'so you are Captain Herrick. I have been hearing about you. One of your men told me you are sailing soon. I hope you have a safe voyage. "
Herrick looked at her, wanting to be left alone. Needing her to stay.
"Aye, Ma"am. There's plenty of talk in ships." He changed the subject. "I gather you are bound for England?"
"Yes. We live in-" She dropped her eyes. "That is, my husband died two years ago. So I am returning to Canterbury. I have been dreading it in many ways. I came out to live with John. He has never married, poor lamb. But he insists that the war is getting closer each day." She sighed. 'so home I must go."
Herrick sat down opposite her. "But, Ma"am, I come from Kent, too. My home is in Rochester." He smiled awkwardly. "Though I fear not as fine as yours will be."
She watched him, her skin very pale under the lamplight. "That young officer who brought us to the cabin." She lowered her eyes. "I couldn"t help hearing what you said to him."
Herrick flushed. "Ma"am, I do apologise." He recalled his anger. Bring these damned visitors aft. "Had I realised."
No, Captain. Before that. You were deeply upset, as I believe that good-looking boy was, too."
Herrick nodded slowly. "He is the commodore's nephew. A fine young man."
She,said quietly, "I’ve heard about your commodore. I was very distressed. I understand he was greatly liked. "
"Aye, Ma"am. None better. None braver."
"There's no hope?"
"Not much. Your brother would have heard something by now."
.Tell me about yourself, Captain. Do you have a family in England?"
And that was how it all began. Herrick speaking his thoughts and memories aloud, while she sat quietly listening.
When someone cried a challenge and a boat surged alongside, Herrick could. hardly believe an hour had passed so fast. He stood up" anxiously.
"If I have bored you, Ma"am… "
She patted his sleeve and smiled at him. "I should like to call upon your sister, if I may, Captain. It will help to keep us both cheerful until-" She fastened her cloak. "Until you return.to Kent again.: She looked up at his face, her gaze level. I hope you’ll not forget us."
Herrick grasped her hand. It was small and firm and made him feel all the clumsier.
"I’ll not forget your kindness to me, Ma"am." He heard Manning's voice drawing closer. "I’d like to think we might meet again, but-"
"No buts, Captain." She moved back from him. "I can now understand why your commodore is sadly missed. With friends such as you, he must have been a man indeed." Herrick followed her on to the quarterdeck where her brother was speaking with Major Leroux.
Pascoe called, "Boat's ready, sir!"
Herrick said roughly, "Go with this lady in the boat, Mr. Pascoe. My compliments to Commander Inch. Tell him to take care of his passenger."
She touched his arm. "Inch? Another friend?"
"Aye." Herrick guided her around the projecting humps of gun trucks and ring-bolts. "You’ll be in good hands."
She moved her elbow gently in his grip. "No better than now, I think."
The nightmare was rising to another great climax. Leaping patterns of dark. red, like solid flame, interspersed with cruder shapes, sometimes human, other times obscure and all the more frightening.
Bolitho wanted to get to his feet, to cry out, to escape the surging movement and encirclement. Once, against the molten banks of fire he saw a woman, deathly white, her arms beckoning him, her mouth calling silent words. When
he had tried to reach her he realised that both his legs had gone, and a ship's surgeon was laughing at his rising terror.
All at once it was gone. Silence, and a darkness too unreal to accept, so that Bolitho felt himself drawing in his muscles and limbs to resist another terrible nightmare.
It was then that he realised he could feel his legs, his anus and the sweat which ran across his neck and thighs. Slowly, fearfully, like a man climbing back from the dead, he tried to assemble his thoughts, to separate reality from that which he had been enduring since… he struggled on to his elbows, staring at the darkness. Since when?
As his senses returned he noticed a sluggish movement beneath him, the shudder and tilt of a vessel under way. Block-s and rigging creaked, and he felt a new sensation, that of dread. He remembered the return of the fever, the Signs he had known were there but had refused to recognise. Allday's face above him, lined and anxious, hands carrying him, the enfolding darkness.
He groped up to his eyes and winced as his fingers touched them. He had gone completely blind.
A great slackness came over his limbs, so that he fell back on the bunk exhausted. Better to have died. To have sunk deeper into the haunting nightmares of fever until it had ended completely. He thought of the naked woman. Catherine Pareja. Trying to sustain him as she had done before when he had all but lost his life.
With a gasp he struggled up in a sitting position as a thin yellow line opened the opposite darkness like thread. Wider still, and then a face, unfamiliar against a lantern in the passageway beyond the door..
The face vanished and he heard someone yell, "He's awake! He's going to be all right!"
The next few minutes were the worst in some ways. Allday cradling him against the vessel's motion, Lieutenant Veitch peering down at him, his face split into a wider grin than he had ever seen. Midshipman Breen's carrot head bobbing about in a sort of jig, and others crowding into the small cabin and giving vent to what sounded like a dozen different tongues.
Veitch ordered, "Clear the cabin, lads."
Allday made Bolitho lie back, and said, "Good to have you back with us, sir. God, you’ve had a bad time, and that's no error. "
Bolitho tried to speak but his tongue felt twice its proper Size. He managed to croak, "H-how long?" He saw Veitch and Allday exchange quick glances and added, "Must know!" Veitch said quietly, "All but three weeks, sir, since you-"
Bolitho tried to push Allday aside but was helpless. No wonder he felt weak and empty. Three weeks.
He whispered, "What happened?"
Veitch said, "After we got you back aboard we thought it better to stay at anchor in Valletta. It seemed safe enough, and I was troubled, fearful, if you like, of taking you to sea as you were."
Allday stood up slowly, his head bowed between the beams. "I’ve never seen you so bad, sir." He sounded exhausted. "We was at our wits" ends as to what to do."
Bolitho looked from one to the other, some of his anxiety giving way to warmth. For three weeks, while he had been helpless and confined in his own private torment, these others had fended as best they could. Had nursed him, without caring for themselves, or what delay might cost them. As his eyes grew accustomed to the yellow light he saw the deep shadows around Allday's face, the stubble on his chin. Veitch, too, looked worn out, like a prisoner from the hulks.
He said, "I was thinking only of myself." He reached out. "Take my hands, Both of you."
Allday's teeth were white in his tanned face. "Bless him, Mr. Veitch, he must be feeling a mite better." But he had to look away, at a rare loss for words.
Bolitho said, "Tell me again. I will try to be patient and not interrupt." It was a strange tale which Veitch and Allday shared.
Strange because it represented part of his life which he had missed. Which now he could never regain.