Stirling had remained silent.
He shaded his eyes and looked across at the battery and the town beyond. They would be leaving Portsmouth within the week, and there were still important matters to be checked, and if necessary questioned. Changed… like this forenoon. A seaman was to be punished for insubordination, insolence to an officer.
Adam had seen more floggings than he could recall, some deserved, some not, and more usually brought about by the qualities of the officer involved. He had even witnessed a flogging around the fleet, the most barbarous display that could be instigated by the Articles of War, every captain's guide and final defense. The prisoner had been taken from ship to ship, to receive so many lashes at each one, while all hands were mustered to watch, and to take warning. Bound as if crucified to a capstan bar across the boat used for punishment, the flogging was carried out to the beat of the Rogue's March, a portion of the total lashes awarded at each rated ship. No longer human, just a torn, bloodied thing, the blackened flesh burned by the lash, the bones laid bare. Very few lived through such brutal punishment.
Only once had Jago spoken of his own unjust flogging. Almost as if the humiliation were worse than the agony.
It was never a comfortable thing to carry out in harbour, surrounded by other ships and watching eyes.
If an officer tried to be popular he would lose respect. If he used any pretext to enforce his will, he was not fit to hold his commission.
It was a captain's final decision.
He said, 'Return alongside, if you please.' He could not remember the midshipman's name. But next time…
Perhaps if he had not remained for an extra day in London, it would not have happened. He was angry just thinking about it. Athena's punishment book told its own story: too many punishments awarded for the most trivial reasons. Two dozen for skylarking on deck after being reprimanded by a warrant officer. Drunk and disorderly when sharing hoarded rum for somebody's birthday or a rare promotion, three dozen lashes.
The last captain, Ritchie, had apparently never questioned the cause, rather than the actual deed. Three years in command, but he had left no impression, no example others could copy or avoid. And now he was under arrest, awaiting a court-martial. With his quarters emptied and repainted, it was as if he had never been aboard.
He looked up at the starboard gangway and saw some seamen busy splicing, new hands who had volunteered to one of the recruiting parties. Almost unheard of a year ago.
Stirling said, 'You've not forgotten the man for punishment, sir?'
Adam saw the stroke oarsman's eyes flicker quickly between them even as he laid back on his loom. Ready gossip for the mess deck
The Captain didn't give a damn!
Adam nodded toward the new hands as they passed abeam.
'I hope they won't, either, Mr. Stirling.'
A few faces had already made their mark, but the majority were still strangers.
Athena would be putting into Plymouth. He had confronted that. But he knew he had not accepted it.
He had told Lowenna as much as he could. The ship was under confidential orders, but her going to Plymouth had been in the Times for all to see. Troubridge had found him a copy to show him the item about Sir Gregory Montagu.
Adam had tried to make her accept his aunt's open invitation, and her friendship, and go to Cornwall, and wait there until he could visit her. He felt the familiar despair. And why should she? Athena might be away for months. Years, if their lordships thought it necessary, or prudent.
In the end they had been together for less than an hour, at the house where she had friends, in a part of London called Whitechapel. A house which was owned by the most formidable woman he had ever seen. And she was quite adamant.
'You'll stay where you are, Lieutenant, or whatever post you hold, and you will behave yourself.' She had stood with her brawny arms folded. 'Or I shall know the reason, sir! '
He had embraced Lowenna, while Troubridge and Jago had carried in her few pieces of baggage.
Then she had followed him to the door and had gripped his hands in hers.
'Take your cloak, Adam.'
She had watched him while he released her hands to unfasten the cloak.
'I love you, Lowenna. I have to see you. To tell you, to share… He got no further.
She had smiled, but he had seen that she was trembling, and not because he had removed the cloak.
She had touched his lips, with fingers like ice.
'I want to love you.' She had stepped back into the hall light, and raised one hand to her own lips. She might have said something more, but the door was shut, the others already in the coach.
'Man the side! Cap'n comiri aboard! '
Stirling was on his feet, his hat doffed as Adam began to climb. The boat's crew, oars tossed, stared fixedly astern, the water running down the looms and over their legs.
Adam glanced down at the midshipman. Vicary. That was his name.
Even if she visited Nancy, he might not see her. Vice-Admiral Bethune was hoisting his flag in Plymouth. Because it was convenient? Or was there another, private reason? Troubridge did not know, or would not say. Adam remembered his voice. You can trust me. And the sound of his pistol being cocked in that terrible room. He knew Troubridge better than that now.
The calls shrilled, and a lieutenant stepped forward to greet him. Stirling was climbing up behind him, treading heavily as he raised his hat to the quarterdeck, and the flag.
Their eyes met. Strangers.
'Very well, Mr. Stirling. Pipe all hands.'
He walked to the hammock nettings and looked across at the other ships lying nearby.
Plymouth. They might see Unrivalled, if… He swung round and faced the keen breeze as the boatswain's mates ran between decks, their Spithead Nightingales reaching out like extensions of the figure by the nettings.
'All hands! All hands lay aft to witness punishment! '
He watched the seamen scrambling through hatchways and clawing down from their work high above the decks.
The master-at-arms, Scollay, his mates and the ship's corporal, the boatswain Henry Mudge, with the hated red baize bag which contained the 'cat', and the prisoner, a young seaman named Hudson. Lastly, George
Crawford the surgeon.
There was silence, and Adam looked steadily at the crowded figures and faces, all waiting for him to read the words of his authority. His power. He saw a solitary gull circling around the Union flag, the spirit of some old Jack. He cleared his throat and began to read.
Once he paused as the shadow of a sail passed swiftly across the quarterdeck, a lugger loaded with casks of salted beef or pork making its way to another anchored two-decker. Some of the lugger's seamen were staring at Athena's crowded upper deck, understanding exactly what was happening. Getting a checkered shirt at the gangway, as the old hands called it.
What would Lowenna think of him if she could see him now?
He closed the book with a snap. This was not a dream. This was now.
'Bosun's mate! ' Like hearing some one else. 'Do your duty! '
Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune put his signature on the last document and leaned back in the unfamiliar chair, looking around the room, which had been borrowed for the occasion.
He had been excited about this moment ever since the First Lord had proposed him for the West Indies appointment: a challenge, perhaps a risk, but going ahead, not remaining in the same post, waiting for the inevitable like so many of his colleagues here. There was always a last time for everything, and he was surprised at the sentiment which had prevented him from even looking into his old office at the other end of this floor. Surprised or guilty?
He had already said his farewells to those he had grown close to; it was an awkward experience, like leaving a ship. And tonight it would be worse, at his own house on the outskirts of London. Some senior officers, even the First Lord, would be coming to pay their respects, offer their good wishes, perhaps glad they were remaining under the Admiralty's protection in these difficult times.
