It was a hundred yards down the slope from the hidden gun to where Quartermain lay staring at the sky.
Blackwood broke away from Smirhetr’s hands and stumbled the last few paces on his own. He did not care about his reopened wound and the pain which grew with each foot of the way. It was desperately important that Quartermain should be alive, should know that he alone had carried the day.
Quartermain’s eyes flickered and looked up at him.
Blackwood said, ‘Get some water, Smithett.’ Then he knelt down and said, ‘I just wanted you to know that we took the battery. All because of you.’
Quartermain was smiling, but Blackwood sensed that he could not see him.
‘So, so glad . . .’ He tried to find his sword which had fallen beside him. ‘W – wanted my son to wear this one day – one day. Now I’ll not have one.’
Smithett thrust his flask into Blackwood’s hand. ‘’Ere, sir.’
‘Would you send it to my mother? Tell her . . .’
Blackwood held the flask to his lips but saw the water trickle unheeded across the lieutenant’s cheek.
Then he closed Quartermain’s eyes and waited for Smithett to help him to his feet.
I’ll tell her, have no fear.
He limped away, resting on Smithett, the lieutenant’s sword under one arm.
Some armed blue-jackets had climbed up from the boats while they had been away and were already herding the prisoners into line and searching them for weapons.
M’Crystal was shouting at the dazed handful of marines as they stared at the chaos around them, as if they no longer understood where they were or what they had done.
‘Who d’you think you are? You’re more like a bunch of sea-cooks than Royal Marines! Smarten yourselves up,
d’you hear
!’
He realized that Blackwood had returned, and when he swung about to face him Blackwood was shocked to see the hurt and despair in his eyes. He did not recall ever before seeing M’Cryscal’s guard drop.
The towering colour-sergeant reported hoarsely, ‘Ready to move off,
sir
!’
Blackwood released his hold on Smithett’s arm. Just as he had needed to see Quartermain before he had died, it was suddenly necessary he should face his men, the survivors.
The fire in his leg was almost unbearable, but he made himself walk along the single rank of men, only vaguely aware of the watching sailors and prisoners, now silent without knowing why.
Blackwood paused at each familiar face. Here and there one tried to smile, others were too stunned to meet his gaze. Jones, Doak, Frazier, and even the Rocke twins were still together.
He saw Harry take half a pace forward and realized he had expected him to fall. Blackwood clenched his jaw. He would not faint. Not yet anyway.
‘Stand them at ease, please.’ It sounded so formal, so out of place in this arena of death and hate that he needed to blaspheme or weep.
‘I just wanted you to know . . .’ They were all watching him now, but nothing was coming out right. He tried again. ‘There will be other days, some worse than this and for less reason.’
He rested on Quartermain’s sword and recalled the man
Jones had killed. But for his swift action with the musket he would be lying dead like Quartermain.
Blackwood continued, ‘When that happens, I want you to remember this day with pride, and the friends we left here.’ He was getting confused and could not see their faces properly. ‘I am proud of each and every one of you.’
M’Crystal hissed, ‘The major’s here, sir.’
Fynmore’s neat figure appeared over the ridge and Blackwood turned in time to see his face stiffen in a mask of disbelief as he saw the corpses and the small group of victors.
Then he strode forward and snapped, ‘Well done. I am sorry I did not get here earlier but—’
Harry Blackwood ran from the others and caught his half-brother before he hit the ground. Through his teeth he exclaimed, ‘I am sure we all understand,
sir
!’
When he looked up he saw Fynmore’s face had gone pale, as if he had just been struck. Without another word the major turned away and, followed by his attendant, vanished down the slope.
A lieutenant from one of the boats hurried across the scorched grass and said, ‘I’ll have my men do the burials.’
Harry shook his head. ‘No. Just get Captain Blackwood to the surgeon, will you.’ He picked up Quartermain’s stained sword and handed it to the naval officer. ‘Take this too.’ He looked at M’Crystal’s grim features. ‘Burial party, if you please, Colour-Sergeant.’
He saw a brief flicker in M’Crystal’s eyes. For once he had said the right thing. What Philip would have done.
