Darkening Sea by Alexander Kent Read Free Book Online

might be. Then at other times I have this demon inside me. Because of me you have given so much. Your friends, or those you have believed to be so, your freedom to do as you please without the eyes of envy watching every move—” She leaned back in his arms and studied each feature of his face, the rare tears unheeded on her skin. “You do so much for others and for your country. How dare they squeak their petty hatreds behind your back? In Golden Plover I was often terrified, but I would have shared it with none other. Those qualities you do not even know you have lifted my heart. They talk and sing of you in the taverns—a sailor’s sailor they call you, but they can never know what I have seen and done with you.”
    And then at the end of the second week the Admiralty messenger rode up to the old grey house below Pendennis Castle, and the orders they had both been expecting were delivered in the usual heavily sealed envelope.
    Bolitho sat by the empty grate in the big room where he had heard his first stories of the sea and of distant parts from his father, his grandfather: it was now difficult to distinguish one from another in this house where life for so many of his family had begun, and as each grave portrait on the walls could testify, to which few had ever returned. He turned the envelope over in his hands. How many times, he wondered? Upon receipt of these orders . . . will proceed with all despatch . . . To a ship or a squadron, to some unknown part of the expanding power of Majesty, to the cannon’s mouth if ordered.
    He heard Ferguson’s wife talking to the messenger. He would leave here eventually well fed and cheered by some of her homemade cider. Bolitho’s acknowledgement would be taken to London, passed from clerk to clerk, to the faces of Admiralty who knew little and cared even less for the countless ships and men who died for King and Country. The scrape of a pen by some Admiralty quill-pusher could leave men dead or horribly disfigured, like the unbreakable James Tyacke. Bolitho could see him now as if it had only just happened, Tyacke’s brig Larne bearing down on their wretched longboat even in the hour of death. Now Tyacke, whom the slavers he hunted called “the devil with half a face,” drove himself and his ship as only he could, and for a purpose known only to himself. These same clerks of admiralty would turn away in horror if they saw his terrible disfigurement, simply because they could not see beyond it to the pride and courage of the man who wore it like a talisman.
    He sensed that Catherine had come in, and when he glanced at her he saw that she was quite composed. She said, “I am here.”
    He slit open the envelope and quickly scanned the fine round handwriting, and did not see her sudden concern when he unconsciously rubbed his damaged eye.
    He said slowly, “We shall be going to London, Kate.” He gazed through the open doors at the trees, the clear sky beyond. Away from here.
    He recalled suddenly that his father had sat in this same chair many times when he had read to him and to his sisters. You could see the trees and the hillside from here, but not the sea. Was that the reason, even for his father, who had always seemed so stern and courageous?
    â€œNot to a new flagship?”
    Her voice was calm: only the rise and fall of her breast made it a lie.
    â€œIt seems we are to discuss some new strategy.” He shrugged. “Whatever that may be.”
    She guessed what he was thinking. His mind was rebelling against leaving the peace they had been able to share for these two happy weeks.
    â€œIt is not Falmouth, Richard, but my house in Chelsea is always a haven.”
    Bolitho tossed the envelope on to a table and stood up. “It was true about Lord Godschale. He has gone from the Admiralty and the London he so obviously enjoyed, although I suspect for the wrong reasons.”
    â€œWho will you see?” Her