Authors: Alexander Kent
She watched him tear off his clothes and touched the scar on his shoulder, remembering that too, and the fever she had held at bay.
She said huskily, “I don't care about
afterward,
Richard.”
He saw her looking at him as his shadow covered her like a cloak. She said something like âIt's been so longâ” Then she arched her body and gave a sharp cry as he entered her, her fingers pulling at him, dragging him closer and deeper until they were one.
Later, as they lay spent in each other's arms and watched the smoke standing up from the guttering candles, she said softly, “You needed love.
My
love.” He held her against him as she added, “Who cares about the tomorrows.”
He spoke into her hair. “We shall make them ours too.”
Down on the jetty Allday seated himself comfortably on a stone bollard and began to fill his new pipe with tobacco. He had sent the barge back to the ship.
Bolitho would not be needing it for a bit yet, he thought. The tobacco was rich, well dampened with rum for good measure. Allday had dismissed the barge but found that he wanted to remain ashore himself.
Just in case.
He put down a stone bottle of rum on the jetty and puffed contentedly on his new clay.
Perhaps there was a God in Heaven after all. He glanced towards the darkened house with the white walls.
Only God knew how this little lot might end, but for the present, and that was all any poor Jack could hope for, things were looking better for Our Dick. He grinned and reached down for the bottle.
An' that's no error.
G
IBRALTAR 1805
11 THE
L
ETTER
H
IS
B
RITANNIC
Majesty's Ship
Hyperion
heeled only very slightly as she changed tack yet again, her tapering jib boom pointing almost due east.
Bolitho stood by the quarterdeck nettings and watched the great looming slab of Gibraltar rise above the larboard bow, misty-blue in the afternoon glare. It was mid-April.
Men moved purposefully about the decks, the lieutenants checking the set of each sail, conscious perhaps of this spectacular landfall. They had not touched land for six weeks, not since the squadron had quit English Harbour for the last time.
Bolitho took a telescope from the rack and trained it on the Rock. If the Spaniards ever succeeded in retaking this natural fortress, they could close the Mediterranean with the ease of slamming a giant door.
He focused the glass on the litter of shipping which seemed to rest at the foot of the Rock itself. More like a cluster of fallen moths than ships-of-war. It was only then that a newcomer could realise the size of it, the distance it still stood away from the slow-moving squadron.
He looked abeam. They were sailing as close as was prudently safe to the coast of Spain. Sunlight made diamond-bright reflections through the haze. He could imagine just how many telescopes were causing them as unseen eyes watched the small procession of ships.
Where bound? For what purpose?
Riders would be carrying intelligence to senior officers and lookout stations. The Dons could study the comings and goings with ease here at the narrowest part of the Strait of Gibraltar.
As if to give weight to his thoughts he heard Parris say to one of the midshipmen on the quarterdeck, “Take a good look, Mr Blessed. Yonder lies the enemy.”
Bolitho tucked his hands behind him and thought over the past four months, since his new squadron had finally assembled at Antigua. Since Catherine had taken passage for England. The parting had been harder than he had expected, and still hurt like a raw wound.
She had sent one letter in that time. A warm, passionate letter, part of herself.
He was not to worry. They would meet again soon. There must be no scandal.
She was, as usual, thinking of him.
Bolitho had written back, and had also sent a letter to Belinda. The secret would soon be out, if not already; it was right if not honourable that she should hear it from him.
He moved across the quarterdeck and saw the helmsmen drop their eyes as his glance passed over them. He climbed a poop ladder and raised the glass again to study the ships which followed astern. It had kept his mind busy enough while the squadron had worked up together, had got used to one another's ways and peculiarities. There were four ships of the line, all third-rates which to an ignorant landsman would look exactly like
Hyperion
in the van. Apart from
Obdurate,
the others had been new to Bolitho's standards, but watching them now he could feel pride instead of impatience.
Holding up to windward in the gentle north-westerly breeze he saw the little sloop-of-war
Phaedra,
sailing as near as she dared to the Spanish coast, Dunstan hoping possibly for a careless enemy trader to run under his guns.
