Allday said quietly, 'He'll be all right, Captain. Given time, he'll learn.'
Bolitho eyed him emptily. `It's not a game, Allday. And it never was.'
Ashby clumped up the stairs, his face split in a great, beaming smile. 'By God, sir! I just heard what you did!' He banged his hands together. 'I say, sir, I mean, it really was splendid, what?'
Bolitho looked toward the Hyperion. She was settled on her final course towards the entrance now, and he could see men swarming across the boats and preparing them for lowering.
He said, 'I will want you to march across the island to the other fortification, Ashby. They will surrender quickly enough, I imagine, when you inform their commander they are alone now.'
But Ashby refused to move. His scarlet face and uniform seemed to blot out everything, and his voice filled Bolitho's mind like echoes in a cave.
'A splendid victory, sir! Just what we needed! Really splendid!'
Bolitho replied, `If you say so, Ashby. Now please go and do as I say.' Thankfully he watched the marine march through the doorway, still muttering with excitement.
Had he really known what he was doing when he had thrown himself against the French bayonets? Or had it been a fighting madness coupled with the mounting fear of defeat and shame?
Down on the battery the ramparts were alive with shouting marines, and he saw two of the seamen astride Ashby's horse, grinning and whooping like children as they cantered amongst the dazed prisoners.
Allday said, 'He is right, Captain. They were done for when you acted as you did.' He shook his head. 'Quite like old times it was. Short an' sharp, with a few bloody noses at the end of it!'
Bolitho looked down at Seton. He was still sitting beside the French soldier, grasping the bloody hand and staring at the man's face with terrible concentration.
Allday followed his glance and then said, 'He's dead, Mr. Seton. You can leave him now.'
Bolitho shuddered. It was over. He said, 'I shall want a message taken down to the Chanticleer. Bellamy must sail at once and inform the Princesa that we have taken the island.'
He swung round, realising that Seton was standing beside him. His lip was still trembling, and there were tears running down his pale face. j
But his voice was steadier now and strangely determined. 'I w-will go for you, sir, if you th-think I can do it.'
Bolitho laid one hand on his shoulder and studied him for several seconds. Allday's words seemed to linger in his mind like an epitaph. 'Given time, he'll learn.'
He said slowly, 'Very well, Mr. Seton. I am quite sure you can do it.'
He watched the boy walk stiffly towards the doorway, his arms hanging at his sides, his face turned away from the staring corpses and moaning wounded. That could have been me, he thought dully. Twenty years ago I nearly broke and someone helped me to survive with words. He screwed up his eyes against the sunlight. But try as he might he could not remember the words, or the man who had saved his sanity when, like Seton, his boy's world had crumbled about him. He straightened his back and thrust the sword back into its scabbard.
Then he said, 'Follow me, Allday. Let us go and see what we have captured.'
6. PARLEY
Bolitho stepped quickly into the stern cabin and slammed the door behind him. For a few moments he stood gratefully in the welcoming shade, knowing it to be merely an illusion after the relentless heat of the quarterdeck, where he had just witnessed a flogging before the assembled ship's company.
Gimlett, his servant, shuffled nervously across his vision and stared at him with something like awe as he removed his hat and coat and tore open the front of his shirt before unbuckling 'his sword. Without a word he dropped them into Gimlett's arms and walked wearily towards the open stem windows.
The scene which greeted his eyes never changed. The flat, glaring water of the anchorage and the barren hills of Cozar Island shimmering in a heat haze above the sheer-sided cliffs. Even the ship felt unmoving and lifeless. But that was no illusion, for she was moored both fore and aft just inside the arms of the harbour entrance, so that she could present a whole broadside to any would-be attacker who might, scorn the hill-top battery as he had once done.
His eye fell on a glass decanter and goblet which Gimlett had placed on his desk. Almost automatically he poured a full measure and drank it straight down. It was some of the coarse red wine which they had found in plenty in the captured fortress. It gave a brief impression of freshness for a matter of minutes, but like a constant spectre the thirst was soon back again.
Bolitho threw himself on to the bench seat below the windows and listened to the patter of feet across the quarterdeck as the last of the assembled men dismissed below. They needed no goading now. It was close on noon, and in spite of the awnings and the canvas air ducts rigged above every hatch and companion, the ship was already like an oven.
It was strange that after all these years as a sea officer he had never hardened himself completely against flogging.
There was always something which touched his nerve, or some unexpected incident to add to the slow misery of the proceedings.
Frowning, he poured another glass of wine. The man who had just been punished at the gratings was one of those flaws in the pattern of discipline and routine, and he felt strangely troubled, even though it was over and the victim was somewhere in the bowels of the ship receiving the surgeon's rough attention to his lacerated back.
The man in question had been thirsty. It had been as simple as that. In the dead of night he had attempted to broach one of the rancid water casks in the hold and had been caught in the act by the ship's corporal.
Two dozen lashes sounded lenient enough by lower deck standards. In the Service, discipline was harsh and instant. If a man took liberties he might just get away with it. But if not, he knew what to expect.
This man had somehow avoided trouble before, in spite of long service in a dozen ships. Maybe he had been more fearful of losing his pride than of agony under the lash, but after the first five strokes he had begun to scream, while his naked body had writhed against the blood-spattered 'gratings like a man being crucified.
Bolitho stared with distaste at the empty glass. The ship was quiet now. No shouts, no plaintive notes from some forecastle fiddler, no skylarking amongst the midshipmen. There was no spark.left of that unexpected victory, no lasting exultation to ease the sullenness and brooding which hung over the ship like a bad omen.
He ground his teeth with sudden fury. Three weeks. Three long weeks since they had stormed up the fortress steps and hauled down the French flag, and with each dragging day the tension and bitterness mounted.
There was a nervous tap at the door and then Whiting, the purser, peered apprehensively into the cabin. 'You sent for me, sir?'
He was sweating freely for he was extremely fat, with layer upon layer of chins which wobbled above his chest with each step that he took towards the desk. Normally he laughed a good deal, but like most of his trade he retained a pair of sharp, unblinking eyes, and it was said that he knew the extent of the ship's stores down to the last rind of cheese. As he stood shifting from one foot to the other, Bolitho was reminded of a giant codfish.
'I did, Whiting.' He tapped the papers on his desk. `Have you checked the water again?'
The purser hung his head as if he was in some way to blame. `Aye, sir. Cut down to a pint a day per man we can hold out for one more week.' His lower lip pouted doubtfully. `Even then they'll be drinking maggots for the most part, sir.'
Bolitho stood up and leaned his palms against the warm sill. Below him the water was so clear that he could see small fish darting above their shadows across the hard sandy bottom of the anchorage. What must he do? What could he do? For three weeks he had waited for the sloop Chanticleer to return with help from the fleet. He had written a full report for Lord Hood, and had expected a supply ship at the very least within the first few days. But nothing broke the horizon for two whole weeks. At the beginning of the third one the lookouts on the fortress had reported a French frigate approaching from the northwest. For an hour or so the enemy sail had shown itself like a feather above the horizon and had then withdrawn. And the French could afford to wait, he thought savagely. Their island garrison had been awaiting a fresh supply of drinking water within days of the Hyperion's attack. Now the shallow reservoir was filled with dust, and beneath a pitiless sun the English sailors and marines lolled about like corpses with a mere pint per day to hold back the agonies of thirst.