With All Despatch

claret ran across the desk like blood.

Hoblyn sighed. 'Damn them all.' He watched his footman as he deftly mopped up the wine and replaced the goblet with a clean one.

'But life can have its compensations-'

Just for a brief instant it was there. The merest flicker of an exchange between them. The youth did not smile and yet there was an understanding strong enough to feel.

Hoblyn said offhandedly, 'You have Snapdragon in Chatham dockyard?'

Bolitho shook himself. Maybe he was mistaken. He glanced quickly at the footman's pale eyes. They were quite empty.

'Yes, sir. I thought it best-'

'Good thinking. There'll not be much time later on. Our lords and masters want results. We shall give them a few.' He smiled for the first time. 'Thought I was going to bite your head off, did ye? God damn it, Bolitho, you're what I need, not some knothead who's never heard a shot fired in bloody earnest!'

Bolitho pressed his shoulders against the chairback. There was something unnerving about Hoblyn. But under the bluster and the bitterness his mind was as sharp and as shrewd as it had ever been. If he was like this with everyone the slender footman must have heard every secret possible. Was he to be trusted?

Hoblyn added, 'The big East Indiamen are among the worst culprits, y'know. They come up-Channel after months at sea and they meet with smugglers while they're under way, did you know that?'

Bolitho shook his head. 'What is the purpose, sir?'

'John Company's captains like to make a little extra profit of their own, as if they don't get enough. They sell tea and silks directly to the Trade and so avoid paying duty themselves. The Customs Board don't like it, but with so few cutters to patrol the whole Channel and beyond, what can they expect?' He watched Bolitho calmly. 'Wine and brandy is different. Smaller runs, less chance of the buggers getting caught. But tea, for instance, is light but very bulky.' He tapped the side of his nose with the little white bag. 'Not so easy, eh?'

Bolitho waited, not knowing quite what he had expected.

'I have received information.' He must have seen doubt in Bolitho's grey eyes. 'From a better mouth than some wretched turncoat's.' Hoblyn calmed himself with an effort. 'There's a cargo being landed at Whitstable ten days from now.' He sat back to watch Bolitho's expression. 'It will involve a lot of men.' His dark eyes seemed to dance in the candlelight as the youth placed a silver candelabrum on the desk. 'Men for the fleet, or the gallows, we'll strike no bargains, and a cargo to make these bloody smugglers realise we're on the attack!'

Bolitho's mind was in a whirl. If it was true, Hoblyn was right. It would make all the difference to their presence here. He pictured Whitstable on the chart, a small fishing port which lay near the mouth of the Swale River. More proof if any were needed of the smugglers' audacity and arrogance. At a guess, Whitstable was no more than ten miles from this very room.

'I'll be ready, sir.'

'Thought so. Nothing like a bit of humiliation to put fire in your belly, eh?'

A clock chimed somewhere and Hoblyn said, 'Time to sup. The rest can keep. I know you're not one to loosen your tongue. Something else we have in common, I suspect.' He chuckled and then struggled around the desk while the youth waited to lead the way to another room.

As he bent over Bolitho saw the livid scars lift above his collar. He must be like that over most of his body. Like a soul banished from hell. They moved out into the same hallway where a servant waited at another pair of doors. There was a rich smell of food, and Bolitho noticed the cut and material of Hoblyn's clothes. His fortunes had changed if nothing else.

He was about to ask that a meal be sent for Young Matthew when he saw Hoblyn's hand brush against that of the footman.

Bolitho did not know if he felt disgust or pity.

As Hoblyn had said, the rest can keep.

Bolitho awoke shocked and dazed and for a few agonising seconds imagined that he was emerging from the fever again. His skull throbbed like hammers on an anvil, and when he tried to speak his tongue felt as if it was glued to the roof of his mouth. He saw Young Matthew's round face watching him in the gloom, only his eyes showing colour in a feeble glow from the cabin skylight.

'What is it?' Bolitho barely recognised his voice. 'Time?' His senses were returning reluctantly and he realised with sudden self-abhorrence that he was still fully clothed in his best uniform, his hat and sword on the table where he had dropped them.

Matthew said in a hoarse whisper, 'You bin sleeping, sir.'

Bolitho propped himself on his elbows. The hull was moving very sluggishly on the current, but there were only occasionally some footfalls on the deck above. Telemachus still slept although it must soon be dawn, he thought vaguely.

'Coffee, Matthew.' He lowered his feet to the deck and suppressed a groan. Blurred pictures formed in his mind and faded almost as quickly. The laden table, Hoblyn's face shining in the candlelight, the comings and goings of servants, one plate following the next, each seemingly richer than that which had preceded it. And the wine. This time a groan did escape from his lips. It had been a never-ending stream.

The boy crouched down beside him. 'Mr Paice is on deck, sir.'

He remembered what Hoblyn had revealed, the information he had gained on a Whitstable landing. The need for secrecy. How had he got back to Telemachus? He could remember none of it.

His mind steadied and he looked at the boy. 'You brought me here?'

'It were nothing, sir.' For once he showed no excitement or shy pride.

Bolitho seized his arm. 'What is it? Tell me, Matthew.'

The boy looked down at the deck. 'It's Allday, sir.'

Bolitho's brain was suddenly like clear ice. 'What has happened?'

Pictures flashed through his thoughts. Allday standing over him, his bloodied cutlass cleaving aside all who tried to pass.

Allday, cheerful, tolerant, always there when he was needed. The boy whispered, 'He's gone, sir.'

'Gone?'

The door opened a few inches and Paice lowered his shoulders to enter the cabin.

'Thought you should know, sir.' He added with something like the defiance he had shown at their first meeting, 'He's not borne on the ship's books, sir. If he was…'

'He's my responsibility, is that what you mean?'

Paice must have seen the pain in his face even in the poor light.

'I did hear that your cox'n was once a pressed man, sir?'

Bolitho ran his fingers through his hair as he tried to assemble his wits. 'True. That was a long while ago. He has served me, and served me faithfully, for ten years since. He'd not desert.' He shook his head, the realisation of what he had said thrusting through him like a hot blade. 'Allday would not leave me.'

Paice watched, unable to help, to find the right words. 'I could pass word to the shore, sir. He may meet with the press gangs. If I can rouse the senior lieutenant I might be able to stop anything going badly for him.' He hesitated, unused to speaking so openly. 'And for you, if I may say so, sir.'

Bolitho touched the boy's shoulder and felt him shiver.

'Fetch me some water and fresh coffee, Matthew.' His voice was heavy, his mind still groping.

Suppose Allday had decided to leave? Bolitho recalled his own surprise when Allday had not insisted on accompanying him to the commodore's house. It was all coming back. Bolitho felt his inner pocket and touched the written orders which the commodore had given him. It was a wonder he had not lost them on the way back to the cutter, he thought wretchedly.

Allday might have felt the affair of the Loyal Chieftain badly. God knew he had put up with enough over the past months- and with what reward for his faith and his unshakeable loyalty?

Now he was gone. Back to the land from which Bolitho's own press gang had snatched him all those years back. Years of danger and pride, loss and sadness. Always there. The oak, the rock which Bolitho had all too often taken for granted.

Paice said, 'He left no message, sir.'