A King's Cutter

were after me within an hour of my leaving Paris… but for the skill and enterprise of your young friend here they would have succeeded.'

Drinkwater muttered something and helped himself to the ham, suddenly very hungry.

'Mr Drinkwater has done well, Major. You may assume he has my full confidence.'

Brown nodded. 'Damned well ought to have. Shameful trick you played on him that night last November.' They all grinned at the release from tension and the bottle went round, jealously guarded from Kestrel's urgent, hurrying list.

'Excuse me, sir,' said Drinkwater, 'But how did you know the identity of the lugger? Did you see her commander?'

'Santhonax? Yes. That fellow standing at her stern. He don't command the vessel, it runs at his convenience. The French Ministry of Marine have given him a roving commission, not unlike my own,' he paused and tossed off his glass. 'I'll lay even money on his being as familiar with the lanes of Kent as any damned hop picker.' He shrugged, 'But I've no proof. Yet. You could tell the lugger was the Citoyenne Janine. Even in the dark you could see the black swallowtail flag. For some reason Santhonax likes to fly it, some bit of damned Celtic nonsense. Sorry Madoc, no offence.'

Drinkwater had not seen the flag but he wondered at the recondite nature of Brown's knowledge. He did not yet appreciate the major's capacity for apparently trifling details.

'It's going to be a bloody long war, Madoc,' continued the major. 'I can tell you this, the god-damned Yankees are involved. We'll fight them again yet, you see. They've promised the Frogs vast quantities of grain. Place would starve without their help, and the revolutionaries'll make trouble in Ireland… that'll be no secret in a month or two.' He paused frowning, gathering words suitable to convey the enormity of his news and Drinkwater was reminded of Appleby. 'They're going to carry their bloody flag right through Europe, mark my words…' He helped himself to another slice of ham. Drinkwater knew now why the man had appeared so jovial all those months ago. He himself felt the desire to chatter like Brown, as a reaction to the events of the night before. How much worse for Brown after that terrible isolation. Once ashore he would have to be circumspect but here, aboard Kestrel, he occupied neutral ground, was among friends. He emptied his glass for the fourth time and Griffiths refilled it.

'Did you get Barrallier out?' Brown asked settling back and addressing Drinkwater.

'Yes, sir, we picked him up at Beaubigny.'

'Beaubigny?' Brown looked startled and frowned. 'Where the devil's that? I arranged for Criel.' He looked at Griffiths who explained the location.

'I protested, Major, but two aristos had Dungarth's ear, see.'

Brown nodded, his eyes cold slits that in such a rubicund face seemed quite ugly.

'And one was a, er, misanthrope, eh?'

Griffiths and Drinkwater both nodded. 'And was De Tocqueville with Barrallier?'

'Yes,' said Griffiths, 'with a deal of specie too.' Brown nodded and relapsed into thought during which Drinkwater heard him say musingly 'Beaubigny…'

At last he looked up, a slightly puzzled expression on his face as though the answer was important. 'Was there a girl with them?' he asked, 'a girl with auburn hair?'

'That's correct, sir,' put in Drinkwater, 'with her brother, Etienne.'

Brown's eyebrows rose. 'So you know their names?'

'Aye, sir, they were called Montholon.' It seemed odd that Brown, a master of secrets should evince surprise at what was common gossip on Plymouth hard. 'Barrallier told us, sir,' continued Drinkwater, 'it did not seem a matter for secrecy.'

'Ha!' Brown threw back his head and laughed, a short, barking laugh like a fox. 'Good for Barrallier,' he said half for himself. 'No, 'tis no secret, but I am surprised at the girl leaving…' A silence fell over the three of them.

Brown ruminated upon the pieces of a puzzle that were beginning to fit. He had not known that it had been Kestrel that had caused the furore off Carteret, but he had been fortuitously close to the row that had erupted in Paris and well knew how close as a cause of war the incident had become. Childers's comparatively innocent act had been just what the war hawks needed, having stayed their hands a month or so earlier.

The major closed his eyes, recalling some fascinating details. Capitaine de frigate Edouard Santhonax had been instrumental in checking the Convention's belligerence. And apart from the previous night, the last time Brown had seen Santhonax, the handsome captain had had Hortense Montholon gracing his arm. She had not seemed like a woman fleeing from revolution.

Lieutenant Griffiths watched his passenger, aware of mystery in the air and hunting back over the conversation to find its cause, while Drinkwater was disturbed by a vision of auburn hair and fine grey eyes.

Chapter Five Incident off Ushant

October-December 1793 

In the weeks that followed Drinkwater almost forgot about the incident at Beaubigny, the rescue of Major Brown and the subsequent encounter with the chasse marée. Occasionally, on dark nights when the main cabin was lit by the swinging lantern, there appeared a ghost of disquieting beauty and auburn hair. And that half drowned sensation, as Tregembo hauled him through the breakers with the dead weight of the major threatening to drag them both to the bottom, emerged periodically to haunt half-awake hours trying to sleep. But they were mere shades, thrown off with full consciousness together with recollections of the swamps of Carolina and memories of Morris, the sodomite tyrant of Cyclops's cockpit.

The spectre of the fugitives of Beaubigny appeared once in more positive form, revived by Griffiths. It was only a brief item in an already yellowing newspaper concerned with the death of a French nobleman in the gutters of St James's. Footpads were suspected as the gentleman's purse was missing and he was known to have been lucky at the tables that evening. But the man's name was De Tocqueville and Griffiths's raised eyebrow over the lowered paper communicated to Drinkwater a suspicion of assassination.

Such speculations were swept aside by duty. Already the Channel was full of French corsairs, from luggers to frigates, which commenced that war on trade at which they excelled. Into this mêlée of French commerce-raiders and British merchantmen, solitary British frigates dashed, noisily inadequate. Then on 18th June Pellew in La Nymphe took Cleopâtre off the Start and his knighthood sent a quiver of ambition down many an aspiring naval spine.

Kestrel, meanwhile, attended to more mundane matters, carrying despatches, fresh vegetables, mail and gossip to and from the detached cruisers, a maid of all work that fled from strong opposition and struck at weaker foes. Pellew took some men from her to supplement his crew of Cornish tin miners, despite Griffiths's protest, but they suffered only twice from this abuse. Kestrel's people, mostly volunteers, were a superlative crew, worthy of a flagship under the most punctilious admiral.

'Better'n aught the Cumberland Fleet can offer,' Jessup claimed with pride, alluding to the Thames yachts that made a fetish of such niceties as sail drill. Griffiths too reserved an approbatory twinkle in his eye for a smart manoeuvre executed under the envious glare of a frigate captain still struggling with a crew of landsmen. He could imagine the remarks on a score of quarterdecks about the 'damned insolence of unrated buggers'.

Amid this activity Drinkwater was aware that he was part of a happy ship, that Griffiths rarely flogged, nor had need to, and that these were halcyon days.

Whatever his misgivings about his future they were hidden from the taut deck of the cutter and reserved for the solitude of his cabin. The demands of watch and watch, the tension of chase or flight and the modest profits on prizes were in part compensation for the lack of prospects on his own, personal horizon.

December found them off the low island of Ushant cruising in search of Warren with the news that the commodore's squadron, after many delays and dockyard prevarications, would assemble under his command at Falmouth in the New Year.