The Bomb Vessel (5 page)

Drinkwater made daily rounds of the ship. Forward of the officers' accommodation under the low poop stretched one huge space. It was at once hold and berthing place for the hammocks of her crew. Gratings decked over the lower section into which the casks of pork, peas, flour, oatmeal, fish and water were stowed. Here too, like huge black snakes, lay the vessel's four cables. Extending down from deck to keelson in the spaces between the two masts were two massive mortar beds. These vast structures were of heavy crossed timbers, bolted and squeezed together with shock-absorbant hemp poked between each beam. Drinkwater suspected he was supposed to dismantle them, but no one had given him a specific order to do so and he knew that the empty shells, or carcases, stowed in the gaps between the timbers. He would retain those shell rooms, and therefore the mortar beds, for without them, opportunity or not,
Virago
would be useless as anything but a cargo vessel. Store rooms, a carpenter's workshop and cabin each for Matchett and Willerton were fitted under the fo'c's'le whilst beneath the officers' accommodation aft were the shot rooms, spirit room, fuse room and bread room. Beneath Drinkwater's own cabin lay the magazine space, reached through a hatchway for which he had the only key.

It was not long before Drinkwater had made arrangements to warp
Virago
alongside the Gun Wharf, but he was desperate for want of men to undertake the labour of hoisting and mounting the eight 24-pounder carronades and two 6-pounder long guns that would be
Virago's
armament. They received a small draft from the Guardship at the Nore and another from the Impress service but still remained thirty men short of their complement. By dint of great effort, by the second week in December, the carronades were all on their slides, the light swivels in their mountings and the two long guns at their stern ports in Drink-water's cabin. The appearance of the two cold black barrels upon which condensation never ceased to form, brought reality to both Mrs Jex and to Drinkwater himself. To Mrs Jex they disturbed the domestic symmetry of the place, to Drinkwater they reminded him that a bomb vessel was likely to be chased, not do the chasing.

Virago
had been built as one of a number of bomb ships
constructed at the beginning of the Seven Years War. She was immensely strong, with futtocks the size of a battleship. Though only 110 feet long she displaced 380 tons. She would sit deep in the water when loaded and, Drinkwater realised, would be a marked contrast to the nimble cutter
Kestrel
or the handy brig
Hellebore
. Only one bomb vessel had been purpose-built since 1759, in 1790, though a number of colliers had been converted. Normally employed on the routine duties of sloops, the bomb vessels only carried their two mortars when intended for a bombardment. For this purpose they loaded the mortars, powder, carcases and shells from the Royal Artillery Arsenal at Woolwich, together with a subaltern and a detachment of artillerymen. The mortars threw their shells, or bombs (from which the ships took their colloquial name) from the massive wooden beds Drinkwater had left in place on
Virago
. The beds were capable of traversing, a development which had revolutionised the rig of bomb vessels. As of 1759 the ketch rig had been dispensed with. It was no longer necessary not to have a foremast, nor to throw the shells over the bow, training their aim with a spring to the anchor cable. Now greater accuracy could be obtained from the traversing bed and greater sailing qualities from the three-masted ship-rig.

Even so, Drinkwater thought as he made one of his daily inspections, he knew them to be unpopular commands.
Virago
had fired her last mortar at Le Havre in the year of her building. And convoy protection in a heavily built and sluggish craft designed to protect herself when running away was as popular as picket duty on a wet night. So although the intrusion of the stern chasers into the cabin marked a step towards commissioning, they also indicated the severe limitations of Drinkwater's command.

However he cheered himself up with the reflection that
Virago
would be sailing in company with a fleet, the fleet destined for the ‘secret expedition' mentioned in every newspaper, and for the ‘unknown destination' that was equally certain to be the Baltic.

Even as Mr Matchett belayed the breechings of the intrusive six-pounders, muttering about the necessity of a warrant gunner, Drinkwater learned of the collapse of the Coalition. The Franco-Austrian armistice had ended, hostilities had resumed and the Austrians had been smashed at Hohenlinden. Suddenly the Baltic had become a powder keg.

