Heart of Oak (31 page)

Jago went below, and nodded casually to the marine sentry as he pushed his way into the great cabin.

Morgan had been standing by the stern windows, and came to greet him. It was never too early or too late for him to be about and busy. He said cheerfully, “You look scuppered, Luke, boyo. I’ve got just the something to liven you up!” He paused in the pantry door. “I see that they’re back. It was a long night.” He waited, testing the moment. “Have you heard anything, old friend?”

Jago faced him squarely, no longer surprised that they had become so close.

“I think we’re goin’ to fight,” he said.

Commander Francis Troubridge stared across the water at the schooner.

“Yes, I can muster a prize crew for the run to Gibraltar. I have a master’s mate who served in a schooner in ‘the bad old days,’ as he calls them.” He turned to look at his own command, a searching gaze which Adam understood and remembered. Like his own first ship, all that time ago. He had been even younger than Troubridge.

He was saying, “I’ll have to see the commodore.” Again, the youthful smile Adam had come to know so well when he had been Bethune’s hard-worked flag lieutenant. Only a few months ago…The smile widened to a grin. “
If
he’s still in command, of course!”

Adam said, “I have a report you must deliver to him. I doubt if it will surprise him. But he will not be pleased.”

Troubridge walked with him to the quarterdeck rail. He did not need to be told that this was a matter of urgency. Intelligence and intuition had served him well as a flag lieutenant, and he had needed both under Bethune.
Do this, Flags
, or
Why wasn’t I told, Flags?
And Adam Bolitho he would never forget. On deck, under fire, men dying around them. And his face when the smoke had cleared, compassionate and self-critical, always questioning his own performance.

He had seen that
Onward
’s capstan bars were shipped, with extra hands already mustered to weigh anchor yet again. There was always tension and excitement in preparing to sail. Now he was feeling it more intensely himself, in command of his own ship.

And the familiar sight of corpses sewn in hammocks, awaiting burial. Not like that other time, when they had buried Catherine Somervell at sea, but Adam Bolitho would be recalling it when he did his duty by these three victims of battle.

He asked suddenly, “What do you intend,” and tried to smile, “sir?”

Adam saw him glance once more toward
Merlin
, almost protectively.

“D’you have a good first lieutenant, Francis?”

The question seemed to puzzle him, but he nodded. “He can give me a few years, and I sometimes think he wonders if I’m good enough for the task.” He laughed lightly. “I shall overcome it, I suppose.”

Adam was watching the schooner. “I was once told that envy and ambition often walk the same deck.” He turned back to Troubridge. “I believe
Nautilus
is being handed over to the Aboubakr government as a symbol of trust, and in the hope of future co-operation. France has made no secret of its ambitions in Africa.”

“I was told as much, when
Merlin
was ordered to liaise with you and
Saladin.
”

Adam hardly heard him. “When we went to the aid of a merchant dhow, my surgeon went aboard to offer aid to some of their wounded. One was beyond help, and died while he was there. Murray is a good man—resourceful, too. The dying man gave him a name, and he remembered it. This morning, as dawn broke, my first lieutenant came across from our prize and brought me some documents, which some one had been trying to throw overboard in a weighted bag. Just a few items, some in French.” He paused, and Troubridge bent his head in concentration, listening closely. “And that same name featured prominently. Mustafa Kurt.”

“But that’s not a…”

Adam smiled. “Originally he was Turkish. I don’t know what flag he flies now. I first heard about him after the Algiers campaign. He had been overseeing the Dey’s harbour defenses. And it was a damned close-run thing, as Our Nel would have put it.”

Troubridge regarded him steadily. “And you think this Mustafa Kurt is going to try to overthrow the present power in Aboubakr, and seize
Nautilus?
”

Adam saw Vincent on the gangway, waiting.

“I think he’s already there. Has been from the beginning.”

“My God!” He looked again at
Merlin.
“I’m not letting you sail alone! If it’s true, he’ll have the whole coast ablaze! D’ you think I’d stand by and let you face it single-handed? It would be no mere cutting-out exploit this time!”

