ALEXANDER KENT - TO GLORY WE STEER Страница 21

He closed his eyes and did not even hear Farquhar's reply.

Then he was aware of his arm being tugged and of the boat swaying and rolling as the listless seamen came to life and crowded excitedly in the bows. For a moment longer he imagined that he was dreaming. Then he heard Farquhar shout, 'Look sir! She came to look for us after all!'

Bolitho staggered to his feet, his sore eyes. probing over the heads of his men as he tried to pierce the darkness. Then he saw.it. It was more an absence of familiar stars than an actual outline, but as he stared he began to see the contours of something darker and sharper. A ship.

He snapped, 'Make a light, Stockdale! Fire some of those rags!'

The sliver of moon struck silver from the distant sails, and against the night's dark backcloth Bolitho could see the darker tracery of raked masts and rigging. It was a frigate right enough.

The makeshift flare sizzled and then burst into flames, so that once more the eyes were blinded and limited to the small confines of the boat. Some men were cheering, others merely hugged each other and grinned like children.

'Now we shall get an answer to the mystery, Mr. Farquhar.' Bolitho pushed the tiller over as the ship changed shape and moved silently above them. He could hear the creak of yards, the sudden flurry of canvas as the frigate started to back her sails and heave to. He thought he heard a distant hail and the sound of running feet.

He said, 'Lower the sail, Stoekdale! You men forrard, get ready to catch a line!' But nobody needed any encouragement

from him.

The bowsprit swung dizzily barely feet away, and as Stockdale lit another crude flare Bolitho felt the grip of ice around his heart. The frigate's figurehead danced and flickered in the light as if it was- alive. A gilt-painted- demon wielding a pair of furnace irons like weapons of war.

Stockdale threw the flare into the water and turned to, stare at Bolitho. `Did you see, sir? Did you see?'

Bolitho let his arm go limp. 'Yes, Stockdale. It is the Andiron!'

The cheers and jubilation in the longboat died as suddenly as the flare, and the men stood or sat like stricken beings as lanterns shone down from the frigate's deck and a grapnel bit into the boat's gunwale.

His men stood aside to let Bolitho pass as he made his way to the bows and reached out for the dangling ladder which bad suddenly appeared. He was still too fatigued and too stunned by the change of events to mark a clear sequence of what was happening. His mind would only record brief, unreal images, magnified and distorted by patches of light from the circle of lanterns. Glittering bayonets, and pressing, curious faces.

As he stepped into the lamplight he heard a mixture of gasps and comments. An Irish voice called, 'It's an English officer!' Another with a twangy colonial accent broke in. 'Hell it is! It's a captain!'

One by one the Phalarope's men climbed up the side and were pushed into line against the ship's gangway. An officer in a dark coat and cocked hat pushed through the packed crowd and regarded Bolitho with amusement.

'Welcome aboard, Cap'n! A real pleasure!' He turned and shouted, 'Put the men under guard and drop a round shot through that coffin of a boat!' To a massive Negro he added, 'Separate any officers amongst them and take 'em aft!' Then to Bolitho he made a mock bow. 'Now if you will come with me, I am sure the captain will be glad to make your acquaintance.'

Even in the uncertain light of the lanterns Bolitho was able to distinguish the old, familiar details of the privateer's maindeck. He recalled with sudden clarity the last time he had visited the ship to see his friend Captain Masterman, a grave but friendly officer, who unlike many of his contemporaries had always been willing to share his knowledge and experience, and pleased to answer Bolitho's constant stream of questions.

The memory helped to drive back some of the gnawing despair, so that he automatically straightened his shoulders and was able to feel some bitter satisfaction at the scars and crudely repaired damage left from the Phalarope's broadsides. The Andiron's captain must have been heading for Mola Island to complete the repairs, he thought. Maybe the captured lugger's contents of spars and canvas had been earmarked for the Andiron alone.

He ducked his head as the officer led the way below the wide quarterdeck. At each step of the way he saw curious groups of the frigate's crew as they gathered to watch him pass. They were a mixed crew sure enough, he decided. Some were openly hostile and called insultingly as he strode by.

Others dropped their eyes or hid their faces, and Bolitho guessed that they were probably English deserters, some even members of the Andiron's original crew. There were Negroes and olive-skinned Mexicans. Loud-mouthed Irishmen and dark faced sailors who must have breathed their first breaths by the Mediterranean. But it was obviously a close-knit company, if only because of their mutual danger and the hazards of their chosen trade.

