With All Despatch

know it's bad luck?'

Allday listened and heard someone cry out. It was little more than a sound, like a gull's mew, soon lost in the thunder of spray-soaked canvas.

The boatswain shouted, 'You lot! Stand by to loose the fore-course! Hands aloft, and shift your bloody selves!' A rope's end found its target and a man yelped with painful resentment.

The boatswain joined Allday at the weather shrouds. 'Fair wind.' He squinted aloft but the men strung out on the fore-course yard were hidden in darkness. 'Should be a good run this time.'

Allday heard it again, and asked, 'Women, eh?' For some reason it disturbed him.

The boatswain yawned. 'The captain likes to have his way.' He gave a hard laugh. 'It's all money, I reckon, but-' He shrugged as a piercing scream broke from the after skylight.

Allday tried to moisten his lips. 'Delaval, d'you mean?'

The boatswain glared impatiently as the big foresail flapped and writhed out of control. 'Yeh, he came aboard from one of the Dutchie luggers.' He cupped his hands. 'Catch a turn there, you idle bugger! Now belay!'

But Allday scarcely heard him. Delaval was here. But he might not remember. He had had eyes only for Bolitho and Paice at their last meeting. Even as he grasped the hope, Allday knew it was a lie.

More bellowed orders, and one watch was dismissed below for another foully cooked meal.

Allday walked aft, his powerful frame angled to the slanting deck, his mind in great trouble. He saw the faces of the helmsmen glowing faintly in the binnacle light, but it was too weak to be seen more than yards beyond the hull.

What should he do now? If he stayed alive long enough he might-

A larger wave than the previous one swayed the deck hard over. He saw the spokes of the wheel spin, heard the two helmsmen cursing as they fought to bring the vessel back under command.

Allday gripped a rack of belaying pins, and found himself looking directly down through the cabin skylight. There was a girl there-she could not be more than sixteen. One man, Newby the mate, was pinioning her arms, another, hidden by the skylight's coaming, was tearing at her clothes, laying her breasts naked while she struggled and cried out in terror.

Too late did he feel the closeness of danger.

'So this is the sailmaker? I never forget a face, Mister Allday!'

The blow across the back of his head brought instant darkness. There was no time even for fear or pain. Oblivion.

Bolitho loosened his shirt and stared around at the intent faces. Telemachus's small cabin was packed to bursting-point with not only the lieutenants from all three cutters but their sailing-masters as well.

He spread his hands on the chart and listened to the wind sighing through the rigging, the regular creak of timbers as the hull tugged at her cable.

It was evening, but the air was humid rather than warm, and the sky broken by ridges of heavy-bellied clouds.

He found time to compare it with his first meeting with the cutters' commanders. In so short a while they had all changed. Now there was no doubt, no suspicion; events had somehow welded them together in a manner Bolitho had first believed impossible.

The others had also rid themselves of their coats and Bolitho wondered how they would appear to some landsman or outsiders. More like the men they were hunting than seaofficers, he thought.

'We will weigh at dusk, and have to risk arousing interest-' His glance fell on Chesshyre. 'I see that you have already noted the change?'

Chesshyre nodded, startled to be picked out before all the others. 'Aye, sir, wind's backed two points or more.' He shivered slightly as if to test the weather. 'I'd say fog afore dawn.'

They looked at each other, the suggestion of fog moving amongst them like an evil spirit.

Bolitho said, 'I know. When I consulted the glass-' He glanced up at the open skylight, plucking his shirt away from his body. It felt like a wet rag, like the moment he had kicked open the door and had faced the men around the table. It seemed like an age past instead of days. He hurried on, 'The information is that two vessels are heading for the Isle of Thanet from the Dutch coast. One will be deep-laden, the other a decoy.' He saw them exchange glances and added, 'I have no doubt that this intelligence is true.' He pictured the smuggler tied to a chair, his screams of terror as the blind man's hands had touched his eyes.

No, he had little doubt of this information.

Paice said, 'May I speak, sir?' He looked at the other lieutenants and Queely responded with a curt nod, as if they had already been discussing it. Paice said, 'If this fails, and we lose them, what will happen to you? '

Bolitho smiled; he had been half-expecting an objection to his plan. 'I shall doubtless be ordered to a place where I can no longer disrupt matters.' Even as he said it, he knew he had never uttered a truer word. Even with Midshipman Fenwick under close arrest, and the smuggler in the hands of Craven's dragoons, his evidence would leak like a sieve without Delaval and a cargo.

He pushed the thought from his mind and said flatly, 'I believe that the information which led to the capture of the Four Brothers was deliberately offered to us to allay suspicion. Probably a competitor anyway, a most suitable sacrifice with the stakes so high.'

He held his breath and watched their expressions. If they accepted this, they were implicating themselves. Only Commodore Hoblyn had known about the Four Brothers. By accepting Bolitho's word they too could be charged with conspiracy.

Paice said resolutely, 'I agree. We've been held away from that piece of coastline for as long as I can recall. There are several small boatyards there, most of 'em on the land which belongs to-' He looked at Bolitho and said bluntly, 'Sir James Tanner, a person of great power and authority.' He gave a slow grin as if to show he was aware of his own disloyalty and added, 'Some of us suspected. Most saw only the hopelessness of any protest with us against so many.' His grin widened. 'Until, with respect, sir, you came amongst us like a full gale of wind!'

Lieutenant Vatass of Snapdragon pulled at his crumpled shirt and said, 'I think that speaks for us all, sir. If we are to stand alone?' He gave an elegant shrug. 'Then let us get on with it.'

There was a muttered assent around the airless cabin.

Bolitho said, 'We will leave as arranged. I have left word with Major Craven, and sent a despatch to our admiral at the Nore.' He would have smiled but for Allday. Even the admiral would have to climb down from his eyrie when this news was exploded before him. If Bolitho failed he would face a court martial. That he could accept. But these men, who had accepted his arrival only under pressure, he must shield at all costs.

The three sailing-masters were comparing notes and making last adjustments to their chart. Their navigation would have to be better than ever before. There was not even room for luck this time. Just three small cutters in search of a will-o'-the-wisp. Bolitho had sent word to Chatham in the hopes of calling a frigate to intervene should Delaval slip through their tightly stretched net. Even if the admiral agreed to his wishes, it was quite likely that no frigate was available.

Bolitho recalled his meeting with Sir Marcus Drew at the Admiralty. He had left him in no doubt where responsibility would lie if Bolitho misused his commission.

If Hoblyn was guilty of conspiracy with the smugglers, no matter for what reason, he could expect no mercy either from the navy or from the men he had served for his own profit.

Bolitho's mouth hardened. Allday's life was at stake because of all this. If anything happened to him he would deal with Hoblyn and the unknown Sir James Tanner in his own fashion.

As evening closed in across the anchorage Bolitho went on deck and watched the unhurried preparations to get under way.

He could sense the difference here too. The unspoken acceptance by men he had come to know in so brief a time. George Davy the gunner, even now crouching and ducking around his small artillery. Scrope, master-at-arms, with Christie the boatswain's mate, checking the heavy chest of axes and cutlasses below the tapering mast. Big Luke Hawkins, the boatswain, was hanging over the bulwark gesturing to some men in the jolly-boat to warp it