work while Orlando pushed Penneck against the gunwale, and thrust some loose hair from her face. Again their eyes met, and she smiled at him.
Blissett pulled his oar across the boat and snatched up a musket. “’Nother bird, sir!” He fired, but the bird continued as before.
Quare flung another musket to him, and with barely a pause Blissett fired again. The sea-bird dropped close abeam, and within ten minutes had been divided and eaten.
As they sipped their watered wine and tried not to swallow it in one gulp, Pyper said brokenly, “When I get back to the ship I’ll never complain again!”
Bolitho watched him, seeing how close he was to breaking.
Almost gently he said, “You will be all right, Mr Pyper. You said when, not if. Hold on to it with all your strength, and that applies to the rest of us. Thank you, Mr Pyper. I feel somewhat better now.”
Allday looked up from his oar and smiled sadly. Inwardly he felt he could weep. For the lady in his captain’s coat, for young Pyper, for Billy-boy who was trying so desperately not to show his distress from his wounded leg. But most of all for the captain. He had watched him, day after rotten day, using every trick, everything he had learned and experienced since first going to sea at the age of twelve, just to hold them all together.
In the line of battle it was terrible, but the suffering and hardship made some sort of sense to the survivors. But this was a side of the Navy which landsmen never knew of and cared about even less. And yet the rules were the same, and the burden to each commander just as definite.
Bolitho looked at him, perhaps feeling his thoughts.
“Ready for another pull, Allday?”
Allday smiled, sharing the game.
“Aye, Captain, if you’d care to join us poor sailormen.”
Jenner managed to give a croaking laugh, and Miller said, “Anyway, sir, you don’t wear a captain’s coat no longer, eh?”
Bolitho seated himself on the thwart beside Allday, while Pyper took over the tiller.
He had to ask. “What d’you think, Allday?”
The broad shoulders gave a slight shrug. “They say the devil looks after his own. I reckon we stand a chance, and that’s no error.”
Bolitho laid back on the oar, shutting his eyes to the pitiless sun. No more water, and just a few coconuts and some biscuits. And yet they still trusted him. It did not make any sense.
He thought of Pyper’s pathetic courage and made himself say, when, not if.
His oar blade collided with another, and he realized he had almost fallen asleep or into a daze. The realization helped to sharpen his thoughts again, and he heaved on the oar with unexpected vigour.
When next he glanced outboard he saw there was quite a sharp wash coming back from the stem to mark their efforts. He closed his eyes tightly and thrust down on his loom.
When, not if.
15. A Power Of Strength
TWO NIGHTS after Bolitho had issued the last of the wine and water a storm broke over them with such ferocity he thought that everything was finished. It hit the cutter shortly after nightfall and transformed the sea into a crazy torment of bursting waves with crests large enough to swamp almost anything.
Hour after hour, stumbling and failing in swirling water, they fought to keep the boat from broaching to. Miller’s sail, complete with its spar, was torn away into the spray-filled darkness within minutes, while loose gear, clothing and one of the oars followed soon after.
It was a frantic, unyielding struggle for survival. No orders were given, and none expected. The weary, battered men bailed or stood to their oars, blinded by spray, almost deafened by the thunder of bursting crests and the jubilant wail of the wind.
And then, as Bolitho sensed a slight easing in the wind’s force, the rain came. Slowly at first, the heavy drops striking their heads and bodies like pellets, and then with a hissing roar, the very weight of which seemed to beat the waves into submission.
He yelled hoarsely, “Quick, lads! The rain!”
