“All a long time ago, Adam. When it was fair and respectable to grow rich on slavery. Now, as controls grow even stronger, the price goes up, but it’s still the same market.” The eyes held his steadily. “I heard about Sillitoe’s father—he made his fortune out of it. He’s long dead, but the profits live on.” He walked to the stern windows and back, his burned face in shadow, so that it was possible to glimpse the man who had been cut down that day, and had lost the girl he loved because of it. Now she wanted him back, and Tyacke had seen her, in the house she had shared with her late husband and the two children of her marriage.
All Tyacke had said was, “Never go back. Ships, places, people, they’re never the same as you chose to remember.”
Adam said, “What about you, James?”
“I’m content on this station. Probably the only one who is!” It seemed to amuse him. “But the work wants doing, and it needs men who care enough to do it without thinking all the while of prize-money and slave bounty.” Then he took Adam’s hand and said, “You’re still finding your way, and the navy is going to be hard put to find good captains at the rate things are moving . . . I wish you luck, Adam. We both share the memory of the finest man who ever lived.” His eyes hardened. “And I’ll not stand by and allow others to defame his lady!”
He held out his arms and allowed the servant to help him into his coat.
“Take care, Adam, and watch your back.” He shouted, “Enter!”
The screen door opened instantly; it was Fairbrother, the captain’s coxswain.
“Unrivalled’s gig is alongside, sir.”
“Very well, Eli, we shall be up in a moment.”
Adam grinned. The story had gone around the squadron when Tyacke had chosen his new coxswain. “Fairbrother? What sort of a name would that be in half a gale, man?” So it was left at Eli. Adam wondered how John Allday had got along with him, in the flagship together.
Raven, the first lieutenant, was waiting with the side party. He shook hands too, as if they were old friends. As it should be, in frigates.
Adam looked over to his own ship, and another prize which Kestrel had brought in with her. A small schooner or, as Tyacke had described the capture, “Just a rabbit sneaking out when it believed all the foxes had gone elsewhere.” The rabbit had carried a hundred slaves nevertheless.
As the gig pulled slowly amongst the anchored shipping, Adam sat with one hand on the sun-heated thwart, and tried to assemble the events and his reactions into some sensible pattern.
The orders were precise but suitably vague. Four months since they had left Penzance, with a long commission the only likely outcome.
They would be home in the spring. Like the words of Paradox’s dying boatswain . . . But he recalled Tyacke’s flat statement. Never go back . . . they’re never the same as you chose to remember.
Jago saw his sun-browned hand grip the edge of the thwart and wondered what was going through his mind. The captain, who had everything. He watched a boat pulling across the channel, and scowled.
Back to some other squadron with another admiral who probably didn’t recognise his backside from his elbow. Officers.
Adam was aware of the scrutiny, but was glad of it. Something honest, even if you were never quite sure what he might come out with.
What might be waiting this time? He allowed his mind to explore it. Falmouth, perhaps. The empty house. More memories.
Perhaps there would be a letter waiting for him. He touched the locket beneath his damp shirt.
He said, “What d’you think about our returning to Plymouth?” As Tyacke had remarked, the news was all over the station.
Jago kept his eyes on the water ahead of the gig’s raked stem.
“So long as I’ve got ’baccy in my pouch, an’ a wet when I needs one,” he gave the smallest hint of a grin, “an’ a few coins to jangle in the right direction, then I’m not too bothered, sir!”
Adam saw the stroke oarsman contain a smile. We are all deluding ourselves.
“Bows!”
He glanced up at the ship’s curved tumblehome, the faces at the entry port.
Lieutenant Varlo met him with the side party, and he recalled that Galbraith was ashore to offer support to the purser.
He looked at the masthead. A fair breeze, but the air was like an opened oven. Would it last?
Varlo said, “Some mail came aboard, sir.” His face was full of questions. “Official, for the most part.”
Adam walked aft, seeing their expressions, hope, expectation, anxiety. The sailor’s lot.
