Command a King`s Ship

Bolitho sat down and tugged at his open shirt. It was a beginning.

Allday peered into the cabin. 'Can I send your servant in now, Captain?' He darted a glance at the table. 'He'll be wanting to get your meal laid.'

Bolitho smiled. 'Very well.'

It was stupid to let small things prey on his mind. But with Mudge it was different. Important. He had probably sailed with more captains than Bolitho had met in his whole life.

They both looked round as Midshipman Keen stood in the doorway. Already he was well tanned, and looked as healthy and fresh as a veteran sailor.

'Mr. Herrick's respects, sir. Masthead has just reported sighting another vessel ahead of the Spaniard. On a converging tack. Small. Maybe a brig.'

'I will come up.' Bolitho smiled. 'The voyage appears to agree with you, Mr. Keen.'

The youth grinned. 'Aye, sir. Though I fear my father sent me away for other reasons but my health.'

As he hurried away Allday murmured, 'Young devil, that one! Got some poor girl into trouble, I'll wager!'

Bolitho kept his face impassive. 'Not like you, of course, Allday.'

He strode out past the sentry and climbed quickly to the quarterdeck. Even though he was expecting it, the heat came down on him like the mouth of an open furnace. He felt the deck seams sticking to his shoes, the searing touch on his face and neck as he crossed to the weather side and looked along his command.

With her pale, lightweight canvas bent on, and her deck tilting to the wind, Undine was moving well. Spray leapt up and round the jib boom at irregular intervals, and far above his head he saw the pendant streaming abeam like a thin whip.

Mudge and Herrick were muttering together, their sextants gleaming in the sunlight like gold, while two midshipmen, Armitage and Penn, compared notes, their faces screwed in worried concentration.

Soames was by the quarterdeck rail and turned as Bolitho asked, 'About this newcomer. What is she, do you reckon?'

Soames looked crushed with the heat, his hair matted to his forehead, as if he had been swimming.

'Some trader, I expect, sir.' He did not sound as if he cared. 'Maybe she intends to ask the Spaniard for her position.' He scowled. 'Not that they'll know much!'

Bolitho took a glass from the rack and climbed into the mizzen shrouds. Moving it gradually he soon found the Nervion, far ahead on the larboard bow, a picture of beauty under her great spread of canvas, her hull gleaming in the sun like metal. He trained the glass further to starboard and then held it steady on the other vessel. Almost hidden in heat haze, but he could see the tan-coloured sails well enough, the uneven outline of her rig. Square on the fore, fore-and-aft on the mainmast. He felt vaguely angry.

'A brigantine, Mr. Soames.'

'Aye, sir.'

Bolitho looked at him and then climbed back to the deck. 'In future, I want a full report of each sighting, no matter how trivial it might appear at the time.'

Soames tightened his jaw. 'Sir.'

Herrick called, 'It was my fault, sir. I should have told Mr. Keen to pass a full description to you.'

Bolitho walked aft. 'Mr. Soames has the watch, I believe.'

Herrick followed him. 'Well, yes, sir.'

Bolitho saw the two helmsmen stiffen as he moved to the compass. The card was steady enough. South by west, and with plenty of sea room. The African coast lay somewhere across the larboard beam, over thirty leagues distant. There was nothing on their ocean but the three ships. Coincidence? A need to make contact perhaps?

Soames's indifference pricked at his mind like a burr and lie snapped, 'Make certain our watchkeepers know what they are about, Mr. Herrick.' He saw Keen leaning against the nettings. 'Send him aloft with a glass. An untried eye might tell us more.'

Mudge ambled towards him and said gruffly, 'Near as makes no difference, sir. Cape Blanco should be abeam now.' He rubbed his chin. 'The most westerly point o' that savage continent. An' quite close enough, if you ask me!'

His chest went up and down to a small wheezing accompaniment. It was as near as he ever got to laughing.

Keen's voice came down from the masthead. 'Deck there! Brigantine is still closing the Nervionl'

Herrick cupped his hands. 'Does she show any colours?'

'None, sir!'

Herrick clambered into the shrouds with his own telescope. After a while he called, 'The Dons don't seem worried, sir.'

Mudge growled. "Artily likely to be bothered about that little pot o' paint, is they?'

Bolitho said, 'Bring her up a point, Mr. Mudge. It would be best if we regain company with our companion.'

He turned as a voice asked, 'Are you troubled, Captain?'

Mrs. Raymond was standing by the trunk of the mizzen mast, her face shadowed by a great straw hat which she had brought from Teneriffe.

He shook his head. 'Merely curious, ma'am.' In his crumpled shirt and breeches he felt suddenly clumsy. 'I'm sorry there is not more to amuse you during the day.'

She smiled. 'Things may yet improve.'

'Deck there!' Keen's voice made them all look up. 'The other vessel is going about, sir!'

Herrick called, 'He's right. The brigantine's going to cross clean over the Don's bows!' He turned, grinning broadly. 'That'll make 'em hop about!'

The grin vanished as a dull bang echoed and re-echoed over the water.

Keen yelled, 'She's fired on the Nervion!' A second bang reached the quarterdeck and he cried again, 'And another!' He was almost screaming with excitement. 'He's put a ball through her forecourse!'

Bolitho ran to the shrouds and joined Herrick. 'Let me see.'

He took the big glass and trained it on the two ships. The brigantine's shape had shortened, and she was presenting her stern to him even as she idled across the frigate's broader outline. Even at such a distance it was possible to see the confusion aboard the Spanish frigate, the glint of sunlight on weapons as her company ran to quarters.

Herrick said hoarsely, 'That brigantine's master must be mad. No one but a crazy man would cross swords with a frigate!'

Bolitho did not reply. He was straining his eye to watch the little drama framed in his lens. The brigantine had fired two shots, one of which, if not both, had scored a mark. Now she was tacking jauntily away, and it was evident, as the _Nervion began to spread more sail, that Capitan Triarte intended to give chase.

He said, 'Nervion'll be up to her within the hour. They're both changing tack now.'

'Perhaps that fool imagined Nervion was a fat merchantman, eh?' Davy had arrived on deck. 'But no, it is not possible.'

Herrick followed Bolitho down from the shrouds and watched him dubiously.

'Shall we join in the chase, sir?'

Mudge almost pushed him aside as he barked, 'Chase be damned, I say!'

They looked at him.

'We must stop that mad Don, sir'!' He waved his big hand across the nettings. 'Off Cape Blanco, sir, there's a powerful great reef, an' it runs near on a 'undred miles to seaward. Nervion's in risk now, but if 'er master brings 'er up another point he'll be across that damned reef afore 'e knows it!'

Bolitho stared at him. 'Get the royals on her, Mr. Herrick! Lively now!' He walked quickly to the helm. 'We must make more speed.'

Soames called, 'The Don's come up another point by the look of her, sir!'

Mudge was already squinting at the compass bowl. 'Jesus! 'E's steerin' sou'sou'-east!' He looked at Bolitho imploringly. 'We'll never catch 'im in time!'

Bolitho paced to the quarterdeck rail and back again. Weariness, the scorching heat, all was forgotten but that distant pyramid of white sails, with the smaller, will-o'-the-wisp brigantine dancing ahead. Mad? A confused pirate? It made no difference now.

He snapped, 'Clear away a bow chaser, Mr. Herrick. We will endeavour to distract the Nervion'

Herrick was peering aloft, shading his eyes with his speaking trumpet as the topmen set the additional sails.