In Distant Waters (6 page)

‘Very well, Captain, and I have the purser's accounts fair-copied and ready for your signature.'

Drinkwater took another look round the deck and, as Derrick stood aside, he went below for a warming mug of coffee.

‘Deuced if I understand the man,' Lieutenant Mylchrist tossed off the pot of shrub and stared with distaste at the suet pudding the wardroom steward laid before him. His eyes met those of his messmates, staring from faces that were tired from unaccustomed exertion. ‘He's a damned slave-driver, though why he had to drive
us
 . . .'

‘Stuff your gape with that pudding, Johnnie, there's a good fellow,' said Mount, with a note of asperity in his voice. ‘Ah, Fraser, here, sit down . . . Steward! Bring the first lieutenant a bottle!'

‘Thank you Mount.'

‘Well, there's one consolation . . .'

‘And what might that be?' enquired the chastened Mylchrist.

‘We'll all sleep like logs tonight.'

‘Except those of us with a watch to keep,' muttered Mylchrist.

‘You make sure you keep it, cully, not like that episode in Leith Road where you neglected the basic . . .'

‘All right, all right, there's no need to go over that again . . .'

‘Maybe not, you see yourself as a victim today, but the plain facts are that you'll be a worse victim if you don't take the captain's point.'

Mount stared round the table. He was, with the exception of Hill, the oldest officer in
Patrician
's wardroom, something of a Dutch-uncle to the lieutenants.

‘Well what exactly is the captain's point?' asked Mylchrist sourly.

‘That this ship is a bloody shambles and has no right to be.'

‘She's no different from the other ships I've served aboard . . .'

‘Bloody Channel Fleet two days from home and a couple of cruises in the Med. For God's sake Johnnie don't show how wet you are. Goddamn it man, Midshipman Wickham was in the Arctic freezing his balls off before you'd heard a shot in anger . . .'

‘Now look here, Mount, don't you dare patronise me . . .'

‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, be silent!' Fraser snapped, and an uneasy truce settled on the table. ‘Mount's right . . . so is the captain . . . it's no your place to strut so branky, Johnnie . . . the men say she's a donsie ship . . .'

‘Poppycock, Fraser . . . the ship's not unlucky, for that I take to be your meaning. The trouble is we're out of sorts, frayed like worn ropes . . .' Mount smiled reassuringly at Fraser, ‘and that business off the Orkney upset us all.'

‘Captain Drinkwater most of all,' said Quilhampton, speaking for the first time. ‘I think he feels the shame of that more keenly than the rest of us.'

Quilhampton rose and reached for his hat and greygoe. ‘I must relieve Hill . . .' He left the wardroom and a contemplative silence in which they each relived the shame of the action with the Danish privateer. They had chased her for four hours, sighting her at dawn, hull down to leeward ten miles to the east of the Pentland Skerries. The Dane had run, but once it was clear the heavy frigate could outsail her in the strong westerly wind, she
had tacked and stood boldly towards the
Patrician
. Unbeknown to the captain on the quarterdeck above, the two lieutenants on the gun-deck had relaxed, assuming the capture to be a mere formality once the intelligence of the privateer's turn had been passed to them. Despite the shot from a bow-chaser the Dane had not slackened her pace, but run to leeward of the
Patrician
and the sudden broadside that Lieutenant Mylchrist's battery had been ordered to fire had been ragged and ineffectual, only succeeding in puncturing the privateer's sails.

Once to windward the Danish commander sailed his nimble vessel like a wizard. Though Drinkwater turned in his wake, the Dane beat upwind with an impressive agility. Whenever the
Patrician
closed the range to cannon shot, the Dane tacked, keeping a press of canvas aloft so that the momentary disadvantage he suffered while he gathered way on the new tack was compensated for by the attention the
Patrician
had to pay to going about.

