Man of War

by Alexander Kent

  Perhaps if he had not remained for an extra day in London, it would not have happened. He was angry just thinking about it. Athena’s punishment book told its own story: too many punishments awarded for the most trivial reasons. Two dozen for skylarking on deck after being reprimanded by a warrant officer. Drunk and disorderly when sharing hoarded rum for somebody’s birthday or a rare promotion, three dozen lashes.

  The last captain, Ritchie, had apparently never questioned the cause, rather than the actual deed. Three years in command, but he’d left no impression, no example others could copy or avoid. And now he was under arrest, awaiting a court martial. With his quarters emptied and repainted, it was as if he’d never been aboard.

  He looked up at the starboard gangway and saw some seamen busy splicing, new hands who’d volunteered to one of the recruiting parties. Almost unheard of a year ago.

  Stirling said, “You have not forgotten the man for punishment, sir?”

  Adam saw the stroke oarsman’s eyes flicker quickly between them even as he laid back on his loom. Ready gossip for the mess-deck.

  The captain didn’t give a damn!

  Adam nodded toward the new hands as they passed abeam.

  “I hope they won’t, either, Mr Stirling.”

  A few faces had already made their mark, but the majority were still strangers.

  Athena would be putting into Plymouth. He had confronted that. But he knew he had not accepted it.

  He had told Lowenna as much as he could. The ship was under confidential orders, but her going to Plymouth had been in the Times for all to see. Troubridge had found him a copy to show him the item about Sir Gregory Montagu.

  Adam had tried to make her accept his aunt’s open invitation, and her friendship, and go to Cornwall, and wait there until he could visit her. He felt the familiar despair. And why should she? Athena might be away for months. Years, if Their Lordships thought it necessary, or prudent.

  In the end they had been together for less than an hour, at the house where she had friends, in a part of London called Whitechapel. A house which was owned by the most formidable woman he had ever seen. And she was quite adamant.

  “You’ll stay where you are, Lieutenant, or whatever post you hold, and you will behave yourself.” She had stood with her brawny arms folded. “Or I shall know the reason, sir!”

  He had embraced Lowenna, while Troubridge and Jago had carried in her few pieces of baggage.

  Then she had followed him to the door and had gripped his hands in hers.

  “Take your cloak, Adam.”

  She had watched him while he released her hands to unfasten the cloak.

  “I love you, Lowenna. I have got to see you. To tell you, to share . . .” He got no further.

  She had smiled, but he had seen that she was trembling, and not because he had removed the cloak.

  She had touched his lips, with fingers like ice.

  “I want to love you.” She had stepped back into the hall light, and raised one hand to her own lips. She might have said something more, but the door was shut, the others already in the coach.

  “Man the side! Cap’n comin’ aboard!”

  Stirling was on his feet, his hat doffed as Adam began to climb. The boat’s crew, oars tossed, stared fixedly astern, the water running down the looms and over their legs.

  Adam glanced down at the midshipman. Vicary. That was his name.

  Even if she visited Nancy, he might not see her. Vice-Admiral Bethune was hoisting his flag in Plymouth. Because it was convenient? Or was there another, private reason? Troubridge did not know, or would not say. Adam remembered his voice. You can trust me. And the sound of his pistol being cocked in that terrible room. He knew Troubridge better than that now.

  The calls shrilled, and a lieutenant stepped forward to greet him. Stirling was climbing up behind him, treading heavily as he raised his hat to the quarterdeck, and the flag.

  Their eyes met. Strangers.

  “Very well, Mr Stirling. Pipe all hands.”

  He walked to the hammock nettings and looked across at the other ships lying nearby.

  Plymouth. They might see Unrivalled, if . . .

  He swung round and faced the keen breeze as the boatswain’s mates ran between decks, their Spithead Nightingales reaching out like extensions of the figure by the nettings.

  “All hands! All hands lay aft to witness punishment!”

  He watched the seamen scrambling through hatchways and clawing down from their work high above the decks.

