Bolitho walked to the sloping stern windows. The sun was high overhead, the buildings along the shore sandy yellow in a dusty glare. The weather would change soon, and it would take weeks more for a decision to be made. He felt the old restlessness churning within him.
Everything took so long… He turned his back on the others to study a passing dhow, but his mind was still upon the letter which had arrived with the courier brig. Time. Catherine would be thinking of it also. The ever-present barrier. But it was not even that; it was the tone of her letter, different in some way. Or was it his own fatigue after the fast passage from Algiers? He knew it was not.
Tyacke said, "The frigates are there for a reason. At anchor they are useless, no threat to anybody." He was thinking aloud. Did he suspect something? That I am being torn apart?
Suppose Catherine had given up the fight. She was beautiful; she was rich in her own right. She did not need to endure the separations and the anxieties being thrust upon her. Someone else, then? He thought of her last words in that letter.
Whatever you do, wherever you are, remember that I love you and only you, nothing could change that.
He would read it again, slowly, when he was alone. But first… He said, "Something from your anti-slavery days, James? Make them come out to us?"
Tyacke smiled, but not with his eyes. "Frobisher, sir." He glanced around the cabin, less spacious with the eighteen-pounders returned to their ports. "They will know she is your flagship. After your visit they might be expecting more to join us. They will not want to risk losing the two frigates." He shrugged. "And if their presence is proved innocent, we have lost nothing."
Bolitho walked away from the windows and the glare, pausing to rest one hand on Tyacke's shoulder. "Another bluff!"
Tyacke glanced at the hand on his shoulder, strong and tanned, an extension to this man's brain and experience. He was not easily moved, and was careful not to show it now.
"It might succeed." He looked at Avery. "At least it will get this ship's company working again!"
They laughed, the tension gone.
Bolitho thought of the big room overlooking the battery, and the scattered remnants of the corpses. I command out there! He said, "There are a few of the Galicia 's original company, who were allowed to leave with our prize crew. Captain Christie had them separated. Perhaps they could be questioned, now that their safety is assured." He recalled Christie's own description, the terror, the disbelief and hysteria amongst the few sailors who had been spared the' brutality and eventual death meted out to the master, and others who had 'resisted'.
Avery glanced at the others, sensing the bond, the quiet understanding. He had seen Bolitho take the letter from the despatch bag, and the expression in the grey eyes as he had read through it. It must be like a hand reaching out, a security which few could understand. He thought of Susanna. Still no letter, but then, he had not hoped for one. He gave a rueful smile. Even that was a lie.
Bolitho said, "I shall send orders to the squadron, so that each captain is left in no doubt of the kind of enemy we are facing."
Tyacke watched him. So that you will carry the blame if we are proved wrong.
He was glad about Christie. Majestic had done precious little for anyone else.
The sentry bawled, "First lieutenant, sir!"
Bolitho looked at his secretary. "You are frowning."
Yovell smiled gently, behind his small, gold-rimmed spectacles.
"I was asking myself, Sir Richard, why do the marines always shout so loudly?"
Lieutenant Kellett stood in the doorway, his hat beneath his arm. "Officer-of- the-guard, sir." He spoke to Tyacke, but his deceptively mild eyes were on Bolitho.
Tyacke took an envelope from him, and then said, "Major-General Valancy requests the pleasure of your company at his headquarters for dinner." He looked up from the page in time to see the disappointment and frustration which, in those few seconds, Bolitho had been unable to hide.
Bolitho said only, "Make the necessary arrangements, James. It may be important."
Yovell gathered up his papers. It was time to go.
He said, "I will have these copied at once, Sir Richard. I have a clerk and one of the young gentlemen to assist me."
Avery said. "I shall accompany you, Sir Richard." He saw the unspoken protest, and added, "The army, Sir Richard. They will expect it."
He left, and Tyacke said, "You could refuse, sir."
Bolitho smiled, rather bitterly, he thought. "People think we are inspired by duty. In truth, we are its slaves!"
Later, with the barge alongside, the crew in their best cheque red shirts and tarred hats and Allday poised massively in the stern sheets the marines and boatswain's mates were ready and waiting. Frobisher's captain and senior lieutenant saw the admiral over the side.
Allday waited for Bolitho to settle himself beside Avery, and then gave the order to cast off.
He saw it in the eyes of the barge men as they laid back on their looms. Their admiral, who wanted for nothing.
Allday scowled at the bow oarsman as he stowed his boat hook
How could they ever know? At moments like these, nothing was all he had.
The day after Bolitho's return to Malta, Frobisher weighed anchor and put to sea. At first light two of the frigates, Huntress and Condor, had also departed with orders to take station outside Algiers, where their presence would be seen and understood.
Bolitho had been on deck to watch them leave, his heart and mind responding to the sight of the two sleek frigates spreading their sails, and leaning obediently to an early breeze. He had wanted more than anything to have an opportunity to know all of his captains, but he was again reminded that time was the enemy. The ships in his new squadron were mostly known to him by name or reputation, even the small brig Black Swan, which was to be the flagship's only companion.
After Frobisher had cleared the harbour Bolitho went to his quarters, surprised that he felt no trace of fatigue from the previous evening, despite the heavy meal and entertainment by the army. Avery had fallen asleep at the table, but he had not been alone; their hosts seemed to expect it, and made no comment.
He had returned to the ship to find Captain Christie waiting for him in Tyacke's cabin.
A small thing, a fragment of information, but it was all they had. Of the handful of men who had been released with the Galicia, one had been the boatswain, a Greek who, because of his captors, had feared for his life more than the others. He had described to Christie how they had been attacked and boarded, as if Galicia 's, presence had been known to the Algerines. Every man had been robbed and the vessel looted, and two of the seamen had been killed for no apparent reason. The master's son had been aboard; the attackers had known that, too. Unable to obtain information from the wretched master, they had beaten his son, and then nailed him to a crudely fashioned cross, where he had died. There had been other pirate vessels nearby, which had altered course to the east once the attack had been completed. The boatswain had been certain he had heard someone mention Bona. On the chart it was shown as a small port, little more than a segment of a bay, some hundred and fifty miles from Algiers. Halcyon had sailed past it only days ago, and Christie was probably cursing his misfortune that he had not known it was being used as a base by Algerine pirates.
Tregidgo, the sailing master, had confined himself to saying that Bona was known to be used by fishermen for shelter, and sometimes for trade. It would be a likely choice for ships waiting to pounce on some unwary merchantman.
A show of force, then. Afterwards, they would meet up with the two frigates outside Algiers. It would be interesting to know what Captain Martinez would have to tell his master about that.
He sat down and thought once more of Catherine's letter. He had read it very carefully when he had returned from his visit to the garrison. With the lantern unshuttered, and the ship silent but for the secret noises in any living hull, he had sensed again the reserve, the unspoken, as if she wanted to protect him from something, like the riots of which she had written earlier.