Darkening Sea

by Kent, Alexander

  THE

  DARKNING

  SEA

  Selected Historical Fiction Published by McBooks Press

  BY ALEXANDER KENT

  The Complete Midshipman Bolitho

  Stand Into Danger

  In Gallant Company

  Sloop of War

  To Glory We Steer

  Command a King’s Ship

  Passage to Mutiny

  With All Despatch

  Form Line of Battle!

  Enemy in Sight!

  The Flag Captain

  Signal–Close Action!

  The Inshore Squadron

  A Tradition of Victory

  Success to the Brave

  Colours Aloft!

  Honour This Day

  The Only Victor

  Beyond the Reef

  The Darkening Sea

  For My Country’s Freedom

  Cross of St George

  Sword of Honour

  Second to None

  Relentless Pursuit

  Man of War

  Heart of Oak

  BY PHILIP MCCUTCHAN

  Halfhyde at the Bight of Benin

  Halfhyde’s Island

  Halfhyde and the Guns of Arrest

  Halfhyde to the Narrows

  Halfhyde for the Queen

  Halfhyde Ordered South

  Halfhyde on Zanatu

  BY DEWEY LAMBDIN

  The French Admiral

  The Gun Ketch

  A King’s Commander

  Jester’s Fortune

  What Lies Buried

  BY ALEXANDER FULLERTON

  Storm Force to Narvik

  Last Lift from Crete

  All the Drowning Seas

  A Share of Honour

  The Torch Bearers

  The Gatecrashers

  BY JULIAN STOCKWIN

  Mutiny

  Quarterdeck

  Tenacious

  Command

  The Admiral’s Daughter

  BY JAN NEEDLE

  A Fine Boy for Killing

  The Wicked Trade

  The Spithead Nymph

  BY DUDLEY POPE

  Ramage

  Ramage & The Drumbeat

  Ramage & The Freebooters

  Governor Ramage R.N.

  Ramage’s Prize

  Ramage & The Guillotine

  Ramage’s Diamond

  Ramage’s Mutiny

  Ramage & The Rebels

  The Ramage Touch

  Ramage’s Signal

  Ramage & The Renegades

  Ramage’s Devil

  Ramage’s Trial

  Ramage’s Challenge

  Ramage at Trafalgar

  Ramage & The Saracens

  Ramage & The Dido

  BY FREDERICK MARRYAT

  Frank Mildmay OR The Naval Officer

  Mr Midshipman Easy

  Newton Forster OR The Merchant Service

  Snarleyyow OR The Dog Fiend

  The Privateersman

  BY V.A. STUART

  Victors and Lords

  The Sepoy Mutiny

  Massacre at Cawnpore

  The Cannons of Lucknow

  The Heroic Garrison

  The Valiant Sailors

  The Brave Captains

  Hazard’s Command

  Hazard of Huntress

  Hazard in Circassia

  Victory at Sebastopol

  Guns to the Far East

  Escape from Hell

  BY JAMES DUFFY

  Sand of the Arena

  The Fight for Rome

  BY JOHN BIGGINS

  A Sailor of Austria

  The Emperor’s Coloured Coat

  The Two-Headed Eagle

  Tomorrow the World

  BY R.F. DELDERFIELD

  Too Few for Drums

  Seven Men of Gascony

  BY JAMES L. NELSON

  The Only Life That Mattered

  BY C.N. PARKINSON

  The Guernseyman

  Devil to Pay

  The Fireship

  Touch and Go

  So Near So Far

  Dead Reckoning

  The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower

  BY DOUGLAS W. JACOBSON

  Night of Flames

  BY DOUGLAS REEMAN

  Badge of Glory

  First to Land

  The Horizon

  Dust on the Sea

  Knife Edge

  Twelve Seconds to Live

  The White Guns

  A Prayer for the Ship

  For Valour

  BY DAVID DONACHIE

  The Devil’s Own Luck

  The Dying Trade

  A Hanging Matter

  An Element of Chance

  The Scent of Betrayal

  A Game of Bones

  On a Making Tide

  Tested by Fate

  Breaking the Line

  BY BROOS CAMPBELL

  No Quarter

  The War of Knives

  Alexander Kent

  THE DARKENING SEA

  the Bolitho novels: 20

  McBooks Press, Inc.

  www.mcbooks.com

  ITHACA, NY

  Published by McBooks Press 2000

  Copyright © 1993by Highseas Authors Ltd.

  First published in the United Kingdom by William Heinemann Ltd. 1993

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher. Requests for such permissions should be addressed to McBooks Press, ID Booth Building, 520 North Meadow St., Ithaca, NY 14850.

  Cover painting by Geoffrey Huband.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Kent, Alexander.

  The darkening sea / by Alexander Kent.

  p. cm. — (Richard Bolitho novels ; 20 )

  ISBN 0-935526-83-8 (alk. paper)

  1. Bolitho, Richard (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Great

  Britain—History, Naval— 19 th century—Fiction. 3. Napoleonic Wars,

  1800—1815 —Fiction I. Title

  PR6061.E63 D37 2000

  823’.914—dc21

  00-058623

  All McBooks Press publications can be ordered by calling toll-free 1-888-BOOKS11 (1-888-266-5711).

