Command a King's Ship (3 page)

“He'll have no cause to fault
me,
Mr. Herrick.” He walked away, his voice lacking conviction as he added, “You can be certain of that.”

Lieutenant Soames came aft, touching his hat and scowling at the deck as he reported, “Five hands, sir. I've been on the road all day, I'm fair hoarse from calling the tune of those handbills.”

Herrick nodded. He could sympathise. He had done it often enough himself. Five hands. They still needed thirty. Even then it would not allow for death and injury to be expected on any long voyage.

Soames asked thickly, “Any more news?”

“None. Just that we are to sail for Madras. But I think it will be soon now.”

Soames said, “Good riddance to the land, I say. Streets full of drunken men, prime hands we could well do with.” He hesitated. “With your permission I might take a boat away tonight and catch a few as they reel from their damn ale houses, eh?”

They turned as a shriek of laughter echoed up from the gun deck, and a woman, her breasts bare to the rain, ran from beneath the larboard gangway. She was pursued by two seamen, both obvi- ously the worse for drink, who left little to the imagination as to their intentions.

Herrick barked, “Tell that slut to get below! Or I'll have her thrown over the side!” He saw the astonished midshipman watching the spectacle with wide-eyed wonder and added harshly, “Mr. Penn!
Jump to it,
I say!”

Soames showed a rare grin. “Offend your feelings, Mr. Herrick?”

Herrick shrugged. “I know it is supposed to be the proper thing to allow our people women and drink in harbour.” He thought of his sister. Anchored in that damned chair. What he would give to see her running free like that Portsmouth trollop. “But it never fails to sicken me.”

Soames sighed. “Half the bastards would desert otherwise, signed on or not. The romance of Madras soon wears off when the rum goes short.”

Herrick said, “What you asked earlier. I cannot agree. It would be a bad beginning. Men taken in such a way would harbour plenty of grievances. One rotten apple can sour a full barrel.”

Soames eyes him calmly. “It seems to me that this ship is al- most
full
of bad apples. The volunteers are probably on the run from debt, or the hangman himself. Some are aboard just to see what they can lay their fingers on when we are many miles from proper authority.”

Herrick replied, “Captain Bolitho will have sufficient author- ity, Mr. Soames.”

“I forgot. You were in the same ship. There was a mutiny.”

It sounded like an accusation.

“Not of his making.” He turned on him angrily. “Be so good as to have the new men fed and issued with slop clothing.”

He waited, watching the resentment in the big man's eyes.

He added, “Another of our captain's requirements. I suggest you acquaint yourself with his demands. Life will be easier for you.”

Soames strode away and Herrick relaxed. He must not let him get into his skin so easily. But any criticism, or even hint of it, al- ways affected him. To Herrick, Bolitho represented all the things he would like to be. The fact he also knew some of his secret faults as well made him doubly sure of his loyalty. He shook his head. It was stronger even than that.

He peered over the nettings towards the shore, seeing the walls of the harbour battery glinting like lead in the rain. Beyond Ports- mouth Point the land was almost hidden in murk. It would be good to get away. His pay would mount up and go towards helping out at home. With his share of prize money, which he gained un- der Bolitho in the West Indies he had been able to buy several small luxuries to make their lot easier until his next return. And when might that be? Two years? It was better never to contemplate such matters.

He saw a ship's boy duck into the rain to turn the hour-glass beside the deserted wheel, and waited for him to chime the hour on the bell. Time to send the working part of the watch below. He grimaced. The wardroom might be little better. Soames under a cloud of inner thought. Davy probing his guard with some new, smart jest or other. Giles Bellairs, the captain of marines, well on the way to intoxication by this time, knowing his hefty sergeant could deal with the affairs of his small detachment. Triphook prob- ably brooding over the issue of clothing to the new men. Typical of the purser. He could face the prospect of a great sea voyage, with each league measured in salt pork and beef, iron-hard biscuit, juice to prevent scurvy, beer and spirits to supplement fresh water which would soon be alive in its casks, and all the thousand other items under his control, with equanimity. But one small issue of clothing, while they still wore what they had come aboard in, was too much for his sense of values. He would learn. He grinned into the cold wind. They all would, once Bolitho brought the ship alive.

More shouts from alongside, and Penn, the midshipman, called anxiously, “Beg pardon, sir, but I fear the surgeon is in dif- ficulties.”

