Cross of St George (9 page)

Speed was essential to the Americans. Napoleon was in retreat, and each day of the campaign he was being deserted by friends and erstwhile allies. Surely his defeat was inevitable, perhaps even sooner than strategists in London dared to hope. And when that happened … Bolitho heard again the confidence in Bethune's voice as he had explained how a French defeat would release many more ships to join the American conflict. But until that time ...He stopped pacing and strode to the quarter gallery, and stared down at the black, swirling current.

It must have been right there in Bethune's gracious rooms at the Admiralty, and yet neither of them had seen or considered it. He looked at the reflected lights until his eye watered. The carefully worded despatches, the lists of ships and squadrons that daily protected the vital lifelines to Wellington's armies. Ships that fed his victorious regiments, and made even the smallest advance possible. Even Sillitoe had missed it, perhaps because it had not fitted into his intricate plans and the estimates with which he advised the Prince Regent. Arrogance, over-confidence: it would not be the first time that careful strategy had been undone by those in power who had seen only what they had wanted to see.

The flaw in the pattern of things, like a face in a crowd, there, but invisible.

All they had been able to see was Napoleon's eventual defeat. After twenty years of war it had, at last, seemed like the impossible landfall. He knew that Tyacke had made no attempt to conceal his disgust at Peter Dawes's handling of the squadron in his admiral's absence. Maybe Dawes was another one, blind to everything but his own advancement: promotion, which might vanish like mist if the war should suddenly end.

Bolitho considered his visitors. Keen, contained but enthusiastic at his new appointment, desperately eager to leave the past behind, to overcome his loss. Only Adam seemed unable or unwilling to forget it.

He heard something rattle behind the pantry hatch, a subtle signal from Ozzard that he was still about, in case he was required.

And what of me?
So bitter at being parted from the woman he loved that he had failed to heed the instinct gained all those years ago as a frigate captain.

Maybe it was destined to end like this. He had opened the screen door without realizing that he had moved, and the marine sentry was staring at him, transfixed. Their admiral, coatless despite the damp air between decks, who had only to raise a finger to have every man running to do his bidding. What was the matter with him?

Bolitho heard a murmur of voices from the wardroom. Perhaps Avery was there. Or James Tyacke, although he was probably working alone in his cabin. He never slept for more than an hour or two at a time. Surely there was someone he could talk to?

“Something wrong, Sir Richard?”

Bolitho let his arms fall to his sides. Allday was here, watching him, his shadow moving slowly back and forth across the new paintwork, his face devoid of surprise. As if he had known.

“I want to talk, old friend. It's nothing … I'm not sure.” He turned to the ramrod sentry who was still staring at him, eyes popping, as if his collar was choking him. “At ease, Wilson. There is nothing to fear.”

The marine swallowed. “Yessir!” As he heard the door close he wiped his face with his sleeve. His sergeant would have given him hell just for doing that. But he had been with his squad in the maintop with the other marksmen when they had thundered alongside the enemy. Only for the moment, it meant nothing. He said aloud, “Knew me name! He knew me name!”

Ozzard had poured a tankard of rum and placed it on the table, not too close, in case Allday should take the liberty of thinking that he was his servant as well.

Allday sat on the bench seat and watched Bolitho moving restlessly about the cabin as if it were a cage.

“You remember the Saintes, old friend?”

Allday nodded. Bryan Ferguson had asked him the same thing, while they had been waiting for Bolitho and his lady to return from London.

“Aye, Sir Richard. I recalls it well.”

Bolitho ran his hand down the curved timbers as if to feel the life, the heartbeat of the ship.

“This old lady was there, although I don't remember her, nor could I imagine what she might one day mean to me. five years old, she was then.”

Allday saw him smile. Like someone speaking of an old comrade.

“So many miles, so many people, eh?” He turned, his face composed, even sad. “But, of course, we had another ship then.
Phalarope
.”

