Colours Aloft! by Alexander Kent

as the sails were checked and fisted into shape the anchor plummeted down into clear water.
    Hallowes put his hands behind him and Bolitho saw that the fingers were tightly entwined. He was nervous, but that did no harm at all.
    â€œSway out the boats!”
    Hallowes said, “I’ll send a good lookout up to that ridge, sir. With a glass he’ll be able to see across the next headland, according to the chart.” He smiled self-consciously. “And Mr Okes, of course.”
    Stayt beckoned to Bankart. “The gig!” His voice was sharp, and Bolitho knew that had Allday been here he would have reacted just as curtly. But Bankart had to learn.
    Bolitho waited for the others to clamber down amongst the oarsmen. Lieutenant Okes was taking the jolly-boat, his weatherbeaten face like some old figurehead, Bolitho thought. The Navy could do with a lot more Okeses just now.
    Sheaffe and Stayt squeezed into the sternsheets with him and Supreme ’s only midshipman, a spotty youth named Duncannon, piped, “Give way, all!”
    Bolitho clutched his sword between his knees and thought of Cornwall, of how he and his brother and sometimes his sisters had played amongst the coves and caves near Falmouth. He sighed. A thousand years ago.
    What would Belinda think when she received his letter? He had tried not to dwell on it, to keep his mind free of personal encumbrances.
    Sheaffe said, “The jolly-boat’s ashore, sir.”
    Bolitho saw Okes wading through the shallows, his whitestockinged legs like huge inverted flasks. There was a broad-shouldered seaman already leaving the others, naked but for some tattered trousers and wide-brimmed hat. One of Hallowes’ best men, and as bronzed as any native. With a telescope carelessly jammed under one arm he was striding towards the trees and the hills beyond.
    The gig grounded and Bolitho climbed outboard and then trod on firm sand as the seamen hauled the keel up the beach.
    The trees looked almost tropical and their bushy tops moved in the sea breeze as if in a dance.
    The gig’s crew were already returning to the cutter to fetch some water casks.
    Bolitho touched his forehead and then, as if to test his reaction, he felt beneath his dangling lock of hair and along the deep scar which had almost killed him. That had been a watering party too. It always made him feel uneasy.
    It was a strange thing that the lock of hair was now tinged with white. The rest of his hair was as black as before. What was it? Vanity, or the anxiety about the difference in his and Belinda’s ages which made him worry about it?
    Two seamen armed with cutlasses and muskets strolled behind the little group as, with Bolitho in the lead, they started to make their way up the first slope. Once sheltered by the scrub and overhanging fronds it seemed moist and very warm. No birds sang or screamed out a warning. It was almost drowsy.
    Stayt said, “You could shelter two squadrons hereabouts, sir.” He was already breathing hard for one so young. “Nelson was right.”
    Did that innocent remark have a sharper edge? Was Stayt implying that if Nelson had not suggested Sardinia, nobody else would?
    It was not long before they saw the glitter of a stream with a chattering waterfall at its head. Okes was already there, his booming voice calling for axes to cut a passage for his casks which would be hauled to the boats on crude sledges.
    When they walked into bright sunlight again Bolitho shaded his eyes to look back at the anchored cutter. She looked like a graceful toy, her great sails folded like wings. Bolitho raised his glass and saw the bare-backed sailor settling himself on top of the adjoining hill, his long telescope propped on some loose stones. He should see the whole coastline from there.
    Bolitho felt his shirt dragging at his skin. He was wet through but felt elated, and pictured himself swimming in that clear, inviting water.
    He thought of Keen and whether he