Adam took his arm and walked with him to the gangway.
Merlin
’s gig was below the entry port, a side party waiting to see Troubridge depart.

He said, “Go now. The commodore must be alerted,” and saw the anguish and indecision on Troubridge’s face. “I can
order
you to leave. But we are friends.”

Troubridge stepped back, dismayed, perhaps shocked. Then he said curtly, “I shall never forget!” and turned and strode along the gangway.

Adam stood watching the boat pull clear of the side. Troubridge did not look back.

Eventually he knew Vincent had joined him, and said, “
Merlin
is sending a prize crew, Mark. We will weigh anchor as soon as it’s done.”

There was an uncertain silence.

“Was it hard, sir?”

“Harder for him, I think.” He looked across at the schooner, a marine’s scarlet coat vivid in the sunlight. Guarding prisoners.

Vincent was already calling out names, glad to be doing what he knew best.

And if I am wrong…

Luke Jago had heard most of it, and could feel his initial anger giving way to impatience. He had seen some of the seamen around the capstan looking over at
Merlin
, and muttering to each other as if all hell was about to break loose around them. What did they expect when they signed on?

He realized that Bolitho was looking at him, and called, “I’ve brought the book, Cap’n.” He took a chance. “One of old Dan Yovell’s, mebbee?”

Adam nodded, then he said briskly, “So let’s be about it, shall we?”

Gordon Murray stood in a corner of the sick bay, head bowed beneath a deckhead beam while he washed and dried his hands. One finger at a time, slowly and with care. Force of habit: something he now took as a matter of course, rather than necessity. He had learned the hard way, like most naval surgeons. He could still remember when he had caught one of the loblolly boys in his first ship slicing mouldy cheese with one of the surgical knives.

He cocked his head, listening to the sounds above him, and the regular creak and sigh of timbers, could picture the tall pyramids of canvas braced round, as he had just seen them. The ship leaning over, holding the wind. What there was of it.

Down here it was quiet, subdued. Only two men had required treatment after the capture of the schooner, and they had been lucky, despite some ugly gashes. Unlike the ones he had heard go over the side. He was too familiar with that to be moved by it. He thought of the names written on the canvas-wrapped corpses he had seen in the past.
Unless it was some one who…

He straightened his back, head precisely between the beams. Everything in its place. He heard his assistant speaking to one of the wounded sailors. A good man, Erik Larsson, a Swede who might have made a fine doctor. Notoriously impatient, and sharp with any one he believed to be malingering to avoid working ship, or to gain a few extra tots of grog. No bad thing in a crowded man-of-war. But despite Murray’s curiosity, he had made a point of never questioning him, or asking how a Swede had found his way into a British warship. Maybe that was why Larsson trusted him. They trusted one another.

He thought of the dying man aboard the dismasted dhow, wounded in the stomach by grapeshot. It was a wonder he had remained alive as long as he had. Murray had been in several sea-fights, had known the toll so high that there had scarcely been a space left on the orlop for a man to die, let alone receive any treatment.

He could recall the fingers like steel on his wrist, as if every last ounce of his strength had been concentrated in them. Gasping out the name. Nodding, eyes suddenly alive, when Murray had repeated it until he was satisfied. Then he had spoken it one last time, like a curse, with his dying breath.

And later, after Vincent had returned aboard with the documents he had saved from destruction, the discovery of that same name. He had seen doubt and caution in the captain’s face, and then the first hint of excitement. Like a huntsman with the unexpected scent of quarry. But it was something deeper and stronger than that.

And now they were under full sail again. It would end nowhere. Or they would have to fight.

He remembered Trafalgar. He had been serving in the eighty-gun
Tonnant
, under Captain Tyler. She had been a French ship, captured at the Nile, like others which were to serve again under new colours. He had heard some of the younger hands voicing their resentment that
Onward
had been ordered to act as escort to
Nautilus
when they had first arrived at the Rock. It was nothing new.

