In Distant Waters (9 page)

Now he rose from his cot, disturbed by the squabble in the adjacent wardroom, and emerged from his cabin into the silence that had followed it.

‘You make as much noise as a Dover-court,' he muttered sleepily, slumping down in his chair and staring at the table cloth before him, his nose wrinkling to the smell of roast pork.

‘You shouldn't be sleeping James, my boy, when you can be drinking,' said Mount, pushing an empty glass towards him and beckoning King.

‘Fill Mr Q's glass, King.'

‘Yes sah . . . Missah Q?'

‘Oh, very well . . . have you shrub there, King? Good man . . .'

‘I was just saying, James, that it's damned odd we aren't attacking the Dons on the Isthmus . . .'

‘Oh, for God's sake don't start that again . . .'

‘Hold on, Fraser, it's a perfectly logical military consideration, isn't it James?'

Quilhampton shrugged.

‘He's still dreaming of the lovely Catriona MacEwan,' jibed Fraser grinning.

‘Well, he's precious little to complain of since he was the last of us to have a woman in his arms,' agreed Mount.

‘Except Hogan,' said Quilhampton.

‘Ah, you see, he
was
thinking of the fair sex . . . an inadvisable preoccupation in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. What you should be considering is what the devil we're doing so far north . . .'

‘If I remember correctly, Mr Q,' broke in Lallo, ‘the captain was about to confide in us when the recall guns were fired on the desertion of those two . . .' Lallo hesitated.

‘Persons, Mr Lallo?' offered Henderson.

‘Exactly, Mr Henderson . . . now tell us . . . that confidence was interrupted, but you are in the captain's pocket enough to get furlough in Edinburgh town . . . What's this about Russians?'

‘I've no more influence over the captain than you, Mr Lallo; indeed I've a good deal less, I dare say . . .'

But their deliberations were cut short, for faintly down the cotton shaft of the windsail came a cry: ‘Sail . . . sail ho! Two points on the larboard bow!'

They forgot the roast pork and the glasses of shrub and sherry. Even the Reverend Mr Henderson joined the rush for the quarterdeck ladder adding to the clatter of over-turned chairs and the noise of cutlery as the dragged table-cloth sent it to the deck. King stood shaking his head and rolling his eyes in a melancholy affectation. Only Quilhampton remained impervious to the hail of the masthead lookout.

His only reaction was to bring his wooden hand down on the table in a savage blow, bruising the pine board and giving vent to the intensity of his feelings. For underneath his personal misery, below the strange disturbance caused by the desertion on Juan Fernandez, lay the knowledge that most oppressed him and of which he had been dreaming fitfully as he had dozed on his cot. More than any other officer, it was James Quilhampton who best understood the smouldering mood of the men. It had been Quilhampton alone who had defused the incipient mutiny aboard the
Antigone
the previous summer. Very little had happened to placate the men since Drinkwater's bounty, paid out of the captain's own pocket, had eased tension for a while. But the money had been paid to the whores of Sheerness and any good that Drinkwater's largesse had achieved had long since evaporated. Somehow the affair at Juan Fernandez had crystallised a conviction that had come to him as he had held the tawny-haired Catriona in his arms on his departure from Edinburgh, the conviction that
Patrician
was unlucky and that she would never return home.

Captain Drinkwater had been more relieved than otherwise at the discovery of Witherspoon's sex. No captain, particularly one engaged on a distant cruise in the Pacific, relished the discovery of sodomitical relationships within his crew any more than he relished the problem of desertion. The fact that Witherspoon was a woman made Hogan's action understandable and lent a measure of reason to the twin absenteeism that stemmed from passion, not mutiny. What Drinkwater had dreaded when he learned of the failure of two hands to muster, was a sudden, unpredictable revolt among the men. His orders were difficult enough to execute without the ferment that such a disorder
would cause, a disorder which might threaten not merely his command, but his very life. He was not untouched by the tragedy that had happened beneath the waterfall, but he perceived again the workings of providence and when he had entered the initials
D.D
. against the two names in the ship's muster book, his sense of relief had been very real. In the margin provided for remarks, he had added:
Killed while resisting arrest, having first Run
.

