Inshore Squadron by Alexander Kent Read Free Book Online

is aft, sir.”
    Across on the other ships it would be the same. Routine and tradition. Like a well-tried play where everyone had changed roles on many occasions until he was word-perfect.
    The two lieutenants examined the compass, the log, the set of the sails, while the other players moved round them to their stations. The helmsmen and quartermaster, the midshipman of the watch. Bolitho frowned. What was his name? Penels, that was it. The youngest aboard. Just twelve, and a fellow Cornishman. He smiled. Hardly a man.
    â€œRelieve the wheel, if you please.”
    Eight bells chimed out from the forecastle and the forenoon watchkeepers hurried to their messes for their food and a good, strong tot.
    Bolitho crossed the quarterdeck and said, “You are looking well, Adam.”
    They moved away from the double-wheel and its three helmsmen and walked side by side to the weather nettings.
    â€œThank you, sir.” Pascoe shot him a sideways glance. “Uncle. You, too.”
    When Bolitho eventually pulled out his watch he realised he had been speaking with his nephew for an hour. It had seemed like minutes, and yet they had conjured up a far different picture from the one around them. Not sea and sky, spray and taut canvas, but country lanes, low cottages and the grey bulk of Pendennis Castle.
    Pascoe was very tanned, as dark as a gipsy.
    Bolitho said, “We shall all be shivering soon, my lad. But perhaps we may be able to set foot ashore. That was why I could never stand blockade duty in the Bay. The British people become moist-eyed when they speak of their ‘wooden walls,’ the weatherbeaten ships which keep the French fleet bottled up in port. They would speak less warmly if they knew what hell it can be.”
    Midshipman Penels called nervously, “Signal from Styx, sir.” He purposefully looked at Pascoe. “ Man overboard, sir.”
    Pascoe nodded and seized a telescope to train it on the distant frigate.
    â€œAcknowledge. I will tell the captain presently.”
    He watched the frigate’s shape shortening as she came up into the wind, her sails aback and in confusion. It was to be hoped she could get her quarter boat away in time to recover the luckless man.
    Bolitho watched Pascoe’s expression as he studied the frigate’s swift manoeuvre. He thought, too, of her captain, John Neale. He had been Penels’ age when the mutiny had broken out aboard his Phalarope during the American Revolution. A small, plump youth, he could see him clearly. He could even smile about it now. How he and Herrick had rubbed the naked midshipman all over with rancid butter to force him through a vent hole to free him from the mutineers and rouse assistance. Neale had been small, but it had been a hard struggle all the same.
    Now Neale was a post-captain, and he knew exactly what Pascoe was thinking as he watched his ship-handling through the glass.
    Bolitho said quietly, “As soon as possible, Adam. I’ll do what I can. You’ve earned it.”
    Pascoe stared at him, his eyes wide with astonishment. “You knew, Uncle?”
    Bolitho smiled. “I was a frigate captain once, Adam. It is something you never quite lose.” He looked up at his rear-admiral’s flag streaming from the mizzen truck. “Even when it is taken from you.”
    Pascoe exclaimed, “Thank you very much. I—I mean, I want to be with you. But you know that. I just feel I am marking time in a ship of the line.”
    Bolitho saw Ozzard hovering below the poop, his thin body screwed up against the damp wind. Time to eat.
    He chuckled. “ I think I said much the same, too!”
    As Bolitho ducked below the poop, Pascoe began to pace slowly up and down the weather side, his hands clasped behind him as he had seen Bolitho do so often.
    Pascoe would not have said anything about his hopes to either Bolitho or Herrick. He should have known he could not hide a secret from either of them.
    He