They had been ushered into a large room, fans swinging busily overhead, long blinds extended to hold the glare and heat at bay.
There were several other commanding officers present, including Pointer; Lotus was in the dockyard for repairs to her hull. Another captain was from the frigate Hostile, which had been undergoing a complete overhaul and was soon to rejoin the scattered squadron.
And there was Captain lan Munro, of the frigate Audacity, their newest arrival. Adam had met him when he had come aboard Athena to make his report to Bethune: a young, round face, scorched rather than tanned by the Caribbean sun, with bright ginger hair. Adam remembered Bethune’s sarcastic comment on the little frigate’s age. Thought she was in the breaker’s yard. Munro had obviously become used to such remarks. He had said cheerfully, ”She was launched the same year I was born. A perfect match, don’t you think?”
He was twenty-eight years old, and although not yet posted would be confirmed in that rank before the year ended. Provided. But, like any frigate captain, he would not need reminding of the pitfalls always in wait.
Adam saw the quick glances, and the occasional smiles, although after nearly a month at Antigua, with Athena ‘taking root’ as Jago had put it, most of them were still strangers.
A door opened and Commodore Sir Baldwin Swinburne entered the room. Despite the fans he looked hot and uncomfortable, but very sure of himself, a different man without Bethune’s presence.
Adam looked over at Troubridge and wondered how much he knew about the rumours. It was none of any one’s business if Bethune used his rank and authority to visit Catherine. She was a beautiful woman, and she was far more than that. She had helped him beyond belief when Zenoria had killed herself. She had understood, even though Zenoria had not been his to love. And she had comforted him, then, and after Richard had fallen on board Frobisher. He pushed the thoughts away. It was useless going back.
Swinburne said loudly, ”Now that we are all assembled.” He glanced at Adam, and beamed. ”I can explain the development of our strategy to date.” He was enjoying it.
”When my sloop Lotus stopped and seized the barque now lying under our guns, it was assumed that she was making for Havana. We have had, after all, some experience in the tactics of the Spanish captain-general, have we not?” There were several chuckles. ”But we can never assume too much.” Once again, briefly, his eyes settled on Adam and the flag lieutenant. ”The Villa de Bilbao did not in fact intend to enter Havana. Her master, Cousens, would have allowed Lotus to make for that port.” He looked around at their faces, like a showman with some secret trick still in hand. ”Lotus’s change of tack in the darkness caught Cousens all aback.”
Adam curbed his impatience. The flaw in the picture. Some one had discovered something. Or some one had bartered the missing information, perhaps for his own life.
Troubridge leaned over and whispered, ”I hope there are not too many ears listening to this, sir.”
Swinburne said, ”San Jose, so near to that clever encounter some four hundred miles east of Havana. That, gentlemen, is the key!”
Adam tried to picture it in his mind while the room around him buzzed with excitement, and not a little disbelief. All the months, the thankless patrols, and fighting off attacks when every foreign flag was an enemy, and pain, fever and suffering in the most brutal trade of all; and it had been under their noses. It would not produce a miracle. But it was a beginning.
”My clerk will outline the details, all that we have so far. Tomorrow I shall pass instructions to the rest of the squadron.”
Pointer had moved over to sit beside him. ”I find it hard to accept.” He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. ”San Jose is avoided when possible. Bad approaches, and a small anchorage. Used to be fortified some slaves rebelled there years ago, before my time. A slaughter to all accounts.”
”But still large enough to land slaves?”
Somebody tapped a table. ”Pay attention now!”
Adam pressed his spine into the chair. A journey in hell.
Rounded up, beaten and shackled, sold by their own people or rival tribes to daring and unscrupulous men like Cousens. Crammed into small vessels, and eventually transferred to the new craft of the trade. Larger, faster, and often better armed than the ships which searched an ocean for the chance of a prize.
He reached inside his coat and felt the letter folded with the other one in his pocket.
