With All Despatch

Bolitho rested his hand on the sill, praying that the admiral had had enough, that he could let the pieces fall into distance like the moment you lower a telescope from another craft.

But the room was still, and even the distant voices in the square seemed afraid to intrude.

'I had told Major Craven what I intended before we weighed anchor.' He stared into the little street, his grey eyes very still. 'When he saw us return with our prizes-' That too had been like a dream, Snapdragon following them to the anchorage, her jubilant prize-crew aboard the smuggling schooner intended as a decoy. That unknown seaman aboard Telemachus who had called to him through the fog would get his prize money after all. Bolitho continued, 'Craven had two troops of his men and a magistrate to read the warrant.' He barely listened to his own voice as he relived that night, when he had reached Hoblyn's house to join Craven's dragoons and a magistrate who had been almost too terrified to speak.

The marine picket was outside the gates, and most of Hoblyn's servants had been clustered in the gardens in their night attire. They had described how Hoblyn had ordered them from the house, and when one had requested a few moments to return to his room he had fired a pistol point-blank into a chandelier.

Craven had said, 'The doors are locked and bolted. Can't understand it, Bolitho. He must know why we're here.' He added with sudden anger, 'By God, some of my own men have died because of his treachery!'

Bolitho had been about to ring the bell himself when he had seen Allday walking carefully between the dragoons.

Bolitho had said, 'You should be resting, old friend. After this-'

But Allday had replied stubbornly, 'I'm not leaving you again, Cap'n.'

Craven had settled it by calling for his farrier sergeant. A tall, bearded dragoon who had marched up to the doors with his huge axe, the one he sometimes used for slaughtering animals to feed the soldiers, and in just two minutes he had laid both doors on the ground.

It had been a macabre scene which had greeted their eyes. In the light of guttering candles Bolitho had seen the shattered fragments of a chandelier, and then when he had approached the great staircase he had seen the blood, on the carpets, against the wall, even on a banister rail. They had halted halfway up the staircase, and Major Craven's drawn sabre had glinted in the flickering candles as he had gripped Bolitho's arm. 'In God's name what was that fearful sound?'

No wonder the servants had been terrified out of their wits, and the picket had stayed by the gates until Craven's men had arrived in force. It was a terrible, inhuman cry, rising and falling like a wounded wolf. Even some of the older dragoons had glanced at one another and had clutched their weapons all the tighter.

Bolitho had hurried to the big door at the top of the stairs, Allday limping behind him, that same cutlass still in his hand.

Craven had shouted, 'In the King's name!' Then he had kicked the door inwards with his boot.

Bolitho knew he would never forget the sight which had waited in that room. Hoblyn crouching beside the huge bed, rocking from side to side, his hands and arms thick with dried blood. For a moment longer they had imagined that he was injured, or had attempted to kill himself without success. Until a sergeant had brought more candles, and together they had stared at the bed, at what was left of the naked body of Jules, the youthful footman and companion.

There was not a part of his body which had not been savagely mutilated or hacked away. Only the face was left unmarked, like the murdered informer aboard the Loyal Chieftain when Bolitho had first confronted Delaval. From the youth's contorted features it was obvious that the horrific torture had been exercised while he had been alive. The bed, the floor, everything was soaked in blood, and Bolitho had realized that Hoblyn must have carried the corpse in his arms round and round the room until he had collapsed, broken and exhausted.

The Brotherhood had thought that he had betrayed them, not realising that Bolitho's search for Allday had provoked the attack on the boatyard.

From all the rewards Hoblyn had gained from them by his help and information, they had selected the possession he had prized the most, and had butchered the youth, then left him like a carcass at the gates.

Craven had said huskily, 'In the King's name you are charged this day-' He had broken off and had choked, 'Take him. I can stand no more of this charnel house!'

It had been then that Hoblyn had come out of his trance and stared at them without recognition. With a great effort he had got to his feet, and almost tenderly covered the mutilated corpse with a blanket.

In a steady voice he had said, 'I am ready, gentlemen.' He had turned only briefly to Bolitho. 'You would not heed me.' Then he had tried to shrug his shoulders, but even that had failed him.

At the door he had said, 'My sword. I am entitled.'

Bolitho and Craven had looked at one another. Maybe each had known in his own way.

They had waited outside the door, while the dragoons lined the halfway below, where some dazed servants were peering in at the bloodstains and the plaster which had fallen to Hoblyn's pistol.

The bang of the shot brought more cries and shouts from the waiting servants. They had found Hoblyn lying on the bed, one arm over the blanketed shape, the other crooking the pistol which had blown away the back of his skull.

Bolitho realized he had stopped speaking, that the din outside the inn was louder now.

Sir Marcus Drew said quietly, 'I am distressed to learn it, Bolitho, and I grieve that you should have been forced to witness it. In the long run, it will have been the best way out. Perhaps the only way for him.'

Bolitho moved to the large window and watched the scene below. The pattern had changed, and the dragoons were mounted now, lined, saddle to saddle, across the square, each sabre drawn and shouldered, the horses restless, uneasy in the presence of death. A mounted major was patting his own horse's neck, but his eyes were on the swaying crowd. It could have been Craven, but it was not.

Drew stood beside him and sipped at his claret, his mind still with the image of Hoblyn's death.

'He was a fool, not the man I once admired. How did he come to-' He could not continue.

Bolitho eyed him coldly. 'Come to love that youth? It was all he had. The woman who had waited for him during the war would not even look at him when she was told of his terrible scars. So he searched elsewhere, and found that boy.' Bolitho was again surprised at the emptiness of his voice. 'He learned too late that there are no pockets in a shroud, no money box in a coffin.'

Drew licked his lips. 'You are a strange fellow, Bolitho.'

'Strange, sir? Because the truly guilty go free, or hide in safety behind rank or privilege?' His eyes flashed. 'One day-'

He stiffened as he saw Delaval's slight figure mounting the scaffold, a trooper on either side. Dressed in a fine velvet coat, his dark hair uncovered, his appearance brought a chorus of cheers and jeers from the expectant crowd.

Bolitho looked down and saw Allday directly below him, leaning against one of the inn's pillars, a long clay pipe held unlit to his mouth. In the ensuing weeks he had lost the scars and his eye was as clear as before. But he had changed nonetheless; he seemed quieter, less ready to make a joke of everything. In one way he had not changed. Like dog and master, Bolitho had often thought, each fearful that the other might die first. Loyalty? That was no description of it. Probably Paice was there too, watching, remembering.

The horses were more restless, and the major raised his arm to steady the line.

Drew said softly, 'A rogue, but you can pity him this moment.'

Bolitho retorted equally quietly, 'I pray he rots in hell.'

It was nearly done. An official from the sheriff 's office, a quavering clergyman whose words, if there were any, were quite lost in the hubbub of shouts and jeers.

Bolitho had seen hangings before-too many, and mostly those of sailors, men found guilty of mutiny or worse, run up to the mainyard by their own messmates.

But this display was little better than Madame Guillotine across the Channel, he thought.

The noose was placed around Delaval's neck but he shook his head when one of the executioners made to blindfold him.

He looked composed, even indifferent as he called something to those nearest the scaffold.

At that last moment an elegant, dark red phaeton with a fragile gold crest painted on the door, cantered around the fringe of the crowd until the coachman reined it to a halt.

Delaval must have seen it too, for he stared until his eyes almost bulged from his head. He tried to scream