Bolitho said, “I’ll not hazard the ship amidst the reefs, but we can put boats ashore. The local chief is alleged to be friendly. Our ships are not unknown to him, according to Mr Lakey.”
Herrick grimaced. “I’ll take a loaded brace of pistols with me nevertheless, sir! There have been too many good sailors cut down without warning.”
Bolitho turned to watch a sudden flurry in the sea alongside. A shark falling upon a smaller fish, the incident over in a second. Then the surface was smooth again, with just the occasional pointer of the shark’s fin to reveal their patient escort.
He replied, “Some of these islands have had good reason to hate us.” He unconsciously touched the lock of hair which hung above his right eye.
Herrick saw the movement. It was as familiar as Bolitho’s level grey eyes. Beneath the lock of hair was a deep, savage scar which ran right up his forehead. As a junior lieutenant Bolitho had been struck down and all but killed by a native when he had been on an island with his ship’s watering party.
Herrick persisted, “I’ll shoot first, all the same, sir. I’ve come too far to have my brains spilled with a war club!”
Bolitho was suddenly impatient. The thought that the Eurotas might have been overrun by warring islanders appalled him.
“Call the master, Thomas. We’ll lay off a new course and decide what we must do.”
Herrick watched him stride towards the poop, his face completely absorbed.
He said to Keen, “Keep an eye on your watch. We will be needing all hands within the hour.”
Keen did not answer. He remembered Viola Raymond. She had nursed him when he had been put ashore after being wounded. Like some of the others he knew about the captain’s involvement and what Herrick thought about it all. Keen was fond of them both, but especially so of Bolitho. If he was going to search for Viola Raymond, and more risk was to come from their reunion, then it was their business. He watched Herrick’s troubled face. Or was it?
In the small chart room beneath the poop and adjoining the master’s cabin Bolitho leaned over the table watching Lakey’s fingers busy with brass dividers and rule.
“If the wind holds. Noon tomorrow.” Lakey looked up from the table, his lean face silhouetted against an open port.
Beyond it the sea was glittering and painful to look at. How much worse in a big transport loaded with convicts. If the Eurotas was aground somewhere, then the first fear would soon change to something more dangerous. The desire to escape, to be free with even the tiniest chance of survival, could make men do the impossible.
If the wind holds. It must be engraved on every sea officer’s heart, Bolitho thought.
He eyed Lakey thoughtfully. “So be it. One hundred and forty miles to Tongatapu. If we can log five knots and no more once we have changed course, I think your estimate a fair one.”
Lakey shrugged. He rarely rose to either praise or doubt. “I’ll feel happier when I’ve examined our noon sights, sir.”
Bolitho smiled. “Very well.”
He turned on his heel and hurried to the quarterdeck, knowing Lakey would be there when he was needed.
“Ah, Thomas, we will bring her about on the half-hour and steer nor’-west. That will allow us sea room when we are closer to the reefs. Also, if the wind veers we will be better placed to select one of the other islands in the group.”
When a ship’s boy turned the half-hour glass beside the binnacle the hands manned the braces and hauled breathlessly at the frigate’s great yards.
As Tempest wallowed round and allowed herself to be laid on the opposite tack Bolitho was very aware of the time it took to perform the change. Even allowing for the poor wind, he had every available man employed on deck and aloft. He knew the folly of allowing slackness and taking short-cuts even on routine work. In battle, with the biggest proportion of seamen required at the guns and repairing damage, the ship would have to be handled by far fewer. And yet Tempest had answered helm and canvas more with the slow dignity of a ship of the line than a frigate.
It was so easy to get complacent, to put off the back-breaking and thankless work of gun and sail drill with a battle in mind.
Out here, with sometimes months on end and no sight of any other man-of-war, it was hard to build up enthusiasm for such drills, especially when it was only too easy to turn your own back upon it.
Bolitho had one bitter reminder, however. In the years when he had commanded Undine he had been forced into open conflict with a powerful French frigate, the Argus, commanded by Le
Chaumareys, an experienced veteran of the war and one of Admiral
Suffren’s most capable commanders. Although serving under a letter of marque for the self-styled prince, Muljadi, Le Chaumareys had remained a French officer in the best sense of the word. He had even warned Bolitho of the foolishness he would display in trying to fight his Argus, Muljadi’s pirate fleet and the dithering incompetence of governments on the other side of the world. Just two ships could decide the fate of a great area of the Indies. Bolitho’s little Undine and Le Chaumareys’ powerful forty-four.
As in Tempest, Bolitho had been blessed with a motley collection of seamen, some of whom had been gathered from prison hulks to make his complement adequate.
All he had had against the Frenchman’s experience and his equally well-trained company had been youth and a freshness of ideas. Le Chaumareys had been away from home for years. His work under another’s flag was to have been his last before returning honourably to his beloved France.
It had been Le Chaumareys’ familiarity with an established routine, his reliance on the same old methods and manoeuvres, which had cost him a victory, and his life.
Bolitho wondered how long it would take him to get too complacent, or so weary with endless patrols and chases after pirates that when a real challenge offered itself he would find himself without the steel to repel it. Or if indeed he would recognize the weakness if there was no one to tell him.
“Course nor’-west, sir. Full and bye.” Herrick wiped his forehead with his wrist. “And no fresher on this tack either!”
Bolitho took a telescope from Midshipman Swift and trained it beyond the bows. Through the taut rigging and shrouds and above the figurehead’s golden shoulder, on and on, to nothing.
“Very well. Dismiss the watch below.” He stopped Herrick as he made to hurry away. “I believe Mr Borlase wishes you to punish a seaman today?”
Herrick watched him gravely. “Aye, sir. Peterson. For insolence. He swore at a bosun’s mate.”
“I see. Then warn the man yourself, Thomas. A flogging for such a triviality will do nothing to help matters.” He looked at some seamen on the deck below and along the gangways. Almost naked, and tanned in a dozen hues, they appeared strong enough, able to control any sudden flare-up of temper which could end in flogging, or worse. “Then have a word with Mr Borlase. I’ll not have him or any officer passing over responsibility in this manner. He was in charge of the watch. He should have dispersed the trouble as soon as he saw it.”
Herrick watched him leave the deck and cursed himself for not stepping into the matter earlier. For letting Borlase get away with it, as he did so often, when you stopped to think about it. When you were tired, sun-dried and dying for a cool breeze it was often much easier to do the work yourself instead of following through the chain of command.
Which is why I’ll never rise above lieutenant.
As Herrick moved up and down the weather side of the deck he was watched for much of the time by Keen and Midshipman
Swift.
From midshipman in the Undine to Tempest’s third lieutenant. When Keen had been raised from acting rank and had passed his examination for lieutenant he had imagined that no reward could provide greater satisfaction.
While he tried to stay under the shadow of the mizzen topsail he watched Herrick and wondered, not for the first time, where the next move would come. Some lieutenants seemed to soar to post rank and higher, like comets. Others remained at the same level year after year until rejected by the Navy and thrown on the beach.
If only he had been old enough to have served with men like Bolitho and Herrick in the real way. Against the French, and the American Revolution, or anyone who faced them across the water and challenged a flag as well as
