Adam said, "May I return to my ship, Sir Richard?"
Bolitho nodded. He knew Adam hated the formality of addressing him as he would any other flag officer.
He said, "Perhaps you will join me one evening before we leave Cape Town?"
Adam grinned, the boy again. "It would be an honour!"
Captain Trevenen too, as expected, made his own excuses and left.
Bolitho heard Ozzard bustling about in the pantry and wondered how long it would be before he was disturbed again.
He took out the first letter and opened it with great care. There was a small lock of her hair inside, tied with a piece of green ribbon.
My darling Richard. Outside the birds are still singing and the flowers are bright in the sunshine. I can only try to guess where you are, and I have used the globe in the library to ride in your wake like a creature of the ocean... Today I went to Falmouth, but I felt like a stranger. Even my lovely Tamara was looking for you... I miss you so, dearest of men...
He heard the bark of commands and knew Adam was leaving the ship. At least he had been made aware of Trevenen's hostility, part of the old feud which he could not remember.
Ozzard entered with a tray and Bolitho placed the letter with its mate on the table beside him.
On deck Adam turned towards the other captain, his hand to his gold-laced hat as he prepared to leave.
Trevenen said in a fierce whisper, "Don't you dare abuse your authority with me, sir!"
Anybody watching would have seen only Adam's smile, his teeth very white in his sunburned face. But they would have been too far away to hear his response.
"And do not try to humiliate me in front of anyone, sir. I
had to put up with it when I was younger, but not any more. I think you know what I mean!" Then, to the trill of calls, he was down the side and into his gig-The first lieutenant crossed the deck. "They say he has quite a reputation in the field, sir. Sword or pistol, I'm told."
Trevenen stared at him. "You can hold your tongue, damn your eyes! Be about your business!"
Much later, as the cooler air of evening moved through the ship and her rigging alike, Bolitho allowed himself to re-read the first letter. Only once did he pause when he heard someone's voice, uninterrupted as if he were reading aloud. Prayers, perhaps. It came from Avery's little cabin, which separated his own quarters from the wardroom.
He turned back to the letter, all else forgotten.
My darling Richard...
Captain Robert Williams of the convict transport ship Prince Henry took a well-thumbed copy of the prayer book from his pocket, and waited as some of his men prepared a corpse for burial. The fourth since leaving England, and under these conditions there would be more before they reached Botany Bay.
He glanced around his ship, along the decks and gangways where watchful guards stood beside the loaded swivel-guns, and aloft where more seamen were working on the yards or hung from the rigging like primitive apes. It never stopped. The ship was too old for this kind of work, with weeks and sometimes months at sea. He heard the clank of pumps and was grateful that the prisoners could be used for that back-breaking work if nothing else.
There were two hundred convicts in the ship, and because of their numbers they could only be allowed up from the foul-smelling holds a few at a time, some of them in manacles. Separated from them there were a few women, whores and petty thieves for the most part, deported by magistrates who merely wanted them out of their jurisdiction. The women at least would find no hardship in the colony, but many of the others would not survive.
His mate called, "Ready, sir!" Their eyes met. Each was thinking of the waste of time, when the corpse in question was that of a man who had killed another in a brawl and only escaped the gallows because of his skill as a cooper. But he had been a violent, dangerous prisoner, and it would be more fitting if they merely pitched his body outboard like so much rubbish.
But rules were rules and the Prince Henry sailed under "warrant, and was to all other purposes a government vessel.
"He's coming, sir."
Williams sighed. He was their only passenger, R.ear-Admiral Thomas Herrick, who had kept very much to himself during every dragging week. Williams had been looking forward to sharing his quarters with an officer of rank, one who had served his country well until his superiors had decided to offer him this appointment in New South Wales. To Williams it made very little sense. Even a junior admiral should be wealthy, by his simple reasoning, and Herrick could have refused the appointment and lived the rest of his life in ease and comfort. Williams himself had been at sea from the age of eight, and his had been a hard climb to his present command.
His lip curled. A rotten, stinking convict ship, with hull and rigging so worn that she could rarely manage more than six knots. Before this, the old Prince Henry had been carrying livestock to the many army outposts and garrisons in the Caribbean. Even the army's quartermasters and butchers had complained about the conditions the animals had been forced to endure on these long passages. But they were good enough apparently for humans, albeit the scum of the jails.
He touched his hat. "Morning, sir."
Herrick joined him by the rail, his eyes moving without conscious thought from the helmsman's compass to the set of every limply flapping sail. It was habit, as it had become since he had stood his first watch as a lieutenant.
"Not much wind."
Herrick shifted his gaze to the burial party. They were staring aft, waiting for the signal.
"Who was he?"
Williams shrugged. "A felon, a murderer." He did not hide his contempt.
Herrick's blue eyes fixed on his. "A man, nonetheless. Would you wish me to read something?"
