With All Despatch (23 page)

Marcuard stood up lightly and crossed to a window. “We need an officer we can trust. No civilian will do, especially a man of Parliament who sees only his own advancement no matter what his tongue might proclaim!” He turned on his toes, like a dancer, Bolitho thought dazedly. “I have chosen you.”

“To go where, m'lord? To do what?”

Marcuard ignored it. “Tell me this, Bolitho. Do you love your King and country above all else?”

“I love England, m'lord.”

Marcuard nodded slowly. “That at least is honest. There are people in France who are working to release their monarch. They need to be assured they are not alone. They will trust no spy or informer. The slightest flaw, and their lives end under the blade. I have seen it. I
know
.” He eyed him steadily. “I am partly French, and your report of the two girls who died at sea interested me very much. My own niece was guillotined in the first month of the Terror. She was just nineteen. So you see—” He turned irritably as voices came from the landing. “Damn their eyes, they make chocolate too fast in Kent!”

Then he said evenly, “You will be advised, but will tell nobody until a plan is made. I am sending you to Holland.” He let his words sink in. “When war comes, Holland will fall to the French. There is no doubt of that, so you must be doubly careful. Spain will throw in her lot with France for her own good.”

Bolitho stared at him. “But I thought the King of Spain—”

“Was against the Revolution?” He smiled faintly. “The Dons never change, and I thank God for it. They value their Church and gold above all else. His most Catholic Majesty will soon convince himself where his loyalty lies.”

The door opened and Drew followed by two inn servants bowed his way forward.

“I regret the delay, m'lord!” Drew's eyes moved like darts between them.

“It will be worth it, Sir Marcus.”

As Lord Marcuard leaned forward to examine the tray his eyes met Bolitho's and he added softly, “It
has
to be worth it.”

Then he looked away as if it was a dismissal.

“You may leave us, Bolitho. Your admiral and I have weighty matters to discuss.”

Bolitho walked to the door and turned to give a brief bow. In those seconds he saw Drew's relief, shining from his face like a beam of light, in the knowledge that Marcuard, the King's man, was not displeased, that life might continue as before.

He also saw Marcuard's final gaze. It was that of a conspirator.

12. THE
P
OWER AND THE GLORY

F
OR
Bolitho, the weeks which followed the capture of the
Loyal Chieftain
and the decoy schooner were uneventful and frustrating. Commodore Hoblyn was not replaced by a senior officer; instead, a studious official came from the Admiralty to supervise the purchase of suitable vessels, and to list possible applicants for letters of marque should war be declared in the near future.

The house where Hoblyn had killed himself remained empty and shuttered, a landmark of his disgrace and final grief.

Bolitho found himself with less and less to do, and had to be content with his three cutters acting without his personal supervision, while they carried out their patrols or assisted the revenue vessels in the continuing fight against smugglers.

He found little comfort in the varying successes of his recruiting parties and the press gangs although there had been a surprising increase in volunteers for the fleet, especially from the more inland villages where news of Bolitho's victory over Delaval's ships and gangs had preceded his visits.

The news of the murdered girls had spread like wildfire, and fresh information had come from many different sources to prove that their wretched deaths had not been isolated incidents.

After the first bloodbath in the streets of Paris the mobs had turned their hatred towards the professional classes, then lower still to mere shopkeepers and artisans. Anyone who was branded as a traitor to the revolution, a lackey to the feared and loathed
aristos,
was dragged to prison for harsh interrogation and the inevitable journey through the streets to the waiting guillotine. Some parents had tried to assist their children to escape by selling all they owned; others had attempted to bribe their way into small vessels in the hope of reaching safety in England. Some smugglers like Delaval had found the latter the most profitable of all. They would take everything from these poor, terrified refugees, then murder them in mid-Channel or in the North Sea. Dead men told no tales. If young girls were amongst their human cargo they could expect no mercy at all.

Once, when supping with Major Craven at his small barracks, Bolitho had said angrily, “We are dealing with the scum of the earth. Any enemy who sails under a known flag, no matter what cause he represents, has more respect and honour.”

And now there was not even the major to pass the time with. He and most of his regiment had been ordered to Ireland, in readiness for disturbances there after an overall famine had failed to produce food and warmth for the approaching winter.

And winter was coming early, Bolitho thought. You could see it in the tide-race, and in the tossing white horses of the Channel.

