In Gallant Company Read Online Free PDF

stalking the powerful two-decker at this moment.
    Cairns had a muffler around his throat, and asked, ‘What make you of the weather, Dick?’
    Bolitho watched the men streaming to the hatches on their way to the galley and their cramped messes.
    He had taken over the watch as Bunce had been keeping a stern eye on the ritual taking of noon sights, although it was more a routine than to serve any real purpose in this poor visibility. The midshipmen lined up with their sextants, the master’s mates watching their progress, or their lack of it.
    Bolitho replied calmly, ‘Fog.’
    Cairns stared at him. ‘Is this one of your Celtic fantasies, man?’
    Bolitho smiled. ‘The master said fog.’
    The first lieutenant sighed. ‘Then fog it will be. Though in this half gale I see no chance of it!’
    â€˜Deck there!’
    They looked up, caught off guard after so much isolation.
    Bolitho saw the shortened figure of the mainmast look-out, a tiny shape against the low clouds. It made him dizzy just to watch.
    â€˜Sail on th’ weather beam, sir!’
    The two lieutenants snatched telescopes and climbed into the shrouds. But there was nothing. Just the wavecrests, angrier and steeper in the searching lens, and the hard, relentless glare.
    â€˜Shall I inform the captain, sir?’
    Bolitho watched Cairns’ face as he returned to the deck. He could almost see his mind working. A sail. What did it mean? Unlikely to be friendly. Even a lost and confused ship’s master would not fail to understand the dangers hereabouts.
    â€˜Not yet.’ Cairns glanced meaningly towards the poop. ‘He’ll have heard the masthead anyway. He’ll not fuss until we’re ready.’
    Bolitho thought about it. Another view of Captain Pears which he had not considered. But it was true. He never did rush on deck like some captains, afraid for their ships, or impatient for answers to unanswerable questions.
    He looked at Cairns’ quiet face again. It was also true that Cairns inspired such trust.
    Bolitho asked, ‘Shall I go aloft and see for myself?’
    Cairns shook his head. ‘No. I will. The captain will doubtless want a full report.’
    Bolitho watched the first lieutenant hurrying up the shrouds, the telescope slung over his shoulders like a musket. Up and up, around the futtock shrouds and past the hooded swivel gun there to the topmast and further still towards the look-out who sat so calmly on the crosstrees, as if he was on a comfortable village bench.
    He dragged his eyes away from Cairns’ progress. It was something he could never get used to or conquer. His hatred of heights. Each time he had to go aloft, which was mercifully rare, he felt the same nausea, the same dread of falling.
    He saw a familiar figure on the gundeck below the quarterdeck rail and felt something like affection for the big, ungainly man in checkered shirt and flapping white trousers. One more link with the little
Destiny
. Stockdale, the muscular prize-fighter he had rescued from a barker outside an inn when he and a dispirited recruiting party had been trying to drum up volunteers for the ship.
    Stockdale had taken to the sea in a manner born. As strong as five men, he never abused his power, and was more gentle than many. The angry barker had been hitting Stockdale with a length of chain for losing in a fight with one of Bolitho’s men. The man in question must have cheated in some way, for Bolitho had never seen Stockdale beaten since.
    He spoke very little, and when he did it was with effort, as his vocal chords had been cruelly damaged in countless barefist fights up and down every fair and pitch in the land.
    Seeing him then, stripped to the waist, cut about the back by the barker’s chain, had been too much for Bolitho. When he had asked Stockdale to enlist he had said it almost without thinking of the consequences. Stockdale had merely nodded, picked up his things and had