A Brig of War

arrange for the disposition of your convoy. Sir Robert, a moment of your time…'

When the business of the fleet had been attended to Drinkwater had a few minutes for an exchange of news with White while Victory backed her maintopsail and summoned Hellebore's boat.

'How is Elizabeth, my dear fellow?'

'She goes along famously, Richard, and would have asked to be remembered to you had she known we might meet.'

'When were you gazetted, Nat?'

'After Camperdown.'

'Ah, so you were there. Damn! That still gives you the advantage of one fleet action to boast of ahead of me,' he grinned. 'D'you have many other old Kestrels besides Griffiths on your brig?'

'Aye, Tregembo you remember, and old Appleby…'

'What? That old windbag Harry Appleby? Well I'm damned. She looks a long-legged little ship, Nat,' he nodded at the brig.

'She's well enough, but you still have the important advantages,' replied Drinkwater, a sweep of his hand including Victory, the puissant personages upon her deck and alluding to White's rapid rise by comparison with his own. 'Convoy work ain't quite the way to be made post.'

'No, Nat, but my bet is you're ordered up the Mediterranean, eh?' Drinkwater nodded and White went on, 'that's where Nelson is, before Toulon, Nat, and wherever Nelson is there's action and glory.' White's eyes gleamed. 'D'you know St Vincent sent him back into the Med after we evacuated it last year and a month ago he reinforced Nelson with Troubridge's inshore squadron. Sent the whole lot of 'em off from the harbour mouth before Curtis's reinforcements had come up with the fleet. And the blasted Dons didn't even know the inshore squadron had been changed! What d'you think of that, eh? No,' he patted Drinkwater's arm condescendingly, 'the Med's the place, Nat there's bound to be action with Nelson.'

'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