The Darkening Sea Read online

  Or the law, or the City perhaps? Keen’s family came of far wealthier stock than the usual inhabitants of any midshipman’s berth in some overcrowded liner.

  Adam had not commented immediately. He had been listening to the slap of feet on deck, the sudden bawl of commands as the helm had gone over yet again.

  ‘If I had to begin all over again, Uncle, I’d not ask for a finer tutor.’

  He had hesitated, just for an instant the thin, half-starved midshipman who had walked all the way from Penzance to search for his unknown uncle, with only Bolitho’s name scrawled on a piece of paper. ‘Nor a better friend …’

  Bolitho had intended to make light of it, but knew that this was far too important to the youthful captain who had been sitting across the table from him. It was something very private, like that other secret which was rarely out of Bolitho’s thoughts. They had shared so much, but the time to share that had not yet come.

  Then Adam had said quietly, ‘Captain Keen is a very lucky man.’

  Adam had insisted that the sleeping cabin should be for his guest, while he had been content to take his rest in the stern cabin. That caused Bolitho to recall another incident on this passage, which for the most part had been uneventful. On the day after the ship’s company had spread the lighter canvas for the final run in toward the Western Approaches he had found Adam sitting in the stern cabin at his table, an empty goblet in his fingers.

  Bolitho had seen his distress, the disgust he obviously felt for himself, and had asked, ‘What ails you, Adam? Tell me what you will – I shall do all I can.’

  Adam had looked up at him and replied, ‘It is my birthday today, Uncle.’ He had said it in such a steady, level tone that only Bolitho would have known he had been drinking, and not merely the one goblet. It was something Adam would have punished any of his officers for. He loved this ship, the command he had always wanted.

  ‘I know.’ Bolitho had sat down, afraid that the sight of his vice-admiral’s gold lace would drop a barrier between them.

  ‘I am twenty-nine.’ He had glanced around the cabin, his eyes suddenly wistful.

  ‘Beyond Anemone, I have nothing.’ He had swung round as his cabin servant had entered. ‘What the hell do you want, man?’

  That too had been unusual, and it had helped to bring him to his senses.

  ‘I am sorry. That was unforgivable when you cannot answer me back for my intolerance.’ The servant backed away, hurt and confused.

  Then there was another interruption, when the second lieutenant had entered and informed his captain that it was all but time to call both watches and change tack.

  Adam had acknowledged him with equal formality. ‘I shall come up directly, Mr Martin.’ As the door had closed he had reached for his hat, and hesitated before adding, ‘On my birthday last year I was kissed by a lady.’

  Bolitho had asked, ‘Do I know her?’

  Adam had already been listening to the trill of calls, the stampede of feet across the deck. ‘I think not, Uncle. I don’t think anyone does.’ Then he had gone.

  Bolitho made up his mind, and disdaining a boat cloak he found his way to the quarterdeck.

  The smells, the creak of spars and timbers, the stress and strain of all the miles of standing and running rigging – it made him feel very young again. He seemed to hear the admiral’s response to his plea for a ship, any ship, when the war had broken out with Revolutionary France.

  Still weakened by the fever which had cut him down in the Great South Sea, and with every officer clamouring for reemployment or a command, he had almost begged.

  I am a frigate captain …

  The admiral’s cold answer, ‘Were a frigate captain, Bolitho,’ had wounded him for a long, long time.

  He smiled, the strain dropping away from his face. Instead of a frigate they had given him Hyperion. ‘The Old Hyperion’, about which they still yarned and even sang in the taverns and wherever sailors gathered.

  He heard voices and thought he could smell coffee. That would be his mole-like servant Ozzard. Ozzard never seemed surprised by anything, although it was hard to read the man’s thoughts. Was he glad to be going home? Or did he even care?

  He stepped on to the wet planking and glanced at the dark figures around him. The midshipman of the watch was already whispering to the sailing master that their illustrious passenger was up and about.

  Adam stood with Peter Sargeant, his senior lieutenant. Sargeant was probably already ear-marked for his own command, Bolitho thought. Adam would miss him if that happened.

