Heart of Oak Read Free

the remainder of the campaign; if you could call it that, he thought darkly. Pulling his company together again, visiting the wounded, and often at odds with Bethune. The latter shouting and thumping the table and drinking beyond his capacity and his normal caution. Some said Bethune had been in love with Catherine Somervell. But Jago knew that she had loved only one man, Sir Richard Bolitho, who had been killed on the deck of his flagship following Napoleon’s escape from Elba. Jago had seen her in the old church at Falmouth, when all the flags had been at half-mast, and
Unrivalled
had fired a salute. It had been Richard’s name she had been calling when she had fallen dead. More like a greeting than a farewell, or so it seemed, looking back…
    Somewhere a clock chimed. Two horsemen were trotting unhurriedly past the house. Dragoons, by their cut, he thought.
Officers.
His mouth tightened. Nothing else to do.
    There was something else that still puzzled him.
Athena
had anchored at Plymouth only briefly before proceeding on to Portsmouth, which she had left less than a year ago. Bethune had insisted on breaking the passage, apparently to send some urgent despatches by courier.
    Even then, the captain had found time to speak to the men being discharged or put ashore to have their wounds treated. The lucky ones…
    And the boy, now a midshipman, who had somehow managed to swim ashore at San José after
Audacity
had exploded. His own captain had been killed, cut in half by a red-hot ball from the battery, but one of his lieutenants had seen fit to write a short report on David Napier’s courage and determination in supporting another midshipman and getting him to the beach, where the Royal Marines had found them. Only Napier had survived.
    Napier would be in Falmouth now. At the Bolitho house, with the green hills behind and the sea below. Something Jago had also shared in his own way.
    Captain Adam Bolitho was at the Admiralty right now, not all that far from this room. It was hard to fix your position, he thought, here in London anyway. It must be somewhere over and beyond those faceless houses. Bethune lived here when it suited him, and had used to ride across the park in a leisurely fashion to his offices.
    Athena
was being paid off. Another victim, like
Unrivalled
after her battle at Algiers. He recalled the silent bundles being slipped over the side for that last journey, and controlled his anger. That was the way it was. The sea was all he knew. He stood up and faced the door.
And all he wanted.
    But it was not one of the household staff, or even Lady Bethune, not that she would deign to meet him. It was George Tolan, Bethune’s servant, although the word didn’t do him justice. Always smart and alert in his distinctive blue coat, and obviously at ease with his lord and master. More like a companion or a bodyguard, with the bearing of a soldier or a marine. Jago had seen him in
Athena
’s cabin, pouring wine or something with more bite to it, holding the glass or goblet to study it beforehand. No fuss, not like some. And when the guns had belched fire from
Athena
’s ports and reeled inboard in recoil, he had seen the other Tolan, crouching but unafraid in the fury of battle.
    A good man to have beside you, but one you would never know.
    Tolan was glancing around the room now, and, Jago guessed, missing nothing. “I have told the kitchen to prepare a meal for you. A drink would not come amiss, I imagine, after all that bustle.”
    If he was disturbed or irritated by the long journey from Portsmouth, the storing and checking of Bethune’s personal gear at every stop along that endless road, he gave no sign of it. He probably knew Bethune better than any one.
    Jago shrugged. “No telling how long the Cap’n will be with their lordships.” He looked at the portrait on the wall. “I can’t fathom what there is to yarn about. It’s over. We done what we was ordered. That’s it!”
    “Not so simple this time, I