Adam looked through the great web of spars and rigging. Perhaps Rhodes was watching Unrivalled at this very moment.
Aloud he said, “I’ll see you damned, my lord!”
Bellairs watched the captain walk to the companion-way and then gave his attention to the new midshipman again. It was hard to believe that he had been one himself, and so recently given his commission. It would make his parents in Bristol very proud.
The war was over, but for the navy the fighting was never very far away. Like this new challenge, the Algerine pirates. He found violent death more acceptable than the prospect of life as one of those he had seen left wounded and hopelessly crippled.
He touched the fine, curved hanger at his side. He had been astounded when the first lieutenant had told him of the captain’s offer.
He suddenly realised what Midshipman Deighton had been asking him about the ship and her young captain.
He said simply, “I’d follow him to the cannon’s mouth.”
He touched the hanger again and grinned. A King’s officer.
Midshipman Cousens lowered the big signals telescope and dashed spray from his tanned features with his sleeve.
“Boat’s casting off from the flagship now, sir!”
Lieutenant Galbraith crossed to the nettings and stared at the lively, broken water, the crests dirty yellow in the strange glare. The weather had worsened almost as soon as they had left Malta, wind whipping the sea into serried ranks of angry waves, spray pouring from sails and rigging alike as if they were fighting through a tropical rainstorm. If the wind did not ease, the ships would be scattered overnight. As they had been last night, and they had struggled to reform to the admiral’s satisfaction.
As Cristie had often said, the Mediterranean could never be trusted, especially when you needed perfect conditions.
He saw the cutter staggering clear of Frobisher’s glistening side; it was a wonder that it had not capsized in its first crossing. To use the gig had been out of the question. A cutter was heavier and had the extra brawn to carry her through this kind of sea.
He had been both doubtful and anxious when Captain Bolitho had told him he was going across to the flagship to see Rhodes in person, after three signals to the admiral requesting an audience. Each had been denied without explanation, as was any admiral’s right. But it was also the right of any captain to see his flag officer, if he was prepared to risk reprimand for wasting the great man’s time.
With his own coxswain at the tiller Bolitho had headed away, his boat-cloak black with spray before they had covered a few yards. It would not have been the first time a captain had been marooned aboard a flagship because of bad weather. Suppose it had happened now? The captain would have had to endure the sight of his own command hove-to under storm canvas, and another man’s voice at the quarterdeck rail. Mine.
He watched the cutter lifting, porpoising slightly before riding the next trough of dark water, the oars rising and dipping, holding the hull under control. At other times he could scarcely see more than the bowed heads and shoulders of the boat’s crew, as if they were already going under.
Galbraith felt only relief. He had heard the rumours about Bolitho’s disagreement with the admiral at the last conference, the hostility and the sarcasm, as if Rhodes were trying to goad him into something which would be used against him. It was something personal, and therefore dangerous, even to others who might be tempted to take sides in the matter.
The cutter plunged into a trough and then lifted her stem again like a leaping porpoise. Even without a glass he could see the grin on the captain’s face, stronger than any words or code of discipline. He had seen it at first hand in action, when these same men had doubted their own ability to fight and win, had seen how some of them had touched his arm when he had passed amongst them. The victors.
He called sharply, “Stand by to receive the captain!”
But the boatswain and his party were already there. Like himself, they had been waiting with their blocks and tackles, perhaps without even knowing why.
He saw a small figure in a plain blue coat, drenched through like the rest of them: Ritzen, the purser’s clerk. A quiet, thoughtful man, and an unlikely one to spark off a chain of events which might end in a court martial, or worse. But Ritzen was different from the others around him. He was Dutch, and had signed on with the King’s navy when he had been rescued by an English sloop after being washed overboard in a storm and left for dead by his own captain.
Ritzen had been ashore in Malta with Tregillis, the purser, buying fruit from local traders rather than spend a small fortune at the authorised suppliers. He had fallen in with some seamen from the Dutch frigate Triton which had called briefly at the island. Her captain, a commodore, had paid a visit to Lord Rhodes.
Galbraith could recall the moment exactly, after another long day of sail and gun drill, and a seemingly endless stream of signals, mostly, it appeared, directed at Unrivalled.
Everyone knew it was wrong, unfair, but who would dare to say as much? Galbraith had gone to the great cabin, where he had found the captain in his chair, some letters open on his lap, and a goblet of cognac quivering beside him to each thud of the tiller head.
Despair, resignation, anger: it had been all and none of them.
After reporting the state of the ship and the preparations for station-keeping overnight, Galbraith had told him about the purser’s clerk. Ritzen had overheard that the Dutch frigate was on passage to Algiers, her sale already approved and encouraged by the Dutch government. It had been like seeing someone coming alive again, a door to freedom opening, when moments earlier there had been only a captive.
“I knew there was something strange when I heard it aboard Frobisher! ” Adam had gone from the chair to the salt-stained stern windows in two strides, the dark hair falling over his forehead, the weight of command momentarily forgotten. “A commodore in charge of a single frigate! That alone should have told me, if nobody else was prepared to!”
Perhaps Rhodes had forgotten, or thought it no one else’s business. Maybe Bethune’s records had not been examined. Galbraith thought it unlikely, and when he had seen the light in the captain’s eyes he knew it for certain.
“I shall see the admiral…” He must have seen the doubt in Galbraith’s face. To risk another confrontation, and all on the word of the purser’s clerk, seemed reckless if not downright dangerous. But there had been no such doubt in Bolitho’s voice. “Such intelligence is valuable beyond measure, Leigh! To any sea officer, time and distance are the true enemies. This man spoke out, and I intend that his words should be heard!”
He had stared at the leaping spectres of spray breaking across the thick glass, and it had been then that Galbraith had seen the locket on the table beside the goblet. The beautiful face and high cheekbones, the naked shoulders. He had never laid eyes on her, but he had known that it was Catherine Somervell. That woman, who had scorned society and won the hearts of the fleet, and of the nation.
Galbraith stood back from the dripping hammock nettings. He was soaked to the skin, but he had felt nothing. He suppressed a shiver, but it was not cold or fear. It was something far stronger.
“After you have secured the cutter, Mr Partridge, pass my compliments to the purser and have a double tot issued to the boat’s crew.” He saw the little clerk staring up at him. “And also for Ritzen.”
And, as suddenly as he had departed, the captain was here on the streaming deck with his gasping, triumphant oarsmen.
He shook his cocked hat and tossed it to his servant.
“All officers and warrant ranks aft in ten minutes, if you please.” The dark eyes were everywhere, even as he pushed the dripping hair from his face. “But I must speak first with you.”
Galbraith waited, remembering the moment when Bazeley’s wife had offered her hand to be kissed. The notion had touched him then: how right they had looked together. He had wanted to laugh at his own stupidity. Now, he was not so sure.
Then Adam spoke quietly, so softly that he could have been talking to himself. Or to the ship, Galbraith thought.
“I pray to God for a fair wind tomorrow.” He touched his lieutenant’s arm, and Galbraith knew the gesture was unconscious. “For then we must fight, and only He can help us.”
