men, her original people, I believe, fired them to show their intentions.”
Adam said, “The American lieutenant, Neill, is probably asking himself the same question that he put to me.” He looked the girl directly in the eyes. “In war, there are few easy choices.”
“Boat’s ready, sir!”
“Have you any baggage to be taken across?”
St Clair guided his daughter to the side, where a boatswain’s chair had been rigged for her.
“None. There was no time. Afterwards, they destroyed the Crystal. There was an explosion of some kind.”
Adam looked around the deserted deck, at his own men, who were waiting to get Reaper under way again. They would probably have preferred to send her to the bottom. And so would I.
He walked to the side, and ensured that the girl was securely seated.
“You will be more comfortable in the flagship, ma’am. We shall be returning to Halifax.”
Some of Reaper’s original company, urged ungently by Loftus’s marines, were already being taken below, to be secured for the remainder of the passage.
She murmured, “What will become of them?”
Adam said curtly, “They will hang.”
She studied him, as if searching his face for something. “Had they fired on your ship we would all be dead, is that not so?” When Adam remained silent, she persisted, “Surely that must be taken into consideration.”
Adam turned suddenly. “That man! Come here!”
The seaman, still wearing a crumpled, red-checkered shirt, came over immediately and knuckled his forehead. “Sir?”
“I know you!”
“Aye, Cap’n Bolitho. I was a maintopman in Anemone two years back. You put me ashore when I was took sick o’ fever.”
Memory came, and with it the names of the past. “Ramsay, what in hell’s name happened, man?” He had forgotten the girl, who was listening intently, her father, the others, everything but this one, familiar face. There was no fear in it, but it was the face of a man already condemned, a man who had known the nearness of death in the past, and had accepted it.
“It ain’t my place, Cap’n Bolitho. Not with you. That’s all over, done with.” He came to a decision, and very deliberately dragged his shirt over his head. Then he said, “No disrespect to you, miss.
But for you, I think we would have fired.” Then he turned his back, allowing the fading sunlight to fall across his skin.
Adam said, “Why?” He heard the girl give a strangled sob. It must seem far worse to her.
The seaman named Ramsay had been so cruelly flogged that his body was barely human. Some of the torn flesh had not yet healed.
He pulled his shirt on again. “Because he enjoyed it.”
“I am sorry, Ramsay.” He touched his arm impulsively, knowing that Lieutenant Gulliver was watching him with disbelief. “I will do what I can for you.”
When he looked again, the man was gone. There was no hope, and he would know it. And yet those few words had meant so much, to both of them.
Gulliver said uneasily, “Ready, sir.”
But before the boatswain’s chair was swung out to be lowered into the waiting boat, Adam said to St Clair’s daughter, “Sometimes, there are no choices whatsoever.”
“Lower away! Easy, lads!”
Then he straightened his back and turned to face the others. He was the captain again.
8. Too Much to Lose
RICHARD BOLITHO leaned away from the bright sunshine that lanced through Indomitable ’s cabin windows to rest his head against the chair’s high back. It was deep and comfortable, a bergere, which Catherine had sent on board when this ship had first hoisted his flag. Yovell, his secretary, sat at the table, while Lieutenant Avery stood by the stern bench watching two of the ship’s boats pulling back from the brig Alfriston, which had met up with them at dawn.
Tyacke had made it his business to send across some fresh fruit. Having commanded a small brig himself, he would have appreciated its value to her hard-worked company.
There had been a burst of cheering when Alfriston had hove to to pass across her despatches, which was quickly quelled by officers on watch who had been very aware of their admiral’s open skylight, and perhaps the importance of the news Alfriston might have brought to him.
Tyacke had come aft, bringing the heavy canvas satchel himself.
When Bolitho asked about the cheering, he had replied impassively, “Reaper’s been retaken, Sir Richard.”
He glanced now at the heavy pile of despatches on the table. The entire report of the search for, and capture of, Reaper was there, written in Keen’s own hand rather than that of a secretary. Did he lack confidence in his own actions, or in those who supported him, he wondered. It remained a private document, and yet, despite the seals and the secrecy, Indomitable’s people had known its contents, or had guessed what had happened. Such intuition was uncanny, but not unusual.
He listened to the creak of tackles and the twitter of a bosun’s call as the next net full of stores was hoisted outboard before being lowered into a boat for Alfriston. It was difficult to look at the vast blue expanse of ocean beyond the windows. His eye was painful, and he had wanted to rub it, even though he had been warned against disturbing it. He must accept that it was getting worse.
He tried to concentrate on Keen’s careful appraisal of Reaper’s discovery and capture. He had missed out nothing, even his own despair when he had seen the hostages paraded on her deck, a human barricade against Valkyrie’s guns. He had generously praised Adam’s part in it, and his handling of the captured sailors, American and mutineers alike.
But his mind rebelled against the intrusion of duty. In the bag sent over with Keen’s despatch had been some letters, one from Catherine, the first since they had parted in Plymouth some three months ago. He had held it to his face, had seen Yovell’s discreet glance, had caught the faint reminder of her perfume.
Avery said, “The last boat’s casting off, Sir Richard.” He sounded tense, on edge. Perhaps he, too, had been hoping for a letter, although Bolitho had never known him to receive one. Like Tyacke, his only world seemed to be here.
Bolitho turned once more to Keen’s lengthy report, rereading the information concerning David St Clair and his daughter, who had been prisoners aboard Reaper. Taken from a schooner, but surely no accidental encounter? St Clair was under Admiralty contract, and Keen had mentioned that he had been intending to visit the naval dockyard at Kingston and also a shipbuilding site at York, where a 30-gun man-of-war was close to completion. The final work on the vessel had apparently been delayed by a dispute with the Provincial Marine, under whose control she would eventually be. St Clair, well used to dealing with bureaucracy, had been hoping to speed things to a satisfactory conclusion. Captains in the fleet might find it difficult to regard such a relatively small vessel as a matter of great importance, but as Keen had learned from St Clair, when in commission the new vessel would be the biggest and most powerful on the lakes. No American craft would be able to stand against her: the lakes would be held under the White Ensign. But should the Americans attack and seize her, completed or not, the effect would be disastrous. It would mean the end of Upper Canada as a British province. Just one ship; and the Americans would have known of her existence from the moment her keel had been laid. In the light of this, St Clair’s capture appeared even less of a casual misfortune. His mission had also been known: he had had to be removed. Bolitho thought of the savage gunfire, the pathetic wreckage of the Royal Herald. Or killed.
He said to Yovell, “Have our bag sent over to Alfriston. She’ll be impatient to get under way again.” He thought of the brig’s gaunt commander, and wondered what his feelings had been when he had heard of Reaper’s capture, and that her only defiance had been fired deliberately into open water.
Ozzard peered through the other door. “Captain’s coming, sir.”
Tyacke entered and glanced at the littered papers on Bolitho’s table. Bolitho thought he was probably like
