He saw Lieutenant Varlo walking along the starboard battery of eighteenpounders, gun by gun, with Williams, a gunner's mate, at his side. He thought he saw Williams glance up at Galbraith as they passed. Williams was good, and with Rist had been on the island raid when the chebecks had been destroyed. They were closer than some of the others because of that. Unconsciously, he clenched a fist. When I risked this ship.
The helmsmen were being relieved, the last topmen sliding down backstays to the deck, their work aloft done. Until the next pipe.
Adam looked at the unending panorama of glittering water again. No wonder men driven to desperation had been persuaded by the ever-lurking devil to slake their thirst from the sea. He had seen two men die, mad and unrecognisable, after doing just that.
And there was always the other temptation. At night, when the ship offered a hint of cooler air, and the sounds were muffled by the cabin timbers, there was no law to prevent a captain from drinking too much in a different way, but one no less dangerous in the end.
And night brought other forms of torment. Lying naked in his cot, his limbs bathed in sweat, and unable to sleep, listening and interpreting every sound, no matter how small and unimportant. As if the ship were driving herself, indifferent to all the souls she carried.
And in sleep there were dreams, one in particular. The girl, beckoning and arousing him, sometimes speaking his name, reaching out. Mocking him. Only the faces remained blurred, uncertain. Zenoria or Catherine, neither of whom had ever been his to love, or even the desirable Lady Bazeley, Rozanne, who had taken and responded with a fierceness of passion which had surprised, perhaps shocked them both.
He thought of the little tablet in the church at Penzance. Or perhaps my own mother? At such times he had been thankful that Napier had taken to locking the cabinet where the cognac was stowed.
He paced slowly aft, his feet avoiding flaked lines and ringbolts without conscious effort. He pictured his aunt, dear Nancy, reading the letter he had put ashore in Freetown. Trying to imagine what we are doing here, sharing it as she had done with others in her family. While we shall be tacking up and down, week in, week out. Going slightly mad, and wondering why we do it.
Or we might all be dead by the time she reads it.
"Deck there! Sail on the starboard bow!"
Men about to creep into the shadow of gangway or bulwark, or those who had just been relieved from trimming the great yards and now making for the messdeck's brief refuge, paused and stared up at the masthead.
Friend, enemy, prize or victim, it did not matter. They were no longer alone on this blistering ocean.
Adam returned to the quarterdeck rail.
"Must be looking for us, Leigh. She'd have run by now otherwise." He was thinking aloud, only partly aware of the listening, watching faces, tanned or burned raw by the sun. "We shall alter course two points to starboard. It will make it easier for our friend to converge on us. He'll be finding less wind than we have under our coat-tails at present."
He grinned, and felt his lips crack as if the effort had drawn blood. But it was infectious.
Some wag called, "Moight be 'nother prize, Cap'n! Fair shares this toime!"
Others laughed and punched their friends' arms, something which only seconds ago would have been answered with a genuine blow.
"Pipe the hands to the braces! We will steer nor'-east by east."
Lines and halliards came alive, snaking through blocks as more men ran to their stations, their fatigue momentarily gone.
"Put up your helm! Now steady, lads! Handsomely does it!"
"Be ready to make our number!" That was Midshipman Cousens, very conscious of his position in charge of the signals party.
And just as quickly, "Belay that, Mr Cousens! Everyone will know this ship!" Lieutenant Bellairs, who such a short time ago had been a midshipman, doing Cousens's work.
Adam saw the swift exchange, and felt it for himself. Pride. It never left you. Like Galbraith and young Napier, or the scarred and mutilated seaman who had come to see him at Penzance. Pride for Anemone, the ship which had done that to him, but had left him no less a man.
"Nor'-east by east, sir! Steady as she goes!"
Adam saw Cristie making some notes in his personal log. The lines meeting on a chart somewhere. It would probably amount to nothing. A few words on a page, soon forgotten.
A captain's responsibility was total. He saw Cristie pause to look at him. The date, perhaps: had he remembered?
Adam resumed his pacing. All he could do was wait, then decide.
On this day, his beloved uncle had died.
lie nodded to a seaman who was expertly coiling a halliard, although he did not notice his surprise.
He could still reach out. The hand was still there.
Luke Jago watched the jollyboat being warped alongside, then turned to stare at the topsail schooner which lay hove-to downwind of the frigate. The signal Captain repair on board had been hauled down in time with Unrivalled's acknowledgment, and Jago was still fuming about it. The commodore's broadpendant shone like silk from Paradox's masthead, and as Cristie remarked, "They could shout a message from there, damn them!"
Jago heard Galbraith calling to a boatswain's mate, and knew the captain was coming up. Bloody Turnbull. Who the hell does he think he is? lie had been surprised that the captain had shown neither surprise nor resentment at the signal. Jago looked at him now and was partly satisfied; he was wearing his old seagoing coat and had tied a neckcloth loosely into place. Jago smiled to himself. The commodore could think what he liked.
He said, "I could have the gig swayed out, sir."
Adam smiled. "Take too long. Ceremonial can go too far!" He touched his hat to the side party and looked directly at Galbraith. "Maybe the waiting is over?"
The jollyboat seemed to plunge into a deep trough as they cast off from the chains and the oars dipped for the first pull.
Adam twisted round to look at his ship. How large she appeared from the boat, the yards and flapping canvas blotting out the land completely. She never seemed so big when you shared her hull with some 250 seamen and marines.
He shifted on the thwart to study the other vessel. Smart, lowlying, rakish. A fine command for a young officer with one foot on the ladder. For one more senior, like Hastilow, it might appear very different.
"Bows." Then Jago said under his breath, "I'll be ready, sir."
Their eyes met.
"Never doubted it."
Hastilow was waiting to receive him as he clambered up and across the bulwark.
"Welcome aboard, Captain Bolitho."
Hastilow's eyes said the opposite. Tall and lean, even thin, with his lank brown hair tied back in the style still followed by some older sailors. But the eyes were very different, dark, almost black in the glaring sunshine, deepset and wary, as if on guard for something.
He added, "The commodore is below." The slightest hesitation. "Sir."
Each commanding one of His Majesty's ships, and yet miles apart. The lieutenant and the post-captain. Schooner and fifth rate. Usually it did not matter when men met like this. Here, it obviously did.
Adam followed the other officer aft, but glanced at the sailors working on deck, or waiting to trim the sails for getting under way again. All were so burned by the sun and wind that they could have been Africans. A large company for so small a vessel; for prize crews. And he could sense hostility, as if he was from another world which they had all rejected. They were probably remembering the men who had been butchered.
He could almost hear Finlay's words. Where were you?