For My Country’s Freedom

The others saw him fold the letter and then raise it to his lips. Then he became aware of his companions. He felt as though he had been absent from them for a long time.

Ozzard held out a glass of brandy and bobbed nervously. 'Just a sip, sir.'

'Thank you.' He could barely taste it. As a child before entering the navy he had often walked with his mother along that path. To Trystan’s Leap. It had been frightening even in daylight, full of legend and superstition. He felt the cold hand on his heart again, and in his mind’s eye he saw her falling, so slowly, her long hair like weed as she came to the surface, her slender body broken on those terrible rocks. He asked, although it did not seem like his own voice, 'They sighted Anemone, you say?'

Avery responded crisply, 'Aye, sir. Standing about five miles to the sou’-west.'

Bolitho stood up and crossed to the two swords, which hung on their rack. Adam, he thought, Adam, Adam…

How could he tell him? And what of Val, so proud of his first son, who was one day to wear the King’s uniform?

He touched the old family sword. What did fate intend?

He said, 'I want no talk of this.' He turned, and looked at

each of them in turn. The stooping little figure by the pantry hatch; Avery, on his feet again, his eyes wary, uncertain. Lastly he looked at Allday

'I have to tell you that Rear-Admiral Keen’s child is dead.' He tried not to think of Catherine on the beach with the dead girl’s body in her arms. 'Shortly afterwards…'

There was no point in telling these honest men that the family had said and done nothing at all until Keen’s father had been located in London. 'The girl we saw wed Val at Zennor killed herself.' He saw Allday’s fists open and close as he added, 'At Trystan’s Leap.'

Avery said, 'Rear-Admiral Keen will be desolate, sir.'

Bolitho turned to him, calm now, knowing what must be done. 'Do something for me. Go now and ensure that there is a note in the signals log for the morning watch. As soon as Anemone is within signals range I want Captain repair on board hoisted. Then hoist Immediate when she is anchored.'

Allday offered roughly, 'I could clear away the barge and collect him, sir.'

Bolitho stared at him. 'No, old friend. This is a private matter for as long as we may keep it so.' To Avery he said, 'Please do it. I will see you tomorrow.' He paused. 'Thank you.'

Allday made to follow but Bolitho said, 'Wait.'

Allday sat down heavily. They were alone, and they could hear Ozzard tidying up in his pantry.

'You knew… their feeling for one another.'

Allday sighed. 'I seen ’em together.'

'There was no intrigue, if that’s what you mean?'

Allday watched him carefully. Knowing this man so well, but with no words to help him now that he needed it.

He said, 'Not in the way we means, sir. But love’s new to me, and I’ve heard tell that it can be a blessing, then again it can be a curse.'

'And you knew all this.'

'Felt it, more like.'

'No one must suspect. Captain… Adam means so much to me.'

'I knows it, sir. It must have been another world to that poor lass.' He shrugged. 'They looked so right together, I thought.'

Bolitho walked past him, but paused with his hand on his massive shoulder.

'A curse, you said?' He thought of Catherine’s words, a cry from the heart. The Mark of Satan.

He said quietly, 'Then let them have peace now.'

He was still sitting at the open stern windows when the first pale sunlight spread across English Harbour.

In Cornwall, the passage of time would have blurred the memories of most people, while in some isolated villages there would be those still pondering on the old beliefs, curses and morals, and the torment for those who defied them.

But this morning there was still a pretence of peace. Above his head on the quarterdeck he knew Avery had not slept either, and was watching even as Adam’s Anemone glided slowly to her anchorage. For him it would still be a puzzle, a mystery he was not privileged to share, but he must sense that the answer lay in the flags barely moving in the breeze.

Captain repair on board. Immediate.

Part II: 1812 10. Deception

Captain James Tyacke stood at the top of the companion ladder and waited for his eyes to become accustomed to the early morning darkness. It was a moment he never grew tired of. Quiet because the hands had not yet been piped to begin another day, private because of the lingering shadows. Above all, private; no easy thing in a man- of-war, not even for her captain.

In a short while the sun would change everything, reaching from horizon to horizon, all privacy gone. Water was getting short; they would have to return to Antigua in a few days’ time. What would they find? Fresh orders, news from England, the war, that other world?

None of it mattered much to Tyacke. The Indomitable was his main concern. Week in, week out, he had drilled his company until it was almost impossible to tell the seasoned professionals from the landmen. Gunnery and sail drill, but with leisure still for the simple pleasures sailors enjoyed. Parted from their homes, it was all they had to keep them out of mischief. Hornpipes and wrestling in the dogwatches, and contests, mast against mast, to see which one could reef or make more sail in the least time.

Indomitable was now a ship-of-war which could give a good account of herself if so called.

But mostly she had been concerned with constant patrols, the stop-and-search procedure even of neutrals to prevent trade with

French ports, and to seek out deserters from the King’s navy. The Leeward Squadron had taken several prizes and recovered many such deserters, mostly sailing in American merchantmen, trying to reach a new life in what they believed to be a democratic paradise. Compared with the hardships they were forced to suffer under the British flag in this endless war, it probably was.

The first lieutenant was officer-of-the-watch and he could sense his presence on the opposite side of the quarterdeck. Scarlett had become used to Tyacke’s ways, his early walks on deck when most captains would have been content to leave a morning watch to their senior lieutenants.

It was still cold, the quarterdeck rail damp with moisture. When dawn came up that would all change: the vapour would rise from the sails and rigging like steam, and the tar in the deck seams would cling to shoes and bare feet alike.

Tyacke could see it clearly in his mind’s eye, as if he were a sea-eagle soaring high above the blue water with the ships like tiny models below: in a ragged, uneven line abreast, Indomitable in the centre and the two smaller frigates, one to starboard and one to larboard. Once they had exchanged the first signals their line would extend and take proper station. The masthead lookouts would be able to see one another, just, and together their span of vision would cover a range of some sixty miles. To the spies, and to the small trading vessels who would sell their information to anybody, the Leeward Squadron that patrolled as far north as the Canadian port of Halifax would have become well known. A protection or a threat: their presence could be interpreted either way. The big 42-gun frigate Valkyrie was the senior ship at Halifax, and the rest of their vessels could operate either together or independently between the two main bases.