Free Relentless Pursuit by Alexander Kent

unbroken link with the past.
    He was at the wardroom door; faces were beaming, some shining in the damp air. All the toasts, the stories, the small, tight world which was theirs. And mine.
    Galbraith followed him and said, “It was good of you to come, sir.” He gave a crooked smile. “Sorry about the second lieutenant. Some of it was my fault.” He did not explain. “I’ll be glad when we’ve got some real work to do!”
    Adam nodded to the marine sentry and entered his cabin. Only two lanterns were still alight. He saw his boat-cloak hanging near the sleeping quarters, and remembered the girl who had left a lock of hair in the pocket. Where was she, he wondered. Laughing now at that brief but dangerous liaison in Malta. He must have been mad. It could have cost him dearly. Cost me this ship.
    But he had kept the lock of hair.
    He saw a goblet wedged in a corner of the desk, the dark cognac tilting and shivering to the thrust of wind and rudder.
    He touched the locket beneath his shirt before looking around the cabin, as if he expected to see or hear someone.
    Then he raised the goblet to his lips and thought of the toast they had avoided calling in the wardroom. To absent friends.
    Don’t leave me. But the voice was his own.
    The afternoon sun was poised directly above the mainmast truck, the glare so hard that it seemed to sear the eyes. The forenoon watch had been relieved and were now below in their messes for a meal, and the smell of rum was still heavy in the air. During the day the wind had veered slightly and dropped, so that the ship appeared to be resting, her decks quite dry, for the first time since leaving England. To any landsman the activity on the upper decks might appear aimless and casual, after the urgency and constant demands which time and time again had dragged all hands to their stations for shortening sail, or for repairing damage aloft.
    But to the professional sailors the deck was often “the marketplace,” and any trained eye would soon pick out the many and varied activities which were all part of a ship’s daily life.
    The sailmaker and his crew sat cross-legged like tailors, needles and palms rising and falling in unison. No canvas was ever wasted. Sails had to be repaired and wind damage made good before the next gale or worse. Scraps were used for patching, for crude but effective pouches, for making new hammocks. For burying the dead.
    The boatswain’s various parties moved through the hull, greasing block sheaves, replacing whipping on strained or worn rope-work, repairing boats, touching up paintwork wherever needed.
    Occasionally men would shade their eyes and peer across the bows to the low, undulating humps, purple and dark blue against the horizon’s hard edge. Like very low clouds, except that there were no clouds. It was land.
    The shift of wind, with courses and topsails hard put even to remain filled, had changed things. The old hands understood well enough. No captain would want to skulk into a foreign port under cover of darkness without showing his flag. The wiser ones realised that Madeira consisted of five islands, with all the extra hazards of a final approach for the captain to consider.
    It would be tomorrow.
    â€œStand to your guns!”
    In the meantime, work and drill would continue.
    Only two guns were being used to instruct some of the new hands, the first pair right forward on Unrivalled ’s larboard side. She carried a total of thirty 18 -pounders, her main armament, divided along either beam. They also made up the biggest top-weight, quick to make itself felt in any sort of heavy swell. When the ship had first been laid down, the designers in their wisdom had ordered that the eighteen-pounders be cast a foot shorter than usual, in the hope that the decreased weight would assist stability in bad weather and, more important to their lordships, in action.
    At the first gun, its captain Isaac Dias wiped his