The Bomb Vessel

board as the big ships made the best of their way to seaward of the sands. The 98-gun St George, with Nelson's blue vice-admiral's flag at the foremasthead was already setting her topgallants, her jacks swinging aloft like monkeys, a band playing on her poop. The strains of Rule Britannia floated over the water.

Despite himself Drinkwater felt an involuntary thrill run down his spine as Nelson passed, unable to resist the man's genius despite the cloud he was personally under. Even Rogers was silent while Quilhampton's eyes were shining like a girl's.

'Here the buggers come,' said Rogers as the other seventy-fours stood through the road; Ganges, Bellona, Polyphemus. Then came Monarch, Batter Pudding's father's flagship at Camperdown, and the rest, all setting their topgallants, their big courses in the bunt-lines ready to set when the intricacies of St Nicholas's Gat had been safely negotiated.

'Invincible's going north sir,' observed Easton pointing to the Caister end of the anchorage where the cutters and gun brigs were leaving by the Cockle Gat.

'I hope he has a pilot on board,' said Drinkwater thinking of the treacherous passage and driving Kestrel through it years ago.

'Some of the storeships goin' that way too,' offered Quilhampton, aping Drinkwater's clipped mannerism.

'Yes, Mr Q. Do you watch for Explosion's signal now.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

'Martin's still playing at bloody commodore,' said Rogers to Easton in a stage whisper. The master sniggered. 'Hey look, someone's lost a jib-boom…' They could not make out the ship as she was masked by another but almost last to leave was Parker's London.

'The old bastard had trouble getting his flukes out of the mud,' laughed Rogers making an onomatopoeic sucking plop that sent a burst of ribald laughter round Virago's poop.

'I hope, Mr Rogers, that is positively the last joke we hear about the subject of the admiral's nuptials,' said Drinkwater, remembering the plain-faced girl on whom he so relied. He might at least defend her honour on his own deck.

'In fact,' he added with sudden asperity, 'I forbid further levity on the subject now we are at sea under Sir Hyde's orders.'

Drinkwater put his glass to his eye and ignored Rogers who made an exaggerated face at Easton behind his back. Quilhampton laughed, thus missing the executive signal from Explosion.

Drinkwater had seen the bunting flutter down from the topgallant yardarm where the wind spread it for the bombs to see.

'Heave up, Mr Matchett. Hoist foretopmast stays'l!'

The anchor was already hove short and it was the work of only a few minutes to heave it underfoot and trip it. 'Anchor's aweigh, sir!'

'Tops'l halliards, Mr Rogers! Lee braces, there!' He turned to Mr Quilhampton who had flushed at missing the signal from Explosion. 'See those weather braces run, Mr Q.'

'Aye, aye, sir,' the boy ran forward to vindicate himself.

'Starboard stays'l sheet there! Look lively, God damn it!'

'Anchor's sighted clear, sir.'

Aloft the topsail parrels creaked against the greased topmasts as the yards rose. The canvas flogged, then filled with great dull crumps, flogged and filled again as the yards were trimmed. Drinkwater looked with satisfaction at the replaced mainyard.

'Steady as you go.'

'Steady as you go, zur.' Virago gathered way and caught up on Zebra which had not yet tripped her anchor.

'Port your helm,' Drinkwater looked round to see the order was obeyed. The big tiller was pushed over to larboard and Virago began to turn to starboard her bowsprit no longer pointing at Zebra.

'Trim that foreyard, Graham, God rot you! Don't you know your business?' bawled Rogers as the petty officers directed the stamping, panting gangs of men. Matchett was leaning outboard fishing for the anchor with the cat tackle.

'Course south east a half south.' Drinkwater looked to starboard and raised his hat. Aboard the Anne Reed he saw Tumilty acknowledge his greeting.

'Course south east a half south, zur,' reported Tregembo.

'Course south east a half south, sir,' repeated Easton, the sailing master. Drinkwater suppressed a smile. He almost felt happy. It was good to be under way at last, and upon his own deck at that. He did not want to look astern at the roofs and church towers of Great Yarmouth with their reminders of the rule of Law, which he so much admired yet had so recently disregarded.

The reflection made him search for his brother as the hands secured the deck and adjusted the sails to Rogers's exacting direction. He found him at last, in duck trousers and a check shirt, hauling upon the anchor crown tackle, a labour for unskilled muscles, supervised by Mr Matchett in the starboard forechains. The heaving waisters brought the inboard fluke of the sheet anchor in against its bill board and able seamen leapt contemptuously outboard to pass the lashings.

'You had better cast the lead as we pass the Gatway, Mr Easton, the tide will set us on the Corton side else, and I've no wish to go aground today.'

'Aye, aye, sir. Snape! Get your arse into the main chains with a lead!'

'Give her the forecourse, Mr Rogers. And you may have Quilhampton set the spanker when we come on the wind off the Scroby Sands.'

Drinkwater looked at his watch. It was eleven o'clock. A ship was coming up from the south and Drinkwater checked her number against the private signals. She was the Edgar, Captain George Murray, joining the fleet. He remembered Murray as the frustrated captain of the sluggish frigate La Nymphe, unable to get into action during the fight of St George's Day off the Brittany coast. With a shock Drinkwater realised that had been seven years earlier. It had been his first action in charge of a ship, the cutter Kestrel whose commander, Lieutenant Madoc Griffiths, lay sweating out the effects of malaria in his cabin.

At noon Drinkwater checked Easton's entry on the slate and stood down the watch below. Despite the confusion in the fleet Martin's little squadron was keeping tolerably good station. It was clear Martin wanted a post-captaincy out of this expedition.

'What course for the passage, sir?' asked Easton formally.

Drinkwater smiled wanly. The fleet was tired of uncertainty. 'I have only orders to stand towards the Naze of Norway, Mr Easton, as I told you yesterday.'

'Mushrooms, Mr Easton,' said Rogers cheerfully, 'that is all we are, mushrooms…'

'Mushrooms, Mr Rogers?' said Easton, frowning.

'Aye, mushrooms, Mr Easton. Kept in the dark and fed with bullshit.'

'But I tell you I am right, Bones.' The smell of rum hung in the heavy air.

Mr Jex had drawn the surgeon into the stygian gloom of Virago's hold on the pretext of examining the quality of a barrel of sauerkraut. The familiar tone he used in addressing Lettsom only emphasised the purser's misjudgement of the surgeon's character. Listening to the exaggeratedly flippant remarks which Lettsom customarily used, Jex had assumed the surgeon might prove an ally. Part of Jex's desire to find a confidant was due to his isolation after the discovery of his conduct in the affair off the Sunk. Lettsom avowed an abhorrence of war and the machinations of Admiralty, a common attitude among the better sort of surgeon and a product of keeping educated men in a state of social limbo, mere warrant officers among compeers of far lesser intellect.

Jex had decided that since he could not escape the taint of cowardice he might as well assume a spurious conscientious objection. The rehabilitation of himself thus being complete in his own eyes, if in no-one else's, he now began to search for a means of furthering his own ends. But Jex's mind was expert in calculating, and the readiness and facility with which he did this was apt to blind him to his limitations in other fields. He was a man