Man of War By Alexander Kent

Category Fiction Naval History

Synopsis:

Antigua, 1817, and every harbour and estuary is filled with ghostly

ships, the famous and the legendary now redun7dant in the aftermath of

war.  In this uneasy peace, Adam Bolitho is fortunate to be offered the

seventy-four gun Athena, and as flag captain to Vice-Admiral Sir Graham

Bethune once more follows his destiny to the Caribbean.

But in these haunted waters where Richard Bolitho and his 'band of

brothers' once fought a familiar enemy, the quarry is now a renegade

foe who flies no colours and offers no quarter, and whose traffic in

human life is sanctioned by flawed treaties and men of influence.  And

here, when Athena's guns speak, a day of terrible retribution will dawn

for the innocent and the damned.

Also by Alexander Kent

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

Alexander Kent

William Heinemann: London

First published in the United Kingdom in 2003 by William Heinemann

13579 10 8642 Copyright Bolitho Maritime Productions Limited 2003

Alexander Kent has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and

Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of

trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated

without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover

other than that in which it is published and without a similar

condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent

purchaser

William Heinemann

The Random House Group Limited

20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA

Random House Australia (Pty) Limited

20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney,

New South Wales 2061, Australia

Random House New Zealand Limited 18 Poland Road, Glenfield, Auckland

10, New Zealand

Random House (Pty) Limited Endulini, 5a Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193,

South Africa

The Random House Group Limited Reg.  No.  954009 www.  random

house.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British

Library

Papers used by The Random House Group Limited are natural,

recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests.

The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of

the country of origin

For you, Kim, With all my love.  The Revenge comes out of the squall!

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the

heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a

time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to

heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and

a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance ... A time to

love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

CONTENTS

1. New Horizon 1

2. Their Lordship's Command 16

3. Absent Friends 36

4. The Higher We Climb .. ."  52

5. A Last Resort 69

6. Destiny 85

7. Under the Flag 101

8. Storm Warning 116

9. A Death in the Family 136

10.  Chasing Shadows 150

11.  Trick for Trick 167

12.  Catherine 187

13.  The Only Ally 199

14.  Loyalty or Gratitude?  215

15.  Reaching Out 229

16.  No Drums ... No Quarter 243

17.  The Reckoning 259

New Horizon

Eight bells had chimed out from the forecastle and the lower deck was

cleared while the ship moved steadily, purposefully some would say,

toward the widening span of land, which seemed to reach out on either

bow.  The moment every sailor carried in his thoughts.  The landfall.

This landfall.  Home.

The sails, already reduced to topsails and jibs, were hardly filling,

the tough canvas still shedding moisture like rain from the final,

overnight approach.

Hills and cliffs, at first in shadow and then opening up to the watery

sunshine.  Landmarks, familiar to some of the older hands, the names of

others called down by the masthead lookouts while the land gained shape

and colour, dark green in some places, but the brown of winter still

clinging elsewhere.  For it was early March, 1817, and the air was as

keen as a knife.

Eight days out of Gibraltar, a fair passage when set against the

adverse winds which had challenged every mile as they had skirted the

Bay of Biscay, up and around the well-remembered names of Ushant and

Brest, the enemy coast for so long.  It was still hard to believe that

those days had changed.  As had the life of every man aboard this

graceful, slow-moving frigate, His Britannic Majesty's ship Unrivalled

of forty-six guns, and a complement of two hundred and fifty sailors

and Royal Marines.

Or so it had been when they had left this same port of Plymouth.  Now

there was a sense of contained excitement, and uncertainty.  There were

boys who had become men while the ship had been away.  They would find

a different life waiting upon their return.  And the older ones, like

Joshua Cristie, the sailing master, and Stranace the gunner, would be

thinking of the many ships which had been paid off, hulked, or even

sold to those same enemies from the past.

For this was all they had.  They knew no other life.

The long masthead pendant lifted and held in a sudden flurry of wind.

Partridge, the burly boatswain, as rotund as his namesake, called, "Lee

braces there!  Stand by, lads!"  But even he, whose thick voice had

contested the heaviest gales and crashing broadsides, seemed unwilling

to break the silence.

There were now only shipboard noises, the creak of spars and rigging,

the occasional thud of the tiller head, their constant companions over

the months, the years since Unrivalled'^ keel had first tasted salt

water; that, too, right here in Plymouth.

And nobody alive this day would be more aware of the challenge which

might now be confronting him.

Captain Adam Bolitho stood by the quarterdeck rail and watched the land

edging out in a slow and final embrace.  Buildings, even a church, were

taking shape, and he saw a fishing lugger on a converging tack, a man

climbing into the rigging to wave as the frigate's shadow passed over

him.  How many hundreds of times had he stood in this place?  As many

hours as he had walked the deck, or been called from his cot for some

emergency or other.

Like the last time in Biscay, when a seaman had been lost overboard. It

was nothing new.  A familiar face, a cry in the night, then oblivion.

Perhaps he, too, had been thinking of going home.  Or leaving the ship.

It only took a second; a ship had no forgiveness for carelessness or

that one treacherous lapse of attention.

He shook himself and gripped the scabbard of the old sword beneath his

coat, something else he did without noticing it.  He glanced along his

command, the neat batteries of eighteen-pounders, each muzzle exactly

in line with the gangway above it.  The decks clean and uncluttered,

each unwanted piece of cordage flaked down, while sheets and braces

were loosened in readiness.  The scars of that last savage battle at

Algiers, a lifetime ago or so it felt sometimes, had been carefully

repaired, painted or tarred, hidden except to the eye of the true

sailor.

A block squeaked and without turning his head he knew that the signals

party had hoisted Unrivalled^ number.  Not that many people would need

telling.

It was only then that you remembered.  Roger Cousens had been the

signals midshipman.  Keen, caring, likeable.  Another missing face.  He

felt the northwesterly wind on his cheek, like a cold hand.

A voice said quietly, "Guardboat, sir."  No excitement.  More like two

men exchanging a casual remark in a country lane.

Adam Bolitho took a telescope from another midshipman, his eyes passing

over familiar figures and groups which were like part of himself.  The

helmsmen, three in case of any last second's trick by the wind or tide;

the master, one hand on a chart but his eyes on the land.  A squad of

marines paraded, ready if needed to support the after guard at the

mizzen braces.  The first lieutenant; a boatswain's mate; and two

marine drummer boys who seemed to have grown since they had last seen

Plymouth.

He steadied the glass and saw the guard boat oars tossed, quite

motionless at this distance.  His jaw tightened.  It was what his uncle

had called marking the chart for us.

It was time.

Not too soon, and never too late.  He said, "Hands wear ship, Mr.

Galbraith!"

He could almost feel the first lieutenant's eyes.  Surprise?

Acceptance?  The danger was past.  Formality had taken over.

"Lee braces there!  Hands wear ship!"

"Tops'1 sheets!"  Seamen strained back on braces and halliards.  A

boatswain's mate pushed two extra hands to add their strength as

Unrivalled continued toward her allotted anchorage.

"Helm a-lee!"  The slightest hesitation, and the big double wheel began

to swing over, helmsmen moving like a single body.

Adam Bolitho shaded his eyes as the sunlight lanced between the shrouds

and flapping canvas, as the ship, his ship, turned steadily into the

wind.

He saw his coxswain watching across the busy deck, waiting to call away

the gig, ready for the unexpected.

"Let go!"

The great anchor dropped from the cathead, spray bursting up and over

the beautiful figurehead.

After all the miles, the pain and the triumph, for better or worse,

Unrivalled had come home.

Lieutenant Leigh Galbraith looked aloft to make certain that the

excitement of returning to England had not allowed slackness to mar the

sail drill.

Each sail was neatly furled, the masthead pendant curling in the

offshore wind, the ensign streaming above the taffrail, bright against

the land, hoisted to replace a well-worn and ragged one before the dawn

had broken.  Marine sentries were posted to prevent unlawful visitors,

traders, even some of the local whores, coming aboard when they

realized that Unrivalled's company had had little to spend their pay on

over the past months.  And there was talk of slave bounty, and prize

money, too.

He watched the guard boat approaching, an officer standing in the stern

sheets shading his eyes.  Their first contact with authority since

leaving the Rock.  Unrivalled would probably be invaded now by riggers

and carpenters, some of whom might have helped to build her more than

two years ago.

He shivered again.  But it was not the bite of the March wind.

He had seen the ranks of laid-up ships, large and small, as Unrivalled

had tacked slowly toward the anchorage.  Proud ships, famous names.

Some had already been here when they had last left Plymouth for the

Mediterranean and Algiers, eight months ago.

Who would be next?

He confronted it, as a senior officer might examine a subordinate's

chances.  His record was good.  He had taken part in every action at

Algiers and before.  Captain Bolitho had already recommended him for a

command of his own, had put it in writing to the Flag Officer here in

Plymouth before they had sailed.  Suppose there was nothing?  He might

remain first lieutenant for yet another commission, until he was passed

over altogether.

He dismissed it angrily.  He had a ship, and a fine one, more than many

could claim.

He walked to the entry port and touched his hat as the officer of the

guard clambered aboard.

The visitor glanced around the upper deck and said, "Heard all about

it, your part at Algiers!  Lord Exmouth was full of praise in the

GazetteV He handed Galbraith a thick, sealed envelope.  "For the

captain."  He inclined his head toward the shore.  "From the admiral."

He looked over at some of the bustling seamen, disappointed perhaps

that there were no wounded on view, no shot holes in the freshly

painted black and white hull.  "Another boat is coming out to collect

the despatches, and any mail you have to go."

He reached for the guard ropes and added with a grin, "Welcome home, by

the way!"

Galbraith saw him over the side, and the oars were thrashing at the

water almost before he had taken his seat.

Galbraith made his way aft, ducking without thought beneath the

overhanging poop.

Past the wardroom, empty but for a mess man every one else would be on

deck, sharing it.

The marine at the cabin door stamped his foot and bawled, "First

lieutenant, sirV

It was something you never got used to, he thought.  Every Royal Marine

seemed to act as if he were on a parade ground, and not within the

close confines of a ship.

The screen door opened and young Napier, the captain's servant, in his

best blue coat, stood before him.

Galbraith took it all in at a glance.  The great cabin which he had

come to know so well, where they had talked, and shared their thoughts

as much as any captain and first lieutenant could; and it was rare in

many cases he had known.  Times of anxiety and doubt.  And of pride.

Some clothing was scattered across the stern bench, the captain's

patched and faded seagoing gear, while his best frock coat hung swaying

from the skylight.

Bolitho glanced at Galbraith and smiled.  "Is my gig called away?"

Then, half turned, "Here, David, help me with this sleeve a few more

minutes won't matter.  The admiral will know we are anchored."

Galbraith hesitated, and held out the envelope.  "This is from the

admiral, sir."

Bolitho took it and turned it over in sun-browned hands.

"The ink is scarce dry, Leigh."  But the smile had gone, and the cabin

could have been empty as he picked up a knife and slit it open.

Feet pounded overhead and blocks squealed as the boatswain's party made

ready to hoist out the gig.  The required formality of a ship's return

from active service.  Galbraith heard none of it, watching the

captain's fingers curl around the envelope, its broken seal shining

like blood from a sharpshooter's musket.  He said, "Is something wrong,

sir?"

Adam Bolitho turned sharply, his face hidden in shadow.  "I just told

you .."  He checked himself with obvious effort, as Galbraith had seen

many times when they had been coming to know one another.  "Forgive

me."

He looked at Napier.  "Never mind about the sleeve.  They can take me

as they find me."  He touched the boy's shoulder.  "And rest that leg.

Remember what the surgeon told you."

Napier shook his head, but said nothing.

"The ship will be moved.  Repairs and general overhaul .. . as you were

doubtless expecting."  He reached out as if to touch the white-painted

timber, but dropped his hand to his side.  "She can certainly do with

it, after the battering she took at Algiers."  As if he were speaking

to the ship and nobody else.

He brushed against the hanging coat and added, "Tomorrow you will

receive orders from the flag captain.  We can discuss it when I return

aboard."

He stared at the envelope still crumpled in his hand.  He must think

clearly.  Empty his mind, as he had forced himself to do when

everything had seemed finished.  Lost.  Two people he had come to know

so well since he had taken command of Unrivalled, just over two years

ago here in Plymouth: he had been her first captain.  Galbraith,

strong, reliable, concerned.  And the boy David Napier who had almost

died, the great, jagged splinter jutting from his leg like some obscene

weapon. He had been so brave, then and again later under the surgeon's

knife when the wound had become poisoned.  Perhaps like himself at that

age .. .

His hands felt as though they were shaking, and the clamour in his mind

seemed loud enough to fill the cabin.

When he spoke, his voice was very calm.  "I am losing Unrivalled.  I am

being relieved of command."

So quietly said, while that same voice within screamed, It can't be

true!  Not this ship!  Not yet!

Galbraith took a pace toward him, the strong features laid bare with

disbelief and then anger, feeling the hurt like his own.

"It must be wrong, sir.  Some fool of a clerk at the Admiralty!"  He

spread his hands.  "After everything you've done?  Even the officer of

the guard was full of it, all about Lord Exmouth's praise for

Unrivalled in the Gazetted

Adam reached for his coat but Napier was already holding it, troubled,

but still unable to understand what it would mean.  Somehow it helped

to steady him.

"Stay with me, David.  There are things I must do."  He recalled

suddenly what Napier had said when Rear-Admiral Thomas Herrick had

asked him if he took care of his captain.  We take care of each other.

So simply said, yet in this impossible, reeling daze it was something

to cling to.  Little enough.

He said, "Tell the others, Leigh.  I'll speak to them later, perhaps in

here."  His dark eyes flashed, revealing real pain for the first time.

"While I still can."

Galbraith said, "The gig will be alongside, sir."

They paused, and abruptly shook hands.  No words, and beyond thoughts.

The Royal Marine stamped his boots together as they passed him and

walked to the companion ladder; in an hour it would be all over the

ship.  But all the sentry saw was his captain and the first lieutenant,

with the youth in the proud blue coat walking a pace or two behind

them.

Galbraith took a deep breath as the companion opened to the clear,

bright sky, feeling his shirt drag against the wound where a musket

ball had scored his shoulders that day amid the burning madness of

Algiers.  Another inch, maybe less, and he would not be alive now.

He saw the captain turn to nod to somebody on the quarterdeck; he even

smiled.

Another command, maybe.  Something bigger, grander, as a reward for his

actions under Lord Exmouth.  In these times, it seemed unlikely.

Unrivalled was his ship.  They had become one.  We all did.

He recalled the officer of the guard's cheerful words, less than an

hour ago.

Welcome home, by the way!

When he looked again, Bolitho was standing alone by the entry port;

Napier had already gone down into the gig which was waiting alongside,

oars tossed and steady like white bones.

Luke Jago, the captain's coxswain, would be there, vigilant, as

Galbraith had seen even in the midst of a sea fight.  He probably knew

or guessed, the navy's way, the family as the old Jacks termed it.

The marines presented arms, and the calls trilled in salute.

When Galbraith replaced his hat the entry port was empty.  Welcome

home.

The admiral's flag lieutenant was tense, even embarrassed.

"Sir Robert requests that you wait a few moments, Captain Bolitho." His

hand rested on the adjoining door.  "An unexpected visitor .. . you

understand, sir."

Adam walked into the other room, light and spacious, as he remembered

it from previous visits.  When he had been given Unrivalled, fresh from

the builder's yard, the first to carry her name on the Navy List.  And

later, meeting Vice Admiral Valentine Keen, when Keen had held this

command.  And last year, in July, when he had joined Lord Exmouth's

fleet for the inevitable attack on Algiers.  In those eight months so

much had happened, while here in Plymouth there was yet another

admiral, Sir Robert Burch, probably in his last appointment.

The lieutenant was saying, "We all watched you arrive, sir.  It is some

time since I have witnessed such crowds.  Some must have been awake

before dawn."

Adam laid his hat on a chair and walked to a window.  It was not the

flag lieutenant's fault; it rarely was.  He had been one himself.  He

bit his lip.  Under his uncle.  Another world, it seemed now.  And his

uncle..  .

Sir Richard Bolitho had died nearly two years ago, killed on the deck

of his flagship Frobisher, cut down by a single shot.  The memory still

burned as if it were yesterday.

The other man watched his face closely, trying to miss nothing.  The

young frigate captain whose name had appeared in the Gazette so many

times, fighting hand to hand against any foe which had offered itself,

before the war had ended and the sworn enemies had moved into an uneasy

alliance.  How long might it last?  And for what reason?  Perhaps the

battle of Algiers would come to be remembered as the last great battle

under sail.  Lord Exmouth had been a frigate captain, probably the most

famous and successful to emerge from that everlasting war.  He must

have put all doubts aside to break the unwritten rule he had always

followed: never force an action where ships are pitted against sited

shore batteries, and in his case a thousand enemy guns.

But the gamble and the skill had prevailed, and the battle had raged

for most of the day.  Ships had exploded and burned, men had fought to

the death.  He thought of the smartly handled frigate he had watched

only this morning, shining in the early sunlight, and of Lord Exmouth's

words.

/ want you in the van.  The same ship.  He glanced again at the slim

figure by the window, the black hair, the fine, sensitive features. The

same captain.

Adam could feel the scrutiny.  He was used to it.  The frigate captain:

dashing, uncaring, not tied to the fleet's apron strings.  He knew well

enough what they thought.  Imagined.

He opened the window slightly and looked down at a squad of Royal

Marines paraded in the square below.  New recruits from the local

barracks, very stiff and aware of their scarlet uniforms.  A sergeant,

rocking back slightly on his heels, was saying, "You obey orders

without question, seel When the time comes you will be sent to a ship

of the line, or a frigate maybe, like the one that came in this

morning."  He had turned slightly to display the three bright chevrons

on his sleeve.  "But remember this, it's not the Colonel, or even the

adjutant, who will decide."  He lifted his elbow a fraction.  "It will

be me, see?"

Adam closed the window, the cold air still on his lips.

He thought of Corporal Bloxham, who was now a sergeant, a crack shot

even with his "Bess', as he had affectionately called his musket that

day.  When he had fired one shot and had saved his captain's life, and

that of the boy who had lain helpless, his leg pinioned by the

splinter.  Another face he had come to know so well.

The flag lieutenant said quickly, "I think the visitor is leaving,

sir."  They faced each other, and he added, "It has been an honour to

meet you, sir."

Adam heard voices, doors slamming, some one half-running, perhaps to

summon a carriage for the departing visitor.

He picked up his hat.  "I would that it were under better

circumstances."  He thrust out his hand.  "But thank you.  Yours is no

easy role.  I know from experience."

A bell tinkled somewhere, and the flag lieutenant seemed to make up his

mind.

"Unrivalled will be docked, sir.  But the reports have made it very

clear that it will not be a quick overhaul like the last one."

Adam almost smiled.  "The last two?  He touched his arm as they walked

to the door; it reminded him of the court-martial after Anemone had

been sunk.  Prisoner and escort.

"Then I am not being replaced?"

The lieutenant swallowed hard.  He had already gone too far.

He answered, "My late father had a saying, sir, when things seemed

against him.  "Look to a new horizon"."  He flushed as Adam turned to

face him.  He would never forget that expression.

He called, "Captain Adam Bolitho, Sir Robert!"

Adam gripped the old sword and pressed it against his thigh.  The

reminder.  He was not alone.

Luke Jago, the captain's coxswain, walked to the edge of the jetty and

kicked a pebble into the water.  He was restless, unsure of his

feelings and unable to think clearly, which was almost unknown for

him.

He was the captain's right-hand man, trusted by him, a position he had

come to value more than he would ever have believed.  It was sometimes

hard to recall how it had been before that day, the handshake which had

changed everything.  The anger and bitterness were part of another

life. He had been unjustly flogged at the order of a very different

captain; even though an officer had spoken up for him and proved his

innocence, it had been too late to prevent the punishment.  There had

been apologies, but the stripes of the 'cat' would remain on his back

until the day he died.  It was Jago's nature to mistrust officers, and

the younger they were the harder it became to overcome it.  Green young

midshipmen who might listen to his advice, tricks learned after his

years at sea in one kind of ship or another, could suddenly turn and

snap like spoiled puppies when they found their feet.

He shaded his eyes and stared across at the anchored frigate.  His

ship, his home for just over two years.  He should be used to it. There

had been other days like this one.

He had listened to it all the way from Gibraltar.  Hard men and young

hopefuls alike, going home, getting the prize money and slave bounty

they knew was their due.  In the navy it was always dangerous to hope

too much, or take things for granted.  When they had left Plymouth

eight months back, he had seen all the laid-up ships, the hulks, once

the pride of a great fleet.  When Unrivalled had anchored yesterday

they had still been here.

He heard the boy Napier moving restlessly on the pile of baggage they

had brought ashore less than an hour ago.  His portly, round-shouldered

companion was Daniel Yovell, who had volunteered to join the ship as

captain's clerk when he had heard that the previous one had died.  Or

soY ovell had claimed.  Jago knew differently now.  Yovell had been

clerk to Sir Richard Bolitho, then secretary aboard his flagship.  And

his friend, an unlikely one to find in a man-of-war.  Stooped, gentle

and devout, he had been given his own cottage next to the old Bolitho

house in Falmouth where he had helped in estate matters, things Jago

could not begin to guess at.  But something had drawn Yovell back to

the sea, and he had brought with him volunteers when Captain Adam had

been short of trained hands.  Men from Sir Richard's last ship, and

some who had served him earlier during the wars.  Jago kicked another

pebble into the water.  All those bloody enemies who were now supposed

to be treated as allies.

And the boy, Napier, what must he be thinking, he wondered.  Like many

before him, he had been signed into the navy by his mother.  She had

remarried, and was now in America with her new husband, if that was

what he was; Jago knew of plenty such cases.  With the offspring safely

signed on, the interest faded.  Napier was devoted to the captain, and

Bolitho never seemed too busy to explain things to him.  Whatever the

fools on the mess deck believed, there was nobody in a King's ship who

was as lonely as her captain.

Napier said suddenly, "Boat's casting off!"  He sounded tense, anxious.

He was always a serious sort of youth.  Jago, who went where he chose

as the captain's coxswain, had seen life in the great cabin, beyond the

screen doors and the scarlet-coated 'bullock'.  It had made him feel a

part of it.

He heard the distant splash of oars and the familiar creak of looms and

found that he was clenching his fists.  His mouth was very dry.

What about me?  Yovell would go to his cottage.  The boy was staying

with the captain.  He stared at the anchored frigate again.  And

Unrivalled was going into the yard, as he had known she would.  All

those engagements, when she had shuddered and lurched to the enemy's

iron as it had smashed into the hull, often below the waterline.

And that last time at Algiers, when so many had fallen, while the air

quivered to cannon fire and splintering timbers had the fools forgotten

that too?  Or that on this last passage home, the pumps had been going

throughout every watch?

Unrivalled would be paid off.  After that ... It would be decided by

those who had never heard a full broadside, or risked everything just

to hold a mate's hand when his life was being torn from him.

He would collect his pay and his bounty and take some time for himself.

Some company maybe.  A woman if she came his way.  Captain Bolitho

might not get another ship.  He would not need a coxswain.

He was sharply reminded of the captain's face when he had returned from

seeing the port admiral.  He frowned.  That had been yesterday.  Jago

had had the gig at this same jetty, the boat's crew in their smartest

rig, as always.  A ship is always judged by her boats, some one had

once said.  He was right, whoever he was.  And a captain's crew had to

be the best of all.  It was not even Unrivalled's proper gig; that had

been too badly smashed by canister and musket fire to warrant repair.

Like some of her original crew.

It suddenly hit him.  Captain Bolitho had walked down those same stone

stairs.  Millions of sea officers must have come and gone that way, to

promotion, a new ship, to accept orders or face a court-martial.  It

was easy to imagine.  But yesterday the captain had called him aside on

this jetty, to tell him that he was being relieved of his command, and

was awaiting fresh orders.  Not the first lieutenant, or any of the

other officers.  He told me first.

He said abruptly, "How's the leg, David?"

The boy looked at him, surprised by the use of his name.  Like the

captain.

"It's getting better."  He walked carefully to the edge of the jetty,

his eyes on the gig, the same one which had brought them and their kit

ashore.

Yovell was on his feet too, watching Jago, remembering their first

meeting last year, when Jago had suggested that he was too old for a

seagoing job of any kind.  They had become friends since then, although

neither would ever understand the other.  Except today.

Yovell had been there as Captain Adam Bolitho had gone through the

final tasks before departure.  Papers to be signed and witnessed by

Lieutenant Galbraith before he assumed temporary command, probably the

only command he would ever hold, although Yovell knew from the dictated

letters that the captain had never stopped requesting it on Galbraith's

behalf.

He had seen the other side of things when some post had been brought

aboard from a courier brig, letters they might have missed several

times in the Mediterranean.  But not letters he had been expecting,

hoping for.  Like the small scrap of paper he kept in his personal log

book, from the girl he had met on that last visit to Plymouth.

He had never spoken her name.  But Yovell had seen her just once, when

he had been at the old Bolitho house in Falmouth, and a courier had

come with orders for Unrivalled and her captain.  In a little

pony-drawn trap, side by side before she had driven away alone.  He had

seen him kiss his own wrist, where some tears had splashed down.  Like

lovers, he had thought.  Perhaps another dream?

He put his hand on Napier's shoulder and said, "The hardest part."

Who was he speaking to?

He saw the gig turning slowly toward the jetty steps.  At another time

it might have been manned entirely by captains of the fleet or

squadron.  But today, only the abandoned hulks were the spectators.

Jago's lip curled.  "What a crew!"  He almost spat on the cobbles.

"Officers!"

The lieutenants Galbraith, Varlo, and young Bellairs, who had been a

midshipman when Unrivalled had first commissioned.  Luxmore, the

captain of marines, Partridge the boatswain, even Old Blanc the

carpenter.  Midshipmen too, with Deighton at the tiller by the

captain's shoulder.

The bowman, another midshipman, shipped his oar and scrambled into the

bows with his boat hook but almost pitched headlong.

"Toss your oars!"

In the sudden silence there was cheering, unbroken but faint in the

cold offshore breeze.

Yovell felt the boy's shoulder shiver under his hand.  He was an

imaginative youth; perhaps he was thinking the same.  That the cheers

might have come from those listless, empty ships.

Captain Adam Bolitho stood up carefully and waited for the gig to come

fast against the stairs.

He heard and saw none of it.  It was like a confused dream, and yet

each phase stood out as a separate picture.  Handshakes, faces

thrusting through a mist to speak, to call something, a fist reaching

out as he had found his way to the entry port.  Even the shrill of

calls had sounded different, as if he were an onlooker, somewhere

else.

If he had given in ... He gripped his sword more tightly.  He had seen

it happen to others, and it had happened to him.

He glanced through the tossed oars and saw the ship.  His ship.

The cheering did not stop.  All those faces.  But this was not the

moment.  Turn away.  Do not look back.  How it was.  Had to be in the

navy, if you wanted to survive.  And now emotion was the greatest

enemy.

He stepped on to the jetty.  Nobody spoke.  The boat cast off.

Never look back.  But he did, then he raised his hat, not soon enough

to shield his eyes from the hard glare.  They were smarting anyway.  Do

not look back.  He should have known.

Jago was here.  "You decided then, Luke?"

Jago watched him impassively, then thrust out his hand.  "Like before,

eh, Cap'n?"

Adam nodded to the others.  The carriage would be here from Falmouth;

the admiral had made the arrangements, barely able to conceal his

relief that their brief meeting was over.

He looked again, but the gig was hidden by the jetty wall.  Tonight

Galbraith would sit in the great cabin and drink alone.

