shirts, which Ozzard had been pressing yesterday. Was it only yesterday?
She said, 'Go on deck now.'
Sophie gasped in a small voice, 'Are we going to die, me lady?'
Catherine smiled, even though her mouth and lips were as dry as dust.
'We are going to be ready, my girl.'
She saw her nod as she replied with an attempt at courage, 'I wish we was at 'ome, me lady!'
Catherine took several deep breaths and turned away, so that Sophie should not see her despair.
Then, very deliberately she unfastened her gown and stepped out of it, letting it fall with her petticoats until she was quite naked, standing in the watery glare like some goddess in a pagan ceremony. She pulled on the white breeches and Bolitho's shirt and tied her hair back from her face with a piece of dark red ribbon, and gathered up the petticoats, folding them under her arm; she knew enough about wounds to recognise that Bezant was in serious trouble and would need bandages. As she kicked off her thin shoes one fell on to the gown where Lincoln's blood still shone as if it were alive. It was only then that she felt the knot of vomit in her throat and knew she could contain it no longer.
She found little Ozzard crouching on the companion ladder, with a satchel hung over his shoulder. He knew. He had been with the others in Hyperion when she had finally gone down… who would know better than he?
'Thank you for waiting for me.' She saw him glance at her bare legs and feet and somehow sensed that he had been watching her, had seen her naked against the stern windows. It did not seem to matter now.
She gripped the handrail and paused as someone called from the forechains, 'No bottom, sir!' The leadsman's voice, carried on the wind, made her skin chill. Like a spirit from hell.
'What does it mean?'
Ozzard came out of his thoughts. 'Means we're in plenty of water, m'lady.' He shook his head. 'Early days yet.'
Bolitho turned as she climbed on to the wet planking. She waited for the deck to fall again and let it carry her to his side.
'I took these from your bag, Richard. This is no place for gowns and pretty tea-cups!'
Keen watched, and shook his head as Bolitho held her for a few moments. Then he heard her laugh and thought Bolitho used the word entrancing. He saw Jenour staring too, so absorbed that he was probably wishing he had his sketch book.
Bezant groaned, 'Not long now. If only I had the feel of her!'
Allday put his weight on the spokes and felt the vessel fighting wind and sea and him all at the same time. He stared hard at the leaping line of breakers, the occasional gaps in between. He heard drunken laughter from the sealed hold and envied them the rum. Just one mug before she strikes. He gritted his teeth and thought of the woman he had rescued on the road. And strike she will.
He glanced at Bolitho and his lady and felt the old despair closing in. Always the pain. Ships gone, old faces wiped away. He had always trained himself to accept it when it eventually found him. But not like this. For nothing…
Keen walked past, his shoes skidding on the streaming deck.
Allday heard him say to Bolitho, 'I've told the bosun what to expect, sir. He will take the cutter and follow us. We will have the smaller boat. Once clear of the reef, things might be easier.'
Bolitho kept his voice low. 'So you think there's no hope of finding this passage?'
Keen stared back at his level grey eyes, and did not even flinch as the lookout yelled, 'By th' mark seventeen!'
'Do you, sir? It's shoaling already. Without the gold to weigh us down…' He shrugged. It did not need any words.
Bolitho jerked his head towards the hold. They were still shouting and laughing like lunatics. But surely Tasker or one of the ringleaders would know and understand?
'By th' mark ten!' God, they were as close as that. He looked at the boatswain and his companions. Staring about, not knowing what to do. Their own master barely able to pass his instructions to Allday, another blinded and probably dead, while the third had locked himself below with the gold. At any second they might panic and rush to the boats.
He shouted, 'Mr Britton! If we abandon you must stay near to the jolly-boat. Once away from the reef we can make sail and work clear.' He smiled across at Catherine in her breeches and frilled shirt. 'Now that we have an extra sailor amongst us, we should be in safe hands!'
For a few seconds nobody moved or spoke, and Bolitho thought he had failed. Then Britton, his head wound seemingly cleansed by the drenching spray, yelled, 'Our Dick'll do it, lads! Huzza! '
The lookout William Owen, who was also an excellent leadsman, swung the line round and round, up and over his shoulder before allowing the heavy fourteen-pound lead to fly ahead of the bows.
Afterwards, he was certain that he had seen the reef rising to meet them even as the lead struck at just over keel-depth, and he yelled, 'By th' mark three!' But it was all in seconds. The towering wall of spray lifting and bursting over the bowsprit in the cruel sunshine, then the first awful shuddering crash as they struck. Owen fought his way out of his leadsman's apron and flung himself down even as a great shadow plunged past and hurled splinters and flapping canvas in all directions: the Golden Plover's fore-topmast, with clattering blocks and rigging, thundering over the side. Someone was crying out but Owen knew it was his own voice he heard, as he ducked and dodged another great mass of falling rigging.
He stared wildly aft and saw that they had managed to free the flapping driver, which had added to their thrust into the reef. But the great swell lifted the hull easily and allowed it to fall again with a second sickening crash.
Owen ran towards the only sign of order and discipline, where men clung to broken cordage and bowed down under the great sweeping onslaught of water over the side, and stared dazedly at the tall figure all in white by the wheel before his reeling mind told him it was the admiral's lady. He saw Bolitho too, one arm pointing at the hold where another seaman was banging on the hatch with a pistol butt.
Bolitho looked at Bezant who was being half-carried to the side, to which the boats had been warped in readiness.
He said, 'You tried. We all did. It was not enough.' He had to make this wounded, stricken man understand. Accept it. The deck felt steadier except for the violent surge of undertow. But at any moment she might slide off. There would be no hope for any of them. He rubbed his injured eye and did not hear her call out, in the din of wind and waves, for him to stop.
He watched them lower Bezant over the side and then joined Catherine by the motionless wheel. The ship was already breaking up, and he could hear the sea booming into the forward hold, smashing down anything that barred its way.
Allday shouted, 'Here come the rats!'
Some of the mutineers and the released soldiers were pulling themselves on deck, staring around with disbelief or madness. Tojohns pointed his pistols and roared, 'You bastards can take the quarter-boat!'
Keen said, 'Abandon, sir?' He spoke quietly, his voice almost drowned.
Bolitho gripped Catherine's arm and dragged her to the side. The boatswain's cutter had already cast off, the oars thrashing in confusion until some sort of order and timing came into play.
The jolly-boat, a small eighteen-foot cutter, was rising and dipping wildly directly below the bulwark. Bezant had been lashed in the sternsheets, and Jenour was already loosening the oars. Such a small boat, he thought, against such a mighty sea.
She clutched him, hard. 'Don't leave me.'
He held her face against his as he lifted her over the side and down to Allday and Yovell. 'Never!'
Then he turned and looked at the rum-crazed fools who were dragging great bags of gold across the deck. They did not even appear to see him. He swung himself over the side and instantly felt the jolly-boat veer away, with a clatter of looms as each man tried to find his rowlock in the confusion.
Allday croaked, 'Mainmast's a-comin' down, Sir Richard!'
It was difficult to see what happened through the leaping, blinding spray, but they all heard the crash of splintering planking as the maintopmast sliced down and across the quarter-boat.
The lookout, Owen, dug his feet into the wooden stretchers and lay back on his oar with all his strength. He
