He took Poland 's hand and said, "I see that I must congratulate you, Captain."
Poland smiled modestly as the swaying lantern threw a glow across his matching pair of epaulettes.
He said, "And I must thank you, Sir Richard. I cannot say how grateful I was to be told that my posting had been confirmed as a result of your report."
Bolitho paused to watch the gig being hoisted up and over the nettings, then manhandled down on to the boat-tier with the others. A sense of urgency and mystery he had known often enough as a young frigate captain.
He said, "It will be a mite different from the shores of Africa."
Poland hesitated, sifting it through as if to seek out any possible traps. Then he admitted, "I know our eventual landfall, Sir Richard, but in God's name I know nought else."
Bolitho touched his arm and felt it stiffen. Poor Poland; like so many before him he had imagined that to gain the coveted rank of post-captain was to be beyond the reach of uncertainty a summit from which nobody could topple you. Bolitho smiled to himself. He was learning otherwise. Like the epaulettes, the responsibility was also doubled. As I discovered for myself many times.
Poland glanced quickly at his hovering first lieutenant. "Have the capstan fully manned, Mr Williams. We shall sail on the tide, or I shall need to know about it! "
To Bolitho he added, "If you will come aft, Sir Richard, there is a gentleman who is taking passage with us."
While the ship came alive with the noise of getting under way Bolitho entered the stern cabin, which he had come to know so well in his solitude. The first thing he saw was a curly wig which stood on its rest by an open chest; the second was the man who walked unsteadily from the shadows by the stern window, his legs as yet unused to the uncomfortable motion of a ship eager to tear free from the ground.
He was older, or appeared so, perhaps more stooped in the light of the spiralling lanterns. Sixty at a guess, his head almost bald so that his old-fashioned queue hung down over his collar like a rope's end.
He put his head on one side and regarded Bolitho like a quizzical bird. "It's a long while, Sir Richard, and many miles since we last met."
Bolitho clasped both his hands in his own.
"Of course I remember. Charles Inskip! You guided me when I strained our country's diplomacy-that was in Copenhagen too! " They studied one another, their hands still gripped together as the memories flooded back. Bolitho had been sent to Denmark to help parley with the Danes after Napoleon had demanded that they hand over their fleet to his French admirals. The failure then to reach an agreement had led to the Battle of Copenhagen, when Nelson had defied his admiral's order to discontinue the action, and had forced the attack alone. The memories were flooding back. Keen had been there in his own command. Herrick had been Bolitho's flag captain in Benbow, which was now his own flagship. Such was fate and the ways of the navy.
It had been a bloody battle between nations who had nothing against one another but for their fear of the French obtaining the upper hand over them both.
Inskip gave a small smile. "Like you, Sir Richard, I, too, am honoured. Sir Charles, by His Majesty's gracious consent."
They both laughed and Bolitho said, "An unnerving experience! " He did not add that the King had forgotten his name at the moment of knighting him.
More cries echoed from the deck above, and then the thrashing thunder of freed canvas. They could not hear the cry of "Anchor's aweigh! " but Bolitho braced his legs and felt Truculent respond like a released stallion, free of the halter, and responsible only to her captain's skills.
Inskip was watching him thoughtfully. "You still miss it, don't you? Being up there with the people, pitting your wits against the sea? I saw it in your eyes, as I did six years back in Copenhagen."
He moved carefully to a chair as a servant entered with some glasses on a tray.
"Well, we are returning there, Sir Richard." He sighed and patted his side pockets. "In one I carry a promise, in t'other a threat. But sit you down and I'll tell you what we are about-" He broke off and covered his mouth as the deck reeled over to the thrust of the helm. "I fear I have been too long in the comforts of London. My damned stomach defies me yet! "
Bolitho watched the servant's expressionless face-one of Inskip's men-as he poured the wine with some difficulty.
But he was thinking of Catherine and the London she had given him. Enchantment. Not at all like the one Inskip was already regretting leaving astern.
He leaned forward and felt her fan press against his thigh. "I am all attention, Sir Charles, though what part I can play is still beyond me."
Inskip held his glass up to the light and gave a nod of satisfaction. He was probably one of the most senior government officials employed on Scandinavian affairs, but at this moment he looked more like a village schoolmaster.
He said, "Nelson is gone, alas, but the Danes know you. It is little enough, but when I explain further you will see we have no room for choices. There are sensible men in Copenhagen, but there are many who will see the value of compromise, another word for surrender, with Napoleon's army at the frontier."
Bolitho glanced down at the gold lace on his sleeve. He was back.
Bolitho stood on the weather side of Truculent's quarterdeck and strained his eyes through the first grey light of morning. Around him the ship reeled and plunged to a lively quarter-sea, spray and sometimes great surges of water dashing over the decks or breaking through the rigging where spluttering, cursing seamen fought to
keep everything taut and free.
Captain Poland lurched up the slippery planking towards him, a tarpaulin coat flapping about him and running with water.
He shouted above the din, "We should sight the narrows when daylight finds us, Sir Richard! " His eyes were red-rimmed with strain and lack of sleep, and his normally cool composure was less evident.
It had been a long, hard passage from Dover for him, Bolitho thought. No empty expanse of ocean with kind skies and prevailing winds, and TableMountain as a mark of achievement at the end of it. Truculent had thrashed through the Channel and then north-east across the North Sea towards the coast of Denmark. They had sighted very little except for an English schooner and a small frigate which exchanged recognition signals before vanishing into a violent rain squall. It needed constant care with the navigation, especially when they altered course through the Skagerrak, then finally south, so closehauled that the lee gunports had been awash for most of the time. It was not merely cold; it was bitter, and Bolitho was constantly reminded of the last great battle against the Danes at Copenhagen, with Nelson's flag shifted to the Elephant, a smaller seventy-four than his proper flagship, so that he could pass through the narrows close inshore and so avoid the enemy batteries until the final embrace.
Bolitho thought too of Browne's apt quotation for his own captains: We Happy Few. To think of it now only saddened him. So many had gone, returning only in memory at times like this while Truculent completed that very same passage. Captain Keverne of Indomitable, Rowley Peel and his fine frigate Relentless, Veitch in the little Lookout, and so many others. More were to fall from Browne's "Few" in the following months and years. Firm friends like dear Francis Inch, and the courageous John Neale who had once been a midshipman in Bolitho's Phalarope, only to die a captain when they had been taken prisoner by the French after the loss of his frigate Styx. Bolitho and Allday had done all they could to save him and ease his agony; but he had joined all the others where nothing further could hurt him.
Bolitho shivered inside his boat-cloak and said, "A difficult passage, Captain." He saw the red-rimmed eyes watching him guardedly probably seeking out some sort of criticism in his remark. Then he pictured Catherine as he had last seen her. She would be wondering while she waited. It might be longer than he had promised. By the time Truculent's anchor splashed down it would have taken them a full week to reach their goal. He added, "I'm going below. Call me if you sight anything useful."