The Only Victor Read online

  Segrave felt the blade like fire across his hip, somehow knew that she had raised the knife for another blow at his unprotected back.

  There was a cracking sound and the knife went clattering to the deck. The girl lay back, her eyes closed, her mouth bleeding where Jay had punched her.

  Another figure ran into the low cabin. It was the seaman named Dwyer.

  Jay rasped, “’Ere, give Mr Segrave a hand!” He rolled the girl’s body aside and tugged a worn leather pouch from beneath her.

  Segrave groaned and tried to move. Then he saw the slash in his breeches where the knife had gone in. There was blood everywhere, and the pain was making him gasp, bite his lip to prevent himself from screaming.

  The sailor wrapped what appeared to be a shirt around the wound, but it was soon soaked through with blood.

  Jay ripped open the big pouch, his eyes speedily scanning the contents before he opened the chart with trembling fingers.

  Then he stood up. “I must speak with the Cap’n.” He looked at Segrave’s contorted face. “You saved my rump, an’ no mistake!” He watched his agony and added kindly, “Be easy till I come back.”

  On deck the sky already seemed darker, the clouds underbel-lied with deep gold.

  In quick sentences Jay shouted his information across the choppy division of water. “She was bound for Cape Town! There’s a despatch, wrote in French it looks.”

  Tyacke called, “How badly is Mr Segrave?” He saw Jay’s shrug. “Then you had better not move him! Send the vessel’s master across with the pouch—the deserter too. I will rejoin the squadron. Are you confident that you can manage?”

  Jay grinned and said to himself, “Manage? They’ll not make trouble now.”

  The Albacora’s master protested violently as a seaman seized his arm.

  Jay snarled, “Put those irons on him! Attempting to murder a King’s officer, butchering slaves, to say nothing of trading with the enemy.” He nodded, satisfied as the man fell silent. “Yes, my friend, you’ve understood the signal at last.”

  As the boat cast off and headed for Miranda, Jay positioned his most trusted men with great care.

  “We will get under way presently. Watch every move, even if they blinks! Shoot if in any doubt, see?”

  With the boatswain, he returned to the cabin where Dwyer was holding the midshipman and trying to staunch the blood.

  Dwyer said helplessly, “Won’t let me do it proper, sir!”

  Sperry tore his eyes from the sprawled figure on the bunk and licked his lips.

  “Now there’s a thing, Bob.”

  Jay was thinking of how close he had been to death. “Later, George.”

  Segrave was weaker but still tried to struggle as Sperry held him on the deck, while Dwyer and Jay began to cut away his bloodied breeches.

  Sperry said huskily, “I’ll put a stitch or two in it. Just lay another dressin’ on while I—”

  Jay exclaimed, “Who the bloody hell did that?”

  The midshipman lay quietly now, like a sick or injured animal.

  The whole of his buttocks and the backs of his thighs were scarred and bruised as if he had been beaten over and over again with a cord or a whip. Whoever had done this to him it was not in Miranda. That meant he had carried these scars for over six weeks, and without a word being said.

  Jay thought of the jibes and grins, and all the while he . . .

  The boatswain said, “He’s passed out, Bob. I’ll fetch me gear.”

  “Yeh, an’ see if you can find some rum or brandy—anythin’.”

  He turned back to the midshipman, who lay as if he was dead. “You poor little bugger,” he said softly. He watched the blood soaking through the makeshift bandages. But for Segrave’s unexpected courage it would have been his own blood, and no second chance either.

  He saw Dwyer watching him and said harshly, “And it goes no further, see? This is Miranda’s business, no one else’s! I reckon ’e’s suffered enough in this poxy squadron.”

  Midshipman Segrave opened his eyes and was conscious of two things immediately. The sky overhead was dark and dotted with tiny stars; he was wrapped in blankets, a pillow beneath his head.

  A shadow bent over him, and Jay asked, “How is it?”

  Then came the pain, throbbing in time with his heartbeats. He could taste brandy on his lips but could only remember the sequence of events like dark pictures. Hands holding him down; sharp stabbing pains; oblivion. Then the girl. He shook violently. That was it. When it had happened.

  “Am I all right?” His voice sounded weak.