Herrick frowned. The surgeon's name was Charles Whit- marsh. A man of culture, but one with something troubling him. Most ship's surgeons, in Herrick's experience, had been butchers. Nobody else would go to sea and face the horrors of mangled men screaming and dying after a savage battle with the enemy. In peacetime he had expected it might be different.

Whitmarsh was a drunkard. As Herrick peered down at the jolly boat as it bobbed and curtsied at the chains, he saw a boatswain's mate and two seamen struggling to fit the surgeon into a bowline to assist his passage up the side. He was a big man, al- most as large as Soames, and in the grey light his features shone with all the brightness of a marine's coat.

Herrick snapped, “Have a cargo net lowered, Mr. Penn. It is not dignified, but neither is this, by God!”

Whitmarsh landed eventually on the gun deck, his hair awry, his face set in a great beaming smile. One of his assistants and two marines lifted him bodily and took him aft below the quarterdeck. He would sleep in his small sickbay for a few hours, and then begin again.

Penn asked nervously, “Is he unwell, sir?”

Herrick looked at the youth gravely. “A thought tipsy, lad, but well enough to remove a limb or two, I daresay.” He relented and touched his shoulder. “Go below. Your relief will be up soon.”

He watched him hurry away and grinned. It was hard to recall that he had been like Penn. Unsure, frightened, with each hour presenting some new sight and sound to break his boy's illusions.

A marine yelled, “Guardboat shovin' off from the sallyport, sir!”

Herrick nodded. “Very well.”

That would mean orders for the
Undine.
He let his gaze move forward between the tall, spiralling masts with their taut maze of shrouds and rigging, the neatly furled canvas and to the bowsprit, below which
Undine
's beautiful, full-breasted figurehead of a water- nymph stared impassively to every horizon. It also meant that Bolitho would be returning.
Today.

And for Thomas Herrick that was more than enough.

2
FREE OF THE
L
AND

C
APTAIN
Richard Bolitho stood in the shelter of the stone wall beside the sallyport and peered through the chilling drizzle. It was afternoon, but with the sky so overcast by low cloud it could have been much later.

He was tired and stiff from the long coach ride, and the jour- ney had been made especially irritating by his two jovial companions. Businessmen from the City of London, they had become more loud-voiced after each stop for change of horses and refreshment at the many inns down the Portsmouth road. They were off to France in a packet ship, to contact new agencies there, and so, with luck, expand their trade. To Bolitho if was still hard to accept, just a year back the Channel had been the only barrier between this country and their common enemy. The moat. The last ditch, as some news-sheet had described it. Now it seemed as if it was all forgotten by such men as his travelling companions. It had become merely an irritating delay which made their journey just so much longer.

He shrugged his shoulders deeper inside his boat-cloak, sud- denly impatient for the last moments to pass, so that he could get back to the ship. The cloak was new, from a good London tailor. Rear Admiral Winslade's friend had taken him there, and man- aged to do so without making Bolitho feel the complete ignoramus. He smiled to himself despite his other uncertainties. He would never get used to London. Too large, too busy, where nobody had time to draw breath. And noisy. No wonder the rich houses around St. James's Square had sent servants out every few hours to spread fresh straw on the roadway. The grinding roar of carriage wheels was enough to wake the dead. It had been a beautiful house, his hosts charming, if slightly amused by his ques- tions. Even now, he was still unsure of their strange ways. It was not just enough to live in that fine, fashionable residence, with its splendid spiral staircase and huge chandeliers. To be
right,
you had to live on the best side of the square, the east side. Winslade's friends lived there. Bolitho smiled again. They would.

Bolitho had met several very influential people, and his hosts had given two dinner parties with that in mind. He knew well enough from past experience that without their help it would have been impossible. Aboard ship a captain was next only to God. In London society he hardly registered at all.

But that was behind him now. He was back. His orders would be waiting, and only the actual time of weighing anchor was left to conjecture.

He peered round the wall once more, feeling the wind on his face like a whip. The signal tower had informed
Undine
of his ar- rival, and very soon now a boat would arrive at the wooden pier below the wall. He wondered how his coxswain, Allday, was man- aging. His first ship as captain's coxswain, but Bolitho understood him well enough to know there was little to fear on his behalf. It would be good to see him, too. Something familiar. A face to hold on to.

He glanced up the narrow street to where some servants from the George Inn, where the coach had finally come to rest, were guarding his pile of luggage. He thought of the personal purchases he had made. Maybe London had got some hold on him after all.