  Please call to request a free catalog.

  Visit the McBooks Press website at www.mcbooks.com.

  Printed in the United States of America

  9 8 7

  To Mike and Bee Hartree, with our love

  The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

  The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

  Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

  ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

  Push off, and sitting well in order smite

  The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

  To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

  Of all the western stars, until I die.

  TENNYSON, ULYSSES

  1 LANDFALL

  THE MEANDERING track that ran around the wide curve of Falmouth Bay was just wide enough to allow passage to horse and rider, and only slightly less dangerous than the footpath which was somewhere beneath it. To the stranger or the foolhardy either could be hazardous.

  On this particular dawn the coast appeared abandoned, its sounds confined to the cries of seabirds, the occasional lively trill of an early robin, and the repetitive call of a cuckoo which never seemed to get any closer. In places some of the cliff had fallen away, so that where the track ran closer to the edge it was possible to hear the boom of the sea against the jagged rocks below. Rarely still, it was never to be taken for gran
ted.

  There was a damp chill in the air but this was late June, and within hours the horizon would be hard and clear, the sea glittering with a million mirrors. The horse and rider rose slowly above a steep slope and paused like a piece of statuary or, like this bewitched coast, a vision which might suddenly vanish.

  Lady Catherine Somervell tried to relax her body as she stared back above the drifting mist. They must have thought her mad at the big grey house below Pendennis Castle, like the stableboy who had snatched up a lantern when she had startled him out of sleep. He had mumbled something about calling the head groom or the coachman, but she had refused. As he had saddled Tamara, the powerful mare Richard Bolitho had found for her, she had felt the same sense of urgency, and a conviction which her rational mind could not dismiss.

  She had dressed herself in the big room, their room, with the same driving desperation. Her long dark hair was only loosely pinned about her ears, and she wore her thick riding skirt and one of Richard’s old seagoing coats, which she often used on her cliff walks.

  She had felt the gorse and bushes dragging at her skirt as Tamara had moved purposefully along the track; had tasted the sea. The enemy as Bolitho had once called it, his voice so bitter in one of those rare, private moments.

  She stroked the horse’s neck to reassure herself. A fast packet had brought news to Falmouth from the Caribbean. The English fleet and a considerable force of soldiers and marines had attacked Martinique, the main base for French naval operations there. The French had surrendered, and most of their activities in the Caribbean and on the Main had ceased.

  Catherine had watched the faces of the people in the square when the news had been read out by a dragoon officer. Most of them would be unaware of the importance of Martinique, a thorn in Britain’s side for so many years, or even know where it was. There was little enthusiasm and no cheers either, for this was 1809, and four years had passed since the death of Nelson, the nation’s darling, and the battle of Trafalgar which must have seemed to many the final stage of this endless war.

  And with the packet had come a letter from Richard. He had written in great haste, with no time for details. The fighting was over and he was quitting his flagship, the 94 -gun Black Prince, and was under orders to return to England with all haste. It did not seem possible even now. He had been absent for little more than nine months. She had steeled herself for a much longer period, two years or even three. She had existed only for his letters, and had thrown herself into helping Bryan Ferguson, Bolitho’s one-armed steward. With every young man pressed into the fleet, unless they were lucky enough to hold a protection, it was difficult to keep the farm and estate working. There were several crippled men who had once served with Bolitho, men he now cared for much as he had tried to do at sea. Many landowners would have thrown them on the beach, as Richard called it, left them to beg from those they had fought to protect.

  But all that mattered now was that he was coming home. First to Falmouth. She shivered as if it were winter. The rest could wait until he was here, in her arms.

  She had read his short letter so many times, trying to guess why he had been required to hand over his command to another flag officer. Valentine Keen had also been replaced, and perhaps was intended for promotion. She thought of Keen’s young wife and felt a touch of envy. She was with child; it must be due, born even. But Keen’s well-meaning family had taken Zenoria to one of their fine houses in Hampshire. She had been the only girl Catherine had found it easy to talk with. Love, suffering, courage —they had both experienced their extremes in the past.

  There had been a very unexpected visitor after she had received Richard’s letter. Stephen Jenour, his flag lieutenant and the newly appointed commander of a smart brig, Orcadia, had come to see her while his command was taking on store in Carrick Roads: a different Jenour, not merely because of what he had endured in the open boat after the wreck of the Golden Plover, but matured also by a sense of loss. His own command, taken at Richard Bolitho’s insistence after returning to England with their captured French prize, had also removed him from daily contact with the superior he respected, loved even, more than any other yet encountered in the course of his young life.

  They had talked until the shadows were deep in the room and the candles had been guttering. He had told her of the battle in his own words, as Bolitho had requested. But as he had spoken she had heard only Richard, the men who had fought and died, the huzzas and the suffering, victory and despair.

  What would Richard be thinking on his way home? Of his Happy Few, his band of brothers? There were even fewer now with Jenour gone.