  Jay forced a grin. “ ’Course you are. ’Ero of the hour. Saved my skin, an’ gave us cause to ’old this ship.”

  He looked across at two kneeling figures. Like some natives at prayer. But he knew they were trying to peer through the dirty skylight. Sperry was down there with the girl, doing what he probably did better than anything, if half his yarns were to be believed.

  Then he asked, “Tell me, lad, who did that to you?”

  But Segrave shook his head, his eyes closed with the pain and the emotion.

  Jay, the hard-bitten master’s mate, had called him a hero.

  4 SEEK AND FIND

  THEMIS’S STERN CABIN was like a furnace in spite of the open gun-ports and the windsails rigged to each hatchway, so it was difficult even to think. Bolitho sat at the table, his head resting on one hand while he scanned the contents of the pouch which had been ferried across from the schooner Miranda.

  Commodore Warren slumped in a high-backed chair, his ashen features turned towards the nearest port, his only movement when he plucked his uniform coat or shirt away from his damp skin.

  Seated beside Bolitho, his plump, round-shouldered secretary, Daniel Yovell, had to repeatedly push his gold-rimmed spectacles back into position when they slipped down his nose, as he wrote the notes which Bolitho might require later on.

  Warren asked suddenly, “You are not surprised by the army’s reply to your request, Sir Richard?”

  Bolitho dragged his thoughts away from the pouch which Miranda’s boarding party had discovered. The evidence of the chart was interesting, but the lengthy letter to some French merchant in Cape Town was far more so.

  He replied, “Much what I expected, Commodore Warren. But we have to use the proper channels. By now, Sir David Baird’s soldiers will have begun their landings. It is too late to prevent it, even if I could.”

  Jenour stood beside the stern windows and watched the Miranda as she swung above her reflection, a perfect twin on the calm water. Her commander had been fortunate, he thought. A few hours later and he would have lost the wind completely.

  He turned as Bolitho said, “Your French is excellent, Stephen. When you translated this letter for me, did you notice anything unusual?”

  Jenour tried to shake off the torpor. Of them all, Bolitho looked the coolest. Dressed in shirt and breeches, his coat tossed aside on to a chest, he even managed to appear alert, although Jenour knew that he had been pacing the cabin since Miranda’s sails had been sighted closing the land. That had been at dawn. It was now high noon. In this oven-heat men trod warily; it was a dangerous time when frayed tempers brought sharp discipline, with an aftermath of resentment. Better to be at sea, with every man too busy to brood.

  Jenour screwed up his face. “If the letter is a code I cannot read it, Sir Richard. It is the kind of letter that one merchant might send to another, passed perhaps by one ship on passage to that particular destination. After all, it is quite possible for French merchants to be in Cape Town surely?”

  Bolitho massaged his forehead. It was a code, and he was surprised that even the quick-witted Jenour had missed a vital clue.

  It fell to Yovell, who had been peering at his papers, his fat fingers holding his spectacles in place, to discover it.

  He exclaimed, “The battle off Cape Trafalgar, Sir Richard! The sender mentions it to his friend!”

  Bolitho saw their expressions begin to change.
“Quite what you would expect, eh? Except that Truculent made a record passage here from England, before anyone in this squadron knew about the battle and Lord Nelson’s death. So to have time in hand to pass this letter to a slaver, the sender must have been in these waters ahead of us!”

  Warren dabbed his mouth with care. “A French man-of-war?”

  Jenour clenched his fists with disbelief. “One of those which broke out of Brest?”

  Bolitho tugged the chart towards him. “Cape Town is the clue, my friends, although I fear I cannot determine what it is.”

  He made up his mind. “Make a signal to Miranda, Stephen. Summon her commander aboard. I would like to meet him in any case.”

  As Jenour turned towards the door Commodore Warren said humbly, “I am sorry. It slipped my mind, Sir Richard. Lieutenant Tyacke has been aboard since he delivered the pouch.”

  Bolitho bit back a sharp retort. It was not now the time, but later . . . He sighed. Two frigate captains who disliked one another—their commodore who showed little interest in the whole operation—and a mixed handful of vessels which had barely worked with one another before. Small beginnings.

