Command a King's Ship (4 page)

Bolitho's eye stopped on the one at the end of the line. A sturdy man, well-muscled, and with a pigtail protruding from beneath his battered hat. One prime seaman at least.

He realised Bolitho was watching him and hurried forward to the gun.

Davy snapped, “Here now, hold your damn eagerness!”

Bolitho asked, “Your name?”

He hesitated. “Turpin, sir.”

Davy was getting angry. “Stand still and remove your hat to the captain, damn your eyes! If you know anything, you should know respect!”

But the man stood stockstill, his face a mixture of despair and shame.

Bolitho reached out and removed an old coat which Turpin had been carrying across his right forearm.

He asked gently, “Where did you lose your right hand, Turpin?”

The man lowered his eyes. “I was in the
Barfleur,
sir. I lost it at the Chesapeake in '
81
.” He looked up, his eyes showing pride, but only briefly. “Gun captain, I was, sir.”

Davy interjected, “I am
most
sorry, sir. I did not realise the fellow was crippled. I will have him sent ashore.”

Bolitho said, “You intended to sign the articles with your left hand. Is it
that
important?”

Turpin nodded. “I'm a seaman, sir.” He looked round angrily as one of the recruited men nudged his companion. “Not like
some!
” He turned back to Bolitho, his voice falling away. “I can do any- thing, sir.”

Bolitho hardly heard him. He was thinking back to the Chesa- peake. The smoke and din. The columns of wheeling ships, like armoured knights at Agincourt. You never got away from it. This man Turpin had been nearby, like hundreds of others. Cheering and dying, cursing and working their guns like souls possessed. He thought of the two fat merchants on the coach. So men like that could grow richer.

He said harshly, “Sign him on, Mr. Davy. One hand from the old
Barfleur
will be more use to me than many others.”

He strode aft beneath the quarterdeck, angry with himself, and with Davy for not having the compassion to understand. It was a stupid thing to do. Pointless.

Allday was carrying one of the chests aft to the cabin, where a marine stood like a toy soldier beneath the spiralling deckhead lantern.

He said cheerfully, “That was a good thing you just did, Captain.”

“Don't talk like a fool, Allday!” He strode past him and winced as his head grazed an overhead beam. When he glared back at Allday his coxswain's homely features were quite expressionless. “He could probably do
your
work.”

Allday nodded gravely. “Aye, sir, it is true that I am overtaxed!”

“Damn your impertinence!” It was useless with Allday. “I don't know why I tolerate you!”

Allday took his sword and walked with it to the cabin bulkhead.

“I once knew a man in Bodmin, Captain.” He stood back and studied the sword critically. “Used to hammer a block of wood with a blunt axe, he did. I asked him why he didn't use a sharper blade and finish the job properly.” Allday turned and smiled calmly. “He said that when the wood was broken he'd have nothing to work his temper on.”

Bolitho sat down at the table. “Thank you. I must remember to get a better axe.”

Allday grinned. “My pleasure, Captain.” He strode out to fetch another chest.

Bolitho pulled the heavy sealed envelope towards him. With some education behind him Allday might have become almost anything. He slit open the envelope and smiled to himself. With- out it he was quite bad enough.

Herrick stepped into the cabin, his hat tacked under one arm. “You sent for me, sir?”

Bolitho was standing by the great stern windows, his body moving easily with the ship's motion.
Undine
had swung her stern to the change of tide, and through the thick glass Herrick could see the distant lights of Portsmouth Point, glimmering and changing shape through the droplets of rain and spray. In the pitching deckhead lanterns the cabin looked snug and inviting. The bench seat around the stern was covered with fine green leather, and Bolitho's desk and chairs stood out against the deck covering of black and white checked canvas like ripe chestnut.

“Sit down, Thomas.”

Bolitho turned slowly and looked at him. He had been back aboard for over an hour, reading and re-reading his orders to en- sure he would miss nothing.

He added, “We will weigh tomorrow afternoon. I have a war- rant in my orders which entitles me to accept ‘volunteers' from the convict hulks in Portsmouth. I would be obliged if you would at- tend to that as soon after first light as is convenient.”

Herrick nodded, watching Bolitho's grave features, noting the restless movements of his hands, the fact that his carefully pre- pared meal lay untouched in the adjoining dining space. He was troubled. Uncertain about something.

Bolitho said, “We are to sail for Teneriffe.” He saw Herrick stiffen and added quietly, “I know, Thomas. You are like me. It comes hard to tack freely into a port where months back we could have expected a somewhat different welcome.”

Herrick grinned. “Heated shot, no doubt.”

“There we will embark two, maybe three passengers. After replenishing whatever stores we lack, we will proceed without fur- ther delay to our destination, Madras.” He seemed to be musing aloud. “Over twelve thousand miles. Long enough to get to know one another. And our ship. The orders state that we will proceed with all haste. For that reason we must ensure our people learn their work well. I want no delays because of carelessness or unnec- essary damage to canvas and rigging.”

Herrick rubbed his chin. “A long haul.”

“Aye, Thomas. A hundred days. That is what I intend.” He smiled, the gravity fading instantly. “With your help, of course!

Herrick nodded, “May I ask what we are expected to accom- plish?”

Bolitho looked down at the folded sheets of his orders. “I still know very little. But I have read quite a lot between the lines.”

He began to pace from side to side, his shadow moving un- evenly with the roll of the hull.

“When the war ended, Thomas, it was necessary to make con- cessions. To restore a balance. We had captured Trincomalee in Ceylon from the Dutch. The finest naval harbour and the best place in the Indian Ocean. The French admiral, Suffren, captured it from us, and when war ended gave it back to Holland. We have returned many West Indian islands to France, as well as her Indian stations. And Spain, well, she has been given back Minorca.” He shrugged. “Many men on both sides died for nothing, it seems.”

