Penhahgon had compared his charts and notes with Price's own observations and had commented sparingly, 'Knew his navigation, that one.' It was praise indeed.
A petty officer approached the lieutenant and knuckled his forehead. Bolitho was thankful to be left alone as Quayle hurried away. He had seen the petty officer's expression. Not just respect for an officer. It was more like fear.
He stroked the worn rail, hot from the sunlight. He thought of that last meeting in the boatshed, Catherine's voice and fervour. He had to see her again, if only to explain. Explain what? It could do nothing but harm to her. To both of them.
She had seemed unreachable, eager to tell him the hurt he had done her, and yet…
He remembered vividly their first meeting, and when she had cursed him for the death of her husband. Her second husband. There had also been the one she rarely mentioned, a reckless soldier-of-fortune who had died in Spam in some drunken brawl. Who had she been then, and where had she come from? It was hard to see her, so captivating and striking as she was now, set against the squalor she had once touched on in a moment of intimacy.
And what of Somervell? Was he as cold and indifferent as he appeared? Or was he merely contemptuous; amused perhaps while he watched the reawakening of old memories, which he might use or ignore as he chose?
Would he ever know, or would he spend the rest of his life remembering how it had once been for so short a time, knowing that she was watching from a distance, waiting to learn what he was doing, or if he had fallen in battle?
Quayle had gone to the helm and was snapping something at the midshipman-of-the-watch. Like the others, he was properly dressed, although he must be sweating fire in this heat.
Had Keen been his flag captain he would have – Bolitho called, 'Send for my servant!'
Quayle came alive. 'At once, Sir Richard!'
Ozzard emerged from the shadows of the poop and stood blinking in the glare, more mole-like than ever. Small, loyal and ever ready to serve Bolitho whenever he could He had even read to him when he had been partially blinded, and before, when he had been smashed down by a musket. Meek and timid, but underneath there was another kind of man. He was well-educated and had once been a lawyer's clerk; he had run away to sea to avoid prosecution, and some said the hangman's halter.
Bolitho said, Take my coat, if you please.' Ozzard did not even blink as the vice-admiral tossed his coat over his arm and then handed him his hat.
Others were staring, but by tomorrow even Haven might tell his officers to walk the decks in their shirts and not suffer in silence. If it took a uniform to make an officer, there was no hope for any of them.
Ozzard gave a small smile, then scurried thankfully into the shadows again.
He had watched most faces of Bolitho, his moods of excitement and despair. There had been too many of the latter, he thought.
Past the marine sentry and into the great cabin. The world he shared with Bolitho, where rank was of little importance. He held up the coat and examined it for traces of tar or strands of spun yarn. Then he saw his own reflection in the mirror and held the coat against his own small frame. The coat hung almost to his ankles and he gave a shy smile.
He gripped the coat tightly as he saw himself that terrible day when the lawyer had sent him home early.
He had discovered his young wife, naked in the arms of a man he had known and respected for years.
They had tried to bluff it out and all the while he had been dying as he had stared at them.
Later, when he had left the small house on the Thames at Wapping Wall, he had seen the shopkeeper's name opposite. Tom Ozzard, Scrivener. He had decided then and there it was to be his new identity.
Never once had he looked back to the room where he had stopped their lies with an axe, had hacked and slashed until there was nothing recognisable in human form.
On Tower Hill he had found the recruiting party; they were never far away, always in the hopes of a volunteer, or some drunkard who would take a com and then find himself in a man-of-war until he was paid off or killed.
The lieutenant in charge had regarded him with doubt and then amusement. Prime seamen, strong young men, were what the King needed.
Ozzard carefully folded the coat. It was different now. They would take a cripple on two crutches if they got the chance.
Tom Ozzard, servant to a vice-admiral, afraid, no, terrified of battle when the ship quaked and reeled around him, a man with no past, no future.
One day, deep in his heart, Ozzard knew he would go back to that little house at Wapping Wall, Then, only then, he would give in to what he had done.
From the masthead lookout, curled up in the cross-trees, to Allday, sprawled in his hammock while he slept off the aftermath of several wets, from Ozzard to the man in the great cabin whom he served, most thoughts were on tomorrow.
Hyperion in all her years, and over the countless leagues she had sailed, had seen many come and go.
Beyond the figurehead's trident lay the horizon. Beyond that, only destiny could identify.
5. Leadership
Bolitho walked up the wet planking to the weather side of the quarterdeck and steadied himself by gripping the hammock nettings. It was still dark, with only spectres of spray leaping over the hull to break the sea's blackness.
Darker shadow moved across the quarterdeck to merge with a small group by the rail, where Haven and two of his lieutenants received their reports and passed out new orders.
Voices murmured from the gundeck, and Bolitho could picture the hands at work around the invisible eighteen-pounders, while on the deck below the heavier battery of thirty-two pounders, although equally busy, remained silent. Down there, beneath the massive deckhead beams, the gun crews were used to managing their charges in constant gloom.
The hands had been piped to an even earlier breakfast, probably an unnecessary precaution because when dawn found them they would still be out of sight of land – except, with any luck, by the masthead lookouts. In the past hour Hyperion had altered course, and was heading due west, her yards close-hauled with their reduced canvas of forecourse and topsails. It explained the uneasy, turbulent motion, but Bolitho had noticed the difference in the weather as soon as his feet had touched the damp rug by his cot.
The wind was steady but had risen; not much, but after the seemingly constant calm or glassy swell, it seemed violent by comparison.
Everyone nearby knew he was on deck and had discreetly crossed to the lee side to give him room to walk if he chose. He looked up at the rigging and saw the braced topsails for the first time. They were flapping noisily, showing their displeasure at being so tightly reined.