Adam moved up to the rail and looked at the prisoner, who had twisted his head around so that he could see him.
"Three dozen!"
The prisoner yelled, "You bloody bastard, you said two dozen!"
Adam said, "I changed my mind."
The drums rolled, and down came the lash across his shoulders. The master-at-arms called, "One!"
The first half dozen lashes made a crisscross of bloody stripes like the claw marks of a savage beast.
The prisoner began to gasp as the punishment continued, his face almost purple when the boatswain handed the cat-of-nine-tails to his mate.
The master-at-arms counted hoarsely, "Twenty-six!"
The surgeon held up his hand. "He has fainted, sir!"
"Cut him down!" Adam watched as the man fell to the deck into his own blood. He was picked up and carried below to the sickbay. A man of his obvious strength would soon recover after he had had his back cleansed with salt water and his stomach lined with as much rum as he could swallow. But the marks of the cat he would carry to his grave.
The first lieutenant watched him warily. This was a mood he did not recognise.
Adam said, There will be no martyrs in my ship, Mr. Martin." He gave a tired smile as the men dispersed to their duties or their messes. "There is more to command than prize money, believe me!"
He had scarcely gone below to change out of his uniform when the rain tore into the ship like a waterfall.
Adam glanced at himself in that same mirror. What would she think of me now, if she saw me?
He walked to the stern windows and thrust one open to stare at the horizon. The rain was already passing over: it would leave the decks cool, the sails hardened to receive the next wind. He looked at his coat, lying on a chair with its epaulettes glinting dully. He had been so proud when he had been posted. Now he held out his hands and felt something like sickness in his throat.
Three dozen lashes. Was that all? As captain I could have run him up to the main yard for striking a petty officer. The realisation of his power over these men had never failed to shock and awe him. But not now. It was his right.
He must have come a long, long way...
In the afternoon while he sat at his table with a plate of tasteless salt-beef barely touched nearby, he thought again about the letter, and wondered if she had received it, or even read it if she had.
If only they might meet as if by accident, on some winding track like the place where he had given her the wild roses. And she had kissed him...
He sat bolt upright as the lookout's voice pealed down from the masthead.
"Deck there! Sail on th' lee bow!"
Adam jumped to his feet. That was more like it. There was nothing between Anemone and his uncle's ships. The prospect of action would make all the difference and bring them together again. Cleansing, like the rain that had washed the blood from the grating.
The quarterdeck was crowded when he reached it.
Lieutenant Dacre touched his forehead, then pushed the wet hair from his eyes.
"I'm not yet certain, sir. The lookout says there's some mist to lee'rd might be more rain."
"We'd not find him if that happened." He hurried to the chart as the master's mates uncovered it.
Partridge said, "Might be a slaver, sir. Can't think o' nothing else this far out."
"My thoughts, Mr. Partridge! Call both watches and get the t'gallants on her. She'll likely show her heels when she sights us!"
Men poured on deck to the shrill of calls. Adam assessed their mood as they hurried past and below him. Some would still be thinking of the flogging, but by now others would be accepting it. He had brought it on himself. Or, what can you expect from a bloody officer? They could hate him when they felt like it; or perhaps when he deserved it. But fear him? That must never happen.
He saw Midshipman Dunwoody staring at him. "Aloft with a glass. I can use your eyes today!" He watched him swarming up the ratlines, a long telescope bouncing across his buttocks with every step.
Martin had joined him now, his face eager and excited. As I once was, Adam thought.
"Set the main course, Aubrey. I want her to fly before they can lose us!"
They grinned at one another, all else forgotten.
Anemone was riding it well. With the wind across the quarter she was taking each long trough and roller like a thoroughbred horse jumping hedges. Spray was bursting over the figurehead in solid sheets, and as each sail was set and sheeted home it hardened as if being squeezed by giants, with the rain that had soaked the canvas flying over the struggling seamen to rush into the scuppers like small brooks.
Dunwoody's voice was practically muffled by the din of canvas and clattering rigging.
"Deck, there! Two masts, sir! I think she's seen us!"
Adam wiped his face with his shirt sleeve and realised he was soaked to the skin.
"If the rain holds off it will do them no good!"
He walked across the deck, at times barely able to prevent himself from being flung against the guns as his ship pointed her jib-boom at the sky, catching the returning sunlight like a golden lance. Then down again, the hull crashing into another trough, the timbers jolting as if they had hit a sandbar.
It was the lookout again. Perhaps Dunwoody was too choked by spray to call out.
"Deck there! She's a brig, sir! Can't make it out!"
Adam said, "Use your speaking trumpet, Aubrey. Bring Dunwoody down. None of this is making any sense!"
Dunwoody arrived on deck, shivering badly in spite of the steam that was rising from his dripping shirt.
