Read Online Inshore Squadron by Alexander Kent - Free Book Online

Thomas.”
    Lieutenant Browne appeared through the after companion, buttoning his coat and saying, “I heard something. What is happening?”
    Wolfe said to the sailing master, “A lot of use he’ll be.”
    Herrick answered, “We have taken a prize, Mr Browne. I fear you have missed it.”
    Several of the nearby seamen were grinning and nudging each other. Bolitho sensed the change. There was a better feeling already.
    â€œDeck there! Land on the lee bow!”
    Herrick and the master bustled to the chart room beneath the poop to consult their findings.
    That would be The Skaw. As far as the strange brig was concerned, it had been a near thing. An hour earlier and she would have slipped away unseen.
    Bolitho said, “I will take breakfast now. Let me know when Lookout is near enough to exchange signals.”
    Herrick stood by the chart room entrance, shading his eyes as if he expected to see the other vessels.
    â€œMr Grubb thinks we should be off The Skaw before noon if the wind stays with us.”
    â€œI agree. Once there you may signal the squadron to anchor in succession.” Bolitho nodded to the other officers and made his way aft.
    Herrick gave a great sigh. He tended to worry when Bolitho was nearby, but he worried all the more when he was gone.
    Pascoe slithered down to the deck and retrieved his hat. He was about to approach the quarterdeck when a small figure stepped from between two 18 -pounders and said, “Excuse me, sir!” It was Midshipman Penels.
    â€œYes?” Pascoe paused and studied the boy. Was I ever like that?
    â€œI—I don’t know how to explain, sir.”
    He sounded and looked so despairing that Pascoe said, “Speak out.”
    It was virtually impossible to find any privacy in a ship-of-war. Apart from the captain, and possibly a man deep in the ship’s cells, there was always a crowd.
    Pascoe knew very little about the newest midshipman. He was from Cornwall, and that was all he had to go on.
    He said, “You are from Bodmin, I believe?”
    â€œYes, sir.” Penels looked around like a trapped animal. “There’s someone in your division, sir. Someone I grew up with back in England.”
    Pascoe stood aside as a file of marines stamped past on their way to one of their complicated drills.
    Penels explained, “His name is John Babbage, sir. He was taken by the press-gang at Plymouth. I didn’t know until we were at sea. He worked for my mother after my father died, sir. He was good to me. My best friend.”
    Pascoe looked away. It was not his place to interfere. In any case, Penels should have gone to the first lieutenant or the master.
    But he remembered his own beginning. The long, hungry walk from Penzance to Falmouth. Just a boy, and quite alone.
    â€œWhy did you approach me, Mr Penels? The truth now.”
    â€œMy friend said you are a good officer, sir. Not so sharp as some.”
    Pascoe formed a mental picture of this unfortunate Babbage. A wild-eyed youth, nearer his own age than Penels’, he would have thought.
    â€œWell, we are with the squadron now, Mr Penels. Had you come to me in port I might have been able to do something.” He thought of Wolfe and knew it would have made little difference even then.
    A ship needed men. Every hand she could get. Wolfe was a good officer in many ways, but he was short of sympathy for any catch brought aboard by the press.
    But it must be hard for both Penels and his friend of boyhood days.
    In the same hull, yet neither knowing the other was aboard until the ship was standing out to sea. Separated not only by rank and station, but also by the ship’s own geography. Penels served with the afterguard for sail drill and duty with the quarterdeck nine-pounders. Babbage was classed as a landman in his own division at the foremast. Babbage was young and agile. With luck he should soon learn to run aloft with the topmen, the aristocrats of