Becalmed one minute and then caught in a roaring gale, with waves which could swamp any lesser vessels or run them ashore.
Both of Athena's cutters were in the water, one on either bow, ready to take their parent ship under tow, if only to maintain steerage way should the wind desert them altogether. As it was, she was scarcely moving.
Adam plucked at his shirt. Like another skin. A good landfall, nevertheless.
He saw the officer in the starboard cutter stand to peer at the land as it moved out on either beam. It was Tarrant, the third lieutenant. Stirling had detailed him for the task, just in case something had gone amiss on their final approach. He had put an experienced leadsman in the chains for the same reason. Athena might be taken by a freak wind where she was denied the room to manoeuvre or change tack. It would not look well if Bethune's flagship ran into shallow water within sight of the anchorage.
Stirling had even checked each flag before dawn had opened up the horizon, fresh and clean to replace the ones worn by weather which they had hoisted the first day out of Plymouth.
Details, great or small, made up the first lieutenant's life. Caution, perhaps, was his true strength.
Adam said, 'My respects to Sir Graham, and please inform him that we are about to begin the salute.'
He heard the midshipman mumble something and rush away to the ladder, and imagined Troubridge bearing the news to his lord and master. He studied the land again and saw tiny, blinking lights on the foreshore and near some of the buildings, like fireflies braving the harsh glare: sunlight reflected from a dozen or more telescopes. Athena's arrival would not be unexpected, but her timing would cause some confusion. He thought of the courier brig Celeste, which had blown to pieces, and her sole survivor, the acting sailing master named Rose, who had come from Hull. They had buried him at sea. Adam had never known Athena so quiet; every man in her company had been present. On gangways and in the shrouds, shoulder to shoulder on the main deck. Perhaps the closest in spirit they had yet been.
Celeste would have been carrying all the details of Bethune's arrival, both for the governor and the commodore in charge.
Adam touched the rail, like heated shot, his mind lingering on the burial. He wondered why he had never become used to it. Hardened. He had seen plenty of them, and as captain had committed more men to the deep than he could name or remember. But he was always moved by it, by the sense of community. Of one company.
'Ready, sir! '
He came out of his thoughts, irritated at being caught unaware. All the forenoon they had been creeping toward this mark on Eraser's chart, and when he should be at his most alert he had allowed his mind to drift. He had been sleeping badly, or not at all.
He saw Sam Fetch, the gunner, staring up at him, his eyes slits against the relentless sunshine.
Another voice murmured, 'Sir Graham's comin' up, sir! '
Adam turned and touched his hat.
Bethune looked around casually. 'Nothing changes, does it?' He walked to the opposite side of the deck. 'Carry on, then, Captain Bolitho.' It sounded like, if you must.
Adam turned his back and gestured to the patient gunner.
The bang of the first shot sounded like a clap of thunder in the broad harbour. Gulls and other birds rose screaming and flapping across the smooth water, the smoke hanging almost motionless below the gangway. He pictured the people ashore seeing this ship, his ship, probably wondering what had brought her to Antigua. Trouble with slavers, pirates… Perhaps war had broken out again and this was the first they would know of it. Or, more likely, they would regard her with more than a touch of warmth, even sadness. A ship from England. England… for some of them it would seem almost an alien land by now. For some…
Fetch walked slowly along the deck, measuring the interval between each shot in the salute, pausing briefly inboard of each gun. 'Number Three gun, fireV and doubtless muttering to himself the old trick of timing of his trade. If I wasn't a gunner I wouldn't be here. 'Number Four gun, ire If I wasn't a gunner I wouldn't be here. 'Number Five gun, fir el
Each shot echoed across and back over the placid water, so that it was almost impossible to distinguish the salute from the response of the battery ashore.
Adam thought again of the Celeste. Bethune had made a point of reading his report of the unprovoked attack on the brig, and had remarked, 'You must emphasize that every effort was made to intercept the vessel described by the one survivor. We had only his word for the description.'
Adam remembered the man's hard grip on his hand, his mute stare as he died. His last words, most of all. Tell 'em how it was.
He had left the log entry unchanged, and wondered why Bethune had not mentioned it.
He was here now, beside him, composed and apparently untroubled by the heat and the blinding reflections from the harbour.
'Not much of a show of force here today, eh, Adam? Three frigates all told, I am informed. And a whole collection of smaller vessels. Well, we'll soon change things.' His tone hardened slightly. 'Or I shall know the reason! '
He walked toward the ladder, dismissing it from his mind. 'I shall want the gig as soon as we're anchored.' He glanced around the figures on the quarterdeck. 'Your fellow Jago, isn't it?' He did not wait for a reply.
Adam saw Stirling watching him. 'We will anchor directly. Recall the boats but hold them alongside. We can rig winds Is as soon as the ship is secure.' Stirling looked as if he were about to protest. 'It will be foul enough between decks in this heat, Mr. Stirling. Our people need some air to breathe in.' He smiled, but the barrier remained, like a breakwater.
Stirling strode away, his heavy voice dropping orders and calling names as he went.
Adam saw the various groups of seamen and marines, waiting, as if Athena herself would decide the time and place to drop anchor.
The starboard anchor was already swaying gently at its cathead, ready to fall, the forecastle party appearing to watch a loitering guard boat but more likely their eyes were on the land. Different colours and smells, new faces, not those you were forced to look at every day and throughout each watch. And women, too.
Adam tried to imagine it as it must have been for his uncle when he had anchored here in the old Hyper ion. Like this ship, she had worn a vice admiral flag. Sir Richard's own.
When he had met Catherine again, after losing her. It must have looked very much the same then, that year before Trafalgar… How could it be so long ago?
'Standing by, sir! '
Adam glanced up at the loosely flapping topsails, and right forward to the jib sails with Lieutenant Barclay's anchor party waiting, looking aft at their captain.
He thought, too, of his uncle's medal, for his part in the Battle of the Nile. Catherine had sent it to him, given it to him, perhaps because it reminded her too much of the man she had loved, and had lost forever.
He looked over at the nearest helmsman, the one with the strange tattoo. Never look back, they always said. That was the oddest part. When he thought of all the faces he had known so well in Unrivalled, most of them had already lost substance, except for the few. They would never leave him.
He stared up through the shrouds and beyond the maintop to the curling pendant.
'Hands wear ship, Mr. Stirling.'
Calls trilled and bare feet pounded across the hot planking and the melting tar of the deck seams. The helm was going over, spokes creaking, the seaman with the tattoo very aware of his captain only a few feet away. Who wanted for nothing…
Landfall. If only she were here to greet me.
The sun moved across his face, then his shoulder.
'Let go! '
Boats were putting off from the shore now, visitors, sightseers, traders; it was all beginning.
Adam nodded to the sailing master and walked aft toward the poop. For a moment longer he paused and stared at and beyond the headland. But there was no horizon. Sea and sky were merged in bright blue haze.
England seemed a very long way astern.
Jago brought the gig smartly alongside the jetty's worn stone stairs and watched the bowman leap ashore to fend off and make the boat fast. Not too bad a gig's crew, although he would never say as much. Not yet,