The new detachment of soldiers was composed mainly of recruits and some of the freshly-formed militia, more concerned with their drills and exercises than they were with Bolitho's warnings about smugglers. But the Trade had slackened, if not died, since the
Loyal Chieftain
incident. It should have given him satisfaction, but when he walked the shoreline with Allday a constant companion, he found little consolation.

From the urbane Lord Marcuard he had heard nothing. That had been the biggest disappointment of all. Perhaps it had been another ruse to keep him quiet. Even Craven's removal might be connected in some way, although it was impossible to prove it. Officers and officials whom he was forced to meet if only to maintain the co-operation he had painstakingly built up, treated him with a certain wariness—respect or awe, he did not know.

To some he seemed to represent the man of war, to others an interference with a life they knew would soon change but still refused to abandon.

Rear-Admiral Drew's departure had been swift after the meeting at Dover. He had left with an air of profound relief and perhaps a new determination to remain uninvolved in anything beyond the walls of Admiralty.

There had been one hope when Drew had left written orders that he should not invade the property or privacy of Sir James Tanner without express instruction from higher authority. There was little point anyway, for it was said that Tanner was elsewhere, maybe out of the country altogether. But Bolitho had nursed the idea that the orders had come through Drew from Lord Marcuard. Even that was difficult to believe now.

Late one afternoon Bolitho stood on a bluff watching a frigate working her way downstream towards Sheerness. Her paintwork shone in the grey light; the gilt gingerbread around her stern windows and counter was proof that the lucky man who commanded her had money to spare to present such a fine display. Like Bolitho's
Undine
and
Tempest
had been when he had assumed command first of one, then the other, after the American Revolution.

He watched her resetting her topsails, the men strung out like black dots on her braced yards. A ship to be proud of. The greatest honour of all. He thought of Viola's animation and interest when she had made him speak freely of his ship, as he had done to no one before, or since.

He heard Allday murmur, “A good 'un, Cap'n.”

Bolitho smiled, moved by the supply of ruses which Allday used to prevent him brooding, or remembering too much.

Suppose Allday had been killed? He felt a pain in his chest like a stab. Now he would have been quite alone.

Bolitho turned and looked at him, his hat tugged down to cover his scar. She had touched and kissed that scar and had told him more than once that it was a mark of pride and honour, not something to shame him.

“I wonder if she carries any of the people we gained as volunteers after we had offered them a choice?”

Allday gave a lazy grin. “Just so long as their cap'n knows how to treat 'em!”

Bolitho turned up the collar of his boat-cloak and watched the frigate again as she changed tack towards more open water. It was tearing him apart. Where bound? Gibraltar and the Mediterranean? The West Indies and the dark green fronds which lined each perfect beach?

He sighed. Like the young lieutenant who had offered himself for a ship, any ship, he felt cut off. Discarded, as Hoblyn had been. He ground his heel on the loose sand.
No. Not like Hoblyn.

He asked, “And you never saw the man in the carriage that night, the one who ordered you to kill the sailor from the press?”

Allday watched the rebirth of something in those searching, grey eyes

“Not a peep, Cap'n. But his voice? I'd recognise that even in hell's gateway, so to speak. Like silk it was, the hiss of a serpent.” He nodded fervently. “If I hears it again I'll strike first, ask the wherefores afterwards—an' that's no error!”

Bolitho stared towards the frigate but her lee side was already clothed in deepening shadows. By tomorrow, with favouring winds, she would be abreast of Falmouth. He thought of the great house. Waiting. Waiting. How small the family had become. His sister Nancy, married to the “King of Cornwall,” lived nearby, but his other sister Felicity was still in India with her husband's regiment of foot. What might become of her, he wondered?

There were too many little plaques and tablets on the walls of Falmouth Church which recorded the women and children who had died of fever and native uprisings, in places few had even heard of. Like the Bolitho tablets which filled one alcove in the fine old church, each one reading like part of the navy's own history. From his great-great-great-grandfather, Captain Julius, who had died in
1646
during the Civil War which Lord Marcuard had touched upon, when he had been attempting to lift the Roundhead blockade on Pendennis Castle itself. And his great-grandfather, Captain David, who had fallen to pirates off the shores of Africa in
1724.
Bolitho's fingers reached under his cloak and touched the old hilt at his side. Captain David had had the sword made to his own specifications. Tarnished it might be, but it was still lighter and better-balanced than anything which today's cutlers could forge.