When Bolitho had got his first command of the sloop
Sparrow
during the American Revolution, he had had little time to ac- quaint himself with luxuries. But in London, with the remains of his prize money, he had made up for it. New shirts, and some com- fortable shoes. This great boat-cloak, which the tailor had assured him would keep out even the heaviest downpour. It had been partly Winslade's doing, he was certain of that. His host had casu- ally mentioned that Bolitho's mission in
Undine
required not merely a competent captain, but one who would look the part, no matter what sort of government official he might meet. There was, he had added gently, a matter of wine.

Together they had gone to a low-beamed shop in St. James's Street. It was not a bit what Bolitho might have imagined. It had the sign of a coffee mill outside its door, and the owners' names, Pickering and Clarke, painted in gold leaf above. It was a friendly place, even intimate. It could almost have been Falmouth.

It was to be hoped the wine had already arrived aboard
Undine.
Otherwise, it was likely he would have to sail without it, and leave a large hole in his purse as well.

It would be a strange and exciting sensation to sit in his cabin, hundreds of miles from England, and sample some of that beautiful madeira. It would bring back all those pictures of Lon- don again. The buildings, the clever talk, the way women looked at you. Once or twice he had felt uneasy about that. It had re- minded him bitterly of New York during the war. The boldness in their faces. The confident arrogance which had seemed like second nature to them.

An idler called, “Yer boat's a-comin', Cap'n!” He touched his hat. “I'll give 'ee a 'and!” He hurried away to call the inn servants, his mind dwelling on what he might expect from a frigate's captain.

Bolitho stepped out into the wind, his hat jammed well down over his forehead. It was the
Undine
's launch, her largest boat, the oars rising and falling like gulls' wings as she headed straight for the pier. It must be a hard pull, he thought. Otherwise Allday would have brought the gig.

He found he was trembling, and it was all he could do to pre- vent a grin from splitting his face in two. The dark green launch, the oarsmen in their checked shirts and white trousers, it was all there. Like a homecoming.

The oars rose in the air and stood like twin lines of swaying white bones, while the bowman made fast to the jetty and aided a smart midshipman to step ashore.

The latter removed his hat with a flourish and said, “At your service, sir.”

It was Midshipman Valentine Keen, a very elegant young man who was being appointed to the
Undine
more to get him away from England than to further his naval advancement, Bolitho sus- pected. He was the senior midshipman, and if he survived the round voyage would probably return as a lieutenant. At any rate, as a man.

“My boxes are yonder, Mr. Keen.”

He saw Allday standing motionless in the sternsheets, his blue coat and white trousers flapping in the wind, his tanned features barely able to remain impassive.

Theirs was a strange relationship. Allday had come aboard Bolitho's last ship as a pressed man. Yet when the ship had paid off at the end of the war Allday had stayed with him at Falmouth. Servant; guardian. Trusted friend. Now as his coxswain he would be ever nearby. Sometimes an only contact with that other, remote world beyond the cabin bulkhead.

Allday had been a seaman all his life, but for a period when he had been a shepherd in Cornwall, where Bolitho's pressgang had found him. An odd beginning. Bolitho thought of his previous coxswain, Mark Stockdale. A battered ex-prizefighter who could hardly speak because of his maimed vocal cords. He had died pro- tecting Bolitho's back at the Saintes. Poor Stockdale. Bolitho had not even seen him fall.

Allday clambered ashore.

“Everything's ready, Captain. A good meal in the cabin.” He snarled at one of the seamen, “Grab that chest, you oaf, or I'll have your liver!”

The seaman nodded and grinned.

Bolitho was satisfied. Allday's strange charm seemed to be working already. He could curse and fight like a madman if re- quired. But Bolitho had seen him caring for wounded men and knew his other side. It was no wonder that the girls in farms and villages around Falmouth would miss him. Better though for Allday, Bolitho decided. There had been rumours enough lately about his conquests.

Then at last it was all done. The boat loaded, the idler and servants paid. The oars sending the long launch purposefully through the tossing water.

Bolitho sat in silence, huddled in his cloak, his eyes on the distant frigate. She was beautiful. In some ways more so than
Phalarope
, if that were possible. Only four years old, she had been built in a yard at Frindsbury on the River Medway. Not far from Herrick's home. One hundred and thirty feet long on her gun deck, and built of good English oak, she was the picture of a shipbuilder's art. No wonder the Admiralty had been loath to lay her up in ordinary like so many of her consorts at the end of the war. She had cost nearly fourteen thousand pounds, as Bolitho had been told more than once. Not that he needed to be reminded. He was lucky to get her.

