A Brig of War

'Of course, Nathaniel, damned stupid business if you ask me.' Appleby eyed Rogers disapprovingly.

'Is my character to be disputed by an apology for a pox-doctor…?' he got no further. Emerging from his cabin Commander Griffiths appeared. The five men in the gunroom rose to their feet. He had clearly heard every word through the flimsy bulkhead.

'I approve of your decision, Mr Drinkwater, just as I disapprove of your conduct, Mr Rogers.' Griffiths spoke slowly then paused turning his lugubrious face on Dalziell. His bushy white eyebrows drew together. 'As for you, sir, I can think of only one place where your presence will not infect us all. Proceed to the fore t'gallant masthead.'

The commander passed between Rogers and the scarlet midshipman with ponderous contempt and made for the upper deck.

They had rolled Polaris and the constellations of the far north below the horizon without ceremony. To the south blazed Canopus, Rigel Kentaurus and the Southern Cross, whilst Orion wheeled overhead, astride the equinoctial. They had picked up the south-east Trades in five degrees south latitude and romped southwards. The matter of Dalziell faded from Drinkwater's mind almost as soon as the boy had descended from the mastheading. Ruling all their lives, burying their petty quarrels with its stern and soothing rhythm, the routine of a King's ship proceeded remorselessly. They had avoided all ships in case any were French cruisers. It was unlikely, but only a single mischance could disrupt the delicate strategy of empire. Even a ship of equal force might jeopardise their mission and it was likely that a French cruiser in the South Atlantic would be one of their fast, well-found frigates.

On a morning of alternating sunshine and shadow as an endless stream of fair-weather cumulus scudded before the fresh wind and the large dark petrels and bizarre red-footed boobies swooped about the ship, the matter of Dalziell was revived.

Appearing to take his meridian altitude Mr Quilhampton was found to possess a black eye.

'Where the deuce did you get that from, young shaver?' asked Drinkwater who had of late made a practice of joining Lestock on the tiny poop to help determine the brig's latitude.

'Oh, I banged into my cabin door, sir.' The boy was nearly sobbing and the excuse was clearly fabricated. He failed to catch the sun successfully and it was Dalziell's smirking 'I made my altitude seventy degrees fifty-four minutes, Mr Lestock,' that formed the suspicion in Drinkwater's mind that he might be the cause of Mr Quilhampton's misery. It seemed confirmed by the muffled grunt from the young midshipman as the first lieutenant agreed his own altitude within a minute of Dalziell's. Lestock pursed his lips in disapproval when Quilhampton announced his failure.

'Mr Q has a contused eye, Mr Lestock. Cut along to the surgeon, cully, and get him to look at it.' He watched the boy move away and turned to Mr Dalziell. 'Now what d'you make our latitude?' He knew he was displacing Lestock but noted that Dalziell was suddenly less confident. The sun was chasing them south, would cross the equator in a day or so and the calculation was elementary. A mere matter of addition and subtraction but Dalziell baulked at it. Drinkwater suspected he cribbed frequently from the younger boy who showed a certain aptitude for the mysteries of astronomical navigation.

'Er, sixteen degrees, er… about sixteen degrees south, sir, er…' he frowned over his slate while Lestock tut- tutted and nodded agreement at Drinkwater's figures.

'Perhaps you would do better studying Robinson, Mr Dalziell, than thrashing your messmate.'

Dalziell's open-mouthed stare as he descended the ladder made him chuckle inwardly. He remembered wondering as a midshipman how the first lieutenant always seemed so omniscient. Experience was a wonderful teacher and there was little new under the sun. The reference to the late object of their observations further amused him and he was in a high good humour as he returned his quadrant to its carefully lashed mahogany box. It was only on straightening up from the task that his eye was caught by the little watercolour of the American privateer Algonquin, wearing British over Yankee colours. She had been his first command. It was a trifle stained by damp now and had been done for him by Elizabeth before they were married. The thought of Elizabeth scudded like one of those cumulus clouds over his good humour. In the oddly circuitous way the mind works it made him think of Quilhampton and the misery that could be a midshipman's lot. He called the messman. 'Pass word for Mr Quilhampton, Merrick.'

When the boy came he had clearly been crying. He was fortunate, Drinkwater thought. The brig had no cockpit and the two midshipmen each had a tiny cabin, mere hutches set on the ship's plans as accommodation for stewards. At least they did not have to live in the festering stink of the orlop as he had had to aboard Cyclops. But the atmosphere of Quilhampton's environment was a relative thing. It might be easier than Drinkwater's had been, but it was no less unpleasant for the boy.

'Come now, Mr Q, dry those eyes and tell me what happened.'

'Nothing, sir.'

'Come, sir, do not make honour a sticking point, what happened?'

'N… nothing, sir.'

Drinkwater sighed. 'Mr Q. If I were to instruct you to lead a party of boarders on to the deck of a French frigate, would you obey?'

'Of course, sir!' A spark of indignant spirit was rekindled in the boy.

'Then come, Mr Q. Do not, I beg you, disobey me now.'

The muscles along Quilhampton's jaw hardened. 'Mr Dalziell, sir, struck me, sir. It was in a fair fight, sir,' he added hurriedly.

'Fights are seldom fair, Mr Q. What was this over?'

'Nothing, sir.'

'Mr Quilhampton,' Drinkwater said sharply, 'I shall not remind you again that you are in the King's service, not the schoolroom.'

'Well, sir, he was insulting you, sir… said something about you and the captain, sir… something not proper, sir.'

Drinkwater frowned. 'Go on.'

'I er, I thought it unjust, sir, and I er, demurred, sir…' The boy's powers of self-expression had improved immeasurably but the thought of what the boy was implying sickened Drinkwater.

'Did he suggest that the captain and I enjoyed a certain intimacy, Mr Q?' he asked softly. Relief was written large on the boy's face.

'Yes sir.'

'Very well, Mr Q. Thank you. Now then, for fighting and for not obeying my order promptly I require from you a dissertation on the origin of the brig-sloop, written during your watch below this afternoon and brought to me when you report on deck at eight bells.'

The boy left the cabin happier in spite of his task. But for Drinkwater a cloud had come permanently over the day and a dark suspicion was forming in his mind.

He spoke to Dalziell when he relieved Rogers at the conclusion of the afternoon watch. Quilhampton had delivered into his hand an ink-spattered paper which he folded carefully and held behind his back.

'For fighting, Mr Dalziell, I require an essay on the brig-sloop. I desire that you submit it to me when I am relieved this evening.'

Dalziell muttered his acknowledgement and turned away. Drinkwater recalled him.

'Tell me, Mr Dalziell, what is the nature of your acquaintanceship with Lord Dungarth?' Dalziell's face relaxed into a half-concealed smirk. Drinkwater hoped the midshipman thought him a trifle scared of too flagrantly punishing an earl's eleve. That feline look seemed to indicate that he was right.

'I am related to his late wife… sir.'

'I see. What was the nature of your kinship?'

'I was second cousin to the countess.' He preened himself, as if being second cousin to a dead countess absolved him from the formalities of naval courtesy. Drinkwater did not labour the point; Mr Dalziell did not need to know that Lord Dungarth had been the director of the clandestine operations of the cutter Kestrel. 'You are most fortunate in your connections, Mr Dalziell,' he said as the boy smirked again.

He was about to turn away and give his attention to the ship when Dalziell volunteered, 'I have a cousin on my mother's side who knows you, Mr Drinkwater.'

'Really?' said Drinkwater without interest, aware that Rogers had neglected to overhaul the topgallant