In the same breath, he knew he would not.

He looked at Napier and was moved by his obvious distress.

He gripped his shoulder.  "Get some hands to carry our gear, eh?"

He saw Yovell half lift one hand, as he usually did when he wanted to

remind him of something.

He shook Napier's shoulder and said, "I had not forgotten."

Had he really expected that the lovely girl called Lowenna would

somehow be here to see the ship come to anchor, as she had watched them

leave?  After all the months, and the news of the battles, had he still

believed in miracles?

He realized that Napier was looking at him, and had asked him

something.  He tried again, but all he could hear were the flag

lieutenant's words.

He said quietly, "We must look to a new horizon together."  They began

to climb the stairs.  Jago waited until some seamen ran down to collect

the baggage and the captain's sea-chest.  Only then did he turn his

back on the sea.  And the ship.

2 Their Lordship's Command

Nancy, Lady Roxby, stood very still by the open door of the study,

wanting to go to him, but afraid to move or touch him.

She had forgotten how long it had been since the coach had rattled

around the drive, the horses steaming after their journey from

Plymouth.  Now the coach stood as if abandoned in the stable yard, the

horses gone to the comfort of their stalls.  It was raining, the sky

beyond the familiar line of bare trees dull and threatening.  And yet

her nephew was still wearing his coat, the shoulders black with rain,

his boots muddy.  He was even still holding his hat, as if he were

unprepared to stay, to accept what had happened.

She waited while he strode to the portrait, which was hanging in its

new place by the window opposite the broad staircase.  It would catch

the light there, but be sheltered from glare and damp.  She doubted if

he had seen it.

He said suddenly, "Tell me again, Aunt Nancy.  I had no news, no

letters at all except yours.  You never forget, no matter how it may

damage your peace of mind."

Then she saw him reach up and touch the portrait, his fingers gently

tracing the single yellow rose which the painter had added after the

girl Lowenna had pinned it on his coat.  She moved closer and studied

him.  The same restlessness, which her brother Richard had likened to

that of a young colt.  The youth was still there, the ghost of the

midshipman, and the young sea officer who had gained his first command,

a brig, at the age of twenty-three.  But there were lines, too. Strain,

authority, danger, perhaps fear also.  Nancy was a sailor's daughter,

and the sister of one of England's most famous.  Loved. Without turning

or breaking this precious contact, she could feel all the familiar

faces, paintings, watching from the stairwell and the dark landing.  As

if to judge this latest portrait of the last Bolitho.

She said, "It was a month ago, Adam.  I wrote to you when I had found

out all I could.  We all knew what had happened, Algiers, and before

that.  I wanted everything to be better for you."

He turned and looked at her, his eyes very dark.  Pleading.  "There was

a fire at the Old Glebe House.  Was she .. . ?"

She held up her hand.  "I saw her.  I had already told her that I

wanted her to come to me whenever she felt she needed .. . a friend."

She calmed herself.  "Sir Gregory had ordered some work done on the old

building, and the roof over his studios.  It was a foul day, a squall

off the bay .. . They were melting lead, for the guttering, I was told.

Then the fire started.  In that wind it spread like a wildfire in

summer."

Adam imagined it yet again.  The Old Glebe House had been abandoned,

then sold by the church authority at Truro; most of the locals had

thought Sir Gregory Montagu mad when he had bought it.  He had visited

the place only occasionally, having property in both London and

Winchester.  Adam could see it as if it were yesterday: the famous

painter guiding him through one of the many gaunt, littered rooms to

avoid another visitor, his nephew.  When he had seen the girl poised

and motionless, her naked body chained to an improvised rock

constructed of crumpled sheets draped over a trestle.  Andromeda, held

captive as sacrifice to the sea monster.  Like a perfect statue, she

had not even appeared to be breathing.  Her eyes had met his, then

dismissed him.

Lowenna.

He had written to her, hoping the letters would find her.  That she

would feel something, some emotion or memory, the yellow rose, or the

time he had been thrown from his horse and his wound had burst open.

She had come to him, and something had broken down the barrier. Perhaps

she had written; it was common for letters to go astray, ships missing

one another, others wrongly directed.

He had laughed at himself for keeping the fragment of paper she had

sent over to Unrivalled when they had sailed from

Plymouth to join Lord Exmouth's squadron.

/ was here.  I saw you.  God be with you.

Nancy was saying, "Sir Gregory was a stubborn man.  None more so.  You

saw that for yourself.  He insisted on being taken to London."

"Was he badly injured?"

"He was burned, trying to help Lowenna.  There was a lot of smoke.  She

did not stay for long.  She wanted to be with him for the journey to

London."

Adam put his arms around her, moved by the familiar way she had used

the girl's name.  All those years, since the day he had walked from

Penzance armed only with Nancy's address and a letter written by his

dying mother.  All those years, and Nancy was still like a haven.

They walked arm in arm into the study, where there was a good fire

blazing, making the shadows dance across the paintings and the

floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.  She noticed that everything was clean

and polished, even the ranks of old books, shining from some

housemaid's duster rather than use.  But a room so well-known to her,

and lovingly remembered, in this house where she and her two brothers

and sister had first drawn breath.

She heard the rain, louder now, pattering against the windows.

She often thought of this room, and the women who had stood here and

waited for a ship, the ship, which one day would not return.

The grave, watching faces lining the stairway told the full story.

Adam took her hands in his.  "You see, Aunt Nancy, I am in love with

that girl."

She waited, her inner voice whispering, don't be hurt again, Adam.

There were sounds on the stairs now.  The youth, David Napier, who had

come with Adam as on his previous visit, excited despite the loss of

Unrivalled.  His hero worship had moved her more than anything.

Especially when the portly Daniel Yovell had whispered like a

conspirator when Adam had gone out of the house, striding almost

blindly, as if he had been searching, unable to accept what she had

told him.

It had been before the Bolitho coach, with Young Matthew on the box,

had even left Plymouth.

Yovell had described it, squinting, his gold-rimmed spectacles pushed

up on to his forehead as she had seen them so often.  "It was a

tailor's shop in Fore Street, for naval and military gentlemen. Captain

Adam bought that fine coat for the boy .. . Sir Richard had an account

there also."  He had overcome a sudden, poignant sadness.  "The tailor

comes out, rubbing his hands, m' lady, sharp as you please, and asks,

"What will you be wanting this time, Captain Bolitho?"  And then the

Captain puts a hand on the lad's shoulder and says calmly, "Your

services for this young gentleman.  Measure him for a midshipman's

uniform."  And the lad staring at him, eyes filling his face, unable to

believe what the Captain had done, been scheming, indeed, for

months."

Nancy had understood immediately but had said nothing to Napier.  Adam

had acted despite what had awaited Unrivalled's return.  It was what

Richard might have done.  The very thought made her eyes fill with

tears.

She asked quickly, "When will you hear about a new appointment?"

Adam smiled, glad to break the uncertainty.  "I was told that word will

be sent from the Admiralty, direct to this house."  He looked around

the study again, and at the portrait near the window.  All the

Bolithos, except Hugh, his own father.

He put it from his thoughts.  "It means there will be a ship."

"A frigate?"

"I am a frigate captain."

She turned away and adjusted a small vase of primroses.  Dear Grace

always managed to brighten the house with some sort of blossom, even in

March, when a Bolitho was coming home from the sea.

She hung on Adam's words.  They were what Richard had said when he had

returned from the Great South Sea with the fever which had almost

killed him.

And their lordships had given him, not a frigate, but the old Hyper

ion.

Adam picked up a sketch from the desk, a mermaid and a passing ship. He

felt a chill, like the whispered betrayal of a secret.  Zenoria, who

had flung herself to her death from the cliffs .. . like the little

sketch his cousin Elizabeth had sent him.  Richard's daughter.  Tragic

even to think of what had happened.  The love and the hatred, a child

in the middle of it.

He asked abruptly, "How is Elizabeth?  Happy enough with you, I'll

wager."

Nancy did not answer.  Adam and the young daughter of the country's

hero, my admiral of England, as Catherine had called him, had one thing

in common.

They were quite alone.

On the opposite side of the house, by the stable yard, Bryan Ferguson

stood at the window and watched Daniel Yovell finishing a bowl of soup

which Grace had prepared.

"That should keep the cold out, my friend.  There's a good fire in your

cottage, too .. . we've kept an eye on things for you since you

"volunteered" for service!"

Yovell put down the spoon.  "That was a goodly welcome, Bryan."  He

nodded toward a pile of estate ledgers.  "Perhaps I can give you some

help with that?"

Ferguson sighed.  "I'd not say no to that."  He changed the subject.

"We knew you were on your way home some days ago.  The courier brig

brought word.  News travels fast around here."

Yovell loosened his coat and felt for his watch.

"We saw her leave when we were still at Gibraltar."  He frowned.  "She

was bringing the reports of Unrivalled'?"  damage to Plymouth.  I think

the Captain knew then, in his heart.  He tried to shut it from his

mind.  Unrivalled meant so much to him.  In my poor way I strive to

understand, but a captain of any ship must see things quite

differently."

Ferguson looked at the ledgers.  As steward of the estate he tried to

be meticulous, to miss nothing.  But he was not a young man any more.

He did not even glance at his pinned-up sleeve, nor consciously recall

the Battle of the Saintes, where he had lost his arm thirty-five years

ago.  Grace had nursed him back to health and Captain Richard Bolitho

had offered him the post of steward.

As if reading his thoughts, Yovell said, "D'you still see much of

JohnAllday?"

"He comes over from Fallowfield for a wet every week.  We go down to

the harbour sometimes.  He likes to watch the ships.  He still feels

it, very badly."  He walked to the fire and poked it; it was spitting

in the rain lancing down the squat chimney.

He paused to pat the cat, dozing as usual by the hob, and added,

"Captain Adam's coxswain ... he looks a hard one."  It was a

question.

Yovell smiled, his glasses slipping down again.  "Chalk and cheese,

some might say, but they hit it off from from the start.  Not another

Allday, though!"

They both laughed.

Outside, sheltering beneath the overhanging stable roof, David Napier

turned his head to listen.  It was getting dark already.  He knew he

should be tired after the drive from Plymouth.  Drained.  But he could

not throw off the feeling of confused disbelief.  The welcome had been

genuine and overwhelming.  Grace Ferguson had almost smothered him,

demanding to know about his wounded leg; she had shown even more

concern than on the occasion of his previous visit.  At the request of

his captain.  He had gone over it again and again.  Like the second

operation on his leg, which the Irish surgeon O'Beirne had carried out

at sea just before the bloody battle at Algiers.  The wound had become

poisoned, and the alternative was death.  He could not believe that he

had not been afraid.  The sudden agony of the knife, hands pinning him

down on the table, the pain mounting to match the screams he knew had

been his own; he had nearly choked on the strap between his teeth until

merciful darkness had saved him.

And then, through it all, he had remembered the Captain's arm on his

bare, sweat-soaked shoulder.  And his voice, saying something about a

pony ride.  He turned and peered into the stable at Jupiter, the pony,

high-spirited and contemptuous of his untrained efforts to ride him on

that first visit to this great house, which he dared now to think of as

a home.

Jupiter snorted and stamped, and Napier withdrew his hand.  The

coachman they all called Young Matthew, although he must be years older

than the captain, had told him about the pony's habit of biting

whenever he saw the opportunity.  What would his mother think if she

could see him here?  He shut his mind.  She would not care.

The rain was stopping.  He would find the kitchen and see if he could

help the cook with something.

He licked his lips.  It would not go away.  That moment when the coach

had swayed to a halt outside a shop and the Captain had said, almost

sharply, "Come with me.  This won't take long."

Even then he had believed the Captain was in distress about the ship,

still suffering those last moments which he had endured alone, with the

final handshake and the gig bearing off from the jetty.  He would have

understood that well enough.

But when the Captain had said to the beaming tailor with his gaudy

waistcoat and dangling tape measure, for this young gentleman, he had

not been joking.  He had known that, seeing Yovell's obvious delight, A

midshipman's uniform.

Part of a dream.  Unreal.  He might change his mind.  This young

gentleman.

And why did he believe he could rise to the incredible offer of a new

life?

"You there is anybody about today?"

Napier swung round, shading his eyes with his wrist in a shaft of

watery sunshine.  He had not even heard the approaching horse, he had

been so deep in his thoughts.

It was a young woman, riding side-saddle and dressed all in red, the

habit the colour of some of the wine he sometimes served his captain.

She had dark hair, tied back with a scarf, and was soaked with rain.

She tossed her head.  "Are you going to help me, or are you just going

to stare?"

A door banged open and old Jeb Trinnick, who, Napier had been told, had

been in charge of the stables since any one could remember, limped on

to the cobbles.  A giant of a man, his appearance was made more fierce

some by his solitary eye, the other having been lost in a carriage

accident so long ago that the story had grown into legend.

He glared at the mounted girl and said, "Lady Roxby won't be none too

pleased about you comin' 'ere all alone, Missy.  What's become of young

"Arry?"

Again the scornful toss of the head.  "He couldn't keep up."  She

gestured to a mounting block.  "Help me down, will you?"

Napier reached up as she slid from the saddle, and old Jeb Trinnick led

the horse away, still muttering to himself.

She stepped down to the ground and glanced at him.  "New here, aren't

you?"

Not a woman after all.  No more than a girl.  Napier was not a good

judge of ages, especially of her sex, but he guessed she was, like

himself, fifteen or close enough.  She was very pretty, and her hair,

which he had thought dark, was drying to the colour of chestnuts in the

fading light.

"I'm with Captain Bolitho, miss."

He noticed the way she stood and moved, confident, impatient.  He did

not see her start at the sound of the Captain's name.

"His servant."  She nodded.  "Yes, I think I heard something about a

visit.  Last year?  You fell off a donkey."

"I can take you to him, if you wish, miss?"

She watched the stalls being opened.

"I think I can find my way."  But she was staring at the nearest loose

box, at the powerful horse shaking its head in the direction of an

approaching stable boy.

She was about to leave.  Napier said, "A fine mare, miss.  She's called

Tamara."

The girl stopped on the steps and looked directly into his face.  It

was the first time he had seen her eyes.  Grey-blue, like the sea.

She said, "I know.  It killed my mother."

Old Jeb Trinnick came past and watched her walk up to the house.

"Stay clear of that one, my son.  Too good for the likes of us, or so

she thinks, I daresay."

Napier was looking at the big mare, which was watching the boy with the

bucket.

"Was that true about her mother?"

"Her fault."  The eye swivelled round to another boy forking scattered

straw.  "Lady Bolitho, Sir Richard's widow, she was."  His rugged

features creased into a smile.  "Good to have the young Cap'n here

again.  But I suppose you'll be off soon?  The way of sailor men  He

turned away as some one called his name.

It was then that it hit Napier, like opening a door and coming face to

face with a nightmare.  On board Unrivalled he had seen several

midshipmen join for the first time.  Young, eager, some completely

inexperienced.  He had heard them meeting the Captain.  He gripped the

stable door tightly.

If he was to become a midshipman, he would be facing it alone.

They would not be sailing together.  Not this time.  Perhaps never.

His own words came back to mock him.  We take care of each other.

"Still on yer feet, then?  I'd have thought you'd be tucked up in a

nice soft cot somewheres, while you've still got the chance!"

Napier swung round guiltily, wondering if he had spoken his thoughts

aloud.

But it was Luke Jago, a heavy chest over one shoulder as if it weighed

nothing, and in contrast holding a long, delicate clay pipe in his

other hand.

Jago did not wait for an answer.  "They've fixed me up with a room in

Bryan Ferguson's cottage.  Grace is goin' to bake some-thin' special

tonight, just for me."

Napier was always surprised that Jago could accept or overcome almost

anything.  He spoke of the steward and his wife as if he had known them

for years.  A hard man, dangerous if crossed, but always fair.  A man

without fear, and, he thought, a man you would never really know.

Napier said, "I'm looking at the horses."

Jago peered at his pipe.  "Bryan an' me will take a walk down to a

little inn he's told me about.  Might get Mr.  Yovell to toddle along

too."  It seemed to amuse him.  "Though the Bible's probably more to

his taste!"

They both turned as another horse was led out of the stables.

Jago remarked, "Dirty weather for somebody to be out on the roads."

Napier saw the groom adjust the reins, and test the girth straps while

the horse stamped impatiently on the cobbles.  Even in the dying light

he could see the dark blue saddle cloth, the gold wire crest in one

corner.

"The Captain's horse."  He thought of the girl in the wine-red habit.

It was a strange time to go out riding, with his aunt and his young

cousin to welcome him home.

Napier said softly, "He's badly troubled.  Losing the ship .. ."

Jago was watching him curiously.  "Not all he's bothered about from

what I've heard, my lad."  He grinned.  "Sorry.  Before too long now

I'll have to call you "mister", 'ow about that, eh?"

Napier did not respond to his raillery.  "But we'll work some-thin'

out, if you does as I tells you!"

Napier looked at him.

"I want to do the right thing, you see .. ."  and Jago knew it was

serious.  The danger, his wound, which should have cost him a leg,

would have with most seagoing sawbones he had known, were nothing

compared with this next challenge.

He put one hand on the boy's shoulder, and said, "Keep yer nose clean,

an' do right by the lads who will have to look up to you, God 'elp

'em."  He shook him gently and added, "You'll be on the quarterdeck

afore you knows it!"

They heard boots on the cobbles and Adam Bolitho paused to look at

them, walking toward the restive horse.

The groom called, "Keep an eye open on them roads, Cap'n Adam, zur. War

or no war, there still be footpads about!"

Adam showed his teeth in a smile, but Napier recognized the anger in

his eyes.

To Napier he said, "Feel like testing Jupiter, David?  Tomorrow,

perhaps?  I thought I might ride over to Fallowfield, see John Allday

and his family."

"I could ride Jupiter now, sir."  But he knew that the Captain was not

hearing him; his mind was elsewhere.

Then he was up and mounted, an old boat cloak flapping like a banner in

the wet breeze.  He swung round and looked up at a window, Napier could

not see which one, and shouted, "I shall be back in time tell the

kitchen!"  Then he was away, the hooves striking sparks from the worn

cobbles.

Jeb Trinnick had joined them, soundlessly for a big man with a limp.

When he saw Jago's pipe he pulled a pouch from beneath his leather

apron.

"Try some o' this.  Got it off a Dutchie trader last week.  Seems fair

enough."

Jago brightened.  Another bridge crossed.

"That's matey of you!"

Napier asked, "Is the Captain going far?"  He wiped some droplets of

rain from his face, like tears.  Like that day, all those months ago,

when he had seen him with that beautiful woman, driving a smart little

pony and trap.

He heard Jeb Trinnick say dourly, "If I'm any judge he'll be makin' for

the Old Glebe House."  He nodded, the single eye gauging the trail of

smoke rising from Jago's pipe.  "Evil it is, or was.  My youngest

brother used to live over Truro way, afore he went over the side after

Camperdown.  Full o' spirits, he said.  Even the Church was glad to rid

itself of the place to the first buyer it could get.  Old Sir Montagu,

that was."

Jago puffed out more smoke.  "Good baccy, Jeb."

Somehow, Napier knew it was because of that same woman; he remembered

the Captain's face when he had read the little note she had sent out to

Unrivalled before they had sailed to join the admiral.

Jeb Trinnick made up his mind.  "All the same, I'll send one of my lads

after 'im."  He grinned.  "Just to be on the safe side!"

Napier watched him limp into the shadows.  A man who could deal with

everything that came his way.  He felt despair closing around him

again.  Better to be like Trinnick, or Jago.  Not to care .. .

Suddenly he heard the snap of Jago's delicate-looking pipe, which he

had carried so carefully and filled for the first time with Trinnick's

Dutch tobacco.  It lay in fragments on the ground, rain splashing over

it, dousing the smoking ash.

It mattered to Jago too, more than he would ever allow himself to show.

He had hardened himself against it, perhaps because of other captains

he had served.  Looked up to, admired, hated; and one he had described

as second only to God.

But this one mattered.  And to David Napier, who was all but fifteen

years old, it was a lifeline.

The courier arrived at the old grey house around noon, a week almost to

the hour since Unrivalled had dropped anchor in Plymouth.

Ferguson had been in the stable yard, watching Napier riding the pony

Jupiter slowly but confidently, back and forth, 'gaining an

understanding' as Grace had put it.

The courier was known to Ferguson, as he was to many sea officers who

lived around Falmouth.  Ferguson had reached out to sign for the canvas

envelope, but the courier had said almost curtly, "Not this one.

Captain Bolitho himself, or I shall have to wait until he returns."

Ferguson heard his wife call, "Tell the captain, Mary!"  She would stay

with him until they all knew.  She never changed; nor would she.

The courier relaxed and climbed down from his mud-spattered horse.  All

the way from Plymouth, and before that; how far had that envelope

travelled, Ferguson wondered?

The wheels had probably started to turn when a guard ship or keen-eyed

coast guard had reported Unrivalled beating her way up Channel  A sight

of home.

Grace Ferguson said, "You've time for a glass, or a hot posset afore

you leave?"

The courier shook his head.  "No, ma'am, but thank you.  I've another

call yet.  Old Cap'n Masterman's place at Penryn.  Bad news, I'm

afraid. His son is reported missing.  His ship foundered on a reef, I'm

told."

Ferguson turned, hearing the step on the cobbles.  It was a familiar

enough story in Cornwall.

Adam Bolitho took it in at a glance: the courier standing with his

mount, Young Matthew who had been supervising Napier with the pony,

Ferguson and Grace the housekeeper, and Yovell who had stopped in his

tracks by the gate to the rose garden.  Catherine's roses, or soon

would be again.

Like badly rehearsed players, but joined by something which none of

them properly understood.

The courier had produced a small writing tablet from beneath his

stained cloak, the pen already dipped.  What Lowenna must have used

that day when she had been there to see Unrivalled weigh and stand out

to sea.

He thought of the Old Glebe House, how it had looked that night when he

had ridden over to see it.  How the horse had whinnied and shied,

perhaps because of the stench of sodden ashes and charred timbers.  Or

because of something more sinister.  The burned-out windows, stark and

empty against the racing clouds, of the room where she had kept her

harp, next to the roofless studio where he had first seen her chained

to the imaginary rock.  The sacrifice .. .

He had gone back again in daylight.  It had been even worse.  He had

wanted to go alone but Nancy had accompanied him, had insisted, as if

she needed to share it.

The main part of the house was too unsafe to explore.  Ashes, blackened

glass from those tall windows he remembered so vividly, broken beams

jutting like savage teeth.  A few charred canvases.  Impossible to tell

if they had been empty or partially finished when the fire had raged

into the studio.

Or being repaired.  Like the one of Catherine, which she herself had

commissioned to hang beside Sir Richard's portrait, in 'their room' as

most of the household still called it.  Dressed in a seaman's smock and

little else, what she had been wearing in the open boat when she and

her Richard had been shipwrecked.  Allday, when he could be persuaded

to speak of it, had painted his own picture of Catherine and Bolitho,

who had won the heart of the country when they had endured the open

boat which might have ended everything.  Her courage, her example, a

woman amongst desperate men in fear of their lives, had left an

indelible impression on Sir Richard's old coxswain.  "She even got me

to sing a ballad or two!"  He had laughed about it, proudly.

He had never known Nancy to hide her thoughts from him.  She had

suddenly faced him in the overgrown drive, the blackened building and

chapel a grim backdrop, with the sea beyond.  Always waiting.  Perhaps

a new horizon.

"It was Mary, the upstairs maid, who found it, Adam."  She always added

a title, like a label, to any member of the household, in case he

should forget between visits.  Like the lesson which had been handed

down to him over the years, when speaking of his sailors, the people,

as Richard Bolitho called them.  Remember their names, Adam, and use

them.  A name is sometimes all they can call their own.

Mary had run screaming to the kitchen.  The portrait of Catherine had

been slashed, again and again.  Only the face had been left intact.  As

if that some one had wanted the world to know who it was.

Sir Gregory Montagu had not been optimistic, but he had taken the

damaged canvas to his studio.  Now they would never know.

Adam had thought about it ever since.  There had been gypsies in the

area, more of them than usual, but it was not their way of things.

Food, money, something to sell; those were different.  He had hated

himself for even considering Belinda's daughter Elizabeth.  She would

see Catherine as the enemy, the marriage wrecker, but she had been

visiting a friend over the border in Devon at the time.

He realized that he had signed for the envelope and that the courier

was climbing into his saddle again.

He knew that Yovell and Ferguson had followed him into the house,

wanting to help, yet keeping their distance.

He entered the study and picked up the knife that lay beside

Elizabeth's sketch of the mermaid, thinking of the watch which had once

stopped a musket ball, and the little mermaid engraved on its case.

Just a shell now, and he knew that the boy Napier still carried it like

a talisman.

For a moment longer the knife hesitated, the seal and Admiralty stamp

blurred in the thin sunlight.  The knife had belonged to Captain James

Bolitho.  Sir Gregory Montagu had been here then, asked to paint an

empty sleeve on the portrait over the stairs, after Captain James had

lost an arm in India.  Perhaps he was watching the last Bolitho from

that portrait now, the son of the man who had betrayed his father's

trust.  And his country.

He heard the envelope fall to the floor, although it must have opened

itself; he did not remember returning the knife to the desk.

The beautiful handwriting, so familiar and precise in its terms.  And

without heart.

Addressed to Adam Bolitho, Esq.  On receipt of these orders, will

proceed with all despatch .. . His eyes hurried on.  But no ship's name

or title leaped out at him like a voice, like a picture.  Like that

first command, the little brig Firefly.  Or Anemone.  He tried again.

Or Unrivalled .. .

To place yourself at the convenience and service of Sir Graham Bethune,

Knight of the Bath, Vice-Admiral of the Blue, and to await further

instructions.  There was more, and a smaller note with details of

travel, lodgings, and other matters which seemed meaningless.

Yovell was the first to speak.

"Is it good, sir?"

Ferguson was pouring something into a glass.  His hand was shaking.

Something else I should have noticed.

"The Admiralty, Daniel.  Their lordships wish to see me.  It is a

command, not a request."  He added with sudden bitterness, "Nor a

ship!"

The heavy document had fallen beside its envelope.  Despite his girth,

Yovell picked it up and said quickly, "Do you see, sir?  There is

writing on the reverse."

Adam took it.  A captain without a ship.  God alone knew there were so

many like him.  No ship.

He stared at the writing, but saw only the face.  Vice-Admiral Bethune.

He had met him several times, lastly at Malta.  Bethune had begun his

service as a young midshipman in the little sloop-of-war Sparrow, Sir

Richard Bolitho's first command.  A man easy to like, and to follow,

and, in his day, the youngest vice-admiral since Nelson.  Once a

frigate captain himself, then promotion, and lastly the Admiralty.

/ am sending you a letter very shortly; it concerns some proposals

which were brought to my notice.  You will treat all instructions with

utmost secrecy.  On that, I am depending.  Then his signature.  Adam

turned the sheet to the light.  Bethune had written, almost like- an

afterthought, Trust me.

He replaced the glass on the desk.  Claret or cognac?  It could have

been anything.

Yovell said, "London, sir."  He shook his head and smiled sadly.  "Sir

Richard never cared for the place.  Not until .. ."

Adam walked past him, but briefly touched his plump arm.  "Until,

Daniel.  What a span that one word covers."

He left the study and found himself staring into another log fire.

Unseen hands always seemed to keep them blazing.

"I shall need Young Matthew for the first leg to Plymouth.  After that

.. ."  He moved to the fire and held out his hands.  "It will all be

laid down in the instructions."  A long, tiring and uncomfortable

journey.  And at the end of it?  It might be nothing.  Or perhaps he

would merely be required to describe Unrivalled'^ part in the attack

and final victory at Algiers.  "I shall need more kit than usual.  I

must tell Napier .. ."

