A Brig of War

Rogers arrived on the quarterdeck. He saw the ensign. 'Surely we haven't…?'

'No, by Christ, we have not!' Dalziell was pushed towards the halliards as Drinkwater snapped to Rogers. 'Get Santhonax up here, and Bruilhac! Quick!'

Drinkwater looked at the approaching boat, a launch packed with men, a cable from them.

'I command, damn you!' Morris hissed furiously. Drinkwater turned and looked down the barrel of the pistol.

He crossed the deck in two strides and wrenched the gun from his grasp. 'You may rot, Morris, but I am not through yet… get that ensign up, Dalziell, you lubber…'

Drinkwater was aware that he was holding the pistol at the young man. Dalziell threw a final, failing glance at Morris then did as he was bid. He belayed the halliards as Santhonax came on deck. The Frenchman looked curiously about him, took in the fallen spars, the broken bodies and blood spattered across the deck. He saw too the ensign being belayed and his quick mind understood. A glance to windward showed him his countrymen, the gunports of Romaine, and the boat, almost alongside.

'Get 'em up on the rail, Rogers, that Frog won't fire on his own boat.'

But a gun did fire, the ball whistling overhead, a single discharge to recall the British to the etiquette of war.

Drinkwater pointed the pistol at Santhonax. 'Captain, tell that boat to pull off. This ship has not surrendered. The ensign halliards were shot through. If the officer in the boat pulls off I will not open fire until he has regained his ship, otherwise I shall destroy him,' he paused, 'and you also, Captain.'

The French boat was ten yards off, the officer standing in the stern, looking up in astonishment at the apparition of a Republican naval officer standing beneath the British ensign like Hector on the walls of Troy.

Santhonax looked at Drinkwater. 'No,' he said simply. 'I leave it to the desperation of your plight and your conscience to shoot me.'

Drinkwater's heart was thumping painfully and he could feel the sweat pouring out of him. He sensed Morris awaiting events. He swore beneath his breath.

'Get up, Bruilhac!' The terrified boy climbed trembling on the rail as Drinkwater jerked his head at Rogers to pull Santhonax off the rail. Rogers leapt forward, together with Tregembo. But they were too late.

Drinkwater was about to threaten Bruilhac with instant death if he did not do his bidding but he was spared this cruel necessity. A sudden eruption of cannon fire to the east of them swung the focus of attention abruptly away from the wretched little drama on Antigone's rails. At first is seemed Romaine had fired a final shattering broadside to compel Antigone to strike. In their boat the French thought the same. There was a simultaneous ducking of heads. Bruilhac fainted through sheer terror while a similar reflex caused Santhonax to dive outboard.

Even as Drinkwater registered Santhonax's escape and heard the howl of rage from Morris he had noticed there was no flame from Romaine's larboard broadside. The sun beat down through the clearing smoke of their earlier discharges as the wind shredded the last of it to leeward and there, in the bright path laid by the sun upon the sea, they saw the newcomer.

'A British frigate, by all that's wonderful!' shouted Rogers, suddenly releasing them all from their suspended animation. Tregembo picked up two round-shot from the carronade garlands and tried to lob them into the French boat. The Frenchmen suddenly laid on their oars and spun her round just as Captain Santhonax's hand reached up for help. Drinkwater had a brief glimpse of his face, disfigured and distorted by the pain in his shoulder, his left arm trailing, his long legs kicking powerfully.

Another thundering broadside, this time from Romaine, caused a second's pause. There was no fall of shot near Antigone; Romaine was bracing her yards round to fill her sails with wind.

Drinkwater leapt to the deck. 'Rogers! Tregembo!'

He picked up a cartridge and rammed it into the nearest carronade. Tregembo rolled a shot into the muzzle and joined Rogers on the tackles. Drinkwater spun the screw and watched the blunt barrel depress. He leant against the slide and felt it slew on its heavy caster. 'Secure!'

Through the gunport he could see the boat, see the officer and a man hauling Santhonax over the transom. Rogers drove the priming quill into the touch-hole and blew powder into the groove. Still sighting along the barrel Drinkwater's right hand cocked the lock and his long fingers wound round the lanyard. The boat traversed the back-sight.

It occurred to him that it was easier to kill at a distance, removed from the confrontation from which Santhonax had just escaped. He had only to jerk the lanyard and Santhonax would die. He thought of the grey eyes staring from the portrait below, and of how he and Dungarth had let her go. From Hortense he thought of Elizabeth. The boat's transom crossed the end of the barrel. He jerked the lanyard.

The carronade roared back on its slide. Drinkwater leapt up to mark the fall of shot. He saw the spout of water a foot off the boat's quarter. He was surprised at the relief he felt.

'Let's try for a frigate,' Drinkwater spun the elevating screw again, bringing the retreating Romaine into his sights as, with crippled masts she moved sluggishly away. The wind was falling light, the concussion of their guns having killed it. They fired six shots before giving up. Romaine was out of range.

They craned their necks to see what was happening. They saw their rescuer begin to turn, trying to work across Romaine's stern to rake. The French captain put his helm over and followed the British ship so they circled one another like dogs, nose to tail. A shattering broadside crashed from Romaine, a slighter response from the other. Another came from the Britisher. The Romaine began to draw off to the south-east. The stranger wore in pursuit, her mizen topmast going by the board as she did so.

'Telemachus,' Drinkwater spelled out, peering through his glass. The two ships moved slowly away, leaving Antigone rolling easily. The boat had vanished.

Drinkwater turned inboard. He and Morris exchanged a glance. Beneath his hooded lids Morris bore a whipped look. He went below.

Without any feeling of triumph Drinkwater's eyes fell upon the body of Quilhampton. Tregembo joined him.

'There's not a mark on him. Hold, he's not gone… Mr Q! Mr Q! D'you hear me?' Drinkwater began to chafe the boy's wrists. His eyes fluttered and opened. Rogers bent over them. 'Winded by a passing shot. He'll live,' said Rogers.

It took three days to re-rig the frigate, three days of strenuous labour during which the much depleted crew struggled and cursed, ate and slept between the guns. But although they swore they laboured willingly. They were not Antigones but Hellebores and the big frigate was their prize, the concrete proof of their corporate endeavours. She was also the source of prize money, and their shrinking numbers increased each individual's share.

By dint of their efforts they sent up new or improvised topmasts and could cross courses and topsails on all three masts. Later, Drinkwater thought, after they had carried out some additional modifications to the salvaged broken spars they might manage a main topgallant.

For Drinkwater the need to bring the frigate under command over-rode everything else. Morris retired to his cabin from whence came the news that he was keeping food down at last. From the cockpit came the hammock- shrouded corpses that failed to survive Appleby's surgery, the bravely smiling wounded and the empty rum bottles that sustained Appleby during the long hours he spent attending his grim profession.

Johnson reported they had been struck in the hull by twenty-one shot, but only two low enough to cause serious leakage.

The pumps clanked regularly even as the remaining men toiled to slew those half-dozen eighteen-pounders back into their larboard ports. They had lost sixteen men killed and twenty wounded in the action. Rank had almost ceased to exist as Drinkwater urged them on, officers tailing on to ropes and leading by example. Mr Lestock shook his head disapprovingly and Drinkwater left the deck watch to him and his precious sense of honour, deriving great comfort from the loyal support of Tregembo and even poor, handless, Mr Quilhampton who did what he could. Samuel Rogers emerged as a man who, given a task to do, performed it with that intemperate energy that so characterised him.

Late in the afternoon of the third day after the action with Romaine a sail was seen