Adam climbed down on to hard ground, and felt it rise to meet him. Like a sailor too long in an open boat in a lively sea, he thought. He shivered again and tugged his own heavy cloak around him. He was tired, and throbbing from too much travel: Falmouth, Plymouth, London, and now Portsmouth.
He should have slept throughout the journey instead of trying to study his orders, or glean fragments of intelligence from his lively companion.
He had the feeling that the young lieutenant was watching him now, discovering something, for reasons of his own. He had certainly gone to a lot of trouble to find out about the officer put into his care. At one point, when they had stopped to change horses, Troubridge had remarked, 'I was forgetting, sir. You were flag lieutenant yourself some years ago.' Not a question; and Adam thought that he could have given the exact year when he had been his uncle's aide.
He saw that the other officer had thrown back his cloak to display the epaulettes of a post captain, like his own.
'Welcome, Bolitho! ' His handshake was firm and hard. The dockyard captain, who probably knew more about ships and the demands of the fleet than any one.
They fell into step, while the marines began unloading chests and baggage from the carriage; they did not speak, nor so much as look at the new arrivals.
The dockyard captain was saying, 'Athena is anchored, of course, but she's awaiting more ballast and stores. My clerk has left a full list for your attention.' He shot him a quick glance. 'Have you met up with Athena before?' A casual comment, but it was typical. In the 'family' of the navy it was common enough for a sailor to cross paths with the same ship throughout the years of his service at sea.
'No.' He pictured the spidery writing, which he had read by the light of a small lantern while the coach had juddered and rolled through the darkness.
Built at Chatham in 1803, just two years before Trafalgar; not an old ship by naval standards. He had found that he was able to smile. Maybe Troubridge had seen that too. 1803, the year he had been given his first command, the little fourteen-gun brig Firefly. He had been just twenty-three years old.
Laid down and completed as a third-rate, a seventy-four gun ship of the line, Athena's role had changed several times, as had her station. She had served in the second American war and in the Mediterranean, in the Irish Sea, and then back to the Channel Fleet.
Now, out of nowhere, she was to be Sir Graham Bethune's flagship. Her artillery had been reduced from seventy-four to sixty-four, to allow more accommodation. No other reason was given.
Even Bethune had been vague about it. 'We shall be working with our 'allies', Adam. My flagship is not to be seen as a threat, more as an example.' It had seemed to amuse him, although Adam suspected Bethune was almost as much in the dark as himself.
He said, 'She has a full ship's company?'
The other captain smiled. 'All but a few. But these days it's easier to find spare hands, with no war at the gates! '
Adam quickened his pace. Here there was activity, even at this ungodly hour. Heavy, horse-drawn wagons, filled with cordage and crates of every size. Dockyard workers being mustered for a new day's repairs, perhaps even building. Unlike the empty gun ports at Plymouth. Unlike Unrivalled.
The other captain said suddenly, 'You'll be more used to a fifth-rate, Bolitho. Athena's a good ship, in structure and condition. The best Kentish oak maybe the last of it, from what I hear! '
They halted at the top of some stone stairs, and as if to a signal a boat began to pull away from a cluster of moored barges, the oars rising and falling with mist clinging to the blades like translucent weed.
Adam saw his own breath drifting away, hating the cold in his bones. Too long on the slave coast, or clawing up and down off the Algerian shoreline… It was neither. A new ship, and one already destined for some ill-defined task. The West Indies, with a vice-admiral's flag at the fore: probably Bethune's last appointment before he quit the navy to serve in some new capacity where there was no more war, no more danger. When they had stopped at Liphook to take tea Troubridge had mentioned his own father, an admiral at the end of his service, but now he had been given an important role in the growing ranks of the Honourable East India Company, where, no doubt, he would want his son to join him after this latest stepping-stone which might eventually lead to oblivion.
Easier to find spare hands. The dockyard captain's words seemed to hang in the air like his breath. Like many of Unrivalled'?' people, those who had cursed the unyielding discipline, or simply the petty-mindedness of those who should have known better in the close confines of a King's ship. Those same men might now be seeking a ship, any vessel which would give them back the only life they fully understood.
'There have been one or two accidents, of course, quite common when refitting, and when every one wants it done in half the time.' He shrugged heavily. 'Men lost overboard, two falling from aloft, another rigger too drunk to save himself in the dark. It happens.'
Adam looked at him. 'Her captain was relieved of his command. He faces a courtmartial, I'm told.'
'Yes.' They watched the boat come alongside, two young seamen leaping ashore to fend off the stairs.
He found himself holding his breath. His uncle had warned him about joining a new ship, especially as her captain. They will be far more worried about you, Adam. But he thought of the old clerk at the Admiralty, who had lingered in Bethune's room after the vice-admiral had gone to speak with one of his superiors.
'Your uncle, Sir Richard, was a fine man, sir. A great man, given the chance.' He had stared at the door, as if afraid of something, and blurted out, 'Take care, sir. Athena'?' an unlucky ship! ' He had scuttled away before Bethune had returned.
A lieutenant, impeccably turned out, eyes fixed on a point above Adam's left epaulette, raised his hat smartly and said, 'Barclay, second lieutenant, sir, at your service! '
An open face, but at this moment giving nothing away. One of many he would come to know, and know well if he had learned anything since Firefly, all those years ago.
He looked around, almost expecting to see Napier hovering there in his blue coat and clicking shoes. Or Luke Jago, watchful and cynical, an eye on this boat's crew for instance, already judging the ship. His ship. Troubridge was climbing into the boat, preceeding Adam in the correct manner. The dockyard captain stepped back and touched his hat.
Adam returned the salute and nodded to the lieutenant… he frowned, and the name came to him. Barclay.
The boat's crew, smartly dressed in matching shirts and tarred hats, faced aft, eyes unmoving, but fixed on the new captain. Wondering. Assessing. Adam stepped into the stern sheets the old sword pressed hard against his hip.
The ship, any ship, was only as good as her captain. No better. No worse.
He sat down. So be it.
'Cast off! '
He tugged his hat more firmly on to his head as the boat pulled away from the jetty, and into a cold breeze which he was beyond feeling. At any other time it was easy to lose yourself in your thoughts, allow the boat's crew and its routine carry on without you. This was different. Unlike Unrivalled, when he had commissioned her at Plymouth; he had been there when most of her company had arrived on board, while the builders and riggers were still putting the finishing touches to their new frigate. Or even Anemone, which had gone down after a bitter action against the Americans, and he had been wounded, and taken prisoner…
He saw a guard boat pulling between two moored transports, the oars tossed as a mark of respect, an officer standing in the stern sheets to raise his hat.
Adam reached up to drop the boat cloak from his shoulders, so that both epaulettes could be seen. The guard boat had known of his arrival; perhaps everybody did. Nothing remained confidential for very long in the 'family'.
The stroke oarsman's eyes had moved for the first time to watch what he had done, his loom rising and falling steadily, unhurriedly as before.
One of my men. What is he thinking at this very moment? Or young Troubridge, whose father had flown his own flag as an admiral; was he aware of the significance of this day and what it meant to the frigate captain at his side? The officer who had been singled out for praise for his behaviour at Algiers by Lord Exmouth himself?
He tensed, the sword gripped between his knees, cold and discomfort forgotten. As if he were some one else. A spectator.
Slowly at first, then more deliberately as the boat turned slightly into the first true daylight, the ship was
