The Bomb Vessel (9 page)

For the first time since the days of disillusion that followed his joining the ship, Nathaniel Drinkwater felt he was again, at least in part, master of his own destiny.

‘Well, Mr Tumilty, perhaps you would itemise the ordnance stores on board.'

‘Sure, and I will. We have two hundred of the thirteen-inch shell carcases, two hundred ten-inch, one hundred and forty round, five-vented carcases for the thirteens, forty oblong carcases for the tens. Five thousand one pound round shot, the same as you have for your swivels . . .'

‘What do you want them for?' asked Rogers.

‘Well now, Mr Rogers,' said Tumilty tolerantly lowering his list, ‘if you choke up the chamber of a thirteen inch mortar with a couple of hundred of they little devils, they fall like iron rain on trenches, or open works without casemates, or beaches, or anywhere else you want to clear of an enemy. Now to continue, we have loaded two hundred barrels of powder, an assortment as you know of fine cylinder, restoved and mealed powder. I have
three cases of flints, five of fuses, six rolls of worsted quick-match, a quantity of rosin, turpentine, sulphur, antimony, saltpetre, spirits of wine, isinglass and red orpiment for Bengal lights, blue fires and fire balls. To be sure, Mr Rogers, you're sitting on a mortal large bang.'

‘And you've everything you want?' Tumilty nodded. ‘Are you happy with things, Mr Trussel?'

‘Aye, sir, though I'd like Mr Willerton to make a new powder box. Ours is leaky and if you're thinking that . . . well, maybe we might fire a mortar or two ourselves, then you'll need one to carry powder up to the guns.'

‘Mr Trussel's right, Mr Drinkwater. The slightest leak in a powder box lays a trail from the guns to the filling room in no time at all. If the train fires the explosion'll be even quicker!' They laughed at Tumilty's diabolical humour; the siting of those ugly mortars had intoxicated them all a little.

‘Very well, gentlemen. We'll look at her for trim in the morning and hope that Martin does not say anything.'

‘Let us hope Captain Martin'll be looking after his own mortars and not overcharging them so that we haven't to give up ours,' said Tumilty, blowing his red nose. He went on:

‘And who had you in mind to be throwing the shells at, Mr Drinkwater?'

‘Well it's no secret that the Baltic is the likely destination, gentlemen,' he looked round at their faces, expectant in the gently swinging light from the lamp. From the notebooks he had inherited from old Blackmore, sailing master of the frigate
Cyclops
he had learned a great deal about the Baltic. Blackmore had commanded a snow engaged in the timber trade. ‘If the Tsar leagues the navies of the north, we'll have the Danes and Swedes to deal with, as well as the Russians. If he doesn't, we've still the Russians left. They're based at Revel and Cronstadt; iced up now, but Revel unfreezes in April. As to the Swedes at Carlscrona, I confess I know little of them. Of the Danes at Copenhagen,' he shrugged, ‘I do not think we want to leave 'em in our rear.'

‘It's nearly the end of February now,' said Trussel, ‘if we are to fight the Danes before the Russkies get out of the ice, we shall have to move soon.'

‘Aye, and with that dilatory old bastard Hyde Parker to command us, we may yet be too late,' added Rogers.

‘Yes, I'm after thinking its the Russkies.' Tumilty nodded,
tugging at the hairs on his cheeks.

‘Well, they say Hyde Parker's marrying some young doxy, so I still say we'll be too late.' Rogers scratched the side of his nose gloomily.

‘They say she's young enough to be his daughter,' grinned Trussel.

‘Dirty old devil.'

‘Lucky old sod.'

‘ 'Tis what comes of commanding in the West Indies and taking your admiral's eighth from the richest station in the service,' added the hitherto silent Easton.

‘Well well, gentlemen, 'tis of no importance to us whom Admiral Parker marries,' said Drinkwater, ‘I understand it is likely that Nelson will second him and
he
will brook no delay.'

‘Perhaps, perhaps, sir, but I'd be willing to lay money on it,' concluded Rogers standing up, taking his cue from Drinkwater and terminating the meeting.

