He stiffened as he saw a vessel moving, seemingly at a snail's pace, towards the roadstead. A pyramid of pale canvas, each sail expertly braced to catch the air in this windless harbour.
Going to England. Ile could think about that without regret, without questioning his motives.
More to the point, she was carrying the recently appointed government agent who had been sent to Freetown to investigate and assess the navy's antislavery activities. The climate had got to him almost immediately, and drink had done the rest; he would not live very long after the ship landed him in England.
He glanced around his cabin. Spartan, some would call it, with little to hint at the character and the courage of Kestrel's captain.
The government agent had come aboard soon after his arrival. Tyacke could see him now. Concerned, sincere, probably genuinely interested in what he had been sent to discover. To pass back to some desk in London. At least their lordships of Admiralty, no matter what you thought of them, were usually content to leave it to the flag officer or captain in charge of the station in question. Not so with the civilian authority, the Foreign Office.
Even trying to describe the area which was required to be under constant surveillance had been like talking to a block of wood. Just a handful of men-of-war like Kestrel, but relying for the most part on smaller vessels, brigs and schooners. The area extended from twelve degrees north of the Equator to some fifteen degrees south. Even using a chart, he had been unable to make the agent understand, so he had described the navy's patrol as being akin to sailing from the northern tip of Scotland down and through the Dover Strait and back up and around to the Clyde. He had made some impression, but he doubted if it would make much sense when it reached that desk in London.
A needle in a haystack. Perhaps that was what appealed to him.
He heard footsteps, firm and assured: John Raven, his secondin-command. Old for his rank, he had come up the hard way, from the lower deck. If they were good, there were none better. And John Raven was good.
They had grown to respect one another more as individuals, men, rather than through the necessary division of ranks. If it was personal, it went no further than this cabin. Unlike some ships, where a captain's habits and weaknesses would become common gossip in the wardroom and throughout the command. Raven had been married, but was no longer. He had served in brigs also, and was at ease in the cramped familiarity of smaller craft.
And doubtless he knew his captain, how his face had been burned away at the Nile, how he had lost his girl because of it. And had found her again.
He turned towards the door as the sentry called, "First lieutenant, sir. III
Then I left her, for this.
He smiled. "News, John?"
Raven was strongly built, with a still young face, at odds with hair which was completely grey.
"The guardboat has just come alongside, sir. Seven Sisters is returning from patrol. They report the frigate Unrivalled making her final approach." He hesitated, watching his captain's blue eyes. It had been impossible at first not to stare at the terrible disfigurement, but he had noticed almost from the beginning of the commission that Tyacke seemed able to accept it. Carry it.
The eyes were considering now. Seven Sisters was one of their brigs, but it was not that.
"Unrivalled, sir. Forty-six guns." He paused, but saw Tyacke's expression soften.
"Yes, I know her. She's commanded by Captain Adam Bolitho."
He turned away to watch the guardboat pulling strongly around the larboard quarter. They all said the navy was a family. Love it, hate it, damn it or die for it, it was still a family.
Like that last time in England, when Kestrel had called at Falmouth. He had intended to call upon Catherine Somervell. He did not notice that he was touching his face again, nor that Raven was observing him, perhaps discovering something; he was thinking of the day when she had boarded his ship, and had kissed him, on this burned skin, in front of the whole company. And they had loved her for it. As 1 did.
He was still not sure if he had been relieved that she had been away, in London, they had said. That neither of them would have been able to surmount it. The one thing which drew them together now forced them apart. The Happy Few.
Now, another memory.
But John Aliday, Sir Richard's coxswain, his oak, had come aboard in Falmouth. Had sat in that very chair where John Raven was standing. Bolitho had died in his arms on that day Tyacke could never forget.
He spoke again, calmer now. "Sir Richard's nephew. A fine officer."
They both looked up at the open skylight as a call trilled, and hands were piped to some new task on the forecastle.
"I knew another frigate would be joining us." He smiled. "Perhaps it's time to stop running, eh?"
Half an hour before sunset, Unrivalled dropped anchor.
6. The Witness
DESPITE the heat, Unrivalled's chartroom seemed almost cool, compared with the quarterdeck above.
Adam Bolitho waited by the table while the sailing master wrote a few more notes in his log.
They had been on deck for the noon sights, but with the sun blazing down from almost directly above the mainmast truck it had been hard to concentrate. The same undulating green coastline, on and on, without any apparent change. Even the midshipmen with their sextants had been unusually subdued. Like sailing into nowhere.
He watched Cristie's strong brown hands, clumsy, most people would think. And yet his notes, like his carefully pencilled hearings and calculations, were fine, almost delicate. Adam sighed. It was as he had expected. They had logged some eight hundred miles since leaving Freetown, south-east, and then east again into the Gulf of Guinea. And it had taken them nearly nine days. Unrivalled had been designed to sail and fight in another sea, against the Americans with their powerful frigates, larger and better armed than most British ships. Unrivalled was fast under the right circumstances, and had more than proved her agility in close combat. But this… He clenched both fists and felt his shirt tug against his back like a wet rag. This snail's pace was a test of endurance.
He thought of his meeting with James Tyacke before receiving his orders to put to sea again. IIe stared at the chart, and wiped the sweat from his eyes to calm himself
lie had expected to meet Tyacke, but he knew Unrivalled's arrival had come as a surprise to the other captain, and he had recalled their reunion many times since they had quit Freetown. Warm but wary, some sentiment present which was stronger than perhaps he had realised.
Tyacke had done his best to explain the immediate problems of the antislavery patrols, and had even provided some notes on the subject and about some of the other vessels and commanders Adam might encounter along the way. Tyacke made no secret of his displeasure at being kept in harbour. The station's commodore, Arthur Turnbull, was at sea in one of the patrol schooners. It was his way, Tyacke said. Ile could not, apparently, accept the need to remain in Freetown, tied to a shore administration for which he was probably unsuited in any case.
Adam had known several captains like that. Promoted suddenly to commodore or flag rank, something totally unexpected in most cases, they had still yearned for the separate and personal authority of command. A ship.
So until Turnbull returned to Freetown, Tyacke was in charge.
He obviously hated the prospect.
There had been reports of several suspicious vessels in the area. A big ocean, but, as Tyacke had remarked, the landing points where slaves could be bargained for and then shipped out were known, even though some were almost inaccessible for anything bigger than a cutter.