Enemy in Sight! (6 page)

He blurted out suddenly, “I—I got engaged to be married, sir, when we were at Plymouth.”

Bolitho poured two full measures of claret. “‘Then I am glad to drink your health, Mr Inch.”

Inch dabbed his mouth and held the glass up to a lantern. “Daughter of a doctor, sir. A very fine girl.” He nodded. “I hope to marry when we put back to England.” Bolitho looked away, remembering suddenly how much a part Inch had played in his life since he had taken command of the old
Hyperion.
He had even been there in church to see him married to Cheney.

He turned and said quietly, “I wish you every success. It is another good reason to do well and gain advancement.” He grinned. “A command of your own, eh?”

Inch looked at his feet. “I—I hope so, sir.”

Bolitho had already had quite enough to drink and eat aboard the flagship, but at the same time the thought of being alone, cut off from the rest of the ship by the bulkhead and the marine sen- try, was more than he could bear. Not tonight, of all nights. He walked across the cabin and shook the servant by his shoulder. As Petch staggered to his feet Bolitho said, “We will have some more claret. And I think some of that excellent cheese which my wife sent aboard.”

Inch said, “She'll be thinking of us tonight, sir.”

Bolitho stared at him for several seconds without speaking. Of us. That was what Inch had said, and he was right. He of all people must remember what she had meant to the
Hyperion
when she had taken passage aboard. When she had served the wounded while the timbers had quaked to the broadsides above her.

He replied quietly, “I am sure she will.”

As Petch busied himself at the table Inch watched Bolitho, hardly daring to blink in case he should miss something. He could not recall having seen him like this before. He was sitting on the bench seat below the windows plucking absently at the lock of black hair which Inch knew covered the livid scar from some past action, and although his eyes were on Petch they were unseeing and distant, and somehow defenceless. It was like a dis- covery or an intrusion, and Inch knew he would always remember it, and keep it to himself.

Even before there was a hint of grey in the sky all hands were called, and with topsails and courses filling and cracking to a moderate wind the
Hyperion
headed away from her two darkened consorts. As the seamen moved briskly at halyards and braces Bolitho stood by the quarterdeck rail, very conscious of the changed atmosphere which the brief freedom from Pelham- Martin's supervision had brought. For the first time in two months since they had left Plymouth Sound he heard the topmen calling and chattering as they worked busily above the vibrating yards, and he could hear the shriller voices of midshipmen who were urging their men in some unofficial and dangerous contest, their behaviour hidden from their superiors by the dark sky and spread- ing sails above and around them.

Only a few seemed listless and with little to say, and Bolitho guessed that the icy dawn air, in competition with the previous day's rum-soaked food, was to blame rather than any lingering resentment.

He shivered and walked quickly to the compass. In the feeble binnacle light he could see the card swaying but steady. North- east by north. With luck they would close the lonely
Ithuriel
by noon. If there was nothing to report there might still be time to make use of this rare freedom to sail further north and beyond the estuary. For in spite of the commodore's confidence and his obvious belief that any possible prize or blockade runner would appear from the south where he had placed his other two frigates, Bolitho knew from experience that the French were rarely oblig- ing when it came to assisting their own defeat.

Inch crossed the deck and touched his hat. “Shall I set the t'gallants, sir?” He, too, sounded crisper and more alive again.

Bolitho shook his head. “You may send the hands to break- fast, Mr Inch. They've worked hard and will have gained healthy appetites in this keen air.” He wondered briefly if salt pork and iron-hard biscuits would throw half the seamen into a wave of nausea but added, “We'll get more canvas on her as soon as it's daylight.” He nodded to Inch and then made his way aft to the cabin.

He threw his threadbare seagoing coat on to a chair and seated himself at his desk. Petch had laid out a plate and some steaming coffee, and was busy with his master's breakfast in the adjoining pantry. Even Petch seemed to have got used to Bolitho's habit of eating from his desk rather than the dining table.

But Bolitho enjoyed sitting with nothing but the great glass stern windows between him and the open sea. Sometimes he could shut the ship and her teeming company from his thoughts and just stare out and away to nothing. It was a complete delu- sion, but it was some comfort when he most needed it.

Today it was still too dark to see much beyond the ship's white bubbling wake as it surged clear of the rudder. But he was momentarily content. The ship was alive again, and anything,
anything,
was better than doing nothing. He pitched his ear to the sounds and strains around him. The vibrating rumble of steer- ing gear, the sluice and thunder of water against the hull, and above all, the great sighing moan of wind through rigging and shrouds as the ship gathered it to her own resources and drove on towards the invisible land.

Petch laid his breakfast on the desk and stood back to watch Bolitho's reactions.

A slice of fat pork, fried pale brown with biscuit crumbs. Two ship's biscuits liberally spread with thick black treacle, and the coffee. It was a spartan enough dish for a captain of a King's ship, but after Pelham-Martin's rich table it was somehow welcome and reassuring.

But it was all too good to last. Later as he walked slowly on the quarterdeck watching the hands busy with holystones and swabs and the marines going through their mysterious ceremonies of musket drill and inspection, Bolitho had the feeling that things had changed.

Gossett called suddenly, “Wind's veerin', sir!”

Bolitho squinted up at the masthead pendant. Perverse as ever the Bay's weather was changing against him, and already the top- sails were shaking and banging with nervous disarray.

He said, “We will alter course two points. Steer north-east by east.”

Stepkyne was officer of the watch and looked as if he had been drinking heavily the day before.

“Midshipman of the watch! Pipe the hands to the braces, and lively with it!”

Even as the ship wallowed round on to her new course, Bolitho knew it was not going to be enough. The wind was still veering and losing some of its strength, and the masthead pen- dant, instead of standing out stiffly was cracking and curling like a coachman's whip.