  The master-at-arms, Scollay, his mates and the ship’s corporal, the boatswain Henry Mudge, with the hated red baize bag which contained the “cat,” and the prisoner, a young seaman named Hudson. Lastly, George Crawford the surgeon.

  There was silence, and Adam looked steadily at the crowded figures and faces, all waiting for him to read the words of his authority. His power. He saw a solitary gull circling around the Union flag, the spirit of some old Jack. He cleared his throat and began to read.

  Once he paused as the shadow of a sail passed swiftly across the quarterdeck, a lugger loaded with casks of salted beef or pork making its way to another anchored two-decker. Some of the lugger’s seamen were staring at Athena’s crowded upper-deck, understanding exactly what was happening. Getting a checkered shirt at the gangway, as the old hands called it.

  What would Lowenna think of him if she could see him now?

  He closed the book with a snap. This was not a dream. This was now.

  “Bosun’s mate!” Like hearing someone else. “Do your duty!”

  Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune put his signature on the last document and leaned back in the unfamiliar chair, looking around the room, which had been borrowed for the occasion.

  He had been excited about this moment ever since the First Lord had proposed him for the West Indies appointment: a challenge, perhaps a risk, but going ahead, not remaining in the same post, waiting for the inevitable like so many of his colleagues here. There was always a last time for everything, and he was surprised at the sentiment which had prevented him from even looking into his old office at the other end of this floor. Surprised or guilty?

  He had already said his farewells to those he had grown close to; it was an awkward experience, like leaving a ship. And tonight it would be worse, at his own house on the outskirts of London. Some senior officers, even the First Lord, would be coming to pay their respects, offer their good wishes, perhaps glad they were remaining under the Admiralty’s protection in these difficult times.

  He heard voices in the corridor, boxes being moved. His boxes. Even the sounds were different here. His new flag-lieutenant, Francis Troubridge, would be dealing with the last rites of office. Very young, but already proving himself extremely capable. He half smiled. And discreet.

  He found himself at a window although he didn’t recall leaving the chair. April was just a few days old. Like that other April, three years ago; could it be so long? Since the telegraph on the Admiralty roof had received the signal, the incredible news that Napoleon had surrendered and abdicated. The endless war had been over, or so they had thought.

  This same carriageway had been alive with cheering and gaiety within the hour. Boys who had grown into men, or served with Nelson aboard Victory at Trafalgar, had brought about the impossible dream.

  He watched the traffic and the groups of people, the occasional splash of colour from a passing uniform. The dream was over.

  Bethune was not politically involved, but he could not help but be aware of the shortages and rising prices. Half the national income went on paying the war debt. The men who had saved their country from tyranny were coming home to unemployment, even poverty.

  He thought of his wife. She would be in her element tonight, flattering the guests, and always in charge. How did she feel about his going back to sea at this stage of his service? One of the youngest flag-officers on the Navy List. Or had been.

  “You don’t need to go, Graham. But if you mus
t, then I suppose you must.”

  Was that all it meant to her?

  The elderly clerk was gathering up the papers. Bethune knew him better than some of tonight’s guests.

  Bent over, with watery eyes, soon due for retirement. Oblivion. Hard to believe he’d served aboard Black Dick Howe’s Queen Charlotte at that great victory still called “The Glorious First of June.”

  He paused now, and said, “I’ll lock up after you leave, Sir Graham.”

  Bethune had never seen him at a loss before; it surprised him, and he was moved by it. Vice-Admiral of the Blue. Successful and safe, no matter what happened after this.

  The door opened. It was Tolan, his servant.

  “The carriage is here, Sir Graham. All stowed.” He must have sensed the atmosphere, the uncertainty between admiral and clerk. “Mr Troubridge has gone on ahead.”

  “Yes. I told him not to wait.” Tolan had been his servant, afloat and ashore, for as long as he could recall, and would be with him aboard Athena.

  When he looked again, the clerk had vanished. Another ghost.

  Bethune picked up the letter from the table. Perhaps this was the true moment of decision. He had made several attempts to write it, on Admiralty paper, so that it would not appear unseemly or too personal. In his old office it might have been easier. Where she had visited him, “up the back stairs”; they had joked about it. He had pretended, not wanting to shatter a friendship which had existed even then, in his own heart, anyway.