"I can manage, sir. I've done it a few times."
Herrick thought of Bolitho when they had met at Freetown. He still did not really know what had made him react as he had. Because I cannot pretend. He was suddenly impatient with himself. He knew that Williams, the ship's master, had thought him mad for taking passage in a convict ship, with men he might have to discipline in places where the navy was the only mark of law and order. He could have chosen a fast packet, or been a passenger among his own kind in a man-of-war. A simple seafarer like Williams could never understand that it was because there had been a choice that Herrick had come aboard the Prince Henry.
Williams opened his little book. He was angry, but naval officers often made him feel stupid.
The days of man are but as grass: for he flourisheth as a flower of the field..."
He looked up, caught off guard as the masthead lookout yelled, "Deck there! Sail on the larboard quarter!"
Herrick glanced at the men around him and down on the gangway. Thinking much the same as their captain.
Prince Henry had the Indian Ocean to herself. The Cape of Good Hope was about three hundred miles astern, and there were nearly six thousand miles stretching away into infinity before they could reach land again and their final destination.
Williams cupped his hands. "What ship?"
The lookout shouted down, "Small, sir. Two masts mebbe!"
Williams said, "Perhaps she's one of yours, sir?"
Herrick thought of the beautiful telescope in his cabin, Dulcie's last present to him.
He tightened his jaw and tried to shut it out. He often held it before he turned in, just to imagine her finding it for him. He felt a lump in his throat. He would not interfere. Anyway, Williams was probably right.
If she were an enemy she was well off any station where she might be expected. He looked at the seamen who were still standing with the canvas-sewn corpse.
Williams came out of his thoughts. "Get the royals on her, Mr. Spry! I think she'll stand it!" He seemed to see the burial party for the first time. "What the hell are you waiting for? Tip the bugger over!"
Herrick heard the splash and pictured the bundle twisting and turning, sinking eventually into total darkness. But how did they know that? Many strange things had been witnessed at sea. Mayb
e there was another world down there beyond the depths.
Calls shrilled and men scampered to halliards and braces as the yards were trimmed until the wind was trapped and the deck tilted slightly to the extra pressure.
Williams said, "Get aloft, Mr. Spry, and take a glass. The lookout is a good hand, but he'll see only what he wants to."
Herrick turned to watch a great fish leap from the gentle water, only to fall again into the waiting jaws of a hunter.
He had heard Williams' remark. The voice of a true sailor. Take nothing for granted.
Some guards appeared from a hatchway and twenty or so prisoners were pushed roughly into the sunshine.
Herrick saw one of the swivels move slightly, its gunner waiting to drag the lanyard which could turn a group of men into bloody gruel. They were a poor-looking lot, he thought. Dirty, unshaven, blinking like old men in the blinding sunlight. One wore leg-irons and lay down by the scuppers, his pallid face turned away from the others.
He heard someone say, "Save yer pity, Silas! They'd spit you soon as look at you!"
Herrick thought of Bolitho again. I should have remembered to ask about his eye. How was he managing? Did the others notice that something was wrong?
The mate arrived on deck with a thud. He had slithered down a backstay, something which would have torn any land-man's palms like a knife-blade.
He said, "Brigantine, sir. Small enough." He glanced astern as if he expected to see her sails on the horizon. "She's overhauling us."
Williams looked thoughtful. "Well, she can't be a slaver out here. Nowhere for her to go."
The mate hesitated. "Suppose she be a pirate?"
Williams grinned hugely and clapped him on the shoulder. "Even a pirate wouldn't be fool enough to want two hundred extra bellies to fill, an' we've precious little else."
Herrick said, "If she is an enemy you can still drive her off."
Williams looked worried again. "It's not that, sir. It's the prisoners. If they ran wild we'd never be able to hold them." He looked at his mate. "Fetch the gunner and tell him to stand by. We've six twelve-pounders, but they've never had to fight since I took command."
The mate said unhelpfully, "Nor before that neither, by the looks of 'em!"
A seaman who was splicing near the companionway stood up and pointed astern. "There she be, sir!"
Herrick took a telescope from the rack by the compass-box and walked aft with it in both hands.
The other vessel was overhauling them fast. With the extended telescope he soon found her bulging fore course and jibs, her topsails completely hiding the other mast from view. End on, making full use of the same wind which was helpless to move the Prince Henry fast enough to maintain her distance away.
"She wears Brazilian colours, sir!"
Herrick grunted. Flags meant very little. His professional eye built up a picture in the telescope's lens. Fast and handy, a maid for all work. But Brazilian, out here? It seemed unlikely.
Spry asked, "Will we fight if she tries her chances, sir?"
Williams licked his dry lips. "Maybe they want stores, water even." Then he said, "We've barely enough for ourselves." He made up his mind. "All prisoners below. Tell the gunner to open the weapons chest, then arm yourselves." He turned to speak to the sea-officer with the greying hair, but Herrick had gone.