Perhaps the most welcome addition was the thirty-six gun frigate
Tybalt,
which had arrived from England only just in time to join the squadron. She was commanded by a fiery Scot named Andrew McKee, who was more used to working independently. Bolitho understood the feeling even if he could not condone it. The life of any frigate captain was perhaps the most remote and monastic of all. In a crowded ship he remained alone beyond his cabin bulkhead, dining only occasionally with his officers, completely cut off from other ships and even the men he commanded. Bolitho smiled. Until now.
They had achieved little more in the Caribbean. A few indecisive attacks on enemy shipping and harbours, but after the reckless cutting-out of the treasure-ship from La Guaira all else seemed an anti-climax. As Glassport had said when the squadron had set sail for Gibraltar.
After that, life would never be the same.
In more ways than one, Bolitho thought grimly.
It had been a strange feeling to quit Antigua. He had the lurking belief that he would never see the islands again. The Islands of Death, as the luckless army garrisons called them. Even
Hyperion
had not been immune from fever. Three seamen employed ashore had been taken ill, and had died with the dis-belief of animals at slaughter.
He stepped from the ladder as Haven crossed the deck to speak with Penhaligon the master.
The latter remarked confidently, “The wind stands fair, sir. We shall anchor at eight bells.”
Haven kept very much to himself, and apart from a few fits of almost insane anger, seemed content to leave matters to Parris. It was a tense and wary relationship, which must affect the whole wardroom. And yet the orders when they came by courier brig had been welcome. The storm was still brewing over Europe, with the antagonists watching and waiting for a campaign, even a single battle which might tip the balance.
The captured frigate
Consort,
renamed
Intrépido,
had slipped out of port unseen and unchecked. It was said that she too had left for Spain, to add her weight to His Catholic Majesty's considerable navy. She would be a boost to public morale as well. A prize snatched from the English, who were as ever desperate for more frigates.
Bolitho stared at the towering Rock.
Gibraltar for orders.
How many times had he read those words? He looked along the busy maindeck, the hands trimming the yards, or squinting up at the restless sails. It had been in Gibraltar that he had first met with
Hyperion,
when this endless war had barely begun. Did ships wonder about their fates? He saw Allday lounging by the boat tier, his hat tilted down to shade his eyes from the hard glare. He would be remembering too. Bolitho saw the coxswain put one hand to his chest and grimace, then glance suspiciously around to make sure nobody had noticed. He was always in pain, but would never rest. Thinking about his son, of the girl at the Falmouth inn; of the last battle, or the next one.
Allday turned and looked up at the quarterdeck. Just a brief glance of recognition, as if he knew what Bolitho was thinking.
Like that dawn when he had gone to the jetty after leaving Catherine.
Allday had been there, had put his fingers to his mouth to give his piercing whistle which dismissed any boatswain's call to shame, to summon a boat.
When he had last seen Catherine he had argued with her, tried to persuade her to move away from London until they could face the storm together. She had been adamant. She intended to see Somervell, to tell him the truth.
Our love must triumph.
When Bolitho had voiced his fears for her safety she had given the bubbling, uninhibited laugh he remembered so well. “There has been no love between us, Richard. Not as you thought it was. I wanted a marriage for security, Lacey needed my strength, my backing.”
It still hurt to hear her use his name.
He could see her now, on that last evening before she had sailed. Those compelling eyes and high cheekbones, her incredible confidence.
He heard Jenour's footsteps on the worn planking. Ready to convey his orders to the other captains.
Bolitho saw a brig riding untidily on the blue water, her yards alive with flags as she conveyed news of the squadron to the Rock fortress. There might even be word from Catherine. He had reread her only letter until he knew each line perfectly.
Such a striking, vibrant woman. Somervell must be mad not to fight for her love.
One night when they had been lying together, watching the moonlight through the shutters, she had told him something of her past. He already knew about her first marriage to an English soldier-of-fortune who had died in a brawl in Spain before the Franco-Spanish Alliance. She had been just a young girl at the time, who had been raised in London,
a part you would not dare to believe, dear Richard!