The officer opened a heavy door and stood aside to let Bolitho enter a small, sparsely furnished cabin.

`You can wait here. We have to get under way now, but I guess the captain'll want to see you soon.' He held out his hand. 'I'll take the sword.' He saw Bolitho's look of resentment and added, 'And in case you start getting ideas of glory, there is a guard right outside the door.' He took the sword and turned it over in his hands. 'A pretty ancient blade for an English captain?' He grinned. 'But then I imagine things are getting a bit difficult for you all round?'

Bolitho ignored him. The officer was goading hirn. There was, no point in pleading or asking favours. He watched the lamplight cihining dully on his father's sword and then deliberately turned his back.

He was a prisoner. He must save his energy for later. The door slammed and he heard the officer's feet moving away.

i Wearily Bolitho slumped down on a sea chest and stared at the deck. Farquhar and Belsey would be kept apart like himself. No doubt the Andiron's commander would wish to question each one separately. As he himself would have done. It was strange to realise• that it was only two days since he had been questioning the terrified Spaniard aboard his own ship. And in the following period so much had happened that it was almost impossible to trace the pattern of time and events.

One thing was sure. He had lost his ship, and for him the future was an empty ruin.

The stuffy air in the cabin aided by the heavy fatigue in his body eventually took effect. As the deck canted slightly and the ship once more gathered way, Richard Bolitho leaned back against the cabin bulkhead and fell instantly asleep.

He was awakened by someone shaking his arm, and for a few more moments he found himself hoping it was all part of a terrible dream. Perhaps he could go back and take up reality again, even in the cramped uncertainty of the longboat. But it was the same officer who had escorted him to the cabin, and as Bolitho sat up on the chest he said, 'I thought you were dead!'

Bolitho realised with a further start that there was daylight in the passage outside the door, and as his mind accepted the reality of his position he heard the busy sounds of holystones and the sluice of water across the upperdeck.

– 'What time is it?'

The officer shrugged. 'Seven bells. You've been asleep for nearly seven hours at that!' He beckoned to a seaman in the passageway. 'There is some water for shaving and a razor.' He eyed Bolitho coldly. 'My man here will stay with you to make sure you don't cut your throat!'

'You are very considerate.' Bolitho took the bowl of hot water and ignored the seaman's look of fascinated interest. 'I would hate to die and miss seeing you hang, Lieutenant!'

The officer grinned calmly. 'You sure are a little firebrand, I'll say that for you.' He spoke sharply to the seaman. 'Just watch him, Jorgens! One false move and I'll expect you to deal with him, got it?'

The door slammed and the sailor said, 'The cap'n wants to see you when you's ready.' He licked his lips. 'He's havin' your breakfast got ready.' He sounded amazed at such treatmenf.

Bolitho continued with his shaving, but his mind was as busy as his razor. Perhaps it would be better to do as the officer had implied, he thought bitterly. One slash with the razor and his captors would be left with neither a ready victim nor a possible source of information.

He remembered Herrick's face when he had told him, 'Information. Out here the lack of it could lose a war.' Now his own words were coming back to mock him.

Then he thought of Farquhar and the others, and the look on Stockdale's battered face when the privateer's men had pulled them apart. It had been an expression of trust and quiet confidence. At that terrible moment it had done more to hold back Bolitho's final despair than any words or deeds imaginable.

He wiped the razor and laid it on the chest. No, there was more to living than a man's own private hopes, he decided.

He pulled his torn uniform into shape and brushed the dark hair back from his forehead. 'I'm ready,' he said coolly. `Perhaps you will lead the way?'

He followed the seaman along the passageway, and in the filtered daylight he saw more evidence of the brief battle. Smashed timbers shored up with makeshift beams, and telltale red blotches which so far had defied weeks of scrubbing.

An armed sailor stood aside and opened the main cabin door, and as Bolitho entered the once familiar place he was momentarily blinded by the dazzling reflections from sea and sky as the morning sunlight blazed across the wide stern windows.

The Andiron's captain was leaning out over the stem bench, his body a dark silhouette against the glittering water, but Bolitho's eyes fastened instead on his own sword which lay in the centre of the polished table.

He waited, standing quite still, his feet automatically braced against the ship's easy plunge and roll. Even this cabin was not spared from the Phalarope's wounded anger. More scars, and deeply gouged gaps left by flying splinters. Andiron must have spent little time in harbour, he thought.

