He lowered the window and shivered as the bitter air fanned across his face. First light, or soon would be, and he felt like death.
He heard his companion twist round beside him and say cheerfully, ”They’re ready for us, it seems, sir!”
Lieutenant Francis Troubridge showed no trace of fatigue. A youthful, alert man, ever ready to answer Adam’s many questions, he had displayed no resentment or surprise at the call for a coach ride through the night. As Vice-Admiral Bethune’s flag lieutenant, the most recent of several to all accounts, it was something he probably took for granted.
Adam looked toward the tall gates, which were wide open.
Two Royal Marine orderlies were nearby with a porter’s trolley, and an officer in a boat cloak was observing the coach without impatience.
Even that was hard to accept. On the roof of the Admiralty above Bethune’s handsome room was the first link in a chain of telegraph stations which could pass a signal from London to the tower over the church of St. Thomas almost before a courier could find, saddle and mount a horse. News, good or bad, had always moved with the speed of the fastest rider. Not any more, and provided visibility was good the eight or so telegraph stations could send word well ahead of any traveller.
Adam climbed down on to hard ground, and felt it rise to meet him. Like a sailor too long in an open boat in a lively sea, he thought. He shivered again and tugged his own heavy cloak around him. He was tired, and throbbing from too much travel: Falmouth, Plymouth, London, and now Portsmouth.
He should have slept throughout the journey instead of trying to study his orders, or glean fragments of intelligence from his lively companion.
He had the feeling that the young lieutenant was watching him now, discovering something, for reasons of his own. He had certainly gone to a lot of trouble to find out about the officer put into his care. At one point, when they had stopped to change horses, Troubridge had remarked, ”I was forgetting, sir. You were flag lieutenant yourself some years ago.” Not a question; and Adam thought that he could have given the exact year when he had been his uncle’s aide.
He saw that the other officer had thrown back his cloak to display the epaulettes of a post captain, like his own.
”Welcome, Bolitho!” His handshake was firm and hard. The dockyard captain, who probably knew more about ships and the demands of the fleet than any one.
They fell into step, while the marines began unloading chests and baggage from the carriage; they did not speak, nor so much as look at the new arrivals.
The dockyard captain was saying, ”Athena is anchored, of course, but she’s awaiting more ballast and stores. My clerk has left a full list for your attention.” He shot him a quick glance. ”Have you met up with Athena before?” A casual comment, but it was typical. In the ‘family’ of the navy it was common enough for a sailor to cross paths with the same ship throughout the years of his service at sea.
”No.” He pictured the spidery writing, which he had read by the light of a small lantern while the coach had juddered and rolled through the darkness.
Built at Chatham in 1803, just two years before Trafalgar; not an old ship by naval standards. He had found that he was able to smile. Maybe Troubridge had seen that too. 1803, the year he had been given his first command, the little fourteen-gun brig Firefly. He had been just twenty-three years old.
Laid down and completed as a third-rate, a seventy-four gun ship of the line, Athena’s role had changed several times, as had her station. She had served in the second American war and in the Mediterranean, in the Irish Sea, and then back to the Channel Fleet.
Now, out of nowhere, she was to be Sir Graham Bethune’s flagship. Her artillery had been reduced from seventy-four to sixty-four, to allow more accommodation. No other reason was given.
Even Bethune had been vague about it. ”We shall be working with our ”allies”, Adam. My flagship is not to be seen as a threat, more as an example.” It had seemed to amuse him, although Adam suspected Bethune was almost as much in the dark as himself.
He said, ”She has a full ship’s company?”
The other captain smiled. ”All but a few. But these days it’s easier to find spare hands, with no war at the gates!”
Adam quickened his pace. Here there was activity, even at this ungodly hour. Heavy, horse-drawn wagons, filled with cordage and crates of every size. Dockyard workers being mustered for a new day’s repairs, perhaps even building. Unlike the empty gun ports at Plymouth. Unlike Unrivalled.
