Colours Aloft! by Alexander Kent Read Free Book Online Page B

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    What was the matter with him?
    He was happy. He had a lovely wife ten years his junior, and now a daughter. And yet—
    He turned away and re-entered the day cabin.
    When they joined the fleet things would be different. Action, danger, and the rewards of victory.
    He stared at his reflection in the salt-encrusted windows and smiled wryly.
    Sir Richard, yet at the actual moment the King had seemingly forgotten his name.
    Bolitho tried to gather his thoughts for the months ahead, how Lapish would react the first time the squadron’s only frigate was called to arms, but it eluded him.
    He thought instead of the portrait which had gone from the room which looked towards the sea, and wished suddenly he had brought it with him.
    Far beneath Bolitho’s spacious quarters and the view astern from its gilded gallery, Argonaute ’s sickbay seemed airless. For the orlop deck, below the level of the waterline, was completely sealed, a place of leaping shadows from the swaying, spiralling lanterns where the massive deckhead beams were so low a man could not stand upright. From the day the ship had been built, the orlop had not, and would never see the light of day.
    Tiny hutchlike cabins lined part of the deck where warrant officers clung to their privacy with barely room to move. Nearby was the midshipmen’s berth where the “young gentlemen” lived their disordered lives and were expected to study for promotion by the light of a glim, an oiled wick in a shell or an old tin.
    The hanging magazine and powder stores, where a single spark could bring disaster, shared the deck with them, and below them the great holds carried everything to sustain the ship for many months if need be.
    Right aft at the foot of a companion ladder the sickbay seemed bright by comparison with its white paint and racks of jars and bottles.
    Keen strode towards it, his head automatically lowered to avoid the beams, his epaulettes glittering as he passed from one lantern to the next. Dark shapes and vague faces loomed and faded in the gloom, that other world away from sea and sky.
    He saw James Tuson, the surgeon, speaking with his assistant, a tall, pallid Channel Islander named Carcaud. The latter was more Breton than English, but was intelligent and could both read and write. Keen knew that Tuson, who had been Achates ’ surgeon, took a great interest in his lanky assistant and had taught him as much as he could. They even played chess together.
    Keen liked the silver-haired Tuson, although he knew him no more than in their previous ship. He was a fine surgeon, twenty times better than most of his profession who served the King’s ships. But he kept to himself, not an easy thing in this teeming world between decks, and often went to the wardroom only for meals.
    A marine, his crossbelts very white in the poor light, straightened his back and made Tuson turn towards the captain. It had been a wise precaution to place a sentry at the door, Keen thought. Many of the hands had been aboard one ship or another without a break for many months. Any woman might be at risk. One labelled a felon even more so.
    Tuson murmured something and his assistant, bent almost double, melted into the shadows.
    Keen said, “How is she?”
    Tuson unrolled his shirt sleeves and considered the question.
    â€œShe says nothing, to me anyway. She’s young, under twenty I’d wager, and her skin is fine, and her hands have not worked in a field.” He turned away from the rigid sentry whose leather hat seemed to be wedged against the deckhead, and dropped his voice. “There are several bruises. I fear she may have been raped or savagely molested.” He sighed. “I’d not risk an examination under the circumstances.”
    Keen nodded. The girl had suddenly become a person, someone real and not just a victim.
    The surgeon was watching him thoughtfully; he rarely smiled.
    â€œShe can’t stay here, sir.”
    Keen