She had laughed, and nuzzled his shoulder, but he had heard the sadness too. Before that she had been on the stage. When she was fourteen. A long hard journey to become the wife of the Inspector General. Then there had been Luis Pareja, who had been killed after Bolitho had taken their ship as a prize, then defended it against Barbary pirates.
Pareja had been twice her age, but she had cared for him deeply; for his gentle kindness above all, something which until then had been denied her.
Pareja had provided for her well, although she had had no idea that she owned anything but some jewellery she had been wearing aboard that ship when Bolitho had burst into her life.
Their first confrontation had been one of fire. She had spat out her bitter despair and hate. It was still hard to fathom when all that had changed to an equally fiery love.
He took the telescope again and trained it on the brig.
Catherine had missed the sight she had sworn to witness. Almost the last thing Bolitho had seen when
Hyperion
left English Harbour had been a line of grisly gibbets, their sun-blackened remains left as a reminder and a warning to other would-be pirates.
He saw Parris standing forward along the starboard gangway, to make sure that when they anchored nobody ashore would find even the smallest fault in the manoeuvre.
Parris had taken a working party ashore at Antigua to move Catherine's trunks aboard the packet-ship.
Catherine had slipped her hand through Bolitho's arm while they had watched the sailors carrying the boxes towards the jetty.
She had said, “I don't like that man.”
Bolitho had been surprised. “He's a good officer, brave too. What don't you like about him?”
She had shrugged, eager to change the subject. “He gives me the shivers.”
Bolitho glanced again at the first lieutenant. How simply he could raise a grin from a seaman, or the obvious awe of a midshipman. Maybe he reminded her of someone in her past? It would be easy to picture Parris as a soldier-of-fortune.
Jenour remarked, “My first time here, Sir Richard.”
Bolitho nodded. “I've been glad enough to see the Rock once or twice after a rough passage.”
Captain Haven called, “Stand by to alter course two points to larboard!”
Bolitho watched his shoulders and wondered. Or had
Catherine recognised in Parris what Haven obviously believed?
Bolitho took out his watch as the seamen hurried to the braces and halliards.
“General signal.
Tack in succession.
”
The waiting midshipmen bustled amongst a mass of bunting, while their men bent on each flag with the speed of light.
“All acknowledged, sir!”
Haven glowered. “About time, dammit!”
Jenour said carefully, “I was wondering about our orders, Sir Richard?”
Bolitho smiled. “You are not alone. North to Biscay and the damned blockade of Brest and Lorient. Or join Lord Nelson? The dice can fall either way.”
Bolitho shaded his eyes to watch the other ships shortening sail in preparation for the last leg to the anchorage.
Astern of
Obdurate
was another veteran,
Crusader.
Twenty-five years old, and like most third-rates she had tasted the fire of battle many times. Bolitho had seen her at Toulon and in the West Indies, seeking French landings in Ireland, or standing in the blazing line at the Nile.
Redoubtable
and
Capricious
completed the squadron, the latter being commanded by Captain William Merrye, whose grandfather had once been an infamous smuggler; or so the story had it. Seventy-fours were the backbone of the fleet, any fleet. Bolitho glanced up at his flag at the fore. It looked right and proper there.
Then the drawn-out ceremony of gun-salutes to the Rock, repeated and acknowledged until the anchorage was partly hidden by smoke, the echoes sighing across to Algeciras like an added insult.
Bolitho saw the guardboat with its huge flag and motionless oars. Marking where they should drop anchor. He thought suddenly of the Spanish boat at La Guaira, smashed apart under the schooner's stem.
“Anchor!”
They must make a fine, if familiar, sight to the people on the shore, Bolitho thought.
Leviathans turning into the gentle wind, with all canvas clewed up but for topsails and jibs.
“Tops'l clew lines!
Start that man!
Lively there!”
“Helm a-lee!”
Bolitho clenched his fists as Parris's arm fell.
“Let go!”
The great anchor threw up a pale waterspout, while high overhead the topsails vanished against their yards as if to a single hand.
Bolitho looked quickly at the other ships, swinging now to their cables, each captain determined to hold a perfect bearing on his vice-admiral.