Heart of Oak (2 page)

The girl brushed some hair from her forehead and smiled at him. “Thank you again for your kindness. I shall not forget.” She reached out and put her gloved hand on his arm. “I am glad you are safe.” She could not continue, but turned away and walked deliberately past her father.

“No need fer me to fret about
you
, zur.” The guard dragged off his battered hat, his weathered face split into a grin.
Something to tell the lads…

A smart carriage, almost delicate compared to the stage, had halted, and a woman was stepping down, assisted by her own straight-backed coachman. People were turning to watch as she, slim and elegant in a dark red cloak, hurried to greet the midshipman.

Napier felt the arms around his shoulder, a hand on his face, his mouth. The tears against his skin.

She was saying, “A tree across the road…Francis had to fetch help. I prayed you’d still be here!” She tossed her head like a girl, but the laugh he had always remembered would not come.

Napier could feel the warmth of her embrace, her pleasure and her sadness. He wanted to tell her, to explain, but his voice came out like a stranger’s. “Lady Roxby, it all happened so quickly—”

But her hand was touching his mouth again and she was shaking her head, her eyes never leaving his. “Aunt Nancy, my dear. Remember?” She kept her voice level as she called to the coachman, “A hand here, Francis. Easy, now.”

But Francis needed no such caution. He had served in the cavalry, and had not forgotten what the exhaustion of war looked like. And he had already seen the dark stain of blood on the midshipman’s white breeches.

She stood by the carriage while Napier climbed with effort to the step. She was aware of the faces at the inn windows and on the street, discussing and speculating, but they could have been completely alone. She had last seen him as a boy, proud but shy in his new uniform, before he had left to join his ship. She had learned most of what had happened from the letter which had reached England in a fast courier brig from the Caribbean; the rest she could guess or imagine. She was a sea officer’s daughter, and the sister of one of England’s most famous sailors, and had soon learned that pain and glory usually walked hand in hand.

Napier was gazing back at her, his eyes filling his face. “I—I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it to be…”

But Francis had edged past her and was easing the boy into a seat. “He’ll be all right now, m’ lady.”

She nodded. “Thank you, Francis. You may take us home.”

Home.

Luke Jago, Captain Adam Bolitho’s coxswain, stood beside one of the tall windows and stared down into the street. The carriage, and a carrier’s cart which had brought him and some personal belongings here had already departed, and after the endless journey from Plymouth it was like being abandoned, cut off from everything he knew or could recognize.

The street was deserted and, like this house, too quiet to be alive. The buildings directly opposite were faceless and imposing. He took his hand from the curtain and heard it swish back into position. Like the room itself: everything in its place. Overpowering. The ceiling seemed too high, out of reach. He thought of the flagship,
Athena;
even in the great cabin aft, you had to duck your head beneath the deckhead beams. Below on the gun decks it was even more cramped. How could these people ever understand what it was like to serve, to fight?

He relaxed very slowly, caught unaware by his own resentment. The house felt empty, probably had been for most of the time.
Everything in its place.
The fine chairs, glossy and uncreased, a vast marble fireplace, laid with logs but unlit. There were some flowers in a vase by another window. But this was February, and they were made of coloured silk.

Above a small inlaid desk there was a painting; he was surprised it had escaped his notice as he had entered the room. A portrait of a sea officer holding a telescope. A young captain, not yet posted, but Jago could still recognize Sir Graham Bethune, Vice-Admiral of the Blue, who had left his flagship in Portsmouth in such haste, as if staging a race with the devil.

He sat down very carefully in one of the satin chairs, and tried once again to marshal his thoughts. Jago had a keen brain and usually a memory to match it, but after the battle with the slavers at San José and the murderous battering from their shore-sited artillery, one event seemed to merge with another. Leading his boarding party to retake the schooner, and seeing the woman standing on the scarred deck staring past him at
Athena
, as if she were beyond pain, and her blood had been unreal. In action, memory can play many tricks. But Jago could still hear her calling out, as if with joy, in those last seconds before she fell dead.

