Bolitho 19 - Beyond the Reef (5 page)

Bolitho swallowed the brandy and waited for it to calm him.

“It was a kindness as a matter of fact, my lord.” He saw Godschale’s eyebrows rise doubtfully and added, “He was totally unsuited. Had I not done so I would have ordered my flag captain to court-martial him for cowardice in the face of the enemy. For one who enjoys spreading scandal, my sister appears to have overlooked the true reason!”

“Well!” Godschale was at a rare loss for words. Envy. The word lingered in his mind. He considered it again. He was all-powerful, wealthy, and beyond the risk of losing life or limb like the captains he controlled. He had a dull wife, but was able to find comfort in the arms of others. He thought of the lovely Lady Somervell. God, no wonder I am still envious of this impossible man.

Godschale pressed on grimly. “But you were there?”

Bolitho shrugged. “My daughter is unwell.” Why am I telling him? He is not interested.

Like the mention of the midshipman. It was merely another probe. He knew Godschale well enough by reputation, both past and present, to understand he would hang or flog anyone who put his own comfort in jeopardy, just as he had never shown the slightest concern for the men who month after month rode out storm and calm alike, with the real possibility of an agonising death at the end of it.

“I am sorry to know it. What can be done about it?”

“Lady Catherine is with a surgeon at this moment. She knows him quite well.” He felt his injured eye prick suddenly as if to reveal the lie, the real reason she had gone to consult the heron-like Blachford.

Godschale nodded, wondering why Bolitho’s wife was allowing such interference.

Bolitho could read his thoughts as though he had shouted them aloud; he recalled Catherine’s voice, while she had lain at his side in the darkness. They had talked for much of the night, and as usual she had seen everything more clearly than be.

“You care so much, Richard, because you still feel responsible. But you are not. She made the child what she is. I’ve seen it happen all too often. I shall visit Sir Piers Blachford—he is one of the few I would trust. I am sure he will be able to help Elizabeth, or find someone who can. But I will not see you destroy yourself by going to that house again. I know what she is still trying to do … as if she has not already taken enough from you.”

Bolitho said, “In any case, I am quite certain you did not bring me here merely to discuss my domestic situation, my lord?”

Strangely, Godschale seemed content to leave it at that. Until the next time.

“No, quite right. Quite right. I have completed all the arrangements for your visit to the Cape. My aide will give you the full details.” He cleared his throat noisily. “But first, there is the court martial. The date is set for the end of next week. I have sent word to your flag captain at Portsmouth.” He looked at him challengingly. “I did not choose Black Prince for the court martial out of spite. You will be more private in her. Dockyard work can be held up during this beastly affair.”

Bolitho asked quietly, “Who is the President to be?”

Godschale shuffled some papers on his ornate table as if he could not remember.

He cleared his throat again and answered, “Admiral Sir James Hamett-Parker.”

Bolitho felt the room spin. In seconds he had seen the man. Dour, uncompromising features, a thin mouth: a man more feared than respected.

“I shall be there to give evidence, my lord.”

“Only if you are asked—as a witness after the fact, so to speak.”

Bolitho turned from the window as a troop of dragoons clattered past.

“Then he is already condemned.” Then he said sharply, surprised that he could still plead, “I must do something, my lord. He is my friend.”

“Is he?” Godschale refilled the fine goblets. “That brings me to the other matter … The court was prepared to allow you to defend him. It was my idea, in fact. The whole affair can do nothing but harm to the fleet—to all senior officers who are far from support, and who have only their own judgement to sustain them. With our army poised on the threshold of Europe every officer from admiral to captain will need all the confidence in the world if this great venture is to succeed. If we fail, there can be no second chance.”

He had voiced the very opposite view at their last meeting, Bolitho thought, but it no longer mattered.

“Do you mean that Rear-Admiral Herrick rejected me as his defence?” He recalled Herrick’s face the last time they had met, the blue eyes stubborn, hurt, bitter. “Whom did he choose?”

