'I needed to do something. The sea is my life. Unlike Richard, I have nothing else now.' He leaned forward and added, 'There is a lot to be done. New boats there are four cutters building at Plymouth, and I must find men who can be trusted to perform what is sometimes a dangerous duty. The country is desperate for revenue, and free trade in the dark of night cannot be allowed to flourish unchecked.'
It was there, as Richard had described it to her. The grasp, the enthusiasm; once Herrick established a grip on something, he would never let go.
'Where are you staying, Thomas? There is plenty of room here, if you wish……'
He put down his glass. 'No, I am settled at the inn. It is easier for the coach. Besides
She nodded, careful not to smile. 'Besides, Thomas. What a span that word must carry.'
Herrick studied her gravely. 'I shall be back and forth. If you need me, I will be easy to find.' He stood slowly, and she sensed the pain of the amputation, like so many she had seen in the streets.
'Will you not stay a while, Thomas?'
He glanced through to the library, as if to reassure himself. 'Another time, I would be honoured. Proud.' He turned away, as if unable to speak otherwise. 'When I lost Dulcie I was blind to everything, to that which I owed Richard, and above all else to you, for staying with her when she was beyond aid.' Then he faced her again, his eyes very clear. 'Blind. But not any more. You risked everything for Dulcie, and so for me. I shall not lose my way in self-pity again.'
He took her hand and kissed it with great care, and without pretence.
He took his hat from one of the servant girls and said, almost abruptly, 'You met Lord Rhodes, I believe?'
She had her hand to her breast without knowing it. She nodded. Herrick turned his hat over in his own, strong hand. Like Ferguson, he had become used to it, if ever any man could.
'A close friend of Hamett-Parker.' His mouth hardened. 'The president at my court martial.'
She followed him out into the sunlight, and he added, 'I do not trust that man. Not one inch.' Then he took her hand in his again, and smiled. 'But Richard once taught me well enough. Know your enemy, he said. But never reveal that knowledge!'
She watched him stride out along the track, stooped, troubled by his injury more than he would allow anyone to guess, and, out of uniform, almost shabby.
She raised her hand as he turned to look back. But at that moment, he was a giant.
James Tyacke paused outside the chart room to allow his eyes to adjust to the darkness, and then made his way beneath the poop to the quarterdeck. The ship was still strange to him, and any vessel under cover of darkness was always a threat to the unwary.
He looked up at the sky beyond the topsails, at the millions of faint stars from horizon to horizon, and the merest sliver of a moon which showed itself only occasionally on the restless water.
He saw the dark shapes of the watch on deck, the third lieutenant, Tollemache, who was officer-of-the-watch, conferring quietly with another shadow, a master's mate.
He moved to the compass box and glanced at the card: south-east-by-east, the ship moving easily but slowly under reduced canvas. According to the chart, they were some fifty miles to the south-west of the Sicilian coast. To any landsman this would seem like an ocean, an endless, open waste, but Tyacke could feel the difference, and smell it. The nearness of land, with the shores of Africa somewhere across the opposite beam. The Mediterranean was like no other sea, and always the land seemed ready to surprise or ensnare you.
Tomorrow they would sight Malta: the end of the passage. It was still too early to judge if his exercise and drills had left their mark on the ship's company. The officers remained wary of him, like Tollemache, who was standing the middle watch only a few feet away. Uneasy, perhaps, at his captain's presence, which he might interpret as a lack of trust in his ability.
Three weeks since they had weighed anchor at Spithead. Faces, names, pride and resentment. Typical enough in any company with a new captain, and an admiral's flag at the masthead.
His thoughts had repeatedly returned to Halcyon's captain, Christie, the way this sea and the past kept returning. When he had taken command of Indomitable there had been another such recurrence, in the person of a one-legged ship's cook. The very day he had read himself in, the man, like a spectre, had brought it all back. Majestic, and Christie coming out with it, despite Bolitho's presence. And the cook, who as a young seaman in Tyacke's division had been smashed down by the same broadside which had left Tyacke for dead.
Would it never leave him? Sometimes, like tonight, it haunted him, so that he was unable to sleep.
He moved to the quarterdeck rail and saw the helmsman's eyes in the dim compass light as he turned to observe him.
Christie, at least, had gained something from it. It made me a man. Simple, genuine sincerity. So why not me?
He glanced around again as two seamen paused to take the slack out of some halliards before making them fast again.
Did this ship have any memories? Perhaps she was not old enough. It was difficult to imagine French voices and orders being uttered where his own men now stood.
A midshipman was writing on his slate, pencil squeaking, recording something for the log; Tyacke could see his white patches clearly in the darkness. Like Christie must have been… He walked impatiently to the empty nettings, angry with himself, with what he must regard as a weakness. It was none of those things which defied him to sleep, which put an edge to his voice when he had known he was asking, expecting, too much from people who had been allowed to run down, as Allday would have put it.
He had sworn to himself that it was over and done with. His anguish, his shame and his resentment had been like a defence. He had even told himself that, once out of England, it would fall back into place, into the mist of time and memory.
But it had not gone away, and his practical mind could not accept it.
He turned from the nettings and said, 'I've made a note in the log, Mr. Tollemache. When the morning watch is aft, you can set the fore course We may sight local shipping at first light, and I shall want enough agility to avoid it.'
He felt the lieutenant staring after him as he made his way to the poop. Outside his cabin he looked aft to where the sentry stood in a pool of light, as if he had never moved. There was a faint glow beneath the screen door. Could Bolitho not sleep, either?
With his cabin door closed behind him, he unshuttered the lanterns and looked at the cot beyond the screen, and then at the cupboard where he kept his brandy, one of the bottles which Catherine Somervell had sent aboard for him, as she had before in Indomitable. Who else would have thought of it? Would have cared?
Eventually he sat down, his head in his hands, his ears only half-aware of the shipboard sounds, the unending chorus in any living vessel.
Then he straightened his back and pulled some writing paper from a drawer. Surprisingly he felt quite calm, unnervingly so. Like the moment of decision, before going into battle, or at the first sight of the enemy's masts and sails spanning the horizon. An awareness, simply because there was no choice, perhaps never had been.
How long he sat there, the pen gripped in his hand, he could not remember.
And then, as if driven by another force, he began to write.
Dear Marion… When Lieutenant Kellett strode aft to muster the morning watch, Tyacke was still writing.
Then, at dawn, he went on deck and examined the log. He was the captain again.
Eight bells had just chimed from the forecastle belfry when Richard Bolitho came on deck, and crossed to the weather side while Frobisher settled down on the final leg of her approach. His mouth was still tingling to the coffee Ozzard had prepared while Allday had been shaving him. Something which had become a routine, as much a part of the ship's own procedure.
He shaded his eyes and stared along the length of the upper deck. Malta seemed so small, so insignificant on any chart, and yet from here it reached out on either bow as if snared in the tarred shrouds and standing rigging, a sprawling mass of sandstone. They were still too far away to distinguish houses and fortifications, or the batteries which guarded the anchorage, and made Malta the most formidable obstacle to any hostile fleet or squadron which might attempt to slip through the strait between Sicily and the coast of North Africa.
This was an island fought over, occupied and reoccupied, it was said as far back as 800 BC, when the Phoenicians had arrived. Sicilians, Arabs, all had left their mark upon architecture, religion and trade.
He felt a trickle of sweat run down his spine; his fresh shirt would be like a rag within the hour, and he envied