  Ozzard moved from the shadows with his coffee pot and presented him with a steaming mug. ‘All fresh, Sir Richard, but almost the end of it.’

  Adam crossed to his side, his dark hair ruffling in the damp wind.

  ‘Rosemullion Head on the larboard bow, Sir Richard.’ The formality was not lost on either of them. ‘Mr Partridge assures me we shall be off Pendennis Point by four bells of the forenoon watch.’

  Bolitho nodded and sipped the scalding coffee, recalling the shop to which Catherine had taken him in London’s St James’s Street. She had bought fine coffee and good wines, cheeses, and other small luxuries he would never have troubled about. He watched the sunlight breaking across the rocky coast and the rolling green hills beyond. Home.

  ‘That was a fast passage, Captain. A pity you cannot take time to come to the house.’

  Adam did not look at him. ‘I shall cherish that in my mind, sir.’

  The first lieutenant touched his hat. ‘I shall hoist our number when we are within range, sir.’ He was speaking to his captain, but Bolitho knew it was directed at himself.

  He said quietly, ‘I think she will already know, Mr Sargeant.’

  He saw Allday’s powerful shape by one of the gangways. As if he could feel his gaze like something physical the big coxswain turned and glanced up at him, his tanned face breaking into a lazy grin.

  We are here, old friend. Like all those other times. Still together.

  ‘Stand by to wear ship! Man the braces! Hands aloft an’ loose t’gallants!’

  Bolitho stood by the rail. Anemone would make a perfect picture as she altered course.

  For a perfect landfall.

  Captain Adam Bolitho stood at the weather side of the quarterdeck, arms folded, content to leave the final approach to his first lieutenant. He watched the crouching walls and tower of Pendennis Castle as it seemed to swing very slowly through the black criss-cross of tarred rigging as if snared in a net.

  Many glasses would be trained from the old castle, which with the fort and battery on the opposite headland had guarded the harbour entrance for centuries. Beyond Pendennis and hidden in the green hillside was the old grey Bolitho house with all its memories, of its sons who had left this very port never to return.

  He tried not to think of the night when Zenoria had found him drinking brandy, his eyes burning with tears for his uncle who had been reported lost in the transport Golden Plover. Was that only last year?

  Bolitho had told him Zenoria was with child. He had dared not consider that it might be his. Only Catherine had been near to discovering the truth, and Bolitho’s concern for Adam himself had almost made him confess what he had done. But if he feared the consequences, Adam feared what the truth might do to his uncle far more.

  He saw Allday’s massive bulk by the larboard guns, lost in his own thoughts; wondering perhaps about the woman he had saved from robbery and worse and who now owned the little inn, the Stag over at Fallowfield. Home is the sailor.

  Old Partridge’s voice intruded.

  ‘Let ’er fall off a point!’

  ‘Nor’ by East, sir! Steady she goes!’

  The picture of the land shifted again as the frigate pointed her long tapering jib-boom towards the entrance and Carrick Roads.

  A fine ship’s company. It had taken patience and a few knocks, but Adam was proud of them. His blood still ran like ice-water when he recalled how Anemone had been lured into the range
of a shore battery firing heated shot by a vessel carrying French soldiers. It had been as near as that. He glanced along the clean length of the maindeck where the men now waited at the braces and halliards for the run up to the anchorage. Heated shot would have turned his beloved Anemone into a pillar of fire: the sun-dried sails and tarred rigging, the stores of powder and shot would have been gone in minutes. His jaw tightened as he recalled how they had gone about to pull out of range, but not before he had poured a devastating broadside into the enemy’s bait and given her the terrible end intended for his own ship.

  He remembered too how Captain Valentine Keen had been ordered to return home in this same ship, but then at the last moment had sailed in a larger frigate accompanying the captured French admiral, Baratte. It had been a near thing. Bolitho had never revealed his innermost thoughts about Herrick’s failure to support him in that engagement when he had so needed help against great odds.

