Avery secured the chart, and did not look up. "He seems a steady enough fellow, Sir Richard. Not like some we've seen."
They were both thinking of Minchin and his bloody apron.
Avery ventured, "Does it trouble you much, sir?"
Months ago he would have turned on anyone, no matter how close, who might have suggested a weakness. He would have regretted it instantly, but even that eluded him now.
Almost distantly, he said, "You have not been what Allday would term a North Sea sailor, George. It has been like that. A mist on the sea's face when the light is too strong, but gone soon afterwards. At other times, I can see things so clearly I find myself searching for reasons, solutions." He shrugged. "But I cannot accept it. Not now, not yet."
He heard the bell chime out, the responding pound of feet as the watch on deck was relieved. He had observed it, and done it so many times that he could see it, as if he were up there with them. Only the ship was different.
Avery was troubled by his mood. Resisting, but already resigned… He said suddenly, "After this is over, sir '
Bolitho looked at him and smiled suddenly, the doubts and the strain falling away.
"Then what shall we do, George? What shall we become?" He paused, as if he had heard something.
"You have been a good and loyal friend to us, George. Neither of us will forget."
He did not need to explain us, and Avery was moved by his intensity.
The sentry tapped his musket and called, "Surgeon, sir}'
He said, "I shall be in my cabin, sir." Their eyes met. "You will not be disturbed." He opened the door for the surgeon and passed him without a glance. Like strangers, even though they shared the same wardroom.
Paul Lefroy, Frobisher's surgeon, was round, even cherubic, more like a country parson than a man used to the grim sights of the orlop deck. He was completely bald but for a narrow garland of grey hair, and his skull was the colour of polished mahogany.
He waited until Bolitho was seated in his high-backed chair and then began the examination, his fingers probing around the injured eye like instruments rather than skin and bone.
Lefroy said, "I had occasion to meet a young colleague who once served under you. You sponsored him, I believe, to the College of Surgeons in London."
Bolitho stared at the light until his vision blurred. "Philip Beauclerk. Yes, he was in Indomitable with me. A fine and promising surgeon." But all he could remember was Beauclerk's eyes, the palest he had ever seen.
Lefroy wiped his hands on a cloth. "We spoke of you, Sir Richard, as doctors will." He beamed, the parson again. "Must, if we are to improve the lot of our people. He spoke, too, of the great man, Sir Piers Blachford."
Another memory. Blachford and the rum-sodden Minchin, working as one while Hyperion gave up the fight and was starting to sink under them.
Bolitho said, quietly, "He thinks nothing more can be done."
Lefroy nodded slowly, his round figure tilted, untroubled by the angle of the deck.
"For someone in a position of retirement, free of the demands, to say nothing of the risks which beset every sailor, this damage might be contained for years." He gazed around the cabin, the heavy guns straining at their breeching ropes while the ship heeled over. "This is no such position, Sir Richard, and I think you know it well."
Ozzard had appeared and murmured, "Captain Tyacke is here. Sir Richard." He shot a wary glance at the surgeon.
Tell the captain I am ready."
Lefroy was closing his battered bag. "I am sorry, Sir Richard. You could attend another surgeon, much better qualified, were you not at sea."
As he reached the door he paused and said, The drops you are using are excellent in their way, but……" He bowed himself out, his baldness shining in the swinging lanterns.
His last word lingered like an echo in the air. As if someone had just slammed a great door. Like something final.
Tyacke strode in, his head bent to avoid the curving deck head beams. He had seen the surgeon, but they had not spoken.
He did not ask Bolitho about it. He had seen enough of pain to read it now in the grey eyes watching him.
He recalled the words. Now we are truly of one company.
He said. "Now, concerning tomorrow, Sir Richard……"
Bolitho leaned over the chart. The lifeline. The rest could wait.
Allday stood quite still, his razor reflecting the lantern light. Bolitho was leaning forward in the chair, his head on one side as if he had heard some new sound. But there was nothing, only a few muffled noises, and a sense of heavy stillness.
The wind?"
Allday nodded. "Aye, it's left us. Like the last time, an' the times afore that."
He was talking to give himself time; he had no need to remind Bolitho of the moods and the madness of the weather. He knew them all, as he could feel the ship around him, her strength and her weakness. It was his life.
It was none of those things now. Bolitho had suddenly gripped the arms of the chair and dragged himself upright, his mind wholly intent upon the ship, and the wind which had deserted them.
Allday glanced at the razor; he had been moving it downwards for the first stroke of the morning shave. He had barely a second to twist it away from Bolitho's face before its well-stropped edge laid open his cheek to the bone. Bolitho had not seen it.
Allday tried to relax the relentless grip of dread in his stomach. He had not been able to see it.
Bolitho was looking keenly into his face, his eyes clear in the light from the lantern.
"What is it, old friend? The pain?"
Allday waited for him to lie back again, unable to look at him.
"It comes an' goes, Sir Richard."
He began to shave him with great care. A close thing.
There were voices now, loud and angry. Bolitho recognised Tyacke's, the other was Pennington, the second lieutenant. Then there was silence again, the ship holding her breath, creaking and clattering as she began to drift, her sails flat against the stays.
Tyacke hesitated by the door. "I am sorry to disturb you, Sir Richard."
Allday was mopping the shaved skin, relieved at the captain's interruption.
"The wind, James is that it? We were warned we might expect it."
Tyacke moved into the light. His shirt was torn, and streaked with tar.
He said, "No, sir. We've lost Black Swan." He was unable to contain his anger. "I should have known! I ought to have picked the morning watch lookouts myself."
Bolitho said, "You command, James. You cannot carry every man's burden all of the time."
Tyacke stared down at him. "Black Swan knows full well that she must be in company with the Flag at first light. A lookout with half an eye should have seen that she had gone from her station at the first hint of dawn it should have been clear enough." He waved curtly toward the stern windows, now grey- blue in the strengthening light. "Gone! And the fool only just reported it!"
Bolitho stood up, and felt the listless movement of the deck. Tyacke must have gone aloft himself to be certain, and vented his anger on Pennington when he had found the horizon empty, just as he was now blaming himself for another's carelessness.
He said, "The wind will return, perhaps sooner than we think. Closer inshore, there could still be enough for the brig."
He knew what Tyacke believed. That Black Swan's eager commander had used the darkness to tack nearer to the land, to be the first to discover any shipping there and still return in time to resume his position for making and receiving signals. The dying wind had changed that dramatically. Black Swan was now without support, and Frobisher would be unable to see her, even if she required help.
The sentry's voice broke into their thoughts.
"First lieutenant, sir]'
Kellett stepped into the cabin, his face composed, probably prepared for this by the humiliated Pennington.
"Sir?"
Tyacke spoke instead to his admiral. "I thought we should put down the boats and take the ship in tow, keep her head round, and cut the drift as much as possible."