'Man the braces!'
Herrick was hanging over the rail, his trumpet moving from side to side like a coachman's blunderbuss.
'Lively there! Mr. Shellabeer, get those damned idlers aft on the double, I say!'
Shellabeer was the boatswain, a swarthy, taciturn man who looked more like a Spaniard than a Devonian.
Bolitho leaned back, his hands on his hips, watching the swift figures dashing out on the vibrating yards like monkeys. It made him feel sick to watch their indifference to such heights.
First one, then the next great topsail billowed and banged loosely in confusion, while the seamen on the yards clung on, calling to each other, or jeering at their opposite numbers on the other masts.
'Anchor's aweigh, sir!'
Like a thing released from chains the frigate swung dizzily across the steep troughs, men falling and slithering at the braces as they fought to haul the great yards round, to cup the wind and master it.
'Lee braces there! Heave away!' Herrick was hoarse.
Bolitho gritted his teeth and forced himself to remain quite still as she plunged further and further astride the wind. Here and there a bosun's mate struck out with his rope starter or pushed a man bodily to brace or halliard.
Then with a booming roar like thunder the sails filled and hardened to the wind's steady thrust, the deck canting over and holding steady as the helmsmen threw themselves on their spokes. -
He made himself take a glass from Midshipman Keen and trained it across the starboard quarter, keeping his face impassive, even though he was almost shaking with excitement and relief.
The sail drill was very bad, the placing of trained men too sketchy for comfort, but they were away! Free of the land.
He saw a few people on the Point watching them heel over on the larboard tack, the top of a shining carriage just below the wall. Perhaps it was Armitage's mother, weeping as she watched her offspring being taken from her.
The master shouted gruffly, 'Sou'-west by west, sir! Full an' bye!'
When Bolitho turned to answer him he saw that the master was nodding with something like approval.
'Thank you, Mr. Mudge. We will get the courses on her directly.'
He walked forward to join Herrick at the rail, his body angled steeply to the deck. Some of the confusion was being cleared, with men picking their way amidst loose coils of rope like survivors from a battle.
Herrick looked at him sadly. 'It was terrible, sir.'
'I agree, Mr. Herrick.' He could not restrain a smile. 'But it will improve, eh?'
By late afternoon Undine had beaten clear of the Isle of Wight and was standing well out in the Channel.
By evening only her reefed topsails were visible, and soon even they had disappeared.
3. A Mixed Gathering
On the morning of the fourteenth day after weighing anchor at Spithead Bolitho was in his cabin sipping a mug of coffee and pondering for the countless time on what he had achieved.
The previous evening they had sighted the dull hump of Teneriffe sprawled like a cloud across the horizon, and he had decided to heave-to and avoid the hazards of a night approach. Fourteen days. It felt an eternity. They had been plagued by foul weather for much of that time. Flicking over the pages of his personal log he could see the countless, frustrating entries. Headwinds, occasional but fierce gales, and the constant need to shorten sail, to reef down and ride it out as best they could. The dreaded Bay of Biscay had been kind to them, that at least was a mercy. Otherwise, with almost half the ship's company too seasick to venture aloft, or too terrified to scramble out along the dizzily pitching yards without physical violence being used on them, it was likely Undine might have reached no further.
Bolitho appreciated what it must be like for many of his men. Shrieking winds, overcrowded conditions in a creaking, rolling hull where their food, if they could face it, often ended up in a mess of bilge water and vomit. It produced a kind of numbness, like that given to a man left abandoned in the sea. For a while he strikes out bravely, swimming he knows not where, until he is too exhausted, too dazed to care. He is without authority or any sort of guidance. It is his turning point.
Bolitho recognised all the signs well enough, and knew it was the same sort of challenge for him. Give in to his own underStanding and sympathy, listen too much to excuses from his hard-worked lieutenants and warrant officers, and he would never regain control, or be able to rally his company when the real pressure came.
He knew that many cursed him behind his back, prayed for him to fall dead or vanish overboard in the night. He saw their glances, sensed their resentment as he pushed them through each day, each hour of every one of those days. Sail drill, and more drill against Herrick's watch, while he himself made sure all engaged knew he was following their efforts. He made the men on Undine's three masts race each other in their struggle to shorten or make more sail, until finally he drove them even harder to work not in competition but as a gasping, silently cursing team.
Now, as he sat with the mug in his hands he found some grudging satisfaction in what they had done. What they had achieved together, willingly or otherwise. When Undine dropped her anchor in the roads of Santa Cruz today, the watching Spaniards would see a semblance of order and discipline, of efficiency which they had come to know and fear in times of war.
But if he had driven his company to the limit he had not spared himself either. And he was feeling it, despite the inviting rays of early sunshine which made reflections dance across the low deckhead. Barely a watch had passed without his going on deck to lend his presence. Lieutenant Davy had little experience of handling a ship in foul weather, but would learn, given time. Soames was too prone to lose patience when faced with a disaster on deck. He would knock some luckless seaman aside and leap into his place yelling, 'You're useless! I'd rather do it myself!' Only Herrick rode out the storm of Bolitho's persistent demands, and Bolitho felt sorry that his friend had been made to carry the brunt of the work. It was too easy to punish men, when in fact it was an officer's fault for losing his own head, or not being able to find the right words in the teeth of a raging gale. Herrick stood firmly between wardroom and lower deck, and twixt captain and company.
There had even been two floggings, something which he had hoped to avoid. Each case had been within the private world of the lower deck. The first a simple one of stealing from another sailor's small hoard of money. The second, far more serious, had been a savage knife-fight which had ended in a man having his face opened from ear to jaw. It was still not certain if he would live.
A real grudge fight, a momentary spark of anger caused by fatigue and constant work, he did not really know. In a welltrained ship of war it was likely he would never have heard about either case. The justice of the lower deck was far more drastic and instant when their own world was threatened by a thief or one too fond of his knife.
Bolitho despised captains who used authority without consideration for the misery it might entail, who meted out savage punishment without getting to the root of the trouble and thereby avoiding it. Herrick knew how he felt. When Bolitho had first met him he had been the junior lieutenant in his ship. A ship where the previous captain had been so severe, so unthinkingly brutal with his punishments that the seeds of mutiny had been well and truly laid.
Herrick knew better than most about such things, and yet he had intervened personally to persuade Bolitho to avoid the floggings. It was their first real disagreement, and Bolitho had hated to see the sudden hurt in Herrick's eyes.
Bolitho had said, 'This is a new company. It takes time to weld people together so that each can rely on his companion under all circumstances. Many are entirely ignorant of the Navy's ways and its demands. They hate to see "others" getting away with crimes they themselves avoid. At this stage we cannot allow them to split into separate groups. Old hands and the new recruits, professional criminals and the weak ones who have no protection but to ally themselves with some other faction.'