At the first hint of dawn, almost guiltily, like an unsuccessful attacker, the wind eased, the wave crests smoothing and settling, while the battered ship became more steady beneath her new masters.
Bolitho never left the quarterdeck, and as the first warmth of a new day gingerly explored the horizon he saw that they had the sea to themselves.
He rubbed his sore eyes, noting the lolling shapes of his men beneath the bulwarks, Meheux asleep on his feet, his back against the foremast trunk as if tied there.
In one more second he would give way. Would fall asleep himself, totally spent. He could not even find the sense of satisfaction, the feeling of pride, in what he had achieved. There was nothing but an all-consuming desire to sleep.
He shook himself and called, “Send for McEwen!” He faltered. His voice sounded like the croak of some disgruntled sea bird.
“Turn the hands to, Mr Grindle, and we will see what we have at our disposal.”
Two women appeared at the break of the forecastle and stood staring around them. One had blood on her apron, but saw him watching her and lifted her hand in greeting. Bolitho tried to smile, but nothing. Instead he waved back to her, his arm feeling like lead.
There was so much to do. In a few more moments the questions and the demands would start all over again.
He breathed in deeply and rested his hands on the rail. A ball had cut out a piece from it like a knife paring soft cheese. He was still staring at it when Allday said firmly, “I have placed a cot for you below the poop, Captain.” He paused, anticipating a protest, but knowing Bolitho had little strength left to make it. He added, “I will call Mr Meheux to take over the watch.”
The next thing Bolitho knew was that he was stretched out on a small hanging cot and someone was removing his sodden shoes and torn coat. And the same realisation brought sleep. Like a black curtain, instant and complete.
9
A NEW ENEMY
BOLITHO sat at a makeshift table in the Navarra’s small stern cabin and stared moodily at a chart. He had slept for three hours, oblivious of everything, until some latent instinct had brought him out of the cot, his eyes and ears groping for an explanation.
In the space of those three hours the wind had completely died, leaving not a hint of its past fury, and as he had hurried on deck he had seen the sails hanging lifeless, the sea breathing gently in a flat calm.
While Meheux had got on with the business of burying the dead, and Grindle had tried to produce some sort of routine for counting and then feeding the passengers and Spanish crew, he had made a slow and methodical search of the dead captain’s quarters.
He raised his eyes and looked around the cabin where a man like himself had once planned, rested and hoped. Through a great rent in the side he could see the dazzling blue water lapping against the hull as if to mock him. From the stern windows he could feel the mounting heat, for the Euryalus’s broadside had smashed every piece of glass, just as it had turned the cabin into a shattered, blackened ruin. A fire had probably started, and when he had searched for the ship’s papers and log he had found only black, sodden ashes. Nothing to give him information, nor even a sextant to help fix their approximate position. The night’s storm could have driven them many miles to the east. Land might be thirty or fifty miles distant, Spain or North Africa. He could not be sure.