yard.
Bolitho trained his glass and saw the sleek frigate swooping across the lens, the spray lifting above her bows in one unbroken curtain. He forgot his discomfort as he remembered his own service in frigates. Always on the move, with the dash and excitement which only such graceful ships could give. He pitied her captain's lonely vigil here. Back and forth, day after day, with nothing to show for it. A ship of the line was bad enough in these conditions, but within her sleek hull it would be a living nightmare.
He dragged the glass away from the other ship and swung it across the darkening spit of headland to the north of the estuary. A few patches, probably coastguard houses, he thought. Above the distant offshore current they appeared to be moving and the sea to be still. He lowered the glass and wiped his eye with his sleeve.
He heard Inch's voice carried by the wind. 'Captain, sir! Ithuriel has nothing to report!'
By waiting for the mizzen topsail to flap momentarily in the falling wind it was possible for Bolitho to see the shortened figures standing on the quarterdeck, their faces pale blobs against the worn planking. He could see Gascoigne, his signal book flapping in the breeze, and Stepkyne with his glass on the frigate as she cruised past on the opposite tack. Even the ship looked small and compact, so that it was hard to accept that six hundred human souls lived out their lives within her fat hull.
He thought, too, of the frigate's wretched conditions. One of a chain of ships, weatherbeaten and dependent on their own resources, yet essential if the enemy was to be contained within his harbours.
Bolitho swallowed hard and seized a backstay. He could not face another long climb, even downwards, so 56
watched by the lookout with something like awe he swung from the crosstrees, and holding his breath made his way to the quarterdeck by a faster, if less dignified method. He arrived panting on deck, conscious of the grinning seamen around him and of the pain in his legs where the thick stay had seared through to his skin in the speedy and heartstopping descent.
He said stiffly, 'Before the light goes I will make a signal to Ithuriel.' He beckoned to Gascoigne. 'I've - forgotten her captain's name.'
Gascoigne was still gaping as if he could not believe a captain could behave in such an odd manner. Then he opened his book and stammered, 'Ithuriel, 32, Captain Curry, sir!'
It would sound trite to wish him a good New Year, Bolitho thought, but it would be better than nothing.
Stepkyne said, 'Well, they've kept her smart enough, in spite of the damn weather.'
Bolitho took Gascoigne's big signal telescope and lifted it above the nettings. The frigate was on the Hyperion's larboard quarter now and he could see the huddled figures on her quarterdeck below the tattered remnant of her ensign. He blinked his eyes rapidly to clear them from strain. He was mistaken. He had to be.
His voice was still calm as he snapped, 'Make this signal, Mr. Gascoigne. Hermes to Ithuriel. Good luck.'
He ignored the startled look on the midshipman's pale face and rasped, 'That's right. I said Hermes!' Then he added, 'Thank you, Mr. Stepkyne.'
Nobody spoke. Those standing near Bolitho even averted their eyes as if unable to watch his madness.
Gascoigne said in a small voice, 'She's acknowledged, sir.'
Bolitho looked away. 'Lay her on. the starboard tack, Mr. Gossett. We will steer due west.' Then as the pipes twittered and the men ran to the braces he added harshly, 'Ithuriel is a thirty-two-gun frigate, gentlemen. That ship is a thirty-six! And only a Frenchman would fail to see we are not the Hermes!'
They were all staring at him now. 'Mr. Stepkyne saw it first, even though he did not recognise fully what he had discovered. She is too smart, too clean after weeks of blockade duty!
Inch said, 'What does it mean, sir?' He seemed stunned.
Bolitho watched the yards swinging and the sails filling again to the wind.
'It means, gentlemen, that Ithuriel has been taken. That explains how those people knew our recognition signals.' It was amazing how calm he sounded. He could not understand it, when every fibre in his body was crying out for them to understand, as he did. He saw Allday leaning against a nine-pounder, staring astern at the frigate as she sidled once more into the haze of spray and growing darkness. He would know how Bolitho felt. He had been aboard his ship, the Phalarope when she had been attacked by an American privateer. That, too, had been a British frigate taken as a prize.
