Ritzen had been ashore in Malta with Tregillis, the purser, buying fruit from local traders rather than spend a small fortune at the authorised suppliers. He had fallen in with some seamen from the Dutch frigate Triton which had called briefly at the island. Her captain, a commodore, had paid a visit to Lord Rhodes.
Galbraith could recall the moment exactly, after another long day of sail and gun drill, and a seemingly endless stream of signals, mostly, it appeared, directed at Unrivalled.
Everyone knew it was wrong, unfair, but who would dare to say as much? Galbraith had gone to the great cabin, where he had found the captain in his chair, some letters open on his lap, and a goblet of cognac quivering beside him to each thud of the tiller head.
Despair, resignation, anger: it had been all and none of them.
After reporting the state of the ship and the preparations for station-keeping overnight, Galbraith had told him about the purser’s clerk. Ritzen had overheard that the Dutch frigate was on passage to Algiers, her sale already approved and encouraged by the Dutch government. It had been like seeing someone coming alive again, a door to freedom opening, when moments earlier there had been only a captive.
“I knew there was something strange when I heard it aboard Frobisher! ” Adam had gone from the chair to the salt-stained stern windows in two strides, the dark hair falling over his forehead, the weight of command momentarily forgotten. “A commodore in charge of a single frigate! That alone should have told me, if nobody else was prepared to!”
Perhaps Rhodes had forgotten, or thought it no one else’s business. Maybe Bethune’s records had not been examined. Galbraith thought it unlikely, and when he had seen the light in the captain’s eyes he knew it for certain.
“I shall see the admiral…” He must have seen the doubt in Galbraith’s face. To risk another confrontation, and all on the word of the purser’s clerk, seemed reckless if not downright dangerous. But there had been no such doubt in Bolitho’s voice. “Such intelligence is valuable beyond measure, Leigh! To any sea officer, time and distance are the true enemies. This man spoke out, and I intend that his words should be heard!”
He had stared at the leaping spectres of spray breaking across the thick glass, and it had been then that Galbraith had seen the locket on the table beside the goblet. The beautiful face and high cheekbones, the naked shoulders. He had never laid eyes on her, but he had known that it was Catherine Somervell. That woman, who had scorned society and won the hearts of the fleet, and of the nation.
Galbraith stood back from the dripping hammock nettings. He was soaked to the skin, but he had felt nothing. He suppressed a shiver, but it was not cold or fear. It was something far stronger.
“After you have secured the cutter, Mr Partridge, pass my compliments to the purser and have a double tot issued to the boat’s crew.” He saw the little clerk staring up at him. “And also for Ritzen.”
And, as suddenly as he had departed, the captain was here on the streaming deck with his gasping, triumphant oarsmen.
He shook his cocked hat and tossed it to his servant.
“All officers and warrant ranks aft in ten minutes, if you please.” The dark eyes were everywhere, even as he pushed the dripping hair from his face. “But I must speak first with you.”
Galbraith waited, remembering the moment when Bazeley’s wife had offered her hand to be kissed. The notion had touched him then: how right they had looked together. He had wanted to laugh at his own stupidity. Now, he was not so sure.
Then Adam spoke quietly, so softly that he could have been talking to himself. Or to the ship, Galbraith thought.
“I pray to God for a fair wind tomorrow.” He touched his lieutenant’s arm, and Galbraith knew the gesture was unconscious. “For then we must fight, and only He can help us.”
Lieutenant Massie looked around the crowded cabin, his swarthy features expressionless.
“All present, sir.”
Adam said, “Sit where you can, if you can.” It gave him more time to think, to assemble what he would say.
The cabin was full; even the junior warrant officers were present, some of them staring around as if they expected to discover something different in this most sacred part of their ship.
Adam could feel the hull moving heavily beneath him, but steadier now, the wind holding her over, all sounds muffled by distance.
He could picture Galbraith moving about the quarterdeck overhead, and recalled his face when he had outlined the possibilities of action, as he had to Lord Rhodes.
Now Galbraith was on watch, the only officer absent from the cabin.
The two Royal Marine officers, a bright patch of colour, the midshipmen in their own whispering group, and young Bellairs standing with Lieutenant Wynter and Cristie, the taciturn sailingmaster. The surgeon was present also, dwarfing the scrawny figure of Tregillis the purser. Despite the lack of space the other warrant officers, the backbone of any fighting ship, managed to keep apart. Stranace the gunner stood with his friend the carpenter, “Old Blane” as he was known, although he was not yet forty. Neither of them could work out a course or compass bearing on a chart, and like most professional sailors they were content to leave such matters to those trained for it. But lay them alongside an enemy ship and they would keep the guns firing, and repair the damage from every murderous broadside. And the master’s mates: they would keep the ship under command, knowing they were prime targets for any enemy marksman. The flag and the cause were incidental when it came to surviving the first deadly embrace.
He knew without looking that his clerk, Usher, was at the table, ready to record this rare meeting, with a handkerchief balled in one fist to muffle the cough which was slowly killing him.
The only missing face was that of George Avery. Even as Adam had outlined his convictions to Admiral Rhodes he had thought of Avery, as if he had been speaking for him.
So many times they had talked together, about his service with
Sir Richard, his friendship with Catherine. Galbraith had touched upon it too, only a few moments ago in this same cabin.
I think he knew he was going to die, sir. I think he had given up the will to live.
He glanced along the cabin’s side. The big eighteen-pounders were held firmly behind their sealed ports, but dragging at the stout breeching ropes with the sway of the deck. As if they were restless, eager.
But instead he saw Frobisher’s stern cabin, the great ship riding almost disdainfully across the broken water. Where his uncle had sat and dreamed; had believed, perhaps, that a hand was reaching out at last.
The surprising part had been the admiral’s frowning silence while he had explained the reason for his visit.
Avery again… How he had described their meeting with Mehmet Pasha, the Dey’s governor and commander-in-chief in Algiers. Face to face, with no ships to support them but for the smaller twenty-eight gun frigate Halcyon. She was out there now, riding out the same weather, with the same young captain who had served under James Tyacke as a midshipman, in this very sea at the Battle of the Nile.
Avery had forgotten nothing, and had filled a notebook with facts of every kind, from the barbarous cruelties he had witnessed, not so far from where they had cut out La Fortune, a thousand years ago, or so it felt, even to the names of ships moored there, and the Spanish mercenary, Captain Martinez, who had changed sides too many times for his own good. This command would be his last, one way or the other. Adam seemed to hear Lovatt’s despairing voice while he lay dying, here, just beyond the screen of his sleeping quarters. Where he had held the boy Napier circled in his arm, to make himself believe he was the son who had turned away from him.
He licked dry lips, aware of the silence, the intent, watching faces, barely able to accept that he had been talking to these men for several minutes. Even the shipboard noises seemed muted, so that the scrape of Usher’s pen seemed loud in the stillness.