The other captain said suddenly, ”You’ll be more used to a fifth-rate, Bolitho. Athena’s a good ship, in structure and condition. The best Kentish oak maybe the last of it, from what I hear!”
They halted at the top of some stone stairs, and as if to a signal a boat began to pull away from a cluster of moored barges, the oars rising and falling with mist clinging to the blades like translucent weed.
Adam saw his own breath drifting away, hating the cold in his bones. Too long on the slave coast, or clawing up and down off the Algerian shoreline ... It was neither. A new ship, and one already destined for some ill-defined task. The West Indies, with a vice-admiral’s flag at the fore: probably Bethune’s last appointment before he quit the navy to serve in some new capacity where there was no more war, no more danger. When they had stopped at Liphook to take tea Troubridge had mentioned his own father, an admiral at the end of his service, but now he had been given an important role in the growing ranks of the Honourable East India Company, where, no doubt, he would want his son to join him after this latest stepping-stone which might eventually lead to oblivion.
Easier to find spare hands. The dockyard captain’s words seemed to hang in the air like his breath. Like many of Unrivalled’?” people, those who had cursed the unyielding discipline, or simply the petty-mindedness of those who should have known better in the close confines of a King’s ship. Those same men might now be seeking a ship, any vessel which would give them back the only life they fully understood.
”There have been one or two accidents, of course, quite common when refitting, and when every one wants it done in half the time.” He shrugged heavily. ”Men lost overboard, two falling from aloft, another rigger too drunk to save himself in the dark. It happens.”
Adam looked at him. ”Her captain was relieved of his command. He faces a courtmartial, I’m told.”
”Yes.” They watched the boat come alongside, two young seamen leaping ashore to fend off the stairs.
He found himself holding his breath. His uncle had warned him about joining a new ship, especially as her captain. They will be far more worried about you, Adam. But he thought of the old clerk at the Admiralty, who had lingered in Bethune’s room after the vice-admiral had gone to speak with one of his superiors.
”Your uncle, Sir Richard, was a fine man, sir. A great man, given the chance.” He had stared at the door, as if afraid of something, and blurted out, ”Take care, sir. Athena’?” an unlucky ship!” He had scuttled away before Bethune had returned.
A lieutenant, impeccably turned out, eyes fixed on a point above Adam’s left epaulette, raised his hat smartly and said, ”Barclay, second lieutenant, sir, at your service!”
An open face, but at this moment giving nothing away. One of many he would come to know, and know well if he had learned anything since Firefly, all those years ago.
He looked around, almost expecting to see Napier hovering there in his blue coat and clicking shoes. Or Luke Jago, watchful and cynical, an eye on this boat’s crew for instance, already judging the ship. His ship. Troubridge was climbing into the boat, preceeding Adam in the correct manner. The dockyard captain stepped back and touched his hat.
Adam returned the salute and nodded to the lieutenant... he frowned, and the name came to him. Barclay.
The boat’s crew, smartly dressed in matching shirts and tarred hats, faced aft, eyes unmoving, but fixed on the new captain. Wondering. Assessing. Adam stepped into the stern sheets the old sword pressed
hard against his hip.
The ship, any ship, was only as good as her captain. No better. No worse.
He sat down. So be it.
”Cast off!”
He tugged his hat more firmly on to his head as the boat pulled away from the jetty, and into a cold breeze which he was beyond feeling. At any other time it was easy to lose yourself in your thoughts, allow the boat’s crew and its routine carry on without you. This was different. Unlike Unrivalled, when he had commissioned her at Plymouth; he had been there when most of her company had arrived on board, while the builders and riggers were still putting the finishing touches to their new frigate. Or even Anemone, which had gone down after a bitter action against the Americans, and he had been wounded, and taken prisoner .. .
He saw a guard boat pulling between two moored transports, the oars tossed as a mark of respect, an officer standing in the stern sheets to raise his hat.
Adam reached up to drop the boat cloak from his shoulders, so that both epaulettes could be seen. The guard boat had known of his arrival; perhaps everybody did. Nothing remained confidential for very long in the ‘family’.
