The calls squealed and he heard the slap of muskets as the Royal Marine guard presented arms in salute.
It was all as he had expected. The ensign curling against the cold sky, the seamen, faces still tanned from Unrivalled's service in the Mediterranean. The smell of fresh paint, like that other December day a year ago.
He saw none of it.
Being hack was enough.
Lieutenant Leigh Galbraith strode in from beneath Unrivalled's poop and ran his eyes over the main deck. Everything was in order. He had made certain that nothing had been left to chance. Today the captain was returning; his own period of temporary command would soon be over.
He frowned as the hard light reflected from the water. He had been pulled around the ship as soon as the hands had been piped to work, and had still been surprised by her appearance. The white paint took some getting used to, almost frivolous compared with the moored hulks nearby, and only the experienced eye could discern the new timbers which had repaired damage suffered in their savage exchange with the frigate Triton only months ago. Some of the repairs had been carried out at Gibraltar and the rest here at Plymouth, where Unrivalled's life had begun. Where Galbraith himself had been given another chance. He was lucky and he knew it. And with the whole fleet being cut down, halved, some said, he should count his blessings and leave the bitterness to others less fortunate.
Galbraith was 31, and he had spent nineteen years of his life in the navy. He knew and had wanted nothing else, except a command of his own. And that he had been granted. His previous captain had given him the highest recommendation, and his reward had been the little brig Vixen. Not a fifth-rate like Unrivalled, but his own, and the first step to the coveted post rank.
He saw Partridge the boatswain, big fists on his hips as he explained forcefully what work he needed done in the foretop. Thank God for men like Partridge, he thought. The backbone of any man-of-war, they were the true professionals, Partridge, Stranace the gunner, probably the oldest man aboard, and Joshua Cristie the sailing master, the best Galbraith had known. A man who never wasted words, but when he spoke it was with authority and a complete understanding of the tides, stars and winds which were his world.
As the frigate's first lieutenant, Galbraith was most aware of and concerned with the shortages. They were more than fifty men under strength, despite their presence in this naval harbour. He smiled grimly. Or perhaps because of it.
Apart from those they had lost, killed or badly wounded in the last battle, some had been paid off or had gone to other ships. But a few of the old hands had remained, even some of the hard men like Campbell, who had paid for his insolence and contempt for authority with several floggings in this commission alone. He seemed to find some brutal satisfaction in displaying his scarred back, which looked as if it had been clawed by some savage beast. A dangerous man, and yet he had been one of the first to volunteer for the attack on the corsair's chehecks when they had pulled alongside with enough explosives to kill every one of them. Campbell had been a tower of strength, but he would sneer openly at anyone who suggested he had acted out of a sense of duty or discipline.
There were others like Campbell. Men who claimed to hate everything the navy represented, and more especially the officers who upheld it.
So why did they stay, when they now had the chance to quit?
Galbraith saw Luxmore, the captain of the Royal Marine detachment, speaking with one of his sergeants. Whatever went on around them, no matter how cramped the ship, they somehow remained a separate entity. Even their quarters were called 'the barracks.' Luxmore had seen plenty of fighting, and he had a good rapport with his marines. Maybe that was enough. Galbraith looked away. Or was he congratulating himself on his advanced promotion? The debonair Captain Bosanquet had been killed that day. Like me, then. Thankful to have survived, and to have a ship, because of fear of the unknown.
He saw the boy Napier, the cabin servant, pausing to stare at the land. He probably knew the captain's thoughts better than anyone. Fourteen years old, serious and hard-working, and obviously devoted to Captain Adam Bolitho. An unusual relationship, he thought. Bolitho was not always the easiest man to understand, and had sometimes apologised for his own intolerance. As if something or somebody was driving him, forcing him on.
