With All Despatch

Bolitho stared at him as if he had misheard. Had all the rest fallen on deaf ears?

Marcuard said, 'If, nay, when war comes, we cannot depend upon the French remaining a leaderless rabble. Many of their best officers have been beheaded because of the lust and madness of this present revolution. But there will always be other leaders, as there were in England when Charles lost his head on the block.' He reached out with the long ebony stick and tapped the floor to emphasise every word. 'Perhaps there will be a counter-revolution; only time will allow this. But France must have her King on his rightful throne.' He saw Bolitho's astonishment and smiled openly for the first time. 'I see I have confused you, my gallant captain! That is good, for if others penetrate my mind, our hopes will be dashed before we are begun!'

Marcuard stood up lightly and crossed to a window. 'We need an officer we can trust. No civilian will do, especially a man of Parliament who sees only his own advancement no matter what his tongue might proclaim!' He turned on his toes, like a dancer, Bolitho thought dazedly. 'I have chosen you.'

'To go where, m'lord? To do what?'

Marcuard ignored it. 'Tell me this, Bolitho. Do you love your King and country above all else?'

'I love England, m'lord.'

Marcuard nodded slowly. 'That at least is honest. There are people in France who are working to release their monarch. They need to be assured they are not alone. They will trust no spy or informer. The slightest flaw, and their lives end under the blade. I have seen it. I know.' He eyed him steadily. 'I am partly French, and your report of the two girls who died at sea interested me very much. My own niece was guillotined in the first month of the Terror. She was just nineteen. So you see-' He turned irritably as voices came from the landing. 'Damn their eyes, they make chocolate too fast in Kent!'

Then he said evenly, 'You will be advised, but will tell nobody until a plan is made. I am sending you to Holland.' He let his words sink in. 'When war comes, Holland will fall to the French. There is no doubt of that, so you must be doubly careful. Spain will throw in her lot with France for her own good.'

Bolitho stared at him. 'But I thought the King of Spain-'

'Was against the Revolution?' He smiled faintly. 'The Dons never change, and I thank God for it. They value their Church and gold above all else. His most Catholic Majesty will soon convince himself where his loyalty lies.'

The door opened and Drew followed by two inn servants bowed his way forward.

'I regret the delay, m'lord!' Drew's eyes moved like darts between them.

'It will be worth it, Sir Marcus.'

As Lord Marcuard leaned forward to examine the tray his eyes met Bolitho's and he added softly, 'It has to be worth it.'

Then he looked away as if it was a dismissal.

'You may leave us, Bolitho. Your admiral and I have weighty matters to discuss.'

Bolitho walked to the door and turned to give a brief bow. In those seconds he saw Drew's relief, shining from his face like a beam of light, in the knowledge that Marcuard, the King's man, was not displeased, that life might continue as before.

He also saw Marcuard's final gaze. It was that of a conspirator.

12. The Power And the Glory

FOR Bolitho, the weeks which followed the capture of the Loyal Chieftain and the decoy schooner were uneventful and frustrating. Commodore Hoblyn was not replaced by a senior officer; instead, a studious official came from the Admiralty to supervise the purchase of suitable vessels, and to list possible applicants for letters of marque should war be declared in the near future.

The house where Hoblyn had killed himself remained empty and shuttered, a landmark of his disgrace and final grief.

Bolitho found himself with less and less to do, and had to be content with his three cutters acting without his personal supervision, while they carried out their patrols or assisted the revenue vessels in the continuing fight against smugglers.

He found little comfort in the varying successes of his recruiting parties and the press gangs although there had been a surprising increase in volunteers for the fleet, especially from the more inland villages where news of Bolitho's victory over Delaval's ships and gangs had preceded his visits.

The news of the murdered girls had spread like wildfire, and fresh information had come from many different sources to prove that their wretched deaths had not been isolated incidents.

After the first bloodbath in the streets of Paris the mobs had turned their hatred towards the professional classes, then lower still to mere shopkeepers and artisans. Anyone who was branded as a traitor to the revolution, a lackey to the feared and loathed aristos, was dragged to prison for harsh interrogation and the inevitable journey through the streets to the waiting guillotine. Some parents had tried to assist their children to escape by selling all they owned; others had attempted to bribe their way into small vessels in the hope of reaching safety in England. Some smugglers like Delaval had found the latter the most profitable of all. They would take everything from these poor, terrified refugees, then murder them in mid-Channel or in the North Sea. Dead men told no tales. If young girls were amongst their human cargo they could expect no mercy at all.

Once, when supping with Major Craven at his small barracks, Bolitho had said angrily, 'We are dealing with the scum of the earth. Any enemy who sails under a known flag, no matter what cause he represents, has more respect and honour.'

And now there was not even the major to pass the time with. He and most of his regiment had been ordered to Ireland, in readiness for disturbances there after an overall famine had failed to produce food and warmth for the approaching winter.

And winter was coming early, Bolitho thought. You could see it in the tide-race, and in the tossing white horses of the Channel.

The new detachment of soldiers was composed mainly of recruits and some of the freshly-formed militia, more concerned with their drills and exercises than they were with Bolitho's warnings about smugglers. But the Trade had slackened, if not died, since the Loyal Chieftain incident. It should have given him satisfaction, but when he walked the shoreline with Allday a constant companion, he found little consolation.

From the urbane Lord Marcuard he had heard nothing. That had been the biggest disappointment of all. Perhaps it had been another ruse to keep him quiet. Even Craven's removal might be connected in some way, although it was impossible to prove it. Officers and officials whom he was forced to meet if only to maintain the co-operation he had painstakingly built up, treated him with a certain wariness-respect or awe, he did not know.

To some he seemed to represent the man of war, to others an interference with a life they knew would soon change but still refused to abandon.

Rear-Admiral Drew's departure had been swift after the meeting at Dover. He had left with an air of profound relief and perhaps a new determination to remain uninvolved in anything beyond the walls of Admiralty.

There had been one hope when Drew had left written orders that he should not invade the property or privacy of Sir James Tanner without express instruction from higher authority. There was little point anyway, for it was said that Tanner was elsewhere, maybe out of the country altogether. But Bolitho had nursed the idea that the orders had come through Drew from Lord Marcuard. Even that was difficult to believe now.

Late one afternoon Bolitho stood on a bluff watching a frigate working her way downstream towards Sheerness. Her paintwork shone in the grey light; the gilt gingerbread around her stern windows and counter was proof that the lucky man who commanded her had money to spare to present such a fine display. Like Bolitho's Undine and Tempest had been when he had assumed command first of one, then the other, after the American Revolution.

He watched her resetting her topsails, the men strung out like black dots on her braced yards. A ship to be proud of. The greatest honour of all. He thought of Viola's animation and interest when she had made him speak freely of his ship, as he had done to no one before, or since.

He heard Allday murmur, 'A good 'un, Cap'n.'