High summer in Cornwall, and Catherine’s roses would still be blooming in the old garden; Lowenna’s, too. Like the house overlooking the Bay, waiting.
The commodore’s clerk was droning on about Spanish authority, civil and military. Population and local trade; further details would be provided for every captain without delay.
Swinburne was mopping his shining face; the showman was almost bowing.
Adam asked abruptly, ”Does Sir Graham know about all this?”
Troubridge gave him a keen glance, wise for one so young.
”Sir Baldwin has agreed to take charge of the first part of this campaign, if that is what it will become.” He lowered his voice. ”So if anything misfired, he might also carry the blame, surely?”
Captain Munro pushed through the others and held out his hand.
”I’m going to my ship, sir.” He regarded him curiously. ”Letter for you. From one of my young gentlemen.”
”How is he? I know I should not ask.”
Munro turned as some one called his name.
”He’s a good lad.” He nodded. ”Quiet, but good.” Then he grinned. ”Suits me anyway, sir!”
And he was gone.
Adam walked out on to a stone terrace, the heat bathing him like steam. He could still hear the commodore’s voice, his thick laughter.
And suddenly he was sorry for him, and it troubled him. Like a warning.
Seven days out of English Harbour found His Britannic Majesty’s frigate Audacity of twenty-four guns deep in the Caribbean,
rarely in sight of land and only once close enough to another vessel to exchange greetings. She had been a small brigantine, one of the squadron’s widely scattered patrols, and on her way back to Antigua to replenish stores.
Captain lan Munro was proud of his command and made a point of demonstrating it to his people, wardroom or mess deck He had served only once before in the Caribbean, and then as a very junior lieutenant. Most of his service had been in home waters and the Mediterranean, and for one commission in the second American war.
When he walked the quarterdeck or found a piece of shade by the nettings he often thought of all the other captains who had preceded him, as varied as the campaigns in which Audacity had taken part. Toulon, St. Vincent, the Nile and Copenhagen were only a few of her exploits.
He had heard the boatswain, one of the oldest men in the ship, giving what sounded like a lecture to the new midshipmen who had been sent aboard at Plymouth.
”Now listen to me and listen good. You’re lucky to be serving in this ship, an’ you’ve a lot to live up to, to ever pass muster in my book! Audacity was built in the days when men knew ‘ow to give a ship life! Launched on the Medway, an’ built of the best Kentish oak, when they still ‘ad some seasoned trees standin’!” He had used his big red hands to sketch the shape of the hull. ”The frames was grown in them days, not cut from loose ends of timber, so she’s got double the strength of some of them high-fliers!” He did not hide his contempt for the newer fifth-rates in the fleet.
Munro loitered by the quarterdeck rail, watching and listening to the early morning shipboard routine.
The decks had been washed down soon after dawn, and were already bone-dry in the hot southeasterly. A fair wind, enough to fill the sails, for most of the time at least; Audacity was leaning over to larboard, close-hauled as she lay on the starboard tack.
The sailing master was standing with one of his mates near the compass box, outwardly unconcerned, his jaw still working on a piece of pork left over from breakfast.
> Munro smiled, feeling the same excitement, which he knew the motion of the man’s jaw did not conceal. A week out of harbour, checking the log, the tide, the compass, using the sextant. All to find one tiny cross on the chart.
He saw the two new midshipmen with a boatswain’s mate. More instruction. He watched, trying to remember his own first steps.
In one ear and out the other, had been one summing-up.
The younger of the two, David Napier, seemed quieter than most midshipmen, but even in so short a time he had heard well of him. Keen to learn, and ready to try again if something went wrong. Sponsored by his previous captain, a Bolitho. He had never met him before Antigua, but knew his background almost as well as Audacity’?,. Napier had been ‘volunteered’ by his mother, who had remarried and gone to America. Not a unique story, but the one behind it would be much more interesting, he thought. A well-known frigate captain and the nephew of England’s hero; it seemed strange that he should care so much.
