In the early light, as the water boats had cast off, Rooke had remarked, 'I doubt the Frogs will keep their mouths shut for long! Some damn fisherman will be off up the coast to sell information to the nearest French garrison!'
Bolitho had replied coldly, 'Such deceit may have been your own experience, Mr. Rooke. In Cornwall it is not unknown for towns and villages to have that kind of loyalty.'
Rooke had said nothing. Perhaps in the dawn's pale light he had seen the warning in the captain's eyes.
Bolitho stared moodily at the written report on his desk. Just a few more lines and it would be done. If he could get Lord Hood's advice and backing a full invasion would still be possible. Either way St. Clar might become a battleground.
He reached out and touched -the unfinished report. Again his mind clouded with the one thing which had tainted everything else. Maybe if he told Quarme to hold his tongue he could arrange for him to return to England. With the country once more gripped in a war it was unlikely that many would notice the faults of a mere lieutenant. Quarme might start again. By taking it upon himself to send him away, Bolitho knew that he might be able to save him from a court-martial, even if he risked one for himself. There was only Rooks, he bit his lip and frowned. But first of all it depended on Quarme and how he felt after his enforced privacy with his thoughts.
There was a knock at the door, but when he looked up it was no Quarme but the master.
'I am sorry, Mr. Gossett, but unless it is an urgent matter it will have to keep.'
Gossett watched him sadly, his great body swaying with the ship like a tree. 'I just saw young Mr. Piper, sir. 'E was upset, so I thought I'd betterr bring the news meself.'
Bolitho stared at him, suddenly ice cold.
Gossett nodded slowly, 'Mr. Quarme is dead, sir. 'Anged 'imself in 'is cabin.'
'I see.' Bolitho turned away to hide his stricken face.
The master cleared his throat noisily. 'Poor man, 'e's been very worried of late.'
Bolitho turned and met the other man's eyes. 'When I took Cozar with the Chanticleer I had occasion to watch Hyperion making those mock attacks to draw the battery's fire. It was superb seamanship.' He let his words hang in the air and saw Gossett's eyes flicker with sudden alarm. 'Seamanship gained from many years in every sort of vessel, and under fire.'
Gossett shifted his feet. 'I suppose so, sir.'
'You sailed the Hyperion that day, did you not? I want the truthl'.
The master lifted his head with something like defiance. 'I did, sir. 'E was a good officer. But if you'll pardon the liberty, 'e was 'aving a lot o' trouble with 'is wife. She comes o' good stock and likes to live well.' He shrugged wearily. 'Mr. Quarme was a lieutenant an' nothing more, sir.'
'You mean that he had no money?' Bolitho's voice was toneless.
`That's right, sir.' The master's tanned face became angry. 'Then there was all this filthy talk about 'im pinching some money that was in 'is keeping..
Bolitho held up his hand. 'Why wasn't I told about this?
Gossett looked away. 'We all knew 'e would never steal from 'is own ship, sir. Not like some as I could mention. 'E was going to 'ave it out with Cap'n Turner, 'e even told me as 'ow Cap'n Turner 'ad found out the true thief.'
Bolitho said quietly, 'But Turner died of a heart attack.' He thought of the surgeon's guilty outburst at the first conference in the wardroom and Rooke's scathing attack on him.
Gossett said gruffly, 'I'm sorry I let you down, sir, after all you've done for us an' the ship. But I felt I owed it to 'im y'see'
'I see.' Bolitho rested his fingers on the waiting report. 'It is no excuse, Mr. Gossett. Your loyalty must always be to the ship, not to individuals.' He eyed the master levelly. 'But thank you for telling me. I expect I would have done the same.'
Then he said, 'This is just between ourselves, Mr. Gossett.'
The master nodded firmly. 'Then so it will remain, sir.'
For a long while after Gossett had left the cabin Bolitho sat quite motionless by the.windows. Then he picked up his pen and wrote swiftly across the bottom of his report '-this gallant officer whom as I earlier reported handled the ship with great courage under constant enemy fire with no regard for his personal safety, later took his own life under tragic circumstances. He was, I am convinced, a sick man, and but for his failure to consider his own welfare before the security of his ship, would have lived to make a place for himself in the Navy where his name would be long remembered.'
He signed the report and stared at it for several minutes.
It was little enough, he thought bitterly, and would do nothing for Quarme. But in England it might bring some small comfort to those who read it and still remembered him as the man Gossett had tried to shield from disaster.
But Bolitho knew that disaster when it came usually attacked from within. From that there was no defence.
7. A KNIGHT OF THE BATH
With all but her topsails and jib clewed up the Hyperion completed her tack and settled sedately on a course towards the harbour entrance. The upper deck and gangways were filled with idlers and unemployed seamen, as with something like awe they stared at the scene which greeted them beyond the fortress and its stark headland.
Bolitho raised his glass and moved it slowly from side to side. It was hard to remember this as the same barren anchorage he had vacated the previous day. When the masthead lookout had reported seeing topmasts beyond the cliff he had imagined it might be one of Hood's supply ships, or at most a frigate with despatches and new orders. But as the ship glided slowly across the dancing water towards the humped hills he realised there was far more to it than that.
Anchored in the centre of the natural harbour was a tall three-decker, a rear-admiral's flag drooping listlessly from the mizzen, and beyond her, close to the pier where the carronade had decimated the French troops, lay another large ship, which from her workmanlike appearance could be nothing else but a supply vessel. In the shallower water on the eastern side was a frigate and a small sloop which he quickly recognised as the Chanticleer. The Spanish Princesa was exactly as he had last seen her, but if the assembled vessels were both unexpected and impressive, the activity which surrounded them was even more so.
Around the ships and plying back and forth to the pier were boats of every shape and size. Cutters and gigs, launches and jolly boats, they seemed endless, and when Bolitho shifted his glass to the hillside beyond the fortress he saw a widely flung rectangle of pointed tents interspersed with tiny scarlet figures and an occasional camp-fire. It seemed as if the army had arrived, too.
With a start he realised the Hyperion'was already through the protective arm of the entrance, but when he glanced at Rooke he saw that the lieutenant was still standing rigidly by the quarterdeck rail, his speaking trumpet under his arm as if on parade.
He snapped, 'Wear ship, if you please!'
Rooke flushed angrily and raised the triumpet. 'Hands wear ship! Lee braces there!'
Bolitho compressed his lips tightly. Rooke was a good enough officer when it came to fighting and day-to-day routine, but he seemed to shrink in size when it came to taking charge of the Hyperion's great bulk in confined Waters.
Pearse, the gunner, was standing by the foremast shading his eyes as he peered aft towards the quarterdeck. Bolitho nodded curtly, and with a dull bang the first gun sent the echoes rolling around the cliffs as Hyperion paid her respects to the rear-admiral, whoever he was.
Bolitho knew he could ignore the routine of saluting. As the guns crashed out at five-second intervals and the ship crept forward in a cloud of drifting smoke he gauged the distance, his eye and brain noting the unruffled water below the tall cliffs, the slackening vigour of the masthead pendant.