With two hours to sunset the privateer had slipped into Sanday Sound, taking advantage of the weather tide that sluiced through the rocks, islets and Orcadian islands with which her commander was more familiar than either Drinkwater or Hill. In the end, as darkness closed over the
Patrician
and caution forced her to haul off the land, the Danish privateer had escaped.

It was not Hill, but Drinkwater himself who turned the deck over to Quilhampton.

‘Well, James, you have the ship.' Isolated by the howl of the wind, Drinkwater unwound with uncharacteristic informality. He fixed the younger man with a perceptive stare.

‘Sir?' said Quilhampton, puzzled.

‘You have not spoken of it, James . . . the matter upon which you solicited my advice in Leith Road . . .' Drinkwater prompted, ‘the matter of matrimony, damn it.'

‘Oh . . . no, sir . . . no. But as you said, 'tis likely to be a damnably long voyage.' Quilhampton's answer was evasive and he avoided the captain's eyes, searching the horizon with an expression of despair.

He wondered if it were an accident caused by the violent motion of the ship as Drinkwater went below, or whether the slight pressure against his shoulder had been a gesture of commiseration.

The islands of Juan Fernandez bear no resemblance to my impression of Crusoe's refuge
 . . .

Drinkwater wrote in his journal, then laid down his pen, leaned back in his chair and stared rapturously out of the stern windows. The sashes were lifted and the gentle breeze that wafted into the cabin bore the sweet scent of a lush vegetation dominated by the sandalwood trees. He closed his eyes and drew the air in through his nostrils, a calm contentment filling him. For the first time in weeks his cabin bore a civilised air, being upon an even keel. Drinkwater turned back to his journal, rejected the idea of an attempt to rival Defoe and continued writing.

We sighted the peak of El Yunque on the 3rd instant, a fair landfall but occupied by the Spaniards, and, unwilling to advertise our presence upon the Pacific coasts of America, took departure for Farther-out Island, thirty leagues to the westward where we found anchorage in ninefathoms with a sandy bottom, wood and water in plenty, an abundance of pig and goats. There are seals and sea-elephants and several species of humming-bird. The men have been exercised at their leisure, a circumstance which gives me great heart after our recent difficulties
 . . .

He laid his pen down again and rose, stretching. They lay at anchor within half a mile of the beach and he could see the launch drawn up on the sand, the two boat-keepers paddling like children in the shallows. The warmth of a sun almost overhead lay over the anchorage like a benediction, filling the ship with a langorous air.

‘Lotus-eating . . .' he murmured. Leaning his hands on the sill of the window he looked up at the rugged volcanic summit of
the island rising precipitously from foothills that were covered in rich vegetation. Unlike the main island of the archipelago, Más-a-Fuera, Farther-out Island, did not possess the anvil-peak of El Yunque, but it was impressively beautiful to men whose eyes had been starved of the sight of green leaves.

An occasional shot echoed up the ravines, evidence of Mount's hunting party flushing the wild pig from the undergrowth. The thought of dining that evening on roast pork brought the juices to Drinkwater's mouth in anticipation and further enhanced his feeling of contentment. They could take a short break here, give the men a run ashore, replenish their wood and water, dine all hands in the very lap of luxury and even, perhaps, if they could find someone among the crew conversant with the process, make some goat's milk cheese.

He returned to his table, picked up a pen and began to write again. The breeze ruffled his shirt and through the skylight the sunshine beat down, warming the old ache in his mangled shoulder.

The mood of the people is much improved since our arrival. Their faces wear smiles this day and I am sanguine that the outbreaks of sporadic drunkenness, of petty-theft and brawling that accompanied our passage of the Atlantic, will cease now that we are brought into better climes and the men become resigned to their task
 . . .

He looked up and saw the launch coming off, its waist full of filled barricoes of sweet water. Through the skylight he heard orders being given to the watch on deck in preparation for hoisting the casks into the hold. If they worked well today and tomorrow he would give each watch a day's leave of absence and they could scramble about the island like children on holiday.