Although Bonaparte, now first consul and calling himself Napoleon, was triumphant throughout Europe, it was to the
other despot that all looked. Sadistic, perverted and unbalanced, Tsar Paul was the cynosure for all eyes. The thwarting of his ambitions towards Malta had led to mistrust of Britain, despite the quarter of a million pounds paid him to which a monthly addition of £75,000 was paid to keep 45,000 Russian soldiers in the field. When Napoleon generously repatriated, at French expense, 5,000 Russian prisoners of war after Britain had refused to ransom them, Tsar Paul abandoned his allies.

The Tsar's influence in the Baltic was immense. Russia had smashed the Swedish empire at Poltava a century earlier, and Denmark was too vulnerable not to bend to a wind from the east. Her own king was insane, her Crown Prince, Frederick, a young man dominated by his ministers.

When the Tsar revived the Armed Neutrality he insisted that the Royal Navy should no longer be able to search neutral ships, particularly for naval stores, those exports from the Baltic shores that both Britain and France needed. The Baltic states wanted to trade with whomsoever they wished and under the double-headed eagle of the Romanovs they would be able to do so; the British naval blockade would be rendered impotent and France, controlling all the markets of Europe, triumphant. With one head of the Russian eagle ready tensed to stretch out a talon to cripple impotent Turkey, the effect of the other's influence in the Baltic would finish Britain at a stroke.

So, inferred Drinkwater, argued Count Bernstorff, Minister to Crown Prince Frederick. And though Russia was the real enemy it was clear that the Royal Navy could not go into the Baltic leaving a hostile Denmark in its rear.

Drinkwater coughed as clouds of smoke erupted into the cabin from the bogey stove.

‘I beg you, Mrs Jex, to desist. I would rather sit in my cloak than be suffocated by that thing.' He leant helplessly on the table, covered, as was usual, with papers.

‘ 'Twill not draw, Mr Drinkwater, 'tis the wind. For shame I will perish with the marsh ague if I do not freeze first.' She sniffed and snuffled with a streaming cold.

‘Perhaps madam, if you wore more clothes . . .' offered Drink-water drily.

She gave him a cold look. Her early attempt to flirt with him had ceased when she learned of the bargain he had driven with
her husband. He bent once more to the tedious task of the inventory, almost welcoming the interruption of a knock at the door, though the blast of icy air made him swear quietly as it blew papers from his desk.

‘Beg pardon, sir . . .'

‘Mr Willerton, come in, come in, and shut that door. What can I do for you?'

‘We needs a leddy, sir.'

‘A leddy? Ah, a
lady
, a figurehead, d'you mean?'

‘Aye sir.'

Drinkwater frowned. It was an irrelevance, an expensive irrelevance too, one that he would have to pay for himself since he had spent the rest of Mr Jex's contribution on barrels of sauerkraut. He shook his head. ‘I'm afraid that ain't possible, Mr Willerton. We have a handsome scroll and, in accordance with regulations, as I have no doubt you well know, ships below the third rate are not permitted individual figureheads. Most make do with a lion, we have a handsome scroll . . .' He tailed off, aware that Mr Willerton was not merely stubborn, but felt strongly enough to oppose his commander. Mr Willerton's almost bald head was shaking.

‘Won't do sir. Bad luck to have a ship without a figurehead, sir. I was in the
Brunswick
at the First of June, sir. Damned Frogs shot the duke's hat off. We lashed a laced one on and sent the
Vengeur
to the bottom, sir. Ships without figureheads are like dukes without hats.'

Drinkwater met the old man's level gaze. There was not a trace of humour in his eyes. Mr Willerton spoke with the authority of holy writ.

‘Well, Mr Willerton, if you feel that strongly . . .'

‘I do, sir, and so does the men. We've raised a subscription of fifteen shillings.'

