O’Beirne was surprised, that this youthful man should take the time to send a personal message when he had so many urgent matters demanding his attention, and more so that he himself could be moved by it.
Adam was very conscious of the scrutiny, and moved away from it to the rail again and stood watching the greasy smoke rising from the galley funnel. The working parties were fewer, and some of the old hands were loitering, looking on as Tetrarch tested her jury-rig for the first time.
Men had died this day, and others lay in fear of living. But there was a smell of pitch and tar in the air, spun yarn and paint, Unrivalled shaking off the barbs of war, and her first sea-fight. “I shall get the ship under way.” He saw the surgeon turn, and knew he thought his visit had been in vain. “After that, I shall come below and see the prisoner, if that is what you desire.” Calls shrilled and men ran once more to halliards and braces: the sailors’ way, exhausted one minute, all energy the next.
O’Beirne lowered himself carefully down the steep ladder, his mind lingering on the captain’s last remark.
Half aloud, he said, “What you need, more like, if I’m any judge.”
But it was lost in the hiss and boom of canvas as Unrivalled once again responded to those who served her.
They faced one another, the moment intensified by the stillness of O’Beirne’s sickbay below the waterline. Adam Bolitho seated himself in the surgeon’s big leather chair, which seemed to dominate this private place like a throne.
He looked at the other man, who was propped in a kind of trestle, one of O’Beirne’s own inventions. It helped to ease the breathing, and lessened the risk of the lung filling with blood.
Two captains. He could not think of them as victor and vanquished. We are only two men.
Lovatt was not what he had expected. A strong but sensitive face, with hair as fair as Valentine Keen’s. The hands, too, were well shaped, one clenching and unclenching against the throbbing pain of his wound, the other resting as if untroubled against the curved timbers of the hull.
Lovatt spoke first.
“A fine ship, Captain. You must be proud to have her.” He gazed at the nearest frame. “Grown, not cut by saw. Natural strength, rare enough in these hard times.”
Adam nodded. It was indeed rare, with most of the oak forests hacked down over the years to supply the demands of the fleet.
He thought of Galbraith’s hastily written message, and said, “What did you hope to achieve?”
Lovatt almost shrugged. “I obey orders. Like you, Captain. Like all of us.” The fist opened and closed again as if he had no control over it. “You will know that I was expecting to be met, to be escorted the remainder of the passage to Algiers.”
Adam said quietly, “ La Fortune was taken. She is a prize, like Tetrarch.” Half his mind was still with the scene he had left on deck. A lively breeze, a steadier motion with the wind almost across the taffrail. A soldier’s wind, the old hands called it. It would help Galbraith’s jury-rig, and it allowed Unrivalled to hold up to windward in case they required assistance.
He glanced around O’Beirne’s domain, at the piles of well thumbed books, the cupboards, and racks of bottles and jars clinking occasionally with the vibration of the rudder-head.
The smell here was different too. Potions and powders, rum and pain. Adam hated the world of medicine and what it could do to a man, even the bravest, under knife and saw. The price of victory. He looked at his companion again. And defeat.
“You asked to see me?” He curbed his impatience. His was the need.
Lovatt regarded him with calm eyes.
“My father fought alongside yours in the struggle for independence. They knew one another, although I did not know about you, the son.”
Adam wanted to leave, but something compelled him to remain. “But you were a King’s officer.”
“When I am handed over to the right authority I shall be condemned as one. No matter-my son is all I have now. He will forget.”
Adam heard boots scrape outside the door. A marine sentry. O’Beirne was taking no chances. On either of us.
Lovatt was saying, “I left America and returned to England, to Canterbury, where I was born. I had an uncle who sponsored my entry as midshipman. The rest is past history.”
“Tell me about Tetrarch.”
“I was third lieutenant in her… a long time ago. She was a fourth-rate then, but past her best. There was bad feeling ’twixt the captain and the senior lieutenant, and the people suffered because of it. When I spoke up on their behalf I discovered I had stepped into a trap. Because of my father, an Englishman on the wrong side, I was left in no doubt as to how my future would be destroyed. Even the second lieutenant, whom I had thought a friend, saw me as a threat to his own advancement.” He gave a sad smile. “Not unknown to you perhaps, sir?”
Midshipman Fielding peered around the door. “Mr Wynter’s respects, sir, and he wishes to take in another reef.” His eyes were fixed on Lovatt.
“I shall come up.” Adam turned back, and saw something like desperation in the hazel eyes.
“There was no mutiny. They simply refused to stand to their guns. I agreed to remain aboard until their case had been put to the French.” The eyes were distant now. “Most of them were exchanged, I believe. I was branded a traitor. But an American privateer came into Brest… Until then I had been a trusted prisoner of the French navy. On parole, on my honour.” It seemed to amuse him. “And I had met a girl there. Paul is our son.”
Adam stood, his hair brushing the deckhead. “And now you are a prisoner again. Did you think your mention of my father could buy you privilege? If so, then you do not know me.” It was time to go. Now.
Lovatt sank back against the trestle. “I knew your name, what it has come to mean to sailors of all flags. My wife is dead. There is only Paul. I was planning to obtain passage to England. Instead, I was given command of Tetrarch.” He shook his head. “That damned, wretched ship. I should have forced you to fire on us. Finished it!”
The deck moved slightly. They would all be up there waiting for him. The chain of command.
Adam stopped, his hand on the door. “ Canterbury? You have people there still?”
Lovatt nodded. The effort of conversation was taking its toll.
“Good friends. They will care for Paul.” He looked away, and Adam saw the despair in his clenched fist. “But he will come to hate me, I think.”
“He is still your son.”
Again the faint smile. “Be content, Captain. You have your ship.”
O’Beirne filled the doorway, his eyes everywhere.
Adam said, “I have finished here.” He regarded Lovatt coldly. The enemy, no matter which flag he served or for what reason.
But he said, “I shall do what I can.”
O’Beirne opened a cupboard and took out a bottle of brandy, which he had been saving for some special occasion although he had not known what. He recalled the even, Cornish voice as the captain had spoken a simple prayer before the corpses were put over the side. Most of the dead were unknown. Protestant, Catholic, pagan or Jew, it made no difference to them now.
He found two glasses and held them up to the light of the gently spiralling lantern to see if they were clean, and noticed the dried blood, like paint, on his cuff.
Lovatt cleared his throat, and said, “I believe he meant it.”
O’Beirne pushed a glass towards him. “Here-kill or cure. Then you must rest.”
He lingered over the glass. Some special occasion… He saw the brandy tilting with the rhythm of the sea, and imagined Captain Bolitho with his men, watching the stars, holding station on this man’s ship.
He said, “Of course he meant it.” But Lovatt had fallen into an exhausted sleep.
From somewhere aft he heard the sound of a fiddle, probably in the junior warrant officers’ mess. Badly played, and out of tune.
To Denis O’Beirne, ship’s surgeon, it was the most beautiful sound he had heard for a long time.
Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune walked across the tiled floor and stood by one of the tall windows, careful to remain in the shadows, but feeling the heat of the noon sun like something physical. He shaded his eyes to stare at the anchored ships, his ships, knowing what made each distinct from the others, just as he now knew the faces and characters of each of his captains, from his bluff flag captain Forbes in Montrose, out there now with her awnings and windsails shimmering in the harsh glare, to the young but experienced Christie in the smaller twenty-eight gun Halcyon. It was something he could now accept, as he had come to accept the responsibility of his rank, one of the youngest flag officers on the Navy List.