He continued, "I may want you to shin up that oar in the bows tomorrow and take a look around' us. You are the lightest soul aboard, so you had better save your strength."
Pascoe turned his head and looked up at him, his eyes half hidden by his unruly hair. "I can do it, sir." He nodded vaguely. "I will do it."
Bolitho turned away, unable to watch the boy's feverish determination which seemed to dog him every hour of the day. He would never shirk any task, even if it was normally allotted to a hardened seaman, and Bolitho knew he would kill himself rather than admit defeat. It was just as if he nursed his father's shame like a permanent
spur. As if he considered that he must prove himself, if only to wipe away Hugh's disgrace.
As the boy peered astern to look for the following cutter Bolitho stole another glance at him. What would he say if he knew the real truth? That his father was still alive, serving as a convict in New Holland under another man's name? He dismissed the thought immediately. Distance healed nothing, he knew that now. It would only drag out the boy's agony, fill him with new doubts or impossible hopes.
Allday licked his lips, "Change round! Next men on the oars there!"
Bolitho shaded his eyes to look at the bare sky. Only the occasional gurgle of water around the stem made any sense of movement. This jerking, wretched progress seemed endless, as if they would go on and on into green oblivion and die of thrist, their graves the boats in which he had committed all of them to this hopeless gesture.
He groped for the compass and stared at it for a full minute. An insect crawled across the glass cover and he brushed it aside with something like anger. At best they might manage a full ten miles before nightfall. And this was the easiest part of the journey. Tomorrow, and the day after that would bring more hazards as the boats pushed further and further into the swamp. He glanced quickly at the seamen nearest to him. Their unfamiliar faces were strained and apprehensive, and they dropped their eyes when they saw him watching them.
Fighting and if necessary dying they could understand. Surrounded by men and objects aboard their own ship which shared their everyday life the demands of battle were as familiar as the harsh discipline and unquestionable authority which had made them the breed they were. But such standards were born,as much from trust as from any code of conduct. The trust of each other, the measure of skill of their officers who ruled their very existence.
But now, under the command of a man they did not even know, and committed to an operation which must appear as treacherous as their surroundings, they must be feeling their first doubts. And from such uncertainty could grow the beginnings of failure.
He said, "Pass the word to anchor again. We will break out rations and rest for half an hour." He waited for Allday to call to the boat astern before adding, "One cup of water per man, and see that it is taken slowly."
Pascoe asked suddenly, "When we reach the other end of the swamp might we be able to find some more water, sir?" His dark eyes were studying Bolitho with grave contemplation. "Although I expect we will fight first."
Bolitho watched the first seaman at the berricoe, the pannikin to his lips while he held back his head to make certain of the last drop. But he was still hearing Pascoe's words, his quiet confidence which at this particular moment did more to steady his thoughts than he would have believed possible.
He replied, "I have no doubt we shall discover both water and fighting." Then he smiled in spite of his parched lips. "So take your drink now, lad, and let the rest come in its own good time."
It was in the evening that progress ground to a sudden halt. No amount of thrusting or levering would budge the boat from its bed of sludge and rotting weed, and in spite of Shambler's threats and Allday's stubborn efforts the seamen leaned on their oars and stared at the setting sun with something like defiance. They were worn out and ready to collapse, and as Lang's boat lurched close astern Bolitho knew he must act at once if 'the last hour of daylight was to be used.
"Over the side! Lively there!" He strode along the tilting boat, ignoring the resentful faces and stinging insects. "Get those lines up forrard, Mr. Shambler! We will warp her through to the next stretch of deep water!"
As the bosun's mates hauled the coils of rope from the bottom boards Bolitho stood in the bows and stripped off his shirt and swordbelt, and then gritting his teeth lowered himself into the pungent water and reached up to take one of the lines.
Allday shouted, "Move yourselves!" And vaulting over the gunwale he took another line and looped it round his shoulders like a halter, before wading after Bolitho without even a glance to see who was following.
Bolitho strode slowly through the clinging filth, feeling it around his thighs and then his waist as he struggled forward, the line biting his shoulder as it took the full weight of the boat. Then there were other splashes, followed by curses and groans as the men left the boat and one after the other took their places along the two towing lines behind him.
"Heave, lads!" Bolitho strained harder, trying to hold back the nausea as the stinking gases rose about him, making his mind swim as if in a fever. "Together, heave!"
Reluctantly and very slowly the boat slid forward and down into another trough of deeper water. But there was another barrier waiting for their hesitant steps, and more than one slipped spluttering and choking as the sludge clawed his feet from under him.
Then they were through, and shivering and coughing they dragged themselves back into the boat, where yet another horror awaited them.
Most of the men had great leeches fixed to their bodies, and as several tried to drag the slimy creatures free Bolitho shouted, "Mr. Shambler, pass the slowmatch down the boat! Burn each off in turn, you'll not free yourselves otherwise!"
Allday held the slow-match to his leg and cursed as the fat leech dropped to the bottom of the boat. "Drink my blood, would you? Damn your eyes, I'll see you fry first!"
Bolitho stood to watch the dying sun as it painted the tops of the rushes with red gold, so that for an instant the menace and despair were shaded with strange beauty.
The other boats were still following, the crews plunging through the shallows, their bodies pale in the fading light.
He said, "We will moor for the night." He saw Lang nodding to his words from the other boat. "But we will get under way before dawn and try to make up lost time."
He looked down at his own boat, where the seamen lolled together unable to do little more than sit as they had done throughout the day.
"Detail one man for the watch, Allday. We are all so weary that otherwise I fear we would sleep through dawn and beyond."
He lowered himself slowly into the sternsheets again and saw that Pascoe was already asleep, his head on the gunwale and one hand hanging almost to the water. Gently he lifted the boy's arm inboard and then seated himself against the tiller bar.
High overhead the first stars were pale in the sky and the tall rushes around the boat hissed quietly to a sudden breeze. For a few moments it was almost refreshing after the heat and filth of the day, but the impression was merely a passing one.
Bolitho leaned back and watched the stars, trying not to think of the hours and days which still lay ahead.
Near the bows a man groaned in his sleep, and another whispered fervently, "Martha, Martha!" before falling silent once again.
Bolitho drew his knees up to his chin, feeling the caked mud hard against his skin. Who was Martha? he wondered. And was she still remembering the young man who had been snatched from her side to serve in a King's ship? Or maybe she was a daughter. A mere child who perhaps could no longer remember her father's face.