By noon they had reached the tree-line. Quilhampton in the lead gave a great whoop, like a Red-Indian, for it was to be the halting point of the expedition. Drinkwater was panting with the unaccustomed exertion, watching Frey and Belchambers scamper about the increasing number of rocky outcrops that made their appearance as the valley had narrowed and risen.

As behove the intelligence of naval officers it had been considered necessary to make some purpose of the day. Not for
them the wild and aimless wandering of the men, whose liberty infected them like quarts of unwatered rum. Far below they could hear the shouts and laughter of their unconfined spirits as they chased about the ferny undergrowth. Besides, if the men were to give vent to their pent-up emotions, it was incumbent upon the officers to make way for them. So it had been Quilhampton who had decided the walk ashore should become an expedition, and Drinkwater who had suggested they traced one of the streams upwards to its source.

Accompanied by the second lieutenant, the two midshipmen, Mr Lallo the surgeon and Derrick the Quaker clerk, they had set off after breaking their fasts and parading divisions. Those left aboard had worn glum expressions, despite promises of their turn tomorrow, such was the liberating infection of the island upon those destined to run amok today.

The officers began their expedition at the watering place where the stream ran sluggishly out over a bed of pebbles and sand, spreading itself into a tiny delta and carving miniature cliffs and escarpments through the foreshore. But it soon narrowed, its bed deeper and its current swifter, passing beneath a cover of sandalwood trees which already showed evidence of the axe marks of man.

‘The oleaginous qualities of this species,' pronounced Lallo, patting one of the dark red tree-boles with a proprietorial hand, ‘produces an oil which may, I believe, be substituted for copaiba oil as well as forming an admixture for Indian attars . . .'

‘What the deuce is an attar, Lallo?' enquired Quilhampton.

‘Perfume, perfume, that fragrance so often necessary to the fair sex in warm weather to render them desirable to men. I should have thought you would have known that, Mr Q, given your strong desire to become a benedick.'

Quilhampton flushed scarlet and Lallo cast a mischievous glance at Drinkwater. ‘Is that not so, sir?'

‘I fear you embarrass Mr Q, Mr Lallo, but perhaps you would tell me to what use
you
would put such an oil.'

‘Well, as for copaiba, it is a specific in certain complaints of the urinary tract . . . it occurs to me that the sandalwood tree
might provide us with oleaginous matter with similar properties.'

‘Very well. We can gather some chips on our return, but our young friends here are anxious to continue, I suspect. They are too young for complaints of the urinary tract.'

‘Very well, sir.
Adelante!
'

Laughing, they pressed on, ever upwards. The trees thinned to scrub, the ferns that grew prolifically alongside the stream now sprouted from rocks and mosses and the water, no longer dark under the trees, sparkled and ran white, leaping and boiling over rocks and into deep, mysterious pools.

After an hour they came to a waterfall, where the stream dropped almost thirty feet over a sheer lip of grey rock. The silver trail roared downwards, sending up a cloud of spray through which a rainbow curved. On either side dense foliage grew, pierced by the heavy heads of several exotic blooms.

‘Sir! Look!'

Drinkwater turned to where Mr Midshipman Belchambers, a bright-eyed and excited child, pointed. Frey was beside him, his pencil already racing over the sketch-block he was rarely without.

‘God's bones, a humming bird!' Drinkwater recognised the tiny bird from a print he had once seen in Ackermann's, the extravagant result of the print-maker capitalising on the public interest in such exotic subjects roused by Captain Cook. The blurred whirring of the bird's wings as it held its head motionless at the bell of a flower, was a jewel of pure cinnamon.

For several minutes they stared in wonder at the creature, until the lust for achievement drew them further upwards. When they cleared the undergrowth and the scrub, they emerged onto a steep, rocky scree. Here the grass was sparse, hanging in tussocks, rooted in shallow hollows where rain and humus had collected to produce a soil from the volcanic core of the island. They flung themselves down, sprawling in the sunshine, and broke open the sparse stock of provisions they had brought from the ship.