The second newcomer had been foisted on him by another captain as an obligation to some one important. Probably glad to be rid of him. And yet Munro could not have explained why, unless he openly interfered with the routine of his officers. Again he smiled to himself. And the boatswain!
Midshipman Paul Boyce was thickset, heavily built for seventeen, which was unusual; most young gentlemen were always hungry, but the rigour of their duties pared away any surplus weight.
Munro had heard no adverse reports of his work or behaviour in the months since he had come aboard. He was never late on watch or relieving others for duty. The Atlantic had put gun and arms drill to one side, but all hands had been busy aloft and on deck, setting and trimming sails, splicing: those running repairs which made a sailor’s lot.
They carried six midshipmen all told. With the fleet cut to the bone and ships being laid up in every major port, they were lucky to get a berth at all.
He glanced at the sea alongside and saw the topgallants reflected on the gently heaving water, the masthead pendant a tiny stab of colour.
He recalled the flag captain he had met at the conference: the vice-admiral’s right arm, and with every chance of a glowing future ahead of him. A face you would not forget. And yet during their brief conversations, he had gained the impression that the envy was on Bolitho’s side.
He looked at the main deck again and saw Midshipman Boyce coming aft with a master’s mate, probably to do some chart work. He remembered that Boyce had injured his wrist somehow and was ordered to stand clear of general seamanship duties. He frowned, trying to recall the details; he would ask the first lieutenant about it.
”Deck therer
Every face peered up, and a seaman about to take another turn on a halliard shaded his eyes with one arm to look aloft.
Even the sailing master’s jaw was motionless.
”Land on th’ weather bow!”
There were cheers from the forecastle, and knowing grins from the older hands.
Munro touched the rail. The cross on the chart. All those miles.
In his mind he could see it. The Windward Passage, or soon would be, that fifty-mile channel which separated Haiti from Cuba. Hated and feared by some, with difficult currents and badly recorded soundings.
Tomorrow or the next day they would be near the place where the sloop Lotus had made her capture.
He felt the same chill of excitement. This was now. A perfect landfall.
”Mister Napier, come over here!”
The youth stood facing him. Open shirt, none too clean, his white trousers already touched with paint or tar. Tanned skin, a legacy of other seas, in Bolitho’s last command.
The surgeon had told Munro about the scar on Napier’s leg.
”A miracle he didn’t lose it, sir. I’ve known many a butcher who would have lopped it off without blinking!”
Another story there, too.
”Sir?”
”Can you go aloft for me?”
”Aye, sir.” His feet were bare and he was rubbing one across the other while he stared at the masthead.
”Tell the lookout there’s a tot waiting for him when he comes down.”
Napier hesitated by the nettings. ”They say Haiti is an evil place, sir?”
Munro grinned. ”Don’t you listen to all those old women between decks! Away you go!”
Napier gripped the shrouds, testing the unyielding roughness. His hands were still not used to it. He thought he saw the midshipman named Boyce staring at him from the poop. Just for a second, and he was gone.
For now.
Napier began to climb, his gaze fixed on the quivering ratlines. It was something he took for granted, and even in his first race up the shrouds with other youngsters in Unrivalled, he had never been troubled by heights.
All in so short a time. He had known fear, and had endured pain; his wounded leg still troubled him, but he refused to admit it. And he had found the closest thing to having a real home, even love, which he had never believed possible.
In all his fifteen years, this was the first time he had been made to hate.
Audacity’s midshipmen’s berth was no better and no worse than most ships of her size. Situated on the orlop deck below the water-line, it was devoid of natural light, other than that which filtered through gratings in the deck above.
The smells were many and varied, stale or hoarded food, and from the bilges beneath. It was partitioned by midshipmen’s chests and a scrubbed table, while hammocks were slung wherever there was a space.
Napier went down to the berth, the ‘cockpit’, to change into his seagoing uniform for the remainder of the day. Only then could you be certain of the rank and status of Audacity’s complement of two hundred.