  Adam gripped the quarterdeck rail until the pain steadied him. God damn him to hell. Herrick’s betrayal must have hurt Bolitho so deeply that he could not talk about it.

  After all he had done for him – as he has done for me.

  His mind returned warily to Zenoria. Did she hate him for what had happened?

  Would Keen ever discover the truth?

  It would be sweet revenge if I ever have to quit the navy as my father once did, if only to protect those I love.

  The first lieutenant murmured, ‘The admiral’s coming up, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Sargeant.’ He was bound to lose him when they reached Portsmouth, and some other valuable men as well. He saw the lieutenant watching him and added quietly, ‘I have been hard on you, Peter, over the past months.’ He touched his sleeve as Bolitho would have done. ‘A captain’s life is not all luxury, as you will one day discover!’

  They turned and touched their hats as Bolitho walked into the sunlight. He was dressed in his best frock coat, with the glittering silver stars on either epaulette. The vice-admiral again: the image the public, and for that matter most of the navy, cherished and recognised. Not the man in the flapping shirt and shabby old sea-going coat. This was the hero, the youngest vice-admiral on the Navy List. Envied by some, hated by others, the talk and the topic of gossip in the coffee houses and at every smart London reception. The man who had risked everything for the woman he loved: reputation, security. Adam could not begin to measure it.

  Bolitho was carrying his cocked hat as if to hold at bay the last trappings of authority, so that his hair was dishevelled by the wind. It was still as black as Adam’s own, except for the one rebellious lock above his right eye where a cutlass had almost ended his life. The lock over the scar was greyish white, as if he had been branded.

  Lieutenant Sargeant watched them together. It had been a revelation to him when, like the rest of the wardroom, he had overcome his nervousness at the prospect of having a man so famous and so admired by the navy in general amongst them, sharing the intimate life of a fifth-rate, and he had been able to observe his admiral at close quarters. Admiral and captain might have been brothers, so strong was the family resemblance. Sargeant had heard many remark on this. And the warmth of their regard for one another had put the wardroom at ease. Bolitho had gone around the ship, ‘feeling his way’ as his burly coxswain had described it, but never interfering. Sargeant was aware of Bolitho’s reputation as one of the navy’s foremost frigate captains, and knew in some way he must have been sharing Adam’s joy in Anemone.

  Adam said gently, ‘I shall miss you, Uncle.’ His voice was almost lost in the squeal of blocks and the rush of hands to the cathead, ready to let go one of the great anchors. He too was holding on to this moment, willing to share it with nobody.

  ‘I wish you could come to the house, Adam.’ He studied Adam’s profile as his eyes moved aloft and then to the helmsmen, from the masthead pendant streaming out like a lance to the slope of Anemone’s deck as the wheel and rudder took command.

  Adam smiled, and it made him look like a boy again. ‘I cannot. We must take on fresh water and depart with all despatch. Please convey my warmest greetings to Lady Catherine.’ He hesitated. ‘And any who care for me.’

  Bolitho glanced over and saw Allday watching him, his head on one side like a shaggy, questioning dog.

  He said, ‘I shall take the gig, Allday. I’ll send it back for you and Yovell, and any gear we may have overlooked.’

  Allday, who hated to leave his side, did not blink. He understood. Bolitho wanted to meet her alone.

  ‘Ready to come about, sir!’

  With her courses already brailed up and under reefed topsails, Anemone curtsied around in the freshening breeze. It was the sort of weather she had always relished.

  ‘Let go!’

  A great burst of spray shot above the beakhead as the anchor plummeted down for the first time since the sun and beaches of the Caribbean. Men, starved of loved ones, homes and perhaps children they had barely known, stared around at the green slopes of Cornwall, the tiny pale dots of sheep on the hillsides. There were few who would be allowed ashore even when they reached Portsmouth, and already there were scarlet-coated marines on the gangways and in the bows, ready to fire on anyone foolish enough to try to swim to the shore.

  Afterwards he thought it was like a dream sequence. Bolitho heard the trill of a call as the gig was hoisted out and lowered alongside, its crew very smart in checkered shirts and tarred hats. Adam had learned well. A man-of-war was always judged first by her boats and their crews.

