Bolitho looked at the salt-caked stern windows. Six days. It already felt a month or more. He had not kept his promise to raise a glass to Catherine on the night of his birthday. There had been a great gale, the one when they had lost a man outboard, and he had been on deck rather than endure the torment of listening and wondering. As the old heron-like surgeon, Sir Piers Blachford, had remarked, 'In your heart you are still a captain, and you find it hard to delegate that task to others.'
Keen remarked, 'I wonder what Zenoria is doing. To have thought her husband lost, and to recover him only to lose him again is sour medicine. I would gladly spare her it.'
Bolitho glanced at the books, one of which was lying open, as he had left it. Such good company. It was as though he read to her in the late watches of the night, and not merely to himself. When he closed his eyes he could see her so clearly, the candlelight playing around her throat and high cheekbones; could imagine the silk of her skin beneath his hands, her eager response. What would he feel when the ship anchored at English Harbour? She would be thinking about it, remembering the inevitability of it. Fate.
The sentry tapped his musket on the deck and shouted, 'First lieutenant, sir!'
Keen grimaced. 'Why do they bellow so much, I wonder? You would think we were in an open field.'
Ozzard opened the door, and Lieutenant Sedgemore stepped swiftly inside.
'I do beg your pardon, Sir Richard.'
Bolitho listened to gun trucks squealing somewhere. The middle gun deck most likely, the seamen gasping and slipping as they ran out the twenty-four-pounders, each action made more dangerous by the tilting obstinacy of the damp planking.
But Keen knew what he wanted, and would take no second-best.
Bolitho said, 'If it is the ship's business that cannot wait, my quarters are yours, Mr Sedgemore.'
The lieutenant looked at him uneasily, as if expecting another motive, or some new sarcasm.
'Er-thank you, Sir Richard.'
Bolitho hid a smile. I have obviously passed the test.
To Keen the first lieutenant explained, 'The masthead reported a sail to the nor'-east during the morning watch, sir.'
Keen waited. 'I know. I bid the midshipman insert the sighting in the log.'
Another flicker of surprise, as if Sedgemore had not expected his captain to concern himself with the ordinary deck-log.
Bolitho commented as he glanced around the spacious cabin, 'This is no Hyperion, Val. I could hear almost everything from my quarters then!' They smiled briefly at one another, sharing the memory.
Sedgemore said, 'She has just been sighted again, sir. Same bearing.'
Keen rubbed his chin. 'Not much choice in this wind.' He looked at Bolitho. 'Not another case of Golden Plover, surely, sir?'
Bolitho said, 'If the stranger is an enemy he will keep his distance, and we are surely too slow to run him down. As for secrecy, I expect half of England knows what we are about, and our eventual landfall.'
Keen was thinking aloud, 'Mr Julyan predicts a clear sky this afternoon-like Allday, I think he has an ear in the Almighty's court. I'll have our new 'volunteer' go aloft, with a glass if need be. Some eyes cannot be trusted.' He hesitated, suddenly uncertain. 'I am a fool, Sir Richard. I meant no comparison.'
Bolitho touched his arm impetuously. 'You are no fool, and you speak good sense.'
Keen said, 'Secure the gun crews, Mr Sedgemore. We will exercise repel-boarders drill at six bells.'
Sedgemore backed out, his eyes everywhere until the door was shut.
'How is he progressing, Val?'
Keen watched him anxiously as he touched his left eye with his fingertips. He guessed that Bolitho did it unconsciously: the irritation was never far away. Like a threat.
'He is not yet quite ready to assume my command, sir, but it does no harm to allow him that belief!'
They laughed, the threat once more held at bay.
That same afternoon the northerly wind eased slightly, and the sea's face showed some colour as the scudding clouds began to scatter. But when the sun eventually revealed itself it held no warmth, and the salt-hardened sails shone in the glare but gave off no tell-tale steam.
Bolitho went on deck and stood with Jenour by the quarterdeck rail, keeping out of the way as both watches of the hands were turned-to for making more sail as Keen had hoped. Keen was on the opposite side, looking aloft as the first topmen dashed quickly up the quivering ratlines-the captain, his own world revolving around him. Bolitho felt the old touch of envy, and wondered what Zenoria would say if she could see her husband now. His eyes squinting against the hard sunlight, wings of fair hair flapping from beneath his plain, seagoing hat, he was in command and controlling a dozen things at once.
The senior midshipman, a haughty youth named Houston, was beckoning to the seaman William Owen. Due for lieutenant's examination at the first opportunity, Houston was very aware of Bolitho's nearness.
He called importantly, 'Wait!'
Allday was below the poop with Tojohns and said scornfully, 'Look at him, cocking his chest like a half-pay admiral! He'll be a proper little terror when he gets made up!'
Tojohns grinned. 'If someone don't stamp on him first!'
Keen looked round and smiled. 'Ah, Owen! How are you finding life in a somewhat larger craft than your last, eh?'
Owen chuckled, the midshipman forgotten. 'It'll suit, sir. I just wish her ladyship was here to give some advice to the cook!'
Bolitho approved. Keen had shown the arrogant 'young gentleman' that Owen was a man, not a dog.
Keen glanced across. 'Shall he go aloft, Sir Richard? I'll not make more sail until he has looked for our companion.'
Bolitho called, 'Take the signal midshipman's glass, Owen. You may scorn such things, but I think it will aid you.'
Another memory. In an elegant London shop selling navigational instruments, he had seen Catherine examine a telescope, and heard the establishment's rotund owner explaining that it was the very latest and best of its kind. He had been very conscious of her inner battle while she touched the gleaming glass; then she had shaken her head, and Bolitho thought he knew why. She had been remembering Herrick, and the beautiful telescope which had been Dulcie's last present to him. She wanted no part of it, nor any sort of comparison.
'Deck there!'
Bolitho shook himself. Owen had reached the main crosstrees while he had been day-dreaming.
'Sail to the nor'-east, sir!'
Bolitho looked at the cruising white crests. The wind was still easing; he had no difficulty in hearing Owen's cry. Yesterday, even this morning, it would have been lost in the violence of wind and sea.
Bolitho said, 'Fetch him down, Captain Keen. You are eager to make her lift her skirts, I'll wager!'
Owen arrived on deck even as the great main course and foresail boomed and thundered in noisy disarray until the yards were hauled round to trap the wind, and make each sail harden like a steel breastplate.
'Well, Owen, what is she?'
Men who were not actually working at halliards and braces, or fighting their way out on the great yards to free more canvas, loitered nearby to listen.
Owen replied, 'Frigate, Sir Richard. Not big-28 guns or thereabouts.' He returned the long telescope to Midshipman Houston.
'Thank you, sir.'
Houston almost snatched it, with such bad grace that Keen remarked, 'Mr Sedgemore, I think a word during the last dog-watch would be useful.'
The first lieutenant paused in the tumult of chasing men to their proper stations, in one case stopping to thrust a loose line into a man's grasp, and stared at him. His eyes flashed dangerously as they settled on the midshipman and he said sharply, 'See me, Mr Houston, sir!'
Owen continued in the same unruffled tone, 'She wears no colours, Sir Richard, but I'd say she's a Dutchman. I've been close enough to some of them, too close sometimes.'
Jenour said, 'Another enemy, then.' He sounded surprised. 'I expected a Frog, Sir Richard.'
Bolitho kept his features impassive. Once Jenour would never have considered voicing his own opinion; he had