  Lady Catherine Somervell. Always so easy to see in his thoughts. Her smile, the touch of hands. His fury and despair when she had almost been raped in that little house at Chelsea. He had walked past it several times, or driven by, knowing it was impossible, dangerous too, for his own security and future in the only life he wanted or understood.

  Their last arranged meeting was always there, fixed in his mind. How she had called out to him, her eyes flashing with contempt as she had walked away from him toward her carriage.

  “Are you in love with me, Graham?”

  He could not remember his answer, shocked by the directness of the question. But he could still hear her response, her dismissal.

  “Then you are a fool!”

  It was madness, but he had thought of little else. As if it had given purpose and drive to the immediate future. Madness . . .

  And yet when it came to him, he had not hesitated. No doubts.

  My dear Catherine . . .

  Regrets might come later.

  “See to this, Tolan.”

  Tolan took the letter and placed it in his pocket. Their eyes met only briefly.

  “Good as done, Sir Graham.”

  Together they walked out into the corridor. Mercifully, it was deserted, and unusually still. As if the whole building was holding its breath, listening.

  Bethune was suddenly glad to be leaving.

  Lieutenant Francis Troubridge jumped lightly from the carriage and peered up at the house. In broad daylight it was not what he had expected or remembered from that one visit with Captain Bolitho and his lovely companion.

  He felt the coachman’s eyes on him. A mere lieutenant, admiral’s aide or not, did not, apparently, warrant the courtesy or effort of climbing down to open the carriage door. Or anything else.

  Troubridge looked around at the other houses, all of which appeared to join or overlap, fronting a square, somehow apart from the crowded streets he had watched on his journey here.

  Whitechapel was very different from what he had come to think of as his London. Thriving markets, streets alive with carriers’ carts or hawkers pushing their barrows, bawling out their wares and swapping jokes with housemaids and passersby. You could still hear them in this quiet square, and see the church tower which the coachman had used like a beacon to steer himself through the bustle and noise.

  “Be long, sir?”

  Strange to think that after today there would be no more free Admiralty transport, coachmen who were used to taking senior officers and their aides to such outlandish places as Whitechapel.

  “As long as it takes. Wait here.” He gazed up at him. “Please.”

  Troubridge was twenty-four years old, but already experienced enough to appreciate that but for his father’s reputation and influence he would never have been offered the post of flag-lieutenant. Bethune had wanted to rid himself of his previous aide, related in some way to Lady Bethune. He smiled. That had clinched it.

  If he had left the Admiralty a few moments sooner he might have missed being passed the sealed note. Tolan, Bethune’s servant, had somehow intercepted it. Protecting his master, or making a new ally; it was not easy to tell with Tolan.

  He faced the front door and examined his feelings. A ruse, or some kind of trap? He thought of the moment when Captain Bolitho had burst into the room with its mirrors and burning lights. The woman with the heavy candlestick in her hand, the sprawled, whimpering figure lying amongst the shattered glass. The bared skin where her gown had been torn from her shoulder. The captain’s face when he had taken her into his arms. And the cocked pistol in my hand. Was that really me?

  He almost jumped as the knocker echoed throughout the house. He had used it without knowing, without hesitation.

  He could recall catching a glimpse of a fearsome woman, who had confronted them at this same door. Even the captain’s cox-swain had been impressed.

  But it was a small, pale-faced maid who opened the door now.

  “Who shall I say?” A local girl. He heard the same accent on the streets, and in some of the houses where he had left senior officers to enjoy themselves.

  “Troubridge. I have come to . . .”

  He got no further. The small person even executed a hasty curtsey.

  “You are expected, sir!” She smiled, and it made her look younger still. “This way, if you please.”

  It was a room apparently on the other side of the house; there were windows from floor to ceiling, with some sort of garden beyond. Not normally in use. He took it in quickly, the easel with what he thought was a canvas cover, what looked like a page of scribbled notes pinned to it. A dying fire in the grate, and chests lying in a corner with some of the baggage they had brought from Southwark, still packed.