The stroke oarsman’s eyes had moved for the first time to watch what he had done, his loom rising and falling steadily, unhurriedly as before.
One of my men. What is he thinking at this very moment? Or young Troubridge, whose father had flown his own flag as an admiral; was he aware of the significance of this day and what it meant to the frigate captain at his side? The officer who had been singled out for praise for his behaviour at Algiers by Lord Exmouth himself?
He tensed, the sword gripped between his knees, cold and discomfort forgotten. As if he were some one else. A spectator.
Slowly at first, then more deliberately as the boat turned slightly into the first true daylight, the ship was already taking shape, her tracery of spars and black rigging rising above the indistinct shapes of other moored vessels. It might not have been Athena, but he knew that it was.
The bowman had boated his oar and was standing, facing forward with his boat hook and Adam had not seen him move.
The boat’s coxswain swung the tiller bar, but hesitated as the lieutenant held up his hand. Anxious, nervous of making the wrong impression on the new captain.
Adam found that he could spare a thought for the man he was relieving, a man he did not know, had never met. Stephen Ritchie, a senior captain on the Navy List, who had commanded Athena for three years, in war and in peace, was now jawaiting the convenience of a court-martial’ as it had been euphemistically described in the Gazette. Troubridge had been sparse with his information, but Ritchie had evidently been in serious debt, not unusual in the navy, and had made the grave mistake of falsifying accounts to obtain further credit. He must have been in very deep trouble to take such risks. He was paying for it now.
He glanced up as the bowsprit and long tapering jib boom reached up and over the boat like a lance. The figurehead, clad in armour, was still hidden in shadow.
Adam caught a slight movement above the beak head a face withdrawing, some one posted to give the first warning.
It came immediately.
”Boat ahoy!”
The lieutenant was on his feet again, hands cupped.
”Athena!” The waiting was over.
Adam felt the ship rising over him, the fresh paint reflected on the sluggish current like white and black bars, with the gun ports creating their own checkered pattern. Masts and standing rigging, hammock nettings all neatly packed and covered; they must have piped all hands long before dawn. As a midshipman he had done it himself, going without breakfast in order that some great man would find all to his liking when he stepped aboard.
The boat was coming alongside, oars tossed and dripping, while the bowman and some figures clinging beneath the ship’s entry port eased the hull into the remaining shadows.
Not much longer than Unrivalled, but she was a two-decker and seemed to tower above him like a cliff.
He had crammed his mind with the basic details. Now they seemed to revolve in confusion. One hundred and sixty feet in length, and of one thousand four hundred tons. A frigate was always busy, always crowded. It was hard to accept that Athena, when fully manned, would carry five hundred souls, officers, seamen, and a contingent of Royal Marines for good measure.
There was a sudden silence, or so it seemed. The lieutenant was facing him, pleased, worried, or merely relieved that his part was over; it was hard to tell.
Adam looked up at the ship’s side, the tumble home curving away to reveal the ‘stairs’, and the entry port which looked a cable’s length away. He was reminded of his visit to Lord Exmouth’s flagship Queen Charlotte at Plymouth, when the admiral, knowing he had been wounded, had ordered him to use a bosun’s chair as he left, and the sailors had cheered him for it. As Exmouth had said, ”Pride is one thing, Bolitho, but conceit is an enemy!”
He reached out for the guide rope, but turned his head as he did so, and stared over the brightening expanse of Portsmouth Harbour. Some moored ships, still merged together in the retreating shadows, and land beyond. That would be Gosport. The small note, still folded in his pocket. / was here. I saw you. God be with you.
He knew that one of the side-boys, sent down in his white gloves to offer a helping hand if need be, was staring at him, mouth half open.
Adam nodded to him and began to climb. Lowenna. If only .. . He heard the slap of muskets being brought to the present, a far-off bark of commands.
Then the long, drawn-out trill of calls. A salute to the captain, on this day.