And yet with Napier he always seemed to have time to explain, to describe, to elaborate. The only way he'll learn, he once said. As if he saw something of his own youth in him. That must have been stormy enough, from what Galbraith had heard, and had seen for himself. Like that last engagement, when Bolitho had given chase to the enemy frigate captained by the renegade Spaniard, Martinez. He had deliberately misinterpreted their admiral's signal to remain on station and leave the pursuit to a smaller frigate which had been outgunned and outsailed from the start, and they had saved the merchantman Aran more, which had been carrying important passengers. He glanced at the companion ladder and remembered Bolitho holding the woman's hand, kissing it. They could have been quite alone.
Galbraith began to pace the deck, his hands clasped behind him. Was it that as well? Had she reminded him yet again of the girl he had hoped to marry, and had lost when he had put his brief command first?
He thought too of Bolitho's reluctance to become close to anyone in his new command. He had lost a frigate, Anemone, fighting a more powerful American ship, had been taken prisoner and had escaped. It was as if he had found it impossible since then to reach out, to accept, and to trust.
And there was yet another side to the man, a stark contrast. Cristie had told Galbraith about the day when he had openly disagreed with his captain. For Cristie it was a thing almost unheard of. Galbraith's raiding party had been amongst littleknown islands, and the master had advised that it was unsafe to take Unrivalled through a channel which was virtually uncharted, and which might rip out the ship's keel. A captain's total responsibility…
Cristie had confided after the successful recovery of the raiding party, 'Fair mad he was. I'll roust in hell htfore I leave Galbraith to die in their hands, he said. I don't go much for praying, but I tell you, I nearly did that time!'
And when they had stood together in the church at Falmouth, the first time Unrivalled had dropped anchor there. The church full of people, the streets also, and total silence for the man who had died at sea, the captain's famous uncle, Sir Richard Bolitho.
Lady Catherine Somervell had been there with them. So beautiful, so alone despite the crowds. Where was she now? What would become of her? The woman who had defied society and had been Sir Richard's lover and inspiration, and had won the heart of the country.
The deck moved slightly, and he saw the ship in his thoughts as clearly as he had this morning. A thoroughbred. Like the carved inscription beneath her figurehead. Second to None.
Unrivalled was eager to move. The first and perhaps the last of her kind: in the yard where she had been laid down, built and launched, Galbraith had seen her only sister ship. The same fine lines, the pride of any craftsman. But abandoned. Unfinished. Dead.
lie stared along the deck, at the two lines of eighteenpounders, their tackles and hreechings taut and neat, and recalled Massie, who had been the next senior in the wardroom. A flag officer's son and a gunnery man to his fingertips, not one you would ever know. Quiet and self-contained even on the day he had been killed, shot down as he had rallied his people.
He had been replaced here in Plymouth by Lieutenant George Varlo, a complete contrast. Lively, talkative, and in his mid-twenties, he must have had some influence; every appointment now was like pure gold. Galbraith had decided that he would hide his time with Varlo. I le almost smiled. Maybe he had got that from the captain.
He turned in his pacing as the noon gun echoed mournfully across the water and the watching veterans. Even without the large, old-fashioned watch he had always carried, Captain Bolitho would be right on time.
He heard Midshipman Sandell's sharp, petulant voice, berating one of the new men. They were over fifty hands short of approved complement. Petty tyrants like Sandell would be no loss at all.
'Gig's in sight!' That was Bellairs, the third lieutenant, who had been the senior midshipman when Unrivalled had commissioned. It would be a challenge to him, Galbraith thought. Some of the old Jacks would recall him as just another 'young gentleman,' neither fish nor fowl, and still look for some weakness to exploit. But he was a popular choice and had settled into the wardroom well, and seemed grateful for his change of circumstance.
He smiled again and walked to the entry port. The marines were fallen in and dressed in two impeccable ranks, swaying very gently to the ship's quiet motion.
He saw O'Beirne, the portly surgeon, hurrying to the companion, down to his own world on the orlop, where some had died and others had survived.
