Read Online In the King's Name by Alexander Kent - Free Book Online Page B

Falmouth was clear and sunlit, at odds with further inland where the trees were still etched white with frost.
    Not much wind, but what there was felt like a honed blade. There were plenty of people about, muffled up against the cold, and the hardier types behaving as if it were a spring day. A few, all women, waited by the fishermen’s wharf, but most of the boats were at sea or empty alongside. All the usual idlers waited on the waterfront, passing the time of day or waiting to share a drink with friends. A servant from the nearby inn had just been seen rolling an empty barrel across the courtyard, a welcome signal to the onlookers.
    There had not been much movement in the harbour or Carrick Roads, but this day was different, and they were discussing the newcomer critically: a King’s ship, something of a rarity of late, with the exception of revenue cutters and naval supply vessels.
    Many of the idlers were old sailors themselves, discharged, or thrown on the beach for a dozen different reasons. Many of them loudly proclaimed they were glad to be free of the navy and its harsh discipline, or various officers they had served in the past. Bad food and poor pay, and the constant risk of injury or death. But they were usually the first on the waterfront whenever a sail was sighted.
    She was a brig, one of the navy’s maids of all work, busier than ever now with so many of the heavier vessels being paid off or scrapped. She was shortening sail as she turned slightly toward her anchorage, tiny figures spread out along the upper yards of her two masts, the canvas not even flapping as it caught the sunlight. Like her hull, the sails shone like glass and were hardened with salt and ice. A fine sight, but to some of the old hands watching from the shore she meant hazards as well as beauty. Fisting and kicking the frozen canvas into submission so that it could be furled and reefed was dangerous enough, but one slip and you would fall headlong onto the deck below, or into the sea alongside, where even if you could swim …
    She was still turning, her sails almost aback, soon to be hidden by the old battery wall above the harbour. Only her masthead pendant showed to mark her anchorage. One man, who had brought a telescope, had seen the new arrival’s name and called out,
“Merlin!”
    But he was alone. His friends had drifted away.
    Commander Francis Troubridge turned his back to the sun and stared at the land, the nearness of it. With the wind dropping to a light breeze, the approach had seemed endless. He would become used to it, with time and more experience. He had a good ship’s company; some had served aboard
Merlin
since she had first commissioned. One hundred and thirty all told. Hard to believe, he thought, when you considered she was only one hundred and five feet in length. Teamwork and companionship were vital. He looked at the houses, one above another on the steep hillside, but he could not see the church as he had the last time he had been in Falmouth. Only three months ago.
    So much had happened since.
    He glanced forward where men were stowing away loose gear, sliding down backstays, racing one another to the deck. A few were slower, quietly cursing the scrapes and grazes inflicted by the frozen canvas, which could tear out a man’s fingernails no matter how experienced a sailor he was.
    Troubridge had come to know the names of most and remembered them, something he had learned as a flag lieutenant, when the admiral had always expected him to know everything. That was over. He was
Merlin’s
captain now. And she was his first command. And to most of these men he was still a stranger. It was up to him.
    â€œStandin’ by, sir!”
    He raised his hand above his head and heard the cry from the forecastle.
    â€œLet go!”
    The splash of the anchor and the immediate response as the cable followed it, men hastening it on its way and ready for any stoppages. There were none.
    He