THE
DARKNING
SEA
Selected Historical Fiction Published by McBooks Press
BY ALEXANDER KENT
The Complete Midshipman Bolitho
Stand Into Danger
In Gallant Company
Sloop of War
To Glory We Steer
Command a King’s Ship
Passage to Mutiny
With All Despatch
Form Line of Battle!
Enemy in Sight!
The Flag Captain
Signal–Close Action!
The Inshore Squadron
A Tradition of Victory
Success to the Brave
Colours Aloft!
Honour This Day
The Only Victor
Beyond the Reef
The Darkening Sea
For My Country’s Freedom
Cross of St George
Sword of Honour
Second to None
Relentless Pursuit
Man of War
Heart of Oak
BY PHILIP MCCUTCHAN
Halfhyde at the Bight of Benin
Halfhyde’s Island
Halfhyde and the Guns of Arrest
Halfhyde to the Narrows
Halfhyde for the Queen
Halfhyde Ordered South
Halfhyde on Zanatu
BY DEWEY LAMBDIN
The French Admiral
The Gun Ketch
A King’s Commander
Jester’s Fortune
What Lies Buried
BY ALEXANDER FULLERTON
Storm Force to Narvik
Last Lift from Crete
All the Drowning Seas
A Share of Honour
The Torch Bearers
The Gatecrashers
BY JULIAN STOCKWIN
Mutiny
Quarterdeck
Tenacious
Command
The Admiral’s Daughter
BY JAN NEEDLE
A Fine Boy for Killing
The Wicked Trade
The Spithead Nymph
BY DUDLEY POPE
Ramage
Ramage & The Drumbeat
Ramage & The Freebooters
Governor Ramage R.N.
Ramage’s Prize
Ramage & The Guillotine
Ramage’s Diamond
Ramage’s Mutiny
Ramage & The Rebels
The Ramage Touch
Ramage’s Signal
Ramage & The Renegades
Ramage’s Devil
Ramage’s Trial
Ramage’s Challenge
Ramage at Trafalgar
Ramage & The Saracens
Ramage & The Dido
BY FREDERICK MARRYAT
Frank Mildmay OR The Naval Officer
Mr Midshipman Easy
Newton Forster OR The Merchant Service
Snarleyyow OR The Dog Fiend
The Privateersman
BY V.A. STUART
Victors and Lords
The Sepoy Mutiny
Massacre at Cawnpore
The Cannons of Lucknow
The Heroic Garrison
The Valiant Sailors
The Brave Captains
Hazard’s Command
Hazard of Huntress
Hazard in Circassia
Victory at Sebastopol
Guns to the Far East
Escape from Hell
BY JAMES DUFFY
Sand of the Arena
The Fight for Rome
BY JOHN BIGGINS
A Sailor of Austria
The Emperor’s Coloured Coat
The Two-Headed Eagle
Tomorrow the World
BY R.F. DELDERFIELD
Too Few for Drums
Seven Men of Gascony
BY JAMES L. NELSON
The Only Life That Mattered
BY C.N. PARKINSON
The Guernseyman
Devil to Pay
The Fireship
Touch and Go
So Near So Far
Dead Reckoning
The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower
BY DOUGLAS W. JACOBSON
Night of Flames
BY DOUGLAS REEMAN
Badge of Glory
First to Land
The Horizon
Dust on the Sea
Knife Edge
Twelve Seconds to Live
The White Guns
A Prayer for the Ship
For Valour
BY DAVID DONACHIE
The Devil’s Own Luck
The Dying Trade
A Hanging Matter
An Element of Chance
The Scent of Betrayal
A Game of Bones
On a Making Tide
Tested by Fate
Breaking the Line
BY BROOS CAMPBELL
No Quarter
The War of Knives
Alexander Kent
THE DARKENING SEA
the Bolitho novels: 20
McBooks Press, Inc.
www.mcbooks.com
ITHACA, NY
Published by McBooks Press 2000
Copyright © 1993by Highseas Authors Ltd.
First published in the United Kingdom by William Heinemann Ltd. 1993
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher. Requests for such permissions should be addressed to McBooks Press, ID Booth Building, 520 North Meadow St., Ithaca, NY 14850.
Cover painting by Geoffrey Huband.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kent, Alexander.
The darkening sea / by Alexander Kent.
p. cm. — (Richard Bolitho novels ; 20 )
ISBN 0-935526-83-8 (alk. paper)
1. Bolitho, Richard (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Great
Britain—History, Naval— 19 th century—Fiction. 3. Napoleonic Wars,
1800—1815 —Fiction I. Title
PR6061.E63 D37 2000
823’.914—dc21
00-058623
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Printed in the United States of America
9 8 7
To Mike and Bee Hartree, with our love
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
TENNYSON, ULYSSES
1 LANDFALL
THE MEANDERING track that ran around the wide curve of Falmouth Bay was just wide enough to allow passage to horse and rider, and only slightly less dangerous than the footpath which was somewhere beneath it. To the stranger or the foolhardy either could be hazardous.
