Second to None Read Online Free PDF Page B

the war’s greatest engagements, where Nelson had scorned the rigidity of Fighting Instructions and attacked the Spanish flagship
Santissima Trinidad
of one hundred and thirty guns, the largest warship in the world. So like his uncle, he thought. Sir Richard Bolitho had never allowed the conventional rules of battle to preclude initiative and personal daring. It seemed wrong that the admirals so admired and so loved by those they had led had never met face to face.
    He ran a sodden handkerchief over skin streaming now with spray. Identical to the handkerchief he had given Catherine in the church, knowing she had used it to dry her eyes behind the veil. Galbraith had seen that too . . .
    He shook himself angrily and walked to the rail. A few of the hands were splicing and repairing; as in any frigate, the miles of cordage needed constant attention. Some of them raised their eyes and immediately looked away. Men who could make or break any ship. He smiled grimly.
Any captain.
Some of them were from the assize courts, debtors and thieves, tyrants and cowards. The alternatives were transportation or the rope. He watched spray bursting through the beakhead, making the beautiful figurehead shine like a nymph rising from the sea itself.
    Unrivalled
would draw them together, as a team, as one company.
    And when they reached Gibraltar, what orders would he find waiting? To return to England, or be redirected to some other squadron in a different ocean? If nothing had changed he would continue on to Malta, to join the new squadron under the flag of Vice-Admiral Sir Graham Bethune. He was dismayed by the return of the pain. Bethune had been sent to relieve Sir Richard Bolitho, but Fate had decided otherwise. But for that, it might have been Bethune who had died, and Richard Bolitho would have been reunited with his Catherine.
Kate
.
    Like himself, Bethune had been one of Bolitho’s midshipmen, in his first command, the little
Sparrow.
As Valentine Keen had been a midshipman when Sir Richard had beencaptain of a frigate. So many missing faces. We
Happy Few
. Now there were hardly any.
    He saw two of the ‘young gentlemen’ dodging along the slippery maindeck, calling to one another above the bang of canvas and the sluice of water, apparently without a care in the world.
    Here there were only five of them. He would make an effort to get to know each one. Galbraith’s sharp comment about inspiration and leadership cut both ways; it always had. In larger ships, which carried broods of midshipmen, there was always the risk of bullying and petty tyranny. He had discovered it soon enough for himself, like so many things which had taught him to defend himself and stand up for those less able to do so.
    Today, his reputation with both blade and pistol would end any trouble before it could begin. But it had not been easy. How slow he had been to understand, to come to terms with it. The regular lessons with a local teacher, and later, when he had learned to handle a sword, the intricacies of defence and attack. Slow? Or had he merely decided that he did not want to know how it was all paid for? Until he heard his teacher in the next room, in bed with his mother. And the others.
    It was different now. They could think what they liked, but they dared not slander her name in his presence.
    But the memory remained, like an unhealed wound.
    He saw the midshipman of the watch, Fielding, writing something on his slate, his lip pouting with concentration. The same midshipman who had called him one morning when he had been powerless to break that same dream.
    He thought of Catherine again, that last desperate kiss before she had left the house.
To protect my reputation.
There was no defence against dreams. Just as, in those same dreams, she had never resisted him.
    He heard a slight cough behind him. That was Usher, the captain’s clerk, who had once been the purser’s assistant, a small, nervous man who seemed totally