He broke off abruptly.  Napier would not be going to London.  Bethune's

innocent enough note had been added for a reason.  He looked directly

at the round shouldered figure of Yovell across the hall.  "Send word

to the tailor for me, will you?"  He saw Napier watching him from the

passage which led to the kitchen.  He knew.  His eyes said it all.

Adam thought of Bethune again.  It was all he had.

Trust me.

Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune moved some papers on his broad desk and

stared at the ornate clock on the opposite wall, with its wind

indicator and simpering cherubs.

He had walked to the Admiralty, across the park for some of the way,

declining the offer of a carriage or, as was sometimes his habit,

riding his own horse.  It was not conceit, but a sense of purpose which

carried him through each day.

He stood up, surprised that the exercise had not calmed his nerves.  It

was absurd; he had nothing to worry about.

He walked across the room and paused to study the painting of a frigate

in action.  It was his own, pitted against two big Spanish frigates.

Bad odds even for a daring young captain, as he had been then.  He had

nevertheless run one of them aground and taken the other.

Unconsciously, his hand touched the gold lace on his sleeve.  Flag rank

had followed almost immediately, and then the Admiralty.  Routine,

lengthy meetings, conferences with his superiors and sometimes the

First Lord; he had even been called to elaborate upon various plans and

operations to the Prince Regent.

And it had suited him, like the uniform, and the respect which went

with it.

It had been wet in the park, but there had been all the usual horsemen

and women about.  He often expected to see Catherine there, riding

herself, or in the carriage with the Sillitoe crest embla/oned on it.

Like that last, arranged meeting.  He bit his lip.  The final one.

He stood by a window and looked down at the jostling carriages,

carriers' carts and horses, always alive, moving.

It was a life he had grown used to, accepted, and one he lived with a

zeal which often surprised his contemporaries.  He took care of

himself; although he enjoyed good wine with the company to match it, he

was always careful not to slide into overindulgence.  He had seen too

many senior officers deteriorate and age before their time.  It was

sometimes impossible to imagine them, sword in hand, walking their own

decks while death whined and stung all around them.  He moved to the

desk again, the restlessness stronger than before.

And what of me?

Some chose to ignore it, imagined perhaps that rank and seniority were

everlasting.  He touched the folder uppermost on the desk.  And upon

his mind.

At the close of the previous year the Navy List had carried two hundred

admirals, and eight hundred and fifty captains.  Commanders and mere

lieutenants added up to another five thousand.  The great fleet and all

the squadrons, even those commanded by highly successful or famous

officers, had been cut to the bone.  Whole forests had been felled to

build those ships, and now every anchorage and waterway had its sad

reminders.

And what of me?

There was not an admiral left under the age of sixty, so that all

promotion was at a standstill.  A captain, if he was lucky enough still

to be employed, could remain thirty years in that rank without

moving.

He grimaced.  Or survive on half-pay, shadowy figures who walked the se

afront watching.  Remembering.  Dreading.

He thought of his wife.  Lady Bethune.  It was hard now to think of her

any other way.  "You can retire when you wish it, Graham.  You're not a

pauper.  You can see more of the children."  Their two 'children' were

adults, and they met like pleasant strangers.  His wife was in control.

Like the night at that reception when she had smiled while Catherine

Somervell had been humiliated.  The night Catherine might have been

raped, even killed, but for the intervention of Sillitoe and some of

his men.

Bethune still relived it, again and again.  He had entertained her here

in this opulent room in the seat of Admiralty.  The youngest

vice-admiral on the Navy List since Nelson.  And might remain so if

things got even worse.

And she, the woman who had outraged society when she and Sir Richard

Bolitho had lived openly together.

He looked at the chair where she had been seated, remembering her scent

of jasmine.  Her eyes when she smiled.  Laughed, then ... Maybe he

could obtain an appointment in one of the dockyards, like Valentine

Keen.  He had also served under Richard as a midshipman; now his flag

flew over the Nore.  But a navy without ships was no inspiration.  The

old, eternal enemies were uneasy allies now, in name anyway.

Like the anti-slavery campaign, which many had believed over after

Exmouth's victory at Algiers.

He walked past the chair and tried again to shut it, and her, from his

mind.  Sillitoe was her protector, although many hinted that they were

lovers also.  He, too, had made a fool of himself when he had expressed

his feelings and his fears for her.

He recalled the meetings he had had with the First Lord.

"Slavery will not go just go away because of an Act of Parliament,

Graham.  Too many fortunes have been made from it, and survive on it

still .. . Their lordships and I have considered it deeply and often. A

new command, entrusted with a difficult and possibly dangerous task. A

show of force, enough to make plain our determination, but fluid enough

not to antagonize or disrupt our "allies" in this matter.

"You will know, Graham, that there is no shortage of applicants."  He

had let the words hang in the air.  "But I would prefer you to take

it."

Bethune was at the window again, looking down at the endless movement.

People and the din of traffic, horses and iron-shod wheels.  Another

world, in which he would be a stranger; and some one else would be

sitting here in this room.

He liked the company of women, and they his.  But a risk was a risk all

the same.  And in any case, he might retain this present position for

months.  He sighed.  Years.

He tugged down the front of his waistcoat and stared at his reflection

in the rain-dappled glass, and thought of Richard Bolitho again.  As if

it were yesterday.  His eyes as he had watched an oncoming enemy, the

pain there when he considered the cost in lives.  His decision, and a

voice very level.  So be it, then.

There was a tap at the ornate doors, timed to the minute.

"Well, Tolan?"

"Captain Adam Bolitho is here, Sir Graham."

The shadow moved over the rich carpet, his face as Bethune remembered

it.  Like a younger version of Richard; even then, people had often

taken them for brothers.

The same firm handshake; the elusive smile.  And something else,

desperation.  It would have been uppermost in his thoughts all the way

from Cornwall.  The journey would have taken almost five days, changing

horses, sharing a carriage with strangers, and, all the time, wondering

.. .

Adam Bolitho had more than proved his worth, his skill, and his

courage.  The armchair strategists at the Admiralty had described him

as reckless.  But then, they would.

He recalled his own uncertainty, which had made him write Trust me on

the back of the orders to this dark, youthful man.  / was like him. The

frigate captain.  That was then.

To prolong this meeting which could be the start of many, or the last,

would be insulting to both of them.

He said, more abruptly than he had intended, "I have been given a new

appointment, Adam, and I want you for my flag captain."  He held up his

hand as Adam seemed about to speak.  "You have done a great deal, and

you have won the approval of my senior officers, as well as the un

stinting praise of Lord Exmouth.  I, too, have seen you in action,

which is why I want .. ."  He reconsidered.  "I need you as my flag

captain."

Adam realized that the elderly servant had dragged up a chair for him

and vanished into an adjoining room.

It was all he could do to put events into some kind of order.  The

endless journey, his arrival here at the Admiralty.  Blank faces, and

heads bowed to listen, as if he were speaking a foreign language.

He looked up at the gilded ceiling as somewhere high in the roof a

clock began to chime, and he was aware of birds flapping in alarm,

although they must hear the same sound at every half-hour.

He massaged his eyes and tried to clear his mind, but the images

remained.  He had told Young Matthew to take a different route into

Plymouth, where he had been instructed to change carriages.

He could see the words like blood.  Never look back.

With a telescope he had eventually found Unrivalled, not far from her

previous anchorage.  In a week she had changed almost beyond

recognition, topmasts and standing rigging gone, her decks littered

with discarded cordage and spars, crates and casks piled where the

eighteen-pounders had once been ranged like marines at their sealed

ports.  The ports empty.  Dead.

Only the figurehead remained intact and unchanged.  Head flung back,

breasts out thrust proud and defiant.  And, like the girl in the

studio, helpless.

Never look back.  He should have known.

Bethune was saying in his quiet, even voice, "You have been in

commission for a long time without much rest, Adam.  But time is not on

my side.  Your appointment will take effect as soon as convenient to

their lordships."

Adam was on his feet, as if invisible hands were forcing him to

leave.

Instead he asked, equally quietly, "What ship, sir?"

Bethune breathed out slowly, half-smiling.  "She's the Athena,

seventy-four.  She is completing fitting-out at Portsmouth."  He

glanced at the painting of the embattled ships, a flicker of regret

crossing his features.  "Not a frigate, I'm afraid."

Adam reached out and clasped his hand.  Was it said so easily, the most

important moment for any captain?  He looked at Bethune and thought he

understood.

For both of us.

He said, "Perhaps not a frigate, sir.  But a ship."

A goblet, chilled in readiness, was put into his hand.

Her name meant nothing to him.  Probably an old two-decker, perhaps

like the one where it had all begun for him.  But a ship.

He touched the sword at his thigh.

He was not alone.

3 Absent Friends

The coach jerked violently as the brake was applied and came to a

swaying halt, the horses stamping on cobbles, very aware that their

journey to Portsmouth was ended.  Adam Bolitho eased forward on the

seat, every muscle and bone offering a protest.  He had only himself to

blame; he had insisted on leaving his temporary lodgings the previous

evening, at an hour when most people would have been thinking of a late

supper or bed.

But the coachmen employed by the Admiralty were accustomed to it.

Driving at night, the wheels dipping and grinding in deep ruts, or

through rain-flooded stretches of the long Portsmouth Road, two stops

to change horses, another to wait for a farm wagon to be moved after it

had cast a wheel.  They had paused at a small inn in a place called

Liphook, to drink tea by candlelight before starting on the final leg

of the journey.

He lowered the window and shivered as the bitter air fanned across his

face.  First light, or soon would be, and he felt like death.

He heard his companion twist round beside him and say cheerfully,

"They're ready for us, it seems, sir!"

Lieutenant Francis Troubridge showed no trace of fatigue.  A youthful,

alert man, ever ready to answer Adam's many questions, he had displayed

no resentment or surprise at the call for a coach ride through the

night.  As Vice-Admiral Bethune's flag lieutenant, the most recent of

several to all accounts, it was something he probably took for

granted.

Adam looked toward the tall gates, which were wide open.

Two Royal Marine orderlies were nearby with a porter's trolley, and an

officer in a boat cloak was observing the coach without impatience.

Even that was hard to accept.  On the roof of the Admiralty above

Bethune's handsome room was the first link in a chain of telegraph

stations which could pass a signal from London to the tower over the

church of St.  Thomas almost before a courier could find, saddle and

mount a horse.  News, good or bad, had always moved with the speed of

the fastest rider.  Not any more, and provided visibility was good the

eight or so telegraph stations could send word well ahead of any

traveller.

Adam climbed down on to hard ground, and felt it rise to meet him. Like

a sailor too long in an open boat in a lively sea, he thought.  He

shivered again and tugged his own heavy cloak around him.  He was

tired, and throbbing from too much travel: Falmouth, Plymouth, London,

and now Portsmouth.

He should have slept throughout the journey instead of trying to study

his orders, or glean fragments of intelligence from his lively

companion.

He had the feeling that the young lieutenant was watching him now,

discovering something, for reasons of his own.  He had certainly gone

to a lot of trouble to find out about the officer put into his care. At

one point, when they had stopped to change horses, Troubridge had

remarked, "I was forgetting, sir.  You were flag lieutenant yourself

some years ago."  Not a question; and Adam thought that he could have

given the exact year when he had been his uncle's aide.

He saw that the other officer had thrown back his cloak to display the

epaulettes of a post captain, like his own.

"Welcome, Bolitho!"  His handshake was firm and hard.  The dockyard

captain, who probably knew more about ships and the demands of the

fleet than any one.

They fell into step, while the marines began unloading chests and

baggage from the carriage; they did not speak, nor so much as look at

the new arrivals.

The dockyard captain was saying, "Athena is anchored, of course, but

she's awaiting more ballast and stores.  My clerk has left a full list

for your attention."  He shot him a quick glance.  "Have you met up

with Athena before?"  A casual comment, but it was typical.  In the

'family' of the navy it was common enough for a sailor to cross paths

with the same ship throughout the years of his service at sea.

"No."  He pictured the spidery writing, which he had read by the light

of a small lantern while the coach had juddered and rolled through the

darkness.

Built at Chatham in 1803, just two years before Trafalgar; not an old

ship by naval standards.  He had found that he was able to smile. Maybe

Troubridge had seen that too.  1803, the year he had been given his

first command, the little fourteen-gun brig Firefly.  He had been just

twenty-three years old.

Laid down and completed as a third-rate, a seventy-four gun ship of the

line, Athena's role had changed several times, as had her station.  She

had served in the second American war and in the Mediterranean, in the

Irish Sea, and then back to the Channel Fleet.

Now, out of nowhere, she was to be Sir Graham Bethune's flagship.  Her

artillery had been reduced from seventy-four to sixty-four, to allow

more accommodation.  No other reason was given.

Even Bethune had been vague about it.  "We shall be working with our

"allies", Adam.  My flagship is not to be seen as a threat, more as an

example."  It had seemed to amuse him, although Adam suspected Bethune

was almost as much in the dark as himself.

He said, "She has a full ship's company?"

The other captain smiled.  "All but a few.  But these days it's easier

to find spare hands, with no war at the gates!"

Adam quickened his pace.  Here there was activity, even at this ungodly

hour.  Heavy, horse-drawn wagons, filled with cordage and crates of

every size.  Dockyard workers being mustered for a new day's repairs,

perhaps even building.  Unlike the empty gun ports at Plymouth.  Unlike

Unrivalled.

The other captain said suddenly, "You'll be more used to a fifth-rate,

Bolitho.  Athena's a good ship, in structure and condition.  The best

Kentish oak maybe the last of it, from what I hear!"

They halted at the top of some stone stairs, and as if to a signal a

boat began to pull away from a cluster of moored barges, the oars

rising and falling with mist clinging to the blades like translucent

weed.

Adam saw his own breath drifting away, hating the cold in his bones.

Too long on the slave coast, or clawing up and down off the Algerian

shoreline ... It was neither.  A new ship, and one already destined for

some ill-defined task.  The West Indies, with a vice-admiral's flag at

the fore: probably Bethune's last appointment before he quit the navy

to serve in some new capacity where there was no more war, no more

danger.  When they had stopped at Liphook to take tea Troubridge had

mentioned his own father, an admiral at the end of his service, but now

he had been given an important role in the growing ranks of the

Honourable East India Company, where, no doubt, he would want his son

to join him after this latest stepping-stone which might eventually

lead to oblivion.

Easier to find spare hands.  The dockyard captain's words seemed to

hang in the air like his breath.  Like many of Unrivalled'?"  people,

those who had cursed the unyielding discipline, or simply the

petty-mindedness of those who should have known better in the close

confines of a King's ship.  Those same men might now be seeking a ship,

any vessel which would give them back the only life they fully

understood.

"There have been one or two accidents, of course, quite common when

refitting, and when every one wants it done in half the time."  He

shrugged heavily.  "Men lost overboard, two falling from aloft, another

rigger too drunk to save himself in the dark.  It happens."

Adam looked at him.  "Her captain was relieved of his command.  He

faces a courtmartial, I'm told."

"Yes."  They watched the boat come alongside, two young seamen leaping

ashore to fend off the stairs.

He found himself holding his breath.  His uncle had warned him about

joining a new ship, especially as her captain.  They will be far more

worried about you, Adam.  But he thought of the old clerk at the

Admiralty, who had lingered in Bethune's room after the vice-admiral

had gone to speak with one of his superiors.

"Your uncle, Sir Richard, was a fine man, sir.  A great man, given the

chance."  He had stared at the door, as if afraid of something, and

blurted out, "Take care, sir.  Athena'?"  an unlucky ship!"  He had

scuttled away before Bethune had returned.

A lieutenant, impeccably turned out, eyes fixed on a point above Adam's

left epaulette, raised his hat smartly and said, "Barclay, second

lieutenant, sir, at your service!"

An open face, but at this moment giving nothing away.  One of many he

would come to know, and know well if he had learned anything since

Firefly, all those years ago.

He looked around, almost expecting to see Napier hovering there in his

blue coat and clicking shoes.  Or Luke Jago, watchful and cynical, an

eye on this boat's crew for instance, already judging the ship.  His

ship.  Troubridge was climbing into the boat, preceeding Adam in the

correct manner.  The dockyard captain stepped back and touched his

hat.

Adam returned the salute and nodded to the lieutenant... he frowned,

and the name came to him.  Barclay.

The boat's crew, smartly dressed in matching shirts and tarred hats,

faced aft, eyes unmoving, but fixed on the new captain.  Wondering.

Assessing.  Adam stepped into the stern sheets the old sword pressed

hard against his hip.

The ship, any ship, was only as good as her captain.  No better.  No

worse.

He sat down.  So be it.

"Cast off!"

He tugged his hat more firmly on to his head as the boat pulled away

from the jetty, and into a cold breeze which he was beyond feeling.  At

any other time it was easy to lose yourself in your thoughts, allow the

boat's crew and its routine carry on without you.  This was different.

Unlike Unrivalled, when he had commissioned her at Plymouth; he had

been there when most of her company had arrived on board, while the

builders and riggers were still putting the finishing touches to their

new frigate.  Or even Anemone, which had gone down after a bitter

action against the Americans, and he had been wounded, and taken

prisoner .. .

He saw a guard boat pulling between two moored transports, the oars

tossed as a mark of respect, an officer standing in the stern sheets to

raise his hat.

Adam reached up to drop the boat cloak from his shoulders, so that both

epaulettes could be seen.  The guard boat had known of his arrival;

perhaps everybody did.  Nothing remained confidential for very long in

the 'family'.

The stroke oarsman's eyes had moved for the first time to watch what he

had done, his loom rising and falling steadily, unhurriedly as

before.

One of my men.  What is he thinking at this very moment?  Or young

Troubridge, whose father had flown his own flag as an admiral; was he

aware of the significance of this day and what it meant to the frigate

captain at his side?  The officer who had been singled out for praise

for his behaviour at Algiers by Lord Exmouth himself?

He tensed, the sword gripped between his knees, cold and discomfort

forgotten.  As if he were some one else.  A spectator.

Slowly at first, then more deliberately as the boat turned slightly

into the first true daylight, the ship was already taking shape, her

tracery of spars and black rigging rising above the indistinct shapes

of other moored vessels.  It might not have been Athena, but he knew

that it was.

The bowman had boated his oar and was standing, facing forward with his

boat hook and Adam had not seen him move.

The boat's coxswain swung the tiller bar, but hesitated as the

lieutenant held up his hand.  Anxious, nervous of making the wrong

impression on the new captain.

Adam found that he could spare a thought for the man he was relieving,

a man he did not know, had never met.  Stephen Ritchie, a senior

captain on the Navy List, who had commanded Athena for three years, in

war and in peace, was now jawaiting the convenience of a court-martial'

as it had been euphemistically described in the Gazette.  Troubridge

had been sparse with his information, but Ritchie had evidently been in

serious debt, not unusual in the navy, and had made the grave mistake

of falsifying accounts to obtain further credit.  He must have been in

very deep trouble to take such risks.  He was paying for it now.

He glanced up as the bowsprit and long tapering jib boom reached up and

over the boat like a lance.  The figurehead, clad in armour, was still

hidden in shadow.

Adam caught a slight movement above the beak head a face withdrawing,

some one posted to give the first warning.

It came immediately.

"Boat ahoy!"

The lieutenant was on his feet again, hands cupped.

"Athena!"  The waiting was over.

Adam felt the ship rising over him, the fresh paint reflected on the

sluggish current like white and black bars, with the gun ports creating

their own checkered pattern.  Masts and standing rigging, hammock

nettings all neatly packed and covered; they must have piped all hands

long before dawn.  As a midshipman he had done it himself, going

without breakfast in order that some great man would find all to his

liking when he stepped aboard.

The boat was coming alongside, oars tossed and dripping, while the

bowman and some figures clinging beneath the ship's entry port eased

the hull into the remaining shadows.

Not much longer than Unrivalled, but she was a two-decker and seemed to

tower above him like a cliff.

He had crammed his mind with the basic details.  Now they seemed to

revolve in confusion.  One hundred and sixty feet in length, and of one

thousand four hundred tons.  A frigate was always busy, always crowded.

It was hard to accept that Athena, when fully manned, would carry five

hundred souls, officers, seamen, and a contingent of Royal Marines for

good measure.

There was a sudden silence, or so it seemed.  The lieutenant was facing

him, pleased, worried, or merely relieved that his part was over; it

was hard to tell.

Adam looked up at the ship's side, the tumble home curving away to

reveal the 'stairs', and the entry port which looked a cable's length

away.  He was reminded of his visit to Lord Exmouth's flagship Queen

Charlotte at Plymouth, when the admiral, knowing he had been wounded,

had ordered him to use a bosun's chair as he left, and the sailors had

cheered him for it.  As Exmouth had said, "Pride is one thing, Bolitho,

but conceit is an enemy!"

He reached out for the guide rope, but turned his head as he did so,

and stared over the brightening expanse of Portsmouth Harbour.  Some

moored ships, still merged together in the retreating shadows, and land

beyond.  That would be Gosport.  The small note, still folded in his

pocket.  / was here.  I saw you.  God be with you.

He knew that one of the side-boys, sent down in his white gloves to

offer a helping hand if need be, was staring at him, mouth half open.

Adam nodded to him and began to climb.  Lowenna.  If only .. . He heard

the slap of muskets being brought to the present, a far-off bark of

commands.

Then the long, drawn-out trill of calls.  A salute to the captain, on

this day.

The first few moments as he stepped through Athena's entry port and

raised his hat to the quarterdeck and the ensign lifting lazily above

the taffrail were blurred, swift impressions.  The marines stiffly

paraded as if on a barrack square, the pipe clay from their slings

still drifting above their leather hats, their officer with drawn sword

at the present.  The fading twitter of calls, Spithead Nightingales as

sailors called them, and the rattle of a solitary drum.

A lieutenant, taller and older than Adam had expected, stepped from the

rank of waiting officers and said, "Stirling, sir.  I am the senior

here."  A hesitation.  "Welcome aboard Athena."

They shook hands, pausing while the marines brought down their muskets

in unison.

He walked slowly along the line of assembled officers, shaking hands

with each one of them.  Athena carried six lieutenants in all; Barclay

had remained in the boat alongside, so the introductions did not take

long.  Young for the most part, and for the present merely faces. There

were two scarlet-coated marine officers, a captain, and a lieutenant

who was in charge of the guard of honour.  The eight midshipmen were

held at bay by a rank of senior warrant officers; as Adam had heard his

uncle say more than once, the backbone of any ship.

He could feel Troubridge keeping close behind him, perhaps less assured

hemmed in by this press of strangers.

Stirling, the big first lieutenant, watched each face as he made his

introduction, with an occasional mention of a particular duty or part

of ship.

Adam thought of Leigh Galbraith, Unrivalled'?"  first lieutenant.  He

had been a big man too, but light on his feet at sea or in action.

Never look back.  It seemed to mock him.

He knew something about Stirling.  He had been in Athena for three

years, like her disgraced captain.  Old for his rank, passed over for

promotion, partly because he had been a prisoner of war in Spanish

hands until that country's change of fortune, but also because he

apparently had made no effort to obtain it.  Unlike Galbraith .

He realized that some one had spoken his name.

It was the sailing master, a man with such a weathered face that his

eyes seemed snared by the crows feet and lines of many leagues in every

kind of sea.  A strong face, the eyes bright blue, the mouth breaking

into a smile.

Adam gripped his hand, the years falling away.

"Fraser, isn't it?"

The smile widened into a grin.  "Fancy you rememberin', sir."  He

almost glanced at the other warrant officers.  Almost.  "Few years that

goes back, when I was master's mate in the old Achates, sixty-four,

Cap'n Valentine Keen, so it was!"

"You've done well, Mr.  Fraser."

Fraser released his hand.  "I saw you leave Achates to take your first

command, sir.  I often think of them days."

They moved on, but Adam could still feel the handshake.  Was that all

it took?

They had reached the quarterdeck rail; his shoes were clinging to fresh

pitch, and he saw where tools and paint brushes had been hastily hidden

under strips of old canvas.  Paint, pitch and tar, spun yarn and hemp.

The sailor's lot.

The big double wheel, motionless and unmanned, the compass box shining

in the growing light.  Marines, fifers and drummers, seamen and petty

officers, midshipmen and ship's boys, all packed into this unfamiliar

hull.

Thank you, Mr.  Stirling.  Have all hands lay aft, if you please."

One of the young midshipmen sneezed and ducked his head to hide his

embarrassment.  Probably about Napier's age.  He had a sudden flash of

memory: the tailor's old-fashioned shop in Plymouth, Napier's face when

the tape had been stretched across his slight shoulders for the first

time, and the tailor had called measurements and meaningless advice to

some hidden assistant.  It was something he would never forget: it had

been like seeing himself.

He looked up and around at the assembled ship's company.  On the

gangways on either side of the maindeck, above the batteries of

black-muzzled eighteen pounders clinging to the ratlines and shrouds,

some even standing on the boat tier and its newly painted hulls.  It

was hard to imagine how all these men and boys could find space to live

and hope as individuals.

He stared along the length of the ship to the Union flag flying above

the beak head and the armoured shoulder of the goddess Athena.  Again

he felt the prick of uncertainty, almost guilt.  He could still see

Unrivalled'?"  lovely figurehead, like the girl in the studio.

"Ship's company, uncoverV

Officers and seamen alike removed their hats, while others seemed to

lean out and down from their various vantage points to watch each move,

hear every word which would make this man their captain.  The one man

who held the power of life and death, misery and happiness, over every

soul aboard.

Adam had removed his hat and tucked it beneath his arm.  He took out

the familiar roll of parchment and stared unseeingly at the beautiful

copperplate script: some one else's words, somebody else's voice

reading them.

It was addressed to Adam Bolitho, Esquire, the commission which

appointed him to the Athena, willing and requiring you forthwith to go

on board and take upon you the charge and command of captain in her

accordingly .. .

Some he remembered from other ships.  Some he knew almost by heart.

Many of the men assembled here today would have heard the same words

many times, if they had served long enough.

He cleared his throat, and knew that Stirling was gazing at him with

scarcely a blink.

'..  . hereof, nor you nor any of you may fail as you will answer the

contrary at your peril."

Like Unrivalled, and Anemone.  And like the little brig which had been

his first command, and had been brought back to life by the hard

handshake of Athena's sailing master just minutes ago.

Stirling was nodding, but watching some of the assembled hands as if to

discover the true feeling of the ship.  His ship, for three years.

Troubridge murmured, "I can take you to your quarters, sir.  They are

all but ready for use."  He was mentally ticking off his flag

lieutenant's ever-present list.  "A cabin servant has been appointed.

He served the previous captain."  He frowned as somebody gave a cheer.

"He requested to remain on board."

Adam turned as the lines of seamen and marines began to break up and

separate into groups.

He said, "An issue of rum would not come amiss, Mr.  Stirling."

Stirling bit his lip.  "I'm not sure that the purser has arranged it,

sir."

The purser.  The man who usually counted every coffee bean and biscuit

as if it were his own.  He could vaguely recall a limp handshake, and

an Irish name.  It would come back to him.

He said, "Then tell him, if you please."  He saw a barge full of

dockyard workers poling abeam, some of the men giving another cheer as

they passed.

A new beginning for the ship.  He followed Troubridge aft and beneath

the shadow of the poop.  A bigger ship, but still he had to duck his

head to avoid the first deck head beam.

There was no sentry at the screen door, and the air was heavy with

fresh shipboard smells.  The cabin seemed larger, unlived in.  When he

made to open one of the sloping stern windows, there was wet paint on

his fingers.

