Nelson, but the new Commander-in-Chief had taken his battleships off to demonstrate British seapower before the guns of Carlscrona and Revel.
The senior officer present was Captain Martin who did his best to hide his mortification at not being made post. He consoled himself by getting drunk. From some macabre source available in the aftermath of a bloody battle Rogers had acquired an old epaulette which they now presented to their commander.
''Tis a trifle tarnished, Drinkwater, but in keeping with the rest of your attire,' said Martin as he banged a spoon against a glass and called for silence. 'Gentlemen, I ask you to charge your glasses. To your swab, Drinkwater!'
'Drinkwater's swab!' The glasses banged down on the table and Tregembo and the messman moved rapidly to fill them again. Drinkwater looked round the grinning faces. Rogers flushed and half-drunk; Quilhampton, smiling seraphically, slipping slowly down in his chair banging on the table the fine, new wooden hand that Willerton had fashioned for him. Lettsom dry and birdlike; Tumilty red-faced and busy getting roaring drunk.
'An' I suppose I'll be having to call you 'sir', Nat'aniel,' he shouted thickly, slapping Drinkwater's back in an insubordinate way.
'Sit down you damned Hibernian!' shouted Rogers.
'Take your damned fingers off me! An' I'm standing to make a pretty speech, so I am…' There were boos and shouts of 'Sit down!'
'I'll sit down upon a single condition… that Mr Lettsom makes a bit o' his versifying to mark the occasion.'
'Aye! Make us an ode, Lettsom!'
'Come, a verse!'
Lettsom held up his hand for silence. He was forced to wait before he could make himself heard.
At last he drew a paper from his pocket and struck a pose:
'The town of Copenhagen lies
Upon the Baltic shore
And here were deeds of daring done
'Twere never seen before.
'Bold Nelson led 'em, glass in hand
Upon the Danes to spy,
When Parker said 'that's quite enough'
He quoth, 'No, by my eye!'
'The dead and dying lay in heaps
The Danes they would not yield
Until the bold
Onto the bloody field.'
Lettsom paused, drank off his glass while holding his hand up to still the embryonic cheer. Then he resumed:
'Lord Nelson got the credit,
And Parker got the blame,
But 'twas the bold
That clinched old England's fame.'
He sat down amid a storm of cheering and stamping. Mr Quilhampton's enthusiasm threatened to split his new hand until someone restrained him, at which point he gave up the struggle to retain consciousness and slid beneath the grubby tablecloth.
Drinkwater sat clapping Lettsom's dreadful muse.
'Your verse is like Polonius's advice, Mr Lettsom, the sweeter for its brevity,' Drinkwater grinned at the surgeon as Tregembo put another bottle before each officer. 'Mr Tumilty's contribution, sir,' he whispered in Drinkwater's ear.
'Ah, Tom, I salute you…'
Tumilty stood up. 'Captain Drinkwater…' he began, enunciating the words carefully, then he slowly bent over and buried his head in the remains of the figgy duff.
'What a very elegant bow,' said Martin rising unsteadily to take his leave. Drinkwater saw him to his boat.
'Good night Drinkwater.'
Returning to the cabin Drinkwater found Rogers dragging Tumilty to Easton's empty cot while Tregembo was carrying Quilhampton to bed. Martin had left and only Lettsom and Rogers sat down to finish a last bottle with Drinkwater.
Tregembo cleared the table. 'Take a couple of bottles, Tregembo, share 'em with the cook and the messman.'
'Thank 'ee, zur. I told 'ee you'd be made this commission, zur.' He grinned and left the cabin.
Lettsom blew through his flute. 'You, er, don't seem too pleased about it all, if I might say so,' said Lettsom.
'Is it that man Waters that's bothering you, sir?' asked Rogers.
Drinkwater looked from one to the other. There was a faint ringing in his ears and he was aware of a need to be careful of what he said.
'And why should Waters bother me, gentlemen?'
He saw Rogers shrug. 'It seemed an odd business to be mixed up in,' he said. Drinkwater fixed Rogers with a cold eye. Reluctantly he told the last lie.
'What d'you think I got my swab for, Samuel, eh?'
Lettsom drowned any reaction from Rogers in a shower of notes from his flute and launched into a lively air. He played for several minutes, until Rogers rose to go.
When the first lieutenant had left them Lettsom lowered his flute, blew the spittle out of it and dismantled it, slipping it into his pocket.
'I see you believe in providence, Mr Drinkwater…'
'What makes you say that?'
'Only a man with some kind of faith would have done what you did…'
'You speak in riddles, Mr Lettsom…'
'Mr Jex confided in me, I've known all along about your brother.'
'God's bones,' Drinkwater muttered as he felt a cold sensation sweep over him. He went deathly pale.
'I'm an atheist, Mr Drinkwater. But you are protected by my Hippocratic oath.' Lettsom smiled reassuringly.
A week later Admiral Pole took command of the fleet. The Baltic States were quiescent and, like Lord Nelson, the bomb vessels were ordered to England.
Chapter Twenty-One
A Child of Fortune
Commander Nathaniel Drinkwater knocked on the door of the elegant house in Lord North Street. Under his new full-dress coat with its single gleaming epaulette he was perspiring heavily. It was not the heat of the July evening that caused his discomfort but apprehension over the outcome of the forthcoming interview with Lord Dungarth.
The door opened and a footman showed him into an anteroom off the hall. Turning his new cocked hat nervously in his hands he felt awkward and a little frightened as he stood in the centre of the waiting room. After a few minutes he heard voices in the hall following which the same footman led him through to a book-lined study and he was again left alone. He looked around him, reminded poignantly of the portrait of Hortense Santhonax for, above the Adam fireplace, the arresting likeness of an elegant blonde beauty gazed down at him. He stared at the
