A King's Cutter

spent in genial conversation. He asked Nathaniel to pass another bottle from the sideboard then said: 'The information you forwarded, Madoc, that Nathaniel here found aboard the chasse marée confirms what we have for some time suspected, that Capitaine Santhonax is an agent of the French government with considerable contacts in this country. The later information that you submitted about Nathaniel's supposed link between him and the Montholon woman seems not to be so…' Drinkwater swallowed awkwardly.

'Hmm, the evidence was somewhat circumstantial my lord, I thought it my duty…'

'You did quite rightly. Do not reproach yourself. We took it seriously enough to send Brown here to ferret out the whereabouts of Miss Montholon since there had been other indications that your theory might not be as wild as it might first appear.' He paused and Drinkwater found his heart-beat had quickened. He waited patiently while Dungarth sipped his wine and dabbed his lips with a napkin.

'When De Tocqueville died in London it was given out that he had been robbed by footpads. He had been robbed all right, a considerable sum was found to be missing from his lodgings, not his person. They had also been ransacked. The count had been run through by a sword. Murdered; and in the subsequent search of his rooms, papers were discovered that indicated he had not only contracted a marriage with Miss Montholon but arranged for its solemnisation. The woman was therefore located living with the count's mother in Tunbridge Wells. Although there was an outpouring of grief it came, I believe, mainly from the mother… Major…'

Brown swallowed hastily and took up the tale. 'As I mentioned to you some time ago Santhonax was known to me as a capitaine de frégate, yet he has never held an independent command, always being on detached duty like myself. We know he is the head of naval intelligence for the Channel area and extensively employs chasses marées, like the one you captured, to make contact with his agents in this country. He is also bold enough to land, even, perhaps to spend some time in England…'

Brown chewed then swallowed a final mouthful and washed it down in complete silence. He continued: 'We believe him responsible for the death of De Tocqueville and your suggestion that there might be a connection with Mlle Montholon was most interesting.' He shrugged with that peculiar Gallic gesture that seemed so out of place. 'Though the letter you captured might confirm a suspicion it does not prove a fact, and to date surveillance has failed to indicate anything other than that Mlle Montholon is the unfortunate affianced of the late count who, in her present extremity, is a companion to her late lover's mother, herself widowed by the guillotine. I am told that their mutual grief is touching…' Brown's ironic tone led Drinkwater to assume that his own suspicions were not yet satisfied.

'But is Santhonax likely to continue his activities after losing his papers?' asked Griffiths.

'I do not think a man of his calibre and resource will lightly be deterred,' answered Dungarth. 'Besides, it depends how incriminating he regards what he lost. We are all hostages to fortune in this business but the odds against someone finding and identifying the letter and its writer must be very long. After all I doubt the lugger was the only one in the Channel that night with charts of our coasts, nor money. The gentlemen devoted to free trade might conceivably be similarly equipped…'

'But the uniform, my lord,' put in Drinkwater. Dungarth shrugged. 'I'll warrant Santhonax will not abandon his little projects over that, though doubtless whoever ordered his lugger to assist that convoy is now regretting his action. No, we'll back Nathaniel's hunch a little longer with surveillance on the De Tocqueville ménage. As for you fellows,' the earl leaned forward and fished in his tail pocket, drawing out a sealed packet, 'here are your orders to cruise in the Channel — in theory, against the enemy's trade. In fact I want you to stop every lugger, punt, smack and galley 'twixt the North Foreland and the Owers and search 'em. Perhaps we'll apprehend this devil Santhonax before more mischief occurs… Now Nat pass that bottle or, here, Madoc you are partial to sercial, those damned slaving days, I suppose.' The atmosphere changed, lightened a little as a sense of self-satisfaction embraced them.

'My lord,' said Griffiths at last, 'I should like to solicit your interest in favour of a commission for Mr Drinkwater here. Is there no way you might induce their lordships to reward a deserving officer?'

Drinkwater thrust aside a haze that was not entirely due to the tobacco smoke out of which he had been conjuring images of the beautiful Hortense.

Dungarth was shaking his head, his speech slurring slightly. 'My dear Madoc I would like nothing better than to oblige by confirming Nathaniel's commission but, by an irony, I am out of favour with the present Board having criticised Earl Howe's failure to stop that deuced grain fleet. Brown's intelligence was laid before the Board and they had plenty of warning that it should be stopped at all costs. We might have destroyed France at a blow.' Dungarth was leaning forward, his voice sharp and a cold fire in his hazel eyes. Then he sat back, slumping into his chair and brushing a weary hand across his forehead. 'But the pack of poxed fools ignored me and Brown's sojourn at the peril of his life was wasted…'

Later, splashing through puddles as the rain gurgled in drainpipes and their white hose were spattered black; leaning together like sheer-legs, Griffiths and Drinkwater staggered back from the George. They had dined and drunk to excess and Griffiths kept muttering apologies that Dungarth had failed him in the matter of the commission while Nathaniel assured him with equal insistence that it did not matter. Drinkwater felt fortified against disappointment. The evening had brought him a kind of victory and in his drunken state his belief in providence was absolute. Providence had brought him to Kestrel and providence had had a hand in his presence at Beaubigny. Providence would see he had a lieutenant's cockade when it was due. And the ringing in his ears said the time was not yet.

It was only when they passed the momentary shelter of the dockyard gate and Griffiths roared the countersign at the sentry that it occurred to Nathaniel how foolish they must seem. And suddenly he wished he were in bed beside Elizabeth instead of lurching along in the wet and windy darkness supporting his increasingly heavy commander.

Chapter Eight The Black Pendant

September-December 1795 

The Royal William, receiving ship, was one of the oldest vessels in the British Navy. She had brought Wolfe's body home from Quebec and now played host to the bodies of unfortunate men waiting to be sent to ships. Like all such hulks she smelt, not the familiar living odour of a ship in commission but a stale, damp, rotting smell that spoke of stagnation, of neglect, idleness and despair. At the time of Drinkwater's visit she had nearly three hundred wretched men on board, from which Kestrel must replace her deserters. There were pressed men, Lord Mayor's men and quota men. There were even, God help them, volunteers, an isolated minority of social misfits with no other bolt hole to run to. There were disenchanted merchant sailors, home after long voyages and taken by the press or the patrolling frigates in The Soundings and sent into Portsmouth in the despatch boats. There were the pressed men, the pariahs, the drunks and the careless who had been caught by the officers of the Impress Service and brought by the tenders to be incarcerated on the Royal William until sent to ships. Here they were joined by village half-wits and petty thieves generously supplied by patriotic parish fathers as part of their quota. From London the debtors, felons, reprieved criminals and all the inadequate and pathetic flotsam of eighteenth-century society came fortnightly by the Tower tender. As a consequence the old ship groaned with misery, dirt, indiscipline and every form of vermin parasitic upon unwashed humanity. Royal William was little distinguishable from the prison hulks further up the harbour with her guard boats, gratings and sentries.

The regulating captain in charge of the Impress Service regarded Drinkwater with a jaundiced eye. For a moment or two Drinkwater could not understand the man's obvious hostility, then he recognised the apoplectic captain from the George the night they had dined with Dungarth.

'Six men! Six! Now where in the world d'you think I can find six men, God rot ye? And for what? A third rate? A frigate? No! But for some poxy little cutter whose officers spend their time ashore in ill-mannered abuse of their betters. No sir! You may think that because I have a deck full of hammocks I've men to spare. I don't doubt that suspicion had crossed your mind, but six men for an unrated cutter…' Drinkwater stood silently waiting for the man to finish blustering and cursing until, at last, he turned up a ledger, ran his finger down a column, shook his head