Bolitho stared through him. 'It belonged to my mother.' Then without another word he walked aft towards his cabin.
17. 'THE FRENCH ARE OUT!'
As eight bells chimed out to announce the beginning of yet another forenoon watch Bolitho walked from beneath the poop and took his usual position on the weather side of the quarterdeck. The sky was overcast with low, fast-moving clouds, and the wind which came almost directly towards the larboard beam was heavy with a promise of rain.
He wriggled his shoulders inside his coat and turned to study the Tenacious. During the night she had shortened sail to avoid running down on her slower consort, and now lay some two miles clear on the starboard quarter. There was no horizon, and against the dull clouds and lead-coloured sea the big three-decker seemed to shine as if held in some unearthly light.
Bolitho gripped the nettings and turned his head once more into the wind. There was Cozar Island about six miles off the larboard beam, its grim outline shrouded in cloud and spray. While he had sat restlessly toying with his breakfast Bolitho had imagined how it would look, had pondered over the hopes and follies the island's name had come to represent to him.
For three days after leaving the smoking ruins of St. Clar he had gone over each detail again and again, trying to see thee short campaign with impartial eyes, to assemble the facts as they. would be viewed by an historian.
He bit his lip as he stared unwaveringly at the humped outline. Occupied and reoccupied a hundred times. Fought over and discarded, the island lay waiting for the next assault on its isolation. Now it was abandoned and derelict, with only the many dead to guard its barren heritage.
Herrick had joined him at the nettings. He said carefully, 'I wonder if we'll ever see it again, sir?'
Bolitho did not speak. He was watching the sloop Chanticleer, her sails and yards clearly etched against the dull cliffs as she drove close inshore. Bellamy must be thinking of his part in the capture of Cozar. The reckless excitement, the very impudence of their attack might seem mockeries to him now.
He realised that Herrick had said,something and asked, `Did you wish to speak about the routine?'
Herrick's face softened slightly. 'Well, sir, as a matter of fact…’
'Go ahead, Thomas.' Bolitho turned away from the island. 'I have been poor company of late. You must forgive me.' He had in fact hardly spoken to Herrick since leaving St. Clar. His officers must have respected his wishes to be left alone with his brooding, for on his rare walks on the quarterdeck they had been careful to leave the weather side vacant and undisturbed.
Herrick cleared his throat noisily. 'Have you spoken with the admiral this morning, sir?'
Bolitho smiled. The words had come blurting out, and he guessed that Herrick had been planning this interview for days.
'Mr. Rowistone is with him now, Thomas. Sir Edmund is very ill, that is all I can tell you at the moment.'
Poor Rowlstone, he thought. He was as much out of his depth with Pomfret as any unskilled seaman. The admiral certainly looked a bit better, but where his body was trying to rally, his mind seemed to stay unmoving and remote, blocked off by the shock and realisation which it still refused to accept.
Pomfret was like a living corpse. He allowed Gimlett to shave him and keep him clean. He opened his mouth to receive soup, or carefully cut meat like a child with no understanding, and he never said a word.
Herrick persisted, 'Look, sir, I must speak my mind! In my opinion you owe nothing to Sir Edmund, quite the reverse!' He gestured towards the Tenacious. 'Why not shift this responsibility to Captain Dash before we sight the fleet? He is the senior officer, it is unfair that you should have to carry him!'
Bolitho sighed. 'You have seen Sir Edmund, have you not?' Herrick nodded as he continued evenly, 'Would you take his last shred of honour and self-respect and stamp on it?' He shook his head. 'When we rejoin the fleet Sir Edmund will at least be under the protection of his flag and not carried to the reckoning like a trussed chicken for the pot!' He gripped his hands behind him. 'No, Thomas, IT have none of that!'
Herrick had his mouth open to argue, but closed it with a click as Bolitho swung towards the bows, his head on one side like a dog at a scent.
'Listen!' Bolitho seized the quarterdeck rail and leaned forward. 'It was more of a feeling, and yet…' He watched Herrick's face until it too showed understanding.
Herrick murmured, 'Thunder?' Their eyes met. 'Or gunfire?'
Bolitho cupped his hands. 'Mr. Inch! Get the royals on her!' He crossed to the binnacle even as the pipes shrilled to break the silence. 'Bring her up a point!' He waited, biting his lip, until the helmsman intoned, 'Course nor' by east, son!'
Bolitho said aloud, 'Where is the Harvester, for God's sake?'
Herrick was watching the startled seamen scrambling aloft in answer to the call. He said„'She's away up there on the larboard now, somewhere!'
Bolitho made himself walk slowly to Herrick's side. 'Well, it was no frigate, Thomas. That was heavier metal on the wind!'
When he peered over the quarter he noticed that the Tenacious was still on the same bearing, in spite of his own ship's extra canvas. He pounded the rail in time with his thoughts. If only they could get the filth and weed off her bottom the old Hyperion would soon show them something!
Herrick said suddenly, 'Could be a blockade runner, sir.'
'Unlikely.' Bolitho was staring at the dull streak where the horizon should have been. 'Lord Hood will have too much on his hands with his own evacuation to care much for enforcing a blockade elsewhere. It will be St. Clar multiplied ten thousand times over, Thomas.'
'Deck there! Sail fine on th' weather bow, sir!'
They stared up at the swaying masthead. Then Bolitho said
,quietly, 'We shall soon know now. Get up there, Thomas, and
report the moment you recognise the facts for me.' Midshipman Piper appeared as if by magic. 'Sir!
Harvester's signalling!'
Bolitho took a glass from its rack and peered along Piper's outstretched arm. The frigate was well out on the larboard bow, suddenly clear and sharp in the lens as some freak wind brushed away the wet haze like smoke.
Piper was shouting, 'Ships in sight to the nor'-east!' He paused and flipped through the pages of his book. 'Estimate six sail of the line!'
Bolitho looked aloft and abeam, his mind busy as it digested the frigate's information and slotted it into his own knowledge. The ships, whatever they were, were almost directly ahead of his own. They could not possibly be slower than Hyperion, so therefore it seemed most likely they were on the opposite tack and heading straight for him. -
Herrick called hoarsely, 'Deck there! It's a stem-chase, sir! Maybe five or six. sail of the line after one another!'
Bolitho glanced briefly at the Tenacious. 'Come down, Mr. Herrick!' He caught Inch's eye and snapped, 'General signal to our ships, Mr. Inch. "Prepare for battle!"
As the flags soared up the Hyperion's yards Herrick arrived with a thud beside him, by way of a backstay.
Bolitho looked at him gravely. 'Beat to quarters, and clear for action!'
Herrick touched his hat. 'Aye, aye, sir!' Then he grinned: 'Do you think we can snatch a prize from right under the noses of those other ships, sir?'
Bolitho did not smile. 'I think you will discover that the ship being chased is one of ours, Mr. Herrick!' Across the water he heard the mounting rattle of drums as the Tenacious beat to quarters. Dash' probably thought he was mad, and like Herrick imagined it impossible for the enemy to be at large already and in such strength.
The Hyperion's drummers took up the call, and as men poured from the hatchways and petty officers hurried to their stations yelling names' as they ran, Bolitho looked once more at Pomfret's flag as it flapped briskly from the mizzen.