A captain's retreat.  He looked at the new black and white checkered

deck covering beneath his shoes.  Except that Bethune and his staff

would be right there, below him.  A private ship no longer.

In a day or so Luke Jago would arrive with some of the things which had

been taken to Falmouth.  He eyed the space near the bench seat across

the stern.  The chair would be right there .. . He gazed at the harbour

shimmering beyond the thick glass windows.  Provided Jago had not

changed his mind.  Taken his bounty and prize money and swallowed the

anchor.

He looked up at a skylight, then deliberately removed his dress coat

and hung it from the latch, where it would swing to the harbour's easy

motion.  Like that day when he had received his orders.  When he had

been told he was losing Unrivalled.  Just like that.

Defiance; anger; he found it was neither.

He said abruptly, "I would like a shave, and a bath of some sort."

Troubridge exclaimed, "I doubt if the ship is quite ready, sir."  The

flag lieutenant was never far away.  "I could call away a boat, and

have you in the George at Portsmouth Point in no time."

Adam moved to the opposite side, and the screen across the sleeping

cabin.

"Too many ghosts."  He did not explain.  "Find that servant you

mentioned, and then .. ."

Troubridge was opening a cupboard and taking out a finely cut goblet.

He smiled, almost shyly.  "I did arrange a small welcome for you,

sir."

Feet stamped beyond the screen door, and Adam heard a corporal reading

out the standing orders to the marine sentry.  More stamping, then

silence.

He sat on the bench seat and looked around the bare cabin.

"Then you will join me, eh?"

There was a muffled burst of cheering and Troubridge could not contain

a grin.  "Ahah.  The rum has been issued, sir."

Adam took a goblet and glanced at the breech of a twelve-pounder which

shared his quarters, and would be one of the first in action if this

ship was ever called upon to fight.

It was cognac.  Probably some of Bethune's.

He stood, and raised the goblet.  "To the ship!"

Troubridge was young but he was quick to learn, and he felt that he

knew this captain better than he had expected he would ever do after so

brief an acquaintance.

He lifted his own goblet and said simply, "And to absent friends,

sir."

It was done.

Bryan Ferguson stood by the window of his cramped estate office and

watched the horses being manoeuvred toward the carriage in the centre

of the stable yard.  The sky was a clear, pale blue, the air like ice,

but it was likely to remain dry for the journey to Plymouth.  Young

Matthew and his lads had made a fine show with the carriage, he

thought.  You could see your face in it; even the harness shone like

black glass.

A special day, but he was also saddened by it.  He heard Yovell

speaking to somebody in the passageway and was suddenly grateful that

the portly secretary was coming back here when he returned from

Plymouth.  From his mission, as he had put it.  Yovell was good

company, and a great help with the never-ending work connected with the

estate, and anyway, Ferguson had told him frankly, was too old for a

seagoing existence.

He glanced down at his empty sleeve.  He was grateful, something he had

not been able to admit before, not even to his beloved Grace.  He was

the one who was getting too old for this work, the estate, the

tenant-farmers and stock holders who knew his shortcomings.  Yovell was

a kindly soul, but nobody's fool, and he had a mind like quicksilver.

And in any case .. .

He turned as Yovell came in, carrying his heavy coat with its attached

cape.  He was rarely seen without it, and today he would need it.

"The tailor has gone, Daniel.  At long last."

Yovell studied him gravely.  "I shall deal with him when I'm in

Plymouth.  I have a few matters to attend to for Captain Adam.  You

have quite enough to do here."  He counted off points on his plump

fingers.  "The Captain's personal baggage has gone ahead."  He smiled

gently.  "The chair also.  It might take the edge off his new

responsibilities.  But knowing him as I do, I doubt it."

Ferguson looked out at the carriage again.  The horses were standing

peacefully in the traces, harness adjusted, a stable boy giving them a

last currying before departure.  Local people would see the carriage

and its familiar crest, and maybe they would wonder.  Not a Bolitho

this time; the old grey house was empty again.

He saw Luke Jago crossing the yard and knew he would miss him also.

Jago had a strange, blunt way of making friends.  A bad enemy if you

crossed him, he thought.

Every landsman's idea of the true sailor.  In his fine jacket with its

gilt buttons, flared neckerchief and nankeen breeches, he would give

any one confidence.  He thought of John Allday, and the moment when the

two coxswains had met for the first time.

Allday was his best friend, and they shared an inseparable past, even

though Ferguson's seagoing life had ended when he had lost his arm in

battle.  Most people might envy the big, shambling man who had been Sir

Richard's coxswain, who had been with him at the end, and had held him

as he died.  Now Allday was happily married to his pretty Unis, and

together they managed a successful inn, The Old Hyperion, over in the

village of Fallowfield.  They had a little daughter named Kate.  Not

many Jacks who had stepped ashore had found such satisfaction.

But Ferguson had seen the truth in those blue, honest eyes which could

rarely hide a secret.

Allday envied Jago, because of the other life which had been taken

away.

Jago pushed noisily through the door and dropped his chest on the

floor.

Time to shove off, then?"  He nodded to Yovell.  "Thanks for finding a

place to lay my head."

Ferguson swung round.  "Not visitors!  Not now!"

Yovell patted his arm.

"Easy, Bryan.  I think it's Lady Roxby.  I rather thought she might

call."

The other carriage turned in the yard and a boy ran to calm the

horses.

Grace was here now, hurrying to greet her as she was assisted down.

Ferguson saw that the girl Elizabeth was with her.

He heard Jago remark, "Break somebody's heart, that one will, if I'm

any judge."

Ferguson also noticed that his wife had been crying, as he had known

she would.

But she was smiling now, gesturing to each of them in turn.  "Come into

the house, will you?  I only wish Captain Adam could be here!"

They walked up the broad steps and into the familiar hallway.  The

study door was open, a fire burning cheerfully.  Almost as if one of

those faces in the portraits would be there.  Waiting.

They were a very mixed group, the one-armed steward and the plump

Yovell, who had become so much a part of their lives.  Jago, at ease

but never relaxed, soon to join his captain, and questioning even that.

The two women, and the slim, upright girl with the chestnut hair.

Nancy heard one of the servants give an excited hand clap and some one

call out something from the broad landing.  Very quickly, she made her

decision.

She saw Jago turn and stare at her, his usual composure, sometimes

hostility, gone as she grasped his hand in hers.  It might be the worst

thing she could do But she said abruptly, "I know you, Luke Jago.  My

nephew trusts you, and so must I."

She thrust an envelope into his fist and felt his fingers close round

it like a trap.  "Give him this.  Tell him .. ."  She broke off as

Ferguson called, "Well done!  Well done!"

Jago stared past the woman he knew to be Captain Bolitho's aunt.  He

knew, too, that she was more than merely that.  It was enough.  The

envelope was in his jacket pocket.

"Good as done, m' lady."

Nancy turned away, angry that tears might spoil this day.

She walked to the foot of the stairs and opened her arms, holding him

as she had once held Adam, a lifetime ago.

The youth Elizabeth had described as "the captain's servant" had gone.

In his new midshipman's uniform, with the single-breasted tailed coat

and white collar patches which still haunted her memory, he was some

one else.

She embraced him and thought she heard Grace Ferguson sobbing, as if

she, too, was losing somebody dear to her.

"He would be so proud of you, David."  His slight shoulders were rigid

under the new blue coat, as if he were still trying to come to terms

with it.  "It is what he wanted for you."

David Napier swallowed hard and gazed past them at the big doors,

standing open to the cold air.  The wall, the curving drive, that line

of trees.  And the sea.

He was going to another ship; he could feel the stiff document folded

inside the pocket of the coat.  He stared at the gilt buttons on each

sleeve and saw himself as he had just seen his reflection in the mirror

on the landing.

He thought his hands were trembling, but when he held one out to the

sunlight it was quite steady.

He had no right to think of this house as his home, but the feeling

would not change, or go away.  He looked at their faces, each one in

turn, so that he should not forget: Grace, wiping her eyes and trying

to smile, her husband, who had done all he could to make him feel

welcome, and Yovell, the man who had shared so much with him in

Unrivalled, and had taught him about things and deeds he would never

otherwise have known.  And the lady who had just hugged him.  Part of a

great family.  How can I leave them now?

It was Luke Jago who cut the cable.

"Here now, Mister Napier, we'd better get a-moving if we're to get you

on board today!"

As he climbed into the carriage Napier paused to look at the house, and

to wave, although he could see very little in the hard light.

But he thought of his mother.  Might she have been proud, too?

4 "The Higher We Climb .. ."

The small working party of seamen had retreated from the cabin, and the

screen door was closed once more.

Adam Bolitho stood by the stern windows and felt the sun warming his

shoulders through the thick glass, although he knew it was still very

cold on deck.

He ignored the litter of cases and bags which had just been delivered,

each seaman darting a quick glance around the cabin, and at the man who

had been their captain for almost four days.

He hestitated, then walked slowly to the high-backed chair which had

received the particular attention of the boatswain's mate in charge, a

mahogany berg ere upholstered in brass-nailed dark green leather.  A

chair you could doze, even sleep in, and be readily on call.  Where you

could plan and think, somehow separated from the ship and her routine.

There were a few scratches and a dark stain on one arm rest, but it was

the same chair, the one she had wanted him to have after Sir Richard

had been killed in Frobisher.

He gripped it and moved it very slightly.  He had sat here many times

himself.  Feeling it.  Sharing it with his own command, Unrivalled.

"May I suggest something, sir?"

Adam turned sharply; he had forgotten that he was not alone.

John Bowles had been Captain Ritchie's servant for three years, and the

previous captain's for a shorter period, until he had been killed in a

sharp engagement with a French blockade-runner.

At first meeting Bowles seemed an unlikely candidate to fill the role

of cabin servant.  He was tall, slightly stooping because of the lack

of headroom, with greying hair trained into an old-style queue, and

long sideburns.  His was a grave, rather melancholy face, dominated by

a large, hooked nose, so that his surprisingly bright eyes seemed

almost incidental.

Not a young man, and listed as forty years old on the ship's books, he

was light-footed and unobtrusive, unusual for one so tall.

Adam said, "Yes?"  thinking again of Napier and his clicking shoes, his

earnest and often deadly serious eagerness.  We take care of each

other.

Bowles moved around the chair, careful not to touch it, or so it

appeared.  He stopped suddenly and lifted up a small flap in the deck

covering.

"Just 'ere, sir."  He indicated a brass ringbolt.  "The chair can be

shackled, nice an' safe, if the sea gets up."  He looked directly at

Adam for the first time.  "Athena can be a lively lady in alfa gale if

she feels like it."  He almost smiled.

He had a London accent, and Stirling the first lieutenant had told Adam

that he had been working in a riverside tavern when he had become

involved in some kind of brawl at the very moment that a press gang had

been passing.  The rest was a familiar story in those times; the

lieutenant in command of the press gang had been thankful just to lay

hands on a few more men, sailors or not.

It was strange that Bowles had apparently made no attempt to quit the

navy when the war with France and her allies had at last come to an

end.  Adam found that he was touching the chair.  When my uncle was cut

down.

"That sounds a sensible plan."  He gestured to the other pieces of

baggage but before he could speak Bowles said, "I can 'ave it all

stowed by the dog watches.  I am instructed that you are dining with

the wardroom, so I will make sure that everything is right, sir."

Once Adam would have preferred a younger man, but it seemed unimportant

now.  Bowles belonged to the ship.  A part of her.  And I am his third

captain.

Bowles said suddenly, "That is a fine old sword, sir.  I 'ave some

special oil that might suit."  He was thinking aloud.  "Though

I doubt we'll be doing much cut-an'-thrust on this commission."  He

bared his uneven teeth in a grin.  "Us bein' a flagship an' all!"

Adam heard the sentry tap his musket on the grating outside the screen

door.

"Midshipman o' the watch, sir!"

Bowles was across the cabin before Adam had seen him move, but he

turned just briefly, like a conspirator, and said, "Mr.  Vincent,

sir."

Adam faced the door.  He had met Vincent, Athena's senior 'young

gentleman', but he doubted if he would have remembered his name after

only four days.  Almost due for examination for lieutenant.  The first

major step from warrant rank to quarterdeck.  A King's officer.

The midshipman stepped smartly into the cabin, his hat beneath his arm.

He was almost eighteen, but looked older, and very self-confident.  He

was in charge of Athena's signals, and Adam had seen him shouting at

one of his men only a few feet away, as if he were stone deaf or a

complete fool.  Stirling had been nearby but had said nothing.  Adam

thought of the much-hated midshipman in Unrivalled, Sandell, who had

gone missing over the side one night.

"Yes, Mr.  Vincent, what is it?"

"There is a man who wishes to see you, sir."  He had narrow nostrils

which were flared now with obvious anger.  "Insists, sir!"

Adam looked past him and saw Jago waiting by an open gun port a bag

swinging back and forth in his hand.

"My coxswain, Mr.  Vincent.  He has access to me whenever so

required."

Vincent was not the sort to make stupid mistakes.  Jago's expected time

of arrival had been in the order book almost since Adam had read

himself in to the ship's company.

He said, "But only officers were allowed free access, sir."

Adam smiled, disliking him, and hoped it was convincing.  "That was

then, Mr.  Vincent.  You may return to your duties."

The door was shut again and they stood facing one another, awkward

despite what they had shared.  Separated, perhaps, by the ship, a

stranger to them both.

Adam gripped his hand.  "It is very good to see you, Luke."  He felt

the smile breaking through and realized just how acute the loneliness

had been.  In the night watches, lying in his cot,

staring into the darkness, listening to the occasional tread of a watch

keeper the angle and bearing of each sound still unfamiliar.  Or the

movement of rigging, the slap of water alongside, two decks down now.

Jago grinned.  "You too, Cap'n.  I see the chair got aboard safely?"

"Have a tot and tell me about everything.  I want to hear it."  He sat

down on the stern bench, his legs apart, his hands clasped, the young

captain again.

Jago held up his fist.  "Two fingers of grog, an' one of water, if it's

clean!"

Adam smiled.  "You will soon get used to my cox'n, Bowles."

Bowles nodded doubtfully.  "And a cognac for you, sir."

The door to the pantry clicked shut.

Jago glanced at the chair again, at the broad, curving deck beams and

the glistening paintwork; felt the slow movement of the hull.

"No fifth-rate, sir.  Bigger than we're used to."  He half-listened to

the squeal of calls, and the clatter of tackle as more stores were

hoisted inboard to be stowed away.

Then he said lightly, "She'll suit, sir.  "I'll something better is

offered!"

Adam felt his muscles relax, and accepted, perhaps for the first time,

how deeply the change had affected him.

"And what about young David?  Did it go off all right?  I wish I could

have been there."

Jago thought about it, recalling the final handshake, the sudden

anxiety, the ship rising above the boat he had unofficially borrowed

for the occasion.  He still found it hard to believe that he had even

cared.  That he still did.  It went against almost everything he

knew.

The challenge yelled down from the ship's side, and his own firm and

immediate response.

"Mr.  Midshipman Napier, sir!  Coming aboard to join!"

Just another 'young gentleman'.

But he said, "I was proud of him, an' that's a fact."

He took the glass from Bowles as he stooped over them and added, "An'

he got his frigate, which is more than some can say!"

Bowles returned to his pantry as the cabin echoed with laughter.

Things might be very different, he thought as he polished glasses. They

needed to be.

Jago wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Almost forgot, sir."  He groped into his jacket.  "Lady, er, Roxby,

give me a letter for you."

Adam put down his glass, his bowels like ice.

Jago was saying, "I've 'eard you'll be goin' up to London again .. .

?"

Adam flattened the paper on the bench and read it slowly.  Some one had

printed an address in large capitals.  Almost a child's writing.

He heard himself answer, "Yes.  Two days' time.  The Admiralty.  Final

instructions, I believe."  His brain refused to concentrate.  Even

Nancy's scribbled words made no sense.

It is all I was given.  I am still not sure I should have told you.

Adam was on his feet without realizing it, one hand on the back of the

chair.

"I am still a stranger to London.  I marvel that people there can find

their way from one street to another."  He was making a fool of

himself.  "The place they call Southwark?  All I know of it is an inn

called the George I took the coach from there to the George here in

Portsmouth.  That's all I can remember."

Bowles walked from the little pantry, his head lowered as if he had

been listening to something elsewhere in the poop.  "I knows Southwark,

sir."  He pronounced it "Sutherk".  "I knows it, sir."  He moved one of

the empty glasses, his mind far away.  He was thinking of the tavern

where he had once worked and had a room of his own.  Of the din and

upheavals when sailors came ashore from the ships moored on the great

river, looking for drink and willing company.  And the crimes committed

in those parts, the ragged corpses which dangled from the gibbets at

Wapping and Greenwich as grim reminders.  "It is changing with the

times, I believe, sir.  Not always for the best."  Even the hated press

gangs had trod warily where he had lived by the Thames.  "Some parts,

sir .. ."  He raised his eyes, gauging the captain's mood.  "It's not

safe to walk alone or unarmed."

Adam nodded slowly, moved by his cautious sincerity.

"Thank you, Bowles.  That was well said."

He walked to the stern windows and looked down into a lighter which was

being warped beneath the counter.  Faces peered up at him.  There was a

woman, her legs uncovered, displaying a basket of bright scarves,

grinning broadly.  They could have been invisible.

Nancy was afraid of offering him hope.  But suppose her information

held the truth?  That for some reason Lowenna needed him?

Tonight he was being entertained by his officers, in his own ship, as

was the time-honoured custom.  Two days from now he would be in London,

with Bethune.  More secrets, although Jago had heard about the trip

within an hour of stepping aboard.

He turned his back on the glittering water and overlapping masts and

said, "Can you read this, Bowles?"  He held out the letter.

"Sir?"  His eyes merely blinked, but it sounded like of course.

Adam cursed his own impatience.  "I meant no disrespect."

The big nose trained round again.  "None taken, sir."  He almost

smiled.  "In my old trade, the merchants I dealt with would rob you

blind if you couldn't read and unravel their accounts!"

He held the letter to the reflected sunshine.  "I knows that street,

sir.  Some wealthy folk lived there, but they fell on hard times.  I'm

told that things is very different now.  There was some talk that a new

dock was to be built close by."  He handed back the letter and added

apologetically, "Unless you needs to go, sir .. ."  He did not

finish.

Adam moved restlessly across the cabin.  Suppose he had not been going

to London at Bethune's request?  Nobody could say when Athena would be

ready for her passage to the West Indies, or even if the orders had

been changed by some higher authority.

There would be no other opportunity.  No chance to discover the value

of this small, crudely printed note.

He had a command, a ship when so many others had nothing.  Not

Unrivalled, but a ship .. .

He knew what Nancy feared most, about him and for him.  To her, those

brief meetings with Lowenna might not be enough.  They would still be

strangers, and his visit could do more harm than good.  He touched his

coat, as if to feel the yellow rose he had seen in the portrait at

Falmouth.  Bethune or not, he knew he would have gone.

Unless you needs to go .. .

Jago interrupted his thoughts.  "I'll be with you, Cap'n."  Suddenly

alert, tense, like all those other times.  But there was something

else, almost a warning.

Adam looked at him, knowing he should refuse.  It was something

personal, not a reason to involve him in something unlawful,

dangerous.

Jago, the man who hated officers and all those who abused authority,

who had been wrongfully flogged, and, although declared innocent, would

carry the scars of the cat until his dying day.

The same man had made certain that David Napier had been delivered

safely to his new ship with the warrant of midshipman, a breed he had

been known to dismiss with contempt on many occasions.  And lastly, the

man who had waved aside the chance of being paid off, the opportunity

of living as he chose, and traded it for this.

He said, "Can't be no worse than Algiers, sir!"

Adam smiled.  "I take too much for granted, Luke.  Thank you."

Bowles said, "The first lieutenant will be here shortly, sir."

Adam nodded.  He had told Stirling that he wanted to go through the

muster books and the watch bills, also the red punishment book, often

the best gauge of any ship, and especially her officers.

Stirling would probably prepare him for the wardroom invitation to

dinner, the individuals behind the uniforms he would be meeting.

He thought of the other note which was folded so carefully in his

pocket.  Almost falling apart now, but all that he had of hers.  What

might the formidable Stirling say if he knew his captain's secret

fears?

He smiled a little.  No wonder dear Nancy was troubled about him.

"First lieutenant, sir!"

Bolitho turned to face the screen door.  The flag captain.

Lieutenant Francis Troubridge smiled regretfully, and said, "You will

not be kept longer than necessary, sir.  I am afraid this room is in a

state of chaos."

Adam Bolitho tossed his hat on a vacant chair and looked around the big

room he remembered so well from his previous visit.  It looked as if it

had been hit by a whirlwind.  All the paintings, including Bethune's

frigate engaging the two Spaniards, were arranged in a rank along one

wall, numbered for removal to his house, or perhaps destined for

another room in the Admiralty.  Boxes and ledgers in other piles; even

Bethune's handsome wine cooler was covered with a grubby sheet.

Troubridge was watching him, one hand still resting on the door

handle.

"The higher we climb, the more precarious the perch, sir."

Bethune was leaving, going to an important post in the West Indies. And

already another was taking his place, like a door closing behind him.

Troubridge was in his element here, Adam thought.  At ease with the

senior officers they had met, always ready to remind Bethune of any

small detail some one else had overlooked.

A civilian member of the Board of Admiralty, a personal friend of the

First Lord as Troubridge had recalled, had explained some of the

complications which had followed the various acts of Parliament and

treaties to control and then abolish the slave trade, once and for all.

There had been an Anglo-Portuguese treaty which still allowed Portugal

to continue loading slaves in her own ports, and another which made

Portugal ban the trade north of the Equator, but allowed her the

freedom to continue trading below it.  And the same with Spain, which,

to Adam, made a mockery of the original resolutions.  Spain and

Portugal were still able to trade freely south of the Equator, where

even a simple sailor man could appreciate was the richest harvest both

in the Indies and the Americas.

In Britain the slave trade was a felony.  Elsewhere it was still able

to make a fortune for those daring and ruthless enough to risk seizure

and punishment.

Bethune's command was to be a fluid one.  To co-operate with the ships

of other nations, but to ensure that regular patrols continued on and

around the most likely shipping routes so that any vessel carrying

slaves, or fitted and equipped with the means of restraining them,

could be arrested, and the owners or masters brought to trial.

Troubridge was followed by two clerks who were making copious notes

about everything.  They would find life aboard a King's ship very

different when they joined Athena at Portsmouth.

Adam had also seen a file marked Rear-Admiral Thomas Herrick.  His

uncle's old friend.  He recalled his visit to Unrivalled in Freetown,

that melting pot of the anti-slavery patrols, where some terrible

scenes had ensued when overloaded slavers had been escorted into

harbour, their human cargoes more dead than alive after being crammed

into conditions which were like vignettes of hell.

Maps, charts, signals, information; it would be easy to lose his way in

minutiae.  Adam kept his mental distance, or tried to.  A captain's

viewpoint had to take priority: time and distance, the most favourable

routes, the anchorages and safest channels, and the reliability or

otherwise of charts where an unmarked reef could rip out a ship's

timbers like a knife through butter.  Fresh water, stores, medical

supplies, and a routine which kept men fit and ready to fight if the

need arose.

It was difficult to see those aspects clearly in the Admiralty's map

room, impressive though it was.

If Bethune had any doubts he did not show them; he was easy-mannered,

almost casual at times.  Maybe that came with flag rank, too.

Another door opened and two workmen entered, an oil painting held

carefully between them.  Bethune and another officer, a rear-admiral,

followed them.

Adam had already been introduced to the rear-admiral, Philip Lancaster,

whose exploits during the second American war had brought him to their

lordships' notice.

Bethune said, "I hope you'll be comfortable here, Philip."  He was

looking at the picture of his frigate, and it was then that Adam saw

the first hint of uncertainty, perhaps dismay.  He was leaving this

secure world for the unknown.  A ship instead of power, strategy, and

ambition.  Lancaster pointed to the opposite wall, by accident or

choice, Adam wondered.  It was where the frigate had hung, guns

blazing, colours streaming above the smoke of battle.

"There, I think."

It was a full-length portrait of the man who had just spoken.  It was a

good likeness, a quietly determined face, with an anonymous sea as a

background.

Bethune licked his lips, and smiled.  "You must get it brought up to

date, eh, Philip?"

In the portrait, Lancaster wore the uniform of a post captain.

It was something to say, to break the silence.

"I intended to, Sir Graham.  It was all arranged."  He stopped,

frowning, as a servant came to stand just inside the doors, and

announced, "The First Sea Lord is ready to receive you now, sir."

Bethune relaxed slowly.  In charge again.  "Well, what happened?"

They were picking up their hats, looking around the disturbed room;

only the ornate clock had not been moved.

Lancaster adjusted his dress coat and shrugged.  "It was in the Times.

The artist I intended fell down dead the other day."  He strode past

the servant, adding, "Most inconsiderate, don't you know!"  He

laughed.

Troubridge waited.  "Are you ready, sir?"

But Adam scarcely heard him.  He wanted to go closer to the portrait,

but could not.  Dared not.

He did not need to examine the artist's signature.  It would be the

same hand which had painted the empty sleeve on the portrait of Captain

James Bolitho, and the portrait of Sir Richard.  He was touching his

lapel.  And the yellow rose on mine.

He thought suddenly of Athena's wardroom, brightly lit by candles and

shining with the mess silver.  The faces, some sweating badly by the

end of the evening, the loud laughter at some joke made by Tarrant, the

young third lieutenant.  A ponderous speech by Stirling.  Looking back,

it seemed more a homage to the previous captain than one of welcome.

And the long journey from Portsmouth to the Admiralty, Jago sitting

with him in the coach, more ill at ease than he could ever recall.

Now here.  And now this.

Troubridge had moved and was facing him.

"If I may help in any way, sir?"  The admiral had already been

dismissed from his thoughts.  This, the present moment, was suddenly

important, although he could not determine why.

Adam said, "The artist he mentioned.  Do you know his name?"

"Yes, sir.  He once did a portrait of my father.  It was Montagu ...

Sir Gregory.  It was very sudden, I believe, sir."

The Admiralty servant coughed politely and Troubridge said, "We must

go, sir.  The First Lord dislikes being delayed."

Their feet made the only sound in the long corridor.  Occasionally they

passed a window, where carriages in the distance and, once, a troop of

dragoons gave a touch of normality.

She was in that house.  Like Andromeda.  Helpless and alone.

The tall doors were just a few paces away: the room where the great

news had broken.  Trafalgar.  Waterloo.  And Algiers.

Troubridge said suddenly, "You can trust me, sir."

Afterwards he knew he would never be able to forget Captain Bolitho's

expression.  His eyes.  Nor want to.

The great doors had opened as though to some signal, but Adam turned

abruptly and gripped the flag lieutenant's arm as if nothing else

mattered.

"I am not sure I can trust myself!"

The journey seemed endless, and Adam had lost count of the streets and

squares, the gleam of water whenever the coach drove close to the

river.  It was late, and pitch dark, and yet there seemed to be people

everywhere, and when he lowered a window he could hear the clatter of

wheels and horses, smell woodsmoke and the occasional aroma of cooking

whenever they passed yet another tavern.  Did nobody ever sleep in the

capital?

The coachman showed no uncertainty, and Adam guessed he was used to

these journeys with little notice or none at all; Troubridge had said

as much.  He was often employed by senior officers not wishing to draw

attention to themselves.  Troubridge had learned fast since his

appointment as Bethune's aide.

Adam wished he knew what Jago was thinking, up there beside the

coachman, probably wondering what had made him insist on joining

them.

Troubridge was thinking aloud.

"Getting close."  He was peering through the opposite window.  "That

looks like the church."  He hesitated.  "I was here once before."