He strode into his cabin and tossed his hat on to the chair Napier had offered to Herrick. The chair. He smiled a little. Sparse, for the captain who had everything.
He heard a quiet cough and saw Yovell waiting by the pantry door.
“Well, I expect you know all about it, but . . .” He stopped, his troubled mind suddenly alert. “What is it?”
Galbraith would leave everything in order, and Varlo had said nothing. He asked again, “Something troubles you. Tell me.”
It was unusual to find Yovell so hesitant, unsure of himself.
“There was a letter, sir. Some people might say it was not important, that it was not our concern . . .”
Adam sat down, slowly, to give Yovell time to compose himself.
He said, “If it concerns you, or anyone in my ship, then it matters. To me.”
Yovell removed his spectacles and polished them on his coat.
“The letter was for your servant. The boy, Napier, sir. From his mother. He asked me to read it.”
Adam said, “But he reads well . . .”
“He was too distressed to read anything after that, sir.”
“She’s getting married again.”
Yovell cleared his throat. “Is married again, sir. They are going to America—her husband has work offered there.”
It was not uncommon. Boys signed on for the fleet or some particular ship, but always with a link to sustain them. Then a new marriage, and the new husband or “friend” would consider the youth in question to be so much inconvenience, a burden.
Adam was on his feet without knowing it. It had been right here when Herrick had asked him the question, and Napier, in his own serious fashion, had replied without hesitation, “We take care of each other, sir.” And the same boy, with a jagged teak splinter spearing his leg, concerned only with helping his captain.
Yovell went to the door and brought Napier right aft to the stern windows. He saw Napier’s chin go up, with defiance, or a determination not to give in; he might even regard Yovell’s behaviour as some sort of betrayal. It only made him appear younger. Defenceless.
Adam said, “We’ll not talk on this, David. But I know. We weigh anchor during the morning watch, so I shall want to be up and about early.”
He saw the boy nod, not understanding.
“Unrivalled will be in Plymouth in June, earlier with fair winds. Think of that.”
Napier stared at the deck; he had even forgotten to remove the offending shoes.
“I know, sir.”
Adam did not look at Yovell. He dared not, but put his hands on Napier’s slight shoulders and said, “After that, my lad, you are coming home. With me.” He swung away and added abruptly, “Some cognac for myself and Mr Yovell. I have some letters to dictate.”
The boy paused by the pantry and looked back. It was enough.
Yovell said gently, “We have no letters, sir.”
It was a day he would never forget.
11 HOME FROM THE SEA
ADAM BOLITHO winced as his elbow slipped from the window rest and he was tossed against the carriage side. He was astonished that he could have fallen asleep, when every bone in his body ached from the lurching motion. The roads were dry, the ruts left by the last rainfall iron-hard, a match for even an expert driver like Young Matthew. He looked out at the passing countryside, the contrasting greens, the rugged stone walls, which were so familiar. And so alien.
It was hard to recall Unrivalled’s return to Plymouth, or even set each event in its true order.
Plymouth, in contrast to their last departure, was no longer full of ships laid up in ordinary, or stripped and forlorn, awaiting the ignominy of being hulked or broken up. It was alive with men-of-war, from towering liners to seventy-fours, and support craft of every shape and size. But not many frigates, he noticed. Not a full fleet, but it soon would be, from what he had been told.
He glanced at Yovell, sitting opposite him, filling both seats and fast asleep despite the sickening motion, gold spectacles still on the top of his head.
Yovell had the gift of acceptance. He had been neither surprised nor excited by the prospect of their return. As if it was ordained.
He heard the boy Napier’s voice above the clatter of wheels and harness, and the steady thud of hooves on the narrow road. He had wondered about the impulse, if that was what it had been, which had compelled him to tell Napier he was coming with him to Falmouth. Not any longer. He could hear Young Matthew, the Bolitho coachman, answering his many questions, laughing at some of them, but enjoying his new companion.
