Bolitho looked at them thoughtfully. They do not know me. Yet.
He replied, "Too much time is lost, wasted by unnecessary exchanges in the midst of a sea-fight. And time, as you know from experience, is a luxury we may not always have." He let each word sink in before he added, "I had correspondence with Lord Nelson, but like most of you, I never had the good fortune to meet him." He let his gaze rest on Adam. "My nephew is the exception. He met him more than once-a privilege we can never share. Gone for ever he may be, but his example is still ours to be seized and used." He had all their attention, and he saw Adam touch his cheek surreptitiously with the back of his hand.
"Nelson once said that in his opinion no captain could do very wrong if he laid his ship alongside that of an enemy." He saw Crowfoot of the Glorious nod vigorously, and knew that by the door Jenour was staring at him as if afraid he might miss something.
Bolitho ended simply, "In answer to some of your questions-I don't think Our Nel's words can ever be improved on."
It was another two hours before they all departed, feeling better for the plentiful supply of wine, and each man preparing his own version of the meeting for his wardroom and company.
As Ozzard remarked ruefully, "They certainly made a hole in the cheese Lady Catherine sent aboard! "
Bolitho found some time to speak with the youngest captain in his squadron, Mistral's Commander Philip Merrye, whom Allday later described contemptuously, "'Nother one of those twelve-year-old cap'ns! "
Then under a gentler north-westerly than they had known, the five sail of the line took station on their flagship and brought in another reef for the coming night. Each captain and lieutenant was very aware of the man whose flag floated from Black Prince's foremast, and the need not to lose contact with him in the gathering darkness.
Keen had been going to ask Bolitho to sup with him, but when the brig's commander had produced a letter for him he had decided otherwise.
It was to be a private moment, shared by nobody but the ship around him, and with Catherine. This was a man none of his captains would recognise, as he bent over his table and carefully opened her letter. He knew he would read it many times; and he found he was touching the locket beneath his shirt as he straightened the
letter under a deckhead lantern.
Darling Richard, dearest of men, so short a while since we were parted and yet already a lifetime. Bolitho stared around the cabin and spoke her name aloud. "Soon, my love, soon…" And in the sea's murmur, he thought he heard her laugh.
17. "You Hold Their Hearts…"
IF THE officers and men of Bolitho's North Sea squadron had expected a quick relief from the dragging boredom of blockade duty they were soon to be disappointed. Weeks overlapped into months. Spring drove away the icy winds and constant damp of winter, and still they endured the endless and seemingly pointless patrols. Northward from the Frisian Islands, with the Dutch coast sometimes in view, often as far as the Skagerrak where Poland had fought his last battle.
Better than most Bolitho knew he was driving them hard, more so than they had probably ever endured before. Sail and gun drills, in line ahead or abreast to a minimum of signals. Then he had divided his squadron into two divisions with the clergyman-like Crowfoot's Glorious as senior ship of the other line. Bolitho had now been reinforced by the two remaining seventy-fours, Valkyrie and Tenacious, and a small but welcome addition of the schooner Radiant, the latter commanded by an elderly lieutenant who had once been with the revenue service.
Small Radiant might be, but she was fast enough to dart close inshore and make off again before an enemy patrol vessel could be roused enough to weigh anchor and come out to discourage her impudence.
Allday was shaving Bolitho one morning and for the first time since they had come aboard, the stern windows were open, and there was real warmth in the air. Bolitho stared up at the deckhead while the razor rasped expertly under his chin.
The blade stilled as he said, "I suppose they hate my insides for all the drills I am forcing on them?"
Allday waited, then continued with his razor. "Better this way, Sir Richard. It's fair enough in small craft, but in big ships like this 'un it's wrong to draw officers and sailors too close together."
Bolitho looked at him curiously. More wisdom. "How so?"
"'Tween decks they needs someone to hate. Keeps them on edge, like a cutlass to a grindstone! "
Bolitho smiled and let his mind drift again. Cornwall would be fresh again after the drab weather. Bright yellow gorse, sheets of bluebells along the little paths to the headland. What would Catherine be doing? He had received several letters in the courier brig; once he had three altogether, as often happened with the King's ships constantly at sea. Catherine always made her letters interesting. She had dispensed with Somervell's property in London, and after paying off what sounded like a mountain of debts she had purchased a small house near the Thames. It was as if she had felt his sudden anxiety all the miles across the North Sea and had explained, "When you must be in London, we will have our own haven-we shall be beholden to nobody She spoke too of Falmouth, of ideas which she and Ferguson had put in motion to clear more land, to make a profit, and not merely sustain its existence. She never mentioned Belinda, nor did she speak of the enormous amount of money Belinda required to live in the only style she had come to accept.
There was a knock at the outer door and Keen entered and said apologetically, "I thought you should know, Sir Richard. Our schooner is in sight to the east'rd and is desiring to close on us."
Allday dabbed Bolitho's face and watched the light in his eyes. There was no sign of injury. No change, he thought. So perhaps after all. Bolitho said, "News, d'you think, Val?"
Keen said impassively, "She comes from the right direction."
In Catherine's last letter she had mentioned her meeting with Zenoria. "Tell Val to take heart. The love is as strong as before. It needs a sign." Keen had taken the news without comment. Resigned, hopeful or desperate; whatever his emotions were, he hid them well.
When Allday had left them alone Bolitho exclaimed, "In God's name, Val, how much longer must we beat up and down this barren coast waiting for some word? Every morning the horizon is empty but for our own companions, each sunset brings more curses from the people because of all this futility! "
There were more delays, while the schooner tacked this way and that before she could lie under Black Prince's lee and drop her boat in the water.
Lieutenant Evan Evans had served with the Revenue cutters before joining the King's navy but he looked more like a pirate than a law-abiding sailor. A great block of a man with rough grey hair which looked as if he cut it himself with shears, a brick-red face so battered and so ruined by hard drinking that he was a formidable presence even in Bolitho's great cabin.
Ozzard brought some wine but Evans shook his shaggy head. "None o' that, beggin' yer pardon, Sir Richard-it plays hell with my gut! "
But when Ozzard produced some rum Evans drained the tankard in one swallow. "More like it, see?"
Bolitho said, "Tell me what you found."
Together they walked to the table where Bolitho's own chart was spread with his personal log open beside it.
Evans put a finger as thick and as hard as a marlin spike on the chart and said, "Three days back, Sir Richard. Makin' for the Bay o' Heligoland, she was, leastways 'twas a fair guess at her direction."
Bolitho contained his impatience. Evans was reliving it. It would destroy the picture in his mind if he was goaded. It was strange to hear the local landmarks described in his rich Welsh accent.
Keen prompted gently, "She?"
Evans glared at him and continued, "Big as a cathedral, she was. Ship o' th' line." He shrugged heavily. "Then two frigates came from nowhere, out o' th' sun to all intents. One was a forty-four." He frowned, so that his bright eyes seemed to vanish into thick folds of skin.