The officer at the window turned very slowly, so that the light played across his face for a few moments before becoming once more a dark silhouette. For the second time in twenty-four hours Bolitho's reserve almost broke. It took all his strength to keep him from crying out in disbelief, but when the other man spoke he knew that this too was no fantasy.

`Welcome aboard the Andiron, Richard! When my second lieutenant brought me this sword I knew it had to be you!'

Bolitho stared at his brother, feeling the years dropping away, his brain reeling with a thousand memories. Hugh Bolitho, the son about whom his father had spoken so bitterly, yet with so much anxiety. Now commanding an enemy privateer! It was the culmination of every worst possible belief.

His brother said slowly, 'It had to happen of course. But I hoped it might be otherwise. At some other place perhaps.'

Bolitho heard himself say, 'Do you know what you have done? What this will do to…?' He faltered, even unable to accept that they were both sons of the same man. He added quietly, 'So you were in command when we fought your ship last month?'

Hugh Bolitho seemed to relax slightly, as if he considered the worst was now over. `Yes. And that was a real surprise, I can tell you! We were just closing for the kill when I caught sight of you through my glass!' His face crinkled as he relived the moment. `So I hauled off. You were lucky that day, my lad!'

Bolitho tried to hide the pain in his eyes and said shortly, `Are you saying that my being there made a difference’

'Did you think you had won the day, Richard?' For a moment longer Hugh Bolitho studied his brother with something like amusement. `Believe me, in spite of your chain shot I could still have taken the Phalarope!' He shrugged and walked to the table and stared at the sword. 'I was taken off guard. I had no idea you were returning to the Indies.'

Bolitho watched his brother closely, noting the grey streaks in his dark hair, the lines of strain about his mouth. He was only four years older than himself, but there could have been ten years between them.

He said, `Well, I am your prisoner now. What do you intend to do with me?

The other man did not answer directly but picked up the sword and held it against the sun. 'So he gave it to you!' He shook his head, the gesture both familiar and painful. `Poor Father. I imagine he believes the worst of me?'

`Are you surprised?'

Hugh Bolitho placed the sword on the table and thrust his hands deeply into his plain blue coat. 'I neither asked for nor expected this encounter, Richard. You may think as you please, but you know as well as I do that events out here are moving too quickly for a display of sentiment.' He watched his brother narrowly. `When I saw you standing on your deck with that wretched crew of yours going to pieces around you, I could not bring myself to close the combat.' He waved one hand vaguely. `Just like the old days, Richard. I could never find it easy to take what you thought was yours.'

Bolitho replied evenly, `But you always did, didn't you?’

'Those days are past.' He pointed at a chart spread across another'-table. `We are sailing for St. Kitts. We will make a landfall before night.' He watched the doubt in Bolitho's eyes.

'I know you so well, Richard. I can see the same old look of mistrust there!' He laughed. 'St. Kitts has already fallen to: our ally. Sir Samuel Hood has pulled out to lick his wounds!' He waved across the chart. `It will soon be over. Whether your government believes it or not, America will be an independent nation, perhaps sooner than they think!'

Bolitho felt his fingers locking together behind his back. While he was here being confronted with his past, his own world was falling apart. St. Kitts gone. Perhaps the French were already massing for an attack elsewhere. But where? They had the whole Caribbean to choose from.

His brother said quietly, 'If you are trying to make some scheme to foil my own plans; you can forget it, Richard! For you the war is over.' He tapped the table with his fingertips. `Unless?’

'Unless what?'

Hugh Bolitho walked round the table and stared him in the face. `Unless you come in with us, Richard! I am well considered by the French. I am sure they would give you a ship of sorts! After what you did at Mola Island I am sure they would not deny your tenacity!' He smiled at some secret thought. 'It might even be the Phalarope.'

He studied Bolitho's unsmiling face and then walked back to the window. `These are our waters now. We get our intelligence from many sources. Fishermen, trading boats, even slavers when we get the chance. With St. Kitts, fallen your ships will draw further south to Antigua and beyond. There are not many patrols in this area now. It is too wasteful for your admiral, am I right?' He smiled sadly. `Just one ship perhaps. Just one.'

Bolitho thought of the Phalarope and tried to imagine what Vibart would do.

`Your ship, Richard. The Phalarope! We need every frigate we can get. It is the same in all navies. And I have made sure that your admiral, that pompous fool, Sir Robert Napier, will be informed of our movements. I am quite sure that he will be so drunk with your success at Mola Island that he will soon despatch the Phalarope to find us! The admiral will surely be eager to avenge the loss of the Andiron from his command, eh?’