1805 (4 page)

Drinkwater lowered his glass for the third time, then impatiently lifted it again. This time he was rewarded by the sight of a small white triangle just above the horizon. In the succeeding minutes others rose over the rim of the earth until it seemed that, for half of the visible circle where sea met sky, the white triangles of sails surrounded them. Beneath each white triangle the dark hulls emerged with their lighter strakes and chequered sides. The gay colours of flag signals and ensigns enlivened the scene and
Antigone
buzzed as officers and men pointed out ships they recognised, old friends or scandalous hulks that were only kept afloat by the prayers of their crews and the diabolical links their commanders enjoyed with the devil himself.

‘ 'Ere, ain't that the bloody
Himmortalitee
?' cried an excited seaman, and an equally effusive Hill agreed.

‘Aye, Marston, that is indeed the
Immortalité
, and a damned fine ship she was when I was in her as a master's mate.'

‘Gorn to the devil, Mister 'Ill, now we oldsters ain't there to watch. She used to gripe like a stuck porker in anything of a blow . . .'

‘God damn it the
Belleisle
, by all that's holy . . .'

‘And the
Goliath
 . . .'

Drinkwater tolerated the excitement as long as it did not mar the efficiency of the
Antigone
. One of the look-out cruisers broke away and hauled her yards to intercept them.

‘Permission to hoist the private signal, sir?' James Quilhampton crossed the deck, touching his hat.

‘Very well, Mr Q.' Drinkwater nodded and lifted his glass, watching the frigate close hauled on the wind as she moved to intercept the new arrival. She was a thing of loveliness on such a morning and was sending up her royals to cut a dash and impress the
Antigone
's company with her handiness and discipline. The two frigates exchanged recognition and private signals.

‘Number Three-One-Three, sir.
Sirius
, thirty-six, Captain William Prowse.'

‘Very well.' Drinkwater stood upon the carronade slide and waved his hat as the two cruisers passed on opposite tacks.

‘The flagship's two points to starboard, sir,' the ever-attentive Quilhampton informed him.

‘Very well, Mr Q, ease her off a little.' He wondered how
Antigone
appeared from
Sirius
as the look-out frigate tacked in her wake and hauled her own yards, swinging round to regain station. Drinkwater cast a critical eye aloft and then along the deck. Tregembo was mustering the barge's crew in the waist before ordering them into the boat. Although he was far from being a wealthy officer, he had managed a degree of uniformity for his boat's crew due to the large number of slops he had acquired in two previous ships. Over their flannel shirts and duck trousers the men wore cut-down greycoats that gave the appearance of pilot jackets, while upon their heads Tregembo had placed warm seal-skin caps, part of the profit of the
Melusine
's voyage among the ice-floes of the Arctic seas. It was a piece of conceit in which Drinkwater took a secret delight.

He was proud of the frigate too. Notwithstanding the deplorable state of the dockyards and the desperate shortage of every necessity for fitting out ships of war caused by Lord St Vincent's reforms, she was cause for self-congratulation. The First Lord's zeal in rooting out corruption might have long-term benefits, but for the present the disruptions and shortages had made the commissioning of men-of-war a nightmare for their commanders. Drinkwater recognised his good fortune. The dreadful condition of
Melusine
on her return from the Arctic had removed her from active service and they had managed
to take out of her a quantity of stores which, with what the dockyard at Chatham allowed, had enabled them to get
Antigone
down to Black-stakes for her powder in good time. Best of all he had employed seamen in her fitting out and not the convict labour St Vincent advocated. Besides, the ship herself had been in good condition. Built by the French in Cherbourg only nine years earlier, she had been captured in the Red Sea in September 1798 by a party of British seamen that included Drinkwater himself. His appointment to this particular ship was, he knew, a mark of favour from the First Lord. Originally armed with twenty-six long 24-pounder cannon, she had been taken with most of her guns on shore and the Navy Board had seen fit to reduce her force to conform with other frigates of the Royal Navy. Now she mounted twenty-six black 18-pounder long guns upon her gun-deck, two long 9-pounder bow-chasers upon her fo'c's'le together with eight stubby 36-pounder carronades. On her quarterdeck were eight further long nines and the two brass carronades that had formerly gleamed at the hances of
Melusine
.

