With All Despatch - Softcover

Alexander Kent

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099282178 ISBN 13: 9780099282174

Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd, 2000

Synopsis

More action from the master storyteller of the sea!
     A troubled peace with France means that in the harbours and estuaries around England, the royal fleet has been left to rot. Even a frigate captain as famous as Richard Bolitho is forced to swallow his pride and visit the Admiralty daily to plead for a ship. As the clouds of war begin to rise once more over the Channel, he has no choice but to accept an appointment to the Nore.
     With his small flotilla of three topsail cutters Bolitho sets out to search the coast for seamen who have fled the harsh discipline of His Majesty's Navy for the more tempting rewards of smuggling. But the 'Brotherhood' he comes up against are brutal and dangerous with a secret, sinister trade in human misery. Treason is never far distant and murder commonplace. So when a King's ransom is in peril and Bolitho is ordered to proceed 'with all despatch' to recover it he will need all the loyalty and courage of his three gallant cutters if he is to fulfil his mission.

About this title

About the Author:

ALEXANDER KENT is the author of twenty-eight acclaimed books featuring Richard Bolitho. Under his own name, Douglas Reeman, and in the course of a career spanning forty-five years, he has written over thirty novels and two non-fiction books.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter 1 A King's Officer Rear-Admiral Sir Marcus Drew stood to one side of a window and idly watched the comings and goings of people and carriages outside the Admiralty. Like the other windows in his spacious room it was tall and broad and enabled him to distinguish the passers-by from the more regular visitors who daily, hourly even, thronged the Admiralty corridors in search of employment. Captains, young and not so young, some of whose exploits had once brought pride and hope to an England at war. Seeing the most persistent applicants, and having his subordinates turn the majority away, took much of the admiral's time. He studied some puddles in the road left by a sudden shower. Now they shone like pale blue silk, reflecting the April sky while the clouds receded across London. For this was spring 1792, another year of uncertainty and threats of danger from across the Channel. But you would not think as much to watch the ladies in their frivolous gowns and bright colours, with their carefree, posturing escorts.

Two years back, when news of the bloody revolution in France had hit London like a broadside, many had feared that the butchering, the murderous mobs and their guillotines would somehow spread their horror across the Straits of Dover. Others, naturally enough perhaps, had found comfort in their old enemy's terrible change of circumstances.

It might have been better if England had put aside the rules of war for once and attacked the French when they were caught in their own turmoil. But that had not even been considered.

Drew turned away, his day, and the thought of dining later on in St James's with some whist afterwards, turned sour.

Their lordships of Admiralty expected miracles if they imagined that the fleet, left to rot in harbours and estuaries for most of the ten years since the American Revolution, could suddenly be rebuilt to anything approaching its old strength. Thousands of seamen and marines had been thrown on the beach, unwanted by a nation for which so many had died or been maimed in the King's name. Officers, too, left on half-pay if they were lucky, begging for berths in the merchant service, trying to return to the sea which had been their chosen life.

Rear-Admiral Drew was nevertheless content with his own lot. There was even the promise of a mistress on a permanent basis now that he had managed to obtain an appointment for her husband, a young captain, in the East Indies.

He stared hard at a huge painting on the opposite wall. It depicted Admiral Vernon's seventy-gun flagship Burford with all flags flying, her broadside battering a Spanish fortress, "The Iron Castle" at Porto Bello, at almost point-blank range. It was how the public, the romantics, liked to imagine a sea-fight, he thought. No blood, no terror of a surgeon's blade, just the majesty of battle.

He permitted himself a small smile. Vernon's fight had been some half-century ago, but the ships had changed hardly at all since then. No, he decided, his appointment here at the Admiralty was better than any quarterdeck. He would have his mistress, and his elegant London rooms; he would, of course, need to be seen on Sundays in the family pew on his Hampshire estate, with his wife and children.

He returned to the ornate table and sat down without enthusiasm. His clerk had placed his papers in order. The clerk's duty was to interrupt him after a pre-arranged time during each interview. It never stopped. Soon the French would declare war. One could hardly describe this uneasy pause on the fringe of the Terror as little better anyway. As always England would be unprepared. Ships and men. Ships and men.

His gaze fell on the name on the uppermost sheet. Richard Bolitho Esquire. It looked much-handled, and Drew wished that someone else could take his place today. Richard Bolitho, who had distinguished himself in the American Revolution, and a man luckier than most, had held two highly successful commands since, the last being the frigate Tempest in the Great South Sea. His final battle with the frigate Narval and supporting schooners had been legendary. The French Narval had been seized by the notorious pirate Tuke after an uprising within her own company. The Bounty mutiny, then the horrendous news from Paris had given Tuke mastery of the barely defended islands. Only Bolitho's command had stood between him and total control of the rich trade routes from the Indies.

