"Out oars, shove off forrard! Give way all! "
Adam thought of Allday as the boat turned away and came under command. There was another shot, and the stroke was momentarily lost as one of the oarsmen peered nervously over his shoulder.
But the man Richie called between pulls, "They tells me you're a pretty good shot with a pistol, Cap'n?"
Adam looked at him. Glad he had thrown the cutlass, the evidence, into the sea. It felt like a thousand years ago.
He said, "When provoked! "
Then he gripped Starr's sleeve. "Under her stern, but don't stand in too close. We could be dragged against her rudder by the undertow." All the while he had the feeling that Anemone was close by, watching their progress, and when he turned in the stern sheets he was shocked to see that when she dipped into a deep trough she appeared to be a great distance away, the sea rising to her gun ports as if to swallow her.
He took a speaking trumpet. "Orcadia, ahoy! This is Captain Bolitho of the Anemone. He felt sick as he cried out, as if he were betraying them by offering hope when there was none.
Starr muttered, "No use, sir. You done your best."
"Round again." He did not even try to conceal his distress. Then we'll go back."
He saw two of the oarsmen glance uneasily at one another. The fire of volunteering was sifting away. His words had given them the relief they needed.
Starr thrust over the tiller bar, then exclaimed, "Look, sir! In the cabin! "
The gig rose and fell in deep, nauseating swoops, the oars barely able to keep steerage way.
But Adam forgot the danger as he stared at the open stern window. The cabin was probably a twin of the one in his first command, the fourteen-gun Firefly.
There was someone there, a shadow more than any human form, and Adam felt something like fear as it moved very slowly towards the salt-caked glass. Whoever it was, he must have heard his voice through the speaking trumpet, and the sound had penetrated the mists of agony and disgust enough to rouse him to consciousness.
Adam knew it was Jenour without understanding why he did. Dying even as he sheltered there, dying as his little brig had battled on while men dropped until the last helmsman abandoned the wheel. Some must have tried to get away in the capsized boat: there may even have been a last attempt to restore order when it was already too late.
A seaman gasped, "A bag, sir! " His eyes were almost starting from his head as he stared at the small leather satchel suddenly dangling from the cabin.
It must have taken all his strength: maybe his last, and if it fell now it would be lost forever.
"Hold on, Starr! "
Adam clambered forward over the looms, gripping a shoulder here and there to prevent himself from being hurled outboard. He could feel their fear at even so brief a contact.
As he reached the bows he seized the bag and tugged it over the gunwale.
"Back water! Together! " Starr was watching the bag, the brig's counter rising over the boat ready to smash it to fragments in the next trough. He thought afterwards that it was fortunate the boat's crew had their backs to the stricken vessel. Whoever it was must have tied the bag to his wrist, and the force of Adam's grip on the line had dragged him almost over the sill.
Like Adam, he could only stare at it. A commander's single epaulette, but surely nothing human and still alive?
Like something rotten. A face from the grave.
Adam cut the line and saw the figure vanish into the cabin.
He called out, "God be with you, Stephen! " But only the scream of gulls came back to mock him.
Starr swung over the tiller bar once more and breathed out very slowly as Anemone'?" topsails rose to greet him.
But Adam was staring at the Orcadia, and said brokenly, "God? What does he care for the likes of us?"
He barely remembered their return to Anemone's lee. Many hands reached out to help him, and someone raised a cheer for him, or for the volunteers, he did not know.
And then it was dark, and the deck was steady again under the pressure of more canvas.
Lieutenant Martin sat with him in the cabin, watching his captain drink glass after glass of brandy without any apparent effect. The leather satchel still lay on the table unopened, like something evil.
The second lieutenant entered the cabin and after a questioning glance at Martin said, "We've lost her, sir. In these waters she could be adrift for months, years even."
Adam said, "Open the despatches." He stared at his empty glass but could barely remember drinking from it. Like that time when she had come to him in the night at Falmouth. And had stayed with him.
Martin unfolded the crisp despatch, and Adam recognised Yovell's familiar round handwriting.
This was for Commodore Keen, sir. He was to find you and to tell the squadron to delay sailing. Sir Richard believes that Baratte is on the move."
"Jenour found us after all." He tried to thrust the memory from his mind. "And there is no time to make contact with the commodore." He stared at the stern windows, at the swirling phosphorescence from the rudder and the beginning of a moon on the water.
Perhaps there never had been enough time.
He said, "We will rejoin Sir Richard. Instruct Mr. Partridge to lay off a new course and have the hands change tack." He said nothing more, and eventually his head lolled, and he did not feel the others lift his legs on to the bench seat. Nor did he hear Martin murmur, "I will deal with that, my captain. Just this once, you come first."
17. All Is Not Lost
Bolitho took a mug of coffee from Ozzard and returned once again to his chart. Avery and Yovell watched him in silence, each knowing that he was thinking of Herrick below in the sickbay.
Bolitho sipped the hot coffee. Catherine had sent it to the ship for him. There could not be much more of it left.
He tapped the chart with his dividers and said, "At least we have more time now that Commodore Keen knows what we are about. Major-General Drummond will have enough to trouble him with seasick soldiers and horses that can barely stand, without the threat of a sea-attack."
As the others suspected his thoughts were of Herrick. He had visited him several times in spite of the need to remain in close contact with his little group of ships, and he had been shocked by what he had found. As Minchin the surgeon had said from the start, "Rear-Admiral Herrick is too strong in character to submit. Most men either faint from the pain or drink themselves into a stupor. Not him, Sir Richard. Even under the knife he was fighting me."
Herrick had seemed somehow defenceless and vulnerable on the last visit, his normally weathered features already like death. In between periods of insensibility he had been elsewhere, in other ships, shouting orders and demanding answers to questions nobody had been able to understand. Once he had called out the name of their first ship together, Phalarope,
and several times he had spoken in an almost matter-of-fact tone of his beloved Dulcie.
Bolitho's mind came back with a jolt as Avery said, "Baratte will not know about your despatches, sir. But he will not wish to wait too long before he moves."
Bolitho agreed. "To the north of Mauritius there is an area littered with smaller islands, Gunners Quoin, for instance. It would take a whole squadron to search amongst them." He rapped the chart again. "It is my belief that Baratte and his murderous friend will bide their time there until he can gain intelligence of the first convoy."
Avery held out his mug to Ozzard. "It is our only advantage."
"You sound troubled."
Avery shrugged. "It is beyond my experience, sir."
Bolitho would have questioned him further but at that moment there were voices at the door. He turned, his spine like ice as Ozzard opened the screen and he saw Minchin's grey head in the entrance.
"What…?"
Minchin came in rubbing his hands on his apron. He almost grinned as he said, "Into safe waters, Sir Richard. A very close-run thing."