A seaman said, "She's a smart 'un!" A sailor's respect for a well-handled vessel, hostile or not.
In his cabin Herrick stood by one of his sea-chests, and after some hesitation opened it, so that his rear-admiral's dress coat shone in the reflected sunshine as if it were coming to life. He pulled out the metal box that contained his best epaulettes, the ones Dulcie had loved to see him wear. He grimaced. The same ones he had worn at his court-martial. He threw his plain black coat and breeches aside and dressed slowly and methodically, the pursuing brigantine still fixed in his mind. He thought of having another shave, but his sense of discipline and what was right made him reject the idea. The water ration was the same for everyone in this pitiful relic, from captain to the lowest felon, even the one who by now might have reached the end of his journey to the seabed.
He sat down and wrote a few words in a letter and sealed it, and then he placed it carefully inside the long leather telescope case. His hand touched it, and the gold-stamped address in London of the people who had made it. He glanced at himself in the mirror, at the undreamed-of epaulettes, each with its silver star. He even smiled without bitterness. A surprising journey it had been for the son of a poor clerk in Kent.
Something moved in the thick glass windows and he saw the other vessel flying up into the wind, the manoeuvre perfectly timed even as she shortened sail.
He heard shouts on deck as the green Brazilian flag was hauled down from the peak, and replaced instantly by the Tricolour.
Herrick picked up his sword and slipped it into his belt. Unhurriedly he took a last glance around the cabin and then made his way to the companion ladder.
"She's a Frenchie!"
Williams' jaw dropped as he stared at Herrick, so calm in his uniform.
"I know."
Williams was suddenly enraged. "Give the bastards a ball, Mr. Gunner!"
The crash of a twelve-pounder brought shouts of alarm from between decks and screams from the women.
Herrick snapped, "Belay that!"
Two flashes spurted from the brigantine's low hull and a mixture of grape and cannister exploded into the poop, bringing down the two helmsmen. Spry the first mate was on his knees, staring with disbelief at the blood pumping out of his stomach even as he fell over and died.
"They're heaving-to! Repel boarders, sir?"
Williams shouted at Herrick, "What shall I do?"
Herrick watched the boat being cast off, the rough-looking oarsmen already pulling lustily towards the convict transport. As the brigantine pitched up and down, her sails aback, he saw the guns, their crews already sponging out in readiness for another attack.
He said, "Heave-to, Captain. You made your point, but men have died for it."
The captain's hand was on his pistol. "They'll not take me, God damn them!"
Herrick saw a white flag being held up by one of the boat's crew. He could even see the other vessel's name in gold letters on her counter, Tridente.
He said, "Stay your hand, Captain. Do as they ask and I think they'll not harm you."
The boat hooked on, and after a few seconds some ragged figures swarmed up the side and on to the deck. They were armed to the teeth and could have been of any nationality.
Herrick watched impassively and heard someone call, "All ready, lieutenant!" An American or colonial accent.
But the one man in uniform who came last on to the Prince Henry's deck was as French as anyone could be.
He nodded curtly to Williams, then strode straight to Herrick. Long afterwards Williams remembered that Herrick had already been unclipping his sword, as if he had been expecting this.
The lieutenant touched his hat. "M'sieur Herrick?" He studied him gravely. The misfortune of war. You are my prisoner."
The brigantine was already making sail even as the boat went alongside. It seemed to have taken just minutes, and it was only when Williams saw his dead mate and the whimpering men near the wheel that he understood.
"Call Mr. Prior. He can take his place!" He looked at the pistol, still in his belt. Most naval officers would have ordered him to fight to the finish and to hell with the consequences.
But for Herrick he knew he would have done just that. He said heavily, "We'll put about for Cape Town."
Herrick had even made a point of putting on full uniform, he thought. When he looked again the Tridente, or whatever her real name was, was already standing away, her big fore-and-aft sail already making her show her copper.
Even the prisoners were quiet, as if they knew how close it had been.
He seemed to hear Herrick's last words. I think they'll not harm you.
It was like an epitaph.
ELEVEN
The Cutlass
The house now employed as army headquarters for the growing military strength at Cape Town had once been the property of a wealthy Dutch trader. It nestled below the uncompromising barrier of Table Mountain and drew what breeze it could from the bay where the ships, like the soldiers, waited for orders.
Fans swung back and forth in the biggest room, which overlooked the sea, moved by hidden servants so that they should not disturb anyone. There were blinds at the long windows, but even so the reflected light from the sea was blinding, the sky salmon-pink like an early sunset. In fact it was noon, and Bolitho shifted in a cane chair while the general finished reading the report an orderly had just presented to him.
Alexander Kent - Bolitho 20 Darkening Sea Page 18