We take care of our own.
The pounding in his head was louder and more insistent, and Blackwood had to use something like physical strength to force his eyelids apart. There was a vile taste in his mouth and he guessed he had been sick. He felt sudden terror and groped frantically beneath the sheet for his leg. He sobbed aloud.
There was a cool dressing, not some obscene stump where a leg had once been.
As his senses returned he peered around fearfully as memory after memory flooded through his aching mind. He was in a ship. A steam vessel. Alone in a cabin, but it was too dark to recognize anything. He heard the rumble of machinery, the surge of water against the hull as it frothed astern from the paddles. He thought of the little
Norseman
stranded on the river-bank, men cheering, the cold claws of fear and the wildness of battle.
He tried to recall Fynmore’s face, what he had intended to say to him before he had collapsed. But nothing came, and he wondered how long he had been unconscious.
He thought of the girl on the litter, the way she had looked at him, the feverish touch of her skin when he had tried to cover her breasts. He groaned. It was all behind, over.
The door opened and someone stepped carefully over the coaming. Blackwood knew it was Captain Tobin. How did he know?
Tobin said, ‘How are you feeling?’ He must have smiled in the darkness because his voice changed as he added, ‘Yes, you’re back in
Satyr
, the same cabin too.’
Blackwood stared at the man’s sturdy shadow. ‘How long?’
‘A week or so. You gave my surgeon a few scares, but you’re on the mend now. It will be up to more professional doctors to finish the job.’
‘Where are we headed? Freetown?’
Tobin cocked his head as a voice-pipe shrilled in the depths of the hull.
‘We’re going home. England. You’ve more than earned it.’
The door closed just as silently as it had opened. Blackwood lay back and stared into the darkness. Home. Hawks Hill. A new beginning.
Once he was able to move about again he would write to Davern Seymour and tell her . . . He smiled ruefully. Tell her what?
He was still thinking of her when he fell into a deep sleep.
Philip Blackwood sat listlessly in a high-backed cane chair and stared at the snow-edged window. It was cold in spite of the stout walls, even for late January, and to Blackwood it felt like the nearness of death.
Instead of showing a steady improvement, Blackwood knew his health and his memory were faulty. Days and places overlapped, and the slow passing of time meant nothing.
He glanced around the room, practical and spartan like the place. The Royal Naval Hospital at Haslar. At night, if he was allowed up, he could see the lights of ships in the outlet to Portsmouth Harbour, the one remaining link with a life which seemed to have passed him by.
The surgeons had explained that his wound had been badly infected, that he had been fortunate not to lose the leg. He had suffered some kind of fever too, which in turn had blunted his memory. When Tobin had told him that
Satyr
was on passage to England, he had failed to mention that Blackwood had been desperately ill and the ship had in fact already been at Freetown. And he could remember nothing about it. Blurred images, pain, gentle hands, pans of a dream rather than reality.
In his eagerness to get Blackwood back to England without further delay, Tobin had driven his ship hard.
Satyr
had paid for his haste and was now out there in the dockyard having her engine overhauled and put to rights.
But it had given Blackwood his other link with the outside world. Lieutenant Lascelles had visited him at the hospital
whenever he had been spared from his duties. Lascelles had been bursting with news, about the capture of Lessard’s base, of the marines’ victory against odds which had been far better armed and prepared.
Lessard was dead and would never stand trial after all. Perhaps someone had suspected he would still use his influence and wealth to evade punishment and had carried out his own judgement and execution. It seemed that Lessard had been ready to leave Zwide’s anchorage and escape in the larger of the two vessels there. He had probably calculated that the Navy would be more intent on retaking the
Kingsmill
than in capturing the second vessel. The latter had been crammed to the deck beams with slaves, one last profitable cargo before he turned his attention elsewhere, Blackwood thought.
But
Satyr
’s sudden arrival firing her massive guns had put paid to escape. Lieutenant Ashley-Chute had sent a cutting-out party to board both vessels and in minutes it had ended.
Blackwood could vividly recall how a petty officer had warned him not to stand too close to a hold aboard the first slaver, the glittering pattern of white eyes from that stinking prison-ship.