Adam asked, "What ails you, Mr. Dunwoody?" He was surprised that he could sound so calm, yet feel only apprehension.
Dunwoody stared down at the deck and would have fallen in the next wild plunge but for Bond, a master's mate, catching his arm. The boy turned his head to gaze across the water as if he could still see it.
"She's no slaver, sir. She is one of ours, the brig Orcadia,"
Adam turned to Martin.
"Is she mauled?" He squeezed the boy's arm very gently. "Tell me. I need to know!"
Dunwoody shook his head, unable to accept it. "She is out of command, sir, but she has not a mark on her!"
Martin persisted, "Adrift? Abandoned? Speak out, man!"
Adam swung into the lee shrouds and began to climb, each ratline scraping at his fingers while the ship rolled from side to side.
He had to wait a long time for the ship to steady herself enough on one crested roller, and for the glass to clear while he rested against the shrouds.
Orcadia was pitching and rolling very badly, the sunlight sweeping across her stern windows and gilded gingerbread so that the cabin looked as if it were on fire. The quarter boat was still in place, but another was dangling from some loose tackles alongside, upended and smashing against the brig's side.
Not abandoned then. He waited for the next up-thrust beneath the keel and tried again. Orcadians ensign was tangled in the rigging. Adam could feel the upturned faces below him willing him to tell them, just as he could sense the apprehension which had banished their sudden excitement. Another look through the dripping telescope, although he knew what he had seen. He lowered himself more quickly. Very soon everybody else would see it.
He found his lieutenant and Partridge waiting together. There was no sense in delaying it.
He faced them and said simply, "Muster the after guard and then arm yourselves, gentlemen." He held up his hand as Lieutenant Lewis began to hurry away. "She is Orcadia." He wanted to lick his dry lips but dared not. "She flies the Yellow Jack."
Lewis croaked, "Fever!"
"As you say, Mr. Lewis." His voice hardened. "Feared and hated by sailors even more than fire."
Lieutenant Baldwin came on deck, his eyes everywhere as he buttoned his scarlet coat.
Adam said, "We will bear up to wind'rd of her and lower a boat." He saw the quick exchange of glances. "I shall call for volunteers and go across myself
."
"You'll not put aboard her, sir?" Dacre was staring around as if he could see the horror of it already in this crowded frigate.
"I will decide later."
Marines were emerging from below deck, all armed, ready to fight and kill if necessary to retain order.
Martin watched the realisation running through the ship as the fear became a certainty.
He said, "Her commander is a friend of Sir Richard's, I believe?"
"Mine too." He was thinking of the Jenour he had known, trusting, loyal and likeable. Adam had thought him dead with all the others when he had gone to the memorial service at Falmouth. When his first lieutenant, Sargeant, and this same Aubrey Martin had galloped all the way from Plymouth to tell him the people most dear to him had survived. When he had lost Zenoria for all time.
"Will you take her in tow, sir?"
When Adam faced him again Martin was shocked to see tears in his eyes, running uncontrollably down his face to mingle with the spray.
"In God's name, Aubrey, you know I dare not!" It was another captain whom Martin had never seen.
Adam turned to Dunwoody, oblivious to those nearby. "But Jenour comes from my uncle. It must be important." He stared hard at the distant brig until his eyes were too blurred to see.
He heard Martin call, "Hands aloft! Shorten sail, Mr. Lewis!"
But only Dunwoody heard his captain's voice as he whispered, "Dear God, forgive me for what I must do."
Closer, and closer still to the stricken Orcadia until every telescope on the Anemone's quarterdeck would recognise the vessel's absolute desolation: the double wheel untended and jerking this way and that while the brig drifted and rolled to the pressure of sea and wind. Near the compass box Adam saw two men lying as if asleep, their bodies moving only to the brig's violent motion. There was another corpse trapped by a line against the splintered boat alongside, and as Anemone worked nearer, her yards braced almost fore-and-aft as close-hauled as she could respond, he saw the other spray-soaked bundles who had once been Orcadia's company.
He heard the surgeon say, "It must have been of the worst kind, sir. In a small vessel like her it would spread like wildfire."
Adam did not reply. He had heard of such virulent plagues in these waters, but had never seen them. Men falling at their stations, some dying before they had realised what was happening. The infection could have begun anywhere, in a vessel suspected of slavery perhaps. It had not been unknown for such ships, crammed to the deck beams with human cargo by captains who had put numbers before all else, to arrive at their destinations with most of the slaves dead and many of the crew soon to follow.
He said, "Near enough, Mr. Martin." He sounded clipped and, to those who did not know him, without emotion.
Both watches were standing-to, some staring at the deserted brig as if it had harboured some kind of destructive force. A ghost-ship returned to avenge some past horror.
Several faces turned aft as Adam called, "I want volunteers to crew the gig."
