Bolitho 19 - Beyond the Reef (33 page)

Owen continued in the same unruffled tone, “She wears no colours, Sir Richard, but I’d say she’s a Dutchman. I’ve been close enough to some of them, too close sometimes.”

Jenour said, “Another enemy, then.” He sounded surprised. “I expected a Frog, Sir Richard.”

Bolitho kept his features impassive. Once Jenour would never have considered voicing his own opinion; he had always been so trusting, willing to leave judgement and assessment to those who were better experienced. He was ready now, mature enough to offer what he had learned to others. Bolitho knew he would miss him greatly.

“Sou’-west-by-west, sir! Full an’ bye!” Julyan the sailing-master was beaming at his mates and rubbing his beefy hands together. Once again, he had been proved right.

Keen shouted, “Secure and belay, Mr Sedgemore!” Loud enough for all those around him he added, “That was well done. Two minutes shorter this time!”

True or not, Bolitho saw some of the breathless seamen looking at each other and giving reluctant grins. It was a beginning.

He said, “Perhaps this fellow is under French orders. We have seen too much of that.” But he was thinking of the depleted squadron awaiting him in the Caribbean. They lacked frigates, and the French would know it. This was no Brittany coastline, or the cat-and-mouse encounters in the North Sea. Here there were countless islands, which would have to be patrolled and searched in case an enemy squadron was in hiding amongst them, and these waters abounded with craft of all kinds: Dutchmen and Spaniards, vessels from the South Americas, all ready to pass their intelligence to the French at Martinique and Guadeloupe. There were also the Americans, who had not forgotten their own fight for independence; they had to be handled with great care. They resented being stopped or examined as possible blockade-runners, and several serious complaints had been presented to the government in London by that young but ambitious nation.

Bolitho smiled as he recalled Lord Godschale’s warning. “We need tact as well as initiative, and someone who is known to these people.” Bolitho was not quite certain what he had implied by known, but he had never considered himself particularly tactful.

He said, “Thank you, Owen. I shall need you again presently.”

Keen watched the man knuckle his forehead and stride away to rejoin his division.

He said, “A valuable hand, that one, sir—I’ll rate him up to petty officer shortly. He makes many of our landmen look like bumpkins!”

The wind got up again as darkness closed in around the ship, but the motion was less violent and the hands were able to consume hot food, and an extra ration of rum to make the long day seem less miserable.

Outside the wardroom which stretched across Black Prince’s massive beam, and was situated directly beneath the admiral’s quarters, Lieutenant James Sedgemore sat more comfortably on a locker with a goblet of madeira in one hand as he completed his onslaught on the senior midshipman. The latter stood like a ramrod, moving only to the ponderous lift and fall of the great hull, and all the men, weapons and supplies crammed into it. He gestured to the open screen doors, where, in the wardroom, Houston could see the officers he observed every watch in their very different guises. Drinking, writing letters, playing cards, while they waited for the last meal of the day. A few of the lieutenants who were feared for their sense of order and discipline sat or lolled in their chairs while a mess-boy bustled amongst them with a jug of wine. The surgeon, usually so grave-faced, was roaring with laughter at something the Royal Marines major had told him. The purser, Julyan the sailing-master: the very company Houston wanted to join, if not here then in another ship. He felt much as Sedgemore about his own future, but at present Sedgemore was in no mood for sympathy. “I’ll not have you throwing your weight about in my ship, simply because a man dare not answer back—do you understand?”

Houston bit his lip. He had wanted the captain to notice him, but he had certainly never intended to bring all this down on his head.

“And do not try to get your own back, Mr Houston, or you will think that the horned god of hell has fallen on your miserable shoulders! On our last commission, after Copenhagen—something which even you will have heard about from the older hands—there was one such midshipman, who was a little tyrant. He loved to see the people suffer, as if they didn’t have enough to deal with. They feared him, despite his lowly rank, because he was Sir Richard’s nephew.” He gave a fierce grin. “Sir Richard packed him off the ship, an’ Captain Keen offered him a court martial unless he agreed to resign. So what chance d’you imagine you would have?”