Drinkwater grunted his satisfaction as Hill reported the flagship a league distant and gave his permission for sail to be shortened. There were occasions when he regretted not being able to handle the ship in the day-to-day routines but on an occasion such as the present one it gave him equal pleasure to watch the officers and men go about their duty, to remark on the performance of individuals and to note the weaker officers and petty officers in the ship. There was also the necessity to observe the whale-men he had pressed from the Hull whalers
Nimrod
and
Conqueror
; in particular a man named Waller, formerly the commander of the
Conqueror
, who had only escaped hanging by Drinkwater's clemency.
*
Waller was expiating treason before the mast as a common seaman and Drinkwater kept an eye on him. He had had Rogers, the first lieutenant, split all the whale-men into different messes so that they could not confer or form any kind of a combination. For a minute he was tempted to send Waller with the two score of pressed men taken aboard from the
Nore
guardship as replacements for the Channel Fleet. But he could not abandon his responsibilities that easily. It was better to keep Waller under his own vigilant eye than risk him causing trouble elsewhere in the fleet. The rest behaved well enough. Good seamen, most had come from the
Melusine
where they had originally been volunteers during the short-lived Peace of Amiens.

‘Hoist the signal for dispatches, sir?'

Drinkwater turned to find the diminutive Mr Frey looking up at him. He nodded. ‘Indeed yes, Mr Frey, if you will be so kind.' He smiled at the boy who grinned back. All in all, reflected Drinkwater, he was one of the most fortunate of all the post-captains hereabouts, and he cast his eyes round the horizon where ship after ship of the British fleet cruised under easy sail in three great columns with the frigates cast out ahead, astern and on either flank.

Drinkwater sniffed the fresh north-westerly breeze and felt invigorated by the delightful freshness of the morning. The storm of two nights previously had cleared the air. Even here, a hundred miles off the Isles of Scilly where already the first crocuses would be breaking through the soil, spring was in the air. He nodded at Rogers who walked over to him.

‘Mornin', Sam.'

‘Good morning, sir. Sail's shortened and the barge is ready for lowering.'

Drinkwater regarded his first lieutenant, remembering their previous enmity aboard the
Hellebore
when they had been wrecked after an error of judgement made by Samuel Rogers, and of their successes together in the Baltic in the old bomb-vessel
Virago
. Rogers was a coarse and vulgar man, no scientific officer and only a passable navigator, but he was a competent seaman and his valour in action was too valuable an asset to be lightly set aside merely because he lacked social accomplishments. Besides, in his present situation he would have precious little opportunity to worry over such a deficiency. He was, Drinkwater knew, perfect as a first luff; the very man the hands loved to hate, who was indifferent to that hatred and who could take the blame for all the hardships, mishaps and injustices the naval service would press upon their unfortunate souls and bodies.

‘She's looking very tiddly, Sam. Fit for an admiral's inspection already. I congratulate you.'

Rogers gave him a grin. ‘I heard about your appetite for tiddly ships after the
Melusine
, sir.'

Drinkwater grinned back. ‘She was a damned
yacht
, Sam. You should have heard the gunroom squeal when I cut off her royal masts and fitted a crow's nest to con her through the ice.'

‘She was different from the old
Virago
then?'

‘As chalk is from cheese . . .'

They were interrupted by Lieutenant Quilhampton. ‘Flag's signalling, sir: ‘Captain to come aboard”.'

‘Very well. Bring the ship to under the admiral's lee quarter, Mr Q . . . Sam be so good as to salute the flag while I shift my coat.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.' The two officers began to carry out their orders as Drinkwater hurried below to where an anxious Mullender had coat, hat, cloak and sword all ready for him.