On this particular dawn the coast appeared abandoned, its sounds confined to the cries of seabirds, the occasional lively trill of an early robin, and the repetitive call of a cuckoo which never seemed to get any closer. In places some of the cliff had fallen away, so that where the track ran closer to the edge it was possible to hear the boom of the sea against the jagged rocks below. Rarely still, it was never to be taken for gran
ted.
There was a damp chill in the air but this was late June, and within hours the horizon would be hard and clear, the sea glittering with a million mirrors. The horse and rider rose slowly above a steep slope and paused like a piece of statuary or, like this bewitched coast, a vision which might suddenly vanish.
Lady Catherine Somervell tried to relax her body as she stared back above the drifting mist. They must have thought her mad at the big grey house below Pendennis Castle, like the stableboy who had snatched up a lantern when she had startled him out of sleep. He had mumbled something about calling the head groom or the coachman, but she had refused. As he had saddled Tamara, the powerful mare Richard Bolitho had found for her, she had felt the same sense of urgency, and a conviction which her rational mind could not dismiss.
She had dressed herself in the big room, their room, with the same driving desperation. Her long dark hair was only loosely pinned about her ears, and she wore her thick riding skirt and one of Richard’s old seagoing coats, which she often used on her cliff walks.
She had felt the gorse and bushes dragging at her skirt as Tamara had moved purposefully along the track; had tasted the sea. The enemy as Bolitho had once called it, his voice so bitter in one of those rare, private moments.
She stroked the horse’s neck to reassure herself. A fast packet had brought news to Falmouth from the Caribbean. The English fleet and a considerable force of soldiers and marines had attacked Martinique, the main base for French naval operations there. The French had surrendered, and most of their activities in the Caribbean and on the Main had ceased.
Catherine had watched the faces of the people in the square when the news had been read out by a dragoon officer. Most of them would be unaware of the importance of Martinique, a thorn in Britain’s side for so many years, or even know where it was. There was little enthusiasm and no cheers either, for this was 1809, and four years had passed since the death of Nelson, the nation’s darling, and the battle of Trafalgar which must have seemed to many the final stage of this endless war.
And with the packet had come a letter from Richard. He had written in great haste, with no time for details. The fighting was over and he was quitting his flagship, the 94 -gun Black Prince, and was under orders to return to England with all haste. It did not seem possible even now. He had been absent for little more than nine months. She had steeled herself for a much longer period, two years or even three. She had existed only for his letters, and had thrown herself into helping Bryan Ferguson, Bolitho’s one-armed steward. With every young man pressed into the fleet, unless they were lucky enough to hold a protection, it was difficult to keep the farm and estate working. There were several crippled men who had once served with Bolitho, men he now cared for much as he had tried to do at sea. Many landowners would have thrown them on the beach, as Richard called it, left them to beg from those they had fought to protect.
But all that mattered now was that he was coming home. First to Falmouth. She shivered as if it were winter. The rest could wait until he was here, in her arms.
She had read his short letter so many times, trying to guess why he had been required to hand over his command to another flag officer. Valentine Keen had also been replaced, and perhaps was intended for promotion. She thought of Keen’s young wife and felt a touch of envy. She was with child; it must be due, born even. But Keen’s well-meaning family had taken Zenoria to one of their fine houses in Hampshire. She had been the only girl Catherine had found it easy to talk with. Love, suffering, courage —they had both experienced their extremes in the past.
There had been a very unexpected visitor after she had received Richard’s letter. Stephen Jenour, his flag lieutenant and the newly appointed commander of a smart brig, Orcadia, had come to see her while his command was taking on store in Carrick Roads: a different Jenour, not merely because of what he had endured in the open boat after the wreck of the Golden Plover, but matured also by a sense of loss. His own command, taken at Richard Bolitho’s insistence after returning to England with their captured French prize, had also removed him from daily contact with the superior he respected, loved even, more than any other yet encountered in the course of his young life.
They had talked until the shadows were deep in the room and the candles had been guttering. He had told her of the battle in his own words, as Bolitho had requested. But as he had spoken she had heard only Richard, the men who had fought and died, the huzzas and the suffering, victory and despair.
What would Richard be thinking on his way home? Of his Happy Few, his band of brothers? There were even fewer now with Jenour gone.
She nudged the horse and Tamara moved forward again, her ears twitching towards the sea, the continuous murmur against the rocks. The tide was on the make. She smiled. She had been listening too long to Richard and his friends, and the fishermen who brought their catch up to Flushing or into Falmouth itself.