Godschale glanced at the clock. It would be better if Bolitho was gone before his sister arrived to add to the general problem.

“That is the point, Sir Richard. He will have nobody.” He studied him, heavily intent. It was not like Godschale to risk anything which might dislodge his position of power. Was it really true what they said about this man, he thought uneasily. Had Bolitho’s charisma touched even him?

“There is something you might do.”

Bolitho saw his inner struggle and was surprised by it. He had never known Godschale in this mood before. “Yes. Anything.”

Godschale was beginning to sweat, and it was neither from brandy nor the heat of the fire.

“Rear-Admiral Herrick is at Southwark. He will be met there by the Marshal to take a coach to Portsmouth the day after tomorrow. You will need all your discretion; many sea officers come and go on the Portsmouth Flier and might recognise you. It would embroil you even further … there might even be an attempt to smear you with collusion.”

Bolitho held out his hand. “I thank you for this, my lord—you may never know what it means. But one day I may be in a position to repay you. And have no fear. I heard nothing from you.”

Godschale attempted to give a rueful grin. “Nobody would believe it in any case, not of me, that is!” But the grin would not show itself.

Long after the doors had closed behind Bolitho, Godschale was still staring at the window where his visitor had stood. He thought he would already be feeling regret, but if anything he felt strangely uplifted.

His secretary opened the doors with a flourish as Godschale rang the little bell on his table.

“My lord?”

“Send for my carriage. Now.”

The man stared at the clock, bewildered by his master’s behaviour.

“But Mrs Vincent will be here in an hour, my lord!”

“Do I have to say everything twice, man? Send for the carriage.”

The man fled and Godschale poured another goblet of brandy.

Envy. Aloud to the empty room he said abruptly, “God damn you, Bolitho, you put years on me! The sooner you get back to sea the better, for all our sakes!”

It was already dark again by the time Bolitho’s carriage arrived at the inn at Southwark. After they had rattled over London Bridge to the south bank of the Thames, he imagined he could smell the sea and the many ships lying at anchor, and wondered if Allday had also noticed it, and was thinking about the passage to the Cape.

He heard Matthew curse from his box and felt the wheels jar savagely against fallen stones. He rarely swore, and was the best of coachmen, but this carriage had been borrowed for the journey. Secrecy would be impossible if the Bolitho crest was there for all to see.

They slowed down to pass a big mail coach standing outside the famous George Inn, from which place so many sea officers began their long and uncomfortable journey to Portsmouth. Without horses it looked strangely abandoned, but ostlers and inn servants were already loading chests and boxes on top, while the passengers consumed their last big meal, washed down with madeira or ale as the fancy took them. The George was the one place in London where Bolitho was most likely to be confronted by someone he knew.

A little further along the road was the smaller Swan Inn, a coaching and posting stop with the same high-galleried front as the George. But there the similarity ended. The Swan was used mainly by merchants, somewhere to break their journey or discuss business without fear of interruption.

In the inn yard shadowy figures ran to take the horses’ heads, and a curtain twitched as someone peered out at the new arrival.

Allday’s stomach rumbled loudly. “I smell food, Sir Richard!”

Bolitho touched his arm. “Go and find the innkeeper. Then eat something.”

He climbed down and felt the bitter air sweeping from the river. Upstream in the little Chelsea house Catherine would be looking out at this same river, imagining him here.

A bulky lump of a man appeared in the light from an open side door.

“God swamp me, Sir Richard! This is a surprise!”

Jack Thornborough had begun life as a purser’s clerk during the American Revolution, and later when discharged he had obtained work in the nearby naval victualling yard at Deptford. It was said unkindly of him that he had robbed the yard so successfully with the connivance of ships’ pursers that he had made enough to purchase the old Swan lock, stock and barrel.

“You can guess why I’m here, Jack.” He saw the man’s bald pate shine in the shaft of light as he nodded like a conspirator.

“In ‘is room, Sir Richard. They’m comin’ fer ‘im day arter t’morrer, so they says, but they might come earlier.”