“I—I’m sorry, sir. Really …”

Sedgemore clapped him on the shoulder as he had seen Bolitho do on occasions. “You are not, Mr Houston, but by God you will be, if it happens again. You will become known as the oldest midshipman in the fleet! Now be off with you. It ends here.”

The surgeon strolled past. “Busy, Mr Sedgemore?”

The first lieutenant grinned. “We all go through it.”

The surgeon made for the companion ladder. “Not I, sir.”

On the quarterdeck Houston, still smouldering, reported to the officer-of-the-watch for the extra duties Sedgemore had given him. The lieutenant was Thomas Joyce. He was the third most senior, and had seen close action even at the tender age of eleven in his first ship.

It was bitterly cold, with spray and rain falling from the straining canvas and rigging like arctic rain.

Joyce snapped, “Masthead, Mr Houston. A good lookout, if you please.”

Houston saw one of the helmsmen give a grin as his face showed briefly in the compass light. “But—but there will be nothing in sight, sir!”

“Then it will be easy for you, won’t it? Now up you go, or I’ll have the bosun liven your dancing for you!”

Lieutenant Joyce was not an unduly hard man. He sighed and glanced at the tilting compass, then forgot the luckless youth high above the windswept deck.

We all go through it.

Down one deck further aft Allday sat in Ozzard’s pantry and watched the little man slicing cheese for the cabin.

Ozzard asked testily, “What did you want to go and do a stupid thing like that for, John? I always thought you were a bit cracked!”

Allday smiled. What did he really care about it? He had told him that he had left his share of the gold with Unis Polin at the Stag’s Head. Just in case.

Ozzard continued, his knife flashing as a mark of his anger. “She could walk off with the lot! You see, I know you, John Allday—know you of old. A pretty face, a neat ankle, and you’re all aback! Anyway, you could have put it in the strongbox at the house.”

Allday filled his pipe carefully. “What’s the matter with you, Tom? Don’t you like women or summat?”

Ozzard swung round, his eyes flaming. It only made him look more brittle. “Don’t you ever say that to me again!”

They both realised that the door was open, and a young seaman who had been cleaning around the great cabin stood staring at them, his eyes shifting nervously from one to the other.

Allday roared, “Well? What do you want?”

“Th’—the vice-admiral needs you, Cox’n!”

Ozzard added sharply, “Be off with you!” The youth fled.

Ozzard laid down the knife and looked at his hand as if expecting to see it shaking.

He said hesitantly, “Sorry, John. Not your fault.” He would not look up.

Allday replied, “Tell me if you like. One day. It’ll go no further.” He shut the door behind him and walked beneath the massive beams towards the marine sentry outside the great cabin.

Whatever it was, it was tearing Ozzard apart. Had been, since … ? But he could not remember.

In his pantry Ozzard sat down and rested his head in his hands. In the Golden Plover’s last moments when he had been by the companion ladder, he had seen her framed against the stern windows. He had wanted to turn away, to hide in the shadows. But he had not. He had watched her stripping off her bloodstained clothing until she had been standing completely naked with the sea’s great panorama tumbling beyond her. There had been so much salt on the glass the windows had acted as a broad mirror, so that no part of her lovely body had been denied him.

But he had not seen Catherine until she had pulled on her borrowed breeches and shirt. He had seen only his young wife, as she must have looked when her lover had visited her.

He wrung his hands in despair. Why had none of his friends or neighbours told him? He could have stopped it, made her love him again as he had always believed she had. Why? The word hung in the air like a serpent.

The way she had looked at him on that hideous day in Wapping. Surprise, contempt even, then terror when she had seen the axe in his hand.

He said brokenly, “But I loved you! Can’t you see?”

But there was no one to answer him.

