“All ships,” read Truscott. “Captains repair on board the flagship.”
“Gig’s crew away!” roared Bush.
It must be important, or at least unusual, news for the admiral to wish to communicate it to the captains immediately and in person. Bush walked the quarterdeck with Buckland while they waited. The French fleet might be out; the Northern Alliance might be growing restive again. The King’s illness might have returned. It might be anything; they could be only certain that it was not nothing. The minutes passed and lengthened into halfhours; it could hardly be bad news—if it were, Lambert would not be wasting precious time like this, with the whole squadron going off slowly to leeward. Then at last the wind brought to their ears, over the blue water, the highpitched sound of the pipes of the bosun’s mates in the flagship. Bush clapped his glass to his eye.
“First one’s coming off,” he said.
Gig after gig left the flagship’s side, and now they could see the Renown ’s gig with her captain in the sternsheets. Buckland went to meet him as he came up the side. Cogshill touched his hat; he was looking a little dazed.
“It’s peace,” he said.
The wind brought them the sound of cheering from the flagship—the announcement must have been made to the ship’s company on board, and it was the sound of that cheering that gave any reality at all to the news the captain brought.
“Peace, sir?” asked Buckland.
“Yes, peace. Preliminaries are signed. The ambassadors meet in France next month to settle the terms, but it’s peace. All hostilities are at an end—they are to cease in every part of the world on arrival of this news.”
“Peace!” said Bush.