Bolitho shaded his eyes again to watch the Anemone as the boat pulled swiftly abeam. There were men on cradles over the tumble home busy with paint and brushes where the Tridente's marksmen had fired on Adam's ship until Anemone's measured broadside had completely disabled her. She had left here towed by the captured Eaglet. Nobody could criticise Adam for risking an unsupported attack through a barely-known reef. There had been no other ship available. Bolitho smiled grimly. Had things gone against him, however, Adam more than anyone must have known what it would have cost him.
He studied the other vessels of his small command, the scarlet coats already assembled on Glorious'?' deck to receive him.
Not a fleet, but properly and aggressively used it might be enough. When Thruster returned and Tyacke arrived from his patrol, if he was free from other orders, they would be ready.
Allday murmured, 'Fine-looking ship, Sir Richard.' He sounded wistful. Remembering how they had first met, Bolitho guessed, aboard the Phalarope. At first commanded by a tyrant like Trevenen, she had become a legend. Herrick had played a large part in it. The thought saddened him.
'Stand by, bowman! '
Bolitho was grateful for the ship's shadow as it towered above him. It was strange how he had never got used to this part of it. As a junior captain and now as a vice-admiral, he was always troubled by what those who now stood motionless in the sunlight might see in him, might find wanting. As ever, he had to insist to himself that they would be far more uncertain than he was.
Avery watched Bolitho clamber lightly up the seventy-four's weathered side. He asked quietly so that only Yovell should hear, 'In all the years, has Sir Richard changed much?'
Yovell picked up his satchel. 'In a few ways, sir.' He looked at him curiously. 'But mostly, he changed all of us! '
Allday grinned. 'I think you are wanted on deck, sir! '
He watched the lieutenant almost fall as he hurried to catch up with his superior.
Yovell said, 'I'm not too sure about him, John.'
'An' I'm not too certain about you, matey! '
They chuckled like conspirators and the lieutenant in charge of the gig stared after them without understanding what he saw.
His Britannic Majesty's brig Lame of fourteen guns pitched and swayed in a steep swell, her slack sails and clattering rigging clear evidence of her becalmed state.
A few figures moved about her deck, some staggering like drunks as the sturdy hull dipped and slithered into yet another trough. Somewhere to larboard but visible only occasionally to the masthead lookout was the African mainland, Molembo, where many a slaver had been run to ground by vessels like Lame.
Most countries had outlawed slavery and the traffic that had cost so many lives, but it still went on where the price was right.
In the brig's cabin Commander James Tyacke tried to concentrate on his chart, and was cursing the perverse wind that had failed him after such a speedy departure from Freetown after the receipt of Sir Richard Bolitho's orders. It would be good to see him again. Tyacke was still surprised that he could think so when he had always had very little respect for senior officers. Bolitho had changed all that when the Good Hope campaign had been mounting. He had even endured the crowded discomfort of the little schooner Miranda, which Tyacke had then commanded, and when she had been destroyed by an enemy frigate Bolitho had given him the Lame.
The seclusion and the independence of the anti-slavery patrols had suited Tyacke very well. Most of his company were prime seamen who shared his need to get away from the greater authority of the fleet. Few sailors cared much about the slave-trade; it was something that happened, or had done until the new laws were approved. But to be free from a flag officer's demands, with the prospect of prize money, was to every man's taste.
Tyacke leaned back and frowned as he listened to his little ship rolling and groaning in the arms of the South Atlantic. He often thought of how he had searched for Bolitho and his lady after Golden Plover's loss on the hundred-mile reef. His disbelief had changed to prayer, which was rare for him, when he had confirmed who had survived in that sun-blistered longboat.
He thought of the gown he had kept in a chest in this cabin, the one he had bought in Lisbon for the girl who had promised to be his wife. He had given it to Lady Somervell to cover herself from the sailors' stares. Later, after Keen's marriage, which Tyacke had sat in deep shadow to watch, she had returned it to him, beautifully cleaned and packed in a lined box.
She had written in a little note, 'For you, James Tyacke, and for a girl who shall deserve it.'
Tyacke stood up and steadied himself against the motion by gripping a deck head beam. The cabin was very small, like that of a miniature frigate, but after a schooner it had seemed like a palace.
He made himself look at his reflection in the hanging mirror. A face which could have been handsome, caring and strong until that day at the Battle of the Nile, as it was now called. The left side of his face was unmarked; the other side was not human. How the eye had survived was a miracle: it seemed to glare out above the melted flesh like an angry, defiant light. Everyone around that gun had died, and Tyacke could remember nothing about it.
For a girl who shall deserve it.
Tyacke turned away, the old bitterness returning. What woman could be expected to live with that? To wake up and see that terrible, mutilated face beside her?
He listened to the sea. Here was the only escape. Where he had won the respect of his men and of the man he was sailing to meet.
He shook himself and decided to go on deck. Most of his men could look at him now without showing pity or horror. He was lucky in that, he thought. He had three lieutenants and more experienced hands than most frigates. Larne even carried a dedicated surgeon, one who used his interest in tropical medicine and the various fevers that plagued these coasts to compile a mass of notes that might one day take him to the College of Surgeons in London.
The sea air was abrasive, like hot sand off a desert. He squinted in the hard glare and glanced at the watch around him: men he had come to know better and more intimately than he would have believed possible. Ozanne, the first lieutenant, a Channel Islander who had once been a merchant sailor. He had come up the hard way and was five years older than his commander. Pitcairn, the sailing master, was another veteran who shunned the ways and the manners of a big man-of-war although his skills would have taken him anywhere. Livett, the surgeon, was sketching by one of the swivel guns. He had a youthful appearance until he removed his hat, when his head was like a brown egg.
Tyacke walked to the taffrail and peered astern. The vessel was lifting and dropping into every trough, inert, making no way at all.
Tyacke knew he should accept it, but he had an impatient nature and
hated to feel his command failing to respond to sail or rudder.
The sailing master judged his mood before saying, 'Can't hold, sir. Visibility's so bad to the east'rd I think there may be a storm blowing up.'
Tyacke took a telescope and wedged his buttocks against the compass box. Pitcairn was not very often wrong. The glass swept over the writhing sea-mist to where the land should lie.
Ozanne said, 'Rain too, I shouldn't wonder, sir.'
Tyacke grunted. 'We could do with it. The timbers are like kindling.'
The glass moved on, over the swells and troughs and across a group of drifting gulls. They seemed held together, like a pale wreath cast down by someone as a memorial.
Ozanne watched him and his emotions. A handsome man who would turn any lass's head, he thought. Once. There had been times when it had been hard for Ozanne to accept the horrible disfigurement and find the man beneath. The one the Arab slavers feared most of all. The devil with half a face. A fine seaman, and a just one to his small company. The two did not always make good bedfellows in the King's navy.
Tyacke felt the sweat running down his face and wiped the skin with his fingers, hating what he felt. Who was it who had told him that it could have been worse?
'I don't see that at all.' With a start he realised he had spoken aloud, but managed to grin as Ozanne asked, 'Sir?'
Tyacke was about to return the glass to its rack when something made him stiffen. As if he had heard something, or some awful memory had sent a shiver up his spine.