The return to Antigua, the victors with their prizes, and the total, unnerving silence in English Harbour which had greeted them. Some of their people had been killed in the action and been buried at sea; others had been landed at Antigua and were still there under care.

Jago was hardened to sea warfare and its price. The long years of war with France and Spain were only a memory now, and they were at peace, although some might not see it that way. To the ordinary Jack, any man was an enemy if he was standing at the business end of a cannon, or holding his blade to your neck.

But that passage to Antigua still haunted Jago’s mind.

A calm sea and light winds, lower deck cleared, and all work suspended on spars and rigging alike.

Jago had been in all kinds of fights, and had seen many familiar faces, some good, others bad, go over the side. But this was different. Her body stitched up in canvas, weighted with round shot, and covered with the flag.
Our flag.
Even some of the wounded had been on deck, crouching with their mates, or propped up against the hammock nettings to listen to the captain’s voice, speaking the familiar words which most of them knew by heart.

And yet so different…

Even the regular thump of the pumps, which had not stopped since the first crash of cannon fire, had been stilled.

And Bethune, their vice-admiral, had stood facing the infamous Lord Sillitoe. A victim or a culprit; it remained undecided, and somehow unimportant at that time and place Jago had later seen recorded in the master’s log. The date and their position in the Caribbean when Catherine, Lady Somervell, was buried at sea.

He remembered Adam Bolitho’s face when the grating had been raised, and they had heard the splash alongside. Sailors often thought about it, even joked about it on the messdeck. Not this time.

At Antigua there had been new orders waiting. Sillitoe, a friend of the Prince Regent, it was said, had been handed over into the custody of the commodore there, who had been promoted to rear-admiral while
Athena
and her consorts had been under fire.

Jago had kept close to his captain throughout the remainder of the campaign; if you could call it that, he thought darkly. Pulling his company together again, visiting the wounded, and often at odds with Bethune. The latter shouting and thumping the table and drinking beyond his capacity and his normal caution. Some said Bethune had been in love with Catherine Somervell. But Jago knew that she had loved only one man, Sir Richard Bolitho, who had been killed on the deck of his flagship following Napoleon’s escape from Elba. Jago had seen her in the old church at Falmouth, when all the flags had been at half-mast, and
Unrivalled
had fired a salute. It had been Richard’s name she had been calling when she had fallen dead. More like a greeting than a farewell, or so it seemed, looking back…

Somewhere a clock chimed. Two horsemen were trotting unhurriedly past the house. Dragoons, by their cut, he thought.
Officers.
His mouth tightened. Nothing else to do.

There was something else that still puzzled him.
Athena
had anchored at Plymouth only briefly before proceeding on to Portsmouth, which she had left less than a year ago. Bethune had insisted on breaking the passage, apparently to send some urgent despatches by courier.

Even then, the captain had found time to speak to the men being discharged or put ashore to have their wounds treated. The lucky ones…

And the boy, now a midshipman, who had somehow managed to swim ashore at San José after
Audacity
had exploded. His own captain had been killed, cut in half by a red-hot ball from the battery, but one of his lieutenants had seen fit to write a short report on David Napier’s courage and determination in supporting another midshipman and getting him to the beach, where the Royal Marines had found them. Only Napier had survived.

Napier would be in Falmouth now. At the Bolitho house, with the green hills behind and the sea below. Something Jago had also shared in his own way.

Captain Adam Bolitho was at the Admiralty right now, not all that far from this room. It was hard to fix your position, he thought, here in London anyway. It must be somewhere over and beyond those faceless houses. Bethune lived here when it suited him, and had used to ride across the park in a leisurely fashion to his offices.

Athena
was being paid off. Another victim, like
Unrivalled
after her battle at Algiers. He recalled the silent bundles being slipped over the side for that last journey, and controlled his anger. That was the way it was. The sea was all he knew. He stood up and faced the door.
And all he wanted.

