With All Despatch

On the short pull to the anchored cutter he noticed the way that the oarsmen watched him when they thought he was not looking. What was it now, he wondered? Respect, fear, or to learn what they were expected to become?

Paice greeted him at the cutter's side and touched his hat.

'All the wounded have been removed, sir. I fear that another of them died just before they left.' He shifted unhappily. 'His name was Whichelo, but then you'd not know him, sir.'

Bolitho looked at the tall lieutenant and said, 'Know him? Yes, of course. The one who was standing in full view by his gun. I am sorry the lesson had to be learned in death.' He walked towards the companionway. 'May I have the aid of your clerk, or is he the purser today?' He stepped down and almost expected to see Allday on the deck below, watching and waiting. 'I have some despatches to be copied.' He turned on the companion ladder, his face warm in the sunlight. 'After that, prepare for sea, Mr Paice.'

Paice stared after him, his mind still grappling with Bolitho's cool acceptance of what had happened. Such a short while in their midst and yet he had even recalled the man who had just died.

Paice clenched his big hands. Bolitho had somehow managed to use that information like part of a lesson as well as a warning. Perhaps what he had seen and done since he had first gone to sea as a twelve-year-old midshipman had honed all the pity and compassion from him.

Paice thrust through the throng of seamen who were working on repairs to seek out Godsalve the clerk, so he did not see the man who had just left him in turmoil.

Bolitho knelt in the small cabin, the uncompleted model ship grasped in both hands like a talisman.

A man of war?

Allday groped his way around the small timbered outhouse feeling for anything he might use as a weapon.

All afternoon the party of six prisoners with an armed escort of seamen had marched along the road towards Sheerness. When dusk came, the midshipman named Fenwick who commanded the group ordered a halt at a small inn where he was received with familiarity, although not with warmth. The other five prisoners were locked in an outbuilding with their legs in irons as an extra precaution. Allday, apparently because of his superior status as a sailmaker, was kept apart.

Allday returned to a crate where he had been sitting. The stage was set, he thought vaguely. He had heard the midshipman explaining just a bit too loudly to the seamen in the press gang why he was separating them in this fashion.

Once, the man who had first approached Allday came to the outhouse with some water and a hunk of bread.

'Is this all?' Allday had smelled the rum on the man's breath. It was what he needed more than anything.

The man had grinned at his anger. 'The others ain't gettin' nuthin'!'

Allday had tried to question him about the proposed escape. How would the midshipman explain it to his superior?

The man had held up his lantern to study him more closely. 'Leave it to us. Yer talks too much. Just remember wot I told yer!'

If only he could lay hands on a dirk or a cutlass. Maybe they had already seen through his feeble disguise? Someone might even have recognised him, and they were holding him apart so that he could be silenced for good when night came.

At sea Allday could tell the time almost by the pitch of a hull, and on land, when he had spent a short while guarding sheep in Cornwall, he had grown used to reading the stars and the moon's position for the same purpose.

But scaled up in this dark hut he had no way of telling and it made him more uneasy.

He wondered what Bolitho was doing. It worried him to think of him managing on his own. But something had to be done. He tensed as he thought he heard a slight sound through the door.

Now the truth. He could feel his heart pounding, and tried to control his breathing.

If it is to be murder-he would take one with him somehow.

Lanternlight made a golden slit up one side of the door, and a moment later a bolt was drawn. Then the seaman peered in at him.

Allday saw the midshipman's white collar-patches glowing beyond the lantern, and sensed the sudden tension. Even the sea-man seemed ill at ease.

'Ready?'

Allday left the hut and almost fell as the lantern was shuttered into darkness.

The midshipman hissed, 'Stay together!' He peered at Allday. 'One foul move and by God I'll run you through!'

Allday followed the midshipman, his eyes on his white stockings. It was not the first time he had made this trip, he thought grimly. Rough ground, with scrub and bushes, the smell of cows from a nearby field. Then over a flint wall and towards a dark copse which loomed against the early stars like something solid. Allday's ears told him that nobody else from the press gang was coming with them. He heard the seaman behind him stagger, and tensed, expecting the sudden agonising thrust of steel in his back. But the man uttered a whispered oath and they continued on through the darkness. The trees appeared to move out and surround them like silent giants, and Allday knew from the midshipman's uneven breathing that he was probably doubly afraid because of his own guilt.

'This is far enough!' Midshipman Fenwick raised an arm. 'Here it is!'

Allday saw him stopping to peer at a large, half-burned tree trunk. The meeting point. How many others had come here to sell themselves, he wondered?

The seaman spat on the ground and Allday saw the glint of a pistol in his belt, a cutlass bared and held in his fist; no doubt he was ready to use both.

Allday pricked up his ears. The creak of harness, perhaps, but if so the horses must have muffled hooves. Where was it? He strained his eyes into the darkness, so that when the voice spoke out he was surprised at its nearness.

'Well, well, Mr Fenwick, another of your adventures.'

Allday listened. The speaker had a smooth, what he would call an educated voice. No accent which he could recognise, and Allday had heard most of them on all the messdecks he had known.

Fenwick stammered, 'I sent a message.'

'You did indeed. A sailmaker, you say?'

'That is so.' Fenwick was replying like a frightened schoolboy to his tutor.

'It had better be, eh?'

'There is just one thing.' Fenwick could barely form his words for trembling.

The voice snapped, 'More money, is it? You are a fool to gamble. It will be your undoing!'

Fenwick said nothing, as if he was unable to find the courage.

Allday watched the shadows. So it was gambling. The midshipman was probably being threatened because of debts. Allday stiffened and felt the hair rise on his neck. He had heard a footfall somewhere to his left, a shoe kicking against loose stones. He could still see nothing, and yet he sensed that there were figures all around them, unseen among the trees.

Fenwick must have felt it too. He suddenly blurted out, 'I need help! It's this man-'

Allday crouched, ready to spring, and then realised that Fenwick was pointing at his armed seaman.

'What about him?' The voice was sharper now.

'He-he's been interfering, doing things without coming to me. I remembered what you said, how it was planned-' The words were pouring out in an uncontrollable torrent.

The voice snapped, 'Put down your weapons, both of you!' When neither of them moved, Allday heard the metallic clicks of pieces being pulled to full cock. Then two shadows emerged from the opposite side, each armed with what appeared to be a hanger or, perhaps, a cutlass.

The seaman dropped his own blade and then tossed his pistol to the ground.

He rasped, 'It's a bloody lie! The young gentleman's gutless! You can't take 'is word fer nuthin'!'