Always the sea was there. Waiting.
She strained her eyes towards it now but there was still too much mist, and not enough light to see the headland.
She thought of her ride here. The countryside stirring itself, the smell of freshly baked bread, of foxgloves and the wild roses in the hedgerows. She had seen few people about but had sensed their presence: very little was missed by these folk whose families had known the Bolithos from generation to generation, and the men who had gone year after year to die in forgotten campaigns or great sea-battles. Like the portraits on the walls in the old house, watching her when she had gone up alone to bed, measuring her still.
At least Richard would have had his beloved nephew Adam with whom to share the days at sea. He had finished his letter by revealing that he would be sailing independently in Adam’s own command. She allowed her mind to stray once more to Zenoria, and then to Zenoria and Adam. Was it merely imagination, or that warning instinct which had been born out of her own early years?
She reined the horse around, her fingers groping for the small carriage pistol she always carried. She had not even seen or heard them. Relief surged through her as she saw the dull glint of their buttons. They were coastguards.
One of them exclaimed, “Why, Lady Somervell! You gave us a start! Toby here thought some gennelmen were runnin’ a cargo up from the beach!”
Catherine tried to smile. “I am sorry, Tom. I should have known better.”
The light was already strengthening, as if to dispel her hopes, lay bare her foolishness.
Tom the coastguard watched her thoughtfully. The admiral’s lady, the one who was the talk of London according to some. But she had called him by his name. As if he mattered.
He said carefully, “May I ask what you be doing up ’ere at this hour, m’lady? Could be dangerous.”
She faced him directly, and afterwards he was to remember this moment, her fine dark eyes, her high cheekbones, her utter conviction as she said, “Sir Richard is coming home. In the Anemone. ”
“I knows that, m’lady. We had word from the navy.”
“Today,” she said. “This morning.” Her eyes seemed to blur and she turned away.
Tom said kindly, “There be no way o’ knowing, m’lady. Wind, weather, tides . . .”
He broke off as she slipped from the saddle, her stained boots striking the track as one. “What is it?”
She stared out at the bay as it began to open up, the light spilling above the headland like glass.
“Do you have a telescope, please?” Desperation put an edge to her voice.
The two coastguards dismounted and Tom lifted his glass from a long leather case behind his saddle.
Catherine did not even see them. “Be easy, Tamara!” She rested the long telescope on the saddle, still warm from her own body. Gulls were swooping around a tiny boat far out towards the point. It seemed much clearer than before, and pink on the sea’s face she saw the first sunlight.
Tom’s companion had also extended his telescope, and after a few minutes he said, “There be a ship out the
re, Tom, by God so there be! Beggin’ your pardon, m’lady!”
She had not heard him. She watched the sails, misty and unreal like shells, the darker line of the slender hull beneath.
“What is she, Toby? Can you see her rig?”
The man sounded stunned. “Frigate. No doubt o’ that. Seen too many o’ they in an’ out o’ Carrick Roads over th’ years!”
“Still, could be anyone. Ride down to the harbour an’ see if you can discover anythin’ . . .”
They both turned as she said quietly, “It is he.”
She had extended the telescope to its full length. She waited for the horse to quieten so that she could stare without blinking. Then she said, “I can see her figurehead in the sunshine.” She handed back the glass, her eyes suddenly blind. “ Anemone . . .” She saw it in her mind’s eye as she had seen it in reality, before the ship had tacked into shadow again: the full-breasted girl with the raised trumpet, her gilt paint so clear in the reflected glare. She repeated as if to herself, “ Anemone . . . daughter of the wind.”
She leaned her face against the horse. “Thank God. You came back to me.”
Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho awoke from a disturbed sleep and stared up at the darkness of the small sleeping cabin, his mind responding instantly to the sounds and movements around him. His sailor’s instinct told him that like the cabin the sea was still dark outside this lithe, graceful hull: a command for which any young officer would give his right arm. He listened to the dull thud of the tiller-head as it matched the rudder’s strength against the sea and the wind’s thrust in the sails, heard the sluice of water alongside as the frigate Anemone leaned over on a new tack to a different motion. Gone were the great soaring thrusts of the Western Ocean, through hard sunshine and lashing rain in equal portions. Here the seas were short and steep as the ship ploughed her way nearer to the land. Three weeks from the Caribbean. Adam had driven his Anemone like the thoroughbred she was.
Bolitho clambered from the swaying cot and steadied himself with one hand on a deckhead beam until he was accustomed to the lively movements. A frigate: no man could want more. He recalled the ones he had commanded as a youthful captain, younger even than Adam. The ships so different, yet still familiar. Only the faces, the men themselves seemed blurred, if not forgotten.