"Alexander Kent - Bolitho 20 Darkening Sea Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kent Alexander)

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 crisscross 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.