“I must see him. Nobody should know about it.”

Thornborough led him through the door and bolted it. He beamed at the plain black hat and unmarked cloak which Bolitho had donned for the occasion. “Yew’m more like a gentleman of the road, beggin’ yer pardon, than any flag officer!”

He felt his stomach contract and realised that, like Allday, he had not eaten since first light.

“See to my people, will you, Jack?”

Thornborough touched his forehead, just for an instant a sailor once again.

“Leave it to me, Sir Richard!” He became serious. “Up them stairs right to the top. You’ll not meet a soul, nor will anyone see you.”

A very private room then. For highwaymen perhaps, or lovers unaccepted by society. Or a man he had known for over twentyfive years, who was facing disgrace or death.

He was surprised to find that he was not even breathless when he reached the top of the creaking stairs. So many walks with Catherine, along the cliffs at Falmouth or through the fields where she had described what she and Ferguson had planned for the estate. She had, moreover, won the respect of Lewis Roxby, who had always had an eye on the Bolitho land, and had acquired some in the selling-off of property to settle Bolitho’s brother’s debts. Roxby was after all married to Bolitho’s favourite sister Nancy. It was good that she and Catherine were friends. Unlike Felicity, who seemed so full of hate.

He rapped on the dark, stained door: years of smoke from the inn’s many grates, from encounters in the night with those who did not wish to be seen. But Jack Thornborough would not let him down. He had been serving in the same frigate as Bolitho’s dead brother Hugh, and despite Hugh’s treachery had always spoken kindly of him. As others had often remarked, the navy was like a family; sooner or later you met the same ships, the same faces. Even the ones who fell were not forgotten. Bolitho rapped again and for a moment imagined that the room was empty, the journey wasted.

A voice said, “Go away.”

Bolitho let out a sigh. It was Herrick.

“Thomas, it’s me. Richard.”

There was another long pause and then the door opened very slightly. Herrick stood back and waited for Bolitho to enter. The small, poorly-lit room was littered with clothing, an open sea-chest, and incongruously on a table amongst some letters lay Herrick’s beautiful telescope, Dulcie’s last gift to him.

Herrick dragged a coat from a chair and stared at him. He was stooped, and in the candlelight his hair seemed greyer than before. But his eyes were bright enough, and there was only ginger beer on another table, no sight or smell of brandy.

“What are you doing here, Richard? I told that fool Godschale not to drag you into it … I acted as I thought best. They can all go to hell before I’d say otherwise!” He walked over to get another chair and Bolitho was further saddened to see that he still limped from his wound. He had been cut down by a jagged splinter on Benbow’s quarterdeck, with his marines and gun crews strewn about him like bloodied bundles of rag.

“You’ll need help, Thomas. Someone must speak for you. You know who the President is to be?”

Herrick gave a tight smile. “I heard. Killed more of his own men than the enemy, I shouldn’t wonder!”

Wheels scraped over the cobbles and harness jingled in the inn yard at another arrival. It seemed as if it came from another world; but suppose it was the Admiralty Marshal? There was only one stairway, and not even the impressive Jack Thornborough could hold him off forever.

Herrick said suddenly, “Anyway, you’ll be called as a witness.” He spoke with savage bitterness. “To describe what you found after the battle. As a witness you’d not be allowed to defend me, even if I wanted it.” He paused. “I just thank God my Dulcie is not here to see this happening.” He stared at the shining telescope. “I even thought of ending it all, and damn them and their sense of honour.”

“Don’t talk like that, Thomas. It’s not like you.”

“Isn’t it? I don’t come from a long line of sea officers like you.” It was almost an accusation. “I started with nothing; my family was poor, and with some help from you I gained the impossible—flag rank. And where has it got me, eh? I’ll tell you: probably in front of a firing-squad, as an example to the others. At least it won’t be my own marines—they all bloody well died.” He waved a hand vaguely, like a man in a dream. “Out there somewhere. And they did it for me—it was my decision.”