The Bomb Vessel

the Cornishman's eyes. 'I'm in Mr Drinkwater's employ, zur…'

'Ah yes, of course, then perhaps you can tell me if Mr Drinkwater has a brother, eh?' Tregembo regarded the fat, peculating officer and remembered what Drinkwater had said about Waters and what he had learned at Petersfield. He rolled the quid over his tongue:

'Brother? No zur, the lieutenant has no brother, Mr Jex zur.'

'Are you sure?'

'I been with him constant these past nine years and I don't know that he ever had a brother.'

'And this special service…'

'Aye zur, we was employed on the Hellebore, brig, under Lord Nelson's orders.' Tregembo remembered what Drinkwater had said to him and now that he had seen what Jex was driving at he was less forthcoming.

'Under Lord Nelson, eh, well, well… so Mr Drinkwater's highly thought of in certain quarters then?'

'Aye zur, he's well acquainted with Lord Dungarth.' Tregembo was as proud of Drinkwater's connection with the peer as Jex was impressed.

'It is surprising then Tregembo, that he is no more than a lieutenant.'

'Beggin' your pardon but 'tis a fucking disgrace… It's a long story, zur, but Mr Drinkwater thrashed a bugger on the Cyclops and the bastard got even with him in the matter of a commission…' A smile crossed Tregembo's face. 'Leastaways he thought he'd bested him, but he ended in the hospital at the Cape, zur.' He leaned forward, his jaw rotating the quid as he spoke. 'Men don't cross the lieutenant too successfully, zur, leastaways not sensible men.'

'Bloody wind's still freshening, sir, and I don't like the look of it.' Rogers held his hat on, his tarpaulin flapping round him as he stared to windward. The white streaks of sleet blew across the deck, showing faintly in the binnacle lamplight. Both the officers staggered as Virago snubbed round to her anchor, sheering in the wind, jerking the hull and straining the cable.

'Rouse out another cable, Sam,' Drinkwater shouted in Rogers's ear, 'we'll veer away more scope.'

The good weather had not lasted the day. Hardly had the fleet come to an anchor in Vinga Bay than the treacherous wind had backed and strengthened. Now, at midnight, a full gale was blowing from the west south west, catching them on a lee shore and threatening to wreck them on the Swedish coast.

Drinkwater watched the grey and black shapes of the hands as they moved about the deck. He was glad he had been able to provide them with warm clothing. Tonight none of them would get much sleep and it was the least he could do for them. They were half-way through bringing up the second cable when they saw the first rocket. It reminded them that out in the howling blackness, beyond the circumscribed limit of their visible horizon, other men in other ships were toiling like themselves. The arc of sputtering sparks terminated in a baleful blue glare that hung in the sky and shone faintly, illuminating the lower masts and spars of the Virago before dying.

'Someone in distress,' shouted Easton.

'Mind it ain't us, Mr Easton, get a lead over the side to see if we are dragging!'

Suddenly from forward an anonymous voice screamed: 'Starb'd bow! 'Ware Starb'd bow!'

Drinkwater looked up to see a pyramid of masts and spars and the faint gleam of a half-set topsail above a black mass of darkness: the interposition of a huge hull between himself and the tumbling wavetops that had been visible there a moment earlier.

'Cut that cable!' he shouted with all the power in his lungs. Forward a quick-witted man took up an axe from under the fo'c's'le. Drinkwater waited only long enough to see the order understood before shouting again:

'Foretopmast stays'l halliards there! Cast loose and haul away! Sheet to starboard!' There was a second's suspense then the grinding crunch and trembling as the strange ship drove across their bow, carrying away the bowsprit. She was a huge ship and there was shouting and confusion upon her decks.

'Christ! It's the fucking London!' shouted Rogers who had caught a glimpse of a dark flag at her mainmasthead. All Drinkwater was aware of were the three pale stripes of her gun decks and the fact that in her passing she was pulling Virago round to larboard. There was more shouting including the unmistakably patrician accents of a flagship lieutenant demanding through his speaking trumpet what the devil they were doing there.

'Trying to remain at anchor, you stupid blockhead!' Rogers bawled back as a final rendering from forward told where Virago had torn her bowsprit free of London's main chains. The unknown axeman succeeded in cutting the final strands of her cable.

'We're under way, Easton, keep that God damn lead going.'

Easton had a lantern in the chains in a flash and Quilhampton ran aft reporting the foretopmast staysail aloft.

'Sheet's still a-weather, sir…'

'Cast it loose and haul aft the lee sheet.'

'Aye, aye…'

Virago's head had been cast off the wind, thanks to London. Now Drinkwater had to drive her to windward, clear of the shallows under their lee.

'Spanker, Rogers, get the bloody spanker on her otherwise her head'll pay off too much…' Rogers shouted for men and Drinkwater jumped down into the waist. He wished to God he had a cutter like the old Kestrel that could claw to windward like a knife's edge. Suddenly Virago's weatherly, sea-kindly bluff bows were a death trap.

'Mr Matchett! Will she take a jib or is the bowsprit too far gone?'

'Reckon I c'd set summat forrad…'

'See to it,' snapped Drinkwater. 'Hey! You men there, a hand with these staysails!' He attacked the rope stoppings on the mizen staysail and after two men had come to his aid he moved forward to the foot of the foremast where the main staysail was stowed. His hands felt effeminately soft but he grunted at the freezing knots until more men, seeing what he was about, came to his assistance.

'Halliards there lads! Hoist away… up she goes, lively there! Now we'll sail her out like a yacht!' He turned aft. 'Belay that main topsail, Graham, she'll point closer under this canvas…'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

'Cap'n, cap'n, zur.'

'Yes? Here Tregembo, I'm here!'

'Master says she's shoaling…'

'God's bones!' He hurried aft to where Easton was leaning outboard, gleaming wetly in the lamplight from where a wave had sluiced him and the leadsman. Drinkwater grabbed his shoulder and Easton looked up from the leadline. He shook his head. 'Shoaling, sir.'

'Shit!' he tried to think and peered over the side. The faint circle of light emitted by the lantern showed the sea at one second ten feet beneath them, next almost up to the chains. But the streaks of air bubbles streaming down-wind from the tumbling wave-caps were moving astern: Virago had headway. He recalled the chart, a shoaling of the bay towards its southward end. He patted Easton's shoulder. 'Keep it goin', Mr Easton.' Then he jumped inboard and made for the poop.

'Steer full and bye!'

Out to starboard another blue rocket soared into the air and he was aware that the sleet had stopped. He could see dark shapes of other ships, tossing and plunging with here and there the gleam of a sail as some fought their way to windward while others tried to hold onto their anchors. He remembered his advice to Quilhampton on the subject of anchors. He had lost one now, and although he had not lost the ship, neither had he yet saved her.

A moment later another sleet squall enveloped them. He looked up at the masthead pendant. Virago was heading at least a point higher without square sails and Matchett had succeeded in getting a jib up on what was left of the bowsprit. He wondered how much leeway they were making and tried looking astern at the wake but he could see nothing. He wondered what had become of the London and what old Parker was making of the night. Perhaps 'Batter Pudding' would be a widow before dawn. Parker would not be the first admiral to go down with his ship. He did not know whether Admiral Totty had survived the wreck of the Invincible, but Balchen had been lost with