Adam saw some glowing braziers beside the road, dark figures crowded

around them for warmth and companionship.  Coachmen, grooms, servants,

it was hard to tell.  Waiting for their masters to become tired or

bored with whatever pastime or indulgence had brought them here.

The houses were higher now, several storeys, some with windows lighted,

chandeliers giving a hint of the district's original luxury.  Much as

the solemn Bowles had described.  Other houses were in total darkness,

shutters closed, walls neglected and flaking in the carriage

lanterns.

Troubridge murmured, "Number Eighteen, sir.  We're passing it now."

Adam felt even more uneasy.  Cheated.  It was no different from all the

others.

Troubridge said doubtfully, "Looks deserted."  He leaned out of the

window.  "Some lights up there, sir."

The coachman said nothing, and had climbed down to attend to his

horses.

"What kind of people, I wonder

, Troubridge shrugged, and Adam thought he heard the clink of steel.

"Gaming rooms."  Again the hesitation.  "Brothels.  I did hear that

artists come here to earn their keep."

Jago was by the door, although he had made no sound.  He said, "Some

one comin' now, sir."

A group of men, perhaps six in all, one calling back to a coachman,

telling him to wait without fail.  A loud, slurred voice.  One used to

being obeyed.

They were going toward the house, Number Eighteen.  One of them was

laughing; another called, "Put it away, John, you can have all you want

to drink inside!"

They heard the crash of the knocker, enough to wake the street.

The door was partly open, more voices, angry this time, one harsher

than all the others.

"So I'm a trifle late, man!  What is that to you?  Just do as you're

damn well told by your betters and be sharp about it!"

The door opened wider, and there was more laughter.  Then silence

again, and the street was empty.

Adam said, "I am going inside."  Suppose I am wrong?  "Stay here."

He was on the road, the horses turning their heads to watch him.

Without looking, he knew that Troubridge was following him,

while Jago had moved away to their left, almost as if he had changed

his mind.

Troubridge said, "I think you should consider .. ."

Adam had already seized the knocker.  "I must find out," and the crash

froze Troubridge into silence.

The door opened a few inches; Adam heard voices, muffled, deep inside

the building.

"What do you want The shadowy figure seemed to glide backwards, the

door opening completely, the voice suddenly changed, all hostility

gone.

Instead he said brokenly, "Thank God.  You got the message!"

The door had closed behind them; the high-ceilinged entrance was lit by

only two candles and Adam could see the stains on the floor, the

lighter patches on the walls where pictures had once hung, like a

travesty of Bethune's room at the Admiralty.

He swung round and stared with disbelief.  His first visit to the Old

Glebe House; being met by the dour-faced figure, who had looked more

like a priest than a servant.  This same man.

Adam seized his arm; it felt like a bone through his coat.

"Tell me what is happening.  Take your time."  He tried to keep the

urgency out of his voice, willing the other man to stay calm.

The house was suddenly silent, and very still.  He could hear

Troubridge's breathing, fast, unsteady.  Or was it his own?

The other man said slowly, "Sir Gregory died, sir.  He lost the will to

live.  His injury, after the fire .. . but for her I'm not sure what ..

."

Somewhere above them a door banged open and there were more shouts and

laughter, one of them a woman's voice, hysterical.  The door slammed

and there was silence again.  The late arrivals had reached their

destination.

Adam's eyes were becoming accustomed to the feeble lighting.  When he

leaned forward he could just discern a spiral staircase rising

overhead, a gilt banister, lit here and there by candle sconces, or

perhaps an open door.  An even larger house than it had seemed.  He

thought of Troubridge's comment.  Gaming rooms.  Brothels.

He seized the servant's arm again.  "She is still up there?"

"First landing, sir.  She was just about to leave when .. ."

The scream broke the stillness, locking mind and movement, making

thought impossible.

He was running up the stairs, heedless of uneven and torn carpet

snaring his shoes, guided only by the scream although it had ended as

abruptly.  There was a sudden crash, like some one falling, and the

sound of breaking glass.  On the landing above, more doors had opened

and voices made an insane chorus, like the climax to a nightmare.

Adam saw the gleam of light under a door and flung his shoulder against

it.  After the dark stairway the glare almost blinded him, but he took

it in at a glance.  Like the moment of close action.  The first fall of

shot.  The carnage, and the wild disbelief that you had lived through

it.

A studio, the same soiled and paint-daubed sheets, mock pillars and

classical busts, one crowned with real laurels.  And a long couch like

the one he had seen at the Old Glebe House, where Lowenna had sat for

Montagu's most promising students.

A tall looking-glass which he had seen used to direct light on to a

subject lay in fragments, and a man was clutching a bloodied sheet to

his face even as he tried to stagger to his feet.

Adam said, "Stay where you are!"  He did not raise his voice, or did

not think he had, but the other man fell back against the couch as if

he had struck him.  Some one about his own age, and vaguely familiar;

he did not know or care.  If he had moved, he would have killed him.

The girl stood facing him, quite still, as if posing for an artist.

Only the painful thrust of her breast made a lie of her composure.  She

had one hand to her shoulder, where there was a tear in her gown which

would become a bruise on the bare skin.  In the other she was holding a

brass candlestick.

She said quietly, "Adam."  She repeated his name as if she believed she

were mistaken.  "How did you knowT

The man on the couch exclaimed, "She might have killed me!"  He broke

off and cringed as she raised the candlestick again.

But she tossed it under one of the sheets and said, "I was leaving.  He

tried to stop me.  Then he tried to .. ."

She would have fallen if Adam had not seized her, held her, soothed her

with words he scarcely understood, and did not remember.  Behind him he

heard the soft click of a pistol being uncocked.  Troubridge had been

ready.

He stroked her back, holding her without looking at her, feeling the

resistance, the nearness of a complete breakdown.  Remembering the

secrets Montagu had told him, and what Nancy had discovered for

herself.  The nightmare, the brutal, lusting figures.  The suffering

and the shame.

He held his cheek close to the long, silky hair, his voice low, so that

no one else existed.

"I wrote to you, Lowenna.  I wanted you to know, to believe .. ."

For a moment he thought she had not heard, but felt her nod very

slowly, her dark hair clinging to his face.

"I dared not.  I was not sure.  About myself.  What I might do.  It did

not seem fair to you.  To us .. ."

The man on the couch stirred, his shoes scraping on broken glass.  Adam

heard Troubridge say, almost gently, "Easy, now, be still, eh?"  The

hammer clicked again and there was silence.  Even the sounds from the

other rooms had faded or gone completely.

He said quietly, "I only heard about the fire when I returned to

Falmouth."  He held her more closely as she began to shiver.  "I'll

take you where you'll be safe."

"I have some friends, not far from here."  She winced as the man

shouted, "Whores!"

She said, "Of your making.  As you would have used me!"

Then she stood back a little, his hands still around her waist, and

added, "This is Sir Gregory's nephew.  I think you may have seen him at

one time."

Calmly said, but he could feel through his hands what it was costing

her.

"I had my belongings packed, ready to go."  She shook her head, trying

to shut it out.  "He said terrible things, taunted me, tried .. ."  She

shut her eyes.  "I wanted to stop him .. . kill him."

A tall, painted screen shuddered to one side and Jago appeared in the

room.

He said, "Found another door, Cap'n.  Thought it might be a bolt-hole."

He reached out casually and gripped the other man by the arm.  "Stay

anchored, matey.  I don't like surprises, especially from your sort of

filth."  He did not even raise his voice.  He did not need to.

Adam guided her to the empty fireplace, suddenly conscious of the cold.

Hating the place, the smell of paint and oil.

She was gazing at him, her eyes unmoving, like the moment he had first

seen her.  On that day, Montagu's nephew had just arrived, and the

bearded painter had taken him through another room to avoid a meeting.

But for that .. .

"Take this."  He undipped his cloak and folded it around her.  "I have

a carriage downstairs."

She had not heard him.  She said, "Sir Gregory's house is locked up

until legal matters have been settled.  His brother is a lawyer, you

see."

Adam did not see, but he could well imagine the complications Montagu's

sudden death would create.  And Lowenna would be completely alone.

Troubridge said, "I know a place where she can stay a while, sir. There

must be some one .. ."

She had turned to study him, as if she had not realized any one else

was there, and attempted to smile.  But the nightmare was returning.

Instead, she looked very directly at Adam's face, as if to memorize

each detail, as Montagu might have done before starting to paint.

She nodded again, very slowly.

"Walk with me."

Like that day in the garden, or that other day, when she had given him

the rose.

Then, with her arm through his, she left the deserted studio, her head

erect, her hair falling around her shoulders, even darker as they moved

out on to the landing.

Troubridge followed, the pistol still dangling from his hand.  He had

learned a lot today in a very short while.  About his captain, and

about himself.

He heard Jago slam the door, and thought he called something to the man

who still sat on the studio couch, the bloodied sheet pressed to his

face.

Things could have gone very wrong.  He might have been killed, or been

forced to kill some one else.  It would have meant ruin, and shame for

his father, the admiral.  And I was not afraid.  Not once.

He also noticed that neither the captain nor the lovely woman wrapped

in the boat cloak once looked back.

He thought of her voice when she had said, walk with me.  All he could

feel was envy.

5 A Last Resort

"Oars!"

One more pull, and then the cutter's twelve blades rose, dripping from

the murky water, to rest motionless on either beam like spread wings.

It was bright and cold, the oarsmen's breath combined like steam as the

cutter lost way, rocking gently in the current.

Adam Bolitho stood in the stern sheets and watched the moored

two-decker rising above him, the newly gilded beak head and bowsprit

swing across the boat as if Athena, and not the cutter, was moving.

The figurehead, too, was freshly painted, the eyes set in a grey stare,

the face beneath the plumed helmet handsome rather than beautiful, as

the Greek myths would have insisted.

He sensed that the others were watching him.  Stirling, the first

lieutenant, slumped by the coxswain, breathing heavily, and the

midshipman in charge, one hand almost touching the tiller bar as if he

were afraid the coxswain might make a mistake in front of their

captain.  Sitting more comfortably on the opposite side was Fraser the

sailing master, his bright blue eyes missing nothing as the current

carried them slowly into Athena's shadow.

They had already circled the ship twice, Stirling occasionally

indicating the recent work carried out by dockyard people or the ship's

own company.  Factual and to the point, but seldom offering an

opinion.

Fraser, on the other hand, had rarely stopped talking about the ship.

His ship, how she would behave at sea now that some of the ballast had

been moved aft to make her stand more trim

'in the deep water', as he put it.  It should have been obvious to the

dockyard, and also to Stirling, he thought.  With half her twenty-four

pounders removed, replaced now by painted wooden 'quakers', Athena's

ability to sail close to the wind might have been seriously impaired.

Fraser said, "She looks right, sir!  Feels it too, I'll wager!"  A

fellow Cornishman, and from Penzance, where Adam had first drawn

breath, he did not care to hide his enthusiasm, or his eagerness to get

to sea again.  "A fine sailer, sir!  Close-hauled, even under storm

stays' is she can hold her own with a frigate, beggin' your pardon,

sir!"

Stirling had remained silent.

He shaded his eyes and looked across at the battery and the town

beyond.  They would be leaving Portsmouth within the week, and there

were still important matters to be checked, and if necessary

questioned.  Changed .. . like this forenoon.  A seaman was to be

punished for insubordination, insolence to an officer.

Adam had seen more floggings than he could recall, some deserved, some

not, and more usually brought about by the qualities of the officer

involved.  He had even witnessed a flogging around the fleet, the most

barbarous display that could be instigated by the Articles of War,

every captain's guide and final defense.  The prisoner had been taken

from ship to ship, to receive so many lashes at each one, while all

hands were mustered to watch, and to take warning.  Bound as if

crucified to a capstan bar across the boat used for punishment, the

flogging was carried out to the beat of the Rogue's March, a portion of

the total lashes awarded at each rated ship.  No longer human, just a

torn, bloodied thing, the blackened flesh burned by the lash, the bones

laid bare.  Very few lived through such brutal punishment.

Only once had Jago spoken of his own unjust flogging.  Almost as if the

humiliation were worse than the agony.

It was never a comfortable thing to carry out in harbour, surrounded by

other ships and watching eyes.

If an officer tried to be popular he would lose respect.  If he used

any pretext to enforce his will, he was not fit to hold his

commission.

It was a captain's final decision.

He said, "Return alongside, if you please."  He could not remember the

midshipman's name.  But next time .. .

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 had 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 had never been aboard.

He looked up at the starboard gangway and saw some seamen busy

splicing, new hands who had volunteered to one of the recruiting

parties.  Almost unheard of a year ago.

Stirling said, "You've 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 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 comiri 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 some one 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 did not 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 carriage way 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 must, 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 had 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 afool.r

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 coxswain 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 some one 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 would not 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 in 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 some one 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 .. .

He said calmly, "I could arrange a carriage for you.  You can pay me

back when you feel like it."  He saw the sudden anger fall away, like a

cloud passing from calmer water.  "For the first part of the journey,

at any rate."

She put her hand to his face, and touched it very gently.

"Forgive me.  I am not good company today."  She swung away from him.

"Sir Gregory left me well provided.  With money."  She seemed to

shiver, with either laughter or despair.  To think that

I dared to stand on the shore and watch his ship sail away.  Say

nothing, do nothing, let him fade out of reach!"  She turned back, and

her composure was gone, her body trembling within the loose gown.  "I

want to stand beside him with pride, not endless guilt and the terror

of what I might do to him.  To us."

Troubridge made up his mind.  Stupidly, he remembered what a senior

post captain had once told him.  Warned him.  "A flag lieutenant does

not make decisions.  He merely acts on those determined by his

betters!"

He said, "Athena cannot sail without her admiral.  Sir Graham will not

be joining her for ten days.  Even then, there will be matters to deal

with before we weigh anchor."

Her eyes filled her face; she was close enough for him to feel her

quick breathing, catch the scent of her body.

She said, "What must I do?"

"I am going to Plymouth ahead of Sir Graham."  He swallowed.  What are

you saying?  "Three carriages and a wagon of some kind."  He was seeing

it in his mind, and later he might see the risks even more clearly.

"You would do that for me?"

He felt the tension running out, like sand.  "For both of you."

She walked back and forth across the room.  "And you ask and expect no

reward?"  She did not look at him.  "Sir Gregory would have approved of

you."  She put her hand to her breast and held it there.  Recovering

herself, like preparing for a painter's pose, and beyond.  The enemy.

Troubridge looked down at his sweating hands, surprised that they

appeared normal.  Relaxed.  He said limply, "It were better that you

should have a maid for company."

Afterwards, Lieutenant Francis Troubridge thought it was probably the

first laughter that room had heard for a long time.

Adam Bolitho nodded in passing to the Royal Marine sentry and continued

into his cabin.  A cold, brilliant morning, everything familiar and yet

at once so strange.  It was always a demanding time, for captain or

newly signed land man alike.  The time to up-anchor, to bring the ship

to life, so that every block and piece of cordage worked as one: the

ship under command.

Bowles' tall, stooping shadow moved into the sunlight slanting from the

stern windows.

"Somethin' to warm you, sir?"

Adam smiled, and could feel the tightness of his mouth and jaw.  He had

held a command since he was twenty-three.  Surely there was nothing new

to catch him unawares.  He had seen many eyes darting glances at their

new captain, a few threatening fists when this man or that was slow at

the braces or running to lend his weight to a capstan bar.  There was

even a fiddler, although you could hardly pick out the tune above the

bang and thunder of released canvas, the rigging creaking as the fresh

northeasterly filled sails and heeled Athena hard over to lean above

her own reflection.

The harbour mouth, always a challenge with no time for second thoughts.

Even Fraser, the sailing master, had remarked, "Don't look wide enough

to drive a four-in-hand through it!"  Outwardly calm, as Adam had

always remembered him.  Something to cling to when surrounded by faces

still mostly unknown, unproved.

He cradled the mug in both hands, relaxing very slowly, his ear still

tuned to the thud of the tiller head, the scamper of bare feet overhead

and the occasional bark of commands.

It was strong coffee, some of his own stock which Grace Ferguson had

packed for him, in between her farewell sniffs and sobs, laced with

something even stronger, and he saw Bowles' private smile when he

nodded his approval.

He thought of Stirling, the first lieutenant.  He had handled the chaos

of weighing anchor and had directed the seamen to their immediate

duties of making sail and then shortening it again in a sudden squall,

with apparent ease and confidence.  His powerful voice was quick to

point out a clumsy mistake or lack of purpose.  But rarely it seemed to

offer encouragement or praise when they were equally deserved.

Barclay, the second lieutenant, who had first greeted Adam's arrival,

was Stirling's opposite, never still.  He was in charge of the foremast

with all its complicated rigging and the ever-busy jib sails, a vital

part of any ship's workings, leaving or entering harbour.  Adam put

down the mug and stared at it.  Or when called to fight.

Athena, like most of the ships he had seen, might never stand in the

line of battle again.  But the Algiers campaign, and the events leading

up to it, had taught him lessons he would, must,

never forget.  It took more than a flag to determine who was an

enemy.

He thought of Plymouth again.  How would he feel?  What might he find

there?

He pictured the chart in his mind.  A hundred and fifty miles to go,

provided the wind remained steady; 'trustworthy', another of the

sailing master's descriptions.  Once clear of Wight and the Needles

they could .. .

He heard the sentry shout, "First lieutenant, sir!"

Another thing he had learned about Stirling.  Always on time.  To the

minute, no matter what was happening on deck.

He was here now, head bowed beneath the deck head beams, his heavy

features expressionless.

"I think we shall exercise the eighteen-pounder crews before we pipe a

stand easy  He noticed that Stirling had the red-covered punishment

book, and tried to accept it.  He had called him to this very cabin

after the flogging which had been ordered in his absence.  Upholding

discipline, as Stirling had insisted.

Adam had always hated it, had almost fainted when he had witnessed his

first such punishment.  It was necessary, as a final resort... He

thought of that last flogging, for insolence to Blake, one of Athena's

eight midshipmen.  The young seaman in question, Hudson, a maintop man

had been called on deck while he was off watch to stand in for another

who had suddenly reported sick.  Hudson had been in his hammock, the

worse for drink after consuming some extra tots by way of

celebration.

It happened; and as a maintop man Hudson was a trained seaman, not some

loafer from the local petty sessions.  Adam had discovered that Blake

was generally unpopular, but was the son of a senior captain, and like

most of the other 'young gentlemen' was overdue for his examination for

lieutenant.

"What is it, Mr.  Stirling?"  He thought of Galbraith in Unrivalled,

their gradual understanding of one another despite differences and the

barrier of rank.  The comparison caught him unprepared, like being

stripped.  Could he ever call Stirling by his first name, discuss and

share their problems here in the great cabin?

Stirling pouted his lower lip.

The master-at-arms has just reported a man dead, sir.  Nothing any one

could do.  In the main hold, which is open as you know, sir, ready to

take on fresh stores when we anchor."

"It's Hudson, isn't it?"  He saw the brief start of surprise.  "Tell

me."

Stirling shrugged.  "Hanged himself.  I called the surgeon."

Adam was on his feet again, and had moved to the leather chair, running

his fingers along the back, like holding on to something.

"Hudson was twenty-two years old, a volunteer, and a trained seaman. He

was about to be married, and then he was "awarded" punishment."  His

voice was quiet, almost lost in the clatter of rigging and the sea

alongside.  But he saw Stirling flinch with each word, as if he had

sworn at him.

"I was left in charge, sir.  He was insolent to one of my midshipmen.

He had been drinking, too."

"And you ordered two dozen lashes.  Was that not extreme for a normally

wellbehaved and disciplined hand?"  He did not wait for an answer. "You

saw his back after the lash had done its work.  He was to be married,

God knows rare enough in this life we lead.  Would any one want to lie

with his new bride, with a back like that?"

Stirling tugged at his neck cloth as if it was suddenly too tight.

"You were in London, sir .. His voice trailed away.

"And I supported your decision, Mister Stirling, as is my duty."  He

pushed himself away from the chair.  "In future, if in any further

doubt, ask meV

He walked to the stern windows, his body angled to the sloping deck.

"We will exercise the upper battery in ten minutes.  I intend to time

each drill."

Stirling left the cabin without another word, and Adam knew he had

failed.  Stirling would never change.  Perhaps he did not know how.

A man dead.  Like the stroke of a pen in the log, and now in the muster

book.  D.D. Discharged Dead.  Was that all there was to a life?

He moved to the quarter gallery and let the wet breeze soak his hair

and face.

A bad beginning.

The voice seemed to awaken a broken memory.  Like a condemnation.

Athena, sir?  An unlucky ship!

Calls shrilled and feet pounded on deck as the hands ran to prepare the

eighteen-pounders on the lee side for drill.  But the voice remained.

6 Destiny

Captain Adam Bolitho stood by the quarterdeck rail, only his eyes

moving to watch some landmark or another vessel on a converging tack,

while all the time the land continued to reach out as if to engulf the

whole ship.  During the night and early morning the wind had backed a

little, slowing their progress and Athena'?"  final approach to

Plymouth.  Adam had been on deck since before dawn, preparing himself

for this moment.  A captain's responsibility, when any oversight or

impatience could cause a disaster.

He had thought about it even as he had been swallowing several mugs of

Grace Ferguson's coffee.  He had entered and left Plymouth many times,

as a junior officer as well as in command of his own ship.  And yet

this time seemed completely different, even the widening span of the

Sound unfamiliar.  Hostile.

"Steady she goes, sir, nor' by west."

That was Fraser the sailing master, standing by his chart with one of

his mates, ever watchful, one hand hooked into his coat, the fingers

drumming soundlessly to show that he was anxious.  For his ship or his

captain?  It was impossible to tell from his rugged features.

Adam had to stop himself from looking aloft as the main topsail flapped

and banged noisily.  They were losing the wind, the land acting like a

shield.

He heard Mudge the boatswain bawling orders, and bare feet slithering

across the damp planking to obey.  Blocks squealed, and spray dripped

from the braces as more men added their weight to haul round the great

main yard.  So close-hauled now that they would appear to be almost

fore-and-aft to any observer on the land.  Adam recalled Fraser's words

when they had first spoken on this deck.

An excellent sailer, close to the wind even when under storm stays'

Is

Adam watched the pale sunlight flash from something ashore.  That was

less than two months ago, in this same harbour.  When he had lost

Unrivalled.  How was that possible?

He said, "Let her fall off a point, Mr.  Eraser."  He held out his hand

and felt a midshipman lay a telescope across his palm.

As he raised it to train across the starboard bow he heard Fraser

giving his orders, sensed his relief that the captain had noticed the

stubborn drift as the wind spilled from the canvas above their heads.

Adam steadied the glass and studied the big three-decker, in exactly

the same anchorage as when he had first boarded her and had met the

famous admiral, Lord Exmouth, in person.  When he had told him that he

had wanted Unrivalled to be ready to take her place in the van when he

commanded the fleet attack on Algiers.  That, too, seemed a lifetime

ago.  Now a rear-admiral's flag curled from Queen Charlotte's mizzen,

her moment of glory past.  Like Unrivalled.

"Guardboat, sir!"  A hoarse voice, one he had come to recognize among

the many still unknown to him: Samuel Fetch, Athena's gunner, who had

been at sea since he was nine years old.  He talked about his various

charges, from the twenty four pounders to the lowly swivel guns as if

they were alive, each with its own peculiarity or drawback.  Fetch had

been a gun captain aboard the old Bellerophon in Collingwood's Lee

Division at Trafalgar.  That made him different.  Special.  The old

Billy Ruffian, as she was affectionately known, was still with the

fleet.  A survivor, like Fetch.

Adam trained his glass again, figures working on the forecastle leaping

into focus for just a few seconds.  Barclay the second lieutenant, with

his anchor party, was shading his eyes to stare aft at the quarterdeck,

waiting for the signal to drop the larboard anchor.

A good officer, Adam had decided, working both with the foremast and

its complex spars and rigging, and his own battery of guns.  More

importantly, with his men.

He heard Stirling shout something to one of the midshipmen, who was

hurrying along the starboard gangway.  The first lieutenant never

seemed to use a speaking trumpet, or even carry one, unlike most of his

trade.  He would use just one of his big hands held to his mouth, and

his voice carried effortlessly like a fog horn.

Apart from matters of duty and routine they had spoken very little

since the discovery of the body in one of the holds.  To him it was in

the past, no longer important.  It was a common attitude among sailors;

Adam had known that for a long time.  A man existed as a shipmate from

the moment he was signed on.  When he left your ship, by choice or

enforcement, or like the wretched seaman named Hudson, discharged dead,

he was written off.  Never look back.  Never go back.

Adam looked up at the masthead pendant, gauging the wind, the strength

of it under the lee of the land.

Sunlight lanced down through the overlapping web of black rigging and

made his eye smart.

It is the ship.  I am the stranger here.

A frigate was something alive.  You could feel her every mood, match it

with your ability.

He closed his mind to the doubt.

Any ship was only as good as her company.  And her captain.

He heard Fraser say to one of his master's mates, "About true, I'd say,

eh, Simon?"

Adam glanced at him.  No words were spoken.  None were needed.

"Man the braces hands wear ship, if you please!"

Stirling's voice broke the stillness.

Tops'1 clew lines!  Take that man's name, Mr.  Manners!"

Adam raised the glass again, watching two slow-moving fishing craft,

and a smart schooner spreading sail while she tacked toward the Point

and the grey Channel beyond.  Then he moved the glass toward the

anchored flagship.  Beyond her the land was shrouded in mist, where the

other fleet still lay.  Ghosts, some with great names, remembered for

their valour in battle against a common enemy.  Hulks now, gun ports

empty and blind, masts down, decks littered and neglected.

He thrust the telescope away and felt it taken by some one.  It was all

suddenly sharp and in focus, the faces real, waiting.

He lifted his hand and saw Lieutenant Barclay raise his own in

acknowledgment.

"Let go!"

He saw the spray burst over the gilded beak head as the anchor hit the

water, and the cable was controlled by compressor under Barclay's

vigilant eye.

He imagined he could feel Athena slowing, coming to rest, swinging

above her own immense shadow.

Men pounded along the deck, hauling ropes or flaking them down in

readiness for the next command from aft.  High overhead, the big

topsails had already been kicked and fisted into submission and were

furled or loosely brailed to dry.

Soon boats of every kind would be heading out to meet the new arrival.

More stores to be loaded, recruits to be found to fill gaps in the

muster logs.  To await orders, and their admiral.

Adam unconsciously glanced at the foremast truck where Bethune's flag

would soon be flying.  No longer a private ship.  How would it be?

He saw Jago standing down by the boat tier pointing out something to

one of the midshipmen, probably thinking of young Napier, or wishing he

had remained ashore when he had the chance.

He turned and looked across the water, the Hamoaze, where the river

Tamar, his river, separated Cornwall from the rest of England.

It might as well be the moon.  He shaded his eyes again.  Where she had

waited to watch Unrivalled weigh anchor and sail to join Lord Exmouth's

fleet, when she had sent over the little note which was inside his coat

at this moment.  And that last embrace.

"Officer of the guard coming aboard, sir!"

"Very well, Mr.  Truscott, I'll see him in my quarters."

He reached out and touched the big double wheel, now unmanned and

motionless, but throbbing quietly to the thrust of the current far

below.  By keeping busy, things would fall into place.  A captain had

no choice; and he was lucky.  There were many others who would be

walking the shore and looking out at the ghost ships, and the sea which

had rejected them.  The only life they knew or wanted.

He glanced down at the boat tier and saw Jago looking up, somehow

isolated from the bustle around him.  Like those other times, when men

had died, and their world had exploded about them.  And they had come

through it, together.

Jago nodded and then raised one hand slowly; a salute, a greeting, it

was more than either.

