Relentless Pursuit (7 page)

At the first gun, its captain Isaac Dias wiped his mouth with the back of his wrist and glared at the next group of men. Dias was thickset and deep-chested, a gun captain of long standing both in
Unrivalled
and in other ships before that. His gun was in the first division, and as such was usually the earliest to engage the enemy. He wore his shaggy hair in an old-style pigtail, and stripped of his shirt his body was scarred in several places from splinters and from brawls ashore and afloat, and like his massive arms was thick with hair. Fiercesome and incredibly ugly, he was also the best gun captain in the ship, and he knew it.

He squinted up at the topgallant mast and noted the lie of it toward the horizon. The windward side of the ship. Not much of a blow, but still a muscle-tearing sweat to haul the gun up to the open port. He ran his eyes over the waiting hands. You were
born
a gunner. You didn't just become one because some poxy officer said it was to be.

Someone murmured, “'Ere comes trouble, Isaac.”

Dias grinned. It made him look even uglier. “Goin' to tell us what to do, eh?”

The trouble in question was Midshipman Sandell, walking as he always did, with his dragging springy step, as if he was already
strutting his own quarterdeck,
Dias thought.

But Dias was an old hand. He knew about the young gentlemen and how far you could go. Not like some of them, Sandell actually enjoyed being hated, and hated he was. When he was eventually commissioned lieutenant he would make life hell for everyone. It was to be hoped he would be killed before that happened.

Sandell stood, hands on hips, his lips pursed in what might have been a smile.

“You know your places. When I give the word, go to them,
roundly so!
”

The last words came out sharply and he turned to point a finger at one who had been startled.

“Name?”

It was the youth Ede, even paler in the harsh glare.

“Ede, sir.”

Sandell regarded him keenly. “I remember. Yes. The one who would not go aloft when ordered!”

Ede shook his head. “No, sir, I was excused at that time.”

Sandell nodded. “Of course. Afraid of heights, someone said.” He glanced round; some men had stopped work to watch or listen, and Midshipman Deighton was at the second gun with more untrained hands. Sandell was beginning to enjoy the audience.

He snapped, “Gun captain, take your station now! Facing the port!”

Dias said, “I know my station, Mr Sandell!”

Sandell flinched. “San-
dell,
damn you! I shall be watching you, Dias, old Jack or not!”

Dias looked away to hide his grin. It was so easy with this little maggot.

Sandell cleared his throat. “Now take stations!” He flicked the starter he always carried across a man's bare shoulder, and added, “In action you might find yourself
in charge,
everyone else killed, think on that, you oaf!”

The man's name was Cooper. He had been picked from Bellairs' list along with Ede. They had been in the same prison together.

Cooper ducked down and seized the handspike nearest him. Sandell was already snapping at someone else and did not see the fire in his stare. Almost to himself, he muttered, “And you'll be the first to get it!”

The drill continued, with some of the regular gun crews going through every move before handing over to the others.

Sandell had seen Dias looking at the foremast and said, “Prepare to run out!”

Dias stooped over to add his weight but stood aside as Sandell shouted, “Not you, Dias. You were just killed!”

It was heavy going, backs and muscles unused to handling a great gun, bare feet slipping on the deck as it tilted over yet again, the eighteen-pounder dragging at its tackles to make their efforts seem puny.

At the second gun Deighton shouted, “Together, lads! Heave!”

The two guns trundled up to their ports and groaned into position.

“Point! Ready! Fire!”
Sandell was beating time with his starter as if he alone could see and hear this empty gun in action.

He lashed out again at the one named Ede. “Don't let go, you idiot! Put your weight on it!” He struck him again and Ede slipped and fell, his legs beneath the truck.

“Belay that!”
The voice was sharp, incisive.
“Secure the gun!”

It was Lieutenant Varlo, his eyes everywhere as he walked along the gangway and stopped directly above the first gun.

Sandell exclaimed, “It was deliberate, sir!” He gestured towards Ede. “Nothing but trouble since we began!”

Varlo said, “Stand up, Ede.” Then, “Had this gun been in action it would have recoiled inboard when fired and you would have had both legs crushed.” He watched him calmly, but his voice was meant for the midshipman.
“Do you understand?”

Ede nodded shakily. “Yes, sir.”

Varlo looked at the foremast. “Afraid of heights, eh? That won't do. This is a
fighting ship.
We depend on one another.” He glanced coldly at Sandell. “We have no choice.”

A boatswain's mate touched his forehead. “Cap'n's compliments, Mr Varlo, sir, you can dismiss the drill now.”

Varlo nodded. “Carry on.” He looked at Ede again. “No choice. Remember that.”

The others gathered round, the regular gun crews peering at everything as if their own smartness and efficiency was being questioned. Isaac Dias spat on his hands.

“Come on, show 'em how it's really done, eh?”

The laughter seemed to break the spell, although nobody looked at Sandell as he strode aft, barely able to contain his fury.

Only Ede remained, one hand on his arm where Sandell's rope starter had left its mark.

Deighton was about to leave when something made him say, “I was scared of going aloft.” He checked himself. What was the matter with him? But he added, “For a long time. But I learned a lot from the old Jacks, watched how they did it.
One hand for the King,
they always said,
but keep one for yourself!
”

Ede was staring at him, as if he had just realised he was there.

“But . . . you're an officer, sir . . .” He stared aft, watching for Sandell.

