“Fetch the surgeon.”
“Done, sir.”
“Extra hands on the tackles, Mr Partridge!” The boatswain was not grinning now.
He thought again of Whitmarsh, the twelve year old who had been “volunteered” by a so-called uncle. He had told him how he had drifted from the sinking frigate, holding his friend’s hand, unaware that the other boy had been dead for some while.
He turned to speak to Sullivan but he had gone. He handed the telescope to the midshipman of the watch; he did not need to look again to know the gulls were swooping down once more, their screams lost in distance. The spirits of dead sailors, the old Jacks called them. Scavengers fitted them better, he thought. He heard O’Beirne giving instructions to two of his loblolly boys. A good surgeon, or another butcher? You might never know until it was too late.
Adam walked to the side, two marines springing out of his way to allow him to pass. The gig was almost here, and he noticed that Bellairs was on his feet again.
Why should it matter? We all had to learn. But it did matter.
A block squeaked, and he knew Partridge’s mates were lowering a canvas cradle to hoist the survivor inboard. It would probably finish him, if he was not dead already.
Other men were running now to guide the cradle over the gangway, clear of the boat tier.
Adam said, “Secure the gig and get the ship under way, if you please. Take over, Mr Galbraith.” He did not see the sudden light in Galbraith’s eyes, but he knew it was there. He was being given the ship. Trusted.
The surgeon was on his knees, sleeves rolled up, his red face squinting with concentration. Large and heavy though he was, he had the small hands and wrists of a very much younger person.
“I cannot move him far, sir.”
To the sickbay, the orlop. There was no time.
“Carry him aft, to my quarters. More room for you.”
He leaned over and looked at the man they had pulled from the sea. From death.
One bare arm showed a faint tattoo. The other was like raw meat, a bone protruding through the blackened flesh. He was so badly burned it was a marvel he had lived this long. A fire, then. Every sailor’s most dreaded enemy.
Someone held out a knife. “’E were carryin’ this, sir! English, right enough.”
O’Beirne was cutting away the scorched rags from the body. He murmured, “Very bad, sir. I’m afraid…” He gripped the man’s uninjured wrist as his mouth moved, as if even that were agonising.
Perhaps it was the sound of the ship coming about, her sails refilling, slapping and banging as the great yards were braced hard round, or the sense of men around him again. A sailor’s world. His mouth opened very slightly.
“’Ere, matey.” A tarred hand with a mug of water pushed through the crouching onlookers, but O’Beirne shook his head and put a finger to his lips.
“Not yet, lad.”
Jago was here, on his knees opposite the surgeon, lowering his dark head until it seemed to be touching the man’s blistered face.
He murmured, “He’s here, mate. Right here with us.” He looked up at Adam. “Askin’ for the Captain. You, sir…” He broke off and lowered his face again. “Ship’s name, sir.” He held the man’s bare shoulder. “Try again, mate!”
Then he said harshly, “No good, sir. He’s goin.””
Adam knelt and took the man’s hand. Even that was badly burned, but he would not feel it now.
As his shadow fell across the man’s face he saw the eyes open. For the first time, as if only they lived. What did he see, he wondered. Someone in a grubby shirt, unfastened, and without the coat and the gold lace of authority. Hardly a captain…
He said quietly, “I command here. You are safe now.”
It was a lie; he could feel his life draining away like sand in an hourglass, and even the unwavering eyes knew it.
He was using all his strength. The eyes moved suddenly to the shrouds and running rigging overhead.
Who was he? What did he remember? What was his ship? It was no use. He heard Bellairs say, “There were four others, sir. All burned. Tied together. He must have been the last one left alive…” He could not continue. Adam felt the man’s hand tighten very slightly in his. He watched his mouth, saw it forming a word, a name.
O’Beirne said, “Fortune, sir.”
Someone else said, “Probably a trader. They was English anyway, poor devils!”
But the hand was moving again. Agitated. Desperate.
Adam leaned closer, until his face was only inches from the dying man’s. He could smell his agony, his despair, but he did not release his hand.
“Tell me, what is it?”
Then, with great care, he lowered the hand to the deck. The sand had run out. It was as if only one thing had kept him alive, long enough. For what? Revenge?
He rose and stood for a few moments looking down at the dead man. An unknown sailor. Then he looked around at their intent faces. Troubled, curious, some openly distressed. It was perhaps the closest he had been to them since he had taken command.
He said, “Not ‘fortune.’ He got it out, though.” The man’s eyes were still open, as if he were alive, and listening. “It was La Fortune. A Frenchman who sank his ship.”
Jago said, “Shall I have him put over, sir?”
He was still on his knees, and glanced at Adam’s hand as it rested briefly on his shoulder.
“No. We shall bury him during the last dog watch. It is the least we can do.”
He saw Bellairs, deathly pale despite his sunburn, and said, “That was well done, Mr Bellairs. I shall enter it in your report. It will do you no harm.”
Bellairs tried to smile but his mouth would not move.
“That man, sir-”
But the deck was empty, and the sailmaker’s crew would soon be stitching up the nameless sailor for his last journey on earth.
“I intend to find out. And when I do, I shall see that he does not leave us unavenged!”
The sun stood high in a clear sky, so that the reflected glare from the anchorage was almost a physical presence. Unrivalled, with all sails clewed up except topsails and jib, seemed to be gliding towards the sprawled panorama of battlements and sand-coloured buildings, her stem hardly causing a ripple.
Adam Bolitho raised a telescope and examined the other vessels anchored nearby. Montrose, the forty-two gun frigate which Sir Graham Bethune had chosen for his flagship, was surrounded by boats and lighters. She had left Gibraltar two days ahead of Unrivalled, but from the activity of storing and watering ship it seemed she had arrived in Malta only today, more evidence of their own fast passage despite the contrary winds.
Adam was still not sure what he thought of Bethune’s decision to sail separately. In company they might have exercised together, anything to break the day-to-day routine.
He did not know the vice-admiral very well, although what he had seen of him he had liked, and had trusted. He had been a frigate captain himself, and a successful one, and in Adam’s book that rated very high. Against that, he had spent several years employed ashore, latterly at the Admiralty. Something I could never do. It might make an officer over cautious, more aware of the risks and the perils of responsibility in a sea command. He had even heard Forbes, Montrose’s captain, question the need for such caution. It was unlike the man to criticise his admiral, but they had all had too much to drink.
He moved the glass further and saw three other frigates anchored in line, flags barely moving, windsails rigged to provide a suggestion of air in the crowded quarters between decks.
Not a large force, something else which would weigh heavily on Bethune’s mind. With Napoleon at large on the French mainland again, no one could predict the direction the conflict might take. The French might drive north to the Channel ports, and seize ships and men to attack and delay vital supplies for Wellington ’s armies. And what of the old enemies? There would still be some who were prepared and eager to renew their allegiance to the arrogant Corsican.
“Guard-boat, sir!”
Adam shifted the glass, and beyond the motionless launch saw other buildings which appeared to merge with the wall of the nearest battery.