The ship had reached out.  For both of them.

Stirling strode aft and touched his hat.  "Ship secured, sir."

"Thank you.  It was well done."

Stirling said nothing, but stood aside from the companion to allow him

to pass.

Past the Royal Marine sentry and through the screen, shining in its new

white paint, and into the great cabin.

Bowles was opening the quarter gallery to allow some air into the

cabin, but turned and gave a sad smile.  "Last time we'll see old

England for a while, sir."

Adam nodded.  "So be it, then."

As if his uncle had spoken for him.

George Tolan, personal servant to Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune,

stood in one corner of the inn's courtyard as the carriage was being

moved nearer to the vaulted entrance.  It was early morning; too early,

he thought, after this long and almost leisurely journey from London.

Now it was over, with Plymouth only fifty miles away.  He glanced up at

the inn sign: The Royal George of Exeter, the county town of Devon.  He

had been given a comfortable room, as was the custom with an admiral's

servant, good food, and a bed as big as a barn.  He might even have

been able to share it with some one, but for Bethune's sudden attack of

urgency.

The last day on the road, but their journey would take them through

country lanes for part of the way.  It was Saturday too, and Exeter

would be particularly busy, with a market fair at one end of the city

and a public hanging at the other.

He adjusted his smart blue coat and stamped his booted feet to restore

the circulation.  Or perhaps, like his master, he was getting nervous,

unsure of the change from land to ocean again.

He was safe, and he had no complaints about his work or the man he

served.  There was always the nagging thought.  Not like fear; he had

seen that over the past twenty years, knew all its faces, or had told

himself often enough to believe it.  Except .. . He looked toward the

entrance, at the girl who was tipping water into a small garden.  She

noticed him and smiled.  If Bethune had decided to prolong his stay at

the Royal George, things might have been very different.

A few people who were crossing the yard glanced at the blue-coated

figure.  Tolan was used to it.  Not tall, but very erect, shoulders

squared, exuding a permanent alertness which he took for granted.  Like

a soldier, some might think.  Which was indeed how George Tolan, aged

thirty-nine, had started his adult life.

He had been born and raised in the old town of Kingston on the banks of

the River Thames, the only son of a grocer who from the beginning he

knew to be a drunken bully.  His mother was cowed by his fits of rage,

and the young George Tolan had been beaten often enough to know hatred

as his only defense.

He could still remember the day it had all changed.  His father had

driven him out of the shop and sent him to get a particular ale from

one of his drinking cronies, with the inevitable threat of what he

might expect if he took too long about it.

And there, in the market place, he had seen the army recruiting party.

While a drummer boy rattled a slow tattoo, a burly sergeant had nailed

up a poster on a stable door, and lastly a young officer had made a

short speech about honour and duty, and England's need for her sons to

step forward and volunteer to follow the drum.

His father never got his special brew, but on that day George Tolan,

aged sixteen, had made his mark and been pounded on the back in

congratulation by the officer and his sergeant together.  He was their

only volunteer that day.

And despite the drills and forced marches, the rough and often brutal

humour, and the ritual of field punishment, young George Tolan had

loved it.

As the war with the old enemies, France and her allies, had continued

to spread and mount in ferocity, Tolan's life had changed yet again. As

the fleet increased in strength there was a shortage of marines, the

backbone of any fighting ship when it came to action at close quarters,

both afloat and in forays ashore.  They also acted as a disciplined

force which could be called upon to maintain order among ships'

companies which were largely comprised of pressed men, dragged aboard

His Majesty's ships to fight and, when necessary, die without question

or protest.

Some of Tolan's Surrey regiment were drafted to the Channel Fleet, in

his case to an old two-decker, not so different, he supposed, from

Athena, soon to be Bethune's flagship.  After tented camps and austere

barracks, the day to day experiences were at first a challenge, and

then a contest between the marines and the overcrowded world of the

mess decks

It was the first time Tolan had ever seen the sea, but like the Corps

itself he grew to accept it.

Perhaps even then he had been conscious of the invisible barriers which

stood between the marines and the overwhelming mass of sailors, pressed

or otherwise, and divided forecastle and quarterdeck.  At divisions, or

when hands were mustered to hear the captain read out the Articles of

War while some poor devil was stripped and tied to a grating to receive

a flogging, or when they were posted as sentries to stand guard over

dwindling water supplies, or to prevent men from deserting when the

ship was in harbour or close to the shore.  Only in battle, when the

enemy's flag flew high alongside and the air was choked with smoke, did

those barriers fall, and they became of one company.

And then, just twenty years ago, the impossible had happened, and the

entire country reeled in shock and fear.  The fleet, which admirals and

parsons alike had always described as our sure shield against all

peril, had mutinied at the Nore and at Spithead.  A French invasion was

daily expected, and too late the Admiralty had been forced to accept

what foul conditions, savage punishment, and in many cases tyrannical

discipline had brought down upon their heads.

Tolan had been reminded of it when he had been listening to the old

clerk at the Admiralty, the one who had fought under Black Dick's

command in the old Queen Charlotte at the Glorious First of June, just

three years before the mutiny had broken out.  Howe himself had been at

the Admiralty, but his fairness and undoubted popularity were still

remembered by those same men of his old flagship when mutiny had snared

her with all the others.  Howe and other senior officers were forced to

swallow their pride and parley with the mutineers' delegates, and

something far stronger than discipline and fleet orders had won the

day.  Many officers were removed from duty, some dismissed from the

service.  Mutineers who had used violence against officers and

messmates alike were punished, even hanged.  Order was restored, and

the country turned to face the enemy across the Channel once again.

But aboard Tolan's ship it did not end without bloodshed.  The captain

was a disciplinarian of the old school, and when his company voted to

follow the example of the fleet and refused to obey any further

commands from aft, he had been beside himself with disbelief and

fury.

The arms chest had been forced open, and the mutineers had driven most

of the officers and the more trusted hands from the upper deck.  Only

the scarlet line had stood fast, muskets loaded, bayonets fixed.

The young officer, who had been from Tolan's own regiment, had raised

his sword, and for an instant it seemed that the threat had passed.

Then the captain had ordered him to fire on the mutineers.  Tolan could

remember the complete silence, as if it were yesterday.

Faces staring at one another across a few feet of decking.  Seamen who

had joked and chuckled when the soldiers, acting marines, had been

forced to learn the crafts of seamanship and man the braces to alter

course, amused by their attempts to cling to their army training and

customs even at sea.

The sword had sliced down.  Fire!  Obey orders without question.  All

he knew.

The complete silence.

Then a young corporal on the right of the line, one of the only true

marines aboard, half turned, smartly as if to an order, and called,

"Belay that!  Ground your arms!"

Some laid down their muskets, others stared around, confused and

overtaken by the swiftness of events, so that the crack of a pistol

shot seemed like a broadside.

Tolan had got to know the young corporal, and had learned many things

from him.  How to keep a clean and smart kit in the close confines of a

ship, how to cook, and what it took to prime and load a cannon.  How to

survive.

He still thought about it.  The corporal lying on the deck, his eyes

wide with shock as the shot had killed him.

Like a mad dream.  His own musket pressed into his arm, the officer

swinging round with the pistol still smoking in his hand.  Then the

jerk of the butt against his shoulder, the officer's hat flying into

the air with the blood from his shattered face.

Like many others, Tolan had deserted that day, and so it had continued,

running and hiding, while a ruthless search for culprits spread across

the country.

In desperation he had presented himself to a recruiting party put

ashore from a frigate.  Bethune had been her captain, his first

command.  It was the perfect disguise and the perfect place to lose

himself.  He had once served as an officer's orderly, and it was not

long before he was selected to attend the captain.

There had been testing moments.  Once in Portsmouth dockyard, he had

come face to face with a tall lieutenant, whom he had recognized

instantly despite the passing of the years.  A midshipman aboard that

same ship when he had shot down his own officer.  Just a glance,

nothing more.  Another time when he had quit the sea to accompany

Bethune on some mission or other he had met a man by the Thames in

London, the same river which ran within half a mile of where he had

been born.  Don't I know you?

It had got no further.  That time .. .

He straightened his back and plucked his coat away from his chest.  He

was sweating.  Would he never be able to forget it?

He saw Bethune's minute secretary Edward Paget coming down the steps,

an important-looking satchel under one arm.  A worrier, Tolan had long

ago decided, always asking questions and making notes.  Good at his

work, though.  He almost smiled.  Otherwise Bethune would have cast him

adrift years ago.  Others did not seem to notice.  Bethune was always

ready to listen and to discuss, if it suited him.  Handsome, dashing,

with an eye for pretty women; a man who looked after himself.  Must be

fifty or even over, but looked far younger.  A man Tolan could

understand, and like, but underneath it all he was steel, something

Tolan had marked well.

He saw that the carriage was already loaded, and apparently ready.  It

was time.  How strange that the flagship at Plymouth was named Queen

Charlotte.  Not the same ship which had been at the centre of the Great

Mutiny, but her name had been carried on.  The navy's way.  It was like

a reminder.  A warning, if he needed one.

"Ah, there you are, Tolan!"  Bethune peered up at the sky and then at

the cathedral as the clock began to boom the hour.  "Good sleep?"  He

nodded.  "That's as well I doubt it will be an easy ride."

He had not waited for an answer; he rarely did.  They walked to the

carriage together in silence.  It was only then that Tolan realized

Bethune, always so buoyant and confident, was unwilling to leave.

She stood very still and upright by the opened, gate, her body

completely covered by a cloak.  She had even pulled its hood over her

head so that her long hair hung down her back, out of sight.

It was well past noon; she had heard a church clock strike somewhere.

It seemed an eternity ago.

She shivered, glad of the cloak; there was a fresh southeasterly breeze

blowing in from the sea.  But she knew it was not that.  She looked

down the slope and saw the Tamar through the trees, some small craft

tossing at their moorings as if they were in the Channel.

She thought of the note the post boy had brought to the house behind

her.  Dearest Lowenna.  Together at noon tomorrow.

Today.  Perhaps something had happened.  Perhaps he had changed his

mind.  She had gone over it so many times since the earnest young

lieutenant, her companion and guardian all the way from London, had

described it all to his captain.  Made light of it, perhaps joked with

his fellow officers aboard the Athena about his exploits with the

captain's 'friend'.  In the same breath, she knew Francis Troubridge

would not.  Probably a couple of years her junior, but he had seemed

from another generation, courteous, friendly, protective, not once

attempting any intimacy.

At the inns where their little procession of coaches and carts had

paused on the journey she had seen the curious stares, the nudges and

the grins.  But Troubridge had always been there, ready to ensure that

she and her maid had all the privacy they could want.

She looked at the river again.  The opposite bank was Cornwall, where

she had been born.  She closed her fists hard against her sides.  She

had never thought of it as home.  It was merely a place where she had

been forced to avoid faces she knew, places where she might be

remembered.  Montagu had changed that for her.  She would have gone mad

otherwise.  She had once tried to kill herself.

She shivered once more, but not from cold, and pressed her hand to her

breast, surprised that her breathing seemed so even.  It brought Sir

Gregory Montagu back to her thoughts, the day he had died, with the

same dignity he had shown in life.  He had tried to tell her something,

but the two doctors, old friends of his, had insisted she leave the

room for a few minutes.  He had not recovered.  She knew that he had

started to die after the fire; he had been trying to save some

paintings, in particular one which had brought Adam into her life.  A

blazing beam had fallen into the studio and smashed him to the floor,

and his right hand had been broken and burned beyond recognition.  The

hand which had brought him fame, and fame to those he had captured on

canvas.  Which had rendered the elusive quality of Adam's smile,

precisely as she had described it.

Almost the last words he had spoken to her were, It's like destiny, my

girl.  Fate.

What had he meant?  Was she still deceiving herself?

She thought of the people who lived in the house behind her, a local

boat builder and his wife.  Montagu had stayed here several times in

the past when he needed to work without interference or arousing local

curosity.  Perhaps she should not have accepted Troubridge's willing

offer of help to come here.  London, then?  More studios, one pose

after another, with her inviolable guard always intact.

She thought of that last time, when she had almost killed Montagu's

nephew.  / wanted to kill him.  The rest was a mist.  Adam holding her,

the young lieutenant Troubridge suddenly transformed, dangerous, with a

pistol in his hand.  Others too, but mostly Adam's hands holding her.

Like that day when his horse had thrown him and his wound had burst.

Dazed and delirious, he had touched her, held her, and she had lain

beside him, her body rigid, her mind screaming as the nightmare

returned.  Groping hands, pulling at her, forcing her to suffer

unspeakable rape and violation.  When it came to her now, it was

endless.  And always the pain .. . Her father's voice somewhere in the

fog, pleading and sobbing.

She had fought against Adam's friendship, the growth of the one true

feeling she had allowed to blossom.  She remembered her own voice,

calling out in the night.  It's love I want.  Not pity.  Can't you see

that?

She swung round.  A horse.  She pushed the hood back from her cheek.

Two horses.  She was breathless, as if she had been running.  It had to

be him.  Nobody used the road at this time of day.  Perhaps he was

bringing Troubridge with him.  To protect her good name.  As a witness

.. .

The horse came around the bend in the road, a second rider a few yards

behind.

She wanted to run to him, to call his name, but she could not move.

Adam was above her one moment, and the next she was in his arms,

pressed against him, her arms trapped by the heavy cloak.

"I am so sorry for the delay, Lowenna.  The flagship made a signal.  I

came as soon as I could.  If only .. ."  The rest was lost as he put

his arm around her shoulders and held her face against his.

She murmured, "You came."  She saw the uncertainty in his eyes.  "It's

all I care about."

She heard the other rider say, "I'll wait at the forge, zur.  Just call

when you needs me."  He sounded awkward but vaguely pleased.

Adam walked with her toward the white-painted house, seeing the river

beyond.  The girl's shoulders were firm under his arm, her dark hair

streaming in the breeze like silk.  He tried to piece it together.

Troubridge's excitement when he had climbed aboard after his journey

from London with Bethune's belongings.  Happy that he had become a part

of it, nervous that he had gone too far.

He had seen one of the boatswain's mates by the entry port turn and

stare as he had seized Troubridge's hands and exclaimed, "You have

saved my life.  Don't you know that?"

He hardly saw the room as she guided him to a tall, ladder-backed chair

and watched him throw his hat and cloak on to another, the same cloak

he had wrapped around her when he had smashed his way into the house in

London.  He reached for her hands and held them.  They were very

cold.

"Are we alone?"  He did not hear her answer, but began to get up

again.

She put her hands on his shoulders, repressing him a little.  "How long

do you have?  They are over the river, in Saltash.  They'll not be back

until sunset, I think."

She touched his face, his cheek, and, gently, his lips.  "I was so

afraid.  I have thought about you so much, maybe too much."  She shook

her head.  "I'm not making very much sense."

He said, "I have to rejoin Athena by the dog watches."  He smiled, and

the strain fell away from his face; he looked very young.  "That'll be

around sunset, too!"

She stood back from him and unfastened the cloak, letting it fall, then

she allowed herself to look at him again.

"Sir Gregory told you."  She held up her hand.  "He must have trusted

you very much.  Otherwise he would have said nothing."

"I want you, Lowenna.  That is all I know and care about.  If it takes

time, then we will find time.  And I want you safe while I am away."

"Safe?"  She watched a gull drift past the window.  "You will be gone

soon."

"You can stay at the house in Falmouth as long as you care to.  Grace

and Bryan Ferguson will make you most welcome."

"You know what people will say, and think, Adam.  She shelters beneath

the Bolitho roof what does she offer in return?"  She smiled, as if a

cloud had passed away.  "I shall call upon your aunt.  She was very

kind to me.  And she loves you greatly I could feel it."

He took her hand again but did not look at her.

"Will you give up the studio work?"

"Are you asking me to?  Will you give up the sea for me?"

She returned the grip on his hand.  "That was unfair of me.  I would

never ask it of you."

Adam saw her sudden anxiety and said, "Next time we meet .. ."

He got no further.

Wo.  Not the next time, Adam.  There may be no next time, who can

tell?"

When she spoke again her voice was level, calm, only her eyes giving a

hint of tension.

"The first time I saw you ... It was something Sir Gregory taught me,

made me put above and before all else.  Forced me to find myself, maybe

by losing myself in others, in the paintings.  I gave myself to the

work, and could hold all else at bay.  Looks and stares, the thoughts

too ... they meant nothing.  He taught me all that, but when you came

into that room and looked at me, I felt something .  very different."

She repeated, "Not the next time, Adam.  Otherwise we might wait in

vain."  She turned her head slightly, as if she had heard something.

"Fate, perhaps?"

Adam said, "I would never hurt you, Lowenna."

She slipped from his hand and walked to the far corner of the room.

"It has to be now.  / must know, for both our sakes."  Then she was

gone, and Adam saw a shoe fall as she disappeared up a narrow staircase

he had not seen before.

He stared at his hat and cloak, lying where he had tossed them.

Leave now before you destroy something that was never yours.  Another

voice persisted, go, and you will never see her again.

He did not remember climbing the unfamiliar staircase, but stooped to

recover her other shoe, which had fallen just outside the door.

Perhaps more than anything else the shoe recalled it to him, what

Montagu had told him, and the fear and disgust he had seen for himself

when he had smashed his way into that room.

He thrust open the door and saw her sitting on the bed, her hair

spilling over her shoulders and the sheet which she had drawn across

her body, one hand holding it close to her throat as if she were about

to pose for another sketch, a new beginning.

The light was poor, but he could see her clothing where she must have

thrown it, with the same quiet desperation she had used to kick off her

shoes.

He heard himself say again, "I would never hurt you, Lowenna."

She nodded slowly, her eyes so dark that it was impossible to know her

thoughts.

He began to unbutton his coat but she shook her head.

"No.  As you are.  Not the next time.  It has to be now."

Then she lay back and deliberately raised her hands above her head,

crossing one wrist over the other, her hair wrapped around them as if

she were tied like a captive.

He leaned down and cupped one shoulder in his hand.  She did not

flinch, but watched his hand as if unable to move.  The captive

again.

Then she looked up at him and whispered, "Whatever I do or say, no

matter how much I protest, take me.  Teach me.  / must know, for both

our sakes!"

She cried out as he dragged the sheet away from her body, until she was

naked, her arms straining as if they were, in truth, tightly held.

He felt himself soothing her, holding, stroking, exploring her until

the blood pounded in his brain like a fever.

She gasped and opened her eyes very wide as his hand found her.  How it

must have been, again and again.

Compassion, love, need, it was all and none of them.  He was kissing

her, and her arms were free and clasped around his shoulders.  There

were tears too, like that day; he could taste them.

He felt her body arch beneath his hand, and her voice, small and far

away.

"Now, Adam .. . dearest Adam.  Take me."

The same church clock broke the spell, but only partly.

She lay naked across the bed, resting on her elbows, while she watched

him struggle into his uniform.  It seemed darker but it was an

illusion, born of joy and of guilt.

Then she stood and put her arms around him and he held and stroked her,

kissed the bruises his buttons had left on her skin.

"You must go."  She tossed the hair from her face.  "The sea will

always be a rival, but not my enemy."

The two horses were standing by the gate, their handler no doubt

nervous about the time.  But he said nothing, and watched Adam climb up

into the saddle.  He saw the youthful post captain touch his side as he

reached down for the reins; he was not to know that it was an old

wound, making its presence felt once more.

Adam turned the horse toward the road, and paused to look back at the

house.  The windows were in shadow now, like eyes at rest, but he knew

she was there, in that same quiet room where life, or fate, had changed

them.  He could still feel her, her fear and doubt giving way to frenzy

and then submission.  / can still feel you.  There would be pain, too.

But the fear was gone, perhaps forever.

He felt his crumpled shirt rubbing against the wound, and remembered

her lips caressing it as they had lain together.

A woman passed him, carrying a bundle of wood.  Without thinking, he

raised his hat to her and smiled, felt her staring after them as the

horses increased their pace.

He remembered suddenly and vividly a time when he had been a child, and

he had been taught to swim in the sea.  It had been on the north coast

of Cornwall, where the sea is often moody, the breakers pounding the

hard sand like thunder.  His instructor had been a friend of his

mother's.  He allowed himself to confront it: one of her lovers.

Out of his depth, the current dragging at his body with sudden

strength, he had heard the man calling to him to return to the beach.

Instead, he had fought depth and breakers together.  Somehow he had

survived, his mind reeling from exhaustion and fright.

But above all, he remembered the sense of triumph and of joy-He twisted

round to look back at the house, but there were only trees, and the

river.

He spoke her name aloud.  And she would know it, hear it on the wind.

Like destiny.  Like fate.

And the next horizon.

7 Under the Flag

John Bowles, the cabin servant, walked to the sloping stern windows and

opened the dress coat which he had just finished pressing, held it

carefully in the harsh glare of reflected sunlight, and made sure that

it was perfect.  Beyond the screen door and beneath his feet the ship

was unusually quiet.  Sometimes it was hard to believe that the hull

held nearly five hundred human beings.  He gave a slow grin.  If you

could call some of them that.  It had been rather different earlier in

the day, since dawn when all hands had been piped to work ship, and

prepare for the arrival of the great man himself.  Extra care with the

rigging, standing and running alike, more hands sent aloft to check

each lashing, and no loose ends, "Irish pennants', the Jacks called

them, to offend the vice-admiral's eye.  There was still a hint of

cooking in the air, the heady aroma of rum, Nelson's Blood, but the

ship was ready.

He had glanced into the spacious cabin beneath this one, and watched it

being transformed into something almost palatial.  Rich and very costly

furniture had appeared as if by magic, even a few paintings in the

admiral's sleeping quarters.  If they ever had to clear for action some

one would have to keep a close eye on those as everything was dragged

below and the screens were torn down to strip Athena to her true

identity, a fighting ship.  He had seen the vice-admiral's servant

supervising every aspect of the transformation, a smart looking man,

utterly unmoved by the bustle and confusion around him.  Bowles had

tried to make conversation, but the man, Tolan, had seemed withdrawn,

disinterested in anything that might distract him from his purpose.

He gave the dress coat a final examination.  First impressions.  He

almost smiled.  It was something the previous captain, Ritchie, had

often said.  He had served him a long time, but looking back, it was as

if he had never really known him.  Now awaiting a court-martial.  That,

too, had surprised Bowles.  It was said that Adam Bolitho had been

court-martialled a year or so ago, after losing his ship to a Yankee

and being taken prisoner.  He gave the coat a quick shake.  There was a

lot he had yet to discover about his new master.  Who, for instance,

would gallop overland in his best uniform, as if he did not have a care

in the world?

He peered across the cabin and saw him now at his desk, his chin

resting on one hand, still writing.  Today, of all days, when Athena

was to become flagship to an admiral about whom most of them knew

nothing, the captain could still find the time to put pen to paper.

In an opened shirt, dark hair dishevelled as he ran his fingers through

it, as if it were an ordinary day.  The small book he carried in his

coat lay beside him on the desk, and the well-worn letter he always

kept folded inside it.  A dreamer one moment, restless and alert the

next.  Quick to intervene when he thought Stirling had overlooked

something.  Bowles nodded slowly to himself.  In battle or a raging

storm, Stirling was like a rock.  Duty was duty; like the Articles of

War, it was enough.

Adam Bolitho had been well known for his exploits as a frigate captain;

a few of the ship's company had served with him in the past, some even

under his famous uncle.  Perhaps Athena'?"  next commission was not

going to lead them to another backwater after all ... "Boat ahoy?"

The challenge was clear and loud, and Bowles could almost feel the

panic it would cause the watch keepers and, more especially, the first

lieutenant.  The vice-admiral had changed his mind, and was already

heading out to his flagship.  Catch every one unprepared.  He had heard

the flag lieutenant, Troubridge, discussing it with the captain.  Sir

Graham Bethune was to dine with the port admiral at his residence

ashore; his host would have his own barge collect and bring him to

Athena at four bells of the afternoon watch.

He cocked his head to listen as somebody replied to the challenge.

"Aye!  Aye!"  So, an officer on board, but nobody important.  Probably

some mail for Athena, the boat coming early to avoid involvement with

the admiral.

He realized with a start that the captain had turned in his chair.

"Nervous, Bowles?"

Bowles held out the coat.  "I did wonder, sir."  He looked at the desk

again.  Dark blue silk, shining in the filtered sunshine.  He had had

little to do with the quality, but he recognized a lady's garter.  So

that was where the captain had been, the sudden need for urgency.

Adam stood up.  It was almost time.  Pipe all hands, band and guard to

man the side.  The band would consist of small drummers and fifers;

they had been drilling when he had returned aboard.  He walked aft to

the windows and rested his palms on the sill; it was warm from the

deceptive sunlight.  Yesterday.  Was it only that?  The ship had swung

still further to her anchor, but he could imagine the road, the sloping

hillside, the Tamar.  He thought of those last minutes.  Seconds.  The

final touch.

And tomorrow, or a few days at the most, this ship would weigh and put

to sea, like all those other times.  But so different.

"I'd better get ready, Bowles."  He wondered how Bethune was feeling

about this day.  No regrets?  No doubts?

He heard the sentry tap his musket on the grating outside the screen

door.

"Captain's cox'n, sir!"

Jago was exercising his privilege of coming and going as he chose, no

doubt to voice his resentment that Athena'?"  gig, his gig, was not

being used today to collect the vice-admiral.

If we 'ad our own barge, I'd have 'em in shape in a week, sir!

It was the closest he would come to pride.

Jago stepped through the door, his hat in one hand, his tanned features

unable to contain a grin.

"Visitor, sir."  He stepped briskly to one side.  "Special visitor!"

They stood facing one another, the captain in his shirtsleeves, with

dishevelled hair, and the young midshipman, very erect, but all

confidence gone now that his determination had deserted him.

"Good God, David, it is you!  Come over here and let me look at you!"

Napier said, "We anchored this morning, sir."  He gestured to the stern

windows.  "The lower anchorage.  I asked for permission .. ."  His

voice trailed away as Adam seized him by the shoulders and exclaimed,

"You'll never know .. ."  He saw the gleaming midshipman's dirk.  "It

suits you, David."  He shook him gently.  "It does indeed suit you!"

Napier nodded, his eyes very serious.  "For my fifteenth birthday.  You

remembered.  I had no idea."

Adam walked with him to the stern windows, his arm around his

shoulders.

"Is everything all right, David?  The ship?  Everything?"

The youth turned and looked up at him.  No words, just the look, then

he said, "I have settled in," and forced a smile.  "The captain

remembers my name now."  He could not keep it up.  "I miss looking

after you, sir."

Jago said, "I think the boat is waitin', sir."

"I'll see you over the side, David."

Napier shook his head.  "No, sir.  You know what they would say.

Favouritism."

"So my uncle taught me."  They stood by the open door, Jago, Bowles,

the ship, another world.

Adam said, "If ever you need anything, write to me.  One day we'll

serve together again."

Napier looked slowly around the great cabin, as if he wanted to forget

nothing.

Jago cleared his throat.  "I'll take you on deck, Mister Napier,

sir!"

But this time it did not work.

Bowles watched it all in silence.  No matter what task they were called

upon to perform, and how this unknown captain would deal with it, he

knew that this was the man he would always see and hear.

He realized that the door was closed, and that his captain was by the

desk again, fastening his shirt.

He said, "A fine young man, sir."

Adam did not hear him.  It had been like seeing himself.

The admiral's barge pulled purposefully between the anchored ships, the

oars rising and falling like polished bones.  If any other boats or

small craft appeared to be on a converging course, or about to cross

her path, the sharp eyed lieutenant who remained standing beside the

coxswain would merely raise one hand in the air, and the tiller would

stay where it was.