Even as the slavers had flung down their weapons in surrender to the jubilant boarders, Lessard was said to have lost his balance and had fallen headlong into one of the tightly packed holds. Lascelles had described how Lessard had literally been torn to shreds.
Blackwood had had other visitors. The colonel from Forton Barracks who had somehow refrained from reminding him of their last meeting when Blackwood had tried to resign. He was very likely thinking that he would no longer need to resign. In his poor health he would more likely be discharged from the Corps.
Even the port admiral had paid him a visit and had brought a case of wine to mark the occasion. The case had been swiftly removed by a doctor after the admiral’s departure.
Blackwood wondered why his father had not come immediately to see him. He had been told there had been regular enquiries from Hawks Hill, but always by courier. Perhaps his father was ill or unable to travel. It was only twenty miles from Hawks Hill to Portsmouth, but the whole country was under a blanket of snow, the worst anyone could remember. There was one good thing, Blackwood thought, they had not sold the old place. Not yet anyway.
The window shivered in a fresh squall and Blackwood turned to look at the framed painting above the bed. It was the Royal Marines crest, the globe and the laurel, and the famous Corps motto,
Per Mare per Terram
, underneath. Painted by a previous inmate, no doubt. How many had this and places like it seen, he wondered? Crippled, diseased, broken survivors of war.
‘If I stay here much longer . . .’ He stood up violently and prepared to meet the pain. He was sick of his own self-pity and anxiety. He did not have to think back as far as the unknown painter to recall faces he would never see again.
There was a discreet tap at the door and Smithett peered in at him.
Blackwood tried to stand without revealing the discomfort of his wound. Even Smithett had come to say good-bye. Off to serve another officer, or to make his own way in the ranks. With his mates.
Smithett regarded him mournfully. ‘Jus’ come from the company tailor, sir. You’ve lost so much weight I’ve ’ad to get some of yer tunics taken in like.’ He tried to grin but all the lines remained pointing down. ‘Can’t ’ave the other MOAs sayin’ I don’t take proper care of me captain, can I?’
‘You’re
staying
with me?’
Smithett laid a tunic across the bed with great care.
’Course, sir. ‘’O else would want me?’ He turned and looked at Blackwood’s strained features. ‘’Sides, you got a visitor. She’s wiv the ’ead sawbones right now.’
Blackwood stared. ‘Visitor? She . . .’
Smithett looked round for somewhere to hang the other items of clothing.
‘Yeh. That’s right, sir. Yer mother.’
Blackwood sat down and allowed Smithett to prepare him for his visitor.
I am a bloody fool. Who had I expected?
Smithett waited for him to stand again and waited while Blackwood stepped carefully into his trousers. Not near enough to make the officer think he couldn’t manage on his own, it was not Smithett’s style.
‘There, sir.’
Smithett nodded with approval as the red coatee slipped into place. That wily tailor had done a fair job, he concluded. Worth the rum he had ‘won’ for him.
‘I never really thanked you for all you did . . .’
Smithett shrugged to hide his discomfort. Intolerant, impatient, bad-tempered officers he could accept. Blackwood’s distress was something else.
He said, ‘Somethin’ll work out, sir. There’ll be another war somewhere an’ the Royals will be expected to put things shipshape again, you see, sir.’
‘You’re probably right. I wish to God we were with young Harry right now. Today’s his birthday.’
Smithett flicked a brush across his shoulders and gave a secret smile. If the captain knew just half of what that young bugger had been up to he’d soon be his old self again.
He was very tempted, but at that moment the door was thrust open and the senior surgeon and his assistant entered the room.
But for once Blackwood was not looking at their faces to try and discover what would happen to him. Framed between them, his stepmother seemed to make the room empty, to reduce the surgeons to nothing. She had always been a beautiful woman, even though he had been unprepared to accept it. Now, set against the drab and austere surroundings, she was elegant, even regal.
Her hair was like rich chestnut and piled on top of her head
to set off her perfect oval face and slender neck. Her skin was white, like marble, and she was complerely composed, like an actress about to mount the stage.