Young Matthew: even that was part of the story which went with the old grey house. His grandfather had been Old Matthew, the head coachman for many years. The boy’s father had been lost at sea in one of the famous Falmouth packet ships, so it had seemed only natural that the name should remain, even though he must be over forty by now.
Strange that they should have sighted a homeward-bound packet while they had been beating up the Channel to Plymouth. Long enough to close with the other vessel, and pass a message to her master.
Ferguson would have seen to the rest. Young Matthew had been in Plymouth waiting for him when he had left Unrivalled. For ten days . . . He had never been absent from his ship for any such length of time. He had wanted it more than he had realised. Needed it. But his other self had forcibly opposed it.
He thought now of Vice-Admiral Keen. When you were at sea only the ship mattered; it had to be so, for any captain. You tended to believe that everything else would remain the same in your absence, like a familiar landfall, or the face of a friend.
He had realised what was happening as soon as he had gone ashore to make his report to the Flag Officer, Plymouth, at the magnificent Boscawen House, with its sweeping views of sea and coastline.
Furniture “all anyhow ,” as Jago would put it, packing cases and bustling servants, Keen’s flag lieutenant with what appeared an armful of lists. He seemed barely able to remember that Unrivalled had anchored that morning; he had had more important matters to deal with, and a new flag officer was arriving the following day.
Keen accepted it. He was appointed to the Nore, the Medway, and a whole new dockyard with facilities for the next generation of ships, and men. It was important, and he had the knowledge that his immediate future was secure. He might even rise to the rank of admiral. It did not seem possible; physically he had changed hardly at all, and only once did an inner disappointment reveal itself.
“Each command their lordships pass my way takes me further and further from the sea. In many ways I envy you, Adam. You’ll never know how much.”
His wife Gilia had been there too, and had added her insistence to Keen’s on the subject of taking leave from duty while there was still time.
Keen had said, “You’ve been at sea almost continuously for years! The longest time you had ashore was when you were a prisoner of the Yankees, and even they couldn’t hold you!”
And there was the child. Only a month old, squawking in the arms of a nurse and barely larger than a woollen glove, he had thought.
They had named her Geraldine, after Keen’s mother.
When Keen had been called away to deal with something which one of his staff found beyond his abilities, Gilia had spoken with the same candour and sincerity as when Adam had confessed his love for Zenoria.
“He loves the child, of course, Adam.” She had rested one hand on his sleeve, like that other time. “But it’s the navy. He wants a boy, to carry on the tradition he began.”
Adam knew Keen’s father had done everything within his power to persuade his son to quit the service, and take up more important work in the City, like himself, or even in the Honourable East India Company.
Then she had said, “I shall miss this place. So many memories. But, as Val is constantly pointing out, I’ve travelled with my father almost as much as any sailor!”
Yovell said, “We’re slowing down.” He put his head on one side. Like a wise owl, Adam thought. “Stopping, in fact.”
He was suddenly alert, the dreams and uncertainties scattered. It had been a long, long drive, with halts from time to time for the horses to rest and water, all of fifty miles or so from the Tamar to this place, on a road somewhere in Cornwall. For much of it they had been out of sight of the Channel: hills, fields, pastures and men working in the sunshine, hardly glancing at the smart carriage with the Bolitho crest on each door, well coated with the dust of travel. They had stopped for a meal at an inn at St Austell, and more notice had been taken of them there. They were an oddly assorted group, he supposed, a sea officer and a large, benevolent figure who might have been almost anything. And the boy, proud, and showing it, of his new single-breasted blue jacket with its gilt buttons, which Adam had obtained from the tailor he occasionally used in Plymouth.
So many memories. He thought of Gilia again and smiled. Like Galbraith’s repeated assurances that he would keep good charge of the ship while his captain was away, and the surprise which even he had been unable to conceal when Adam had responded, “It is my behaviour I care about, not yours, Leigh.”
The carriage quivered to a halt, the leathers creaking in time with the horses stamping on the hard ground. They knew better than anyone; they would be in their stables within the hour.
