Bolitho turned towards him. "I know. Drive her if we must, fight if we have to, but get to seal'
He saw Tyacke glance down at the wine cooler, made for him after the other had been lost in Hyperion. Even here, Catherine was very close. He saw the disfigured side of Tyacke's face in the reflected glare from the skylight. Like melted wax, the flesh burned from the bone, the eye, miraculously un blinded as clear and blue as the other. Even that seemed different…… From the moment the ship had left Spithead Tyacke had gone about his duties, explaining his standards to his lieutenants and senior warrant officers without flinching beneath the scrutiny of strangers. Landsmen and some of the younger midshipmen still could not meet his gaze without dropping their eyes; Tyacke had endured this every hour and every day since he had been smashed down at the Nile. Was it possible that he had accepted it? Or was there some other, deeper reason?
He had spoken of his feelings concerning Malta to Tyacke. The reply had been blunt, uncompromising, like the man.
"We'd be fools to let it go, sir. It may be only seventeen miles by nine, a landsman might say the same as the Isle of Wight. But it stands here, and who commands it holds the key to the Mediterranean. Every trading nation knows that well enough!"
Bolitho said, "Perhaps this commission will be shorter than we thought possible." He touched his eye as the sunlight found its mark. The cruel reminder. Which I cannot accept. "Will you still go back to Africa?"
Tyacke smiled faintly. "I would have to think on it." He seemed to consider it. "Yes, I would have to give it a deal of thought." He looked at the deck head as a call twittered,
and feet padded across the under-dry planking. "I must see the first lieutenant, if you will excuse me, sir."
Bolitho watched his hand hesitate on the door, and said, "If there is anything you wish to talk about, James, I am here."
Tyacke paused with his hat halfway to his head. Then he smiled fully, and seemed suddenly young again.
"If you were not, sir, then neither would I be."
Allday entered as the door closed, and glanced at the two swords on their rack.
"Might be another courier vessel soon, Sir Richard."
So he was fretting, too. Needing to be here, but thinking of his newfound life with Unis and his daughter.
Bolitho gestured toward the cupboard. "Have a wet, old friend. We are both all aback, it seems."
Allday stooped beside the cupboard, and said over his shoulder, "Get this little lot over, an' maybe we can make sail for home."
Bolitho rubbed his eye. He must have missed something.
Allday held up a glass of rum and grinned.
"To us, Sir Richard!"
"What have you heard?"
Allday looked at the high-backed chair in green leather, which she had given Bolitho. Like the wine cooler, and the locket he always wore when they were apart from one another. A sailor's woman. There was no higher compliment.
He said, "I was talkin' to the men in the guard boat just now, Sir Richard. There's a yarn goin' around about an attack on some local merchantmen. Pirates, they says."
He felt something like a chill against his damp spine. How they had first met, all those years ago. Barbary corsairs.
He said, "The officer-of-the-guard left no such message."
Allday put down the empty glass, careful not to leave any wet mark, which would cause more trouble with Ozzard.
"With respect, Sir Richard, the Royals are all well an' good, in their place." He tapped his forehead. "But their officers don't know it all."
Bolitho smiled. "Off with you. And don't fret over Unis. She is in good hands."
Allday went out, un reassured and found Ozzard in his pantry. He sniffed suspiciously, and said, "Been at the grog again!"
Allday ignored it. "Sir Richard's troubled. He worries about Cap'n Tyacke, an' about me, an' about everybody but himself!"
Ozzard regarded him scornfully. "Captain Tyacke? Don't you know, for God's sake?"
Allday sighed inwardly. He could kill the stooping servant with one blow, and he sometimes wondered why they had remained friends. Of a sort.
Ozzard snapped, "It's a woman, you blockhead! It's always a bloody woman when trouble's at the door!"
Allday left the pantry, touching the little man's shoulder as he passed. If he stayed, he knew he would make matters worse.
It was like sharing a terrible secret. It was not Captain Tyacke's pain Ozzard was describing. It was his own.
Major-General Sir Ralph Valancy stepped into the stern cabin and glanced around while Ozzard took his hat. Bolitho noticed that he showed no sign of discomfort and that his uniform was perfectly pressed, his boots like black glass, although if he had been dressed in rags one would have known him to be a professional soldier. He must keep his orderly very busy, to appear so untroubled by Malta's heat and the dust.
Valancy took a chair. "I could never have been a sailor, Sir Richard. Too confined, even for an admiral!"
Bolitho waited while Ozzard fetched wine, and wondered why this man reminded him of someone. Then it came to him. Halifax, where he had met the young captain from the King's Regiment, who had been at the siege of York, and had given a miniature of herself back to the girl, Gilia St. Clair, who would soon marry Valentine Keen.
That young captain would be very like this major-general, if he lived long enough.
Valancy sipped the wine and made a sound of approval.
Bolitho said, "It's a mite warm, but cooling anything is not easy with the ship at anchor."
Valancy's face broke into a grin. "Any wine tastes good to me, sir! I've ridden, marched and damned well crawled over every kind of territory, and like my men, I've had most dislikes steamed out of me!" He became serious. "You've heard about the missing transport vessel, the GaliciaT
Bolitho recalled Allday's scorn for the military in general, and the marines in particular.
"I have not had an official signal as yet."
Valancy shrugged. "I only heard myself this morning. The Galicia was under charter to the army, on passage for Malta. A fisherman reported seeing her attacked by a heavily-armed vessel. He made off before he became another victim."
"Algerine pirates?"
Valancy nodded. "Sailing too close to the Saracen coast, as they call it. The Dey of Algiers will have had a hand in it. The whole North African coast would be part of the Turkish empire if he and the Bey of Tunis could find enough ships."
Bolitho thought of his time as a flag captain, when he had been involved with that same coast and the notorious port of Djafou to the west of Algiers. Slavery, cruelty and torture; he had seen even his most experienced seamen sickened by what they had found. Piracy was common in these waters, and when the fleet had been fully employed against the French and maintaining a blockade, some of those same pirates had even flouted all authority to prey as far north as the Channel and the Western Approaches.
If the Mediterranean was to become stable again, this menace to trade would have to be removed. If peace and mutual trust were not restored, Britain's new allies would soon look for other means of enforcement.
Bolitho said, "I have six frigates, and a few smaller vessels." He glanced at the nearest quaker. "And my flagship. Not a great force, but I have worked with far less in the past."
"Indeed, I know, Sir Richard. You won't remember me, but I was aide to the general at Good Hope when you came to our aid." He gave a faint smile, remembering. "I was with the Sixty-First then. It was a fine regiment."
It was the smile, exactly like the captain who had fought at York. The professional soldier.
"I remember." He recalled that other general. They would not give the Cape of Good Hope back to the Dutch, either.
The soldier said, "Yes, we'd not long heard about Trafalgar. And Nelson's death. Such a shock, although inevitable, I suppose. I often wonder what happened to his mistress after his death. Shunned by everyone, I suppose."
Then he looked directly at Bolitho. That was a stupid remark. I apologise, Sir Richard."