And now Bolitho was here. He had, to all accounts, visited the Admiralty daily for several weeks. Like most professional sea-officers Drew knew a great deal about Bolitho. About his old Cornish background, and his fight against the shame which had cost his family dearly. His only brother Hugh had deserted from the navy after killing a fellow officer in a duel, and had then gone to seek his fortune in America; even worse, as a lieutenant, then the captain of a Revolutionary prize frigate.

No amount of courage and honour could completely wipe that stain away. And he had paid his debt in full, Drew thought as he turned over the papers. Wounded to the point of death; and then after the fight with Tuke's Narval Bolitho had been struck down by fever. He had not been employed for two years and, if half of what Drew had heard in the elegant rooms around St James's was true, he had nearly died many times during his fight to live.

Their lordships must have a reason for their change of heart, the admiral decided-although on the face of it, it would seem better if Bolitho turned down this appointment, and be damned to the consequences.

Drew's eyes sharpened as he recalled the rumour about Bolitho's attachment for a government official's lovely wife. She had died of fever and exposure after some desperate journey in an open boat. Drew covered the papers with a leather folder. An official's lovely wife. That would make a change from some of the dull, earnest faces he had seen across this table, with their high-sounding requests in the name of duty or the King, as the fancy took them.

He picked up a small brass bell and shook it impatiently. Get it over with. In the event of another war against France, without the standards of monarchy to guide the old enemy, there might be no room for yesterday's heroes. Admiralty agents in Paris had reported seeing whole families of alleged gentlefolk being dragged through the streets to lie beneath the blade of Madame Guillotine: even the children were not spared.

Drew thought of his serene estate in Hampshire and suppressed a shudder. It could not, must not happen here.

The clerk opened the door, his eyes downcast like a well-rehearsed player.

"Captain Richard Bolitho, Sir Marcus!"

Drew gestured expressionlessly to a chair which faced the table. As a captain he had taught himself the art of inscrutability, just as he had learned the skill of missing nothing.

Richard Bolitho was thirty-five but looked younger. He was tall and of slim build, and Drew observed that his white-lapelled coat with the buttons and gold lace of a post-captain hung just a bit too loosely on his frame. As he sat in the chair, Drew could sense his tension in spite of his efforts to conceal it. A shaft of sunlight played across his face and hair, a loose lock above the right eye barely hiding the great scar received when he had been hacked down as a youthful lieutenant in charge of a watering party on some island or other. The hair was black, like a raven's wing, and the eyes which watched him steadily were grey, and reminded Drew of the Western Ocean.

Drew came straight to the point. "I am pleased to see you, Bolitho. You are something of an enigma, as well as one of England's heroes." The grey eyes did not blink and Drew felt off-balance. Irritated, too, that he and not Bolitho had been suddenly put on the defensive. After all, Bolitho was the one who had been begging for a ship-any ship.

He began again. "Are you feeling returned to fair health?"

"Well enough, Sir Marcus."

Drew relaxed again. He was in command. He had seen the sudden anxiety which even Bolitho's impassive gravity could not contain.

Drew continued, "You will know this tale of old, Bolitho. Too many captains, and not yet enough vessels to receive them. There are fleet transports and supply vessels, of course, but-"

Bolitho's eyes flashed. "I am a frigate captain, Sir Marcus-"

The admiral raised one hand so that the frilled lace spilled over his cuff.

He corrected, "Were a frigate captain, Bolitho." He saw the pain cross his face, the deeper lines which seemed to sharpen his cheekbones. The fever might still lurk there. He said smoothly, "And a fine one to all accounts."

Bolitho leaned forward, one hand grasping the hilt of his old sword so tightly that the knuckles were as white as bones. "I am recovered, Sir Marcus. In God's name, I thought when I was admitted-"

Drew stood up and crossed to the window again. He had no sense of command or victory now. If anything he felt ashamed.

He said, "We need men, Bolitho. Seamen, those who can reef and steer, fight if need be."

He turned briefly and saw Bolitho staring down at the old sword. Another part of the story, he thought. It had been in the family for generations. Had been intended for Bolitho's brother. His disgrace and treachery had killed their father as surely as any pistol ball.

"You are being appointed to the Nore. As captain-in-charge of some small craft." He waved his hand vaguely. "We have had many deserters from the Nore-they see smuggling as a more profitable profession. Some have even decamped to the Honourable East India Company, although I-"

Bolitho remarked coldly, "John Company has a record of treating its people like men, Sir Marcus, not as some will use them."