He heard someone jump down and knew it was Napier. Perhaps his confidence was running out. Like mine.
So young, and yet so adult in many ways. At the inn at St Austell, when some old man, probably a farmer, had scoffed, “Bit young for a King’s man, bain’t ’ee? Lucky th’ war’s over, I say!”
Adam had turned from speaking with the landlord, ready to intervene, but had said nothing.
Napier had bent over and unhurriedly pulled up the leg of his new white trousers. In the filtered sunshine the jagged wound left by the splinter had been stark and horrific.
He had answered simply, “Not too young for this, sir.”
The door opened and Napier resumed his seat beside Yovell, who had made room for him.
He looked at Adam and asked naïvely, “Almost there, sir?”
Adam pointed at a slate wall which was turning to follow the narrow track, downward now, all the way to the sea.
He said, “Hanger Lane, they call this, David. In the old days you were mad to walk here alone without one on your belt.” He recalled the ragged corpses hanging in irons by the roadside when they had skirted the moor. It was not very different today.
Yovell readjusted his spectacles. “After six hours in this seat, I feel as if I’ve been round the Horn!”
It was a casual comment, to break some indefinable atmosphere. He was not certain if this youthful man, who seemed to have been born to his captain’s uniform, was suffering some last-minute misgivings.
Napier said quietly, “You said we’d be back in England by June, sir.” He glanced up at Yovell. “We were faster than that!”
Yovell saw Adam clench a fist against the worn leather.
It was the first of June, 1816. It would be his birthday next week; he had heard Sir Richard speak of it on several occasions.
Adam was thinking of Unrivalled lying at anchor. She was in good hands. He had heard Galbraith mention the risk of men deserting, and Cristie’s gruff response. “We’ll not lose a soul, sir, which is a pity in a few cases I can think of! But ’ til their lordships see fit to pay them their share of prize- an’ bounty-money, you can sleep
safe on it!”
And he thought of Luke Jago. What would he do? Who did he care about, if anyone?
And his characteristic answer when Adam had suggested he spend some time at the house in Falmouth.
“Not for me, sir! A few wets ashore an’ mebbee a lass when I feels like it, that’ll do me fairly!” He had laughed at the idea. And yet . . . Adam shook himself and leaned out of the window. The smell of the land, but above it the sea was there. Waiting.
“Drive on, Young Matthew! Before I change my mind!”
Young Matthew peered down at him, his face like a polished red apple beneath his hat.
“Then us’d be real sorry, zur!” He flicked the reins and clicked his tongue. The carriage rolled forward.
Adam leaned back in his seat and looked at Napier. Was that it? Was he trying to emulate his uncle’s “little crew”? Jago another John Allday, and this grave-eyed youngster perhaps as he had once been himself.
The sound of the wheels changed, and he looked out as the carriage rattled past a pair of cottages.
Two women were talking by a gate, and he saw them point, then wave. Smiling as if they knew him.
He raised his hand in greeting and felt Yovell watching him.
The crest on the carriage door would tell them. A Bolitho was back.
Coming home.
Bryan Ferguson shaded his eyes and looked across the stable yard, where a few of the estate workers had gathered to watch Young Matthew giving another riding lesson to his new friend. The boy Napier sat upright on the back of the pony, Jupiter, face determined, and still unable to believe he was here. Barefooted and stripped to the waist, he already wore some bandages to mark his progress, and his falls in the stable yard. Young Matthew had remembered his grandfather’s golden rule, that to ride a horse you must first know how to sit properly. No stirrups or saddle, not even reins at this stage. Young Matthew guided the pony with a halter, giving an occasional hint or instruction, letting the boy learn for himself.
Ferguson thought of his wife Grace; there was no friendlier person alive, but as the Bolitho housekeeper she regarded all newcomers with suspicion until proved otherwise. It had taken only one day with Napier, after his first fall, when he had cut his knee on the cobbles.
Relentless Pursuit Page 19