It was a poor epitaph. A poetaster might have conjured up a romantic verse at the tragedy; a venal commander might have kept the two names on the ship's books and drawn the pay himself, or at least until he had repaid himself the cost of the sword he had lost in the pool beneath the waterfall. But Drinkwater felt only a further sadness that Hogan and Witherspoon had gone to join those damned souls who awaited judgement in some private limbo, watched over by the guardian angels of the Admiralty. Such, at least, had been the incongruous core of Mr Henderson's homily on the subject. Drinkwater had begun to doubt the wisdom of Their Lordships in soliciting the aid of the Established Church to subdue the convictions of men forced into His Britannic Majesty's Navy. Drinkwater considered such solecisms foolish; ignorant diversions from the grim realities of the sea-service. He was concluding his private remarks in his journal when he heard the cry from the masthead.

‘He has a wind, by God!'

‘By your leave, Mr Hill, a rest for my glass on that stanchion.'

‘Of course sir . . . he has a wind . . .'

‘So you said . . . a devil's wind, too, what d'you make of him?'

‘I reserve my judgement, sir.'

‘Eh? Oh, you refer to that fellow we saw off the Horn?' Drinkwater caught the stranger in his image glass. To whatever the sail belonged, it was not a black-hulled two-decker. ‘By the spread of her masts and her stuns'ls, I'd wager on her being a frigate . . . and Spanish?'

‘Yes . . . yes, I'd not dispute that, sir.'

‘Spanish frigate, sir.'

Drinkwater looked aloft. In the mizen top Mr Frey looked
down, smiling broadly and Drinkwater was aware that the deck was crammed with officers and men milling about, awaiting news from the privileged few at posts of vantage or with glasses to their eyes. He caught the ripple of eagerness that greeted the news, saw the smiles and sensed, despite everything, the metamorphosis that transformed his ship at the sight of an enemy.

‘Very well, Mr Frey, you may come down and hoist Spanish colours! Clear for action and beat to quarters!' Then he raised his glass again and studied the enemy, hull up now, crossing their bow from the west. ‘Mr Frey should know a Don when he sees one, Mr Hill, given his time watching 'em at Cadiz . . . oh, for a breeze!'

‘Would to God hers would carry down to us . . . she's seen us, throwing out a private signal.' Hill looked at the masthead pendant and at the dogvanes. They barely lifted in the light airs that slatted
Patrician
's canvas.

‘Shall I hoist out the boats and tow, sir?' asked Fraser, suddenly impatiently efficient.

‘No, Mr Fraser, that'll exhaust the men . . .'

The marine drummer was beating the tattoo and the hands were scrambling about the ship. Below, the bulkheads were coming down and aloft the chain slings were being passed, while along the deck sand was being sprinkled and the gun-captains were overhauling their train tackles and their gun-locks. Above their heads fluttered a huge and unfamiliar ensign: the yellow and gold of Spain. Then Drinkwater had a happy inspiration.

‘Mr Henderson!' The thin face of the chaplain turned towards him. The fellow was showing a very unclerical interest in the enemy. ‘Do you
pray
for a wind, sir.'

Henderson frowned and Drinkwater saw the men pause in their duties and look aft, grinning.

‘But sir, is that not blasphemy?'

‘Do you do as I say, sir,
pray
for a wind, 'tis no more blasphemous than to pray for aid on any other occasion.'

Henderson looked doubtful and then began to mumble uncertainly: ‘Oh most powerful and glorious Lord God, at whose command the winds blow . . .'

‘D'you think it will work?' asked Hill, grinning like the midshipmen. Somewhere in the waist a man had begun to whistle and there came sounds of laughter.

‘I don't know, but 'tis a powerful specific against dispirited men by the sound of it . . .'

‘How goes the chase, Mr Fraser?'

‘To windward, sir, like a wingèd bird.'

‘I had no notion you had anything of the poet in you.'

‘ 'Tis not difficult on such a night, sir.'

‘No.'

‘It has a Homeric quality . . . the warm wind, the moon, and a windward chase.'

‘Yes.'

They had got their wind, though whether it was attributable to the praying of the chaplain or the whistling that breached the naval regulations, was a matter for good-natured conjecture throughout the ship as the men settled down for a night sleeping at the guns.
Patrician
was a big ship, a heavy frigate, a razée, cut down from a sixty-four gun line-of-battle-ship, but she spread her canvas widely, extended her yards by studding sail booms and hoisted a skysail above her main royal when the occasion demanded.

‘Turn!' Midshipman Belchambers turned the glass and the log-party watched the line reel out, dragged by the log-chip astern.

‘Stop!' called the boy, the line was nipped, the peg jerked from the chip and the line hauled in.

‘Nine knots, sir.'