  ‘Man the side!’

  The Royal Marines fell in by the entry port, a sergeant taking the place of their officer, who had died of his wounds and now lay fathoms deep in that other ocean.

  Boatswain’s mates moistened their calls with their lips, eyes moving occasionally to the man who was about to leave them, the man who had not only talked with them in the dog watches but also had listened, as if he had really needed to know them, the ordinary men who must follow him even to the cannon’s mouth if so ordered. Some had been perplexed by the experience. They had been expecting to find the legend. Instead they had discovered a human being.

  Bolitho turned towards them and raised his hat. Allday saw his sudden distress as a probing shaft of sunlight lanced down through the shrouds and neatly furled sails to touch his injured eye.

  It was always a bad moment, and Allday had to restrain himself from stepping up to help him over the side where the gig swayed to its lines, a midshipman standing in the sternsheets to receive their passenger.

  Bolitho nodded to them, and turned his face away. ‘I wish you all good fortune. I am proud to have been in your midst.’

  Vague impressions now, the cloud of pipeclay above the bayonetted muskets as the guard presented arms, the piercing twitter of calls, the fleeting anxiety on Allday’s rugged features as he reached the gig in safety. He saw Adam by the rail, his hand half-raised, while behind him his lieutenants and warrant officers sought to be the first to take his attention. A man-of-war at sea or in harbour was never at rest, and already boats were putting off from the harbour wall to conduct, if they could, every kind of business from the sale of tobacco and fruit to the services of women of the town, if a captain would permit them on board.

  ‘Give way all!’ The midshipman’s voice was a squeak. Bolitho shaded his eyes to see the people on the nearest jetty. Faintly, above the scream of gulls circling some incoming fishing boats, he heard the church clock strike the half-hour. Old Partridge had been right about the time of their arrival. Anemone must have anchored exactly at four bells as he had predicted.

  More uniforms at the top of the stone stairs, and an old man with a wooden leg who was grinning as if Bolitho were his own son.

  Bolitho said, ‘Morning, Ned.’ He was an old boatswain’s mate who had once served with him. What ship? How many years ago?

  The man piped after him, ‘Did ’ee give they Frenchies a quiltin’, zur?’

  But Bolitho had hurried away. H
e had seen her watching him from the narrow lane that led eventually to the house by a less public route.

  She stood quite still, only one hand moving as it stroked the horse’s neck, her eyes never leaving his face.

  He had known she would be here, just as she had been drawn from her bed to be the first, the only one to greet him.

  He was home.

  Bolitho paused with his arm around Catherine’s shoulder, one hand touching her skin. The tall glass doors leading from the library were wide open, and the air was heavy with the fragrance of roses. She glanced at his profile, the white lock of hair etched against his sunburn. She had called it distinguished, to comfort him, although she knew he hated it, as if it were some trick to constantly remind him of the difference in years between them.

  She said quietly, ‘I have always loved roses. When you took me to see your sister’s garden I knew we should have more of them.’

  He caressed her shoulder, still barely able to believe that he was here, that he had come ashore only an hour ago. All the weeks and the months remembering their time together, her courage and endurance before and after the loss of the Golden Plover, when he himself had doubted that they would survive the misery and suffering of an open boat, with the sharks never far away.

  A small housemaid hurried past with some linen and looked at Bolitho with astonishment.

  ‘Why, welcome home, Sir Richard! Tes a real joy to see you!’

  He smiled. ‘I relish being here, my girl.’ He saw the servant dart a quick glance at Catherine who was still wearing the old coat, and the riding skirt splashed with dew and marked by the dust of the cliff track.

  He asked quietly, ‘Have they treated you well, Kate?’

  ‘They have been more than kind. Bryan Ferguson has been a tower of strength.’

  ‘He told me just now when you were sending for coffee that you have put him to shame in the estate office.’ He squeezed her. ‘I am so proud of you.’

  She looked across the sloping garden to the low wall and beyond, where the sea’s edge shone above the hillside like water in a dam.