'You'll not put aboard her, sir?' Dacre was staring around as if he could see the horror of it already in this crowded frigate.
'I will decide later.'
Marines were emerging from below deck, all armed, ready to fight and kill if necessary to retain order.
Martin watched the realisation running through the ship as the fear became a certainty.
He said, 'Her commander is a friend of Sir Richard's, I believe?'
'Mine too.' He was thinking of the Jenour he had known, trusting, loyal and likeable. Adam had thought him dead with all the others when he had gone to the memorial service at Falmouth. When his first lieutenant, Sargeant, and this same Aubrey Martin had galloped all the way from Plymouth to tell him the people most dear to him had survived. When he had lost Zenoria for all time.
'Will you take her in tow, sir?'
When Adam faced him again Martin was shocked to see tears in his eyes, running uncontrollably down his face to mingle with the spray.
'In God's name, Aubrey, you know I dare not! ' It was another captain whom Martin had never seen.
Adam turned to Dunwoody, oblivious to those nearby. 'But Jenour comes from my uncle. It must be important.' He stared hard at the distant brig until his eyes were too blurred to see.
He heard Martin call, 'Hands aloft! Shorten sail, Mr. Lewis! '
But only Dunwoody heard his captain's voice as he whispered, 'Dear God, forgive me for what I must do.'
Closer, and closer still to the stricken Orcadia until every telescope on the Anemone's quarterdeck would recognise the vessel's absolute desolation: the double wheel untended and jerking this way and that while the brig drifted and rolled to the pressure of sea and wind. Near the compass box Adam saw two men lying as if asleep, their bodies moving only to the brig's violent motion. There was another corpse trapped by a line against the splintered boat alongside, and as Anemone worked nearer, her yards braced almost fore-and-aft as close-hauled as she could respond, he saw the other spray-soaked bundles who had once been Orcadia's company.
He heard the surgeon say, 'It must have been of the worst kind, sir. In a small vessel like her it would spread like wildfire.'
Adam did not reply. He had heard of such virulent plagues in these waters, but had never seen them. Men falling at their stations, some dying before they had realised what was happening. The infection could have begun anywhere, in a vessel suspected of slavery perhaps. It had not been unknown for such ships, crammed to the deck beams with human cargo by captains who had put numbers before all else, to arrive at their destinations with most of the slaves dead and many of the crew soon to follow.
He said, 'Near enough, Mr. Martin.' He sounded clipped and, to those who did not know him, without emotion.
Both watches were standing-to, some staring at the deserted brig as if it had harboured some kind of destructive force. A ghost-ship returned to avenge some past horror.
Several faces turned aft as Adam called, 'I want volunteers to crew the gig.'
He watched the mixed expressions: fearful, hostile, some filled with an overriding dread.
Nobody moved as he continued, 'She is one of us, as was the Thruster. Orcadia is a victim of war as much as any who fall to the enemy's iron. I have to know if anybody is left alive.' He saw McKillop the surgeon give a brief shake of his head. It only added to his sense of hopelessness, and his own profound foreboding.
'Orcadia was sailing with despatches for the squadron. They must be vital or my unc… or Sir Richard would not have spared her. Her captain was a friend to all of us. Must this suffering be for nothing?'
His coxswain George Starr said bluntly, 'I won't leave you, sir.'
Another shouted, 'Put me down! ' It was Tom Richie,
Eaglet's boatswain, who had changed sides despite the risk to himself.
Adam said coolly, 'Still with us, Richie?'
A seaman whose name he could not remember banged his big hands together and even managed to grin. 'Never volunteer, they said! Look where it got me! '
Nervously, defiantly, one by one they came aft until Starr whispered, 'Full crew, sir.'
Adam turned as Dunwoody said, 'I'll come, sir.' He lifted his chin but it made him appear even younger.
Adam said gently, 'No. Stay with the first lieutenant. He'll need your loyalty.'
He looked over to Martin. 'Still want a command, Aubrey?' He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes.
My ship. My lovely Anemone… and I am leaving you.
He watched the gig being lowered and brought alongside under the frigate's lee.
Several men gasped at the sound of a single shot. Others flung their heads up as if expecting to see a hold punched in the reefed topsails.
Adam remarked to no one in particular, 'Yes, I think I would end it like that.' He touched the pistol in his belt, wondering how it would be.
Starr called, 'Ready, sir! '
Adam left the quarterdeck and walked to the port. He stopped as some sailors reached out to touch him. As if they were seeing him for the last time.
'Good luck, sir! '
'Watch out if they tries to board you, sir! ' That from an older seaman, who could judge the real danger of close contact. He had made Orcadia seem like one of the enemy in just a few simple words.
'Out oars, shove off forrard! Give way all! '
Adam thought of Allday as the boat turned away and came under command. There was another shot, and the stroke was momentarily lost as one of the oarsmen peered nervously over his shoulder.
But the man Richie called between pulls, 'They tells me you're a pretty good shot with a pistol, Cap'n?'
Adam looked at him. Glad he had thrown the cutlass, the evidence, into the sea. It felt like a thousand years ago.
He said, 'When provoked! '
Then he gripped Starr's sleeve. 'Under her stern, but don't stand in too close. We could be dragged against her rudder by the undertow.' All the while he had the feeling that Anemone was close by, watching their progress, and when he turned in the stern sheets he was shocked to see that when she dipped into a deep trough she appeared to be a great distance away, the sea rising to her gun ports as if to swallow her.
He took a speaking trumpet. 'Orcadia, ahoy! This is Captain Bolitho of the Anemone. He felt sick as he cried out, as if he were betraying them by offering hope when there was none.
Starr muttered, 'No use, sir. You done your best.'
'Round again.' He did not even try to conceal his distress. Then we'll go back.'
He saw two of the oarsmen glance uneasily at one another. The fire of volunteering was sifting away. His words had given them the relief they needed.
Starr thrust over the tiller bar, then exclaimed, 'Look, sir! In the cabin! '
The gig rose and fell in deep, nauseating swoops, the oars barely able to keep steerage way.
But Adam forgot the danger as he stared at the open stern window. The cabin was probably a twin of the one in his first command, the fourteen-gun Firefly.
There was someone there, a shadow more than any human form, and Adam felt something like fear as it moved very slowly towards the salt-caked glass. Whoever it was, he must have heard his voice through the speaking trumpet, and the sound had penetrated the mists of agony and disgust enough to rouse him to consciousness.
Adam knew it was Jenour without understanding why he did. Dying even as he sheltered there, dying as his little brig had battled on while men dropped until the last helmsman abandoned the wheel. Some must have tried to get away in the capsized boat: there may even have been a last attempt to restore order when it was already too late.
A seaman gasped, 'A bag, sir! ' His eyes were almost starting from his head as he stared at the small leather satchel suddenly dangling from the cabin.
It must have taken all his strength: maybe his last, and if it fell now it would be lost forever.
'Hold on, Starr! '
Adam clambered forward over the looms, gripping a shoulder here and there to prevent himself from being hurled outboard. He could feel their fear at even so brief a contact.
