Second to None (42 page)

He had been both doubtful and anxious when Captain Bolitho had told him he was going across to the flagship to see Rhodes in person, after three signals to the admiral requesting an audience. Each had been denied without explanation, as was any admiral's right. But it was also the right of any captain to see his flag officer, if he was prepared to risk reprimand for wasting the great man's time.

With his own coxswain at the tiller Bolitho had headed away, his boat cloak black with spray before they had covered a few yards. It would not have been the first time a captain had been marooned aboard a flagship because of bad weather. Suppose it had happened now? The captain would have had to endure the sight of his own command hove to under
storm canvas, and another man's voice at the quarterdeck rail.
Mine
.

He watched the cutter lifting, porpoising slightly before riding the next trough of dark water, the oars rising and dipping, holding the hull under control. At other times he could scarcely see more than the bowed heads and shoulders of the boat's crew, as if they were already going under.

Galbraith felt only relief. He had heard the rumours about Bolitho's disagreement with the admiral at the last conference, the hostility and the sarcasm, as if Rhodes were trying to goad him into something which would be used against him. It was something personal, and therefore dangerous, even to others who might be tempted to take sides in the matter.

The cutter plunged into a trough and then lifted her stem again like a leaping porpoise. Even without a glass he could see the grin on the captain's face, stronger than any words or code of discipline. He had seen it at first hand in action, when these same men had doubted their own ability to fight and win, had seen how some of them had touched his arm when he had passed amongst them. The victors.

He called sharply, ‘Stand by to receive the captain!'

But the boatswain and his party were already there. Like himself, they had been waiting with their blocks and tackles, perhaps without even knowing why.

He saw a small figure in a plain blue coat, drenched through like the rest of them: Ritzen, the purser's clerk. A quiet, thoughtful man, and an unlikely one to spark off a chain of events which might end in a court martial, or worse. But Ritzen was different from the others around him. He was Dutch, and had signed on with the King's navy when he had been rescued by an English sloop after being washed overboard in a storm and left for dead by his own captain.

Ritzen had been ashore in Malta with Tregillis, the purser, buying fruit from local traders rather than spend a small fortune at the authorised suppliers. He had fallen in with some seamen from the Dutch frigate
Triton
which had called briefly at the island. Her captain, a commodore, had paid a visit to Lord Rhodes.

Galbraith could recall the moment exactly, after another long
day of sail and gun drill, and a seemingly endless stream of signals, mostly, it appeared, directed at
Unrivalled
.

Everyone knew it was wrong, unfair, but who would dare to say as much? Galbraith had gone to the great cabin, where he had found the captain in his chair, some letters open on his lap, and a goblet of cognac quivering beside him to each thud of the tiller head.

Despair, resignation, anger: it had been all and none of them.

After reporting the state of the ship and the preparations for station-keeping overnight, Galbraith had told him about the purser's clerk. Ritzen had overheard that the Dutch frigate was on passage to Algiers, her sale already approved and encouraged by the Dutch government. It had been like seeing someone coming alive again, a door to freedom opening, when moments earlier there had been only a captive.

‘I knew there was something strange when I heard it aboard
Frobisher
!' Adam had gone from the chair to the salt-stained stern windows in two strides, the dark hair falling over his forehead, the weight of command momentarily forgotten. ‘A commodore in charge of a single frigate! That alone should have told me, if nobody else was prepared to!'

Perhaps Rhodes had forgotten, or thought it no one else's business. Maybe Bethune's records had not been examined. Galbraith thought it unlikely, and when he had seen the light in the captain's eyes he knew it for certain.

‘I shall see the admiral . . .' He must have seen the doubt in Galbraith's face. To risk another confrontation, and all on the word of the purser's clerk, seemed reckless if not downright dangerous. But there had been no such doubt in Bolitho's voice. ‘Such intelligence is valuable beyond measure, Leigh! To
any
sea officer, time and distance are the true enemies. This man spoke out, and I intend that his words should be heard!'

