He felt her fingers tighten on his arm. "Look, Val, there she. is!"
They waited in silence, watching the cruising patterns of whitecaps, hearing that same wind probe beneath the eaves of Boscawen House.
And there she stood, her topsails and courses almost pink in the fading light.
Adam was taking advantage of the wind to carry him clear of the headland before he set more canvas. Even from here the occasional feathers of spray were visible, bursting up and over her beakhead and jib sails. But Keen saw it all with great clarity, as if he were there. The lovely figurehead, the naked girl with her hands locked behind her head and mane of hair, her breasts thrusting toward the horizon.
He would have liked to have seen the anchor break from the ground and rise swiftly to her cathead. There would probably have been a fiddler, keeping time for the stamping feet, some inexperienced, on that slippery planking.
As we did together so many times, so many seas. The greatest moment, until the landfall.
Some out there would be feeling the first pangs of regret. It would be Christmas before they knew it…
He could feel her hand gripping his arm, and knew what she was thinking. That they were together, and with God's grace she would never have to watch his ship leaving like this. Never knowing when or if he would return. Like so many others. Like Richard and Catherine.
And now Adam, who was alone.
There were more voices. Intruders.
"I'll go down, Val. You stay a while longer."
He hugged her. She always knew. Just as she had taken over this great house as if she had been bred to it.
lie looked again. "No, Unrivalled's cleared the point. Adam will be eager to make more sail now."
They walked arm in arm to the door, past the great dark paintings of ships at war, smoke, flames and proud flags. But no pain, no blood. The vice-admiral, the youngest since Nelson, and his lovely wife, ready and prepared for another kind of duty.
But once, as the wind rattled a shutter, Keen did look back, although he knew that Unrivalled was now out of sight.
And he was with her.
2. The Finest In The Fleet
CAPTAIN Adam Bolitho loosened the collar of his heavy boatcloak and tugged his hat down more firmly on his dark hair as he paused at the street corner. To recover his bearings or to prepare himself, he was not certain which.
The wind off Mounts Bay was still like ice, but had dropped considerably since Unrivalled had made her final approach two days earlier, buffeted this way and that, her reefed canvas cracking and banging in protest. It had been a relief to hear the anchor splash down, and see the town of Penzance, bright and sharp in the wintry glare.
A relief, or a warning? He shook himself angrily. Ile would go through with it. lie could hear his coxswain breathing heavily, as if unused to the exercise and the steep ascent from the harbour. Curious or secretly amused, it was hard to tell with Luke Jago, the man who had always hated the navy in general, and officers in particular. And yet he was still here; after the fighting and the madness of battle, he had stayed. And he was a friend, a good one.
Adam turned as two young boys ran past, one carrying a crudely fashioned model boat, the other a pirate's flag, laughing and pushing each other, without a care in the world on this bitter forenoon with Christmas only a week away.
One paused, staring at the two blue-clad figures, hats tilted against the wind.
He called, "You want a good ship, Cap'n, zur?"
Jago shook his fist. "Little buggers!" And they both ran off.
Adam gazed after them, seeing himself. More ghosts…
Like this street, so strange and yet so familiar. He had almost expected to see faces, hear voices he knew. He should turn and leave right now. Galbraith was ashore with his recruiting parties, not an enviable task at the best of times. Everybody remembered the press gangs, men being snatched from the streets, even from their homes, if an officer was afraid to return to his captain emptyhanded.
Like Falmouth, Penzance lived off and from the sea: you could smell the fish, and on hot days the nets hanging out to dry. Hemp, tar, and always the sea. Waiting.
He had been only a boy like those who had just passed when he had left Penzance, clutching a scrap of paper which he was to give to the people he must find in Falmouth. He had never returned, except once, when he had ridden here on one of the Bolitho estate's horses, twenty miles from Falmouth and back again. As that young boy, the twenty miles had been endless and punishing. And two days ago, with the proud silhouette of St Michael's Mount across the starboard bow, he had returned once more. Not the nervous boy, but as the captain of a frigate.
He thought of the orders he had received almost as soon as Unrivalled's anchor had hurled spray over the beakhead. So why waste time? Why rouse the old doubts and painful memories?
He turned, and was about to speak when he saw the tall steeple, clear and sharp against the washed-out sky. St Mary's Chapel. Like feeling a hand on the shoulder… He remembered hearing the old men talk about that steeple, so fine and slender, so delicate on this storm-lashed coast of England. They used to wager on its chances when every new season of gales arrived. The old men were long dead. St Mary's Chapel and its steeple were still standing.
There were not many people about. It was market day, so most of those who ventured out would be hunting for bargains in Jew Market Street.
"This way." He glanced at the nearby houses, small details apparent, recalling what he had heard, and what his mother had told him in childhood. Ships had come to Penzance to load cargoes of copper, tin and granite. They had frequently come from Holland, and unloaded their ballast of Dutch sandstone before their return voyages. Nothing was wasted, and even now he saw the facings of houses built with Dutch sandstone and not the usual granite.
On his way from the harbour he had seen few of the notices Galbraith had posted. Some had been torn down, others removed perhaps as souvenirs. He had caught the glances too: this was a seaport, and every one would know of the powerful frigate lying at her cable. Looking for men. Had it ever been different? And they would know he was her captain.
He should have remembered that it was market day, a most unlikely time for a man to sign his life away in a King's ship. And an army recruiting party had been here also; he had seen a sergeant outside one of the local inns, persuading men who had already drunk too much ale for their own safety to make their marks, to be gone for a soldier.
Galbraith had found twenty new hands so far, almost half of them from the local magistrate's court. Better than prison or deportation, seemed to be their reasoning. Reality might come as something of a shock. He had heard Cristie the sailing master say scornfully, "Gallows bait, the whole lot of 'em!"
He stopped outside the church and looked up at the weather vane. South-easterly wind. Perfect for sailing. Leaving here.
Jago hesitated and then removed his hat as Adam stepped through the tall, weather-worn doors. "Shall I come, sir?"
Adam hardly heard him. "If you wish."
The church was empty but for two old women sharing a pew; they both wore the traditional cowls he remembered from his childhood. Young or old, women carried huge baskets of fish, supported by strengthened bands around their heads, to settlements around the town, or sold it fresh from the sea from little donkeys in the streets. Neither of the women looked up as their shoes rang on the tiled floor.
Jago paused by a bust of what he supposed was some local dignitary, and watched and waited.
Adam halted beneath one of the windows and stared at the memorial plaque. He knew now that she had been beautiful. But for years he had remembered only that final day when she had pushed him away, pleading with him to leave her and find his way to Falmouth. Sick, dying, but as always she had put him first. Just as she had sold herself for him. He shivered, aware of the silence, of the streets he had just walked. Like the houses, they seemed so much smaller than he had remembered.