‘Let us hope we have orders to proceed to the rendezvous at Yarmouth very soon, gentlemen. And now I wish you all a good night.'

Lieutenant Drinkwater hunched himself lower into his boat cloak, shivering from the effects of the low fever that made his head and eyes ache intolerably. The westerly wind had thrown a lowering overcast across the sky and then whipped itself into a gale, driving rain squalls across the track of the squadron as it struggled out of the Thames Estuary into the North Sea.

Their visible horizon was circumscribed by one such squall which hissed across the wave-caps and made
Virago
lean further to leeward as she leapt forward under its impetus. A roil of water foamed along the lee scuppers, squirting inboard through the closed gunports and Drinkwater could hear the grunts of the helmsmen as they leaned against the cant of the deck and the kicking resistance of the big tiller. A clicking of blocks told where the quartermaster took up the slack on the relieving tackles. Drinkwater shivered again, marvelling at the chill in his spine which was at odds with the burning of his head.

He knew it could be typhus, the ship-fever, brought aboard by the lousy draft of pressed men, but he was fastidious in the matter of bodily cleanliness and had not recently discovered lice or fleas upon his person. He had already endured the symptoms for five days without the appearance of the dreaded ‘eruption'. Lettsom had fussed over him, forcing him to drink infusions of bark without committing himself to a diagnosis. The non-appearance of a sore had led Drinkwater to conclude he might have contracted the marsh-ague from the mists of the Medway. God knew he had exposed himself to chills and exhaustion as he had striven to prepare his ship, and his cabin stove had been removed with Mrs Jex, prior to the loading of powder.

He thought of the admonition he had received from Martin and the recollection made him search ahead, under the curved foot of the fore-course to where
Explosion
led the bomb vessels and three tenders to the north eastward. What he saw only served to unsettle him further.

‘Mr Easton!' he shouted with sudden asperity, ‘do you not see the commodore's signalling?' Martin, the epitome of prudence
tending to timidity, was reducing sail, brailing up his courses and snugging down to double reefed topsails and a staysail forward. Drinkwater left Easton to similarly reduce
Virago's
canvas and repeat the signal to the vessels astern. He fulminated silently to himself, having already decided that Martin was a cross they were all going to have to bear. As senior officer he had been most insistent upon being addressed as ‘commodore' for the short passage from Sheerness to Yarmouth. Drinkwater found that sort of pedantry a cause for contempt and irritation. He was aware, too, that Martin was not simply a fussy senior officer. It was clear that whatever advancement Drinkwater expected to wring out of his present appointment was going to have to be despite Captain Martin, who seemed to wish to thwart the lieutenant. Drinkwater threw off his gloomy thoughts, the professional melancholy known as ‘the blue devils', and watched a herring gull glide alongside
Virago
, riding the turbulent air disturbed by the passage of the ship. With an almost imperceptible closing of its wings it suddenly side-slipped and curved away into the low trough of a wave lifting on
Virago's
larboard quarter.

‘Sail reduced sir.'

‘Very well, Mr Easton. Be so good as to keep a sharp watch on the commodore, particularly in this visibility.'

Easton bit his lip. ‘Aye, aye, sir.'

‘When will we be abeam the Gunfleet beacon?'

‘ 'Bout an hour, sir.'

‘Thank you.'

Easton turned away and Drinkwater looked over the ship. His earlier premonition had been correct. She had an immensely solid feel about her, despite her lack of overall size. Her massive scantlings gave her this, but she was also positive to handle and gave him a feeling of confident satisfaction as his first true command.

He looked astern at the remainder of the squadron.
Terror, Sulphur, Zebra
and
Hecla
, could just be made out.
Discovery
and the other two tenders, both Geordie colliers, were lost in the rain to the south westward. The remaining bomb,
Volcano
, was somewhere ahead of
Explosion
.