Deighton said, “It makes no difference, up there.” He thought suddenly of his father's intolerance. “Come up with me in the dog watches.” The youth was still staring at the criss-cross of rigging, the aimlessly flapping foretopsail, and he recognised the fear and something more.

“Would you, sir?” Almost pleading, almost desperate. “Just the two of us?”

Deighton grinned, relieved, but for whom he did not know.

“I'll try, sir, if you think . . .” He did not go on.

Deighton touched his arm. “I'm sure.” Then he walked away, into the market-place.

He did not know how gratitude would look, but now he knew how it felt.

He thought of the captain's words in the wardroom.
Things will be different. Eventually.

For both of them it was a challenge.

After the blinding glare of the sun, the dazzling reflections thrown up from a clean blue sea, the night was like a cloak.

Galbraith moved occasionally from one side of the quarterdeck to the other, and was surprised that it could still hold him, move him, after all the watches he had worked, all the sea miles logged. A ship at her best. He looked up and through the rigging at the batlike shadows of the topsails, barely moving in a soft, steady breeze. No moon, but the stars stretched from horizon to horizon. He smiled to himself.
And he was not yet used to it.

He glanced at the helmsmen, one at the wheel, the other standing by. Joshua Cristie, the master, took no chances; he had only just gone below himself. It was as if it was his ship. Like the gun captains he had watched at the drills. Possessive, resentful of unnecessary interference. He had spoken about the new midshipmen, one in particular, the youngest. Cristie had been instructing them, taking the noon sights, and it would be some time before they satisfied him. Of Midshipman Hawkins he had remarked, “Should be at home playing with his toy soldiers! Did you see the sextant his parents gave him? A beauty. Not something for a twelve-year-old child to cut his teeth on!”

Galbraith had said, “You were about that age yourself when you were packed off to sea, or have you forgotten?”

Cristie had been unmoved. “That was different. Very different. For us.”

He felt the deck tremble and saw the wheel move slightly. The helmsman was watching the little dogvane, a tiny pointer made of cork and feathers perched on the weather side of the quarter-deck rail. On a dark night and with such light airs, the dogvane was a trained helmsman's only guide to the wind's direction.

Trained:
that summed it up, he thought. Like the drills, sails and rigging, guns and boatwork. It took time for raw recruits. It was different for the old hands, like that brute Campbell, and the gun captain he had seen glaring at Sandell behind his back; they might not see the point of it any more, now that there was no real enemy to face and fight, no cause to recognise, no matter how uncertain.

It could change tomorrow. They had already seen it for themselves, when Napoleon had broken out of his cage on Elba. He glanced at the dimly lit skylight; the captain was still awake. Probably thinking about it too. His uncle had been killed then. A cross on a chart, nothing more. No better and no worse, he had said of
Unrivalled
's company. Galbraith thought of Varlo's comment about a captain's responsibility.
Why should that have touched me as it did?
Varlo never seemed to make casual remarks. Everything had to matter, to reflect.

He lifted a telescope from its rack and levelled it across the empty nettings.

Over his shoulder he said quietly, “We'll warn the middle watch, Mr Deighton. Those lights are fishermen, if I'm not mistaken.” He heard the midshipman murmur something. Tiny lights on the water, miles away, like fireflies, almost lost among the stars. It would be a safe bet to say that every one of them would already know about
Unrivalled
's steady approach. He added, “Remind me to make a note in the log.”

“Aye, sir.”

He liked Deighton, what he knew of him. He had more than proved his worth in battle, and the captain had remarked on it.

Galbraith put it from his thoughts.
As my captain wrote of me when I was recommended for command.

He heard the midshipman speaking to the boatswain's mate of the watch, and he thought of what he had seen during the dog watches when Deighton had gone aloft with the young landman who had been terrified.

Nobody else took much notice, but Galbraith had watched and remembered his own first time, going aloft in a Channel gale. He smiled. A million years ago.

And he had seen them return to the deck. They had climbed only to the foretop, and had avoided the puttock shrouds which left a man hanging out over the sea or the deck below, with only fingers and toes to keep him from falling.

A voice murmured, “Cap'n's coming up, sir.”

Some would never tell an officer, warn him. When it came down to it, it was all you had to prove your worth.

He was surprised to see the captain coatless, his shirt blowing open in the soft wind.

The helmsman reported, “Sou'-sou'-east, sir!”

Galbraith waited, sensing the energy, the restlessness of the man, as if it was beyond his control. Driving him. Driving him.

Adam said, “A fine night. The wind holds steady enough.” He turned to look abeam and Galbraith saw the locket glint in the compass light. He could see it in his mind. The bare shoulders, the dark, challenging eyes. Why did he wear it, when Sir Richard's flag lieutenant, Avery, had brought it to him? Before he himself had been killed, on this deck.

The captain would be about his own age, and the lovely woman was older, beyond his reach, if that was the force which was tearing him apart.

Adam said, “Call all hands at first light. I expect this ship to look her best. If and when we are given the time I want more boat drill. The waters we are intended for are not suitable for a man-of-war.”

Galbraith waited. He was thinking ahead. Going over his orders again, sifting all the reasons, and the things unsaid.
For the Captain's discretion.

Adam said suddenly, “I was pleased about young Deighton's work today. A good example. God knows, some of these poor devils have little enough to sustain them.” He turned and Galbraith could almost feel his eyes in the darkness. “I'll not stand for petty tyranny, Leigh. Attend to it as you see fit.”

Galbraith heard his shoes crossing to the companion-way. He missed nothing. But what was driving him, when most captains would have been asleep at this hour?