'Memories, Bolitho?'
`Aye, sir. Ships and faces.'
That said it all. Bolitho had gone to sea, like Neale, at the age of twelve. Now he was a rear-admiral, the impossible dream. Too many times he had stood eye to eye with death, too often he had seen others fall about him to hold much confidence beyond the month or the year.
`Your ships are all gathered here, Bolitho.' It was a statement. 'So there's no sense in wasting time. Get 'em to sea, exercise them as you know how, make them hate your guts, but forge them into steel!'
Bolitho smiled gravely. He was eager to leave. The land held nothing for him any more. He had visited Falmouth, his house and estate there. It had affected him in the same way as before. As if the house had been waiting for something. He had stood before her portrait in his bedroom several times. Listening to her voice. Hearing her laugh. Yearning for the girl he had married and lost almost, immediately in a tragic accident. Cheney. He had even spoken her name. As if to bring the picture to life. When he had left to make for London he had turned in the doorway to look at her face once more.
The sea-green eyes, like the water below Pendennis Castle, the flowing hair with the colour of new chestnuts. She, too, had appeared to be waiting.
He shook himself from his thoughts and remembered the one enjoyable thing he had shared when Herrick had returned to England in his old Lysander.
With surprisingly little hesitation Herrick had married the widow Dulcie Boswell whom he had met in the Mediterranean.
Bolitho had made the journey willingly to the small Kentish church on the road to Canterbury. The pews had been filled with Herrick's friends and neighbours, with a good sprinkling of blue and white from fellow sea officers.
Bolitho had felt strangely excluded, the feeling made harder to bear when he had recalled his own wedding at Falmouth, with Herrick beside him to offer the ring.
Then, as the bells chimed and Herrick had turned from the altar with his bride's hand on his gold-laced cuff, he had paused by Bolitho and had said simply, `You being here, sir, has made this just perfect for me.'
Beauchamp's voice intruded again. `I would like to take lunch with you, but I have business with the port admiral. And no doubt you've much to do. I'm obliged to you for many things, Bolitho.' He gave a wry smile. `Not least for accepting my suggestion for a flag lieutenant. I've had my fill of him in London!'
Bolitho guessed there was a lot more to the request than that but said nothing.
Instead he said, `I shall take my leave, sir. And thank you for seeing me.'
Beauchamp shrugged. It looked like a physical effort. 'Least I could do for you. You have your orders. You're not being offered an easy passage, but then you'd not have thanked me for one, eh?' He chuckled. `Just keep a weather eye open for trouble.' He fixed Bolitho with a flat stare. `I'll say no more than that. But your deeds, your rewards, well earned though they were, will have made you some enemies. Be warned.' He held out his hand. `Now be off with you, and mark what I said.'
Bolitho left the room and strode past several people who were waiting to see the fierce little admiral. For advice, for favours, for hope, who could say?
At the foot of the stairs, standing near a crowded coffee room, he saw Allday waiting for him. As always. He would never alter. The same homely face and broad grin whenever he was pleased. He had thickened out a bit, Bolitho thought, but he was like a rock. He smiled to himself. At any other time an inn servant would have hurried a mere coxswain round the back to the kitchens, or, more likely, outside into the cold.
But in his blue coat with its gilt buttons, new breeches and
polished leather boots he looked every inch an admiral's coxswain.
And how Allday had struggled over the past three years to call him sir. Before, he had always addressed Bolitho as captain. Now he was having to get used to a rear-admiral. Just that morning as they had left for Portsmouth from a friend's house where Bolitho had been staying for a few days, Allday had said cheerfully, `Never mind, sir. It'll be Sir Richard soon, and I can manage that well enough!'
Allday handed him his long boat-cloak and watched as Bolitho tugged his cocked hat firmly over his black hair.
`This is a moment, eh, sir?' He shook his head. `We've come a long road.'
Bolitho looked at him warmly. Allday usually managed to put his finger on it. Times and places, blue seas and grey ones. Danger with death swiftly on its heels. Allday was always there. Ready to help, to use his cheek as liberally as his courage in every situation. He was a real friend, although he could do much to try Bolitho's temper when he wanted to.
'Aye. In some ways it feels like beginning all over again.'
He glanced at himself in the wall mirror near the entrance, much as he had done when he had gone out to take command of the frigate Phalarope, younger then than any captain in his new squadron.
He thought suddenly of the country house where he had been staying, recalling one of the housemaids, a pretty girl with flaxen hair and a trim figure. He had seen Allday with her on several occasions and the thought troubled him. Allday had risked his life and had saved Bolitho's many times. Now they were off again, and Allday, because of his dogged loyalty, was being taken from the land once more.
Bolitho toyed with the idea of offering him a chance of freedom. To send him to Falmouth where he could live in peace, to stroll the foreshore and drink ale with other seafaring men. He had done more than his share for England, and there were plenty who never risked life and limb aloft in a gale or standing to the guns while the air was rent by the enemy's iron.
He saw Allday's face and decided against it. It would hurt and anger him. He would have felt the same way.
Bolitho said, `There'll be a few fathers looking for the sailor who wronged their daughters, eh, Allday?'
Their eyes met. It was a game they had learned to play very well.
Allday grinned. 'My thoughts, too, sir. It's time for a change.'
Captain Thomas Herrick walked from beneath the poop and stood with his hands behind his back while he allowed his mind and body to adjust to the ship and the cold, damp wind which dappled her decks with spray.
The forenoon was almost over, and with practised eye Herrick noted that the many seamen working about the decks and gangways, or high overhead on the yards, were moving more slowly, probably dwelling on the midday meal, the thoughts of rum, a moment's respite in the crowded life between decks.
Herrick let his gaze stray around the broad quarterdeck, the stiff-backed midshipman of the watch, obviously conscious of his captain's presence, the neat lines of guns, everything. He still could not get used to the ship. He had brought his old command, the Lysander of seventy-four guns, home after many months of continuous service. Age, storm-damage and the heavier strains of battle had left deep wounds in the old ship, and it had been no surprise to Herrick to be told to pay off his command and be prepared to turn Lysander over to the dockyard. He had gone through a lot in that ship, had learned even more about himself, his limitations and his skills. As flag captain to Commodore Richard Bolitho he had discovered more paths of duty than he had known existed.
Lysander would never stand in, the line of battle again. Too much damage had taken its toll, and her many years of service would probably be ignored and she would end her days as a store-ship, or worse, a prison hulk.
Her complement had been scattered throughout the fleet in an effort to feed the unending appetite of a navy at war. Herrick had seen it all before, and had wondered more than once what his own fate would be. To his astonishment he had been given this ship. His Britannic Majesty's seventy-four-gun ship of the line Benbow, absolutely new from her builders in the main dockyard at Devonport, the first new vessel Herrick had ever served in, let alone commanded.
He had been with her for months, worrying and working while the dockyard completed their part and Benbow grew and grew to her present appearance.
Everything was strange and untried, not least the men who were gathered into her eighteen-hundred-ton hull, and Herrick had blessed every ounce of experience which he had gained on his long climb up the ladder of advancement and service.
Luckily, he had been able to hold on to a few of his old professionals from the Lysander, some of her `backbone' of skilled warrant and petty officers who, even now, after the previous night's howling gale, were to be heard bawling around the upper deck as they, like their captain, grew conscious of their responsibility and what the
