Honour This Day

Bolitho faced his bluff. 'One day, Sir Owen, you may have cause to remember this disgraceful conspiracy. The last time we met you told me that Nelson was not above being wrong. And neither, sir, are you! And should you too fall from grace you will most certainly discover who your true friends are!' He strode from the room, and heard the admiral slam a door behind him like a thunderclap.

Bolitho was still angry when he reached the house. Until he saw Catherine speaking with Adam, and heard a familiar voice from the adjoining study.

Then Allday stepped out of the passageway which led from the kitchen, his jaw still working on some food. They were all staring at him.

Bolitho said, 'I am to return to the squadron as soon as is convenient.'

A shadow fell across the passage, and Captain Valentine Keen stepped into the light.

Bolitho clasped his hands. 'Val! This is a miracle!'

Beyond his friend he saw the girl Zenoria, exactly as he had remembered her. Both of them were travel- stained, and Keen explained, 'We have been on the road for two days. We were already on our way back from Cornwall and by a stroke of fate we met with the courier at a small inn where he was changing his mount.'

Fate. That word. Bolitho said, 'I don't understand.' He saw the girl's face as she walked up to him and held him, while he kissed her on the cheek. Something more had happened.

Keen said, 'I am to be your flag captain, Sir Richard.' He gave Zenoria a despairing glance. 'I was asked. It seemed right.' He handed Bolitho a letter. 'Captain Haven is under arrest. The day after you left in Firefly he attacked another officer and attempted to kill him.' He watched Bolitho's face. 'The commodore at Gibraltar awaits your orders.'

Bolitho sat down while Catherine stood beside him, her hand on his shoulder.

Bolitho looked up at her. My tiger. That poor, wretched man had broken under the strain. There was nothing much in the letter, but Bolitho knew the other officer must be Parris. He at least was alive.

Keen looked from one to the other. 'I was about to suggest that your lady might care to share my home with Zenoria and my sister until we return.'

Bolitho clasped Catherine's hand; he could tell from the way the dark-haired girl from Cornwall was looking at her that it was a perfect arrangement. God alone knew they both had plenty in common.

Keen had rescued Zenoria from the transport ship Orontes after she had been wrongly charged and convicted of attempted murder. She had been trying to defend herself from being raped. Transportation to the penal colony in New South Wales; and she had been innocent. Keen had boarded the transport and cut her down when she was about to be flogged at the ship's master's command. She had taken one blow across her naked back before Keen had stopped the torment. Bolitho knew she would carry the scar all her life. It made him go cold to realise that the same fate could have been thrown at Catherine, but for different reasons. Jealousy and greed were pitiless enemies.

He said, 'What say you, Kate?' The others seemed to fade away as if his damaged eye would only focus on her. 'Will you do it?'

She said nothing but nodded very slowly. Only a blind man would have failed to see the light, the communion, between them.

'It's settled then.' Bolitho looked at their faces. 'Together again.'

It seemed to include them all.

Lieutenant Vicary Parris sat in his cabin only half paying attention to the ship noises above and around him. Compared with the upper deck the cabin with its open gunport seemed almost cool.

The fifth lieutenant, Hyperion's youngest, stood beside the small table and stared at the open punishment book.

Parris asked again, 'Well, do you think it fair, Mr Priddie?'

It was chilling, Parris thought. The vice-admiral had barely quit the Rock in Firefly when Haven had gone on the rampage. At sea, fighting the elements and working the ship, men were often too busy or desperate to question the demands of discipline. But Hyperion was in harbour, and in the hot sunshine, work about the ship and taking on fresh stores made its own slower and more comfortable routine, when men had the time to watch and to nurse resentment.

'I – I am not certain.'

Parris swore under his breath. 'You wanted to pass for lieutenant, but now that you share the wardroom you seem prepared to accept any excuse for a flogging without care or favour?'

Priddie hung his head. 'The Captain insisted -'

'Yes, he would.' Parris leaned back and counted seconds to restore his temper. At any other time he would have requested, even demanded a transfer to another ship, and to hell with the consequences. But he had lost his last command; he wanted, no, he needed any recommendation which might offer the opening to another promotion.

He had served under several captains. Some brave, some too cautious. Others ran their ships like the King's Regulations and would never take a risk which might raise an admiral's eyebrow. He had even served under the worst kind of all, a sadist who punished men for the sake of it, who had watched every breath-stopping stroke of the cat until the victim's back had been like seared meat.

There was no defence against Haven. He simply hated him. He used the weapon of his complete authority to punish seamen without proper consideration as if to force his first lieutenant to challenge it.

He touched the book. 'Look at this, man. Two dozen lashes for fighting. They were skylarking in the dog watches, nothing more; you must have seen that?'

Pnddie flushed. 'The Captain said that discipline on deck was lax. That eyes ashore would be watching. He would tolerate no more slackness.'

Parns bit off a harsh retort. Pnddie had not yet forgotten what it was like to be a midshipman. As first lieutenant he should do something. He could appeal to no one; the other captains would see his behaviour as betrayal, something which might rebound on their own authority if encouraged. Right or wrong, the captain was like a god. Only one man cared enough to stop it, and he was on passage for England with trouble enough of his own if he did not bow down to threats. It seemed unlikely that Bolitho would bend a knee to anyone if he believed what he was doing was right.

Parns considered the ship's surgeon, George Mmchm. But he had tried before to no avail. Minchm was a drunkard like so many ships' surgeons. Butchers, at whose hands more men died than ever did because of their original injury or wound.

Hyperion was supposed to be getting a senior surgeon, one of several being sent into the various squadrons to observe and report on what they discovered. But that was later. It was now he was needed.

Parns said, 'Leave it to me.' He saw the lieutenant's eyes light up, thankful that he was no longer involved.

Parns added angrily, 'You'll never hold a command, Mr Pnddie, unless you face up to the rank you carry.'

He climbed to the quarterdeck and watched the seamen swaying up new rigging to the mizzen top. There was a strong smell of fresh tar for blacking-down, the sounds of hammers and an adze as Horrocks the carpenter and his mates completed work on a new cutter, built from materials to hand. They worked well, he thought, would even be happy, but for the cloud which always hung over the poop.

With a sigh he made his way aft and waited for the Royal Marine sentry to announce him.

Captain Haven was sitting at his desk, papers arranged within easy reach, his coat hanging from the chairback as he fanned his face with his handkerchief.

'Well, Mr Parris' I have much to do.'

Parns made himself ignore the obvious dismissal. He noticed that the pens on the desk were all clean and dry. Haven had written nothing. It was as if he had prepared for this, had been expecting his visit despite the hint of rejection.

Parns began carefully, 'The two men for punishment, sir.'

'Oh, which two? I was beginning to believe that the people did much as they pleased.'

'Trotter and Dixon, sir. They have not been in any trouble before Had the fifth lieutenant come to me -' He got no further.