A Brig of War (3 page)

‘I'm only escorting a convoy in a brig, Richard,' said Drinkwater deprecatingly.

White laughed again and held out his hand. ‘Good fortune then Nat, for we're all hostage to it, d'you know.'

They shook hands and Drinkwater descended to the boat where Mr Quilhampton, two years older than Mr Lee, but with a fraction of the latter's experience, overawed by the mass of
Victory
lumbering alongside his cockleshell cutter, made a hash of getting off the battleship's side.

‘Steady now, Mr Q. Bear off forward, put the helm over and
then
lower your oars. 'Tis the only way, d'you see,' Drinkwater said patiently, looking back at
Victory
. Already her main topsail was filled and White's grin was clearly visible. Drinkwater looked ahead towards the tiny, fragile
Hellebore
. The cutter rose over the long, low Atlantic swells, the sea danced blue and gold in the sunshine where the light westerly wind rippled its surface. He felt the warmth in the muscles of his right arm.

‘
Hecuba
and
Molly
to accompany us into the Med, sir, to Nelson, off Toulon. We're to proceed as soon as possible.' Drinkwater looked at Griffiths who lent heavily against the rail, gazing at the
stately line of the British fleet to the eastward. ‘
Prydferth, bach
, beautiful,' he muttered. Drinkwater stared astern at the convoy, their topsails aback in an untidy gaggle as they waited to hear their fate. Boats were bobbing towards the brig. ‘I've sent for their masters,' Griffiths explained.

‘How's the leg today, sir?' Drinkwater asked while they waited for the boats to arrive. The old, white-haired Welshman looked with disgust at the twisted and puffy limb stretched stiffly out on the gun carriage before him.

‘Ah, devil take it, it's a damned nuisance. And now Appleby tells me it's gouty. And before you raise the matter of my bottle,' he hurried on with mock severity, ‘I'll have you know that without it I'd be intolerable, see.' They grinned at each other, their relationship a stark contrast with the formality of
Victory
's quarterdeck. They had sailed together for six years, first in the twelve-gun cutter
Kestrel
, and their intimacy was established upon a mutually understood basis of friendship and professional distance. For Griffiths was an infirm man, subject to recurring malarial fevers, whose command had been bestowed for services rendered to British intelligence. Without
Hellebore
Griffiths would have rotted ashore, a lonely and embittered bachelor in anonymous lodgings. He had requested Drinkwater as his first lieutenant partly out of gratitude, partly out of friendship. And if Griffiths sought to protect his own career by delegating with perfect confidence to Drinkwater, he could console himself with the thought that he did the younger man a service.

‘You forget, Mr Drinkwater, that if I had not broke my leg last year you'd not have been in command of
Kestrel
at Camperdown.'

Drinkwater agreed, but any further rejoinder was cut short by the arrival of the storeship commanders.

To starboard the dun-coloured foothills of the Atlas Mountains shone rose-red in the sunset. To larboard the hills of southern Spain fell to the low promontory of Tarifa. Far ahead of her elongated shadow the Mediterranean opened before the bowsprit of the brig. From her deck the horizontal light threw into sharp relief every detail of her fabric: the taut lines of her rigging, the beads of her blocks, her reddened canvas and an unnatural brilliance in her paintwork. Astern on either quarter, in dark silhouette,
Hecuba
and
Molly
followed them. Drinkwater ceased pacing as the skinny midshipman barred his way.

‘Yes, Mr Q?' The gunroom officers of H.M. Brig
Hellebore
had long since ceased to wrap their tongues round Quilhampton. It was far too grand a name for an animal as insignificant as a volunteer. Once again Drinkwater experienced that curious reminder of Elizabeth that the boy engendered, for Drinkwater had obtained a place for him on the supplication of his wife. Mrs Quilhampton was a pretty widow who occasionally assisted Elizabeth with her school, and Drinkwater had been both flattered and amused that anyone should consider him a person of sufficient influence from whom to solicit ‘interest'. And there was sufficient resemblance to his own introduction to naval life to arouse his natural sympathy. He had acquiesced with only a show of misgivings and been rewarded by a quite shameless embrace from the boy's mother. Now the son's eager-to-please expression irritated him with its power to awaken memories.