He had stared at the leaping spectres of spray breaking across the thick glass, and it had been then that Galbraith had seen the locket on the table beside the goblet. The beautiful face and high cheekbones, the naked shoulders. He had never laid eyes on her, but he had known that it was Catherine Somervell.
That woman,
who had scorned society and won the hearts of the fleet, and of the nation.

Galbraith stood back from the dripping hammock nettings. He was soaked to the skin, but he had felt nothing. He suppressed a shiver, but it was not cold or fear. It was something far stronger.

‘After you have secured the cutter, Mr Partridge, pass my compliments to the purser and have a double tot issued to the boat's crew.' He saw the little clerk staring up at him. ‘And also for Ritzen.'

And, as suddenly as he had departed, the captain was here on the streaming deck with his gasping, triumphant oarsmen.

He shook his cocked hat and tossed it to his servant.

‘All officers and warrant ranks aft in ten minutes, if you please.' The dark eyes were everywhere, even as he pushed the dripping hair from his face. ‘But I must speak first with you.'

Galbraith waited, remembering the moment when Bazeley's wife had offered her hand to be kissed. The notion had touched him then: how right they had looked together. He had wanted to laugh at his own stupidity. Now, he was not so sure.

Then Adam spoke quietly, so softly that he could have been talking to himself. Or to the ship, Galbraith thought.

‘I pray to God for a fair wind tomorrow.' He touched his lieutenant's arm, and Galbraith knew the gesture was unconscious. ‘For then we must fight, and only He can help us.'

Lieutenant Massie looked around the crowded cabin, his swarthy features expressionless.

‘All present, sir.'

Adam said, ‘Sit where you can,
if
you can.' It gave him more time to think, to assemble what he would say.

The cabin was full; even the junior warrant officers were present, some of them staring around as if they expected to discover something different in this most sacred part of their ship.

Adam could feel the hull moving heavily beneath him, but steadier now, the wind holding her over, all sounds muffled by distance.

He could picture Galbraith moving about the quarterdeck overhead, and recalled his face when he had outlined the possibilities of action, as he had to Lord Rhodes.

Now Galbraith was on watch, the only officer absent from the cabin.

The two Royal Marine officers, a bright patch of colour, the midshipmen in their own whispering group, and young Bellairs standing with Lieutenant Wynter and Cristie, the taciturn sailing master. The surgeon was present also, dwarfing the scrawy figure of Tregillis the purser. Despite the lack of space the other warrant officers, the backbone of any fighting ship, managed to keep apart. Stranace the gunner stood with his friend the carpenter, ‘Old Blane' as he was known, although he was not yet forty. Neither of them could work out a course or compass bearing on a chart, and like most professional sailors they were content to leave such matters to those trained for it. But lay them alongside an enemy ship and they would keep the guns firing, and repair the damage from every murderous broadside. And the master's mates: they would keep the ship under command, knowing they were prime targets for any enemy marksman. The flag and the cause were incidental when it came to surviving the first deadly embrace.

He knew without looking that his clerk, Usher, was at the table, ready to record this rare meeting, with a handkerchief balled in one fist to muffle the cough which was slowly killing him.

The only missing face was that of George Avery. Even as Adam had outlined his convictions to Admiral Rhodes he had thought of Avery, as if he had been speaking for him.

So many times they had talked together, about his service with Sir Richard, his friendship with Catherine. Galbraith had touched upon it too, only a few moments ago in this same cabin.

I think he knew he was going to die, sir. I think he had given up the will to live.

He glanced along the cabin's side. The big eighteenpounders were held firmly behind their sealed ports, but dragging at the stout breeching ropes with the sway of the deck. As if they were restless, eager.

But instead he saw
Frobisher
's stern cabin, the great ship riding almost disdainfully across the broken water. Where his uncle had sat and dreamed; had believed, perhaps, that a hand was reaching out at last.

The surprising part had been the admiral's frowning silence while he had explained the reason for his visit.

