Admiralty instructions.
By the time he had completed his walk and had returned to his quarters, Bolitho felt vaguely depressed. Perhaps it was the absence of news and the hint of a chill in these September days. Biscay could be a terrible station in really bad weather. It would take more than gun and sail drills to keep the ships’ companies alert and ready to fight.
It had to be soon. Otherwise the French would be prevented from moving the bulk of their new invasion craft by worsening weather, just as their enemies would be driven away from the dangerous coastline for the same reason. Soon.
Browne was opening envelopes and piling official documents to one side while he placed personal letters on Bolitho’s table.
The flag-lieutenant said, “No new orders, sir.”
He sounded so cheerful that Bolitho had to bite back a rebuke. It was not Browne’s fault. Perhaps it had never been intended that their presence here was to be anything but a gesture.
His eyes fell on the letter which lay uppermost on the table.
“Thank you, Oliver.”
He sat down and read it slowly, afraid he might miss something, or worse that she had written of some regret for what had happened at Gibraltar.
Her words were like a warm breeze. In minutes he felt strangely relaxed, and even the pain in his wounded thigh left him in peace.
She was waiting.
Bolitho stood up quickly. “Make a signal to Phalarope, Oliver, repeated to Rapid.” He walked across the cabin, the letter clutched in his hand.
Browne was still staring up at him from the table, fascinated by the swift change.
Bolitho snapped, “Wake up, Oliver! You wanted orders, well, here they are. Tell Rapid, investigate possibility of capturing a fishing boat and report when ready.”
He tapped his mouth with Belinda’s letter and then held it to his nose. Her perfume. She must have done it deliberately.
Browne wrote frantically on his book and asked, “May I ask why, sir?”
Bolitho smiled at him. “If they won’t come out to us, we’ll have to go inshore amongst them!”
Browne got to his feet. “I’ll signal Phalarope, sir.”
There would be more than a little risk in seizing one of the local boats sighted by Ganymede. But it would involve only a handful of men. Determined and well-led, they might be the means to provide the picklock to Contre-Amiral Remond’s back door!
Browne returned a few moments later, his blue coat bright with droplets of spray.
He said, “Wind’s still getting up, sir.”
“Good.”
Bolitho rubbed his hands. He could picture his signal being passed from ship to ship with no less efficiency and speed than the enemy’s semaphore.Rapid ’s young commander, Jeremy Lapish, had only just been promoted from lieutenant. He was said to be keen and competent, two sound qualities for a man who was after recognition and further advancement. Bolitho could also imagine his nephew when he heard of the signal when it was passed on from his own ship. He would see himself in charge of the raid, with all its risks and the wild cut and thrust of close action.
Browne sat down and continued to study the despatches tied in their pink Admiralty tape.
“Looking back, sir.” He watched Bolitho gravely. “When we were prisoners, in some ways it was Captain Neale who held us together. I believe we were too worried for his safety to care for our own predicament. I often think about him.”
Bolitho nodded. “He’ll be thinking of us, I shouldn’t wonder, when next we beat to quarters.” He smiled. “I hope we do something he’d be proud of.”
The wind rose and veered, the sea changed its face from blue to grey, and as dusk closed down the sight of land the squadron took station for the night.
Deep down on Benbow’s orlop deck, as the ship swayed and groaned around them, Allday and Tuck, the captain’s coxswain, sat in companionable silence and shared a bottle of rum. The smell of the rum and the swinging lantern was making both of them drowsy, but the two coxswains were content.
Tuck asked suddenly, “D’you reckon your admiral’s goin’ to fight, John?”
Allday held his glass against the guttering candle and examined the level of its contents.
“Course he will, Frank.”
Tuck grimaced. “If I ’ad a woman like the one ’e’s got ’is grapnels on, I’d stay well clear o’ the Frenchie’s iron.” He grinned admiringly. “An’ you lives at ’is ’ouse when you’re ashore, right?”
Allday’s head lolled. He could see the stone walls and the hedgerows as if he were there. The two inns he liked best in Falmouth, the girl at the George who had done him a favour or two. Then there was Mrs Laidlaw’s new maid Polly, she was a neat parcel and no mistake.
He said, “That’s right, Frank. One of the family, that’s me.”
But Tuck was fast asleep.
Allday leant his back against a massive frame and wondered why he was changing. He always tried to keep his life afloat separate from the one which Bolitho had given him at Falmouth.
He thought of the coming battle. Tuck must be mad if he believed Bolitho would give way to the Frogs. Not now, not after all they had seen and done together.
Fight they would, and Allday was troubled that it affected him so deeply.
Aloud he said to the ship, “I’m getting bloody old, that’s what.”
Tuck groaned and muttered, “Wassat?”
“Shut up, you stupid bugger.” Allday lurched to his feet. “Come on then, I’ll help sling your hammock for you.”
Some eight miles from Allday’s flickering lantern another scene was being enacted in the Rapid ’s small cabin as Lapish, her commander, explained what was required.
The brig was pitching violently in a steep offshore swell, but neither Lapish nor his equally youthful first lieutenant even noticed it.
Lapish was saying, “You’ve seen the signal from the Flag, Peter, and you know what to look for. I’ll drop the boat as close as I can and stand off until you return, with or without a fisherman.” He grinned at the lieutenant. “Does it frighten you?”
“It’s one way to promotion, sir.”
They both bent over the chart to complete their calculations.
The lieutenant had never spoken to his rear-admiral, and had only seen him a few times at a distance. But what did it matter? Tomorrow there might be a new admiral in command. The lieutenant laid his hanger on a bench beside his favourite pistols. Or I might be dead.
In the long chain of command the next few hours were all that mattered.
“Ready, Peter?”
“Aye, sir.”
They listened to the dash of spray over the deck. A foul night for boatwork, but a perfect one for what they had in mind.
And anyway, they had their orders from the Flag.
13. No Fighting Sailor
LIEUTENANT Wolfe ducked his head beneath the deckhead beams and clumped noisily into the cabin. He waited while Bolitho and Herrick completed some calculations on a chart and then said, “Signal from Rapid, repeated by Phalarope. French boat captured. No alarm given.”
Bolitho glanced at Herrick. “That was good work. The brig is aptly named.” To Wolfe he said, “Signal Rapid to