He saw one of the tenders emerge from the rain astern of
Hecla
. She was a barque rigged collier called the
Anne Reed
, requisitioned by the Ordnance Board and fitted up as an accommodation vessel for the Royal Artillery detachment, some eight officers and
eighty men who, in addition to half a dozen ordnance carpenters from the Tower of London, would work the mortars when the time came. Lieutenant Tumilty was somewhere aboard her, no doubt engaged in furious and bucolic debate with his fellow ‘pyroballogists', over the more abstruse aspects of fire-throwing.

Drinkwater smiled to himself, missing the man's company. Doubtless there would be time for that later, when they reached Yarmouth and again when they entered the Baltic.

A stronger gust of wind dashed the spray of a breaking wave and whipped it over
Virago
's quarter. A cold trickle wormed its way down Drinkwater's neck, reminding him that he need not stand on deck all day. Already the Swin had opened to become the King's Channel, now that too merged with the Barrow Deep. Easton lifted his glass and stared to the north. The rain would prevent them seeing the Naze and its tower. Drinkwater fumbled in his tail pocket and brought out his own glass. He scanned the same arc of the horizon, seeing it become indistinct, grey and blurred as yet another rain squall obscured it. He waited patiently for it to pass, then looked again. This time Easton beat him to it.

‘A point forrard of the beam, sir.'

Drinkwater hesitated. Then he saw it, a pole surmounted by a wooden cage over which he could just make out a faint, horizontal blur. The blur was, he knew, a huge wooden fish.

‘Very well, Mr Easton, a bearing if you please and note it in your log.'

A quarter of an hour later the Gunfleet beacon was obliterated astern by more rain and as night came on the wind increased.

By midnight the gale was at its height and the squadron scattered. Drinkwater had brought
Virago
to an anchor, veering away two full cables secured end to end. For although they were clear of the long shoals that run into the mouth of the Thames they had yet to negotiate the Gabbards and the Galloper and the Shipwash banks, out in the howling blackness to leeward.

The fatigue and anxiety of the night seemed heightened by his fever and he seemed possessed of a remarkable energy that he knew he would pay dearly for later, but he hounded his officers and took frequent casts of the lead to see whether their anchor was dragging. At six bells in the middle watch the atmosphere cleared and they were rewarded by a glimpse of the lights of the
floating alarm vessel
*
at the Sunk. With relief he went below, collapsing across his cot in his wet boat cloak, his feet stuck out behind him still in their shoes. Only his hat rolled off his head and into a damp corner beneath a carronade slide.

Lieutenant Rogers relieved Mr Trussel at four in the morning.

‘Wind's abating, sir,' added Trussel after handing the deck over to the lieutenant.

‘Yes.'

‘And veering a touch. Captain said to call him if it veered, sir.'

‘Very well.' Rogers wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and slipped the pewter mug that was now empty of coffee into the bottom shelf of the binnacle. He looked up at the dark streamer of the masthead pendant, then down at the oscillating compass. The wind was indeed veering.

‘Mr Q!'

‘Sir?'

‘Pass word to the Captain that the wind's veering, north west a half west and easing a touch, I fancy.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.'

The cloud was clearing to windward and a few stars were visible. Rogers crossed the deck to look at the traverse board then hailed the masthead to see if anything was visible from there.

Drinkwater arrived on deck five minutes later. It had taken him a great effort to urge his aching and stiffened limbs to obey him.

‘Morning sir.'

‘Mornin',' Drinkwater grunted, ‘any sign of the commodore or the Sunk alarm vessel?'

‘No sign of the commodore but the Sunk's still in sight. She's held to her anchor.

‘Very well. Wind's easing ain't it?'

‘Aye, 'tis dropping all the time.'

‘Turn the hands up then, we'll prepare to weigh.'

Drinkwater walked aft and placed his hands on the carved taffrail, drawing gulps of fresh air into his lungs and seeking in vain some invigoration from the dawn. Around him the ship came to life. The flog of topsails being cast loose and sheeted home, the dull thud of windlass bars being shipped. There was no fiddler aboard
Virago
and the men set up a low chant as they
began to heave the barrels round to a clunking of pawls. The cable came in very slowly.