Bolitho asked quietly, 'Do you ever sleep, Thomas?'
'Enough.'
'Did you receive any other news from the packet?'
Herrick took several seconds to drag himself back to the present.
'We are promised another frigate. She's the Ipswich, 38. Captain Pym.'
'I don't know the ship, I'm afraid.'
Herrick's eyes were distant once more. 'No. She's from my part of the world, the Nore.' He changed tack suddenly. 'You heard about Gossage, I suppose.' His mouth tightened. 'RearAdmiral Gossage, indeed. I wonder how many pieces of silver that rated?'
He was driving himself hard in his unexpected and temporary command, giving himself no time to brood on what had gone before, or on the loss of his ship, for Benbow was a hulk, and would never leave the dockyard again. What a way to end, after all they had done together.
'Easy, Thomas. Put it behind you.'
Herrick eyed him curiously, as much as if to ask, 'Could you?'
Bolitho persisted, 'Life still has much to offer.'
'Maybe.' He sat stolidly, with the empty goblet clasped in his square hands like a talisman. 'In truth, I am grateful to be of some use again. When I heard the news about you…' He shook his head. 'I thought it was another chance. Lady Luck.' He looked at him, suddenly desperate. 'But it's not been easy.'
'Who knows what we might achieve this time?'
Herrick sounded bitter. 'They are fools out here. They don't understand, nor do they know what to expect. Pink-cheeked soldiers more used to the bogs of Ireland than this godforsaken place, and senior officers who've scarcely heard a shot fired!'
Bolitho said quietly, ''He never set a squadron in the field, Nor the division of a battle knows, More than a spinster.''
Herrick stared at him. 'Our Nel?'
Bolitho smiled as he saw his friend emerging. 'No, Shakespeare. But it could easily have been.'
In the pantry Allday nudged Ozzard. 'More like it, eh?' But he had been thinking of the little inn in Cornwall, and came awkwardly to the point. 'Will you pen a letter for me, Tom?'
Ozzard said darkly, 'Be warned, that's all I ask.' He saw Allday's expression and sighed. 'Course I will. Anything for a bit o' peace!'
The big three-decker lay to her cable, her open gunports reflected in the calm anchorage like lines of eyes. The sentries paced their sections, and from one of the messdecks came the plaintive notes of a fiddle. The officer-of- the-watch paused in his discussion with a master's mate as the captain appeared by the abandoned double-wheel, where men had fought wind and sea only a week ago as they strove to reach calmer waters.
Keen turned away from the shadowy watchkeepers and walked, deep in thought, to the poop ladder.
His ship and all her company, prime sailors, felons, cowards and honest men who would soon depend on him again, from his ambitious first lieutenant to the squeaking midshipmen, from surgeon to purser's clerk, they were his to command. An honour; but that he could take for granted. He watched the guard-boat pulling slowly between the moored ships, a riding-light gleaming momentarily on a naked bayonet. He tried to imagine Sir Richard Bolitho and his old friend warily coming together in the great cabin. It would be difficult for both of them. The one who had found all he had ever wanted in his woman; the other who had lost everything, and nearly his life as well.
Seabirds flashed past the lights from the wardroom windows and he thought of that night in the open boat.
Tonight they will nest in Africa.
What price survival then?
He summoned her face, and the memory of unexpected love, which had left them both dazed with disbelief. For the first time in his life, there was someone waiting for him.
He recalled her last embrace, the warmth of her body against his.
'Captain, sir?' The lieutenant hovered on the top of the poop ladder.
'What is it?'
'Mr Julyan's respects, sir, and he thinks the wind is getting up from the west'rd.'
'Very well, Mr Daubeny. Inform the first lieutenant and pipe the larboard watch.'
As the lieutenant hurried down the ladder Keen pushed all else to the back of his mind.
As he had heard Bolitho say on occasions, 'That was then. This is now.'
He was the captain again.
16. POWER OF COMMAND
LADY CATHERINE SOMERVELL stood by one of the tall windows in the library and looked across the garden. The snow was heavier now, and the wheel-tracks of Lewis Roxby's smart phaeton had almost vanished in just half an hour. Kneeling on a rug before a crackling fire, Nancy was finishing her story of Miles Vincent's disappearance, and how it was later discovered that he had been taken by the press-gang and put aboard a man-of-war in Carrick Road.
Catherine watched the persistent snow and thought of Black Prince as she had last seen her standing out to sea, taking her heart with her.
She had spoken to some of the old sailors who worked on the estate, men who had served Richard in the past, before they had been cut down in battle; she was even jealous of them when they spoke of days she had never, could never share. One of them calculated that given the time of year and the inexperience of her company, Black Prince should have reached the Indies by now. A world away. Her man, doing things he had been ordered to do, hiding his own worries so that his men would see only confidence.
She turned away from the snow and asked guiltily, 'I'm sorry, Nancy-what did you say?'
'I shouldn't burden you with it, but she is my sister, one of the family… and despite her shortcomings I feel responsible for her, especially with her husband dead.' She looked up as though uncertain. 'I was wondering, dear Catherine, if you could tell Richard about it when next you write. Lewis is doing all he can, of course, as it was obviously a mistake.'
Catherine studied her thoughtfully. What Richard's mother must have been like. Fair, with clear fresh skin. She had a pretty mouth, perhaps all that remained of the young girl who had been in love with Richard's friend.
Nancy took her silence for disagreement. 'I know Miles does not make a favourable impression, but…'
Catherine walked to the fire and sat on the edge of a stool, feeling the heat on her face, imagining him here with her, now.
She said, 'When I first met him, I found him glib, with a higher opinion of himself than I would have thought healthy. What I have heard of him since has not improved that image.'
She saw Nancy's dismay and smiled. 'But I will tell Richard in my next letter. I write every few days, in the hope they will reach him in some sort of order.' Inwardly she believed that the young Miles Vincent had probably got what he deserved. He had apparently been at a cock-fight somewhere out towards the Helford River, and the press-gang had burst in on it. They had only found three men who did not possess a legal protection -one of them had been Vincent. She thought of his arrogance, the way he had stared at her during Roxby's dinner, with the smirk of a conceited child. She thought of Allday and others like Ferguson and the estate workers, seized by the hated press without pity or consideration. The navy needed men, and always would as long as the war dragged on. So men would be taken from the farms and the taverns, from the arms of their loved ones, to rub shoulders with those who had escaped the gallows for the sea at the assizes.
Nancy was saying, 'Lewis has already written to his friend, the port admiral at Plymouth… but it might take so long.'
Catherine adjusted her gown and Nancy exclaimed, 'My dear-I can still see that place where the sun burned you!'
'I hope I never lose it. It will always remind me.'
'Will you come for Christmas, Catherine? I would be so unhappy to think of you alone here. Please say you will.
