Victory on the Caskets fifty years earlier, and Shovell had died on the beach in the Scillies after the wreck of the Association. But poor Parker might end ignominiously, a prisoner of the Swedes.
'Quite a night, sir,' Rogers came up. He had lost his hat and his hair was plastered upon his head.
'Quite a night, Sam.'
'We've set all the fore and aft canvas we can, she seems to sail quite well.'
'She'll do,' said Drinkwater tersely, 'If she weathers the point, she'll do very well.'
'Old Willerton's been over the side on the end of the foretack.'
'What the devil for?'
'To see if his 'leddy' is still there.'
'Well is it?' asked Drinkwater with sudden superstitious anxiety.
'Yes,' Rogers laughed and Drinkwater felt a sense of relief, then chid himself for a fool.
'Pipe 'Up spirits', Sam, the poor devils deserve it.'
Virago did weather the point and dawn found her hands wet, cold and red-eyed, anxiously staring astern and out on either beam. Of the fifty-eight ships that had anchored in Vinga Bay only thirty- eight were now in company. They beat slowly to windward, occasionally running perilously close together as they tacked, grey shapes tossing in heavy grey seas on which was something new, something to add greater danger to their plight: ice floes.
Many of the absent ships were the smaller members of the fleet, particularly the gun-brigs, but most of the bombs were still in company and the Anne Reed made up under Virago's larboard quarter. Once they had an offing they bore away to the southward.
The wind shifted a little next day then, at one bell in the first watch, it backed south westerly and freshened again. Two hours later Virago followed the more weatherly ships into the anchorage of Skalderviken in the shelter of the Koll. Drinkwater collapsed across his cot only to be woken at four next morning. The wind had increased to storm force. Even in the lee of the land Virago pitched her bluffbow into the steep seas and flung the spray over her bow to be whipped aft, catching the unwary on the face and inducing the agonising wind-ache as it evaporated. Rain and sleet compounded the discomfort and Drinkwater succeeded in veering a second cable onto his one remaining anchor. At daylight, instead of rigging out a new bowsprit, the tired men were aloft striking the topgallant masts, lowering the heavy lower yards in their jeers and lashing them across the rails.
Then, having exhausted themselves in self-preservation, the wind eased. It continued to drop during the afternoon and just after midnight the night-signal to weigh was made from St George. Nelson, anxious to prosecute the war in spite of, or perhaps because of, the disappearance of Parker, was thwarted before the fleet could move. The wind again freshened and the laboriously hove in cables were veered away again.
Nelson repeated the signal to weigh at seven in the morning and this time the weather obliged. An hour and a half later the remnants of the British squadrons in the Baltic beat out of Skalderviken and then bore away towards the Sound and Copenhagen.
By noon the gale had eased. London rejoined, together with some of the other ships. The flagship had been ashore on an uncharted shoal off Varberg castle and the Russell had had a similar experience attempting to tow off the gun-brig Tickler. Both had escaped.
Less fortunate was the gun-brig Blazer which also ran ashore at Varberg and was captured by the Swedes.
The fleet was hove to when Parker rejoined to await the results of Vansittart's embassy. Just before dark the Blanche was sighted making up from the south. The news that she brought was eagerly awaited by men who had had a bellyful of shilly-shallying.
Chapter Thirteen
Councils of Timidity
24-28 March 1801 There are many levels at which a man can worry and Drinkwater was no exception. Over-riding every moment of his life, waking and sleeping, was concern for his ship and its performance within so large a fleet. Beneath this constant preoccupation lay a growing conviction that the expedition had been left too late. In the two days since Blanche rejoined the fleet a number of alarming rumours had circulated. It was learned that Vansittart's terms had been rejected by Count Bernstorff and the Danish government. Both Vansittart and Drummond, the accredited British envoy to the Danish court, had been given their passports and told to leave. Britons resident in Denmark had been advised to quit the country while the Swedish navy, already possessing its first British prize, the Blazer, was making belligerent preparations at Carlscrona. Worse still, the Russians were reported cutting through the ice at Revel.
But it was the inactivity of their own admiral that most worried the British. Every hour the Commander-in- Chief waited, robbed them of surprise, and every hour the fleet lay idle increased the gossip and rumour that spread from passing boat to gunroom to lower deck. Vansittart had given Parker formal instructions to commence hostilities in one breath and warned him of the formidable preparations made at Copenhagen in another. Drummond endorsed the determination of the Danes and promised the hesitant Parker a bloody nose. After the first conference aboard London, at which Nelson was present, Parker had excluded his second-in- command and Rear Admiral Graves from further consultation. Instead he interviewed the pilots from the Hull Trinity' House who were as apprehensive as the admiral and informed Parker that they were familiar with the navigation of The Sound alone, and could undertake no responsibility for the navigation of the Great Belt. Nelson, who saw the Russians as the greatest threat, thought that defeat of the Tsar would automatically destroy the Baltic Alliance, wished to take a detachment of the fleet by the Great Belt and strike directly at Revel. He had made his recommendations in writing and Dommett, the captain of the fleet, had emerged from Parker's cabin, his face a mask of agony, to reveal to the assembled officers on the London's quarterdeck that Parker had struck out every single suggestion made by Vice-Admiral Nelson.
It was a story that had gone round the fleet like wildfire and, together with the rumour circulated from Blanche about Danish preparations, added to the feeling that they were too late.
Lieutenant Drinkwater was a prey to all these and other worries as he stood upon Virago's poop on the freezing morning of March 26th. He was staring through his glass at a large boat flying the red flag of Denmark together with a white flag of truce, as it pulled through the fifty-two British ships anchored off Nakke Head at the entrance to The Sound.
Meanwhile in London's great cabin, a confident young aide-decamp with a message from Governor Strieker at Elsinore told Parker that if his guns were no better than his pen he had better return to England. There were two hundred heavy cannon at Cronbourg Castle, together with a garrison of three thousand men and Parker, used to the clear waters of the West Indies, was apprehensive of dark nights and fields of ice. Parker's hesitation was obvious to the young Danish officer and the worried countenances of London's officers, as they waited in the cold, led him to conclude they shared their admiral's apprehensions.
Drinkwater began to pace Virago's poop as the watch idled round the deck, needlessly coiling ropes and unenthusiastically chipping the scale off a box of shot set on the after mortar hatch. A low mumble came from them and exactly reflected the mood of the entire fleet.
Two days earlier, after conferring with Parker, Vansittart and Drummond had been sent home in the lugger Kite. Drinkwater had taken advantage of the departure of the lugger to send a letter to Lord Dungarth and the subject of that letter was the fundamental worry that underlay every thought of every waking hour. Since the interview with Jex, Drinkwater had striven to work out a solution to the problem of Edward. Sweating at the thought of his guilt, of the reception of his first letter to Dungarth sent by Lady Parker, and
