Adam moved restlessly across the cabin. Suppose he had not been going to London at Bethune's request? Nobody could say when Athena would be ready for her passage to the West Indies, or even if the orders had been changed by some higher authority.
There would be no other opportunity. No chance to discover the value of this small, crudely printed note.
He had a command, a ship when so many others had nothing. Not Unrivalled, but a ship…
He knew what Nancy feared most, about him and for him. To her, those brief meetings with Lowenna might not be enough. They would still be strangers, and his visit could do more harm than good. He touched his coat, as if to feel the yellow rose he had seen in the portrait at Falmouth. Bethune or not, he knew he would have gone.
Unless you needs to go…
Jago interrupted his thoughts. 'I'll be with you, Cap'n.' Suddenly alert, tense, like all those other times. But there was something else, almost a warning.
Adam looked at him, knowing he should refuse. It was something personal, not a reason to involve him in something unlawful, dangerous.
Jago, the man who hated officers and all those who abused authority, who had been wrongfully flogged, and, although declared innocent, would carry the scars of the cat until his dying day.
The same man had made certain that David Napier had been delivered safely to his new ship with the warrant of midshipman, a breed he had been known to dismiss with contempt on many occasions. And lastly, the man who had waved aside the chance of being paid off, the opportunity of living as he chose, and traded it for this.
He said, 'Can't be no worse than Algiers, sir! '
Adam smiled. 'I take too much for granted, Luke. Thank you.'
Bowles said, 'The first lieutenant will be here shortly, sir.'
Adam nodded. He had told Stirling that he wanted to go through the muster books and the watch bills, also the red punishment book, often the best gauge of any ship, and especially her officers.
Stirling would probably prepare him for the wardroom invitation to dinner, the individuals behind the uniforms he would be meeting.
He thought of the other note which was folded so carefully in his pocket. Almost falling apart now, but all that he had of hers. What might the formidable Stirling say if he knew his captain's secret fears?
He smiled a little. No wonder dear Nancy was troubled about him.
'First lieutenant, sir! '
Bolitho turned to face the screen door. The flag captain.
Lieutenant Francis Troubridge smiled regretfully, and said, 'You will not be kept longer than necessary, sir. I am afraid this room is in a state of chaos.'
Adam Bolitho tossed his hat on a vacant chair and looked around the big room he remembered so well from his previous visit. It looked as if it had been hit by a whirlwind. All the paintings, including Bethune's frigate engaging the two Spaniards, were arranged in a rank along one wall, numbered for removal to his house, or perhaps destined for another room in the Admiralty. Boxes and ledgers in other piles; even Bethune's handsome wine cooler was covered with a grubby sheet.
Troubridge was watching him, one hand still resting on the door handle.
'The higher we climb, the more precarious the perch, sir.'
Bethune was leaving, going to an important post in the West Indies. And already another was taking his place, like a door closing behind him.
Troubridge was in his element here, Adam thought. At ease with the senior officers they had met, always ready to remind Bethune of any small detail some one else had overlooked.
A civilian member of the Board of Admiralty, a personal friend of the First Lord as Troubridge had recalled, had explained some of the complications which had followed the various acts of Parliament and treaties to control and then abolish the slave trade, once and for all. There had been an Anglo-Portuguese treaty which still allowed Portugal to continue loading slaves in her own ports, and another which made Portugal ban the trade north of the Equator, but allowed her the freedom to continue trading below it. And the same with Spain, which, to Adam, made a mockery of the original resolutions. Spain and Portugal were still able to trade freely south of the Equator, where even a simple sailor man could appreciate was the richest harvest both in the Indies and the Americas.
In Britain the slave trade was a felony. Elsewhere it was still able to make a fortune for those daring and ruthless enough to risk seizure and punishment.
Bethune's command was to be a fluid one. To co-operate with the ships of other nations, but to ensure that regular patrols continued on and around the most likely shipping routes so that any vessel carrying slaves, or fitted and equipped with the means of restraining them, could be arrested, and the owners or masters brought to trial.
Troubridge was followed by two clerks who were making copious notes about everything. They would find life aboard a King's ship very different when they joined Athena at Portsmouth.
Adam had also seen a file marked Rear-Admiral Thomas Herrick. His uncle's old friend. He recalled his visit to Unrivalled in Freetown, that melting pot of the anti-slavery patrols, where some terrible scenes had ensued when overloaded slavers had been escorted into harbour, their human cargoes more dead than alive after being crammed into conditions which were like vignettes of hell.
Maps, charts, signals, information; it would be easy to lose his way in minutiae. Adam kept his mental distance, or tried to. A captain's viewpoint had to take priority: time and distance, the most favourable routes, the anchorages and safest channels, and the reliability or otherwise of charts where an unmarked reef could rip out a ship's timbers like a knife through butter. Fresh water, stores, medical supplies, and a routine which kept men fit and ready to fight if the need arose.
It was difficult to see those aspects clearly in the Admiralty's map room, impressive though it was.
If Bethune had any doubts he did not show them; he was easy-mannered, almost casual at times. Maybe that came with flag rank, too.
Another door opened and two workmen entered, an oil painting held carefully between them. Bethune and another officer, a rear-admiral, followed them.
Adam had already been introduced to the rear-admiral, Philip Lancaster, whose exploits during the second American war had brought him to their lordships' notice.
Bethune said, 'I hope you'll be comfortable here, Philip.' He was looking at the picture of his frigate, and it was then that Adam saw the first hint of uncertainty, perhaps dismay. He was leaving this secure world for the unknown. A ship instead of power, strategy, and ambition. Lancaster pointed to the opposite wall, by accident or choice, Adam wondered. It was where the frigate had hung, guns blazing, colours streaming above the smoke of battle.
'There, I think.'
It was a full-length portrait of the man who had just spoken. It was a good likeness, a quietly determined face, with an anonymous sea as a background.
Bethune licked his lips, and smiled. 'You must get it brought up to date, eh, Philip?'
In the portrait, Lancaster wore the uniform of a post captain.
It was something to say, to break the silence.
'I intended to, Sir Graham. It was all arranged.' He stopped, frowning, as a servant came to stand just inside the doors, and announced, 'The First Sea Lord is ready to receive you now, sir.'
Bethune relaxed slowly. In charge again. 'Well, what happened?'
They were picking up their hats, looking around the disturbed room; only the ornate clock had not been moved.
Lancaster adjusted his dress coat and shrugged. 'It was in the Times. The artist I intended fell down dead the other day.' He strode past the servant, adding, 'Most inconsiderate, don't you know! ' He laughed.
Troubridge waited. 'Are you ready, sir?'
But Adam scarcely heard him. He wanted to go closer to the portrait, but could not. Dared not.
He did not need to examine the artist's signature. It would be the same hand which had painted the empty sleeve on the portrait of Captain James Bolitho, and the portrait of Sir Richard. He was touching his lapel. And the yellow rose on mine.
He thought suddenly of Athena's wardroom, brightly lit by candles and shining with the mess silver. The faces, some sweating badly by the end of the evening, the loud laughter at some joke made by Tarrant, the young third
