A Brig of War

'British colours, Mr Q.' Old Glory snapped out over their heads and almost immediately the enemy's larboard bow chaser opened fire. She had crossed their stern. Drinkwater had surrendered the weather gauge and still the Antigone had not fired a shot.

Drinkwater walked forward and gripped the rail. 'Mr Brundell! Ease your foremast lee sheets a little!' A tiny tremble could be felt through the palms of his damp hands as he clasped the rail tightly. Antigone was losing power through those trembling foresails. He hoped the enemy could not see those fluttering clews behind the sails of the mainmast. The French ship began to draw ahead, overtaking them on their starboard side, a fine big ship, almost, now, they could see her in profile, identical to themselves. 'Are you ready, Mr Rogers?' Drinkwater hailed and the word was passed back that Samuel Rogers was ready. To vindicate his honour, Drinkwater guessed.

'I hope you know what you are about Mr Drinkwater.' Morris's voice sounded stronger. 'So do I, sir,' replied Drinkwater swept by a sudden mood of exhilaration. If only the Frog would hold his broadside until all his guns would bear.

'Stand by mizen braces, Mr Brundell,' he called in a sharp, clear voice.

'What the bloody hell…?'

'For what we are about to receive…'

'Holy Mary, Mother of God…'

A puff of smoke erupted from the forward larboard gun of the Ffench frigate. They were her lee guns, pointing downwards on a deck sloping towards the enemy. So much for the weather gauge once the manoeuvring was over.

But it was not over: 'Mizen braces! Mr Rogers!'

The lee mizen braces were flung from their pins, a man at each to see them free, with orders to cut them if a single turn jammed in a block. The faked ropes ran true as the weather braces were hauled under the vociferous direction of Brundell. All along the starboard side the smoke and flame of the main-deck battery opened fire, the twelve eighteen-pounders rumbling back on their trucks to be sponged and reloaded. Drinkwater did not think they would manage more than a single shot at their adversary as, under the thundering backing of the mizen sails, Antigone slowed in the water, appeared to stop dead as the enemy stormed past, suddenly firing ahead of the British prize. Quilhampton was hauling the carronade slides round to get off a second shot, screaming at his gun crews like a regular Tarpaulin officer.

'Come you sons of whores, move it up, lively with that sponge, God damn you…'

Drinkwater looked for the fall of shot. At maximum elevation with the ship heeling away from the enemy they must have done some damage. Christ, they had hurled all the damned bar shot and chain shot they could cram in the guns, all the French dis-masting projectiles to give the Frogs a taste of their own medicine.

And they had missed her. Mortified, Drinkwater's ever observant eye could already read the name of the passing frigate: Romaine. And now, by heaven, they must run.

A cheer was breaking out on the fo'c's'le and he looked again. The enemy's maintopmast was tottering to leeward. It formed a graceful curve then fell in a splintering of spars and erratic descent as stays arrested it and parted under the weight.

Relief flooded Drinkwater. There was cheering all along the upper deck and from down below. Rogers had come up and was pumping his hand. Even Lestock's face wore a sickly, condescending grin.

'Sir! Sir!' Quilhampton was pointing.

'God's bones!'

The wreckage was slewing the Romaine sharply to larboard, across Antigone's bow. In the perfect position to rake. And men were working furiously at the wreckage with axes. Forward a man screamed as his leg flew off. It was Mr Brundell. 'Mr Grey! Back the yards on the foremast!' He turned, 'Mr Dalziell, back the yards on the main, lively now.'

He waited impatiently. Antigone had hove herself to. Now they must make a stern board, to get out of trouble before…

The raking broadside hit them, the balls whirling the length of the deck. Mr Quilhampton fell and beside Drinkwater Lestock went 'Urgh!' and a gout of blood appeared all over Drinkwater's breeches. Drinkwater stood stock still. On the fo'c's'le, legs still apart, stood Mr Grey. The two men stood numbed, one hundred feet apart, regarding each other over a human shambles. As if by magic figures stood up and the main yards groaned round in their parrels. They were followed by those on the foremast. Antigone began to gather sternway. The next broadside roared out. It had been fired on an upward roll. Antigone's foretopgallant mast went overboard.

'Helm a weather! Hard a-starboard!' But Drinkwater's order was too late. The frigate was already paying off, her bows coming up into the wind, across the wind, until finally she wallowed with her unarmed larboard side facing the enemy.

'Lee forebrace!' If he could trim the yards to the larboard tack they might yet escape. The third broadside brought the main topmast down, the mizen topgallant with it. No one stood alive at the wheel.

Drinkwater looked at the Romaine. French cruisers, he knew, carried large crews. Now the advantages thus conferred upon them became apparent. Already the wreckage was cleared away and she was under control, setting down towards them.

'Mr Dalziell, prepare your larboard carronades. Mr Grey! Larboard fo'c's'le carronades.' Bitterly Drinkwater strode forward and jerked one of the brass gangway swivels. He lined it up on the approaching frigate.

'Mr Drinkwater!' He turned to find Morris pointing the pistol at him. 'You failed, Drinkwater…'

'Not yet, by God, Morris, not yet!'

'What else can you do, dog's turd, your cleverness has destroyed you.' Drinkwater's brain bridled at Morris's suggestion. True, a second earlier he himself had been on the verge of despair but the human mind trips and locks onto odd things under stress. It did not occur at that moment that Morris's action in pointing the gun at him was irrational; that Morris's apparent delight at his failure would also result in Morris's own capture. It was that old cockpit epithet that sparked his brain to greater endeavours.

'No, sir. By God there's one card yet to play!' he shouted below for Mr Rogers even as Dalziell approached with a coloured bundle in his arms.

'What the hell is that?' screamed Drinkwater.

'I was ordered to strike,' said Dalziell.

Chapter Twenty-One A Matter of Luck

 November-December 1799

Drinkwater snatched the ensign from Dalziell's grasp. The red bunting spilled onto the deck. He turned to Morris, the question unasked on his lips. Morris inclined his head, implying his authority lay behind the surrender.

The belief that he was dying had taken so sharp a hold upon his mind that he was sure surrender offered him survival. The enemy cruiser was from lie de France. As commander of such a well-fought prize he would be treated with respect, and removed from the source of his poisoning he would recover. Into Morris's mind came another reason, adding its own weight in favour of surrender. While he enjoyed an easy house arrest at Port Louis his officers would be incarcerated. Drinkwater would be mewed up for the duration of the war. It would finish the work he had failed to do at Kosseir.

In the electric atmosphere that charged the quarterdeck all this was plain to them both. Their mutual antipathy had reached its crisis.

'The French are sending a boat, sir,' said Dalziell, eyes darting from one to the other. Drinkwater turned and shoved the ensign back at Dalziell.

'That is Hellebore's ensign, by God! I'll not see it struck yet!'