Some one tapped at the door: one of the sailmaker’s crew, a huge bundle of loose canvas gathered in his arms.

Murray said, “Larsson will show you where to stow them. I hope we will not need them.”

He took his thoughts from it. He did not need to be reminded that whatever happened men would die, and others, like this sailmaker, would have to stitch them up for their final journey.

Jeff Lloyd tipped the canvas on to the deck and began to sort and fold the various pieces into matching lengths. He saw the surgeon go to his desk and begin to write something in a book.
Callous bastard.
He glanced around the sick bay and through to the orlop deck beyond. It was peaceful here, good to be away from the mess and the constant chatter and speculation about chasing after another suspected enemy. Pirate, more likely.

He thought of the burials he had seen carried out almost as soon as the anchor had been catted.
They couldn’t wait.
He had known one of the dead men well. Worked on a farm before he had decided to quit and volunteer for the navy. Whistling aboard ship was forbidden. In case, they said, it might be mistaken for a call announcing a vital command or duty. Only a fool would believe that.

But this man had whistled in a gentle, fascinating fashion. Sometimes, maybe in the dog watches, when there was some quiet, he could recall the soft, easy whistle. Like real music. Even the loud-mouths had piped down to listen and enjoy it.

With some of the others he had watched the brig
Merlin
, her arrival after the cutting-out, and then her departure, with their prize as an unlikely consort. They all had their own thoughts. Lloyd had heard
Merlin
was under orders for Gibraltar again. What then?

To him it meant reaching back to another life, the one that lay in the past. And must remain there.
People soon forget.
Like the ones they had just buried, and Ned Harris, who had wanted too much to keep his mouth shut. It was shut now.

But he could not prevent himself from thinking of the woman who had changed everything. At the time it had seemed like a secret joke, or a form of revenge when she had encouraged him. Her husband was always away from their home in Plymouth: a shipbuilder, who had interests in other yards. Women too, most likely. She had probably recovered by now, and maybe she had already found a new lover to drive away the boredom.

Or was it deeper than that? She might even think of writing to him. She had done so twice before. He had since destroyed the letters.

She would not dare.
Surely she would see the danger, the risk? That night, when her other lover had visited her without hint or warning, he had been there with her. The shock of recognition had saved him. The fury, and the true realization of danger, had ended it. The other lover had lain dead and bleeding outside the door. But there had been a witness, who had been working ashore at a local alehouse, repairing casks for the landlord. The witness had been Ned Harris, the cooper.

Lloyd looked down at his hands. Only
she
knew, and had seen it happen. He had thought about it today while the captain had been reading from his prayer book, before they had tipped the three bodies over the side. If a cruel twist of fate had not brought
him
to the house that night,
he
would have been standing there today, in Captain Bolitho’s place. And now, only she would know this dangerous secret. It would be safe with her. Had to be. They must never meet again.

He smiled. It was better, safer to look ahead. He found he was humming a little tune to himself. One of those his friend used to whistle, before they buried him at sea.

Murray walked past. “All done? Good lad.”

Jeff Lloyd heard him leave the sick bay, and call out to some one in the passageway.
Another officer.

Lloyd could not help it, but he was rocking back and forth on the deck, and shaking with uncontrollable laughter.

David Napier sat at the table and stared at the writing paper by his elbow. There were only two small lanterns alight in the midshipmen’s berth, and the air was stifling. It was about midnight, but he was not tired, nor even remotely sleepy. There was no point in worrying about it, he thought, he would be called in a few hours for the morning watch. And no sense in slinging a hammock; all hands would be called early this coming day, and the nettings would have to be secured and ship-shape before dawn.

He looked over to the opposite end of the mess. Midshipman Deacon was sitting in the other small pool of light, his official diary wide open and his folder of notes and diagrams weighed down with a pair of brass dividers. Not that there was much motion to dislodge them. He had already noticed that Deacon’s pen also lay untouched.

He listened to the hull murmuring around him. So familiar now, the memories of
Audacity
softened and no longer lying in wait, except perhaps at moments like these.