But it was not one of the household staff, or even Lady Bethune, not that she would deign to meet him. It was George Tolan, Bethune’s servant, although the word didn’t do him justice. Always smart and alert in his distinctive blue coat, and obviously at ease with his lord and master. More like a companion or a bodyguard, with the bearing of a soldier or a marine. Jago had seen him in
Athena
’s cabin, pouring wine or something with more bite to it, holding the glass or goblet to study it beforehand. No fuss, not like some. And when the guns had belched fire from
Athena
’s ports and reeled inboard in recoil, he had seen the other Tolan, crouching but unafraid in the fury of battle.

A good man to have beside you, but one you would never know.

Tolan was glancing around the room now, and, Jago guessed, missing nothing. “I have told the kitchen to prepare a meal for you. A drink would not come amiss, I imagine, after all that bustle.”

If he was disturbed or irritated by the long journey from Portsmouth, the storing and checking of Bethune’s personal gear at every stop along that endless road, he gave no sign of it. He probably knew Bethune better than any one.

Jago shrugged. “No telling how long the Cap’n will be with their lordships.” He looked at the portrait on the wall. “I can’t fathom what there is to yarn about. It’s over. We done what we was ordered. That’s it!”

“Not so simple this time, I think.”

“Cap’n Bolitho had his last ship taken from him. Paid off. Now
Athena—
God, she’s only a few years old!”

Tolan watched him. “Launched in 1803, I was told. Sounds old enough to me.”

Jago exclaimed, “Good Kentish oak, too!” and broke off as if he had just heard the remark. “Not for a
real
ship. Hell’s teeth, Our Nel’s
Victory
was forty years old when she stood in the line at Trafalgar! They don’t know what they’re about, their bloody lordships!”

Tolan seemed to be considering something. “You care about your captain, don’t you? Something deeper than duty, loyalty. You’re not a man who’s easily taken in. I like that.” He smiled with sudden warmth, like offering a handshake, Jago thought afterwards. Dropping his guard, something rare with him.

Tolan said, “Now I
will
fetch that drink,” and looked up at the portrait. The young captain…“For both of us.”

Jago stood at the window, grappling with the words, and what lay behind them.
Deeper than duty, loyalty.
It was not something he would ever consider, if he was being true to himself. After the flogging which had scarred his mind as well as his body, he had made himself shun even the slightest hint of friendship.

Perhaps it was trust?

The room was empty once more. He had not even heard Tolan close the door behind him.

He was on
Athena
’s deck again, as if it were yesterday. Now. The seamen breaking ranks slowly, reluctant to return to their work. The empty grating by the gangway, the unfolded flag barely moving in the breeze, the canvas-wrapped body already on the seabed.

But all he could see clearly was Adam Bolitho’s face as he had turned away from the side. Their eyes had met, and the words had been quietly spoken, almost an undertone. Excluding every one else.
They’re together now. Nothing can harm them.

It had troubled him deeply.

There were sounds, voices, on the stairway: Tolan bringing his master’s wine, or maybe something stronger. He felt his mouth crack into a grin.

“There’ll be other ships.”

He realized that he had spoken aloud.

Just say the word, Cap’n.

“If you would wait in here, Captain…er…Bolitho.” The Admiralty porter held ths door open. “Should you require any assistance…” He did not finish it, but closed the door silently behind him.

Adam Bolitho stood a moment to get his bearings, or perhaps to prepare himself. After all the haste and uncertainty, this sudden stillness was unnerving. A table, three chairs and one window: it was more like a cell than a waiting room.

Like most serving officers, he had not visited this, the seat of Admiralty, more than a few times throughout his whole career, and he had always been impressed by the orderly confusion and purpose. Clerks carrying files of papers, criss-crossing what were still to him a maze of corridors, opening and shutting doors. Some remained closed, even guarded, while strategic conferences were in session; others, partly opened, revealed the materials and tools of command. Huge wall charts and maps, instruments, rows of waiting chairs. It was hard to imagine the immense power, and control of the world’s greatest navy, being wielded from within these walls.