Lewis Roxby dismounted heavily and patted his horse as it was led away to the stables. The air was bitterly cold, and mist hovered above the nearest hillside like smoke. He noticed that someone had been breaking the ice on the horse troughs, a sure sign of a hard winter. He saw his groom watching him, his breath steaming.

Roxby said, “Nothing moving on the estate, Tom. Can’t even get the men working repairing the walls. Slate’s frozen solid.”

The groom nodded. “One o’ the cook’s possets will set you up, sir.”

Roxby blew his nose noisily and heard the sound echo around the yard like a rebuke. “Something a mite stronger for me, Tom!”

He thought of the two thieves he had sent to the gallows a few days back. Why did they never learn? England was at war—people had little enough of their own without some oaf stealing from them. One of the thieves had burst into tears, but when Roxby had ignored it he had poured curses on him until a dragoon had dragged him away to the cells. Ordinary folk had to be protected. Some said that hanging a man never stopped crime. But it certainly stopped the criminal in question.

“Hello, who’s this then?”

Roxby came out of his thoughts and turned to look at the great gates as a lively pony and trap clattered across the cobbles.

It was Bryan Ferguson, Bolitho’s steward. A rare visitor here indeed. Roxby felt vaguely irritated; the vision of that warming glass of brandy was already receding.

Ferguson swung himself down. Few people realised he had but one arm until he faced them.

“I beg your pardon, Squire, for coming like this unannounced.”

Roxby sensed something. “Bad news? Not Sir Richard?”

“No, sir.” He glanced awkwardly at the groom. “I got a bit worried, you see.”

The glance was not lost on Roxby. “Well, you’d better come inside, man. No sense in freezing out here.”

Ferguson followed him into the great house, seeing the paintings that adorned the walls, the thick rugs, the flickering fires through every open door. A very grand house with property to match, he thought. Very fitting for the King of Cornwall.

He was very nervous again, and he tried to reassure himself that he was doing the right thing. The only thing. There was nobody else to turn to. Lady Catherine had ridden to the other side of the estate to visit an injured farm worker and his family; she must not know of this latest trouble. He glanced around at the elegant furniture, the immense painting of Roxby’s father, the old squire, who in his day had fathered quite a few children around the county. At least Roxby stayed faithful to his wife, and was more interested in chasing game than women.

Roxby reached the fire and held out his hands. “Private, is it?”

Ferguson said unhappily, “I didn’t know who else to see, sir. I couldn’t even discuss it with Grace, my wife—she’d probably not believe me anyway. She thinks nothing but good of most people.”

Roxby nodded sagely. So it was serious. Ferguson had a lot of pride, in his work and in the family he served. It had cost him a lot to come here like this.

He said magnanimously, “Glass of madeira, perhaps?”

Ferguson stared as the squire offered him a chair by the fire.

“With respect, sir, I’d relish a tot of rum.”

Roxby tugged a silk bell-cord and smiled. “I’d all but forgotten you were a sailor too, at one time.”

Ferguson did not look at the footman who entered and went like a shadow. He stared into the flames. “Twenty-five years ago, sir. I came back home after I lost a wing at the Saintes.”

Roxby handed him a large glass of rum. Even the smell made his head swim. “Don’t know how you can swallow that stuff!” He eyed him over his own goblet of brandy. The latest batch. It was sometimes better not to know where it came from, especially if you were a magistrate.

“Now tell me what this is about. If it’s advice you want—” He felt rather flattered that Ferguson had come to confide in him.

“There’s been talk, sir, gossip if you like. But it’s dangerous, more so if it reaches the wrong ears. Someone has been spreading stories about Lady Catherine, and about Sir Richard’s family. Filthy talk, damned lies!”

Roxby waited patiently. The rum was working.

Ferguson added, “I heard it from a corn chandler. He saw an argument between Captain Adam and some farmer in Bodmin. Captain Adam called him out, but the other man backed down.”

Roxby had heard a few things about the youthful Adam Bolitho. He said, “Sensible. I’d likely have done the same!”