Allday sipped his rum, although he did not remember reaching for it. There had been many moments like this, before the proud admiral's flags, the fame, and the bloody scandal. So many times. He watched him now, sharing it, very aware that he was one of the few that this man, this hero, could speak with so freely.

He would not be able to tell Unis about it, not until he was with her again. It would be out of the question to ask Lieutenant Avery to pen it for him. It would have to be later, at the right time, like the moment he had told her about his son's death. He glanced up at the closed skylight.
Just a few yards away.

Bolitho said, “Admiral Rodney broke the French line that day because the enemy's frigates failed to discover his intentions. Our frigates did
not
fail.”

His eyes were distant, remembering not so much the battle between the two great fleets as the slowness of their embrace, and the slaughter which had followed. He had seen too many such encounters, and he had felt like some physical assault the hostility of those at the Admiralty when he had said that the line of battle was dead. It must have sounded like blasphemy.
We'll not see another Trafalgar, I am certain of it.

“It is every frigate captain's main concern—his duty—to discover, to observe, and to act.”

Ozzard frowned as the door opened slightly, and Avery hesitated, uncertain why he had come.

“I'm sorry, Sir Richard. I heard … somebody said …”

Bolitho gestured to a chair. “This time you did not have too far to come. Not like riding from Portsmouth to London!”

Avery took a goblet from Ozzard. He looked dishevelled, as if he had been trying to sleep when some instinct had roused him.

Allday, in the shadows, nodded. That was better. More like it.

Bolitho glanced around at them, his grey eyes keen. “Captain Dawes did not see it, because there was nothing to see. He conserved the squadron's strength, as I so ordered, and repaired the vessels that most needed it. It was like a well-ordered plan, beyond doubt or question.”

Avery said, “Do you believe that the outcome of the war is still undecided, sir?”

Bolitho smiled. “We have been fighting one enemy or another for years, for some a lifetime. But always, the French were in the vanguard. Always the French.”

Allday frowned. To him one mounseer was much like another. The old Jacks could sing and brag about it when they'd had a skinful of rum, but when it came down to it, it had always been “us” or “them.”

“I ain't sure I follows, Sir Richard.”

“We are intent on defeating the French without further delay, so that we may bring naval reinforcements to these waters to contain the Americans. In turn, the Americans must break our line before that happens. I believe that the
Royal Herald
was destroyed by an unknown force of ships, American or French, maybe both, but under one leader, who will settle for nothing less than the destruction of our patrols and, if need be, our entire squadron.”

Captain James Tyacke was here now, his scarred face in shadow, his blue eyes fixed on Bolitho.

“In all the reports there is no mention of any American resentment at a new French presence, and yet we have missed or overlooked the most obvious fact, that war makes strange bedfellows. I believe that an American of great skill and determination is the single mind behind this venture. He has shown his hand. It is up to us to find and defeat him.” He looked at each of them in turn, conscious of the strength they had given him, and of their trust.

“The face in the crowd, my friends. It was there all the time, and no one saw it.”

Captain Adam Bolitho walked to the quarterdeck rail and watched the afternoon working parties, each separated by craft and skill, gathered around a portion of the main deck like stall holders: no wonder it was often called the market-place.
Valkyrie
was big for a frigate, and like
Indomitable
had begun life as a small third-rate, a ship of the line.

He had met all his officers both individually and as a wardroom at a first, informal meeting. Some, like John Urquhart, the first lieutenant, were of the original company, when
Valkyrie
had been commissioned and had hoisted his uncle's flag, then a viceadmiral's, at the foremast truck. To all accounts she had been an unhappy ship, plagued with discontent and its inevitable companion of flogging at the gangway, until her last, famous battle, and the destruction of the notorious French squadron under Baratte. Her captain, Trevenen, had been proved a coward, so often the true nature of a tyrant, and had vanished overboard under mysterious circumstances.

