False Colors Read Online Free Page B

him in the desire to laugh aloud for joy. Only the knowledge that the men would think him insane restrained him from doing so. Instead he padded down on carefully silent feet onto the Meteor ’s one gun deck, stalking the music.
    Tables hung from the deck above on ropes, and with the offduty watch drinking their grog, smoking their pipes, and telling tall tales, the long room had something of the look of a summer pub scene. Reflections from the sea dazzled through the open gun ports, through which fresh air also streamed, cutting through the usual reek of wet wool and unwashed sailor. The sound of the flute—louder now—trailed from aft, high and sweet—complex with a mathematical perfection that John’s navigationally trained instincts sensed with delight. He continued his pursuit.
    Donwell’s door stood slightly open—it had to, for sitting on his sea-chest, he couldn’t fit his outstretched legs into the tiny room otherwise—but his eyes were closed and he frowned with concentration as he played the rosewood flute. Charmed, John drifted closer until he could prop a shoulder against the frame of the door and settle into silent appreciation.
    With a strong love of music, but raised in perfect ignorance on the subject, he could not think of anything intelligent to say. Nor would he have wished to interrupt the piece’s transcendence with mere speech. But its rushes of notes, and the long, strong passages in between, resonated through him like the power of a full spread of sail. As always, his ignorance and the enchantment combined to open up a world of light beneath John’s breastbone, to fill him with awe and incompleteness combined. A sweet torment; for if he was seeing angels dancing, he had not the wings to join in.
    Donwell’s wig lay crumpled on the mattress, beside a book, an old shirt and a half eaten ship’s biscuit. Brilliant sunshine gave the whole scene the oil painting vividness of a Dutch masterpiece, outlining Donwell’s hands, the turn of his throat, his messy flaxen hair as though they were numinous.
    As everything paused on a high note, clear and perfect, John’s delight escaped in a gasp of breath, and at the sound Donwell’s eyes snapped open. With a convulsive heave backwards, he drew the flute to his chest as if to protect it, slamming his heels into the sea-chest and scrabbling to rise. “Oh! Oh, I’m…I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t know you were there!”
    “No need to apologize, Mr. Donwell.” John smiled, not only the music making him radiant. It was pleasing to have the upper hand for a change; to wrong-foot his over-bold lieutenant. “Rather I should ask your pardon for disturbing you in the middle of a performance. I have a most untutored reaction to music. What was it, may I ask?”
    “Surely you know Telemann, sir?” Donwell’s sandy brows arched with surprise as he straightened up, freeing space enough for John to walk in. In his new mood of confidence, John did so, and found it pleasant to revert to the comradely visiting he had done on board the Admiral’s first rate. There, they had been in and out of one another’s cabins all the time, borrowing books and stockings, taking a cup of coffee or a glass of wine with each other. It had been, indeed, a little too sociable for John’s tastes, but now, after a fortnight of solitude, he thirsted for company.
    “It is not possible to underestimate what I know about music.” The canvas partition wall creaked beneath John’s weight as he cautiously leaned against it. A small part of him quailed at opening the details of his family life to such a stranger, but Alfie’s honest, good-humored amusement encouraged him. Whatever else he felt—this itch of over-awareness which made every conversation a little too intense—distrust was not part of it.
    Indeed, the desire to put Donwell on the next ship to China weighed equally against the desire to tell him all and keep him close. If it puzzled John which instinct to trust, he