‘Upon my soul!' Drinkwater's astonishment was unfeigned. Together with the realisation that his financial preoccupations were making him mean, came the reflection that the carpenter's request and the response of his motley little crew somehow reflected credit on the ship. He suddenly felt a pang of self-reproach for his tight-fistedness. If that shivering huddle of men he had seen on deck the morning he had read his commission at the gangway had enough esprit-de-corps to raise a subscription for a figurehead, the least he could do was encourage it. He tried to
supress any too obvious emotion, but the brief silence had not gone unnoticed. Mr Willerton pressed his advantage. ‘I have ascertained, sir, that a virago is a bad tempered, shrewish woman what spits fire.' Drinkwater watched a slight movement of his eyes to Mrs Jex, who sat huddled in sooty disarray over the smoking stove. As the former madame of a brothel she would have had a choice phrase or two to exchange with the men in one of her less ladylike moods.

‘I believe that is correct, Mr Willerton,' replied Drinkwater gravely, mastering sudden laughter.

‘I have my eye on a piece of pine, sir, but it cost eight shilling. Then there is paint, sir.'

‘Very well, Mr Willerton.' Drinkwater reached into his pocket and laid a guinea on the table. ‘The balance against your craftsmanship, but be careful how you pick your model.'

For a second their eyes met. Willerton's were a candid and disarming blue, as innocent as a child's.

Lieutenant Drinkwater was in an ill humour. It was occasioned by exasperation at the delays and prevarications of the dockyard and aggravated by petty frustrations, financial worries and domestic disappointment.

The latter he felt keenly for, as Christmas approached, he had promised himself a day or two ashore in lodgings in the company of his wife. Elizabeth was to have travelled to Chatham with Tregembo and his own sea-kit, but now she wrote to say she was unwell and that her new pregnancy troubled her. She had miscarried before and Drinkwater wrote back urging her not to risk losing the child, to stay with Charlotte Amelia and Susan Tregembo in the security of their home.

Tregembo was expected daily. The topman who had, years ago, attached himself to young Midshipman Drinkwater, was now both servant and confidant. Also expected was Mr Midshipman Quilhampton. Out of consideration for Louise, Drinkwater had left her son at home when he himself went to London. Later he had written off instructions to the young man to recruit hands for
Virago
. Now Drinkwater waited impatiently for those extra men.

But it was not merely men that Drinkwater needed. As Christmas approached, the dockyard became increasingly supine. He wanted masts and spars, for without them
Virago
was as immobile as a log, condemned to await the dockyard's pleasure. And Drink-water was by no means sure that Mr Jex was not having his revenge through the influence of his kinsman, the Commissioner. As the days passed in idleness Drinkwater became more splenetic, less tolerant of Mrs Jex, less affable to Rogers. He worried over the possibilities of desertion by his men and fretted over their absence every time a wooding party went to search the tideline for driftwood. Unable to leave his ship by Admiralty order he sat morosely in his cloak, staring gloomily out over the dull, frosty marshes.

His misgivings over his first lieutenant increased. Rogers's irascibility was irritating the warrant officers and Drinkwater's own doubts about selecting Rogers grew. They had already
argued over a matter of a flogging, Drinkwater ruling the laxer discipline that customarily prevailed on warships in port mitigated the man's offence to mere impudence. The knock at the door brought him out of himself.

‘Come in!'

‘Reporting aboard, sir.'

‘James! By God, I'm damned glad to see you. You've men? And news of my wife?'

James Quilhampton warmed himself over the smoking stove. He was a tall, spare youth, growing out of his uniform coat, with spindle-shanked legs and a slight stoop. Any who thought him a slightly ridiculous adolescent were swiftly silenced when they saw the heavy iron hook he wore in place of a left hand.

‘Aye sir, I have fifteen men, a letter from your wife and a surgeon.' He stood aside, pulling a letter from his breast. Taking the letter Drinkwater looked up to see a second figure enter his cabin.