‘Very well . . . like a wingèd bird indeed, Mr Fraser.' Drinkwater smiled in the darkness, sensing the embarrassed flush he had brought to the first lieutenant's cheeks. ‘But do we gain on our chase?'

Fraser turned. ‘Mr Belchambers . . . my quadrant, if you please.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.' The boy ran off.

‘How do you find our youngest addition?' Drinkwater asked.

‘Eager and agile as a monkey, sir.'

‘Hmm. But he's too young. There seems no shortage of such boys with parents eager enough to send 'em to damnation while they are still children. I doubt they can know what their offspring are condemned to endure.'

‘Your own son is not destined for the sea-service, sir?'

‘Not if I can find him a fat living in a good country parish!' Both men laughed as Belchambers returned with Fraser's quadrant. The first lieutenant hoisted himself up on the rail, bracing himself against the main shrouds and took the angle subtended by the white shape ahead of them.

Drinkwater watched. The pale pyramid of canvas would be much more difficult to see within the confinement of the telescope and it would take Fraser a moment or two to obtain a good reading. Drinkwater waited patiently.
Patrician
lay over to the breeze, close hauled on the larboard tack. Above him the studding sails bellied out, spreading the ship's canvas and bending the booms.

The sky was clear of cloud, studded with stars and the round orb of a full moon which laid a dancing path of silver light upon the water. The breeze was strong enough to curl the sea into small, breaking crests and these, from time to time, were feathered with phosphorescence.

Fraser jumped down from the rail.

‘Aye, sir, I can detect a slight enlargement o' the angle subtended by the enemy.'

‘Good; but it's going to be a long chase and this moonlight will discourage him from trying to make a sharp turn . . . 'tis a pity he rumbled us so early.'

‘I expect he knew well enough what ships to expect hereabouts.'

‘Yes, the Dons are apt to regard the Pacific Ocean as their own.'

They fell to an easy and companionable pacing of the deck. It was astonishing the difference the chase made to the atmosphere on board. All grumbling had gone. Men moved with a newfound confidence and bore themselves cheerfully even in the dark hours. There was a liveliness in the responses of the helmsman, a perkiness about those of the watch ordered to
perform the many small tasks as the officers strove in succession to get the best out of the ship. Fraser sought to gain something from the captain's obvious desire to chat.

‘Sir . . . I was wondering if you would be kind enough to confide in me. As to our orders, sir . . . if . . . er . . .'

‘If anything should happen to me in the next few hours you'd like to know how to act . . . I know, I know . . . damn it, Mr Fraser, the truth of the matter is that I ain't sure myself. We've to damage the Dons and their trade, to be sure, but our main purpose here is to prevent what Their Lordships are pleased to call “incursion into the Pacific” by the Russians.'

‘The
Russians
, sir?'

‘Ah, I see that surprises you. Well they have settlements in Alaska, though what possible influence that might have upon the course of the war is something of a mystery . . .'

‘And we are making for Alaska now, sir?'

‘In a manner of speaking. It seemed the best place to begin exhibiting His Majesty's flag.' Drinkwater felt Fraser's bewilderment. Perhaps he should have confided in the younger man earlier in the voyage, but Fraser had had his own problems and the life of a first lieutenant was, Drinkwater knew, not an easy one.

‘You are too young to remember the Spanish Armament in ninety-one, eh?'

‘I remember it vaguely, sir. Wasn't war with Spain imminent?'

‘Yes, the Channel Fleet were commissioned, a lucky thing as it happened, since, as I recall, we were at war with the French Republic within a year. Let me refresh your mind . . . when Cook's seamen brought high-quality furs from the polar seas off Alaska and Kamchatka and sold them in Canton they attracted the notice of the Honourable East India Company's factors. A former naval officer named Mears . . . a lieutenant, I believe he was, together with a merchant master named Tippin took out two ships across the North Pacific on a fur-hunting expedition. Tippin was cast up on Kamchatka, but Mears wintered somewhere in the islands. The following spring, about eighty-eight, or eighty-nine I forget which, he discovered Nootka Sound, a
fine fiord on the west coast of what is now known as Vancouver Island and he opened a fur trade between the Indians indigent upon the coast, and the Company's factors at Canton. In ninety the Spanish sent a naval force, seized the four British ships anchored in the sound, but left two belonging to the United States of America. The British ships were plundered and their seamen sent, on Spanish orders, to Canton in the American bottoms. Once the “haughty Don” had disposed of us, he planted his flag and claimed the whole coast across the whole bight to China!'