‘Well,' he snapped, ‘come, come, what the devil d'you want?'

‘Begging your pardon, sir, but Mr Appleby's compliments and where are we bound, sir?'

‘Don't you know, Mr Q?' said Drinkwater mellowing.

‘N . . . no, sir.'

‘Come now, what d'you see to starboard?'

‘To starboard, sir? Why that's land, sir.'

‘And to larboard?'

‘That's land too, sir.'

‘Aye, Mr Q. To starboard is Africa, to larboard is Europe. Now what d'you suppose lies between eh? What did Mrs Drinkwater instruct you in the matter, eh?'

‘Be it the M . . . Mediterranean, sir?'

‘It be indeed, Mr Q,' replied Drinkwater with a smile, ‘and d'you know who commands in the Mediterranean?'

‘Why sir, I know that. Sir Horatio Nelson, K.B., sir,' said the boy eagerly.

‘Very well, Mr Q. Now do you repair directly to the surgeon and acquaint him with those facts and tell him that we are directed by Earl St Vincent to deliver the contents of those two hoys astern to Rear Admiral Nelson off Toulon.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.'

‘And Mr Q . . .'

‘Sir?'

‘Do you also direct Mr Appleby to have a tankard of blackstrap ready for me when I come below at eight bells.'

Drinkwater watched the excited Quilhampton race below. Like the midshipman he was curious about Nelson, a man whose name was known to every schoolboy in England since his daring manoeuvre at the battle of Cape St Vincent. Not that his conduct had been put at risk by the enemy so much as by those in high places at the Admiralty. Drinkwater knew there were those who considered he would be shot for disobedience before long, just as there were those who complained he was no seaman. Certainly he did not possess the abilities of a Pellew or a Keats, and although he enjoyed the confidence of St Vincent he had been involved in the fiasco at Santa Cruz. Perhaps, thought Drinkwater, he was a man like the restless Smith, with whom he had served briefly in the Channel, a man of dynamic force whose deficiencies could be forgiven in a kind of emulative love. But, he concluded, pacing the deck in the gathering darkness, whatever White said on the subject, it did not alter the fact that
Hellebore
was but a brig and fitted for little more than her present duties.

‘She hasn't acknowledged, sir. Shall I fire a gun to loo'ard?'

Griffiths stared astern to where
Hecuba
, her jury rigged foremast a mute testimony to the violence of the weather, was struggling into the bay.

‘No, Mr Drinkwater. Don't forget she's a merchantman with a quarter of our complement and right now,
bach
, every man-jack aboard her will be busy.'

Drinkwater felt irritated by the mild rebuke, but he held his tongue. The week of anxiety must surely soon be over. South of Minorca, beating up for Toulon the northerly mistral had hit the little convoy with unusual violence.
Hecuba
's foremast had gone by the board and they had been obliged to run off to the eastward and the shelter of Corsica. Drinkwater stared ahead at the looming coastline of the island, the sharp peaked mountains reaching up dark against the glow of dawn. To larboard Cape Morsetta slowly extended its shelter as they limped eastward into Crovani Bay.

‘Deck there! Sail dead ahead, sir!'

The cry from the masthead brought the glasses of the two men up simultaneously. In the shadows of the shoreline lay a three-masted vessel, her spars bare of canvas as she lay wind-rode at anchor.

‘A polaccra,' muttered Griffiths. ‘We'll investigate her when we've brought this lame duck to her anchor,' he jerked his head over his shoulder.

The convoy stood on into the bay. Soon they were able to discern the individual pine trees that grew straight and tall enough to furnish fine masts.