  She nudged the horse and Tamara moved forward again, her ears twitching towards the sea, the continuous murmur against the rocks. The tide was on the make. She smiled. She had been listening too long to Richard and his friends, and the fishermen who brought their catch up to Flushing or into Falmouth itself.

  Always the sea was there. Waiting.

  She strained her eyes towards it now but there was still too much mist, and not enough light to see the headland.

  She thought of her ride here. The countryside stirring itself, the smell of freshly baked bread, of foxgloves and the wild roses in the hedgerows. She had seen few people about but had sensed their presence: very little was missed by these folk whose families had known the Bolithos from generation to generation, and the men who had gone year after year to die in forgotten campaigns or great sea-battles. Like the portraits on the walls in the old house, watching her when she had gone up alone to bed, measuring her still.

  At least Richard would have had his beloved nephew Adam with whom to share the days at sea. He had finished his letter by revealing that he would be sailing independently in Adam’s own command. She allowed her mind to stray once more to Zenoria, and then to Zenoria and Adam. Was it merely imagination, or that warning instinct which had been born out of her own early years?

  She reined the horse around, her fingers groping for the small carriage pistol she always carried. She had not even seen or heard them. Relief surged through her as she saw the dull glint of their buttons. They were coastguards.

  One of them exclaimed, “Why, Lady Somervell! You gave us a start! Toby here thought some gennelmen were runnin’ a cargo up from the beach!”

  Catherine tried to smile. “I am sorry, Tom. I should have known better.”

  The light was already strengthening, as if to dispel her hopes, lay bare her foolishness.

  Tom the coastguard watched her thoughtfully. The admiral’s lady, the one who was the talk of London according to some. But she had called him by his name. As if he mattered.

  He said carefully, “May I ask what you be doing up ’ere at this hour, m’lady? Could be dangerous.”

  She faced him directly, and afterwards he was to remember this moment, her fine dark eyes, her high cheekbones, her utter conviction as she said, “Sir Richard is coming home. In the Anemone. ”

  “I knows that, m’lady. We had word from the navy.”

  “Today,” she said. “This morning.” Her eyes seemed to blur and she turned away.

  Tom said kindly, “There be no way o’ knowing, m’lady. Wind, weather, tides . . .”

  He broke off as she slipped from the saddle, her stained boots striking the track as one. “What is it?”

  She stared out at the bay as it began to open up, the light spilling above the headland like glass.

  “Do you have a telescope, please?” Desperation put an edge to her voice.

  The two coastguards dismounted and Tom lifted his glass from a long leather case behind his saddle.

  Catherine did not even see them. “Be easy, Tamara!” She rested the long telescope on the saddle, still warm from her own body. Gulls were swooping around a tiny boat far out towards the point. It seemed much clearer than before, and pink on the sea’s face she saw the first sunlight.

  Tom’s companion had also extended his telescope, and after a few minutes he said, “There be a ship out the
re, Tom, by God so there be! Beggin’ your pardon, m’lady!”

  She had not heard him. She watched the sails, misty and unreal like shells, the darker line of the slender hull beneath.

  “What is she, Toby? Can you see her rig?”

  The man sounded stunned. “Frigate. No doubt o’ that. Seen too many o’ they in an’ out o’ Carrick Roads over th’ years!”

  “Still, could be anyone. Ride down to the harbour an’ see if you can discover anythin’ . . .”

  They both turned as she said quietly, “It is he.”

  She had extended the telescope to its full length. She waited for the horse to quieten so that she could stare without blinking. Then she said, “I can see her figurehead in the sunshine.” She handed back the glass, her eyes suddenly blind. “ Anemone . . .” She saw it in her mind’s eye as she had seen it in reality, before the ship had tacked into shadow again: the full-breasted girl with the raised trumpet, her gilt paint so clear in the reflected glare. She repeated as if to herself, “ Anemone . . . daughter of the wind.”

  She leaned her face against the horse. “Thank God. You came back to me.”

  Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho awoke from a disturbed sleep and stared up at the darkness of the small sleeping cabin, his mind responding instantly to the sounds and movements around him. His sailor’s instinct told him that like the cabin the sea was still dark outside this lithe, graceful hull: a command for which any young officer would give his right arm. He listened to the dull thud of the tiller-head as it matched the rudder’s strength against the sea and the wind’s thrust in the sails, heard the sluice of water alongside as the frigate Anemone leaned over on a new tack to a different motion. Gone were the great soaring thrusts of the Western Ocean, through hard sunshine and lashing rain in equal portions. Here the seas were short and steep as the ship ploughed her way nearer to the land. Three weeks from the Caribbean. Adam had driven his Anemone like the thoroughbred she was.

  Bolitho clambered from the swaying cot and steadied himself with one hand on a deckhead beam until he was accustomed to the lively movements. A frigate: no man could want more. He recalled the ones he had commanded as a youthful captain, younger even than Adam. The ships so different, yet still familiar. Only the faces, the men themselves seemed blurred, if not forgotten.