Adam looked past him at the harbour, and the threatening sky. 'Is he the missing name, Francis? The slavers' paymaster?' He crossed the cabin and gazed at the anchored barque.
He said, 'Athena can be clear of English Harbour before nightfall.'
He watched Troubridge's uncertainty, like some one else, all confidence gone. Bethune must have given him a harder ride than usual. But why?
He tried to lighten it. 'I'll not be sorry to find some sea-room if it's to be a real storm.'
Troubridge turned toward the door. 'Sir Graham is certain that at least three of the big slave ships are hiding at San Jose, maybe waiting for settlement. For the Villa de Bilbao 's gold.'
'Then they'll wait. The weather gives them an even better reason.'
He saw the conflict on the young lieutenant's face. Loyalty and trust, friendship and something more.
Troubridge said flatly, 'This man, Carneiro, he has been warned, or soon will be.'
'Gig's alongside, sir! '
'How can Sir Graham be sure of this?' He thought of the servant, Tolan, his absence ashore, and Bethune's fury upon his return. He had heard his voice even up here until some one had closed a door.
Troubridge hesitated, and seemed to come to a decision. 'There was a lady, sir. Sir Graham intended to see her.' He swallowed.
'Again. But the house was empty. Everything gone.' He made a halfhearted attempt at a shrug, and tried to smile. 'So you see?'
Adam walked with him, out into the sunshine, the heat and the busy normality.
Troubridge added, 'Sir Graham sends his compliments and…'
He doffed his hat and hurried down to the entry port.
Adam watched the gig pull smartly away from the side, and saw Jago turn to shade his eyes and stare up at the poop. At me.
So it was Catherine. Perhaps it explained her failure to answer his letters, when he had told himself that they had gone astray, like Nancy 's. The rest he could imagine for himself.
He saw Stirling waiting by the quarterdeck ladder, grim-faced. A man who never changed.
'I want all shore working parties recalled. How many are there?'
The response was instant. 'Only two, sir. The carpenter's crew and the purser's clerk with five seamen.'
He glanced at the masthead pendant. Hardly moving, but in no time it could become a screaming gale.
He looked across at the barque again. 'I want to see the sail-maker, as soon as I've left the admiral.' He saw each word hit its mark. 'No more visitors aboard, except for the commodore, of course.'
Stirling touched his hat, but did not smile.
As he walked to the companion Adam thought of the night he had dined as a guest of the wardroom. Landsmen could never understand how a captain could be a guest in his own command. Perhaps it was a ship's strength, like keel or timbers.
He closed his mind to everything but that same sense of warning, like a hand reaching out.
Tolan opened the screen door for him but dropped his eyes, and his thoughts or emotions remained hidden.
Bethune was waiting, facing the screen, as if he had been in that stance since Troubridge had been sent to 'fetch' the commodore.
He was fully dressed, his shirt fresh against his waistcoat. He looked very calm; not a hair out of place, as Yovell would have said.
He gestured to a chair. Even that looked as if it had been arranged.
'Flags told you the latest intelligence, I take it?' He did not wait. 'My information is reliable. This fellow Carneiro has had contact with certain ship owners, would-be slavers if you like, as well as with powerful figures in business and politics.' His mouth twisted briefly. 'I daresay with our people, too.'
He waited while Tolan poured two glasses of wine.
'A local trading vessel sailed recently for Kingston, or so it was alleged. A man named Jacob, well known to the commodore, to all accounts.' He sipped the wine.
Adam did likewise but tasted nothing. He was hearing Troubridge's words at the conference, about who might carry the blame if the campaign misfired.
He saw Tolan standing by a hanging mirror and realized he was watching him. More like a voice than a pair of eyes. He carried messages for Bethune, anything he asked, but kept his mouth tight. Tolan had found out about the trader Jacob. It explained far more than his master's anger.
Bethune said, 'You are ready for sea, if need be?'
'By the dog watches, Sir Graham. I have passed the word.'
Bethune regarded him steadily. 'I did the right thing to select you for flag captain.' He checked himself, as if he had gone too far. 'Do you have any proposals?'
So casually asked. The realization hit him like a fist. Bethune was desperate.
He said, 'Time is not on our side, Sir Graham.' He saw him clench his fist as if he could scarcely control his annoyance, or perhaps his anxiety. 'I think we should go directly to San Jose. If greed does not hold those vessels in port, then nothing will.' He saw Bethune stride to the stern windows and lean on the bench seat to peer out at the harbour. Across his bright epaulettes, he said, 'The reports of the weather are not good.' He did not turn, and Adam could almost feel the tension.
'It may be our only ally.' But he was thinking of Athena's sail maker slotting his name. Cruikshank. A Dorset man. Some one must have mentioned it.
He said, 'I think we should take the Villa de Bilbao in company.' He waited, seeing the doubt, the disappointment perhaps. 'As the bait.'
Bethune nodded slowly, standing very upright, his neat hair touching the deck head
'We might just have the edge on them. The old equation, eh, Adam? Time, speed and distance?'
Adam wanted to leave, to begin something which he might regret for the rest of his life. Like being driven, inspired.
Bethune said quietly, 'I shall leave you to prepare things. I have every confidence. In the meantime, I shall deal with the commodore.'
As he reached the door, Bethune smiled for the first time.
'Good work, Adam.'
Standing by the hanging mirror, George Tolan gripped the back of a chair to control himself.
Bethune had said the same to him, that day when he had gone to meet the woman named Catherine.
The deserted house, the little servant who 'knew nothing', the bed where they had been together.
He smiled bitterly. One betraying the other.
He listened to all the new sounds. Like any ship. Or one ship he always remembered.
Athena was coming to life again.
14. Loyalty or Gratitude?
Captain lan Munro gripped a mizzen stay and felt the wind transmitting its strength through every spar, from truck to keel. Even now, after countless watches at sea under most moods of weater, its power still excited him. He doubted if many of Audacity's company would believe that.
He trained his telescope and waited for the bows to lift and steady, spray drifting over the deck like hail with the wind across the quarter. The other vessel was on the same bearing, her tan sails etched against the low banks of cloud. She was a large topsail schooner, no flag, her hull showing the marks and stains of hard usage.
Munro had ordered the usual preparations. Beat to quarters and clear for action. It was unlikely that any merchantman, slaver or not, would care to cross swords with a frigate. But from all he had learned and heard since joining Sir Graham Bethune's command, it was prudent not to take chances.
He could feel the sailing master's eyes on his back. The wind was getting stronger by the hour, but holding steady from the southeast. The glass had dropped, and the sea, although almost unbroken, had been building into long swells, stretching away from horizon to horizon.