He watched the mixed expressions: fearful, hostile, some filled with an overriding dread.
Nobody moved as he continued, "She is one of us, as was the Thruster. Orcadia is a victim of war as much as any who fall to the enemy's iron. I have to know if anybody is left alive." He saw McKillop the surgeon give a brief shake of his head. It only added to his sense of hopelessness, and his own profound foreboding.
"Orcadia was sailing with despatches for the squadron. They must be vital or my unc... or Sir Richard would not have spared her. Her captain was a friend to all of us. Must this suffering be for nothing?"
His coxswain George Starr said bluntly, "I won't leave you, sir."
Another shouted, "Put me down!" It was Tom Richie,
Eaglet's boatswain, who had changed sides despite the risk to himself.
Adam said coolly, "Still with us, Richie?"
A seaman whose name he could not remember banged his big hands together and even managed to grin. "Never volunteer, they said! Look where it got me!"
Nervously, defiantly, one by one they came aft until Starr whispered, "Full crew, sir."
Adam turned as Dunwoody said, "I'll come, sir." He lifted his chin but it made him appear even younger.
Adam said gently, "No. Stay with the first lieutenant. He'll need your loyalty."
He looked over to Martin. "Still want a command, Aubrey?" He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes.
My ship. My lovely Anemone... and I am leaving you.
He watched the gig being lowered and brought alongside under the frigate's lee.
Several men gasped at the sound of a single shot. Others flung their heads up as if expecting to see a hold punched in the reefed topsails.
Adam remarked to no one in particular, "Yes, I think I would end it like that." He touched the pistol in his belt, wondering how it would be.
Starr called, "Ready, sir!"
Adam left the quarterdeck and walked to the port. He stopped as some sailors reached out to touch him. As if they were seeing him for the last time.
"Good luck, sir!"
"Watch out if they tries to board you, sir!" That from an older seaman, who could judge the real danger of close contact. He had made Orcadia seem like one of the enemy in just a few simple words.
"Out oars, shove off forrard! Give way all!"
Adam thought of Allday as the boat turned away and came under command. There was another shot, and the stroke was momentarily lost as one of the oarsmen peered nervously over his shoulder.
But the man Richie called between pulls, "They tells me you're a pretty good shot with a pistol, Cap'n?"
Adam looked at him. Glad he had thrown the cutlass, the evidence, into the sea. It felt like a thousand years ago.
He said, "When provoked!"
Then he gripped Starr's sleeve. "Under her stern, but don't stand in too close. We could be dragged against her rudder by the undertow." All the while he had the feeling that Anemone was close by, watching their progress, and when he turned in the stern sheets he was shocked to see that when she dipped into a deep trough she appeared to be a great distance away, the sea rising to her gun ports as if to swallow her.
He took a speaking trumpet. "Orcadia, ahoy! This is Captain Bolitho of the Anemone. He felt sick as he cried out, as if he were betraying them by offering hope when there was none.
Starr muttered, "No use, sir. You done your best."
"Round again." He did not even try to conceal his distress. Then we'll go back."
He saw two of the oarsmen glance uneasily at one another. The fire of volunteering was sifting away. His words had given them the relief they needed.
Starr thrust over the tiller bar, then exclaimed, "Look, sir! In the cabin!"
The gig rose and fell in deep, nauseating swoops, the oars barely able to keep steerage way.
But Adam forgot the danger as he stared at the open stern window. The cabin was probably a twin of the one in his first command, the fourteen-gun Firefly.
There was someone there, a shadow more than any human form, and Adam felt something like fear as it moved very slowly towards the salt-caked glass. Whoever it was, he must have heard his voice through the speaking trumpet, and the sound had penetrated the mists of agony and disgust enough to rouse him to consciousness.
Adam knew it was Jenour without understanding why he did. Dying even as he sheltered there, dying as his little brig had battled on while men dropped until the last helmsman abandoned the wheel. Some must have tried to get away in the capsized boat: there may even have been a last attempt to restore order when it was already too late.
A seaman gasped, "A bag, sir!" His eyes were almost starting from his head as he stared at the small leather satchel suddenly dangling from the cabin.
It must have taken all his strength: maybe his last, and if it fell now it would be lost forever.
"Hold on, Starr!"
Adam clambered forward over the looms, gripping a shoulder here and there to prevent hims
elf from being hurled outboard. He could feel their fear at even so brief a contact.
As he reached the bows he seized the bag and tugged it over the gunwale.
"Back water! Together!" Starr was watching the bag, the brig's counter rising over the boat ready to smash it to fragments in the next trough. He thought afterwards that it was fortunate the boat's crew had their backs to the stricken vessel. Whoever it was must have tied the bag to his wrist, and the force of Adam's grip on the line had dragged him almost over the sill.
Alexander Kent - Bolitho 20 Darkening Sea Page 29