Bolitho asked slowly, 'Why should the French bother with such a deception? They have taken a good frigate, so why keep it a secret?'
Gossett said, 'Seems to me, sir, that they got summat to 'ide.'
Bolitho showed his teeth in a smile. 'I believe so, Mr. Gossett.' He looked up at the flapping pendant. 'There is no time to inform the squadron, even if we could find them.' His tone hardened. 'As soon as it is dark we will go about and work to a position north of the estuary again. I have no doubt the frigate's captain, whoever he is, will anchor for the night. He will know it to be unlikely for another ship to come from the squadron for days, even weeks maybe.' He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice. If Pelham-Martin had concentrated his three frigates, and if possible the sloops as well in a tight are around the patrol area and within visual distance of one another, this could never have happened. He continued in the same flat tone, 'We will close the shore as near as we are able. When the first daylight appears I want to have the wind-gage.' He glanced coldly at the nearest guns.
'This time I will do the talking first. And with authority!'
As the banks of cloud closed across the horizon and plunged the sea into total darkness Bolitho still paced the quarterdeck. He was soaked to the skin with spray but did not even feel it. He was seeing that frigate again, feeling the arrogance of her captain as he had signalled to the two-decker. And it had been such a close call. He felt the anger twisting in his stomach like fire. Another few minutes and they would have parted. Hyperion would have informed the commodore there was nothing unusual to report, and he would have been more than willing to accept it.
And the frigate? He paused in his pacing so that the helmsman's eyes blinked anxiously in the compass light as Bolitho stared unseeingly through him. She would be able to tell her masters that the English were deceived. He frowned. But to what purpose? He continued his pacing, aware of nothing but his thoughts and what they could mean for him, and his ship.
Hyperion could have dismasted the frigate with one illaimed broadside as they had passed. Suppose she was no longer on her station when dawn came? Pelham-Martin would not even have the satisfaction of knowing an enemy ship had been destroyed when he wrote to Cavendish with the admission of Ithuriel's capture.
Pelham-Martin would not be in any mood to shoulder the blame alone either, Bolitho decided grimly.
But there had to be a reason for the Frenchman's actions. There had to be.
At length, worn out and suddenly ice cold, he said wearily, 'I will go to my cabin, Mr. Stepkyne. Call me half an hour before the morning watch, if you please.' He took Inch by the arm. 'Pass the word that I want all hands roused at that time. They will be fed and ready for whatever we must do when light returns.'
As he walked into the darkness of the poop he heard a voice mutter admiringly, 'Cool as a shark's belly, that one! Sees a bloody Frog under his guns an' don't turn a hair!'
Then Gossett's bass voice. ''Old yer yap, damn youl You'll find plenty o' time for noise when the guns begin to crack around yer ears!'
Bolitho entered his cabin and slammed the door. For a few moments he stood quite still, his shoulders pressed against the bulkhead as he stared emptily at the swinging lanterns.
Gossett knew well enough. Less than a quarter of the company had set foot aboard a ship before, let alone known the horror of an enemy broadside.
He closed his eyes tightly and tried to clear his mind of doubt. There was no choice, nor had there been from the moment he had seen through the frigate's calm deception.
And it had nearly worked, that was the worst part in some ways. In spite of all his experience and training he had only seen what he had expected to see. The frigate's captain had gambled on this, but he must have known the consequences for failure, must have found each minute like an hour as the Hyperion had surged by within, two miles of him.
Whatever it was the French were hiding it must be very worth while. Surprisingly the realisation steadied him, and later when Petch padded into the cabin with some coffee he found Bolitho sprawled on the stern bench, his face relaxed in sleep.
Petch was a simple soul, and when he told some of his friends that their captain was so self-assured he was fast asleep already, the tale gained much in the telling.
