Browne said, “The French have been gathering invasion craft along their northern ports for months, as you know, sir. By way of intelligence obtained from the Portuguese, it appears that many of the invasion craft are being built, armed and stored in harbours along the coastline of Biscay.” He smiled wryly. “Your new sector, sir. I did not always see eye to eye with Sir George, but he had style, sir, and this plan to destroy an invasion fleet before it can be moved to the Channel has his touch, the mark of the master!” He flushed. “I do beg your pardon, sir. But I still cannot
accept he is dead.”
Bolitho turned the heavy folder of instructions over in his hands. Beauchamp’s last strategy worked out to the final detail. All it needed was the man to translate it into action. Bolitho was moved to realize that Beauchamp must have considered him from the very beginning. There was no choice at all, and never had been.
He said quietly, “I have another letter to write.”
He looked around the cabin, the shimmering reflections of the sea along the white deckhead. To trade this for the dash and excitement of a small frigate, to set his collection of vessels against the stronghold of France itself was no mere gesture. Perhaps it was intended for him, like a part of fate. At the beginning of the war, as a very young captain, Bolitho had taken part in the illfated attack on Toulon, the attempt by the French royalists to overturn the revolution and reverse the course of history. They had made history well enough, Bolitho thought grimly, but it had ended in bloody disaster.
Bolitho felt a chill at his spine. Maybe everything was decided by fate. Belinda may have thought he was coming back to Falmouth for several months, perhaps longer if peace was indeed
signed. In fact, he stared through the stern windows at the
anchored ships, she was being protected from further pain. He was
not coming back. It had to happen one day. He touched his left thigh, expecting to feel the pain where the musket ball had cut him down. So soon after that? Not a respite, not even a warning.
Bolitho said abruptly, “On second thoughts, I’ll not write a letter, I shall shift to Styx directly. Tell my cox’n, will you?”
Alone at last, Bolitho sat on the bench below the windows and kneaded his eyes with his knuckles until the pain steadied him.
Fate had been kind to him, had even allowed him the touch and the sight of love, something he would hold on to until it was decided even that should vanish.
Herrick appeared in the doorway. “Boat’s alongside, sir.”
By the entry port with its side party and scarlet-coated marines Bolitho paused and stared across at the rakish frigate. Her sails were already loosely brailed, and figures moved about her spars and ratlines like insects: impatient to be off, to seek the unreachable horizon.
Herrick said, “The squadron will be ready to proceed in weeks not months, sir. I’ll not be satisfied until Benbow’s under your orders again.”
Bolitho smiled, the wind plucking at his coat as if to tug him away, and lifting the lock of hair to reveal the livid scar beneath.
“If you should see her, Thomas…” He gripped his friend’s hand, unable to continue.
Herrick returned the grasp firmly. “I’ll tell her, sir. You just take care of yourself. Lady Luck can’t be expected to solve everything!”
They stood back from each other and allowed formality to separate them.
As the Benbow’s barge pulled smartly away from the seventyfour’s tall side, Bolitho turned and raised his hand, but Herrick had already merged with the men around him and the ship which had meant so much to both of them.
Bolitho climbed through the companionway and paused to gain his bearings as the frigate took another violent plunge beneath him. All day long it had been the same. Once clear of Plymouth Sound, the Styx had set every stitch of canvas to take full advantage of a stiffening north-easterly. Although Bolitho had remained for most of the day in the frigate’s cabin going carefully through his written orders and making notes for later use, he had been constantly reminded of the agility and the exuberance of a small ship.
Captain Neale had used the friendly wind under his coat-tails to put his people through every kind of sail drill. All afternoon the decks had quivered to the slap and bang of bare feet, the urgent voices of petty officers and lieutenants rising above the din to create order out of chaos. Neale was no better off than any other captain. Many of his trained men had been promoted and moved to other vessels. The remaining skilled hands had been thinly spread amongst the new ones, some of whom were still so shocked at being snatched by the press or hauled from the comparative safety of the local jails that they were too terrified to venture up the madly vibrating ratlines without a few blows to encourage them.
He saw Neale with his taciturn first lieutenant leaning at the weather side of the quarterdeck, their hair plastered across their faces, their eyes everywhere as they searched for flaws in the patterns of sail-handling and quickness to respond to orders. Later on such failings could lose lives, even the ship. Neale had grown well with his profession, although it was not difficult to see him
as the thirteen-year-old midshipman Bolitho had once discovered under his command. He saw Bolitho and hurried to greet him.
“I shall be shortening sail presently, sir!” He had to shout above the hiss and surge of sea alongside. “But we’ve made a good run today!”
Bolitho walked to the nettings and held on firmly as the ship plunged forward and down, her tapering jib-boom slicing at the drifting spray like a lance. No wonder Adam yearned so much for a command of his own. As I once did. Bolitho looked up at the bulging canvas, the spread legs of some seamen working out
along the swaying length of the main-yard. It was what he missed most. The ability to hold and tame the power of a ship like Styx, to match his skill with rudder and sail against her own wanton desire to be free.
Neale watched him and asked, “I hope we are not disturbing you, sir?”
Bolitho shook his head. It was a tonic, one to drive the anxieties away, to make nonsense of anything beyond here and now.
“Deck there!” The masthead lookout’s voice was shredded by the wind. “Land on th’ weather bow!”
Neale grinned impetuously and snatched a telescope from its rack by the wheel. He trained it over the nettings and then handed it to Bolitho.
“There, sir. France.”
Bolitho waited for the deck to lurch up again from a long line of white horses and then steadied the glass on the bearing. It was getting dark already, but not so much that he could not see the dull purple blur of land. Ushant, with Brest somewhere beyond. Names carved into the heart of any sailor who had sweated out the months in a blockading squadron.
Soon they would alter course and run south-east, deeper and deeper into the Bay of Biscay. That was Neale’s problem, but it was nothing compared with the task he must order his ships to do.
Within a week Beauchamp’s orders would have been acknowledged by the flag-officers concerned. Captains would be rousing their men, laying off courses to rendezvous with their new rearadmiral. A cross on a chart near Belle Ile. And within a month Bolitho would be expected to act, to catch the enemy off balance inside his own defences.
Browne was obviously awed by his ability to discuss the proposed tactics as if success was already an accepted fact. But Browne had been appointed to his position of personal aide in London through his father’s influence, and knew little of the Navy’s harsh methods of training for command. Like most sea-officers, Bolitho had gone to his first ship at the age of twelve. Within a very short time he had been made to learn how to take charge of a longboat and discover an authority he had not known he had possessed. Laying out a great anchor for kedging, carrying passengers and stores between ship and land, and later leading a boat’s crew in hand-to-hand attacks against pirates and privateers, all had been part of a very thorough schooling for the young officer.
Lieutenant, captain and now rear-admiral, Bolitho felt little different, but accepted that everything had been changed for him. Now it was not just a question of momentary courage or madness, the ability to risk life and limb rather than reveal fear to the men you led. Nor was it a case of obeying orders, no matter what was happening or how horrible were the scenes of hell around you. Now he must decide the destiny of others, who would live or die depended on his skill, his understanding of the rough facts at his disposal. And there were many more who might