‘Bring the ship to the wind Mr Lestock,' Griffiths addressed the master, a small, fussy little man with a permanent air of being put upon. ‘You may fire your gun when we let the bower go, Mr Drinkwater.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.' Lestock was shouting through the speaking trumpet as men ran to the braces, thankful to be in the lee of land where
Hellebore
's deck approximated the horizontal. The main
topsail slapped back against the mast and redistributed its thrust through the standing rigging to the hull below.
Hellebore
lost forward motion and began to gather sternway.

‘Let go!'

The carpenter's topmaul swung once, then the brig's bow kicked slightly as the bower anchor's weight was released. The splash was lost in the bark of the six pounder. While Lestock and his mates had the canvas taken off the ship, Drinkwater swung his glass round the bay.
Molly
was making sternway and he saw the splash under her bluff, north-country bow where her anchor was let go. But
Hecuba
still stood inshore while her hands struggled to clew up her forecourse. Unable to manoeuvre under her topsails due to her damaged foremast, her master had been obliged to hold onto the big sail until the last moment, now something had fouled.

‘Why don't he back the damned thing,' Drinkwater muttered to himself while beside him Lestock roared ‘Aloft and stow!' through the speaking trumpet. The Hellebores eagerly leapt into the rigging to pummel the brig's topsails into the gaskets, anxious to get secured, the galley stove relit and some steaming skillygolee and molasses into their empty, contracted bellies.

Then he saw
Hecuba
begin her turn into the wind, saw the big course gather itself into folds like a washerwoman tucking up her skirts, the main topsail flatten itself against the top and the splash from her bow where the anchor was let go.

‘Convoy's anchored, sir,' he reported to Griffiths.

The commander nodded. ‘Looks like your gun had another effect.' Griffiths pointed his glass at the polaccra anchored inshore of them. Drinkwater studied the unfamiliar colours that had been hoisted to her masthead.

‘Ragusan ensign, Mr Drinkwater, and I'll warrant you didn't know 'em from the Grand Turk's.'

Drinkwater felt the tension ebbing from him. ‘You'd be right, sir.'

Lestock touched his hat to Griffiths. ‘She's brought up, sir, and secured.'

‘Very well, Mr Lestock, pipe the hands to breakfast after which I want a working party under Mr Rogers ready to assist the re-rigging of
Hecuba
. Send both your mates over. Oh, and Mr Dalziell can go too, I'd very much like to know if that young man is to be of any service to us.'

‘Aye, aye, sir. What about Mr Quilhampton, sir? He is also inexperienced.'

Griffiths eyed Lestock with something approaching distaste.

‘Mr Quilhampton can take a working party ashore with the carpenter. I think a couple of those pines would come in useful, eh? What d'you think Mr Drinkwater?'

‘A good idea, sir. And the Ragusan?'

‘Mr Q's first task will be to desire her master to wait upon me. Now, Mr Drinkwater, you have been up all night, will you take breakfast with me before you turn in?'

Half an hour later, his belly full, Drinkwater stretched luxuriously, too comfortable to make his way to his cabin. Griffiths dabbed his mouth with a stained napkin.

‘I think Rogers can take care of that business aboard
Hecuba
.'

‘I hope so sir,' yawned Drinkwater, ‘he's not backward in forwarding opinions as to his own merit.'

‘Or of criticising others, Nathaniel,' said Griffiths solemnly. Drinkwater nodded. The second lieutenant was a trifle overconfident and it was impossible to pull the wool over the eyes of an officer as experienced and shrewd as Griffiths. ‘That's no bad thing,' continued the commander in his deep, mellifluous Welsh voice, ‘if there's substance beneath the facade.' Drinkwater agreed sleepily, his lids closing of their own accord.

‘But I'm less happy about Mr Dalziell.'

Drinkwater forced himself awake. ‘No sir, it's nothing one can lay one's finger upon but . . .' he trailed off, his brain refusing to work any further.

‘Pass word for my servant,' Griffiths called, and Meyrick came into the tiny cubby hole that served the brig's officers for a common mess. ‘Assist Mr Drinkwater to his cot, Meyrick.'