for the signal to drop the larboard anchor.
A good officer, Adam had decided, working both with the foremast and its complex spars and rigging, and his own battery of guns. More importantly, with his men.
He heard Stirling shout something to one of the midshipmen, who was hurrying along the starboard gangway. The first lieutenant never seemed to use a speaking trumpet, or even carry one, unlike most of his trade. He would use just one of his big hands held to his mouth, and his voice carried effortlessly like a fog horn.
Apart from matters of duty and routine they had spoken very little since the discovery of the body in one of the holds. To him it was in the past, no longer important. It was a common attitude among sailors; Adam had known that for a long time. A man existed as a shipmate from the moment he was signed on. When he left your ship, by choice or enforcement, or like the wretched seaman named Hudson, discharged dead, he was written off. Never look back. Never go back.
Adam looked up at the masthead pendant, gauging the wind, the strength of it under the lee of the land.
Sunlight lanced down through the overlapping web of black rigging and made his eye smart.
It is the ship. I am the stranger here.
A frigate was something alive. You could feel her every mood, match it with your ability.
He closed his mind to the doubt.
Any ship was only as good as her company. And her captain.
He heard Fraser say to one of his master's mates, 'About true, I'd say, eh, Simon?'
Adam glanced at him. No words were spoken. None were needed.
'Man the braces hands wear ship, if you please! '
Stirling 's voice broke the stillness.
Tops'1 clew lines! Take that man's name, Mr. Manners! '
Adam raised the glass again, watching two slow-moving fishing craft, and a smart schooner spreading sail while she tacked toward the Point and the grey Channel beyond. Then he moved the glass toward the anchored flagship. Beyond her the land was shrouded in mist, where the other fleet still lay. Ghosts, some with great names, remembered for their valour in battle against a common enemy. Hulks now, gun ports empty and blind, masts down, decks littered and neglected.
He thrust the telescope away and felt it taken by some one. It was all suddenly sharp and in focus, the faces real, waiting.
He lifted his hand and saw Lieutenant Barclay raise his own in acknowledgment.
'Let go! '
He saw the spray burst over the gilded beak head as the anchor hit the water, and the cable was controlled by compressor under Barclay's vigilant eye.
He imagined he could feel Athena slowing, coming to rest, swinging above her own immense shadow.
Men pounded along the deck, hauling ropes or flaking them down in readiness for the next command from aft. High overhead, the big topsails had already been kicked and fisted into submission and were furled or loosely brailed to dry.
Soon boats of every kind would be heading out to meet the new arrival. More stores to be loaded, recruits to be found to fill gaps in the muster logs. To await orders, and their admiral.
Adam unconsciously glanced at the foremast truck where Bethune's flag would soon be flying. No longer a private ship. How would it be?
He saw Jago standing down by the boat tier pointing out something to one of the midshipmen, probably thinking of young Napier, or wishing he had remained ashore when he had the chance.
He turned and looked across the water, the Hamoaze, where the river Tamar, his river, separated Cornwall from the rest of England.
It might as well be the moon. He shaded his eyes again. Where she had waited to watch Unrivalled weigh anchor and sail to join Lord Exmouth's fleet, when she had sent over the little note which was inside his coat at this moment. And that last embrace.
'Officer of the guard coming aboard, sir! '
'Very well, Mr. Truscott, I'll see him in my quarters.'
He reached out and touched the big double wheel, now unmanned and motionless, but throbbing quietly to the thrust of the current far below. By keeping busy, things would fall into place. A captain had no choice; and he was lucky. There were many others who would be walking the shore and looking out at the ghost ships, and the sea which had rejected them. The only life they knew or wanted.
He glanced down at the boat tier and saw Jago looking up, somehow isolated from the bustle around him. Like those other times, when men had died, and their world had exploded about them. And they had come through it, together.
Jago nodded and then raised one hand slowly; a salute, a greeting, it was more than either.
The ship had reached out. For both of them.
Stirling strode aft and touched his hat. 'Ship secured, sir.'
'Thank you. It was well done.'
Stirling said nothing, but stood aside from the companion to allow him to pass.
Past the Royal Marine sentry and through the screen, shining in its new white paint, and into the great cabin.
Bowles was opening the quarter gallery to allow some air into the cabin, but turned and gave a sad smile. 'Last time we'll see old England for a while, sir.'
Adam nodded. 'So be it, then.'
As if his uncle had spoken for him.
George Tolan, personal servant to Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune, stood in one corner of the inn's courtyard as the carriage was being moved nearer to the vaulted entrance. It was early morning; too early, he thought, after this long and almost leisurely journey from London.
Now it was over, with Plymouth only fifty miles away. He glanced up at the inn sign: The Royal George of Exeter, the county town of Devon. He had been given a comfortable room, as was the custom with an admiral's servant, good food, and a bed as big as a barn. He might even have been able to share it with some one, but for Bethune's sudden attack of urgency.
The last day on the road, but their journey would take them through country lanes for part of the way. It was Saturday too, and Exeter would be particularly busy, with a market fair at one end of the city and a public hanging at the other.
He adjusted his smart blue coat and stamped his booted feet to restore the circulation. Or perhaps, like his master, he was getting nervous, unsure of the change from land to ocean again.
He was safe, and he had no complaints about his work or the man he served. There was always the nagging thought. Not like fear; he had seen that over the past twenty years, knew all its faces, or had told himself often enough to believe it. Except… He looked toward the entrance, at the girl who was tipping water into a small garden. She noticed him and smiled. If Bethune had decided to prolong his stay at the Royal George, things might have been very different.
A few people who were crossing the yard glanced at the blue-coated figure. Tolan was used to it. Not tall, but very erect, shoulders squared, exuding a permanent alertness which he took for granted. Like a soldier, some might think. Which was indeed how George Tolan, aged thirty-nine, had started his adult life.
He had been born and raised in the old town of Kingston on the banks of the River Thames, the only son of a grocer who from the beginning he knew to be a drunken bully. His mother was cowed by his fits of rage, and the young George Tolan had been beaten often enough to know hatred as his only defense.
He could still remember the day it had all changed. His father had driven him out of the shop and sent him to get a particular ale from one of his drinking cronies, with the inevitable threat of what he might expect if he took too long about it.
And there, in the market place, he had seen the army recruiting party. While a drummer boy rattled a slow tattoo, a burly sergeant had nailed up a poster on a stable door, and lastly a young officer had made a short speech about honour and duty, and England 's need for her sons to step forward and volunteer to follow the drum.
His father never got his special brew, but on that day George Tolan, aged sixteen, had made his mark and been pounded on the back in congratulation by the officer and his sergeant together. He was their only volunteer that
