With All Despatch

Bolitho urged his mount forward. 'Come, Matthew, take care of the horses. I shall have some food sent to you.'

He did not see the awe on the boy's face. Bolitho was thinking of Allday. It was so out of character not to ask, to demand to accompany him. Allday mistrusted the ways of the land, and hated being parted from Bolitho at any time. Perhaps he was still brooding over their failure to catch the smugglers. It would all come out later on. Bolitho frowned. But it would have to wait.

He had spoken with Lieutenant Queely aboard Wakeful before leaving Sheerness. It was like a missing part of a puzzle. Wakeful had seen nothing, and the revenue men had had no reports of a run. Testing him out? Like Delaval's elaborate and calculated display of the dead man, Paice's informant. Cat and mouse.

He nodded to the corporal at the gate who slapped his musket in a smart salute, the pipeclay hovering around him in the still air. Bolitho was glad he had declined a carriage. Riding alone had given him time to think if not to plan. He smiled ruefully. It had also reminded him just how long it was since he had sat a horse.

Young Matthew took the horses and waited as a groom came forward to lead him to the stables at the rear of the house. Bolitho climbed the stone steps and saw the fouled anchor above the pillars, the stamp of Admiralty.

As if by magic the double doors swung inwards noiselessly and a dark-coated servant took Bolitho's hat and boat cloak, the latter covered with dust from the steady canter along an open road.

The man said, 'The commodore will receive you shortly, sir.' He backed away, the cloak and hat carried with great care as if they were heated shot from a furnace.

Bolitho walked around the entrance hall. More pillars, and a curved stairway which led up to a gallery. Unlike the houses he had seen in London, it was spartan. No pictures, and few pieces of furniture. Temporary, that described it well, he thought, and wondered if it also indicated Hoblyn's authority here. He looked through a window and caught the glint of late sunlight on the sea. Or mine. He tried not to think about Queely. He could be guilty, or one of his people might have found a way to pass word to the smugglers. News did not travel by itself.

It was like being in a dark room with a blind man. Uniform, authority, all meaningless. A fight which had neither beginning nor end. Whereas at sea you held the obedience and efficiency of your ship by leadership and example. But the enemy was always visible, ready to pit his wits against yours until the final broadside brought down one flag or the other.

Here it was stealth, deceit, and murder.

As a boy Bolitho had often listened to the old tales of the Cornish smugglers. Unlike the notorious wreckers along that cruel coastline, they were regarded as something vaguely heroic and daring. The rogues who robbed the rich to pay the poor. The navy had soon taught Bolitho a different story. Smugglers were not so different from those who lured ships on to the rocks where they robbed the cargoes and slit the throats of helpless survivors. He found that he was gripping his sword so tightly that the pain steadied his sudden anger.

He felt rather than heard a door opening and turned to see a slim figure framed against a window on the opposite side of the room.

At first he imagined it was a girl with a figure so slight. Even when he spoke his voice was soft and respectful, but with no trace of servility.

The youth was dressed in a very pale brown livery with darker frogging at the sleeves and down the front. White stockings and buckled shoes, a gentle miniature of most servants Bolitho had met.

'If you will follow me, Captain Bolitho.'

He wore a white, curled wig which accentuated his face and his eyes, which were probably hazel, but which, in the filtered sun-light, seemed green, and gave him the quiet watchfulness of a cat.

Across the other room and then into a smaller one. It was lined from floor to ceiling with books, and despite the warmth of the evening a cheerful fire was burning beneath a huge painting of a sea-fight. There were chairs and tables and a great desk strategically placed across one corner of the room.

Bolitho had the feeling that all the worthwhile contents of the house had been gathered in this one place.

He heard the young footman, if that was his station here, moving to the fire to rearrange a smouldering log into a better position. There was no sign of the commodore.

The youth turned and looked at him. 'He will not be long, sir.' Then he stood motionless beside the flickering fire, his hands behind his back.

Another, smaller door opened and the commodore walked quickly to the desk and slid behind it with barely a glance.

He seemed to arrange himself, and Bolitho guessed it came of long practice.

Just a few years older than himself, but they had been cruel ones. His square face was deeply lined, and he held his head slightly to one side as if he was still in pain. His left arm lay on the desk and Bolitho saw that he wore a white fingerless glove like a false hand, to disguise the terrible injuries he had endured for so long.

'I am pleased to see you, Bolitho.' He had a curt, clipped manner of speech. 'Be seated there if you will, I can see you the better.'

Bolitho sat down and noticed that Hoblyn's hair was completely grey, and worn unfashionably long, doubtless to hide the only burns which probed above his gold-laced collar.

The youth moved softly around the desk and produced a finely cut wine jug and two goblets.

'Claret.' Hoblyn's eyes were brown, but without warmth. 'Thought you'd like it.' He waved his right arm vaguely. 'We shall sup later.' It was an order.

They drank in silence and Bolitho saw the windows changing to dusky pink as the evening closed in.

Hoblyn watched the youth refilling the goblets.

'You've been luckier than most, Bolitho. Two ships since that bloody war, whereas-' He did not finish it but stared instead at the large painting.

Bolitho knew then it was his last battle. When he had lost his Leonidas and had been so cruelly disfigured.

Hoblyn added, 'I heard about your, er-misfortunes in the Great South Sea.' His eyes did not even blink. 'I'm told she was an admirable woman. I am sorry.'

Bolitho tried to remain calm. 'About this appointment-'

Hoblyn's disfigured hand rose and fell very lightly. 'In good time.'

He said abruptly, 'So this is how they use us, eh? Are we relics now, the pair of us?' He did not expect or wait for an answer. 'I am bitter sometimes, and then I think of those who have nothing after giving their all.'

Bolitho waited. Hoblyn needed to talk.

'It's a hopeless task if you let it be so, Bolitho. Our betters bleat and protest about the Trade, while they filch all they can get from it. Their Lordships demand more men for a fleet they themselves allowed to rot while they flung those same sailors on the beach to starve! Damn them, I say! And you can be sure that when war comes, as come it must, I shall be cast aside to provide a nice posting for some admiral's cousin!' He waited until his goblet was refilled. 'But I love this country which treats her sons so badly.

You know the French as well as I-do you see them stopping now?' He gave a harsh laugh. 'And when they come we shall have to pray that those murderous scum have lopped off the heads of all their best sea-officers. I see no chance for us otherwise.'

Bolitho tried to remember how many times the youth had refilled his goblet. The claret and the heat from the fire were making his mind blur.

He said, 'I have to speak about the Loyal Chieftain, sir.'

Hoblyn held his head to a painful angle. 'Delaval? I know what happened, and about the man who was killed too.' He leaned forward so that his fine shirt frothed around the lapels of his coat. A far cry from the tattered veteran Bolitho had seen years ago on his way to the Admiralty.

Hoblyn dropped his voice to a husky growl. 'Someone burned down the man's cottage while you were at sea-I'll lay odds you didn't know that! And his wife and children have vanished into thin air!' He slumped back again, and Bolitho saw sweat on his face.

'Murdered?' One word, and it seemed to bring a chill to the overheated room.

'We shall probably never know.' He reached out to grasp his goblet but accidentally knocked it over so that the