side like a piece of flotsam. The ship’s company had got down to work immediately; they were used to such hazards, but her master, a great lump of a man named Samuel Tregullon, was outraged by the incident. A Cornishman from Penzance, Tregullon was intensely proud of his ship’s record, and her ability to carry out to the letter the instructions of the men at Admiralty who, in his view, had likely never set foot on a deck in their lives. To be delayed with such an important passenger in his care, and a fellow Cornishman at that, was bad enough. But as he had confided over a tankard of rum during a visit to the cabin, another transport, almost a sister ship of his own, the Royal Herald, had left Plymouth a few days after them, and would now reach Halifax before them.
Bolitho had commented afterwards to Avery, “Another old Cornish rivalry. I’ll lay odds that neither of them can remember how it all began.”
Bolitho had asked him about London, but he had not pressed the point, for which Avery was grateful. During the long night watches when he had lain awake, listening to the roar of the sea and the protesting groan of timbers, he had thought of little else.
He had felt no sense of triumph or revenge, as he had once believed he would. Had she been amusing herself with him? Playing with him, as she had once done? Or had he imagined that, too? A woman like her, so poised, so confident amongst people who lived in an entirely different world from his own… Why would she risk everything if she had no deeper feeling for him?
None of the repeated questions had been answered.
He should have left her. Should never have gone to the house in the first place. He looked across at Bolitho, who was speaking warmly with Yovell, more like old friends than admiral and servant. What would he think if he knew that his wife Belinda had been there that day, obviously just as at home in that elegant and superficial world as all the others?
Yovell stood up, and grimaced as the deck swayed over again. “Ah, they were right about me, Sir Richard. I must be mad to share the life of a sailor!”
He gathered his papers and prepared to leave, perhaps to join Allday and Ozzard before the evening meal. Allday would be feeling the separation badly, and there would be a long wait for that first letter, which Avery knew he would bring for him to read aloud. Another precious link in the little crew: Allday was a proud man, and Avery had been touched by the simplicity and dignity of his request that Avery read to him the letters from Unis that he could not read for himself.
Would Susanna ever write to him? He wanted to laugh at his own pathetic hopes. Of course she would not. Within weeks she would have forgotten him. She had money, she had beauty, and she was free. But he would think of her again tonight… He had tried to compare his position with that of Bolitho and his mistress, although he knew it was ridiculous. There was no comparison. Apart from that one memory, what had happened was a closed door, the finish of something which had always been hopeless.
He looked up, startled, afraid that he had missed something or that Bolitho had spoken to him. But they were as before, framed against the grey stern windows, the sea already losing its menace as the fading light obscured it.
Bolitho turned and looked at him. “Did you hear?”
Yovell steadied himself against the table. “Another storm, Sir Richard.”
“The glass says otherwise.” He tensed. “There. Again.”
Yovell said, “Thunder?”
Avery was on his feet. So unlike a ship-of-war; too long at sea with nothing but the sea to challenge you. Day after day, week in, week out. And then the boredom and the noisy routine were forgotten.
He said, “Gunfire, sir.”
There was a rap on the door and Allday stepped into the cabin. He moved so lightly when he wanted to, for such a big man, and one who was in more pain from his old wound than he would ever admit.
Bolitho said, “You heard, old friend?”
Allday looked at them. “I wasn’t sure, an’ then.” He shook his shaggy head. “Not a thing to lie easy on your mind, Sir Richard.”
Avery asked, “Shall I go and speak with the master, sir?”
Bolitho glanced at the screen door. “No. It is not our place.” He smiled at Ozzard, who had also appeared, a tray of glasses balanced in his hands. “Not yet, in any case.”
Eventually Samuel Tregullon made his way aft, his battered hat clutched in one beefy hand like a scrap of felt.
“Beggin’ yer pardon, Zur Richard, but ye’ll be knowing about the guns.” He shook his head as Ozzard offered him a glass, not because he was involved with his ship but because he usually drank only neat rum. A sailor, from his clear eyes to his thick wrists and the hands that were like pieces of meat. Collier brig, Falmouth packet, one- time smuggler and now a King’s man: what Bolitho’s father would have described as all spunyarn and marline spikes.
Tregullon nodded briefly as Ozzard replaced the glass with a tankard. “Never fear, Zur Richard. I’ll get you to Halifax as I was ordered, an’ take you there I will. I can outsail any felon, theirs or ours!” He grinned, his uneven teeth like a broken fence. “I’m too old a hand to be caught aback!”
After he had gone, the distant gunfire continued for half an hour and then stopped, as if quenched by the sea itself.
The master returned, grim-faced, to say that he was resuming course and tack. It was over.
Bolitho said suddenly, “Yours is an experienced company, Captain Tregullon. None better at this work, I think you said?”
Tregullon eyed him suspiciously. “I did, Zur Richard. That I did.”
“I think we should make every effort to investigate what we have heard. At first light the sea may ease. I feel it.”
Tregullon was not convinced. “I have my orders, zur. They comes from the lords of Admiralty. No matter how I feels about it, I am not able or willing to change those orders.” He tried to smile, but it evaded him. “Not even for you, zur.”
Bolitho walked to the stern windows and leaned against the glass. “The lords of Admiralty, you say?” He turned, his face in shadow, the white lock of hair above his eye like a brushstroke. “We’re all sailors here. We all know there is someone far higher who controls our lives, and listens to our despair when it pleases Him.”
Tregullon licked his lips. “I knows that, zur. But what can I do?”
Bolitho said quietly, “There are men out there, Captain Tregullon. In need, and likely in fear. It may already be too late, and I am well aware of the risk to your ship. To you and your company.”
“Not least to you, zur!” But there was no fight in his voice. He sighed. “Very well. I’ll do it.” He looked up angrily. “Not for you, with all respect, zur, an’ not for His Majesty, bless his soul.” He stared at his crumpled hat. “For me. It has to be so.”
Bolitho and Avery ate their meal in silence: the whole ship seemed to be holding her breath. Only the creak of the rudder and the occasional thud of feet overhead gave any hint that everything had changed.
At first light, as Bolitho had expected, the wind and sea eased; and with every available telescope and lookout searching for the presence of danger Tregullon shortened sail, and, arms folded, watched the darkness falling away and the sea eventually tinge with silver to mark each trough and roller.
Avery joined Bolitho on the broad quarterdeck, where he was standing in silence by the weather side, his black hair blowing unheeded in the bitter air. Once or twice Avery saw him touch his injured eye, impatient, even resentful that his concentration was interrupted.
Captain Tregullon joined him, and said gruffly, “We tried, Zur Richard. If there was anything, we were too late.” He watched Bolitho’s profile, seeking something. “I’d best lay her on a new tack.”
He was about to shamble away when the cry came down, sharp and crisp, like the call of a hawk.
“Wreckage in th’ water, sir! Lee bow!”
There was a lot of it. Planks and timber, drifting cordage and broken or upended boats, most of it charred and splintered by the fierceness of the bombardment.
Bolitho waited while the ship came into the wind, and a boat was lowered with one of the master’s mates in charge.
There were a few dead, lolling as if asleep as the waves carried them by. The boat moved slowly amongst them, the bowman pulling each sodden corpse alongside with his hook and then quickly discarding it, unwilling, it
