The Only Victor Read Online Free PDF Page B

“The other vessels, Sir Richard?”
    Bolitho said, “There are none. There will be none. As it is I am authorised to despatch several of the ships here directly to England.”
    â€œHas something happened, sir?”
    He said quietly, “Last October our fleet under Lord Nelson defeated the enemy off Cape Trafalgar.”
    Varian swallowed hard. “We did not know, Sir Richard!” For once he seemed at a loss. “A victory! By God, that is great news.”
    Bolitho shrugged. “Brave Nelson is dead. So the victory is a hollow one.”
    There was a tap at the door and Poland stepped into the cabin. The two captains glanced at one another and nodded like old acquaintances, but Bolitho sensed they were completely divided as if by the bars of a smithy’s furnace.
    â€œThe wind is freshening from the nor’-west, Sir Richard.” Poland did not look again at the other man. “ Zest ’s gig is still hooked on to the chains.”
    Bolitho held out his hand. “I shall see you again, Captain Varian.” He relented slightly. “The blockade continues around all enemy ports. It is vital. And though heartened by our victory at Trafalgar, our own forces are weakened by it nonetheless.”
    The door closed behind them and Bolitho heard the shrill of calls as Varian was piped over the side into his gig.
    He moved restlessly about the cabin, remembering one of the meetings he had had with Admiral Sir Owen Godschale at the Admiralty. The last one, in fact, when he had outlined the need for urgency. The Combined Fleets of France and Spain had been thoroughly beaten, but the war was not won. Already it had been reported that at least three small French squadrons had broken through the tightly-stretched blockade, and had seemingly vanished into the Atlantic. Was this to be Napoleon’s new strategy? To raid ports and isolated islands, to prey upon supply ships and trade routes, to give the British squadrons no rest while they, the French, gathered another fleet?
    He could almost smile at Godschale’s contemptuous dismissal of the enemy’s strength. One group which had outwitted the blockading squadron off Brest had been under the veteran Vice Amiral Leissègues, and his flagship was the 120 -gun first-rate Impérial. Hardly small.
    The French might even have their eye on Cape Town. It was impossible to guess at the havoc they could create there. They could sever the routes to India and the East Indies as surely as the blade of an axe.
    He remembered the studied coolness between Godschale and himself. The admiral had been a contemporary of his; they had even been posted together on the same date. There was no other similarity.
    Bolitho was suddenly conscious of the distance between himself and Catherine. Godschale, like so many others, had tried to keep them apart, may even have plotted with Belinda to have Catherine dishonoured and lost in lies. But Bolitho doubted that. The admiral was too fond of his own power and comfort to risk a scandal. Or was he? It was openly said that Godschale’s next step was to the House of Lords. There might be others there who would wish to destroy them through Godschale.
    Catherine’s words rang in his ears. Don’t you see what they are doing to us?
    Perhaps this mission to the Cape was merely a beginning. To keep him employed without respite, knowing that he would never resign, no matter what they did.
    He crossed to the rack and touched the old family sword, dull by contrast with the fine presentation blade below it. Other Bolithos had worn it, proved it, and sometimes had fallen with it still gripped in a dead hand. He could not see any of them giving up without a fight. The thought gave him comfort, and when Allday came into the cabin he saw him smiling, the first time for a long while.
    Allday said, “The whole squadron will know about Lord Nelson by now, Sir Richard. It’ll take the heart out of some.” He