Avery again . . . How he had described their meeting with Mehmet Pasha, the Dey's governor and commander-in-chief in Algiers. Face to face, with no ships to support them but for the smaller twenty-eight gun frigate
Halcyon.
She was out there now, riding out the same weather, with the same young captain who had served under James Tyacke as a midshipman, in this very sea at the Battle of the Nile.

Avery had forgotten nothing, and had filled a notebook with facts of every kind, from the barbarous cruelties he had witnessed, not so far from where they had cut out
La Fortune
, a thousand years ago, or so it felt, even to the names of ships moored there, and the Spanish mercenary, Captain Martinez, who had changed sides too many times for his own good. This command would be his last, one way or the other. Adam seemed to hear Lovatt's despairing voice while he lay dying, here, just beyond the screen of his sleeping quarters. Where he had held the boy Napier circled in his arm, to make himself believe he was the son who had turned away from him.

He licked dry lips, aware of the silence, the intent, watching faces, barely able to accept that he had been talking to these men for several minutes. Even the shipboard noises seemed muted, so that the scrape of Usher's pen seemed loud in the stillness.

He said, ‘I believe we shall fight. The main attack will be carried out by the flagship and
Prince Rupert,
and at the right moment by the bomb vessel
Atlas.
Perhaps this is merely a gesture, one worth risking ships and lives. It is not my place to judge.' He held the bitterness at bay, like an enemy. ‘
Unrivalled's
place will be up to wind'rd. Ours is the fastest vessel, and apart from the two liners the best armed.' He smiled, as he had done in the cutter to give his oarsmen heart for the return pull. ‘I do not need to add,
the best ship
!'

Rhodes would have his way. The bombardment would be carried out without delay after yet another reported attack on helpless fishermen and the murder of their crews. It might make a fitting beginning to the admiral's appointment.

He thought of the Dutch frigate again. Expedience, greed, who could say? The great minds who planned such transactions
never had to face the brutal consequences of close action. Maybe the Dutch government had fresh plans for expansion overseas. They already held territories in the West and East Indies, so why not Africa, where rulers like the Dey could obstruct even the strongest moves of empire?

Such deals were left to men like Bazeley . . . his mind faltered for a second . . . and Sillitoe. He saw Lieutenant Wynter watching him fixedly. Or
his
father in the House of Commons and those like him.

‘The Dutch frigate
Triton,
or whatever she may now be called, is a powerful vessel . . .'

He heard Rhodes again, his confidence and bluster returning like a strong squall.

‘They would not dare! I could blow that ship out of the water!'

He continued, ‘I know not what to expect. I merely wanted to share it with you.' He paused, and saw O'Beirne glance around as if he expected to see a newcomer in the cabin. ‘For we are of one company.'

He had already seen the doubt on Massie's dark countenance. He knew the chart, the notes in Cristie's log, and now he knew
Unrivalled
's holding station, well up to windward. Rhodes could not have made it plainer.

‘Be content to watch the flank for a change!'

Even the flag captain had warned him openly before he had climbed down to the pitching cutter.

‘You've made an enemy there, Bolitho! You sail too close to the wind!'

He would, of course, deny any such remark at a court martial.

They were filing out of the cabin now, and Usher bowed his head in a fit of coughing.

O'Beirne was the last to leave, as Adam had known he would be. They faced one another, like two men meeting unexpectedly in a lane or on some busy street.

O'Beirne said, ‘I am glad I wear a sword only for the adornment, sir. I consider myself a fair man and a competent surgeon.' He tried to smile. ‘But command? I can only watch at a distance, and be thankful!'

The surgeon walked out into the daylight, and was surprised
to see the planking steaming in the warm wind as if the very ship were burning. There was so much he had wanted to say, to share. And now it was too late. Before sailing from England he had met
Frobishers
's previous surgeon, Paul Lefroy; they had known one another for years. He smiled sadly. Lefroy was completely bald now, his head like polished mahogany. A good doctor, and a firm friend. He had been with Sir Richard Bolitho when he had died. O'Beirne had pictured it in his friend's words, just as he had seen some of it in his youthful captain's face, and he glanced aft now as if he expected to see him.