Seated in the stern sheets Lieutenant Francis Troubridge felt the

excitement running through him, and it was all he could do to contain

it, sitting as he was within a few feet of his superior.  It was like

nothing he had experienced before.  Even the barge crew was smartly

turned out, matching shirts and tarred hats, lying back on their looms,

eyes astern, but never on the admiral.

Occasionally they swept past a boat which had stopped to allow them to

pass unimpeded.  All oars tossed, an officer standing, hat raised in

salute.  Some of the local craft carrying passengers or working parties

from the docks also showed their respect: cheers echoed across the

choppy water, and aboard one harbour boat women waved scarves and

aprons, their voices lost in the timed creak of oars.

Troubridge glanced covertly at Bethune.  Not to be in an office or

visiting some large man-of-war in one port or another, but at sea. What

he had always wanted, and this time with the status and privilege of

being the admiral's personal aide.

Bethune was sitting very upright on a cushion, one foot quietly tapping

on the bottom boards, his handsome profile completely at ease, a slight

smile never far away whenever another boat stood clear to allow the

barge to pass.

That was something Troubridge had soon learned about his admiral.

Unlike so many he had seen at the Admiralty or on ceremonial occasions,

he had never allowed himself to be visibly drunk.  He had seen the port

admiral stagger as he had waited on the stone stairs, while Bethune

stepped almost casually into the waiting barge.  Self-discipline, or

something even stronger.

"Ah, there she is!"  Bethune had pulled out his beautiful watch. "Right

on time, eh, Flags?"

Troubridge flushed.  He had intended to point out Athena for the

admiral's benefit.  Bethune had beaten him to it.

"She looks well, Sir Graham."  He saw the slight smile again.  Like a

rebuke.

Athena seemed to tower over them, as if they had covered the last cable

in seconds.  Rigging blacked down, each yard and spar perfectly set,

White Ensign curling from her poop and the Union flag in the bows, her

new paintwork shining in the sunlight like glass.

Troubridge thought suddenly of his father, how proud he would be of his

youngest son, and felt some of the tension draining away.  This was

what he wanted.

"Boat ahoy?"

He smiled despite the solemnity of the occasion.  Everybody in Plymouth

would know this barge, and its purpose here today.  The navy never

changed.

The big coxswain looked swiftly at Bethune's shoulders and cupped his

hands.

"Flag!  Athena!"

Troubridge watched the scarlet line of Royal Marines, the blues and

whites of the assembled officers and lesser ranks, warrant officers and

the rest.  The mass of the ship's company was crammed into the main

deck and between the gangways, others on the forecastle and aloft on

the fighting tops where a man could find space to stand.

He saw faces duck down out of sight at one of the gun ports as the

barge altered course and headed for the main chains and the freshly

gilded entry port.

The lieutenant in charge gave his orders, but Troubridge heard none of

it, staring at the black and white hull rising above him.  The bowmen

had shipped their oars and were facing ahead, their boat hooks held in

readiness.  Side-boys were already positioned on the bottom stairs, to

take the lines, or fend off the barge to avoid an unseamanlike

collision.

There was a bosun's chair just in sight above the nettings.  The

anchorage was choppy, and it was not unknown for a senior officer to

escape falling overboard by that less dignified route.

Another order, and the oars were tossed and held steady in two dripping

ranks; the barge had been made fast.

But Troubridge was remembering the tales he had heard as a boy, from

his father or some of his friends.  Of Nelson, "Our Nel', leaving

England in Victory for the last time; walking the deck of his flagship

with his young flag lieutenant, Pasco, while the enemy had spread and

filled the horizon, and together they had composed the signal every

true Englishman still knew by heart.

"Are you ready, Mister Troubridge?"  Bethune was standing upright,

holding out his expensive boat cloak not even using a seaman's shoulder

to steady himself against the motion.  "They are waiting for us, as you

see!"  He was actually laughing.

Then he reached out, pausing only to add, "You did as I asked?"

Troubridge swallowed.  "Aye, Sir Graham."  He should not have been

staring aimlessly around.  In a moment he would be sick.

Then the air quivered to the bark of commands, the crack and slap of

muskets being brought to the present, pipe clay drifting above and

around the twin ranks of gleaming bayonets.

Calls trilled, and to another shouted command the small section of

fifers and drummers broke into Heart of Oak.

Troubridge scrambled up and over the steep tumble home and almost

pitched headlong through the finely carved entry port.

He recovered himself and dragged off his hat in salute.  The din of

fifes and drums stopped, and a solitary call shrilled loudly in the

silence as Bethune's flag lifted and broke free at the mainmast

truck.

He saw the captain step forward from among the other officers, the

formality broken by a sudden handshake, and Bolitho's smile, which he

felt he had come to know better than anything else about him.

Bethune had been about to receive the usual introductions before he was

released to the peace and privacy of his new quarters, when he stopped

and pointed at some seamen below the boat tier.

That man!  You!"

People swung round and stared, and a lieutenant almost ran to seize the

offender who had caught the admiral's eye.

Troubridge relaxed, muscle by muscle.  He had been through the muster

book and ship's records and had discovered one man who had actually

served with Bethune when he had been a captain.  The man in question

was standing exactly where he had been told, still unaware of the

reason.

Bethune swung round and exclaimed, "Grundy?  Tom Grundy, isn't it?  In

the old Skirmisher, remember?"

The man was grinning, as others craned forward to witness this

extraordinary encounter.

"Yes sir, that's me!  God bless you, sir!"

Bethune patted his arm.  "Good to see you again, Grundy!"  He strode

on, smiling and nodding to the assembled officers.

Troubridge watched the ranks breaking up, crowding around the

astonished Grundy to slap him on the back, or share a grin or a joke

with the one seaman who had been recognized by the admiral.

Troubridge gazed up at the new flag whipping out at the fore.

There was a lot they all had to learn about the man who flew it.

Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune leaned back in his chair, his fingers

interlocked behind his head while he surveyed the broad expanse of his

day cabin.  His secretary, Edward Paget, sat opposite him behind a

little table, his pen poised by the pile of letters already

completed.

Bethune said, The last is for the First Lord's eyes only, Paget.  You

know what to do."  He frowned as something clattered across the deck,

accompanied by the squeal of a block as the unknown object was hauled

away.  It seemed to take a long time.  He would have to get used to it.

He glanced over his shoulder at the hazy green of the land, a sail

passing between it and the anchored flagship like the fin of a shark.

His servant Tolan had entered by another door, a list in one hand.

"All the wine is stowed, Sir Graham.  Separate from the special

delivery which came aboard in Portsmouth."

Paget looked up severely.

"All checked?  Good wine can easily walk in a ship this size, you

know!"

Tolan ignored him.  Paget was good at his work; he would not still be

serving Bethune otherwise.  He was short and had a low forehead, and an

unusually wide mouth; Tolan had long ago decided that he must have been

a frog in a previous life.

He said, The captain is coming aft to see you, Sir Graham."

"I know.  I'm ready," and to his secretary, "I want all those sent

ashore today, no matter what time you've finished them."

Paget's wide mouth opened and closed without comment.  He was used to

it.

Bethune sighed and rubbed his stomach.

"Well, Tolan, any regrets?"  He did not expect an answer.  "We sail

tomorrow, come what may.  The Indies again.  Antigua."  Seeing it in

his mind.  No more walks in the park, or riding his favourite mount

down to the river.  Where he had last seen Catherine Somervell.  Where

he had felt like a conspirator.  But he must be careful.  Very

careful.

The screen door was open and Captain Adam Bolitho was standing by an

empty gun port where an eighteen-pounder had once been positioned.

Much had changed during Athena's last refit, less armament giving more

room for storage.  And additional space for an admiral's quarters.

"Ah, Adam.  I trust you satisifed the curiosity of the wardroom?  We

shall weigh at high water.  Your sailing master Impatiently, he snapped

his fingers.

Adam said, "Fraser, Sir Graham."

"Of course."  He grinned at his flag lieutenant.  "Another Grundy,

eh?"

Adam said, "I just heard about Captain Ritchie.  The verdict at his

court-martial

"I intended to mention it, Adam.  But things have been moving quickly

since I came aboard yesterday."  He pressed his fingertips together,

his head slightly on one side.  "Does it disturb you?"

"The verdict was not proven, Sir Graham.  That means he may be entirely

innocent of the charges."

He saw Troubridge half raise a hand, as if to warn him.  Bethune

smiled.

"Equally, it might mean he was guilty as charged."

Adam persisted, "But he would still be in command of this ship!"

"While you, Adam, would be on the beach, with no ship at all."

That is not what I meant, Sir Graham."

Bethune stood up without effort, his hair almost brushing the deck

head

"When I was given this mission, for that is what it is fast becoming, I

wanted a good flag captain.  I can think of another one or two, but /

wanted you, do you understand?  Your record is enough, but there are

other reasons, too.  I will not insult you by parading them for

inspection."  He had raised his voice slightly, but appeared calm, even

relaxed.  "As far as I am concerned, Captain Ritchie can '

He swung round as Tolan said, "Beg pardon, Sir Graham, but there is a

message for the captain."

Bethune nodded slowly, in control again.

"Very well."

It was Evelyn, the sixth and most junior lieutenant, his hat crushed

under one arm, trying not to be seen staring at the admiral and the

splendid cabin.

"I am s-sorry, sir."  He gulped.  "But I was told that you wanted to

know immediately when Audacity was shortening her cable."

Bethune remarked, "The old frigate Audacity I thought she was due for

the ship breakers!"  He chuckled, and added, "Captain Munro.  Friend of

yours, is he?"  And waved his hand.  "I was forgetting.  You sponsored

a midshipman for Audacity.  Somebody's favourite son, was he?"

Adam said, equally casually, "He served with me in Unrivalled."  Like

walking into a trap.  Bethune knew all about it, just as he knew about

Athena's last captain.

Bethune was opening another sheaf of papers.

"Carry on, Adam.  You will be dining with me tonight, eh?"

"Thank you, Sir Graham."

Troubridge followed him to the door and out.

"I am very sorry for that, sir."

Adam touched his arm.  "Rest easy."

On deck, it seemed cool after the admiral's cabin.  He loosened his

neck cloth and drew several deep breaths.  This was a Bethune he did

not recognize.

He glanced at the flag above the foremast and took a telescope from the

midshipman of the watch.

For an instant their eyes met.  A young, pouting face with an upturned

nose ... it fell into place.  He was Blake, an admiral's grandson, who

had been at the centre, if he was not the actual cause, of Hudson's

flogging.  And his death.

/ should have known.  Prevented it.

Lieutenant Evelyn called, "Starboard quarter, sir!"  He seemed quite

recovered from his attack of nerves in the cabin.

Adam waited for his breathing to steady, and watched the other ships

leap into focus as he trained the glass over and beyond the anchorage.

No difference, and then the slightest movement, other masts turning,

coming into line, yards and rigging suddenly hidden by clouds of

filling canvas as Audacity, of twenty-four guns, broke out her anchor

and gathered way.  They would all be busy, too busy to stare around at

the bigger ships of war as they tacked toward the open sea.

He said, "Make to Audacity, good luck."  That would set them guessing.

But some one might tell David.  It was a small ship.  A frigate .. .

"From Flag, sir?"

Adam kept the glass to his eye.  "No.  Make it from Athena."

He heard the flags flap out from the yard and imagined some one calling

Audacity's captain, and the curiosity it would arouse.

The frigate had almost completed her manoeuvre when Lieutenant Evelyn

shouted, "Acknowledged, sir!"

Adam returned the telescope, and walked to the opposite side of the

quarterdeck.

He knew Stirling was observing him from beside the compass box, and

said, "I shall be doing Rounds in the first watch, Mr.  Stirling."  He

saw the immediate caution.  "Last night in port.  Captain's privilege,

or should be."

Stirling hesitated.  "I'd like to accompany you, sir."

Adam smiled.  "Thank you.  That suits me well."  He turned toward the

anchorage again, but there was no more movement.

If I was wrong and he hates his new life, then he will come to hate me.

He thought of the silk garter now locked in his cabin.  And if I have

wronged her, I will never forgive myself.

He could still feel Stirling watching him as he returned to the

companion way.

A small step.  But it was something.

Luke Jago held the razor up to the light and tested the blade with his

thumb before folding it away in its worn case.

The captain never seemed to need much of a shave.  If he left his own

face unshaven for more than a day, it felt more like a piece of

sword-matting than skin.

He looked over at him now, knowing him in almost every mood, something

he had once thought he would never be able to do again.  With an

officer.

He saw all the signs.  Only half of John Bowles' coffee was gone, and

the breakfast remained untouched.

He tuned his ear to all the other sounds, men moving about the hull,

wedges being tapped home, loose gear stowed away, all boats secure on

their tier, except one which would tow astern once Athena was at sea. A

last chance for any one who went overboard.  It happened, although not

as often as you might expect.  Jago's mouth twisted into a smile.

Especially after last night.  The hoarded rum, and the unexpected issue

of the coarse red wine the lower deck called Black Strap.

Sailing day.

He glanced again at the captain, still in a clean shirt and breeches,

his coat hanging on the door of his sleeping quarters.  Once at sea he

would be changing into one of his weather-stained coats and the white

trousers favoured by most officers.  He thought of the admiral: it was

hard to imagine Bethune ever having been other than what he was now. At

least he spoke to the men who served him.  Unlike some.  Unlike most.

Jago thought of the days, and weeks, ahead.  Antigua he knew well

enough.  A friendly place, but that was when it was threatened with

war: the old enemies, France and Spain, even the Dutch.  It was a long

haul, nearly four thousand miles to all accounts.  It would sift out

the seamen from the 'passengers', the braggarts from those with

brains.

And he thought of Napier.  Mister Napier.  Make or break, they all

said.  He would be all right, if little pigs like Midshipman Blake and

the haughty Vincent left him alone.  There were Blakes and Vincents in

every ship Jago had ever known.  Napier was a good lad, but it took

more than a fancy new uniform or a smart dirk to make an officer.

He heard voices, and then the sentry's call.  "Midshipman o' the watch,

sir!"

Bowles was there, the door half open, as if he too was very aware of

the captain's mood.

Jago sucked his teeth.  Speak of the devil.  It was Mister bloody

Vincent.

"Guardboat alongside, sir.  Request for last mail."  He stood very

erect, only his eyes moving as he watched the captain, silhouetted now

against the stern windows, one hand resting on the tall-backed chair.

"On the desk."  Adam turned to look at them, as if undecided.  Now that

it was too late.  "Just those.  Thank you."

He had already seen the guard boat pulling around the anchored Athena;

even without a glass he had recognized the officer in charge.  The same

man who had come aboard Unrivalled and had brought his new orders, and

told him that he was losing his ship.

Two letters, one to his Aunt Nancy; a proper epistle this time, he

hoped.  Usually when he wrote to her a single letter could take weeks

to finish, with sea miles covered, interruptions of every kind, and

war. But she understood.  She had good cause.

And the other ... He did not have the words.  It was not like seeing

her again.  Holding her.  Seeing her emotions, her fears.  He was

sailing in a few hours' time, and he would be away for months.  Or

longer.  Who could tell?

He seemed to hear Bethune's words.  This mission, for that is what it

is fast becoming.  What did he have to offer her?  Why should she wait?

She had lost enough of her life already.

He looked back at the desk.  The letters and Vincent had gone.

He picked up his little book and glanced at the coat on the door; it

was no longer still, but swaying slightly.  The wind was back.  He

pictured the different faces he had come to know in so short a time,

reacting.  Fraser the sailing master watching the masthead pendant,

getting the feel of the wind's power, how it would affect his

calculations, and his captain.  Stirling, eyes aloft on spars, yards,

and rigging, all the possible dangers for the top men making sail,

fisting hard canvas, careful of each hand and foothold.  Old Sam Fetch,

the gunner; he would check each weapon and its breeching rope to make

sure nothing would break adrift if the weather worsened in open

water.

He heard Bowles refilling his coffee cup, reading the signs.

Too much brandy, perhaps?  He thought of the contrasts when he had done

Rounds the previous evening.  From one end of the ship to the other,

with Stirling thudding behind him and a midshipman preceding, without

the usual formality of a ship's corporal or the master-at-arms.  He had

seen their expressions when he had removed his hat each time he had

entered a mess or walked through one of the crowded gun decks Surprise,

appreciation, amusement, it was hard to tell.  But it was always there,

the lesson Richard Bolitho had drummed into his nephew when he had been

new and green, as green as David Napier.  Show respect.  It is their

home too, remember that.  He had felt Stirling following his example,

perhaps for the first time in his service.

The warrant officers in their own mess had been at ease, even with

their captain.  Ready to answer a casual question, and to offer one. Do

you miss Unrivalled, sir?  And without thinking, he had replied, / miss

a part of each ship I've ever served.  Curiously, it was the first time

he had put it into words.

Then the Royal Marines' mess deck  The 'barracks'.  Everything in its

place, an air of soldierly camaraderie which marked them out from all

those crowded around them.

The midshipmen's gunroom, untidy despite their hasty efforts to prepare

for his visit.  Living day to day like every midshipman, thinking only

of reaching the final step in the ladder, the examination for

lieutenant, and only then becoming a King's officer.  Few ever

considered that the step from gunroom to quarterdeck was merely the

beginning.

Had Luke Jago been with him, he would have seen it with different eyes,

the potential tyrants and bullies, the toadies and the failures.  And,

just occasionally, the one who would listen and learn, and deserve his

new authority.  He had been more often right than wrong.

And Rounds had taken him to the sick bay on the orlop deck, below

Athena's waterline, where George Crawford the surgeon and his mates had

to deal with every kind of ailment and injury from gunshot to a fall

from aloft, fever to the aftermath of a flogging.

Crawford was a wiry, quietly spoken man, with very clear eyes and a

voice which was neither incisive nor callous when he talked of his

trade.  A far cry from Unrivalled's big, witty Irishman, Adam

thought.

In an hour's time he would report to the vice-admiral.  They had dined

together; Troubridge and Henry S outer, the captain of the Royal

Marines detachment, had also been there.  The conversation had been

light, and untainted by duty, or as much as it could be.  And the wine,

as Adam had guessed, was predictable.  Too many glasses.  Only the

vice-admiral had seemed unimpaired.  Adam had been almost grateful when

he had been called away to carry out Captain's Rounds.

He wondered if Bethune had remained in his cot since the dinner.

He smiled.  Jago probably had an answer to that, too.

The sentry shouted, "Officer o' the watch, sir!"

It was Barclay, the second lieutenant.

"The officer of the guard has left a package for you, sir.  There is no

address or superscription.  I am not certain I should have accepted

it."

"Who gave it to the guard boat Mr.  Barclay?"

The lieutenant might have shrugged, but suppressed it.  "Somebody from

a local boatyard .. ."

Adam saw the house, white against the trees and the Tamar.  Empty, but

for two people.

"Show me."

Jago took it from the lieutenant and carried it into the main cabin.

"Down here, sir?"

It was square, and wrapped in pale canvas, like a tray.  Adam shook his

head.  His mouth was dry.

"No, Luke.  On the chair."

Jago stood it upright against the chair back and regarded it

suspiciously.  Bowles bent as if to unfasten it but Adam said, "I'll do

it."

It was a frame; it must have been freshly made, perhaps only a day or

so ago, the wood smooth but unpainted.  From the boatyard.

He did not recall unwrapping it, or how long it took.  He stood back

and looked at the portrait, hardly daring to breathe or move.  He knew

that Jago and Bowles had gone, and the screen door was shut.

It could have been that day.  The eyes, arff the arms pinioned to the

rock.  The hint of the monster about to break surface.  He reached out

to touch it, and saw that the smoke stains had been cleaned away.

He had written to her.  She would not receive his letter until after

Athena had set sail.

But she had already answered him.

Andromeda.

8 Storm Warning

Adam Bolitho leaned his hands on the chart table and looked down at the

sailing master's log.  Neat and observant, like the man, he thought.  A

pair of brass dividers began to slide across the uppermost chart and

Adam put them in a small drawer.  Around him the ship was coming to

life again, timbers murmuring, loose gear clattering, while the sails

filled and hardened.  He had been on deck when both watches were called

to make more sail, and had seen the sea break into long patterns of

white horses, then into steep-sided crests, the canvas swelling,

holding Athena hard over, the top men skipping about the yards like

monkeys, glad to be doing something after the periods of perverse

breezes and torrential rain.

He thrust himself away from the table without another glance at

Eraser's calculations; he knew them by heart.  It was their ninth day

at sea, and they had logged barely one thousand four hundred miles,

without sighting another vessel of any kind after leaving the coastal

waters of Cornwall.  It made the Atlantic seem even vaster, and gave

many of the younger hands a sense of loneliness they had never

experienced before.  The sun, when it appeared, was bright but without

warmth; that and wet clothing did little for comfort or discipline.

He heard some Royal Marines clumping across the deck for another drill

or inspection.  Captain Souter, their commanding officer, had organized

marksmanship contests with his men divided into squads, one competing

against the other.  They had lined a gangway and fired at pieces of

driftwood thrown outboard from the bows.  Apart from good training, it

had provided a welcome distraction for seamen off watch, some of whom

would doubtless have bets riding on the results.  Sailors would bet on

almost anything, lawful or not.

But it had not lasted for long.  Vice-Admiral Bethune had sent a

message requesting that the musketry cease forthwith.  It had been

disturbing his concentration.

He was about to look aft and changed his mind.  He had no idea what

Bethune did for most of the day, but he rarely appeared on deck.  Adam

made his daily reports on progress, and the ship's routine.  Usually

Bethune was reading his confidential papers, or dictating to his

secretary.  His smart, impassive servant was almost always present, as

if Bethune could not bear solitude.

He walked to the weather side of the quarterdeck, Barclay, the

lieutenant who had the watch, moving to the opposite side in the

accepted fashion to allow his captain some pretence of privacy.

He looked along the main deck.  It was nearly noon; the galley funnel

was giving off its usual greasy plume of smoke.  And there would be the

customary issue of grog.  He watched the shark-blue horizon sloping

across the beak head and jib sails: no sharp edge, but another hint of

mist.  He looked across at Fraser; he would have noted it.  Rain again

before the dog watches.  Wet clothing, damp hammocks.

The midshipmen were grouped around the sailing master, each with his

own sextant, ready to take the noon sights and check the ship's

position.  Again.  He studied their faces, serious, intent, or anxious,

the younger ones at least.  Those who were expecting a summons to the

examination for lieutenant were more confident, like Vincent,

straight-backed, his sextant carelessly held in one hand.  Probably

very aware of his captain's presence on deck.  And another, Rowley, who

came from a long line of sailors, handsome until he smiled.  He had

lost two front teeth, knocked out by a block in a gale before Adam had

assumed command.

He thought again of Napier; he had all this and much more to

overcome.

Fraser said, "Ready!"  and all the sextants swivelled round as eight

bells chimed out from the forecastle.  The sun was being helpful today,

but you could never be sure.  It was not unknown for somebody to turn

over the half-hour glass too early during each watch, so that a man's

time on deck could be shortened with the sand only partly filtered

away.  "Warming the glass', as it was called, could make a mockery of

any calculation.

Fraser and one of his mates were making notes, and one of the youngest

midshipmen was holding his hand up to ask a question, as if he were

still at school.  The noon gun would crash out at Plymouth, and the

gulls would rise from the water, screaming and squawking, as if it had

never happened before.  Adam walked to the hammock nettings and gripped

a lashing as the deck tilted over again.

And she would hear it.  Perhaps she would picture this ship, further

and further away.  Perhaps she was regretting it.  And suppose .. .

"Excuse me, sir."

Adam turned abruptly, and for a second imagined he had voiced his fears

aloud.

It was Tolan, the admiral's servant, immaculately turned out as always,

his calm features without expression.

He always had the feeling that Tolan missed nothing.  Bethune relied on

him completely.  Always on call, Tolan even had a little cabin of his

own, screened off from the admiral's pantry.

"Sir Graham sends his compliments, sir, and would you consider joining

him in the last dog watch?"

It was not a request.  It was an order.

They both turned as there was a sudden confusion on the main deck.  A

man Adam vaguely recognized as one of the cook's assistants was running

wildly after a chicken which must have escaped from the pen on the

lower gun deck, 'the farmyard'.  It had doubtless been selected for

Bethune's table this evening.

There were jeers and hoots of laughter as the man ducked around the

breech of an eighteen-pounder and sprawled headlong, his feet caught in

his apron.

The luckless bird, unable to fly, seemed to bounce up the quarterdeck

ladder in a last attempt to get away.

One of the Royal Marines in the after guard who had just been dismissed

from the drill tossed his musket against the hammock nettings and

seized the chicken by its legs.  To the cook's assistant he called,

"Ere, matey, you'll 'ave to do better next time!"

The watch keepers were already being relieved, and Fitzroy, the fourth

lieutenant, was about to take over from Barclay, but all Adam saw was

Tolan as he reached out and caught the marine by the wrist, and swung

him around as if he weighed nothing.

"Don't ever leave a musket like that, you bastard!"  He thrust the man

aside and snatched it up, turning it to hold it within inches of the

marine's face.  "See that, damn your eyes?  If it had fallen you could

have killed somebody!"

Adam called sharply, "Belay that!"  He felt the pain in his side, the

wound caused by a dying marine dropping his loaded musket.  Another

inch, the surgeon had said .. .

"Carry on, Tolan.  Tell Sir Graham I shall be delighted."

Strange that he could be so calm after that flash of anger.  And

something more.

"Everything all right, sir?"  It was Stirling, striding through the

crowd of watching seamen as if they did not exist.

Adam shrugged.  "It passed over."  He saw the cook's assistant hurrying

away with the chicken, pursued by ironic cheers, hoots and clucking

from the remaining onlookers.

Lieutenant Fitzroy had taken over the watch; new lookouts were already

perched high aloft.  Viewed from the quarterdeck, they looked as if

they were about to slide down the horizon.

Fitzroy said dutifully, "Steady she goes, sir.  Sou' west by west. Full

and by."  He touched his hat.  "Permission for the cooper to bring new

casks on deck?"

"Granted."  Adam turned away.  Routine had taken over once more.  Had

saved him.

From what?  He saw the sergeant of marines glaring at the man who had

so carelessly discarded his firearm.  But it was Tolan's anger and

swift reaction that lingered in his mind.

Stirling was saying, "That fellow had his wits about him, sir.  Not

what you'd expect."  He straightened up, as if he had gone too far.  "I

keep thinking I've seen him before somewhere."

Then something caught his eye and he shouted, "Thompson, flake down

that line and do your work smartly for a change!"  The first lieutenant

was back.

Dugald Fraser, the sailing master, folded his arms and stared into the

hard glare as if to defy it.  He had been at sea all his life and had

served in almost every class and size of ship.  As master, he was at

the top of his profession, something he rarely considered.  He did not

see the point.

He watched the sea boil along the weather side, bursting occasionally

over the gangway, draining along the scuppers and making the guns shine

above their buff painted carriages.

The horizon was almost gone, the margin between sea and sky lost in

mist and drifting spray.

"The wind's veered a piece, sir."  He glanced at Lieutenant Fitzroy by

the rail, his body angled steeply against the tilt of the quarterdeck.

The helmsmen, too, were clinging to the big spokes, taking the strain

of sea and rudder.  He tasted the salt hardening on his cracked lips.

Fitzroy was young, but he was experienced.  He should have acted before

this.

Fitzroy looked over his shoulder as Athena gave a great shudder, and

more water tumbled over the gangway and sluiced down among the men

working on deck.  The afternoon watch was not yet over, but it would

soon be dark in this weather.

"The captain must be informed."  It sounded like a question.

Fraser said, "Aye," and winced as water splashed his face and neck.