Bolitho walked towards the sunset, his mind suddenly heavy. After his own name was added to the list, there would be no more Bolithos to return to the old house below the headland and its castle.

Allday's eyes narrowed. “Rider in a hurry, Cap'n.” His fist dropped to the cutlass in his belt. The land had made him wary and suspicious. In a ship you knew who your friends were, whereas—he exclaimed, “By God, it's Young Matthew!”

The boy reined his horse to a halt and dropped lightly to the ground.

Bolitho asked, “What is it, lad?”

Young Matthew fumbled inside his jerkin. “Letter, sir. Came by courier.” He was obviously impressed. “Said it must be handed to you, an' you only, sir.”

Bolitho opened and tried to read it but the dusk had made it impossible. But he picked out the gold crest at the top, the scrawled signature,
Marcuard,
at the foot of the page and knew it had not all been a figment of imagination, or some plan to keep him in the background until he could be discreetly disposed of.

The others were staring at him, the horse looming over the boy's shoulder as if it too wanted to be a part of it.

Bolitho had managed to read just three words.
With all despatch.

Afterwards he remembered that he had felt neither anxiety nor surprise. Just a great sense of relief. He was needed again.

Wakeful'
s gangling first lieutenant groped through the waiting figures and eventually found Queely standing beside the compass.

He said quietly, “I have been right through the ship, sir, as ordered. All lights doused.” He peered blindly across the bulwark at the occasional fin of white spray and added, “I'll not argue when we come about for open water!”

Queely ignored him and stared first at the reefed mainsail, then the tiny flickering glow of the compass light.

The air was cold like steel, and when spray and spindrift pattered over the deck he could feel winter in it.

He said, “My respects to Captain Bolitho. Please tell him we are in position.”

“No need. I am here.” Bolitho's shadow detached itself from the nearest group and moved closer. He wore his boat cloak, and Queely saw that he was hatless, only his eyes visible in the gloom.

It was halfway through the middle watch, as near to two o'clock as their cautious approach to the Dutch coastline could make possible.

Queely turned away from the others and said abruptly, “I am not content with these arrangements, sir.”

Bolitho looked at him. From the moment he had stepped aboard Queely's command and had ordered him to the secret rendezvous, this scholarly lieutenant had not once questioned his instructions. All the way across the bleak North Sea to a mark on the chart, and he had held his doubts and apprehensions to himself. For that Bolitho was grateful. He could only guess at the danger he was walking into, and was glad that whatever confidence he retained was not being honed away. Paice might have tried to dissuade him, but
Telemachus
was still in the dockyard completing the refitting of her rigging, and the replacement of her lost topmast. He saw Paice's strong features in his thoughts in the moments which had followed
Loyal Chieftain'
s capture.

Paice had exclaimed, “We didn't lose a man, sir! Neither did
Wakeful!
”

It was strange, but nobody else had even asked him about that, not even Drew. He smiled grimly as he recalled the rear-admiral's agitation;
especially
him, might be more apt.

It was like the reports in the newssheets after a great battle or a storm's tragedy at sea. A flag officer or individual captains might be mentioned. The people and their cost in the ocean's hazards were rarely considered.

He replied, “It is all we have, Mr Queely.” He guessed what he was thinking. Lord Marcuard's information had taken weeks to reach him, longer again to be studied and tested. In the meantime anything might have happened. Holland was still standing alone, but it would not be difficult for French spies to infiltrate even the most dedicated circle of conspirators. “I shall remain ashore for four days. You will stand away from the land until the exact moment as we planned. That will prevent any vessel becoming suspicious of your presence and intentions.” He did not add that it would also stop anyone aboard
Wakeful
from spreading gossip, willingly or otherwise. Queely was a quickwitted officer. He would recognise the unspoken reason.

He persisted, “I think you should be accompanied to the shore at least, sir.”

“Impossible. It would double your time here. You must be well clear before dawn. If the wind should back or drop—” There was no point in further explanations.

Queely held his watch close to the feeble compass glow.

“We will soon know.” He peered around for his lieutenant. “Mr Kempthorne! Silence on deck.” He raised a speaking trumpet and held it to his ear to try to shut out the restless sea.

Bolitho felt Allday beside him and was glad of his company, moved that he should be prepared to risk his life yet again.