*
See
The Corvette

Admiral Sir William Cornwallis rose from behind his desk and motioned Drinkwater to a chair. His flag-lieutenant took the offered packet of Admiralty despatches and handed them to the admiral's secretary for opening.

‘A glass of wine, Captain?' The flag-lieutenant beckoned a servant forward and Drinkwater hitched his sword between his legs, laid his cocked hat across his lap and took the tall Venetian goblet from the salver. ‘Thank you. I have two bags of mail for the fleet in my barge and a draft of forty-three men for the squadron . . .'

‘I shall inform the Captain of the Fleet, sir. Sir William, your permission?'

‘By all means.' The admiral bent over the opened dispatches as the flag-lieutenant left the cabin. The servant withdrew and Drinkwater was left with Cornwallis, his immobile secretary and another man, a dark stranger in civilian clothes, who seemed to be regarding Drinkwater with some interest and whose evident curiosity Drinkwater found rather irksome and embarrassing. He avoided this scrutiny by studying his surroundings. The great cabin of His Britannic Majesty's 112-gun ship
Ville de Paris
was a luxurious compartment compared with his own. As a first-rate line of battleship the
Ville de Paris
was almost a new ship, built as a replacement for Rodney's prize, the flagship of Admiral De Grasse, taken at the Battle of Saintes in the American War and so badly knocked about that she had foundered on her way home across the stormy Atlantic. It was an irony that a ship so named should bear the flag of the officer responsible for keeping the French fleet bottled up in Brest. Drinkwater did not envy the admiral his luxury: the monotony of blockade duty would have oppressed him. Even in a frigate attached to the inshore squadron cruising off Ushant, the perils of tides and rocks would far outweigh the risk of danger from the enemy coupled as they were with the prevailing strong westerly winds. As his old friend Richard White constantly wrote and told him, he was lucky to have avoided such an arduous and thankless task. There were a few who had carved out a glorious niche for themselves with brilliant actions. Pellew, for instance, in the
Indefatigable
and with
Amazon
in company had caught the French
battleship
Droits de l'Homme
, harried her all night and forced her to become embayed in Audierne Bay where she was wrecked. The thought of embayment still caused him a shudder and he recollected that Pellew's triumph had also caused the loss of
Amazon
from the same cause. No, for the most part the maintenance of this huge fleet with its frigates and its supply problems was simply to keep Admiral Truguet and the principal French fleet capable of operating in the Atlantic, securely at its moorings in Brest Road. By this means Napoleon would not be able to secure the naval supremacy in the Channel that he needed to launch his invasion. Whatever the monotony of the duty there was no arguing its effectiveness. All the same Drinkwater was not keen to be kept under the severe restraint of commanding a frigate on blockade.

There was a rustle as Cornwallis lowered the papers and leaned back in his seat. He was a portly gentleman of some sixty years of age with small features and bright, keen blue eyes. He smiled cordially.

‘Well, Captain Drinkwater, you are not to join us I see.'

‘No, Sir William. I am under Lord Keith's command, attached to the Downs Squadron but with discretionary orders following the delivery of those dispatches.' He nodded at the contents of the waterproof packet which now lay scattered across Cornwallis's table.

‘Which are . . . ?'

‘To return to the Strait of Dover along the French coast, harrying trade and destroying enemy preparations for the invasion.'

‘And not, I hope, wantonly setting fire to any French villages en route, Captain?' It was the stranger in civilian dress who put this question. Drinkwater opened his mouth to reply but the stranger continued, ‘Such piracy is giving us a bad name, Captain Drinkwater, giving the idea of invasion a certain respectability among the French populace that might otherwise be not over-enthusiastic about M'sieur Bonaparte. Hitherto, whatever the enmities between our two governments, the people of the coast have maintained a, er, certain friendliness towards us, eh?' He smiled, a sardonic grin, and held up his glass of the admiral's claret. ‘The matter of a butt or two of wine and a trifle or two of information; you understand?'