Nearly June, and it felt like winter.  "We should shorten sail an' let

her fall off a point."

He almost grinned at Fitzroy's expression of relief.

A boatswain's mate said, "Cap'n's comin' up, sir."

Fraser watched a working party reel and stagger on the forecastle,

making something fast, bare feet slithering on the wet planking, bodies

shining, soaked to the skin.

The captain was hatless, hair blowing unheeded in the wind and wearing

one of his old seagoing coats, patched and stitched like any common

seaman's.  Fraser was satisfied.  You would still know he was the

captain no matter how he was dressed.

Adam was looking at the sky, the masthead pendant whipping out,

bar-taut, like a spear.  The ship was labouring heavily, but shaking

off the crested rollers with each plunge.

"We will alter course two points.  Steer west by south."  He wiped his

face with his sleeve, and smiled.  "If we can't fight it, we may as

well use it!"  He touched Fraser's arm as he gazed at the sea, and

waited for the right moment to move to the compass box.  Then he said

to the helmsmen, "Are you holding her?  Another hand on the helm,

maybe?"

One of them tore his eyes from the flapping driver and shouted, "Not

yet, zur!  She'm good as gold!"  and they laughed as if it was a huge

joke.

Fraser heard it, and inwardly noted it, as he might compose an entry in

his log.

When Captain Ritchie had walked this quarterdeck it had been very

different.  Passing a casual moment with his sailors would have been

unheard of.  He had been respected, but Adam Bolitho had something

Ritchie would never have recognized.  The two helmsmen were tough and

experienced, had seen it all, or thought they had.  But off watch they

would be telling their messmates how the captain had asked their

opinion, even joked about it... Adam Bolitho did not appear to have

changed since the old Achates.

He heard the captain call, "Mr.  Fitzroy, you'll need more hands on

deck, and lively too!  I am not a mind reader, you know!"

Calls shrilled and seamen ran to their stations, ready to wear ship,

and, when ordered, take in a reef and bring the canvas under control.

"And tell Mr.  Mudge to hoist the quarter boat aboard.  It will be

swamped otherwise."

There was no edge to his tone, but Fitzroy exclaimed, "I had it bailed

an hour back, sir!"

Adam regarded him thoughtfully.  "Send another man down to bail it, and

we will have a burial on our hands, I fear."

The horizon had finally disappeared, a new darkness creeping beneath a

bank of clouds like a cloak.

"Steady she goes, sir!  West by south!"

A master's mate muttered, "Bloody wind's droppin', Mr.  Fraser."

Fraser tightened his coat about his throat.  "Rain's back too, I see!"

Even above the din of sea and thrashing canvas he could hear the heavy

drops, like shot being scattered from a gunner's pouch.

He saw the captain's dark eyes flash as he swung round and pushed the

soaking hair from his forehead.

Some one shouted, "Might blow itself out!  I was in the Atlantic in

ninety-nine when we had the worst storm The voice trailed away as Adam

lurched to the rail again and waited for the deck to steady itself.  He

was drenched, the water like ice on his spine and running down his

thighs.

The flashes had died in the mist and advancing rain, but the thunder

still hung in the air.  And in his memory.

He said, "Pipe all hands.  Fetch the first lieutenant directly."

He knew they were staring at him, probably thinking he was losing his

nerve.

Fraser saw it as if it was already written in the log.  He was too old

a hand to forget.

It was not just a storm, and if it was, it would not last.

It was gunfire.

The Royal Marine sentry outside the admiral's quarters brought his

heels sharply together and as if by magic the screen door opened, one

of Bethune's servants holding it, and bowing his head as Adam entered.

Nothing was said.  Perhaps Bethune found announcements unnecessary,

distracting.

After the squeak of blocks, with seamen scrambling through and over

lively halliards and braces, the admiral's quarters were like a

sanctuary.  It was impossible, but here even the motion seemed less,

the shipboard noises subdued.  Remote.

The dining space was in darkness, all the candles doused, if they had

ever been alight in the first place.

Adam groped his way past unfamiliar furniture toward the day cabin,

where Bethune was sitting at his desk, some dishes before him, a bottle

of some kind propped upright in an opened drawer.  His coat hung on the

back of his chair, and his fine waistcoat was unbuttoned.  Somehow,

Adam thought, he still managed to look elegant and relaxed.  Beyond the

desk the stern windows were completely black, but in the reflected

light he could see water running down the thick panes, rain or spray,

probably both.

Bethune put his hand to his lips and pulled a chicken bone from his

teeth before tossing it into a bowl at his elbow.

He looked at Adam while he dabbed his mouth with a napkin.

"Anything new to report, Adam?"

"The wind is steady.  Fraser thinks it will hold.  So do I. Not strong,

but it will see us through the night."

"That is not what I asked."  Bethune reached for the bottle, but it was

empty.  "What do you think it was?  Really think?"

A shadow emerged from the other cabin and a full bottle was placed in

the drawer.  It was Tolan, as quiet on his feet as he was quick.

"Gunfire, Sir Graham.  Then an explosion."  He could feel the weariness

closing around him again.  What had taken him on deck without waiting

for the officer of the watch to call him?

Not the wind or sea.  That was experience, standing hundreds of watches

in every kind of weather, and almost every ocean.

He was still not used to this ship.  It would take more time.  Choose

the right moment.

He thought of his uncle again.  Instinct: if you had it, you had to

trust in it.

Bethune was watching Tolan's hands come from the shadows and fill his

goblet.  "An attack?  Pirates?  What other seafarers would be ready and

eager to fight in these conditions?"  He tasted the wine without

comment.  "They will be up and away by now, whoever they were."  Then

he said curtly, "I'm told that the galley fire is still alight?"

Adam contained his sudden anger.  It sounded like an accusation.

"I knew we would not be going to quarters.  Tomorrow?"  He would have

shrugged, but his shoulders ached too much.  "Things may have changed.

I considered that the people should have a hot meal while they can."

Bethune smiled.  "I was not questioning your judgment, Adam.  Far from

it."  Just as swiftly, he changed tack.  "When do you estimate we shall

reach English Harbour?"

Adam caught sight of his reflection in the sloping windows.  Moving

slightly to the vibration of the tiller head, like a spectre looking

inboard from this violent ocean.

"The north-east trades will give us a soldier's wind.  I'd estimate two

more weeks."

"Or thereabouts.  What I calculated myself.  After that .. ."  Bethune

held the glass up to the faint light.  "We will discover the latest

intelligence from the commodore at Antigua and, of course, the

governor.  I am sure that our "allies" will do all they can to

assist!"

He held one hand to his ear as calls trilled, as if from another world.

"You can fill their bellies and warm their souls with rum, but it does

not always win popularity."

"They are cold, hungry, and tired, Sir Graham.  I owe them that, at

least."

"As you say."

Adam left the cabin, the door closing behind him as silently as it had

opened.

He rubbed his eyes.  Bethune had not offered him any wine.

And he had not waited to share the unfortunate chicken.

He listened to the hiss of the sea beyond the sealed gun ports, and

imagined the watch on deck, peering into the darkness, thinking of the

echoes of battle, or the death of a ship in distress.  Their world.

Jago was louging by the companion ladder, but straightened up as Adam

seized the handrail.

He did not need to be told.  It was still too close to Algiers and all

those other times.  When your mind and nerve could become blunted, like

a badly used razor.

"All quiet on deck now, sir."

Adam made to pass him.  "I'm just going to take a turn around, Luke. It

does no harm."

Jago did not budge.  "You've not eaten anythin', sir."  He saw the

keen, warning eyes, but persisted, "Bowles told me.  Upset, he was,

too."

Adam reached out impetuously and gripped his arm.  "One day, you will

go too far!"  He shook him gently.  "Until then .. . I will go aft. And

maybe .. ."

Jago stood back, and grinned.  "Aye, Cap'n.  Mebbee that's more like

it!"

He watched him climb the companion.  A good wet of brandy, or some of

that fancy wine the officers gulped down, would do him more good than

harm, the mood he was in.

He remembered the painting he had seen, carefully placed where it would

be safe even if they ran into a hurricane.  Only a picture, but the

woman was real enough.  Like Unrivalled, second to none .. .

A corporal of marines marched past him, another bullock close on his

heels.  Changing the sentries for the middle watch.  For tomorrow ..

no, today.

He saw the white crossbelts crisp and clear against the shadows of the

nearest twenty-four pounder.  Always the reminder.

He thought suddenly of the vice-admiral: a good reputation, popular

too, they said.

Jago walked away, humming silently to himself.

But not one you would ever turn your back on.

The relieved sentry and the corporal marched away to join their

companions in the 'barracks'.  A hot meal at this hour was unheard of,

in the Corps or anywhere else, and a tot as well for good measure.  It

was not to be missed.  Tomorrow could wait.

In the little pantry adjoining the admiral's quarters, George Tolan was

standing with a glass in his hand, adjusting to the deck's slow roll

and the solitary lantern's beam swinging across his face.

All this time.  All those years.  I should have been ready.  He had

trained himself to always be prepared.  For the slightest hint, the

weak moment which could still betray him.

Very deliberately he filled the glass with wine.  He sensed the warning

again, like a signal, or a flare in the night.  He would have to be

doubly careful, even to the amount of wine he drank.  Something far

stronger would be better, but Bethune would notice.  It would destroy

everything he had worked for.

His mind hesitated, like a keeper feeling for a trap, before he allowed

himself to think it over again.  The stupid marine who had tossed aside

his musket just to make a fool out of the cook's assistant and his

damned chicken.  The musket had been at half-cock.  Safe, or so the

untrained idiot might think.  Many had discovered otherwise to their

cost; he had heard that the captain had been wounded by such a shot.

His guard must have been down, he thought.  He had snatched up the

heavy weapon, had caught it perfectly at the point of balance.  Just

like all those other times, all the drills and the bellowing sergeants.

The skill, and eventually the pride at what he was doing.  Only a

second's carelessness, and he had acted as if he was back in the line.

And like that day when he had killed his officer.

He had listened to Bethune talking with the captain.  For a moment he

had imagined that Bolitho had noticed his reaction, his ease with a

musket.  Twenty years ago.  It could have been yesterday.

He wiped the glass and held it up to the swinging light.

Bethune would be calling him very soon now.  His cot was ready, his

heavy robe laid out on a chair.  They would talk for a while as he

helped him into the cot, and perhaps brought him another drink.  He

talked but never listened, unless he wanted to hear something.

Tolan heard the little bell tinkle from the admiral's quarters.  He

would not throw it all away now, after twenty years.

He picked up his tray and opened the door.

"Coming, Sir Graham!"

He was safe.

Adam awoke with a start, his eyes hot and sore, his mouth like dust. It

was Jago, bending over the coat, one hand shielding the shuttered

lantern while he waited for his senses to recover.

Adam struggled into a sitting position, his mind groping for details

and sounds.  He felt as if he had slept for only a few minutes.

"What's happening?"

Jago watched him impassively, eyes in shadow.

"Dawn comin' up, Cap'n.  First light very soon."

"Already?"  The cabin seemed to be as dark as ever.  Then he smelled

fresh coffee, and thought he heard Bowles moving about in the pantry.

Jago added patiently, "There may be trouble we have to deal with today.

You said so yourself, Cap'n.  They'll be lookin' to you.  So I thought

a shave might be in order, so to speak."

Adam groaned and climbed out of the cot, feeling the deck, angled but

steady.  "I've no time for that now, man!"

But the anger refused to come, and eventually he shrugged and said, "I

suppose it makes sense."

He walked across the checkered deck covering and sat in the chair by

his desk, thinking of Bethune somewhere beneath his feet.  As refreshed

as ever, no doubt.  He smiled.  What made him a flag officer, far

removed from the day to day problems and discomforts of ordinary

sailors.  The smile grew.  Or captains .. .

Feet thudded overhead and some one shouted.  He felt Jago's hand on his

shoulder, like a groom quieting a restless horse.

"Easy, Cap'n."  The razor glinted in the solitary light.  "I'll not be

long.  You take some coffee first."

Adam leaned back in the chair and thought of the painting in his

sleeping cabin.  He had been looking at it, at her, when he had fallen

asleep, the spiralling lantern keeping watch over both of them.

Where was she now?  What was she doing, thinking?

Now that she had had time to consider and remember, how would she see

that moment, when they had become one?

Bowles was here, head bowed beneath the deck head beams.  "Clean shirt,

sir, and another coat."  He glanced at Jago; he might have winked.

Adam stood up and touched his face.  Like the hot coffee, the shave had

pushed the tiredness aside.

Jago remarked, "Lighter already, Cap'n."

Adam fastened the shirt and tugged the neck cloth into place.  He was

ready.

"The picture put it somewhere safe, Bowles."

"All done, sir."

Adam walked to the chair and touched it.  They would never discover the

reason for the gunfire and the flashes in those black clouds; this was

a vast ocean, with ships tiny by comparison, like drifting leaves on a

mill-race.

"I'm going on deck."

Bowles nodded gravely.  Jago waited, seeing the indecision, the

doubts.

He left the cabin and walked past the chart room and into the fading

shadows.  Anonymous shapes moved aside, faces and voices becoming

people he had come to know: the morning watch, four o'clock until

eight, when the ship, any ship, awoke.

Stirling, as first lieutenant, had the watch, and was already facing

aft, as if he had known the captain would choose this moment to come on

deck.  Instinct .

Adam said, "A quiet watch, Mr.  Stirling."  He moved to the compass box

and glanced at the card swaying easily in the small light.  West by

south.  Nothing had changed.  He peered up at the topsails, pale but

still indistinct, moving occasionally to the thrust of the wind.  "A

good man aloft?"

"Sir.  I've two up, sir.  Although .. ."

Adam turned to stare out at the sea.  "Although you think there'll be

nothing for them to see."

Stirling stood his ground.  "It's been a while, sir."

"Yes."  He was right.  Any pirate or unlawful trader would have spread

every inch of canvas if they thought a King's ship was close by.

He walked to the lee side of the quarterdeck and saw a long feather of

spray burst from a patch of dark water.  Like a fall of shot.  A fish

of some kind, a large one too.

He heard the hoarse voice of Henry Mudge, the boatswain.  "Put two good

'ands on this splicin' as soon as it's light, Mr.  Quinlan.  I

shouldn't 'ave to tell you these glarin' faults, eh?  If you wants to

sit that exam one day, an' Gawd 'elp the rest of us if you does .. ."

His voice faded on the sudden boom of canvas as the driver filled in a

gust.

Another face.  Quinlan was one of the youngest midshipmen.  Feeling his

way.  Like David Napier.

The two helmsmen pulled down on the big double wheel, one leaning round

to watch the compass card, the other staring aloft at the peak of the

driver to gauge the wind's strength, and that of the sea against the

rudder far below his feet.  He had a vivid tattoo on his muscular arm,

a wild bird with spread wings, and what looked like a human skull

beneath it.

Adam was suddenly alert, and wide awake.  Just moments earlier, the

sailor had been in complete darkness.

He strode to the rail and watched the sea gaining colour, light

spilling from the horizon far astern, giving life to the topsails and

driver, shining on spray-dappled planks and gangways.  On upturned

faces and those working on the yards, and a man in an apron carrying a

bucket, pausing to note the wind's direction before heaving its

contents over the lee side.

Adam shaded his eyes and looked at the masthead pendant, licking out

from the truck, brightly coloured as it caught the dawn and held it.

The galley fire was rekindled and there was smoke in the air.  The men

of the forenoon watch would be going to breakfast, such as it was,

probably some of the leavings from the unexpected supper their captain

had arranged in a moment of kindness or madness, as the word had it on

the mess decks

He walked slowly to the rail again and felt salt like dried sand under

his fingers.

And down in his quarters Bethune would be smiling to himself.  Shaking

his head, wondering if he had made the right choice for his flag

captain.

"Deck there!"

All caught like unfinished sketches.  The man in his apron, his empty

bucket poised in mid air.  Two seamen listening to the young midshipman

named Quinlan, others frozen as they stared up and through the mesh of

rigging, to the invisible lookout in the cross trees

Stirling's voice echoed above all other sounds.

"I hear you.  Where away?"

It seemed an age before the lookout called down again.

"Fine on th' starboard bow, sir!  Wreckage!"

Adam snatched up a telescope and trained it beyond the forecastle, to a

dark horizon still unwilling to cast the night aside.

"A good lookout indeed, Mr.  Stirling.  We could have missed it

altogether in this light."

He realized that Troubridge was beside him, wide-eyed, as if he had

just been dragged out of his cot.

"Sir Graham heard the noise, sir."  He was almost apologetic.  "He

sends his compliments .. ."

"Tell Sir Graham that we have found wreckage.  We were right."

Troubridge paused at the top of the ladder and turned to look back at

him.  Very young, like the night they had broken into the studio

together.

"You were right, sir."  And he was gone.

Adam saw Jago watching from the poop ladder.  At ease now.  It was out

of his hands.

The light was gaining strength every minute; faces became individuals

and the sea on either beam reached away to its horizon.  There were

groups of seamen, jaws champing on the remains of their breakfast, when

normally men strung it out until the last possible moment.  Something

different.  Anything to break the monotony of routine and trimming

sails.

The sea was still lively, something that had to be considered from

Athena's poop, high compared with that of a frigate.

He raised the telescope which had appeared as if by magic at his elbow.

Another midshipman ... his mind faltered ... Vicary, had been observing

him and was ready.

Clearer this time.  He squinted and tried again.  A living, working

ship.  Was that all that remained of her?

The lookout was a good one.  High above the deck, he had the benefit of

the changing colours on the sea's face in the first light of the dawn,

and the unbroken crests and long, undulating troughs which were never

completely absent in this great ocean.

"Have the jolly boat ready for lowering, Mr.  Stirling.  Volunteers."

He felt his fingers tighten on the telescope.  Like dust scattered

across the blue-grey water.  Hundreds of fragments widely spread over a

mile or so, maybe more.

He did not see Jago move but heard him murmur, "I'll take the jolly

boat, Cap'n.  The gig's still on the tier."  Calm, almost

matter-of-fact.

Mudge the boatswain was shouting orders to his men on the main deck,

his voice louder than usual in the damp air.

Stirling said, "Boat's crew mustered, sir."  No doubts this time.  An

order was an order, something he accepted without question.

He heard the young midshipman named Vicary suppress a gasp, and Adam

saw that his eyes were wide and fixed, like saucers.  And no wonder.

"What is all the excitement about?"  It was Bethune, staring around the

quarterdeck, then down toward the boat tier where tackles were already

being manhandled into position.  "I see no need for further

involvement."  The smile returned.  "We've both seen and weathered far

worse, eh, Adam?"

Some of the watching seamen grinned like conspirators.  They had not

set eyes on their admiral since he had joined the ship at Plymouth.

Every available telescope was trained on the pathetic fragments which

reached away on either bow, some with shape and meaning now.  A mast,

or part of it, with sodden canvas still attached, trailing cordage like

weed, and a complete portion of grating drifting quite apart, clean in

the hard light as if it had just been scrubbed.

"Well, if you need to discuss anything further .. ."  Bethune paused,

one hand on the rail, his head half turned as a voice yelled, "Deck

there!  Larboard bow!"  He seemed unable to continue, then, after a

moment, shouted, "Bodies, sir!"

Adam strode to the nettings and trained the telescope with great care.

It gave him time, allowed his anger to subside.  He heard himself say,

"I'm lowering a boat, Sir Graham."  The glass steadied as Athena'?"

hull rode easily over another unending trough.  Long enough to see it.

Share it, before the picture dropped out of focus.  A piece of timber,

probably decking, blasted away by the explosion, with two figures

clinging or stranded across it.  One was all but naked, the other wore

uniform, the same as some of those standing around him.

He heard Scollay, the master-at-arms, exclaim, "Ours, by Jesus!"

He glanced across the deck.  "Heave to, Mr.  Stirling."  He sought out

the boatswain's rotund figure.  "Lower the jolly boat as soon as we

come about."  He saw Jago pause to stare up at him, then he was gone.

He realized that Bethune had not moved, and was standing with his hand

still on the rail, his hair blowing in the wind, as if he could not

grasp what was happening.

Adam raised the glass again, feeling the deeper pitch of the deck as,

with sails thundering, Athena came heavily round and into the wind.

Calls shrilled, and orders were yelled to top men and those manning the

braces, but Stirling's booming voice overrode them all.

Adam looked for the jolly boat.  One moment it was being swayed up and

over the larboard gangway, then it vanished, only to reappear well

clear of the side, pulling strongly for the nearest cluster of flotsam

and the two corpses.

He said, There are other bodies close by."  He pressed the glass hard

against his eye, so that he would not forget.  Corpses, pieces of men,

rising and dipping as if in some obscene dance.

He said, "Fetch the surgeon."

"Comin', sir!"

Adam moved the glass very slightly and saw Jago's face loom into life,

eyes nearly closed against the early sunshine.

"I'm here, sir."

He held the glass steady, waiting for the deck to rise again.  He did

not turn his head, but knew it was Crawford.

"Have your people ready."  He lowered the glass and handed it to

Midshipman Vicary, but Jago's face remained; he was standing in the

tossing boat, managing to hold up and cross both hands above his head.

"There is a survivor.  Warn the bosun to be ready.  Use my quarters if

you wish.  It might save time and a life."

Bethune said, "I should not have questioned your judgment, Adam."

Adam had not even seen him move from the rail.  "I had a feeling."  He

shrugged.  "I can't explain it, even to myself."  He watched the light

returning to Bethune's eyes, some of the familiar confidence.  But for

just that short while he had seen it broken down, as if he had lost

control.

Bethune looked up, perhaps at his flag, streaming from the fore.

"Call me if you discover anything.  But get under way as soon as

possible."  Again the slight hesitation.  "When you think fit."  He

strode to the companion without another look at the sea, or the

pitching jolly boat floating amongst the thinning carpet of flotsam and

death.

Lieutenant Francis Troubridge held the screen door open and tried to

summon a smile of greeting as Athena's, captain walked into the

admiral's day cabin.  As the door closed he heard the bell chime

briefly before it separated this world from the rest of the ship.

"Sir Graham is waiting for you, sir."  He wanted to say so much more,

to share some small part of what had happened.  The ship hove to, the

tension on deck, all eyes on the jolly boat and the captain's coxswain

giving his signals, then returning on board with the one survivor.

And all the while, Captain Bolitho had been on deck, watching, passing

orders while he brought the ship under command again, his voice calm

enough, but his eyes telling a different story.

Adam glanced around the cabin, with its elegant furniture and fittings.

It seemed unreal, but in some peculiar way it helped to steady his

nerves.  In a ship it was always a matter of time and distance: it

began with those simple lessons, grouped around the sailing master; he

had seen the midshipmen listening to Eraser.  He rubbed his forehead.

Only yesterday?  How could that be?  Shooting the sun, and later, much

later, perhaps a star in the heavens.  Fixing a ship's position by

taking a compass bearing of a landmark, a church tower perhaps.  He let

his mind wander.  Or perhaps St.  Anthony's light at Falmouth .. .

Yesterday.  And now it was the last dog watch again, when Bethune had

been eating his chicken at that desk.

The servant Tolan appeared out of the shadows, a tray with one goblet

balanced on it.

"Cognac, sir."

Troubridge said quickly, "I hope you don't mind, sir.  I thought you

might care for it."

Adam felt the strain draining away, like sand from the glass.

"Thank you."  And to Tolan, "And you, too."

Then he sat down in a chair which had already been prepared for him,

like the mariner's eternal puzzle.  Time and distance.  Bethune was

offering him both.

Darkness was already falling over the heaving water, with a few stars

pale and clear now that the clouds had dispersed.  Athena was on course

once more, making good the time lost in their rescue attempt.

The cognac was good.  Very good.  Probably from that shop in St.

James's Street in London where his uncle had often bought wine, and his

Catherine had ordered it for him when he was away at sea.  And for me

... He rubbed his eyes again, trying to clear his thoughts, to see the

events in order, neat and helpful.  He felt his mouth crack.  Like

Fraser's log book and his careful notes, day by day.  Hour by hour.

The vessel was, had been, the Celeste, a naval courier brig, one of the

many which served every fleet and base wherever the Union flag was

flown.  Overworked and taken very much for granted, these small vessels

were the vital link between their lordships at the Admiralty and

virtually every captain afloat.

Adam had seen Celeste mentioned several times, in despatches and once

or twice in the Gazette.  The fleet's apron strings, but never in the

vanguard of battle, amid the seeds of glory.

The survivor was the Celeste'?"  acting master, a prime seaman named

William Rose, who had come originally from the seaport of Hull.  Not

young, and he had served at sea most of his life, first in a

merchantman, but mainly in the navy.

Adam could still hear his hoarse voice, recounting vague fragments

about himself.  Up there in his own cabin hours ago, watching,

listening.  The surgeon had been doubtful; he had seen too many men go

under.  But Rose had great strength, and a determination to match it.

Adam had known sailors plead to be left to die after being wounded in a

sea fight, anything but be taken below to the dreaded orlop and the

surgeon's saw and knife.  He himself had grown to hate the very smell

of a sick bay, and the terrors it could hold, even for the bravest.

Which was why he had told the surgeon to have Rose taken to his own

quarters.

He raised the goblet, and stared at it.  It had been refilled; he had

not even noticed.

The Celeste had been on the same route as Athena, to Antigua; she had

even sailed from Plymouth, two whole days before Athena had weighed. No

wonder Bethune had become so agitated when he had been told the

vessel's name.  She had sailed under his orders, confident that she

would reach English Harbour far ahead of any two-decker.

It was like hearing Rose speak again, one strong, rough hand grasped

around his own.  Describing it.  Recalling it, piece by piece.  He

would occasionally stray from the exact sequence of things, speaking of

Hull, and of his father, who had been a sail-maker.  Then the hand had

tightened, as he had described the sudden squall which had hit them

without warning.  / told the captain what I thought about it, but he

wouldn't listen.  Knew it all, he did.  Anyways, he was under strict

orders to complete a fast passage.  Adam had seen a tear at the corner

of his eye; pain or despair, who could say?  Y'see, our old Celeste

could always do better than any other courier!

And pride was there, too.

They had lost the fore topmast, and had been drifting to sea and wind

while they had fought to carry out repairs.  And then another sail had

come in sight.  A big barque, and she had stood off the disabled

Celeste until they were close enough to exchange signals.  A Yankee,

she was. Our captain asked if she had a doctor on board, as one of our

lads was badly injured by a falling spar.

Adam stared through the salt-caked stern windows.  No courier brig

should ever heave to or converse with a stranger.  It had all been

planned, although how and when was impossible to imagine at this

stage.

The barque had drawn closer to Celeste and all pretence had ended.  He

could still feel the grip around his fingers, losing its strength as

Rose had gasped, They ran out their guns and fired into us at

point-blank range, double-shot ted by th feel of it.  His voice had

cracked with disbelief, reliving the moment.  Our captain was the first

to fall, damn his eyes!  There had been another tear.  But it weren't

his fault.  They boarded us and cut down every man-jack they could

find.  The rest of us was driven below while the bastards ransacked the

captain's cabin.

There had been a long pause, the silence broken only by Rose's laboured

breathing.

Crawford had whispered, "Severe stab wounds.  Poisoned, but I can do

nothing.  He's going."

Rose had spoken once more, his voice easier, perhaps beyond pain.

There was an explosion, sir.  A magazine.  Don't remember any more.

Until ... He had stared suddenly at Adam.  Tell 'em .. .

It was over for the only survivor.

He looked up as Bethune entered the cabin and stood, seeming to study

him for several seconds.

"So you see, Adam, it was no accidental skirmish.  It was prearranged.

Some one knew full well what Celeste was carrying: my orders and

Admiralty instructions which were to be acted upon without delay.  Her