For a full week after weighing anchor Achates was the victim of feeble and perverse winds. There was barely an hour when all hands were spared the tasks of trimming the sails in order to avoid losing steerage-way or being forced back over their previous course.
The deadly monotony was having its effect on the ship's company. After all the haste and excitement of getting away from the land, the sudden torpor had resulted in more than one flogging at the gratings because of frayed tempers and bursts of insubordination.
Bolitho had watched Keen's face after one of the floggings. Some captains would have cared nothing for the routine of punishment, but Keen was different. It was typical of Bolitho that it never occurred to him that Keen had gained his experience under his command.
Keen had remarked, 'The worst part of it is I can understand their feelings. Some have not set foot ashore since returning from the Indies. Now they're off again. Grateful to be spared the poverty of being without work, but resentful at what is little better than pressed service.'
The start of the second week brought a freshening wind from the north-east, and with spray bursting beneath her weathered figurehead it had brought life to the ship once more.
The masthead lookouts had sighted only a few sails on the blurred horizon, and these had changed tack and headed away immediately. Home-bound ships, out of touch for many months with the events in Europe, would take no chances when sighting a man-of-war. War might have broken out again for all they knew. Some masters might still not know that an armistice had even been signed.
It was as if the ship had the ocean to herself. Keen took the opportunity to get to know his command and for his men to recognize his standards. Sail and gun drill, musket practice for the marines, experienced lieutenants and warrant officers replaced by new and often barely trained counterparts. Keen may have gained their respect, but was roundly cursed at the start of each testing exercise.
Bolitho knew from hard experience there was nothing more likely to breed discontent in a ship's close confines than too much leisure.
He was having a breakfast of thinly sliced fat pork when Keen asked to see him.
Bolitho gestured to a chair, 'Coffee, Val?'
Keen sat down and said, 'I believe we are being stalked by another vessel, sir.'
Bolitho put down his knife. Keen had never been one to exaggerate or imagine things.
'How so?'
'Two days ago my best lookout sighted a sail. Well up to wind'rd. I thought little of it at the time. She might have been a merchantman on the same tack as Achates.'
He sensed Bolitho's curiosity and added simply, 'I did not wish to alarm anyone. But yesterday you will recall I was hove to while we exercised the starboard twelve-pounders on some driftwood. That sail was still there, and the moment I came about the stranger followed suit and stood clear.' He waited for Bolitho's reaction and said grimly, 'She's there now.'
The door opened and Adam entered the cabin with a chart beneath his arm.
Bolitho smiled at him. They had said little of his gesture towards his nephew since the day the ship had weighed anchor in the Beaulieu River. Yet there was a new closeness between them. Something which went beyond words.
He remembered Belinda's encouragement and insistence that he acted as he had. She had known from the beginning how Bolitho felt about his nephew, what they had been through.
He could almost hear her saying, 'When our child is born I do not want Adam to feel shut out, excluded. Do it for we, as well as for Adam.'
'Have you seen the ship, Adam?'
'Aye, sir. I went aloft at first light today. I believe she's a frigate. I took the signals telescope with me. There was a lot of haze, but I judge her rig to be that of a big fifth-rater. She's too agile for an Indiaman or some westbound trader.'
Keen said glumly, 'And if that vessel holds to wind'rd I'll never be able to beat up to him.'
Bolitho shook his head. 'It would lose valuable time too.'
But the news was unsettling all the same. If she was a ship-of-war she represented a menace no matter what his orders dictated. But whose and for what purpose?
His mission was supposed to be secret, but Bolitho knew ships as well as he understood the men who served them. Keen had been surprised at Adam's official change of name, but it had gone through the ship in seconds. A piece of really important information could spread through a shipyard, a town, even across the English Channel in no time at all.
'Keep me informed. If the wind changes in our favour we shall investigate. If not… He shrugged. 'We'll have to wait for him to show his intentions.'
Later, as Bolitho took his regular stroll up and down the weather-side of the quarterdeck, he found himself wondering about his mission and how the people of San Felipe would accept their new position. He thought too of the ship which was obviously stalking Achates with the persistence of a hunter after deer.
French most likely. Ready to support their own viewpoint if required, even at the point of a gun.
Up and down, his feet avoiding ring-bolts and tackles without conscious effort.
Some of the faces among the watchkeepers and the afterguard had become as familiar as those in previous ships. Bolitho hated the invisible wall which cut him off from closer contact. Even Keen as captain was free to talk with his men if the mood took him. More than once Bolitho stared up at his flag and tried to accept the enforced loneliness it had brought him.
He paused by the compass and glanced at it even though it had barely altered for days. He could feel the helmsmen avoiding his eye, and Knocker, the sailing-master, becoming suddenly absorbed in the midshipman of the watch's report.
Hallowes, the fourth lieutenant, had the watch, and even he was bent over the quarterdeck rail with exaggerated attention as he watched the eighteen-pounders at drill.
A boatswain's mate strode along the lee gangway and something about him made Bolitho look at him more closely.
The man hesitated, swallowed hard, and then came towards him.
Bolitho asked, 'Do I know you?' Then the man's name seemed to paint itself in his mind. 'Christy, isn't it?'
The man nodded and beamed hugely. 'Aye, 'tis that, sir. Maintopman in the old Lysander, I was. With you at the Nile, sir.'
'I remember. You were nearly lost that day when they shot the t'gallant mast away.' He nodded as the memory closed round them shutting out all else.
The boatswain's mate said, 'Were a sore hard fight, sir. The worst I seen, ever.'
Bolitho smiled and continued with his walk.
The man named Christy hurried away shaking his head. He remembered him. Out of all these men.
Quantock, the first lieutenant, who was doing his morning rounds with Rooke, the boatswain, and Grace, the carpenter, paused and beckoned to him.
'Knew your name, did he?'
Christy knuckled his forehead. 'Aye, sir. He did that.' Quantock snapped, 'Well, don't stand there like a moonstruck farm boy, there's work to be done!'
Christy made his way aft. Why was the first lieutenant in a temper? He thought of that awful day at the Nile, the thunder of the broadsides, and of Bolitho walking amidst the smoke and carnage with that old sword gripped in his hand. And his face as they had cheered him when the enemy had finally struck their colours.
Quantock checked his list, the unending task of every good first lieutenant. The ship had had a refit but the work was always piling up. Sails to be renewed and patched, boats repaired, pumps and tackles overhauled.
He was angry with himself for his sudden hostility towards the boatswain's mate. Christy was a good seaman, and a volunteer as well.
Quantock stole a glance to the weather-side where the vice-admiral was walking up and down. What was so special about him anyway?
The boatswain, a great crag of a man with a lined and battered face, waited patiently for his superior to continue with the morning rounds. He had been irritated by the lieutenant's unwarranted attack on one of his
