Colours Aloft! Read Free Page B

shake him out of his gloom.
    Allday stared around the cabin and then back to Bolitho and the new chair.
    â€œFact is, sir.” He fidgeted with his coat. “I had a bit o’ news.”
    Bolitho sat down. “Well, what is it, man?”
    â€œI’ve got a son, sir.”
    Bolitho exclaimed, “You what? ”
    Allday grinned sheepishly. “Somebody wrote a letter, sir. Ferguson read it to me, me not bein’ able—”
    Bolitho nodded. Ferguson, his steward in Falmouth, could always keep a secret. He and Allday were as thick as thieves.
    Allday continued, “There was a girl I used to know. On the farm, it was. Pretty little thing, smart as paint. Seems she died, just a few weeks back.” He looked at Bolitho with sudden desperation. “Well, I mean, sir, I couldn’t just do nothin’, could I?”
    Bolitho sat back in the chair and watched the emotions hurrying across Allday’s homely face.
    â€œAre you certain about this?”
    â€œAye, sir. I—I’d like you to speak with him, if it’s not too much to ask?”
    Feet moved overhead and somewhere a boatswain’s call trilled to summon more hands to hoist some stores inboard. In the cabin it seemed apart, remote from that other shipboard life.
    â€œYou brought him aboard then?”
    â€œHe volunteered, sir. He’s worn the King’s coat afore.” There was pride in his voice now. “I just need—” He broke off and looked at his shoes. “I shouldn’t have asked—”
    Bolitho walked over to him and touched his arm. “Bring him aft when you’re ready. Blast your eyes man, you have the right to ask what you will!”
    They stared at each other, then Allday said simply, “I’ll do that, sir.”
    The door opened and Keen looked in at them. He said, “I thought you should know, Sir Richard, Firefly has just weighed and is setting her tops’ls.”
    Bolitho smiled. “Thank you.” He looked at Allday. “Come, we’ll watch him leave, eh?”
    Allday took the old sword down from its rack and waited to clip it to Bolitho’s belt.
    He said quietly, “He’ll need a good cox’n of his own afore long, an’ that’s no error.”
    They looked at each other and understood.
    Keen watched them and forgot all the demands, the signals which awaited attention and which he must discuss with his admiral. Bolitho and Allday were the rock which would stand when all else fell. He was surprised to discover that this realization still moved him deeply.
    Several of the hands working about the quarterdeck withdrew as Bolitho and their captain walked to the nettings. Bolitho could feel their eyes even though his back was turned. They would be pondering on his reputation both as their leader and as a man.
    The little brig was heeling over to the wind, showing her copper as she tacked between two anchored seventy-fours.
    Bolitho took a glass from the signals midshipman. The youth seemed vaguely familiar. He trained the glass across the nettings and for a few moments saw Firefly ’s commander staring across at him, near enough to touch. He was waving his hat slowly from side to side, then one of the ships shut him from view. Bolitho lowered the glass and the scene fell away into the distance.
    He handed the telescope to the midshipman. “Thank you, Mr— ”
    â€œSheaffe, Sir Richard.”
    Bolitho eyed him curiously. Of course. He should have remembered that Admiral Sir Hayward Sheaffe had made a point of putting one of his sons in Argonaute. It was unlike him to forget such things. Even Keen’s comment, “Lose the brat overboard and I’ll lose my command to boot!”
    He had visited Sheaffe at the Admiralty several times since his return to England. One rank only separated them. It could have been an ocean.
    Keen was watching him and as they walked to the opposite side said, “There was no