Stand Into Danger by Alexander Kent Read Free Book Online Page B

wind. The world was confined to a nightmare of stinging, ice-cold spray, violent swooping thrusts as the frigate smashed her way through troughs and rearing crests alike. It seemed as if it would never end, with no time to find dry clothing, and what food the cook had been able to prepare and have carried through the pitching hull had to be gulped down in minutes.
    Once as Rhodes relieved Bolitho on watch he shouted above the din of cracking canvas and the sea surging inboard along the lee side, “It’s the lord and master’s way, Dick! Push the ship to the limit, find the strength of every man aboard!” He ducked as a phantom of freezing spray doused them both. “Officers, too, for that matter!”
    Tempers became frayed, and once or twice small incidents of insubordination flared openly, only to be quenched by some heavy-fisted petty officer or the threat of formal punishment at the gratings.
    The captain was often on deck, moving without effort between compass and chartroom, discussing progress with Gulliver, the master, or the first lieutenant.
    And at night it was always worse. Bolitho never seemed to get his head buried in a musty pillow for his watch below before the hoarse cry was carried between deck like a call to arms.
    â€œAll hands! All hands aloft an’ reef tops’ls!”
    And it was then that Bolitho really noticed the difference. In a ship of the line he had been forced to claw his way aloft with the rest of them, fighting his loathing of heights and conscious only of the need not to show that fear to others. But when it was done, it was done. Now, as a lieutenant, it was all happening just as Dumaresq had prophesied.
    In the middle of one fierce gale, as Destiny had tacked and battered her way through the Bay of Biscay, the call had come to take in yet another reef. There had been no moon or stars, just a rearing wall of broken water, white against the outer darkness, to show just how small their ship really was.
    Men, dazed by constant work and half blinded by salt spray, had staggered to their stations, and then reluctantly had begun to drag themselves up the vibrating ratlines, then out along the topsail yards. The Destiny had been leaning so steeply to leeward that her main-yard had seemed to be brushing the broken crests alongside.
    Forster, the captain of the maintop, and Bolitho’s key petty officer, had yelled, “This man says ’e won’t go aloft, sir! No matter what!”
    Bolitho had seized a stay to prevent himself from being flung on his face. “Go yourself, Forster! Without you up there God knows what might happen!” He had peered up at the remainder of his men while all the time the wind had moaned and shrieked, like a demented being enjoying their torment.
    Jury had been up there, his body pressed against the shrouds by the force of the wind. On the foremast they had been having the same trouble, with men and cordage, sails and spars all pounded together while the ship had done her best to hurl them into the sea below.
    Bolitho had then remembered what Forster had told him. The man in question had been staring at him, a thin, defiant figure in a torn checkered shirt and seaman’s trousers. “What’s the matter with you?” Bolitho had had to yell above the din.
    â€œI can’t go, sir.” The man had shaken his head violently. “Can’t!”
    Little had come lurching past, cursing and blaspheming as he helped to haul some new cordage to the mainmast in readiness for use.
    He had bellowed, “I’ll drag ’im aloft, sir!”
    Bolitho had shouted to the seaman, “Go below and help relieve the pumps!”
    Two days later the same man had been reported missing. A search of the ship by Poynter, the master-at-arms, and the ship’s corporal, had revealed nothing.
    Little had tried to explain as best as he knew how. “It were like this, sir. You should ’ave made ’im go aloft, even