Gossett plodded to his side and murmured, “We'll 'ave to tack, sir.” His palm rasped across his jowl. “By my way o' thinkin' the wind'll be blowin' right offshore afore the watch changes.”

Bolitho eyed him gravely. Gossett was rarely wrong about the elements.

“Very well. Lay her on the larboard tack. We will have to beat well to the north'rd of the estuary if we are to find
Ithuriel
today.”

He smiled at Gossett, but inwardly he was angry and disap- pointed. But as the wind went round still further he knew there was nothing else for it. By two bells of the forenoon watch the wind had steadied to the north-east, some ninety degrees from its original bearing. So instead of driving comfortably to some point where they could sight and signal the frigate, they must claw their way well north of the estuary in order to take what small advantage there was from the wind's lessening power.

Inch crossed the dock and said, “It'll take hours before we can go about again, sir.” He, too, sounded disappointed.

Bolitho watched the yards creaking round and felt the ship cant heavily as she swung across the wind, her sails flapping and billowing before filling again to lay her over still further to fol- low the endless ranks of small, leaping white horses.

“We will make up for it later.” He controlled his own irritation and added shortly, “This is an excellent chance to exercise the lower battery, Mr Inch.”

He walked aft and peered at the compass. North, north-west. Well at least it would allow the lower gundeck to exercise with- out being swamped through the open ports. Some ventilation would not come amiss either to drive away the damp and the foul air from the ship's deep hull.

It took another six hours to make good the enforced alter- ation of course, and by the time the
Hyperion
was running south again, carrying every stitch of canvas to receive the indifferent off- shore wind, the daylight was already beginning to fade.

Bolitho was walking back and forth at the weather side when the masthead lookout suddenly broke into his brooding thoughts.

“Deck there! Sail fine on th' larboard bow!”

Bolitho glanced at the masthead pendant. There was no point in altering course. It would take more precious time, and there would be no light at all within an hour. They would pass the frigate some two miles abeam, and that would suffice to read her signals.

He lifted his glass and peered across the nettings. He could not see the distant ship, for her shape was well merged with the dull grey blur which he knew to be the French coast. He looked aloft again and bit his lip. Up there, swaying comfortably on his dizzy perch, the lookout would be able to see her quite well, and more important, the lay of the land beyond.

He made up his mind. “I'm going aloft, Mr Inch.” He ignored the quick exchange of glances, but concentrated all his will on climbing out on to the weather shrouds and slowly step by step up the quivering ratlines. Ever since he had been a midshipman Bolitho had hated heights, and each time he had found himself forced to make such a climb he always expected he would have outgrown such a stupid fear. But it was not so, and with gritted teeth, his eyes fixed firmly towards the swaying topmast, he continued to climb higher and higher. Up and around the maintop, where two startled marines were cleaning a swivel gun, and gritting his teeth still harder to control the rising nausea as he felt the pull of his weight against his fingers while his body hung outwards on the futtock shrouds. But with more eyes fixed upon him than the approaching frigate, he could not take the easier passage of the lubber's hole.

When at last he reached the crosstrees he found a grizzled, pigtailed seaman already moving aside to give him room to sit down. Bolitho nodded gratefully, as yet unable to regain his breath. For a few moments he sat with his back against the trembling mast while he groped for his slung telescope and tried not to look down at the deck so far below him.

He heard Midshipman Gascoigne yelling, “She's made the recognition signal, sir!” Inch must have said something for sec- onds later the arranged acknowledgement broke in a bright rectangle from the main topsail yard.

Bolitho trained his glass and saw the sleek frigate swooping across the lens, the spray lifting above her bows in one unbroken curtain. He forgot his discomfort as he remembered his own ser- vice in frigates. Always on the move, with the dash and excitement which only such graceful ships could give. He pitied her captain's lonely vigil here. Back and forth, day after day, with nothing to show for it. A ship of the line was bad enough in these condi- tions, but within
her
sleek hull it would be a living nightmare.

He dragged the glass away from the other ship and swung it across the darkening spit of headland to the north of the estuary. A few patches, probably coastguard houses, he thought. Above the distant offshore current they appeared to be moving and the sea to be still. He lowered the glass and wiped his eye with his sleeve.

He heard Inch's voice carried by the wind. “Captain, sir!
Ithuriel
has nothing to report!”

By waiting for the mizzen topsail to flap momentarily in the falling wind it was possible for Bolitho to see the shortened fig- ures standing on the quarterdeck, their faces pale blobs against the worn planking. He could see Gascoigne, his signal book flap- ping in the breeze, and Stepkyne with his glass on the frigate as she cruised past on the opposite tack. Even the ship looked small and compact, so that it was hard to accept that six hundred human souls lived out their lives within her fat hull.

He thought, too, of the frigate's wretched conditions. One of a chain of ships, weatherbeaten and dependent on their own resources, yet essential if the enemy was to be contained within his harbours.

Bolitho swallowed hard and seized a backstay. He could not face another long climb, even downwards, so watched by the look- out with something like awe he swung from the crosstrees, and holding his breath made his way to the quarterdeck by a faster, if less dignified method. He arrived panting on deck, conscious of the grinning seamen around him and of the pain in his legs where the thick stay had seared through to his skin in the speedy and heart-stopping descent.

He said stiffly, “Before the light goes I will make a signal to
Ithuriel.
” He beckoned to Gascoigne. “I've forgotten her captain's name.”

Gascoigne was still gaping as if he could not believe a captain could behave in such an odd manner. Then he opened his book and stammered, “
Ithuriel,
32
, Captain Curry, sir!”