Herrick sounded confused. “But what of us, sir? Did we get nothing out of all this?”

Bolitho smiled. “I believe we are about to do so. Hence the extreme secrecy and our vague orders concerning Teneriffe.”

He paused and looked down at the stocky lieutenant.

“Without Trincomalee we are in the same position as before the war. We still need a good harbour for our ships. A base to control a wide area. A stepping-stone to expand the East Indies trade.”

Herrick grunted. “I'd have thought the East India Company had got all it wanted.”

Bolitho's mind returned to the men on the coach. Others he had met in London.

“There are those in authority who see power as the essential foundation of national superiority. Commercial wealth as a means to such power.” He glanced at a twelve-pounder gun at the forward end of his cabin, its squat outline masked by a chintz cover. “And war as the means to all three.”

Herrick bit his lip. “And we are to be the ‘probe,' so to speak?”

“I may be quite wrong, Thomas. But you must know my think- ing. Just in case things go against us.”

He remembered Winslade's words at the Admiralty.
The task I am giving you would be better handled by a squadron.
He wanted someone he could trust. Or did he merely need a scapegoat should things go wrong? Bolitho had always complained bitterly about being tied to too strict orders. His new ones were so vague that he felt even more restricted. Only one thing was clear. He would take on board a Mr. James Raymond at Teneriffe, and place the ship at his disposal. Raymond was a trusted government courier, and would be carrying the latest despatches to Madras.

Herrick remarked, “It will take some getting used to. But being at sea again in a ship such as
Undine
will make a world of difference.”

Bolitho nodded. “We must ensure that our people are prepared for anything, peace or no peace. Where we are going they may be less inclined to accept our views without argument.”

He sat down on the bench and stared through the spattered glass.

“I will speak with the other officers at eight bells tomorrow while you are in the hulks.” He smiled at Herrick's reflection. “I am sending
you
because you will understand. You'll not frighten them all to death!”

He stood up quickly.

“Now, Thomas, we will take a glass of claret.”

Herrick leaned forward. “That was a goodly selection you had sent from London, sir.”

Bolitho shook his head. “We will save
that
for more trying times.” He lifted a decanter from its rack. “This is more usual to our tastes!”

They drank their claret in comfortable silence. Bolitho was thinking how strange it was to be sitting quietly when the voyage which lay ahead demanded so much of all of them. But it was useless to prowl about the decks or poke into stores and spirit rooms.
Undine
was ready for sea. As ready as she could ever be. He thought of his officers, the extensions of his ideas and authority. He knew little of any of them. Soames was a competent seaman, but was inclined to harshness when things did not go right imme- diately. His superior, Davy, was harder to know. Outwardly cool and unruffled, he had a ruthless streak like many of his kind. The sailing master was called Ezekiel Mudge, a broad lump of a man who looked old enough to be his grandfather. In fact he was sixty, and certainly the oldest master Bolitho had met. Old Mudge would prove to be one of the most important when they reached the Indian Ocean. He had originally served in the East India Company, and had endured more storms, shipwrecks, pirates and a dozen other hazards than any man alive, if his record was to be believed. He had a huge beaked nose, with the eyes perched on either side of it like tiny, bright stones. A formidable person, and one who would be watching his captain's seamanship for flaws, Bolitho was certain of that.

The three midshipmen seemed fairly average. Penn was the youngest, and had come aboard three days after his twelfth birth- day. Keen and Armitage were both seventeen, but whereas the former showed the same elegant carelessness as Lieutenant Davy, Armitage appeared to be forever looking over his shoulder. A mother's boy. Four days after he had reported aboard with his gleaming new uniform and polished dirk his mother had in fact come to Portsmouth to visit him. Her husband was a man of some influence, and she had swept into the dockyard in a beautiful car- riage like some visiting duchess.

Bolitho had greeted her briefly and allowed her to meet Armitage in the seclusion of the wardroom. If she had seen the actual quarters where her child was to serve his months at sea she would probably have collapsed.

He had had to send Herrick in the end to interrupt the em- braces and the mother's plaintive sobs with a feeble excuse about Armitage being required for duty. Duty; he could hardly move about the ship without falling headlong over a block or a ringbolt.

Giles Bellairs, the debonair captain of marines, was more like a caricature than a real person. Incredibly smart, shoulders always rigidly squared, he looked as if he had had his uniforms moulded around his limbs like wax. He spoke in short, clipped sentences, and barely extended much beyond matters of hunting, wildfowling and, of course, drill. His marines were his whole life, although he hardly ever seemed to utter much in the way of orders. His massive sergeant, Coaker, took care of the close contact with the marines, and Bellairs contented himself with an occasional “Carry on, Sar'nt Coaker!” or “I say, Sar'nt, that fellah's like a bundle of old rags, what?” He was one of the few people in Bolitho's experience who could get completely drunk without any outward change of expres- sion.

Triphook, the purser, appeared very competent, if grudging with his rations. He had taken a lot of care to ensure that the vict- ualling yard had not filled the lower hold with rotten casks, to be discovered too late to take action. That in itself was rare. Bolitho's thoughts came back to the surgeon. He had been aboard for two weeks. Had he been able to get a replacement he would have done so. Whitmarsh was a drunkard in the worst sense. Sober he had a quiet, even gentle manner. Drunk, which was often, he seemed to come apart like an old sail in a sudden squall.

He tightened his jaw. Whitmarsh would mend his ways. Or else . . .

Feet scraped across the planks overhead and Herrick said, “There's a few below decks tonight who'll be wondering if they've done a'right by signing on.” He chuckled. “Too late now.”