With All Despatch

Bolitho smiled, moved by the supply of ruses which Allday used to prevent him brooding, or remembering too much.

Suppose Allday had been killed? He felt a pain in his chest like a stab. Now he would have been quite alone.

Bolitho turned and looked at him, his hat tugged down to cover his scar. She had touched and kissed that scar and had told him more than once that it was a mark of pride and honour, not something to shame him.

'I wonder if she carries any of the people we gained as volunteers after we had offered them a choice?'

Allday gave a lazy grin. 'Just so long as their cap'n knows how to treat 'em!'

Bolitho turned up the collar of his boat-cloak and watched the frigate again as she changed tack towards more open water. It was tearing him apart. Where bound? Gibraltar and the Mediterranean? The West Indies and the dark green fronds which lined each perfect beach?

He sighed. Like the young lieutenant who had offered himself for a ship, any ship, he felt cut off. Discarded, as Hoblyn had been. He ground his heel on the loose sand. No. Not like Hoblyn.

He asked, 'And you never saw the man in the carriage that night, the one who ordered you to kill the sailor from the press?'

Allday watched the rebirth of something in those searching, grey eyes

'Not a peep, Cap'n. But his voice? I'd recognise that even in hell's gateway, so to speak. Like silk it was, the hiss of a serpent.' He nodded fervently. 'If I hears it again I'll strike first, ask the wherefores afterwards-an' that's no error!'

Bolitho stared towards the frigate but her lee side was already clothed in deepening shadows. By tomorrow, with favouring winds, she would be abreast of Falmouth. He thought of the great house. Waiting. Waiting. How small the family had become. His sister Nancy, married to the 'King of Cornwall,' lived nearby, but his other sister Felicity was still in India with her husband's regiment of foot. What might become of her, he wondered?

There were too many little plaques and tablets on the walls of Falmouth Church which recorded the women and children who had died of fever and native uprisings, in places few had even heard of. Like the Bolitho tablets which filled one alcove in the fine old church, each one reading like part of the navy's own history. From his great-great- great-grandfather, Captain Julius, who had died in 1646 during the Civil War which Lord Marcuard had touched upon, when he had been attempting to lift the Roundhead blockade on Pendennis Castle itself. And his great-grandfather, Captain David, who had fallen to pirates off the shores of Africa in 1724. Bolitho's fingers reached under his cloak and touched the old hilt at his side. Captain David had had the sword made to his own specifications. Tarnished it might be, but it was still lighter and better-balanced than anything which today's cutlers could forge.

Bolitho walked towards the sunset, his mind suddenly heavy. After his own name was added to the list, there would be no more Bolithos to return to the old house below the headland and its castle.

Allday's eyes narrowed. 'Rider in a hurry, Cap'n.' His fist dropped to the cutlass in his belt. The land had made him wary and suspicious. In a ship you knew who your friends were, whereas-he exclaimed, 'By God, it's Young Matthew!'

The boy reined his horse to a halt and dropped lightly to the ground.

Bolitho asked, 'What is it, lad?'

Young Matthew fumbled inside his jerkin. 'Letter, sir. Came by courier.' He was obviously impressed. 'Said it must be handed to you, an' you only, sir.'

Bolitho opened and tried to read it but the dusk had made it impossible. But he picked out the gold crest at the top, the scrawled signature, Marcuard, at the foot of the page and knew it had not all been a figment of imagination, or some plan to keep him in the background until he could be discreetly disposed of.

The others were staring at him, the horse looming over the boy's shoulder as if it too wanted to be a part of it.

Bolitho had managed to read just three words. With all despatch.

Afterwards he remembered that he had felt neither anxiety nor surprise. Just a great sense of relief. He was needed again.

Wakeful's gangling first lieutenant groped through the waiting figures and eventually found Queely standing beside the compass.

He said quietly, 'I have been right through the ship, sir, as ordered. All lights doused.' He peered blindly across the bulwark at the occasional fin of white spray and added, 'I'll not argue when we come about for open water!'

Queely ignored him and stared first at the reefed mainsail, then the tiny flickering glow of the compass light.

The air was cold like steel, and when spray and spindrift pattered over the deck he could feel winter in it.

He said, 'My respects to Captain Bolitho. Please tell him we are in position.'

'No need. I am here.' Bolitho's shadow detached itself from the nearest group and moved closer. He wore his boat cloak, and Queely saw that he was hatless, only his eyes visible in the gloom.

It was halfway through the middle watch, as near to two o'clock as their cautious approach to the Dutch coastline could make possible.

Queely turned away from the others and said abruptly, 'I am not content with these arrangements, sir.'

Bolitho looked at him. From the moment he had stepped aboard Queely's command and had ordered him to the secret rendezvous, this scholarly lieutenant had not once questioned his instructions. All the way across the bleak North Sea to a mark on the chart, and he had held his doubts and apprehensions to himself. For that Bolitho was grateful. He could only guess at the danger he was walking into, and was glad that whatever confidence he retained was not being honed away. Paice might have tried to dissuade him, but Telemachus was still in the dockyard completing the refitting of her rigging, and the replacement of her lost topmast. He saw Paice's strong features in his thoughts in the moments which had followed Loyal Chieftain's capture.

Paice had exclaimed, 'We didn't lose a man, sir! Neither did Wakeful!'

It was strange, but nobody else had even asked him about that, not even Drew. He smiled grimly as he recalled the rear-admiral's agitation; especially him, might be more apt.

It was like the reports in the newssheets after a great battle or a storm's tragedy at sea. A flag officer or individual captains might be mentioned. The people and their cost in the ocean's hazards were rarely considered.

He replied, 'It is all we have, Mr Queely.' He guessed what he was thinking. Lord Marcuard's information had taken weeks to reach him, longer again to be studied and tested. In the meantime anything might have happened. Holland was still standing alone, but it would not be difficult for French spies to infiltrate even the most dedicated circle of conspirators. 'I shall remain ashore for four days. You will stand away from the land until the exact moment as we planned. That will prevent any vessel becoming suspicious of your presence and intentions.' He did not add that it would also stop anyone aboard Wakeful from spreading gossip, willingly or otherwise. Queely was a quickwitted officer. He would recognise the unspoken reason.

He persisted, 'I think you should be accompanied to the shore at least, sir.'

'Impossible. It would double your time here. You must be well clear before dawn. If the wind should back or drop-' There was no point in further explanations.

Queely held his watch close to the feeble compass glow.

'We will soon know.' He peered around for his lieutenant. 'Mr Kempthorne! Silence on deck.' He raised a speaking trumpet and held it to his ear to try to shut out the restless sea.

Bolitho felt Allday beside him and was glad of his company, moved that he should be prepared to risk his life yet again.

Allday grunted. 'Mebbe they've changed their minds, Cap'n.'

Bolitho nodded and tried to remember each detail of the chart and the notes he had studied on the passage from Kent.

A small country, and not many lonely places suitable enough for a secret landing. Here it was supposed to be a waterlogged stretch of low land, not unlike the marshes and fens of southeast England. Eventually the hardworking Dutch would reclaim the land from the sea and perhaps farm it. They rarely wasted any of their overcrowded resources. But if the French came-