  The strangest thing of all was a harp, standing by an upturned stool. It was badly burned, blackened by smoke, and most of its strings were broken.

  He heard the door close behind him. It was hard to imagine the noise of a few minutes ago; the house was very quiet, so still that he flinched as a dying log collapsed in the grate.

  She had written to him. He was surprised she could remember his name; there had been no time. And yet . . .

  He walked to the easel and lifted the cover. As if someone had burned away one side of the canvas, the wooden frame split and blackened. Like the harp.

  But the painting itself was otherwise intact, or perhaps it had been carefully cleaned. He moved slightly to allow the filtered sunlight to bring it to life.

  The lovely girl, head flung back, her face filled with terror and the pain of the chains which held her against the overhanging rock. Her taut breasts and naked limbs almost touching the sea and leaping spray, where the shadow of some monster merged with the charred canvas.

  No wonder the captain was in love with her. Who wouldn’t be?

  He covered the painting. Lowenna. She had signed her note simply that. He moved away from the easel, unnerved in some way, as if he had stumbled on somebody’s secret. Like an intrusion. A breach of trust.

  “I am glad that you could come, Lieutenant.”

  He swung round and saw her watching him from that same door.

  She was dressed from throat to toe in a loose blue-grey gown; when she moved it seemed to swirl around her, and she seemed insubstantial, unreachable. He noticed that her feet were bare on the thick rug, despite the coldness of the room. When she turned to glance at the ashes in the grate he saw her hair as if for the first time, falling to her waist, shining like glass i
n the April light. Like the hair in the painting, across the straining shoulders and bared breasts.

  He heard himself exclaim, “Andromeda!” and could feel himself flushing. “I do beg your pardon. You see . . .”

  She smiled, and reached out to take his hand, all tension gone.

  “You saw the painting, Lieutenant? You are full of surprises!”

  He said, “My father is an admiral, but his brother chose the Church. My education, such as it was, bordered on the classical!”

  He found it easy to laugh at the absurdity of his explanation, and his own confusion. He tried again. “I came as soon as I was able.”

  She looked at her hand on his. Surprised? No, deeper than that.

  She said, “I had a letter from Captain Bolitho.” Her chin lifted slightly. Defiance, a challenge. “From . . . Adam. I should have been brave, sensible. Or tried to explain.” She moved away, her hand lifting as if to pluck one of the twisted harp strings.

  Then she faced him. “His ship has left Portsmouth?”

  Troubridge nodded, and found his lips were bone-dry; he wanted to lick them.

  “Athena will arrive at Plymouth tomorrow, according to the telegraph.” He knew she did not understand, or perhaps want to, and hurried on. “Sir Graham Bethune will hoist his flag in ten days’ time, the roads permitting.” It was a little attempt to bring back her smile. It failed.

  She said, “I may not see him again. He could be away for a long time. He will forget . . .”

  Troubridge had scant experience of women, and none with someone like this. But he knew she was going over and over the same arguments, fears even, which had caused her to send him the message. Before he could reply she said almost abruptly, “Your captain is a man of war,” and shook her head, so that some of the hair spilled unheeded across her arm. “At war with himself too, I think!”

  He saw her hand on his cuff, gripping his wrist, as if it and not she were pleading.

  “Now there is so little time.” Her eyes were dry, but her voice was full of tears. “I wanted to tell him so much. So that he would not be hurt, not be damaged because of me.”

  Troubridge put his hand reassuringly on hers and felt her stiffen immediately. Was that what had happened? Like the man on the studio floor, or others before that? He recalled Adam Bolitho’s face. He would have killed for her. He tried not to look at the baggage, the unopened boxes. She was Sir Gregory Montagu’s ward, or had been. It seemed as if she had no one to watch over her now. Montagu’s property was in the hands of lawyers, leeches, he had heard his father call them. Where would she go? Posing for some so-called artists, like the painting under the cover . . .