The oars were tossed and Tuck, the coxswain, removed his hat. Their eyes met and Herrick gave a quick smile. “Thank you, Tuck. Smart turnout.”
They understood each other.
Herrick looked up at the entry port and prepared himself for the thousandth time. Once he had never believed he would ever hold his rank of lieutenant. The step from wardroom to quarterdeck, and now to being the flag- captain to one of the finest seaofficers alive, was even harder to accept.
Like the new house in Kent. Not a cottage, but a real house, with a full admiral living nearby and several rich merchants too. Dulcie had assured him, “Nothing is too good for you, dear Thomas. You’ve worked for it, you deserve far more.”
Herrick sighed. Most of the money had been hers anyway. How had he ever managed to be so lucky, to find his Dulcie?
“Marines! At-ten-shun!”
A cloud of pipeclay floated above the stolid faces and black shakoes as the muskets banged to the present, and, as the air cringed to the twitter of the boatswains’ calls, Herrick removed his hat to the quarterdeck and to Wolfe, his towering first lieutenant, the most ungainly, but certainly one of the best seamen Herrick had ever met.
The din faded away, and Herrick looked at the side party with sadness. So many new faces to learn. But now he only saw the others who had died in the battle or were suffering the pain and humiliation of some naval hospital.
But Major Clinton of the marines was still here. And beyond his scarlet shoulder Herrick saw old Ben Grubb, the sailingmaster. He was lucky to have so many seasoned hands to weld the recruits and pressed men into some kind of company.
“Well, Mr Wolfe, maybe you can tell me why the admiral’s flag is aloft?”
He fell in step with the lieutenant with the two wings of bright ginger hair poking from beneath his hat like studding-sails. It was as if he had never been away. As if the ship had swallowed him up and the distant shore with its shimmering houses and embrazured batteries was of no importance.
Wolfe said in his flat, harsh voice, “The admiral came off shore yesterday afternoon, sir.” He shot out a massive fist and pointed at some newly coiled halliards. “What’s that lot? Bloody birds’-nests?” He swung away from the transfixed sailor and bellowed, “Mr Swale, take this idiot’s name! He should be a damned weaver, not a seaman!”
Wolfe added, breathing hard, “Most of the new hands are like that. The sweepings of the assizes, with a sprinkling of trained ones.” He tapped his big nose. “Got them off an Indiaman. They said they were free from service in a King’s ship. They said they had the papers to prove it too.”
Herrick gave a wry smile. “But their ship had sailed by the time you sorted things out, Mr Wolfe?”
Like his first lieutenant, Herrick had little sympathy with all the prime seamen who were exempt from naval service merely because they were employed by John Company or some harbour authority. England was at war. They needed seamen, not cripples and criminals. Every day it got harder. Herrick had heard that the press-gangs and undaunted recruiting parties were working many miles from the sea now.
He glanced up at the towering mainmast and its imposing spread of rigging and crossed yards. It was not difficult to remember the smoke and the punctured sails. The marines in the maintop yelling and cheering, firing swivels and muskets in a world gone mad.
They walked into the coolness of the poop, each ducking between the heavy deckhead beams.
Wolfe said, “The admiral came alone, sir.” He hesitated, as if to test their relationship. “I thought he might bring his lady.”
Herrick eyed him gravely. Wolfe was huge and violent and had seen service in everything from a slaver to a collier brig. He was not the kind of man to be patient with a laggard or allow time for personal weaknesses. But neither was he a gossip.
Herrick said simply, “I had hopes too. By God, if ever a man deserved or needed-”
The rest of his words were cut dead as the marine sentry outside the great cabin tapped his musket smartly on the deck and shouted, “Flag-Captain, sah! ”
Wolfe grinned and turned aside. “Damned bullocks!”
The door was opened swiftly by little Ozzard, Bolitho’s personal servant. He was an oddity. Although a good servant, he was said to have been an even better lawyer’s clerk, but had fled to the Navy rather than face trial or, as some had unkindly hinted, a quick end on a hangman’s halter.
The great cabin, divided by white screens from the dining and sleeping quarters, had been freshly painted, and the deck was once more covered by checkered canvas with no hint of the battle scars underneath.
Bolitho had been leaning out of a stern window, and as he turned to greet his friend, Herrick felt relieved that there was apparently no change. His gold-laced rear-admiral’s coat lay carelessly across a chair, and he wore only his shirt and breeches. His black hair, with the one loose lock above his right eye, and his ready smile made him seem more like a lieutenant than a flagofficer.
They held hands momentarily, compressing the memories and the pictures into a few seconds.
Bolitho said, “Some hock, Ozzard.” He pulled a chair for Herrick. “Sit you down, Thomas. It is good to see you.”
His level grey eyes held on to his friend for a moment longer. Herrick was sturdier, his face a mite rounder, but that would be his new wife’s care and cooking. There were a few touches of grey on his brown hair, like frost on a strong bush. But the clear blue eyes which could be so stubborn and so hurt were the same.
They touched their goblets and Bolitho added, “What is your state of readiness, Thomas?”
Herrick almost choked on his wine. Readiness? A month in port, and two of the squadron’s strength lost forever during the battle! Even their smallest two-decker, the sixty-four-gun Odin, under the command of Captain Inch, had barely reached safety at the Nore, so deep by the bows had she been. Here in Plymouth, the Indomitable and the Nicator, seventy-fours like Benbow, were in the throes of repair.
He said carefully, “Nicator will be ready for sea soon, sir. The rest of the squadron should be reporting readiness by September, if we can bribe some help from these dockyard thieves!”
“And Styx, what of her?”
Even as he asked of the squadron’s one surviving frigate, Bolitho saw the faraway look in his friend’s eyes. They had lost their other frigate and a sloop-of-war. Wiped away, like footprints on a beach at high water.
Herrick allowed Ozzard to refill the goblet before answering. “ Styx is working night and day, sir. Captain Neale seems able to inspire miracles from his people.” He added apologetically, “I have only just returned from Kent, sir, but I shall be able to give you a full report by the end of the day.”
Bolitho had risen to his feet, as if the chair could no longer contain his restlessness.
“ Kent?” He smiled. “Forgive me, Thomas. I forgot. I am too full of my own problems to ask about your visit. How did the wedding go?”
As Herrick related the events which culminated in the marriage of his sister to his one-time first lieutenant, Bolitho found his mind moving away again.
When he had returned to Falmouth after the battle at Copenhagen he had been happier, more content than he could believe possible. To have survived had been one thing. To arrive at the Bolitho home with his nephew, Adam Pascoe, and his coxswain and friend, John Allday, had been crowned by the girl who had been waiting there for him. Belinda; he still found it hard to speak her name without fear that it was another dream, a ruse to taunt him back to hard reality.
The squadron, the battle, everything had seemed to fade as they had explored the old house like strangers. Made plans together. Had vowed not to waste a single minute while Bolitho was released from duty.
There was even a rumour of peace in the air. After all the years of war, blockade and violent death, it was said that secret negotiations were being made in London and Paris to stop the fighting, to gain a respite without loss of honour to either side. Even that had seemed possible in Bolitho’s new dreamlike world.
But within two weeks a courier had come from London with orders for Bolitho to report to the Admiralty to visit his old superior and mentor, Admiral Sir George Beauchamp, who had given him command of the Baltic Inshore Squadron in the first place.
Even then Bolitho had seen the courier’s dramatic despatch as nothing more than a necessary interruption.