  He said, “Ask him to come in, Stephen.”

  Warren shifted uneasily. “There is another thing about him . . .”

  But Jenour already had the door to the cabin open, so he did not finish it.

  Jenour stepped into the other cabin and looked at the tall man who was standing by an open gunport, his hands clasped behind him.

  “If you will step aft—Sir Richard Bolitho wishes to speak with you.” He was relieved to see that the lieutenant had at least been given refreshment, and doubtless some of the commodore’s terrible wine. “We were not aware that you were still . . .” The words froze on his lips as the other man turned to stare at him. How could anyone live with a wound like that?

  Tyacke said abruptly, “And who are you, might I ask?” Then he saw the twist of gold lace at Jenour’s shoulder. “I see, Flag Lieutenant.”

  Jenour tried again. “Forgive me. I did not mean—”

  Tyacke shifted the sword at his belt and turned his disfigurement aside. “I am accustomed to it. But I don’t have to enjoy it.” He did not attempt to hide his anger and bitterness. Who did they think they were?

  He lowered his head between the deck beams and stepped into the enlarged cabin. For a few moments he was taken completely off-balance. The commodore he knew slightly by sight, and for some lingering seconds he imagined that the plump man in the plain blue coat must be the much-talked about Bolitho. Not an heroic figure; but then most of the flag-officers Tyacke had met were not.

  “Will you accept my apologies, Mr Tyacke?” Bolitho walked from the shadows and crossed beneath a skylight. “I was not told you had been kept waiting. Please forgive this oversight and take a seat, will you?”

  Tyacke sat down awkwardly. Perhaps he had been at sea too long, or had misheard somehow. But the man in the white shirt, with the almost gentle manner of greeting, was not what he had expected. For one thing Bolitho looked no older than himself, although he knew he must be nearer fifty than forty. But for the deep lines around his mouth, and the traces of white in a solitary lock of hair above one eye, he was a young man. Bolitho was looking at him again in that strangely direct and open manner. The eyes were grey, and for a few seconds Tyacke felt tongue-tied, more like Midshipman Segrave than himself.

  Bolitho continued, “Your discovery aboard that slaver may be more useful than any of us realise.” He smiled suddenly, so that he appeared even younger. “I am trying to fathom how it may help us.”

  A door opened, and a very small servant padded across the cabin and paused by Tyacke’s chair. “Some hock, sir?” He watched Tyacke’s expression and added mildly, “It is quite cold, sir.” It sounded as if it was better wine than was usually available in this elderly flagship.

  Tyacke swallowed hard. This must be one of Bolitho’s men too. He drank deeply, trying to contain something he thought he had lost. Emotion. The little man had not even blinked; had shown neither curiosity nor disgust.

  Bolitho observed him and saw the lieutenant’s hand tremble as his glass was refilled. Another survivor. One more victim which the war had tossed aside, as the sea gave up driftwood.

  He asked quietly, “Where is this Albacora now?”

  Tyacke seemed to pull himself out of his thoughts with a physical effort.

  “She will be here in two days, Sir Richard. I left a small prize crew aboard and the injured midshipman.”

  Bolitho nodded. “I read of him in your report. He sounds a brave youngster.”

  Tyacke dropped his gaze. “He surprised me.”

  Bolitho looked at his secretary. “I shall require you to write some orders for another of the schooners.” His voice hardened and he saw the commodore watching him anxiously. “I want the Albacora put alongside one of the storeships when she arrives. She must be met at sea, out of sight of prying telescopes ashore, then brought to her moorings at night.” He waited for his words to sink in. “Will you attend to that, Commodore Warren?”

  Warren bobbed and fell into a fit of violent coughing.

  Bolitho turned his back and studied the tall lieutenant. “I wish to take passage in your command, Mr Tyacke.” He saw the disbelief, the arguments rushing into the man’s eyes. “I am used to small vessels so have no fear for my—er, dignity!”

  When he looked again, the commodore had left the cabin, but he could still hear him coughing. Jenour was at Yovell’s shoulder peering at the plump Devonian’s neat, round writing.

  For a few minutes they were alone, ignored. Bolitho asked softly, “Where did it happen?” That was all he said, but he saw the words hit Tyacke like a clenched fist.