He adjusted the solitary lantern and opened his chest. On top of the books and clothing, sewing and stitching gear and his best hat, lay the dirk. He had never quite got over it, or the quiet way Captain Bolitho had given it to him to begin his new life, and to mark his fifteenth birthday.
He gripped it and turned it toward the swaying light. It had all started when he had left the dirk lying on the mess table soon after sailing from Plymouth.
There had been two other midshipmen here that day, quietly superior and aloof toward the new arrivals, although they had all been about the same age; and there had been Paul Boyce.
Like a contest, something he should have ignored or accepted.
Boyce had picked up the dirk and exclaimed, ”Look at this! A fine piece of workmanship, and from Salters in the Strand of London indeed! What lowly midshipman can afford such luxury? He has a generous sponsor, this one. I must learn the secret!”
Napier could remember the sudden flash of anger when he had snatched the dirk from Boyce’s grip.
One of the others had snapped, ”No arms in the mess, you should know that!”
Boyce had bowed gravely. ”I do not mean to offend. I merely wondered what was given in return?”
On another occasion when they had been working with a party of seamen, re stowing the boats for the long Atlantic passage, Boyce had tried to trip him. But Napier was quick on his feet, and Boyce had fallen and injured his wrist.
I’ll not forget! It had been like that ever since, although Boyce was always careful not to show his hostility in the presence of a lieutenant or warrant officer.
But sooner or later .. . Napier stiffened as he heard voices. One was Boyce, the other was that of Scully, the young mess boy who helped look after the berth and was always hurrying on one errand or another.
Boyce was working himself up into a rage, which seemed to come without effort.
”What do you call this? I told you I wanted two clean shirts! I can’t imagine what hovel you were raised in, but it makes me sick!”
Then Scully, anxious. Worse, he was terrified. ”I pressed them like you said!”
Something hit the table. ”Sir! Say sir to me, eh?”
The lid of Napier’s sea chest was still raised. Neither of them had seen him
.
Boyce seemed to be humming to himself.
Then he said quite calmly, ”You know what I told you before?” The sound again. ”Bend over that chest. Do it!”
Napier rose on one knee, the scene fixed in his mind. As if there was not another soul in the whole ship.
The mess boy was bending over the chest, unfastening and dragging down his breeches, sobbing or pleading it was impossible to tell.
Napier said, ”Stand up, Scully. Cover yourself!” He saw the rattan cane in Boyce’s hand. He had also seen the purple weals across the boy’s buttocks before he could hide them.
Boyce was staring at him, his heavy features contorted as if he was going to choke.
”Spying, were you? I’ll make you regret the day you ever .. .” He gaped, as Napier tore the cane from his hand. ”What are you doing?”
”We are going on deck to see the first lieutenant.” He did not take his eyes off him, but said to the cowering mess boy, ”And you will tell him what happened, now and at any other time. I will stand by you!”
He felt numb, but able to grasp that his voice sounded steady, resolute. Like somebody else. And it mattered so much. Maybe too much. It was all here and now. The shop in Plymouth, the tailor peering through his spectacles, the same way that Daniel Yovell did. Looking at the captain and beaming. Oh, not for you, sir? The young gentleman this time!
It mattered. He himself had worked in Unrivalled’s cockpit and had seen the other side of her ‘young gentlemen’. He had soon learned that there were bullies on every deck, but in a small ship it was rarely tolerated for long.
Boyce shrugged. ”I shall explain.”
They all looked up as calls trilled through the mess decks overhead.
”All hands! All hands to quarters and clear for action!”
Napier closed and locked his chest, still unable to believe that he was so calm.
He was vaguely aware of Boyce’s face flashing in the reflected light as he clipped the dirk to his belt.
A surgeon’s mate ran past and Napier recalled that the sick bay and surgeon’s quarters were directly adjoining the berth.
Alexander Kent - Bolitho 26 Page 23
