‘Ah, Mr Adams – returned from the Flag with orders, I see.’ Even Bampton was curious as he watched the young officer spring over the bulwarks on his return from the flagship. Houghton opened the order book and studied the last entry, then snapped it shut. He would not be drawn and, with a frown, retired to his cabin, leaving the deck to his officers.
‘Well?’ demanded Bryant. Others sidled up: the quartermaster hovered and the master found it necessary to check the condition of the larboard waterway.
Adams adjusted his cuffs. ‘I must declare,’ he said lightly, ‘Our Nel is the coolest cove you’ll ever meet – French armada loose, who knows where?, and he won’t hear any as say it won’t end in a final meeting. So, it’s to be a continuation of the same, battle-ready night and day until we come up with ’em.’
‘Dammit, Adams, does he say where we’re lookin’?’ Bryant hissed.
‘Well, I was not actually consulted by Sir Horatio but, er, I did overhear him speaking with Berry.’
Kydd smiled.
‘And it seems that if we’ve not sighted ’em by twenty-seven east, then we beat south about Candia, back to the western Med.’
‘Quitting the chase!’ said Bampton, with relish.
‘Fallin’ back on Gibraltar, more like,’ Bryant snapped. ‘No choice.’
Kydd growled, ‘All th’ same, this Buonaparte has the devil’s luck – how else c’n he just vanish? No one sees him an’ all his ships?’
‘Remembering the size of the Mediterranean, above a million square miles…’ Renzi put in.
‘But not forgetting that we haven’t touched land since Sardinia. Wood ’n’ water, stores – we can’t go on like this for ever,’ Bampton observed.
‘If I don’t misread, Nelson is not y’r man to give away th’ game. He’ll hunt ’em down wherever they’re hidin’ and then we’ll have our fight. He’s had bad fortune, is all,’ Kydd declared.
Bampton smiled. ‘My guineas are on that before August we’ll have a new commander – mark my words.’
The signal for the fleet to come about on the starboard tack was hoisted within the hour and obediently the ships shaped course westward, close-hauled and taking the seas on their bows.
Renzi did not go below. There was a pleasing solitude to be had when the men went to breakfast: thoughts could flow unchecked to their natural conclusion, and the deck, with a minimum of watchmen about, was his for the walking.
His mind strayed to the letter he had received in Gibraltar: it was from his father who, in his usual bombastic manner, had insisted that he come home to discuss his future. There was little chance of that in the near term but there was no point in putting it off for ever. The next time he was in England he would return to face him.
Peake, the chaplain, came up from below, interrupting his thoughts. ‘Nicholas, I was told you always took the air at this time,’ he said, in his precise manner. ‘I do hope you will not object to my company.’
The deck lifted in response to a comber under the bows and he lurched over to grip a convenient downhaul. A double crossing of the North Atlantic had not improved his sea-legs.
‘You are most welcome, Padre,’ Renzi answered warmly. He had respect for the man, who was the most nearly learned of all aboard, one with whom he could dispute Rousseau, natural law, ethics, or any other subject valued by an Enlightened mind. The chaplain had volunteered for the sea service as his contribution to the struggle against France but, with a life perspective best termed literal, he was not preserved from the torments of midshipmen and irreverents by a saving sense of humour.
‘As Milton has it, “In solitude, what happiness? Who can enjoy alone, or, all enjoying, what contentment find?”’ admonished Peake.
‘Just so, Mr Peake. Yet please believe I have a desire at times to withdraw from the company of men – but merely for the contemplation of the sublime that is at the very essence of the sea.’ He had not the heart to discourage a man so manifestly reaching out.
Renzi saw Peake look about doubtfully at the straining sails and hurrying waves. The fleet’s progress west was necessarily against the same streaming north-westerly that had brought them eastward so rapidly. Now at each watch there would be anxious glances to the flagship for the signal ‘prepare to tack’, the warning that, yet again, there would be all hands at the sheets and braces for the hard work at putting about. Peake would see little of the sublime in such sea-enforced labour, Renzi mused, then enquired, ‘You are not enjoying your watery sojourn? Such lands as you’ve seen would cost a pretty penny to experience were you to ship as passenger.’