Drew turned and said sharply, "It is all I can offer. Their lordships believe you to be suitable for it. However-"

Bolitho stood up and held his sword tightly against his hip.

"I apologise, Sir Marcus. It is not of your doing."

Drew swallowed hard. "I do understand." He tried to change the subject.

"You will have none of your past company with you from Tempest, of course. She came home well before you and is now in service with the Channel Fleet. Tempest, and before that the-Unicorn, I believe?" Bolitho watched him in despair. Doing his best. He heard himself reply, "Undine, sir."

"Well, in any case-" It was almost over.

Bolitho said quietly, "I shall have my coxswain. He is enough."

Drew saw one of the gilt door-handles drop; the clerk was right on cue.

Bolitho added, "It is history now, maybe forgotten entirely. But one ship, my ship, was all His Britannic Majesty's navy had in the whole ocean to meet with and destroy Tuke." He turned and appeared to be studying the great painting, hearing perhaps the true sounds of war, feeling the pain of a ship under fire. He continued, "I fell that day. It was then that the fever rendered me helpless." He faced Drew again and smiled. The smile did not touch his grey eyes. "My coxswain killed Tuke. So you could say that he saved the islands all on his own-eh, Sir Marcus?"

Drew held out his hand. "I wish you well. My clerk will attend your orders. Be patient, Bolitho-England will need all her sailors soon." He frowned. "Does that amuse you, sir?"

Bolitho took his cocked hat from the hovering clerk.

"I was thinking of my late father, Captain James as he was to all who knew him. He once said much the same words to me."

"Oh, when was that?"

Bolitho withdrew, his mind already grappling with the brief outline of his commission.

"Before we lost America, sir."

Drew stared at the closed door, first with fury and then unwillingly, with a slow grin.

So it was true after all. The man and the legend were one.

Captain Richard Bolitho opened his eyes with a start of alarm, surprise too, that he had fallen into a doze as the carriage rolled steadily along a deeply rutted track.

He looked through a side window and saw the various shades of green, bushes and trees, all glistening and heavy from another rainfall. Springtime in Kent, the Garden of England as it was called, but there seemed precious little sign of it.

He glanced at his companion, who was slumped awkwardly on the opposite seat. Bryan Ferguson, his steward, who did more than anyone to direct the affairs of the house and estate in Falmouth. He had lost an arm at the Battle of the Saintes. Like Allday, he had been a pressed man aboard Bolitho's ship Phalarope, and yet the events then had joined them together. Something unbreakable. He gave a sad smile. Few would guess that Ferguson had only one arm as he usually concealed the fact with his loose-fitting green coat. From one outthrust boot Bolitho saw the gleam of brass and guessed that Ferguson was carrying his favourite carriage pistol. To be on the safe side, as he put it.

God alone knew, the Kentish roads were deserted enough, perhaps too much so for highwaymen, footpads and the like.

Bolitho stretched and felt the ache in his bones. It was his constant dread that the fever might somehow return despite all that the surgeons had told him. He thought of the two years it had taken him to fight his way back to health, and finding the strength to relive it once again. Faces swam in misty memory, his sister Nancy, even her pompous husband the squire, "The King of Cornwall" as he had been dubbed locally.

And Ferguson's wife who was the housekeeper in the great grey home below Pendennis Castle where so many Bolithos had begun life, and had left to follow the sea. Some had never returned. But above all Bolitho remembered his coxswain, Allday. He had never seemed to sleep, had been constantly close by, to help in the struggle against fever, to fetch and carry, and too often, Bolitho suspected, to accept his delirious bursts of anger.

Allday. Like an oak, a rock. Over the ten years since he had been brought aboard by the press gang in Cornwall their relationship had strengthened. Allday's deep understanding of the sea, his impudence when need be, had been like an anchor for Bolitho. A friend? That was too frail a description.

He could hear him now, talking with Old Matthew Corker the coachman, while Young Matthew occasionally joined in with his piping tones from the rear box. The boy was only fourteen, and the old coachman's grandson. He was the apple of his eye, and he had brought him up from a baby after his father had been lost at sea in one of the famous Falmouth packet-ships. Old Matthew had always hoped that the boy would eventually follow in his footsteps. He was getting on in years, and Bolitho knew he had missed the right road on several occasions on the long haul from Falmouth, where weeks ago this journey had had its beginning. The old man was more used to the local harbours and villages around Falmouth, and as he had followed the road to London, pausing at inn after inn to change horses and pick up fresh post-boys to ride them, he must have wondered when he would eventually step down from his box.

The coach had been Bolitho's idea. The thought of being taken ill on some part of the journey, perhaps on a crowded mail coach, had haunted him. This carriage was ...

About this edition

• Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0099282178
• ISBN 13: 9780099282174
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336