Adam said, "You all are, Leigh." Ile put the cup aside; the coffee had been laced with rum.
"We will remain in company with Seven Sisters and the two prizes. We can't he certain of anything yet. The other slaver had six hundred on hoard. In a brig, how can they expect them to stay alive?"
Galbraith said, "I have put Cousens in irons, sir. I would not trust him an inch."
Adam opened a drawer and took out the bundle of notes Tyacke had given him.
He said, "The ship everyone knows about but no one has seen is named Osiris." fie shut the pitiful gibbering from his mind. Maybe he should have had Cousens thrown into that hold. He looked at the paper with the vessel's name scrawled on it. Cousens had hardly been able to grasp the pen.
Galbraith repeated it. "Osiris. Strange name, sir."
Yovell's pen paused in mid-air, and he murmured, "Judge of the dead."
Adam smiled. Like a severe schoolmaster with a slightly backward pupil.
Ile said, "Rist discovered a few pieces of the puzzle, I did not ask how. Osiris is, or was, an American vessel, built around 1812 for use as a privateer."
Galbraith nodded. "Against us." He saw the captain's hand move unconsciously to his side, to the ugly, livid scar he had seen only once.
"Yes. She's big and fast, and well armed. As the war against the trade becomes fiercer and more dangerous, so the prices will rise, and the rewards will be all the greater for those successful or aggressive enough to fight it." He realized that his hand had moved to the wound. The mere reminder of it. Anemone's last fight against the American frigate Unity. When he had been cut down by a metal splinter, as big as your thumb, someone had told him at the time. It had never left him. The colours cut down in surrender, when he had been unable to prevent it. Afterwards, as a prisoner of war, he had escaped, only to face a court martial for the loss of Anemone. He saw the crippled sailor again in his mind. The finest in the fleet.
He glanced around the cabin. Until you, my lass.
He looked towards the stern windows, but Unrivalled had swung again to her cable. There was only the land. Albatroz and the wrecked schooner were temporarily hidden from view.
"Feed the hands by sections, two parties to each watch. A double tot of rum too, no matter what wringing of hands you get from Mr Tregellis."
He touched the wound again, without thinking.
"We'll man the capstans this afternoon. Make it seven bellsthe light will be good for hours, God and Mr Cristie permitting!"
They both laughed. Yovell did not raise his head but gave a quiet sigh of approval. Like sand running from a glass, the strain was going. This time…
Then he heard Adam say, "But I'll find this Osiris, somehow, some day. Cousens and his breed are dangerous, but without the power behind them they are little fish." He banged his hand on the scrap of paper. "The pike in the reeds, he's the one we want!"
His mood changed just as swiftly. "But the Crown Agent must decide. And our commodore will see him before any of us."
The explosion was like something thudding against Unrivalled's lower bilges, only a sensation. But a ship was dying.
Adam walked to the quarter window and shaded his eyes to watch the column of black smoke rising above the middle channel, torn by the hot wind like some ragged garment, or shroud.
No ship should die like that. He thought of Hastilow, and the action which had cost him so dearly.
What price revenge now?
Foolhardy and reckless.
Like a court martial, the sword could point in either direction at the end.
10. Code Of Conduct
"CAPTAIN'S comin', sir!"
Denis O'Beirne straightened his hack and wiped his hands on a piece of rag. A seaman lay on the sickbay table, his naked limbs like wax in the spiralling lantern light. He could have been dead, but a faint heartbeat and the flickering eyelids said otherwise.
"Move him presently." O'Beirne looked at the bandaged stump and sighed inwardly. Another onearmed survivor to end up on a waterfront somewhere. But at least he was alive. He seemed to realise what his assistant had said and turned to see Captain Bolitho in the doorway, his body at a steep angle as Unrivalled leaned her shoulder into the sea, the wind strong and steady across her quarter.
"You wanted me?" I Ic glanced around the sickbay with its bottles and swabs, its smell of suffering and death. Above all, the stronger aroma of rum. The navy's cure, to kill pain, to offer hope even when there was none. He hated this place and all like it. It was stupid, but he had long since given up fighting it.
O'Beirne took it in with practised eyes. Strain, anger perhaps.
"There is someone asking to speak with you, sir. One of Paradox's men, her boatswain." He paused briefly to examine his hands. "He has not long, I fear."
Some last spark of resistance or disbelief; a dying declaration was not unknown among sailors. What would I say?
"Very well." He regarded the surgeon more closely. Outwardly he showed no sign of exhaustion, although he had been working here or aboard the prize, Intrepido, since the brief action had ceased. Seven Sisters also carried a surgeon. O'Beirne's comment, of a sort, said it all.
Adam followed his large figure into the darker interior of the orlop, which seemed to be full of wounded or injured men. Some lay still, recovering or quietly dying, it was impossible to tell. Others were propped up against the ship's timbers, their eyes moving, following the swaying lanterns, or just staring into the shadows. Stunned by the realisation that they had survived, and as yet only half-aware of the injuries O'Beirne's small, strong fingers had explored and dealt with. And here too was the stench of rum.
Three had died, and had been buried after dark, their second night at sea after leaving the anchorage, with the wrecked and burned-out Paradox a lingering reminder; each corpse was double-shotted to carry it swiftly into the depths. There were always sharks following patiently, but sailors believed the dead were safer at night.
O'Beirne murmured, "His name is Polglaze. It was grapeshot. There was nothing more I could do."
Adam gripped his arm, sensing his sadness, so rare in a manof-war, where a surgeon often had to face sights far worse than in the height of battle.
He knelt beside the dying man who, like the others, was propped against one of the frigate's massive frames; he could hear his breathing, the rattle in his throat. He was bleeding to death.
Adam felt the steeper roll of the hull. The wind had found them, too late for this man and others like him.
"You came, zur." The eyes settled on his face, reflecting the light from the nearby lantern, and fixed on the tarnished gold lace and gilt buttons. Something he understood. Not a young man, but powerfully built, or had been. When he reached out to take Adam's hand it was unable to grasp him.
Adam said, "Polglaze. A fine Cornish name, am I right?"
The man struggled to sit up and perhaps lean forward, but the pain halted him like another piece of grape.
His grip strengthened almost imperceptibly. "St Keverne, Cap'n."
"You can't get much further south than that. A wild coast when it wants to be, eh?" I Ic wanted to leave. He was not helping. This man who had been born not so far from Penzance was beyond aid now.
But the boatswain named Polglaze might even have smiled as he muttered, " Fes a wild shore right enough. The Manacles claimed more'n a few vessels when I were a lad there!"
O'Beirne said softly, "I think that's time enough."
Adam half-turned, wondering which one of them he meant.
He felt the man's hard hand tighten around his, as if all his remaining strength was there, and the need which was keeping him alive.