  Then Tyacke met his gaze and said without hesitation, “The Nile, Sir Richard. The Majestic, seventy-four.”

  Bolitho nodded very slowly. “Yes. Captain Westcott. A fine man. Sadly missed.” He touched his left eyelid with one finger and Tyacke imagined that he saw him wince.

  Bolitho said, “Please return to your ship. As soon as the remainder of your people arrive in the prize, your prize, Mr Tyacke, be prepared to weigh anchor again.”

  Tyacke glanced at the others but Jenour was studying some papers; or perhaps he simply could not face him.

  Bolitho added, “I shall want you to take me to the Cape itself, beyond if need be. I am doing no good here.”

  As Tyacke turned to leave Bolitho called to him, “There is one more thing.” He walked across the cabin until they faced each other again. “I would like to shake your hand.” His grasp was firm. “You are a very brave officer.” For just seconds he hesitated. “You have given me hope. I shall not forget.”

  Tyacke found himself in the harsh sunlight and then down in Miranda’s longboat before he knew what had happened.

  Simcox was in the boat, agog with excitement and questions.

  Tyacke watched dully as the boat cast off and the seamen picked up the stroke. Then he said without emphasis, “He wants us to take him to the Cape.”

  Simcox stared. “A vice-admiral! In Miranda!”

  The lieutenant nodded, remembering, holding on to it. And lastly the handshake, the momentary wistfulness in Bolitho’s voice.

  Simcox was unnerved by the change in his friend. Something strange and important must have happened aboard the flagship. He hoped that Tyacke had not been hurt again.

  He tried to pass it off. “And I’ll bet you forgot to ask him about our beer ration, what say you?”

  But Tyacke had not heard him. He repeated, “Take him to the Cape. By the living God, I’d sail that man to hell and back if he asked me!”

  They did not speak again until they reached Miranda.

  Richard Bolitho wedged himself in one corner of the Miranda’s small cabin and then stretched out his legs. The motion was certainly lively, he thought ruefully, and even his stomach, which had been hardened by every sort of sea and under most conditions, was queasy.

&
nbsp; Lieutenant Tyacke had been on deck for most of the time since they had hauled anchor, and although he could see nothing apart from the bright blue rectangle through the skylight, Bolitho guessed that once clear of the choppy inshore currents things might be easier.

  It seemed odd not to have Ozzard pattering about, anticipating his every need even before he had thought of it himself. But space was precious in the rakish schooner, and in any case it might appear as a slight to Miranda’s people if he brought his own servant. It was probably shock enough to see him climb aboard, despite Tyacke’s warning beforehand. As he had made his way aft Bolitho had caught glimpses of the varied expressions. Astonishment, curiosity, maybe even resentment. Like Tyacke, whose voice seemed to be everywhere on deck, they might see his presence more as an invasion of their private world than any sort of honour. He had asked Jenour to remain in the flagship, too. His eyes and ears were as useful as Miranda’s.

  Bolitho had seen the captured slaver alongside one of the transports, but had not gone over to her. He had heard about the woman in the master’s cabin, and the deserter who was now under guard in the flagship, awaiting his fate. He guessed there were several other things which had not been mentioned in Tyacke’s report.

  He heard the boom of canvas as the fore-topsail filled out to the wind, and imagined he could feel the instant response while the schooner settled on her new tack.

  He looked around the cramped cabin, hearing once more in his mind Allday’s outspoken disapproval.

  “Not fit for a vice-admiral, ’specially you, Sir Richard! A collier would offer more comfort!” He was out there somewhere, either quietly fuming, or, having accepted it, sharing a “wet” with one of the Miranda’s senior hands. He usually managed to settle in that way, and gain more information than Bolitho might do in a year.

  The cabin was packed with personal belongings, sea chests, clothing and weapons, the latter within easy reach for any occupant.

  Tyacke had left the wounded midshipman in the care of Themis’s surgeon. There was another story there, too, but Bolitho doubted if Tyacke would share it. The tall, powerful lieutenant discouraged confidences, apart from with his friend, the acting-master. Maybe he had always been a solitary man, and his terrible scars had only increased his isolation.