Adam glanced up at Keen's flag, whipping out stiffly from the mizzen. Here and here, men had died. His uncle had been injured, momentarily blinded in the undamaged eye, the battle lost until Rear-Admiral Herrick, who had been recovering from the amputation of his right arm, had burst on deck. Adam stared at the companion and the unmanned wheel. He could picture it as if he himself had been here. Lieutenant Urquhart had taken charge, and had proved what he could do. A quiet, serious officer, he would soon be given his own command if they were called to action.

He watched the working parties, knowing that every man jack was well aware of his presence.
The new captain.
Already known, because of his achievements in
Anemone
and because of the family name, and the admiral who was rarely out of the news. But to these men, he was simply their new superior. Nothing which had preceded him mattered, until they had learned what he was like.

The sailmaker and his mates were here, cross-legged, busy with palms and bright needles. Nothing was ever wasted, be it a sail ripped apart in a gale or the scrap that would eventually clothe a corpse for its final journey to the seabed. The carpenter and his crew; the boatswain making a last inspection of the new blocks and tackles above the boat tier. He saw the surgeon, George Minchin, walking alone on the larboard gangway, his face brick-red in the hard afternoon light. Another man whose story was unknown. He had been in the old
Hyperion
when she had gone down, with Keen as her captain. The navy was like a family, but there were so many missing faces now.

Adam had been on deck at first light when
Indomitable
had weighed, and sailed in company with two other frigates and a brig. She had made a fine sight, towering above the other ships with her pyramids of sails straining and hardening like armoured breastplates in a sharp north-westerly. He had lifted his hat, and had known that his uncle, although unseen, would have returned their private salute. In one way, he envied Tyacke his role as Bolitho's flag captain, even as he knew it would have been the worst thing he could have attempted. This was his ship. He had to think of her as his sole responsibility, and Keen's flag made it an important one. But it would go no further. Even if he tried, he knew he would never love this ship as he had loved
Anemone
.

He thought of Keen, and the sudden energy which had surprised all those accustomed to a more leisurely chain of command. Keen had been ashore often, not merely to meet the army commanders but also to be entertained by the senior government and commercial representatives of Halifax.

Adam had accompanied him on several occasions, as a duty more than out of curiosity. One of the most important people had been Keen's father's friend, a bluff, outspoken man who could have been any age between fifty and seventy, and who had achieved his present prominence by sweat rather than influence. He laughed a good deal, but Adam had noticed that his eyes always remained completely cold, like blue German steel. His name was Benjamin Massie, and Keen had told Adam that he was well known in London for his radical ideas on the expansion of trade in America, and, equally, for his impatience at anything that might prolong the hostilities.

He was not the only person here known to Keen. Another of his father's friends had arrived earlier, with an open-handed commission from the Admiralty to examine the possibilities of increased investment in shipbuilding, not only for the navy, but with the immediate future in mind and with an eye to improving trade with the southern ports.
The enemy
was a term that did not find favour with Massie and his associates.

So what would happen next? Keen had arranged local patrols in a huge box-shaped zone that stretched from Boston to the south-west, and Sable Island and the Grand Banks six hundred miles in the opposite direction. A large area, yes, but not so vast that each patrol might lose contact with the other if the enemy chose to break out of port, or that Halifax-bound convoys or individual ships could be ambushed before they reached safety. Like the
Royal Herald
. A deliberate, well-planned attack with the sole intention of killing his uncle. He was not certain if Keen accepted that explanation. He had remarked, “We will assess each sighting or conflict at its face value. We must not be dragooned into scattering and so weakening our flotillas.”

A master's mate touched his hat to him, and Adam tried to fix his name in his mind. He smiled. Next time, perhaps.

He heard a light step on the quarterdeck, and wondered why he disliked the new flag lieutenant so much when they had barely spoken. Perhaps it was because the Honourable Lawford de Courcey seemed so much at home with the sort of people they had met ashore. He knew who was important and why, who could be trusted, and who might rouse disapproval as far away as London if he were crossed or overruled. He would be perfectly at home at Court, but in the teeth of an enemy broadside? That remained to be seen.