With All Despatch

swirling snow. 'Some o' that cordage 'as carried away!'

Paice swore. 'God damn all dockyards! For what they care we could lose the bloody topmast!' It was pointless to worry about the half-frozen men working up there, their fingers like claws, their eyes blinded by snow.

Hawkins suggested, 'We could reef, sir.'

Paice exclaimed, 'Shorten sail? Damn it to hell, man! We've lost enough knots already!' He swung away. 'Do what you must.

I shall let her fall off a point-it might help to ease the strain.'

Paice found Triscott peering at the compass, his hat and shoulders starkly white in the shadows.

The first lieutenant knew it was pointless to argue with Paice about the way he was driving his command. It was so unlike him, as if the flames of hell were at his heels.

Paice took a deep breath as water lifted over the bulwark and sluiced away into the scuppers.

When daylight came there would probably be no sign of Snapdragon. In these conditions station-keeping was almost a joke. Perhaps Vatass would use the situation to go about and beat back to harbour. Paice toyed with the thought, which he knew was unfair and uncharitable.

The helmsman yelled, 'Steady as she goes, sir! Sou' by East!'

Chesshyre said, 'We'll be a right laughing stock if we have the sticks torn out of us.' He had not realised that Paice was still in the huddled group around the compass.

He winced as Paice's great hand fell on his arm like a grapnel.

'You are the acting-master, Mr Chesshyre! If you can't think of anything more useful to offer, then acting you will remain!'

Triscott interrupted, 'We shall sight land when the snow clears. Mr Chesshyre assured me that it will by dawn.'

Paice said hotly, 'In which case it will probably turn into a bloody typhoon!'

Triscott hid a smile. He had always liked Paice and had learned all he knew from him. Nevertheless he could be quite frightening sometimes. Like now.

Paice strode to the side and stared at the surging wake as it lifted and curled over the lee bulwark.

Was he any better than Vatass, and was this only a gesture? He raised his face into the swirling flakes and stinging wind. He knew that was not so. Without Bolitho the ship even felt different. Just months ago Paice would never have believed that he would have stood his ship into jeopardy in this fashion. And all because of a man. An ordinary man.

He heard muffled cries from above the deck, and guessed that some new cordage and whipping were being run up to the masthead for their numbed hands to work on.

He shook his head as if he was in pain. No, he was never an ordinary man.

Paice's wife had been a schoolmaster's daughter and had taught her bluff sea-officer a great deal. She had introduced him to words he had never known. His life until she entered it had been rough, tough ships and men to match them. He smiled sadly, reminiscently, into the snow. No wonder her family had raised their hands in horror when she had told them of her intention to marry him.

He tried again. What was the word she had used? He nodded, satisfied at last. Charisma. Bolitho had it, and probably did not even guess.

He thought of Bolitho's mission and wondered why nobody had listened to him when he had spoken his mind on Sir James Tanner. Like a hopeless crusade. It had been the same between Delaval and Paice himself: not just a fight between the forces of law and corruption, but something personal. Nobody had listened to him, either. They had been sorry, of course-he felt the old flame of anger returning. How would they have felt if their wives had been murdered like… He stopped himself. He could not bear even to use her name in the same company.

Now Delaval was dead. Paice had watched him on that clear day, every foot of the way to the scaffold. He had heard no voices, no abuse or ironic cheering from the crowd who had come to be entertained. God, he thought, if they held a mass torture session on the village green there would not be room to sit down.

He had spoken to Delaval silently on that day. Had cursed his name, damned him in an afterlife where he hoped he would suffer, as he had forced so many others to do.

Paice was not a cruel man, but he had felt cheated by the brevity of the execution. Long after the crowd had broken up he had stood in a doorway and watched Delaval's corpse swinging in the breeze. If he had known where it was to be hung in chains as a gruesome warning to other felons, he knew he would have gone there too.

He looked up, caught off balance as a dark shape fell past the mainsail, hit the bulwark and vanished over the side. Just those few seconds, but he had heard the awful scream, the crack as the living body had broken on the impact before disappearing outboard.

Scrope the master-at-arms came running aft. 'It was Morrison, sir!'

The thing changed to a real person. A bright-eyed seaman from Gillingham, who had quit fishing and signed on with a recruiting party after his parents had died of fever.

Nobody spoke, not even the youthful Triscott. Even he knew that it was impossible to turn the cutter or lie-to in this sea. Even if they succeeded they would never find the man named Morrison. It was a sailor's lot. They sang of it in the dogwatches, below, in the ale shops and the dockside whorehouses. Rough and crude they might be, but to Paice they were the only real people.

He said harshly, 'Send another man aloft. I want that work finished, and lively with it!'

Some would curse his name for his methods, but most of them would understand. A sailor's lot.

Paice stamped his feet on the deck to bring back some warmth and feeling. He wanted to think about Bolitho, what steps he should take next if they failed to find him when daylight came. But all he could think of was the man who had just been chosen to die. For that was what he and most sailors thought. When your name is called. He gripped a backstay and felt it jerking and shivering in his fingers. All he had to do was lose his handhold. How would he feel then, as his ship vanished into the night, and he was left to choke and drown?

He came out of his brooding and snapped, 'I'm going below. Call me if-'

Triscott stared at his leaning shadow. 'Aye, aye, sir.'

Paice stumbled into the cabin, slamming the door shut behind him. He stared at the other bunk and remembered Allday's model ship, the bond which seemed to shine between those two men.

He spoke to the cabin at large. 'I must find him!' He glanced at the battered Bible in its rack but dismissed the idea immediately. That could wait. Charisma was enough for one watch.

On the deck above, Triscott watched the comings and goings of men up and down the treacherous ratlines. In a few weeks' time he would be twenty years old. And now it was war. Only after he had seen and spoken with Bolitho had he grasped some inkling of what war, especially at sea, might mean. Paice had hinted that Their Lordships at the far-off Admiralty would be pruning out trained officers and men from every ship which had been fully employed. Why, he wondered, had they not kept a powerful fleet in commission if they knew war was coming?

Hawkins strode aft and said gruffly, 'All done, sir. The blacking-down will have to wait till this lot's over.'

Triscott had to shout over the hiss and patter of water. 'Morrison never stood a chance, Mr Hawkins!'

The boatswain wiped his thick fingers on some rags and eyed him grimly. 'I 'ope that made 'im feel better, sir.'

Triscott watched his burly shape melt into the gloom and sighed.

Another Paice.

Figures groped through the forward hatch and others slithered thankfully into the damp darkness of the messdeck as the watches changed. Dench, the master's mate, was taking over the morning watch and was muttering to Chesshyre, probably discussing the failings of their lieutenants.

Triscott went below and lay fully clothed on the bunk, the one which Bolitho had used.

From the darkness Paice asked, 'All right up top?'

Triscott smiled to himself. Worrying about his Telemachus. He never stopped.

'Dench is doing well with the watch, sir.'

Paice said fiercely, 'If I could just make one sighting at first light.' But he heard a gentle snore from the opposite side.