There was a brief break in the scudding clouds, and the watery light played down along
Undine
's gun ports to her clean sheathing as she rolled uneasily in the swell. Best Anglesey copper. Stout enough for anything. Bolitho recalled what her previous captain, Stewart, had confided. In a fierce skirmish off Ushant he had been raked by heavy guns from a French seventy-four.
Undine
had taken four balls right on her waterline. She had been fortunate to reach England afloat. Frigates were meant for speed and hit-and-run fighting, not for matching metal with a line-of-battle ship. Bolitho knew from his own grim experience what that could do to so graceful a hull.

Stewart had added that despite careful supervision he was still unsure as to the perfection of the repairs. With the copper re- placed, it took more than internal inspection to discover the true value of a dockyard's overhaul. Copper protected the hull from many sorts of weed and clinging growth which could slow a ship to a painful crawl. But behind it could lurk every captain's real enemy, rot. Rot which could change a perfect hull into a ripe, treacherous trap for the unwary. Admiral Kempenfelt's own flagship, the
Royal George,
had heeled over and sunk right here in Portsmouth just two years ago, with the loss of hundreds of lives. It was said that her bottom had fallen clean away with rot. If it could happen to a lofty first-rate at anchor, it would do worse to a frigate.

Bolitho came out of his thoughts as he heard the shrill of boatswain's calls above the wind, the stamp of feet as the marines prepared to receive him. He stared up at the towering masts, the movement of figures around the entry port and above in the shrouds. They had had a month to get used to seeing him about the ship, except for the unknown quantity, the newly recruited part of the company. They might be wondering about him now. What he was like. Too harsh, or too easy-going. To them, once the an- chor was catted, he was everything, good or bad, skilful or incompetent. There was no other ear to listen to their complaints, no other voice to reward or punish.

“Easy all!” Allday stood half poised, the tiller bar in his fist. “Toss your oars!”

The boat thrust forward and the bowman hooked on to the main chains at the first attempt. Bolitho guessed that Allday had been busy during his stay in London.

He stood up and waited for the right moment, knowing Allday was watching like a cat in case he should slip between launch and ship, or worse, tumble backwards in a welter of flailing arms and legs. Bolitho had seen it happen, and recalled his own cruel amuse- ment at the spectacle of his new captain arriving aboard in a dripping heap.

Then, with the spray barely finding time to catch his legs, he was up and on board, his ears ringing to the shrill of calls and to the slap of marines' muskets while they presented arms. He doffed his hat to the quarterdeck, and nodded to Herrick and the others.

“Good to be back, Mr. Herrick.” His tone was curt.

“Welcome aboard, sir.” Herrick was equally so. But their eyes shone with something more than routine formality. Something which none of the others saw, or shared.

Bolitho removed his cloak and handed it to Midshipman Penn. He turned to allow the fading light to play across the broad white lapels of his dress coat. They would all know he was here. He saw the few hands working aloft on last minute splicing, others crowded on gangways and down on the main deck between the twin lines of black twelve-pounder guns.

He smiled, amused at his own gesture. “I will go below now.”

“I have placed the orders in your cabin, sir.”

Herrick was bursting with questions. It was obvious from his flat, formal voice. But his eyes, those eyes which were so blue, and which could look so hurt, made a lie of his rigidity.

“Very well, I will call you directly.”

He made to walk aft to the cabin hatchway when he saw some figures gathered just below the quarterdeck rail. In mixed gar- ments, they were in the process of being checked against a list by Lieutenant Davy.

He called, “New hands, Mr. Davy?”

Herrick said quietly, “We are still thirty under strength, sir.”

“Aye, sir.” Davy squinted up through the light drizzle, his handsome face set in a confident smile. “I am about to get them to make their marks.”

Bolitho crossed to the ladder and ran down to the gun deck. God, how wretched they all looked. Half-starved, ragged, beaten. Even the demanding life aboard ship could surely be no worse than what had made them thus.

He watched Davy's neat, elegant hands as he arranged the book on top of a twelve-pounder's breech.

“Come along now, make your marks.”

They shuffled forward, self-conscious, awkward, and very aware that their new captain was nearby.