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live by it. But with respect, it’s nothing compared to this coast. And as you said, sir, it seems that there are more who commit these crimes outside the jails than in them!” The others nodded in agreement.
    Vatass said, “The revenue officers are often outnumbered, and outgunned by the smugglers. Many of their captains are loath to work close inshore for fear of being wrecked and overrun, and ashore their riding-officers risk their lives when there is a big haul being unloaded. They strike terror into anyone who raises a hand against them. Informers are butchered like pigs. Even revenue men are not safe any more.”
    Bolitho asked, “What information do we receive?”
    Paice said, “The coastguard help, so too the revenue officers if they get enough time.”
    Bolitho stood up and banged his head sharply on a beam. He looked at Paice and gave a rueful smile. “You are right. Quite different from a fifth-rate!” This time they all laughed.
    It was a small beginning. He said, “It takes too long. They hold all the advantages. Send for dragoons, and the beach will have been emptied by the time a courier is able to raise the alarm.
    Queely murmured angrily, “ If the poor devil gets through without having his throat slit!”
    Paice said, “And the buggers watch us at anchor, sir. Out there at this moment there’ll be one of them, a fast horse nearby. We’d need fifty cutters and even then—”
    Bolitho stood up again to lift one panel of the skylight and felt the salt air on his lips.
    â€œThen we will mark them down at sea, gentlemen. It may stir up a hornet’s nest, but we shall have results. The more trouble we can make for them, the less interference we shall get with our work. We are ordered to obtain men for the fleet. That we shall do.” His eyes flashed in the reflected sunset. “The navy has never taken second place to pirates. I see these smugglers as no different. We will press or prosecute, but first we will try a little action of our own.”
    He rapped on the door and eventually Young Matthew bowed into the cabin with a tray of goblets and wine.
    Bolitho looked at Paice. “Some wine from my home in Falmouth, not smuggled, I trust!” Telemachus was after all Paice’s command; it would be seen as high-handed to offer drinks when he was only a guest here. He glanced at the boy and saw that his face was almost back to normal, his cheeks like Devon apples again. But his gaze was glassy, and he had not been seen at all on the passage downriver. One of Allday’s sworn-by remedies no doubt. A ship’s biscuit ground up to a powder and soaked under a powerful measure of rum. Kill or cure, Allday claimed. Young Matthew was learning more every hour of the day.
    Bolitho said, “I can rely on all of you to share this discussion with no one. When the time is ripe, we will hit them.”
    He lifted his goblet and thought he heard Allday leaning against the door.
    â€œI give you a sentiment, gentlemen. To those across the Channel who are suffering terror which is not of their making, and to our three ships!” He saw Queely’s surprised glance.
    But they drank deeply, the air touched with rum as the boy refilled the goblets.
    The wine was hock, chilled like a Cornish stream in the bilges. Young Matthew had often helped at table under Mrs Ferguson’s watchful eye; he was proving that he had forgotten nothing.
    Bolitho raised his goblet again and said simply, “To His Majesty. Damnation to all his enemies!”
    That night, while Telemachus swung easily to her anchor cable, Bolitho, cramped though he was in a small cot like any junior lieutenant, slept for the first time without the dream’s torment. Near the cot, lying on a chest, was his old coat, the watch she had given him tucked carefully into a pocket.
    A reminder, that with her memory he could never be alone.

3. D ECOY
    L IEUTENANT Jonas Paice