forgotten?'
Cristic had been unmoved. 'That was different. Very different. For us.'
He felt the deck tremble and saw the wheel move slightly. The helmsman was watching the little dogvane, a tiny pointer made of cork and feathers perched on the weather side of the quarterdeck rail. On a dark night and with such light airs, the dogvane was a trained helmsman's only guide to the wind's direction.
Trained: that summed it up, he thought. Like the drills, sails and rigging, guns and hoatwork. It took time for raw recruits. It was different for the old hands, like that brute Campbell, and the gun captain he had seen glaring at Sandell behind his hack; they might not see the point of it any more, now that there was no real enemy to face and fight, no cause to recognise, no matter how uncertain.
It could change tomorrow. They had already seen it for themselves, when Napoleon had broken out of his cage on Elba. He glanced at the dimly lit skylight; the captain was still awake. Probably thinking about it too. His uncle had been killed then. A cross on a chart, nothing more. No better and no worse, he had said of Unrivalled's company. Galbraith thought of Varlo's comment about a captain's responsibility. Why should that have touched me as it did? Varlo never seemed to make casual remarks. Everything had to matter, to reflect.
He lifted a telescope from its rack and levelled it across the empty nettings.
Over his shoulder he said quietly, 'We'll warn the middle watch, Mr Deighton. Those lights are fishermen, if I'm not mistaken.' He heard the midshipman murmur something. Tiny lights on the water, miles away, like fireflies, almost lost among the stars. It would be a safe bet to say that every one of them would already know about Unrivalled's steady approach. He added, 'Remind me to make a note in the log.'
'Aye, sir.'
He liked Deighton, what he knew of him. He had more than proved his worth in battle, and the captain had remarked on it.
Galbraith put it from his thoughts. As my captain wrote of me when I was recommended for command.
He heard the midshipman speaking to the boatswain's mate of the watch, and he thought of what he had seen during the dog watches when Deighton had gone aloft with the young landman who had been terrified.
Nobody else took much notice, but Galbraith had watched and remembered his own first time, going aloft in a Channel gale. He smiled. A million years ago.
And he had seen them return to the deck. They had climbed only to the foretop, and had avoided the puttock shrouds which left a man hanging out over the sea or the deck below, with only fingers and toes to keep him from falling.
A voice murmured, 'Cap'n's coming up, sir.'
Some would never tell an officer, warn him. When it came down to it, it was all you had to prove your worth.
He was surprised to see the captain coatless, his shirt blowing open in the soft wind.
The helmsman reported, 'Sou'-sou'-east, sir!'
Galbraith waited, sensing the energy, the restlessness of the man, as if it was beyond his control. Driving him. Driving him.
Adam said, 'A fine night. The wind holds steady enough.' He turned to look abeam and Galbraith saw the locket glint in the compass light. He could see it in his mind. The bare shoulders, the dark, challenging eyes. Why did he wear it, when Sir Richard's flag lieutenant, Avery, had brought it to him? Before he himself had been killed, on this deck.
The captain would be about his own age, and the lovely woman was older, beyond his reach, if that was the force which was tearing him apart.
Adam said, 'Call all hands at first light. I expect this ship to look her best. If and when we are given the time I want more boat drill. The waters we are intended for are not suitable for a man-of-war.'
Galbraith waited. He was thinking ahead. Going over his orders again, sifting all the reasons, and the things unsaid. For the Captain's discretion.
Adam said suddenly, 'I was pleased about young Deighton's work today. A good example. God knows, some of these poor devils have little enough to sustain them.' He turned and Galbraith could almost feel his eyes in the darkness. 'I'll not stand for petty tyranny, Leigh. Attend to it as you see fit.'
Galbraith heard his shoes crossing to the companionway. He missed nothing. But what was driving him, when most captains would have been asleep at this hour?
He was pacing the deck when the middle watch came aft.
He noticed that the cabin skylight was still glowing, and his question remained unanswered.
4. Obsession
FRANK RIST, Unrivalled's senior master's mate, pressed one hand on the sill of an open port and stared at the colour and reflected movement of Funchal harbour. He had visited Madeira several times, a place always ready with a bargain to tempt the sailorman, even if the price doubled at the first sign of a King's ship.
He felt the heat of the timber through his palm, something he never tired of, and smiled as a boat loaded with brightly painted pottery hovered abeam, apparently deaf to the bellowed warnings to stand clear from one of Captain Luxmore's 'bullocks.'
He withdrew his head into the chartroom and waited for his eyes to accept the gloom of the low deckhead after the glare off the water. He rubbed them with his knuckles and tried to shrug it off. It was when he looked at a chart in uncertain light, or by the glow of a small lamp on the quarterdeck during the night watches that he noticed it most. Like most sailors Rist was used to staring into great distances, taking the bearing of some headland or hill, or gauging the final approach to an anchorage like this morning.
He heard the first lieutenant's footsteps overhead and the shrill of a call as another hoist of stores was hauled inboard, the purser doubtless counting every item and checking it against a list, as if it was all coming out of his own pocket.
Unrivalled suited him, despite the gaps in her complement, and the new hands who were either old Jacks who had volunteered for a further commission, or those totally untrained in the ways of the sea like the youth Ede, who was quietly clearing up the chart space as if the ship was still out of sight of land, or he was afraid of making contact with those people and boats out there in the harbour.
Ede was so young, and it troubled Rist when he considered it.
lie was a good master's mate and the senior of the ship's three. He tried to push it aside. He was also one of the oldest men in the company. Rist was forty-two years old, twenty-eight of which had been spent at sea in one sort of ship or another. He had done well, better than most, but he had to face it, unless old Cristie was offered another appointment or dropped dead, any hope of promotion was remote. And now his sight. It was common enough in sailors. He clenched his fist. But not now.
He glanced at the youth, still so pale despite the sun which had greeted their course south of Biscay. Neat, almost delicate hands, more like a girl's than a youngster going to sea for the first time. He could read and write, and had been an apprentice at some instrument maker's shop in Plymouth or nearby.
In the navy it was usually better not to know too much of a man's past. It was what he did now, how he stood for or against the things which really mattered in a man-of-war. When it came down to it, the loyalty and courage of your mates counted more than anything. Rist looked around the chartroom. Old Cristies' second home. You could still smell the paint and pitch from the repairs after that last savage battle.
He stared through the port again. There was a Spanish frigate at anchor nearby. She had dipped her ensign when Unrivalled had glided past her. Hard to accept, to get used to. Ile shook his head. Such a short while ago and their young firebrand of a captain would have beaten to quarters and had the guns run out before the poor Spaniards had finished their siesta!
It was strange. But it was what he did best. Ile thought about the rumours and the endless gossip in the mess. To most of them slavery was just a word. Others saw it as a possibility for prize money, even slave bounty, or so the lower deck lawyers insisted.
Rist had already considered something else. If Unrivalled was to be involved, which seemed unlikely at close quarters, there might be prizes. Any such capture would require a prize-master.
