With All Despatch

'What do you know?' Bolitho met his gaze.

'Only that he is on a mission for you, officially that is.' He glanced at his men. 'But news has wings. The longer it takes…' He did not finish.

Bolitho touched his arm. 'I know. Please let it lie, for his sake if not for mine.'

He glanced at the waterfront, the bright sunshine, the sense of peace.

'I shall write some fresh orders for you.' He turned and looked at him steadily. 'You will command here if anything happens to me.'

Paice's strong features were a mixture of pleasure and anxiety.

'They'd not dare, sir!'

Bolitho's gaze seemed to embrace all three cutters. 'I might lose this appointment at the whim of some quillpusher in Admiralty. I might even fall in a fight. It is our way, Mr Paice, so be ready for anything.'

Paice walked with him to the companionway. 'Hell's teeth, sir, you've changed the people here and in the other cutters. You'll not find us wanting next time.'

Bolitho closed the door of the cabin behind him and stared up at the open skylight.

Was Hoblyn guilty of some conspiracy, or did he really not care for involvement of any kind? Bolitho thought of the graceful footman, and grimaced. Jules. It suited him well.

He did not remember falling asleep, but awoke with his forehead resting on his arm, the pen still in his fingers from the moment he had signed Paice's new orders.

Paice was sitting opposite him on a sea chest, his eyes doubtful.

'You've not slept for two days, I'll wager, sir.' It sounded like an accusation. 'I was most unwilling to rouse you, but-'

Bolitho saw the wax-sealed envelope in his fist and was instantly alert. Since the tender age of twelve his mind and body had been hardened to it. Years of watchkeeping in all weathers, moments of anxiety to banish any craving for sleep when the watch below was turned up to reef sails in a screaming gale, or to repel enemy boarders. It was the only life he had ever known.

'What is it?'

He slit open the envelope and first read the signature at the bottom. It was from Major Craven, the hand neat and elegant, like the man. He read it through twice very carefully. He was aware that the cutter was moving more than she had been when his head had dropped in sleep, just as he was conscious of Paice's measured breathing.

He looked up and saw the gleam in the lieutenant's eyes.

'Where is 'the old abbey'?'

Paice withdrew a chart from a locker without questioning him. He jabbed the coastline with one big finger. 'Here, sir. 'Bout three miles to the east'rd. A quiet, dismal spot, if you ask me.'

Bolitho peered at it and nodded. The ideal place for a meeting. To move by road, as Craven had pointed out, would soon draw somebody's notice, and the words would go out like lightning. The troublesome Cornish captain was on the move again.

By sea then, and by stealth.

He said, 'We will weigh before dusk and steer for the Great Nore.' He moved some brass dividers to the north-east from Sheerness. 'Once in the dark we will come about and make a landfall here-' the dividers rested on the point marked as an ancient abbey. 'Nobody must see us, so you will anchor offshore.'

Paice's hand rasped over his chin. 'Beg pardon, sir, but I am in the dark right now. Are you intending to send a press gang ashore? Because if so-'

Bolitho stared at the much-used chart. 'No, I am meeting someone. So I shall need a good boat's crew and someone who knows these waters like his own right arm.'

Paice replied without a second's hesitation, 'The master, Erasmus Chesshyre, sir. Feel his way inshore like a blind man.'

Bolitho glanced sharply at him, but Paice's remark was an innocent one.

Paice added, 'I'd like to go with you, sir.'

'No.' It was final. 'Remember what I told you. If anything should happen-'

Paice sighed. 'Aye. I know, sir.'

'One last thing, Mr Paice. If the worst should happen, send Young Matthew back to Falmouth, with an escort if need be.'

'Aye, sir.' He stood up carefully, bowed beneath the deckhead beams. 'I'll tell Mr Triscott to prepare the hands.' He hesitated in the low doorway. 'An' I'm right proud to serve alongside you, sir.'

The sentiment seemed to embarrass him and he hurried to the companion ladder, calling names as he went.

Bolitho drew a fresh sheet of paper towards him and decided he would write a letter to his sister Nancy. If he did fall, her husband the squire, known around Falmouth as the King of Cornwall, would soon get his hands on the big grey house below Pendennis Castle, the home for generations of Bolithos.

The thought disturbed him more than he thought possible.

No more would the local people see a Bolitho returning from the ocean, or hear of another who had died in some far-off battle.

He glanced momentarily at Craven's instructions, then with a sad smile held the note up to a candle and watched it dissolve in flames.

He had recalled something which his father had made him and his brother Hugh learn by heart before they had left that same house for the navy.

'They have outlived this fear, and their brave ends

Will ever be an honour to their friends.'

It could have been written for them.

'Out yer get, matey!'

Allday groaned and rolled painfully on to his side, and felt somebody guiding his feet over the back of a cart.

If they trusted him, it was the wary trust of one wild animal for another. He had no idea how far he had been carried, and as the cart had bumped and staggered over rutted tracks, once through a field, he had felt as if every bone was broken.

He stood upright and felt his hands being untied, a rough bandage being removed from his eyes.

One of his escorts grinned and handed him the cutlass. 'No 'ard feelin's, matey. Under this flag you takes no chances, see?'

Allday nodded and looked around him. It was dawn, another day, the air busy with birdsong and insects. His nostrils dilated. The strong smell of saltwater and tar, oakum and freshly hewn timber. A boatbuilder's yard.

He was pushed, rather than guided, into a long shed where a crude slipway ran the full length and vanished through some heavy canvas awnings at the lower end. Newly built or repaired boats could be launched straight into the water from here, he supposed.

He blinked his eyes as he saw some twenty or more men sitting at tables wolfing food and draining jugs of ale as if they had been here all night. They all looked up as the man who had accompanied Allday said harshly, 'This 'ere's Spencer, sailmaker. It's all you need to know. Get 'im some grub.'

Allday crossed his leg over a bench and regarded his new companions thoughtfully. A mixed bunch, he decided. Some had been honest sailormen; others would have been rogues in any marketplace.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the windowless shed he realised that the man who had been with him in the cart had been the one who had hacked off the sailor's hand. Now he was laughing and sharing a joke with one of his companions as if he hadn't a care in the world.

Allday took a jug of ale and grunted his thanks. It would be wise to say as little as possible.

The ale was tasteless but strong on an empty stomach; it made him feel slightly better.

Another step. He eyed his new companions warily. Deserters to a man. If what he had seen of his 'rescuers' was anything to judge by, they had stepped from one captivity into another.

He leaned over and asked casually, 'What now?'