Thomas, I feel a mite better to see you so miserable!”
Herrick swallowed hard. “Me, sir? Commodore?”
Allday was grinning. “Well done, sir!”
Herrick was still staring, his eyes on the red pendant at his feet.
“With my own flag-captain? Who, I mean what…”
Bolitho signalled for some more wine. His heart still ached as painfully as before and his sense of failure no less evident, but the sight of his friend’s confusion had helped considerably. This was their world. That other existence of marriage plans and security, talk of peace and future stability were alien here.
“I am certain all will be explained in your despatches from London, Thomas.” He watched Herrick’s mind grappling with it and then accepting it as a reality. The Navy taught you that if nothing else. Or you went under. “Think how proud Dulcie will be!”
Herrick nodded slowly. “I suppose so.” He shook his head. “All the same. Commodore.” He looked steadily at Bolitho, his eyes very blue. “I hope it’ll not steer us too far apart, sir.”
Bolitho was moved and turned away to hide his emotion. How typical of Herrick to think of that first. Not of his right and just promotion, long overdue, but of what it might mean to each of them. Personally.
Allday sauntered to the two swords on the cabin bulkhead, suddenly engrossed in their appearance and condition. The brilliant presentation sword from the people of Falmouth as recognition of Bolitho’s achievements in the Mediterranean and at the Nile. The other sword, without shine or lustre, outdated but finely balanced, seemed shabby by comparison. But neither the presentation blade, with all its gold and silver, nor a hundred like it, could equal the value of the older one. The Bolitho sword which appeared in several of those family portraits at Falmouth, and which Allday had seen in the press of many a battle, was beyond price.
For once even Allday was unable to accept the sudden orders for sea with his usual philosophy. He had not stepped on shore this time for more than a dog watch, and now they were off again. He had already been fuming at the unfairness and stupidity which had prevented Bolitho from receiving a proper reward after Copenhagen. Sir Richard Bolitho. It would have just the right ring to it, he thought.
But no, those buggers at the Admiralty had deliberately avoided doing what was proper. He clenched his big fists as he looked at the swords. It was buzzing through the fleet that Nelson had received much the same treatment, so that was some consolation. Nelson had raised all their hearts when he had pretended not to see his superior officer’s signal to break off the action. It was so like the man, what made the Jacks love him and the admirals who never went to sea loathe his very name.
Allday sighed and thought of the girl he had helped to rescue from the wrecked carriage just a few months ago. To think that Bolitho might still lose her because of a few stupid written orders was beyond his understanding.
“A toast to our new commodore.” Bolitho glanced at the goblets. The first lieutenant had come aft, his head bowed beneath the deckhead, while Grubb, the master, feet well apart to proportion his considerable weight, was already contemplating the goblet which looked like a thimble in his hand.
Herrick said, “Allday, come here. Under the circumstances, I’d like you to join us.”
Allday wiped his hands on his smart nankeen breeches and mumbled, “Well, thankee, sir.”
Bolitho raised his goblet. “To you, Thomas. To old friends, and old ships.”
Herrick smiled gravely. “It’s a good toast, that one.”
Allday drank the wine and withdrew into the shadows of the great cabin. Herrick had wanted him to share it. More than that, he had wanted the others to know it.
Allday slipped out of a small screen door and made his way forward towards the sunshine of the upper deck.
They had come a long way together, while others had been less fortunate. As their numbers grew fewer so the tasks seemed to get harder, he thought. Now Bolitho’s flag would soon be in the Bay of Biscay. A new collection of ships, a different puzzle for the rear-admiral to unravel.
But why the Bay? There were ships and men a-plenty who had been doing that bloody blockade for years, until their hulls had grown weed as long as snakes. No, for Beauchamp to order it, and for Richard Bolitho to be selected for the work, it had to be hard, there was no second way round it.
Allday walked into the sunlight and squinted up at the flag which curled from the mizzen.
“I still say he should be Sir Richard!”
The young lieutenant on watch considered ordering him about his affairs and then recalled what he had been told of the admiral’s coxswain. Instead, he moved to the opposite side of the quarterdeck.
When the anchorage was eventually plunged into darkness, with only the riding lights and occasional beam from the shore to divide sea from land, even the Benbow felt to be resting. Exhausted from their constant work aloft and below, her people lay packed in their hammocks like pods in some sealed cavern. Beneath the lines of hammocks the guns stood quietly behind their ports, dreaming perhaps of those times when they had shaken the life from the air and made the world cringe with their fury.
Right aft in the great cabin Bolitho sat at his desk, a lantern spiralling gently above him as the ship pulled and tested her cables.
To most of the squadron, and to many of Benbow’s people, he was a name, a leader, whose flag they obeyed. Some had served with him before and were proud of it, proud to be able to give him his nickname which none of the new hands would know. Equality Dick. There were others who had created their own image of the young rear- admiral, as if by expanding it they would increase their own immortality and fame. There were a few, a very few, like the faithful Ozzard who was dozing like a mouse in his pantry, who saw Bolitho’s moods in the early morning or at the end of a great storm or sea-chase. Or Allday, who had been drawn to him when on the face of things he should have had their first meeting marred by the hatred and humiliation of a press-gang. Herrick, who had fallen asleep over the last pile of signed reports from the other captains, had known him at the height of excitement and at the depths of despair. Perhaps he better than any other would have recognized the Richard Bolitho who sat poised at his desk, the pen held deliberately above the paper, his mind lost to everything but the girl he was leaving behind.
Then with great care he began. “My dearest Belinda…”
2. No Looking Back
RICHARD BOLITHO lay back in a chair and waited for Allday to finish shaving him. Herrick was standing by the screen door, just out of his line of sight, while around and above them the Benbow’s hull and decks quivered and echoed to the clatter of repairs.
Herrick was saying, “I’ve informed Captain Neale that you will be shifting your flag to Styx this forenoon, sir. He seems uncommon pleased about it.”
Bolitho glanced at Allday’s engrossed features as he worked the razor skilfully around his chin. Poor Allday, he obviously disapproved of the move to a cramped frigate after the comparative luxury of the flagship, just as Herrick mistrusted any other captain’s ability to conduct his affairs.
It was strange how the Navy always managed to weave the threads so finely together. Captain John Neale of the thirty-twogun Styx had served as a chubby midshipman under Bolitho in his first frigate, in another war. Like Captain Keen who was anchored less than a cable away in the third-rate Nicator, he too had been a midshipman in one of Bolitho’s commands.
He frowned, and wondered when he would hear how Adam Pascoe was progressing, what his appointment was, what manner of captain he now served.
Allday wiped his face carefully and nodded. “All done, sir.”
Bolitho washed from a bowl which Allday had placed near the stern windows. No word was said, it was something they had formed over the years. At sea or in harbour, Bolitho disliked wasting time staring at a blank piece of timber while he was preparing himself for another day.
There was so much to do, orders to sign for individual captains, a report of readiness for the Admiralty, approval for the squadron’s mounting dockyard expenses, new appointments to be settled. It would be unfair to leave Herrick with too much unfinished business, he decided.