The first few moments as he stepped through Athena’s entry port and raised his hat to the quarterdeck and the ensign lifting lazily above the taffrail were blurred, swift impressions. The marines stiffly paraded as if on a barrack square, the pipe clay from their slings still drifting above their leather hats, their officer with drawn sword at the present. The fading twitter of calls, Spithead Nightingales as sailors called them, and the rattle of a solitary drum.
A lieutenant, taller and older than Adam had expected, stepped from the rank of waiting officers and said, ”Stirling, sir. I am the senior here.” A hesitation. ”Welcome aboard Athena.”
They shook hands, pausing while the marines brought down their muskets in unison.
He walked slowly along the line of assembled officers, shaking hands with each one of them. Athena carried six lieutenants in all; Barclay had remained in the boat alongside, so the introductions did not take long. Young for the most part, and for the present merely faces. There were two scarlet-coated marine officers, a captain, and a lieutenant who was in charge of the guard of honour. The eight midshipmen were held at bay by a rank of senior warrant officers; as Adam had heard his uncle say more than once, the backbone of any ship.
He could feel Troubridge keeping close behind him, perhaps less assured hemmed in by this press of strangers.
Stirling, the big first lieutenant, watched each face as he made his introduction, with an occasional mention of a particular duty or part of ship.
Adam thought of Leigh Galbraith, Unrivalled’?” first lieutenant. He had been a big man too, but light on his feet at sea or in action. Never look back. It seemed to mock him.
He knew something about Stirling. He had been in Athena for three years, like her disgraced captain. Old for his rank, passed over for promotion, partly because he had been a prisoner of war in Spanish hands until that country’s change of fortune, but also because he apparently had made no effort to obtain it. Unlike Galbraith .
He realized that some one had spoken his name.
It was the sailing master, a man with such a weathered face that his eyes seemed snared by the crows feet and lines of many leagues in every kind of sea. A strong face, the eyes bright blue, the mouth breaking into a smile.
Adam gripped his hand, the years falling away.
”Fraser, isn’t it?”
The smile widened into a grin. ”Fancy you rememberin’, sir.” He almost g
lanced at the other warrant officers. Almost. ”Few years that goes back, when I was master’s mate in the old Achates, sixty-four, Cap’n Valentine Keen, so it was!”
”You’ve done well, Mr. Fraser.”
Fraser released his hand. ”I saw you leave Achates to take your first command, sir. I often think of them days.”
They moved on, but Adam could still feel the handshake. Was that all it took?
They had reached the quarterdeck rail; his shoes were clinging to fresh pitch, and he saw where tools and paint brushes had been hastily hidden under strips of old canvas. Paint, pitch and tar, spun yarn and hemp. The sailor’s lot.
The big double wheel, motionless and unmanned, the compass box shining in the growing light. Marines, fifers and drummers, seamen and petty officers, midshipmen and ship’s boys, all packed into this unfamiliar hull.
Thank you, Mr. Stirling. Have all hands lay aft, if you please.”
One of the young midshipmen sneezed and ducked his head to hide his embarrassment. Probably about Napier’s age. He had a sudden flash of memory: the tailor’s old-fashioned shop in Plymouth, Napier’s face when the tape had been stretched across his slight shoulders for the first time, and the tailor had called measurements and meaningless advice to some hidden assistant. It was something he would never forget: it had been like seeing himself.
He looked up and around at the assembled ship’s company. On the gangways on either side of the maindeck, above the batteries of black-muzzled eighteen pounders clinging to the ratlines and shrouds, some even standing on the boat tier and its newly painted hulls. It was hard to imagine how all these men and boys could find space to live and hope as individuals.
He stared along the length of the ship to the Union flag flying above the beak head and the armoured shoulder of the goddess Athena. Again he felt the prick of uncertainty, almost guilt. He could still see Unrivalled’?” lovely figurehead, like the girl in the studio.
Alexander Kent - Bolitho 26 Page 5
