A Brig of War

had told them of a third ship in Santhonax's squadron, for whom Hellebore had been taken by the officers of La Torride. He was not to be caught by the same ruse. 'Let the wrecks of others be your seamarks, Mr Drinkwater,' he said without removing his eye from the long glass.

'She's tacking.' They watched the leading ship come up into the wind, saw her foresails flatten and the swing of the mainyards. As she paid off, the foreyards followed suit and the bright spots of bunting showed from her mastheads.

'British colours and Admiral Blankett's private signal, sir,' reported Rogers. Her exposed side revealed her as Fox.

'It seems you were right, Mr Drinkwater,' said Griffiths drily. Keeping his men at quarters the commander put Hellebore before the wind and ran down towards his pursuers. They proved to be Fox and Daedalus, sent north by Rear-Admiral Blankett who had taken sufficient alarm from Strangford Wrinch to dispatch Captains Stuart and Ball without seeing the necessity to come himself and thus forgo the carnal delights of Mr Wrinch's hospitality.

Griffiths was summoned on board for a council of war, the outcome of which was to attack Kosseir, destroy Santhonax and open the port to traffic from the Hejaz. French defeat would not only result in an improvement to the Meccans able to join Murad Bey, but would enable the British to pre-empt any French attempt upon India the following year. Returning from the meeting Griffiths also brought back personal news.

A replacement for Echo had joined the squadron. The ship-sloop Hotspur had brought out mail, news and orders. The latter included a tersely worded instruction that Hellebore was to be returned at once to England. Nelson, the author of her present predicament was, it seemed, in disgrace. His euphoric languishing at Naples after Aboukir had been tarnished by the Caraccioli affair and followed by a leisurely return home by way of a circuitous route through Europe during which his conduct with the wife of the British Ambassador to the court of the Two Sicilies was scandalous.

Drinkwater paid scant attention to this gossip, depressed by the realisation that Hotspur had brought no letters from Elizabeth. Then Griffiths swiftly recalled him to the present.

'Oh, by the way, Nathaniel, Hotspur brought two lieutenants to the station. One is appointed to Daedalus and he wished to be remembered to you. He was insistent I convey his felicitations to you.'

An image of the ruddy and diminutive White formed in his mind. Perhaps White had news of Elizabeth! But he checked this sudden hope on the recollection that White would not exchange the quarterdeck of Victory for an obscure frigate in an even more obscure corner of the world without an epaulette on his shoulder.

'The gentleman's name, sir?'

'A Welsh one, bach. Morris if I recollect right.'

A strong presentiment swept over Drinkwater. From the moment he had jestingly suggested shooting off Bruilhac's fingers and found Quilhampton handless, Providence seemed to have deserted him. The strain of weary months of service manifested itself in this feeling. His worries for Elizabeth stirred his own loneliness. It was a disease endemic among seamen and fate lent it a further twist when he recalled the words Morris had uttered to him years earlier.

Drinkwater had been instrumental in having Mr Midshipman Morris turned out of the frigate Cyclops where he had dominated a coterie of bullying sodomites. Morris had threatened revenge even at the earth's extremities. Suddenly Drinkwater seemed engulfed in a web from which he could not escape. The revelation that Dalziell was related to Morris made months earlier seemed now to preface his present apprehension.

On the morning of 14th August 1799 in light airs the brig of war Hellebore led Captain Henry Lidgbird Ball's squadron slowly into Kosseir Bay. The indentation of the coast was formed by a headland, a small fort and a mole which protected a large number of native craft gathered inside. More dhows lay anchored in the inner roadstead. Above the fort the tricolour floated listlessly. Of the frigate of Edouard Santhonax there was no sign.

Griffiths swore as he paced up and down the quarterdeck, one ear cocked to hear the leadsman's chant from the chains. Whilst the taking of the dhows and fort were of importance to Ball, only the destruction of Santhonax would satisfy Griffiths.

The men waited round the guns, the sail-trimmers at their stations. Lestock fussed over a rudimentary chart he had copied from Fox's as Hellebore picked her way slowly inshore. Drinkwater stared at the town through his glass. It was past noon with the sun burning down on them from almost overhead. Drinkwater indicated the dhows.

'Santhonax's fleet of transports, I believe sir.' He handed the glass to Griffiths. The commander swept the yellow shoreline shimmering under the glare. He nodded. 'But that cythral Santhonax is nowhere to be seen.' Griffiths cast a glance about him. 'Strike number five the instant the leadsman finds six fathoms, the closer in we get the greater the risk of coral outcrops.'

As if to justify Griffiths's concern Hellebore trembled slightly. Griffiths and Drinkwater exchanged glances but even the jittery Lestock seemed not to have noticed the tremor. The leadsman allayed their fears: 'By the mark seven… by the deep eight… a quarter less eight!'

Hellebore crept onward. 'By the deep six!'

'Strike number five! Braces there! Main topsail to the mast!' The red and white chequered numeral flag fluttered to the deck and the brig lost way as the main yards braced round to back their sails. She ceased her forward motion.

'Let go!' The anchor dropped with a splash as the first gun boomed out from the fort. Unhurriedly the three British ships clapped springs on their cables and traversed to bring their full broadsides on the wretched town. The fire from the fort ceased, as though the gunners, having tried the range, paused to see what the British would do.

Aboard Hellebore they waited for Ball's signal to open fire, their own capstan catching a final turn on the spring to align the guns to Griffiths's satisfaction. Drinkwater listened to the stage whispers of the gun crew nearest him.

'Why don't the bastards open fire at us, Jim?'

'Cos they're shit-scared, laddy. Froggies is all the same.'

'Don't be bleeding stupid. They want to save their sodding powder until the brass have stopped pissing about and decide where to station us sitting ducks.'

'It's only a piddling little fort, mates. Bugger all to worry about.'

'But you still save your powder an' bleeding shot, Tosher, you stupid sod.'

'How the hell d'you know?'

'Look if you had to carry the fucking stuff over them mountains behind this dunghill you wouldn't throw the stuff away, now would you, my old cock?'

This debate was interrupted by Daedalus opening fire. Her consorts followed suit. The bombardment of Kosseir had begun.

For an hour the men toiled at the guns under a burning sun. The constant concussions killed the wind and when Ball hoisted the signal to cease fire the men slumped exhausted at their pieces or scrabbled for the chained ladle at the scuttlebutt. They tore off their headbands and shook their heads to clear the ringing from their ears, wiping the grimy sweat from their foreheads. In his berth two feet below the now silent cannon, Midshipman Quilhampton writhed, tortured by heat, inflammation and fever. From time to time Catherine Best wiped the heavy perspiration from his brow and desultorily fanned his naked body. Appleby waited for casualties in the cockpit, cooling himself with rum and ignoring the groans of the wounded that had survived their earlier action and now twisted in the stifling, stinking heat of Hellebore's bowels.

Stripped to his shirt sleeves Drinkwater scanned the dun-coloured shore, watching for a response to the flag of truce now at Daedalus's foremasthead. But although the fort's guns had fallen silent the tricolour still hung limply from its staff. No movement could be discerned in the town after a first terrified evacuation of the dhows in the harbour. Drinkwater felt a strong sense of anti-climax. The fort seemed weak, no more than half-a-dozen cannon.

'Old guns installed by the Turks,' observed Lestock.