The Bomb Vessel

'Then we are for the Baltic, sir?'

Drinkwater smiled. 'You may conjecture as you see fit. I have no orders beyond those to load powder at Blackstakes.' Trussel grinned comprehendingly back.

'I hear Lord Nelson is to be employed upon a secret expedition. The papers had it as I came through London.' He smiled again, aware that the news had come as a surprise to the lieutenant.

'Lord Nelson…' mused Drinkwater, and it was some moments before he bent again to his work.

'I congratulate you, Mr Willerton.' Drinkwater regarded the brilliantly painted figurehead that perched on Virago's tiny fo'c's'le. The product of Willerton's skill with mallet and gouge was the usual mixture of crude suggestion and mild obscenity. The half bust showed a ferociously staring woman with her head thrown back. A far too beautiful mouth gaped violently revealing a protruding scarlet tongue, like the tongue of flame that must once have issued from Virago's mortars.

To the face of this harpy Mr Willerton's artistry had added the pert, up-tilted breasts of a virgin, too large for nature but erotic enough to satisfy the prurience of his shipmates. But it was the right arm that attested to Mr Willerton's true genius. While the left trailed astern the right crooked under an exaggerated breast, its nagging forefinger erect in the universally recognisable position of the scold. The 'leddy' was both termagant wanton and nagging wife, a spitfire virago eminently suitable to a bomb vessel. It was a pity, thought Drinkwater as he nodded his approval, that they were not so commissioned.

The handful of men detailed by Lieutenant Rogers to assist Willerton in fitting the figurehead grinned appreciatively, while Willerton sucked his teeth with a peculiar whistling noise.

'Worthy of a first rate, Mr Willerton. A true virago. I am glad you heeded my advice,' he added in a lower voice.

Willerton grinned, showing a blackened row of caried teeth. 'The right hand, sir, mind the right hand.' His blue eyes twinkled wickedly.

Drinkwater regarded the nagging finger. Perhaps there was some suggestion of Mrs Jex there, but it was not readily recognisable to him. He gave Willerton formal permission to fit the figurehead and turned aft.

A keen easterly wind canted Virago's tub-like hull across the river as she lay to her anchor clear of the sheer hulk. The three lower masts had been stepped and their rigging, already made up ashore and 'lumped' for hoisting aboard, had been fitted over the caps and hove tight to the channels by deadeyes and lanyards. The double hemp lines of fore, main and mizzen stays had been swigged forward and tightened. Rogers and Matchett were at that moment hoisting up the maintopmast, its heel-rope leading down to the barrel windlass at the break of the fo'c's'le, the pawls clicking satisfactorily as the topmast inched aloft.

Drinkwater began to walk aft, past the sweating gangs of sea and landsmen being bullied and sworn at by the bosun's mates, round the heaps and casks being counted by Mr Jex, and ascended the three steps to the low poop. He cast a glance across the river where Mr Quilhampton brought the cutter out from the dockyard, towing the mainyard from the mast pond. Over the poop with its huge tiller, a mark of Virago's age, fluttered the ensign. In its upper hoist canton it bore the new Union flag with St Patrick's saltire added after the recent Act of Union with Ireland. For a second he regarded it curiously, seeing a fundamental change in something he had come to regard as almost holy, something to fight and perhaps to die under. Of the Act and its implication he thought little, though it seemed to make sense to his ordered mind as did Pitt's attempt to emancipate the Roman Catholics of that unfortunate island.

He descended the companionway into his cabin. Mrs Jex had been evicted. On 27th January the Admiralty had ordered a squadron of bombs and their tenders to assemble at Sheerness. The dockyard had woken to its responsibilities. All was now of the utmost urgency before their Lordships started asking questions of the Commissioner.

Tregembo was hanging Elizabeth's gift, the cause of his delay in joining. Drinkwater watched, oddly moved. Bruilhac's skill as a portraitist showed Elizabeth cool and smiling with Charlotte Amelia chubby and serious. He was suddenly filled with an immense pride and tenderness. From his position at the table his two loved ones looked down at him, illuminated by the light that entered the cabin from the stern windows behind him, the moving light that, even on a dull day, did not enter his cabin without reflecting from the sea.

Mr Quilhampton interrupted his reverie. 'Mainyard's alongside, sir, and I've a letter left for you at the main gate.' He handed the paper over and Drinkwater slit the wafer.

My Dear Nathaniel,

I'd be obliged if you would meet meat the sign of the Blue Fox this evening.

Your brother, Edward

He looked up. 'Mr Q. Be so good as to ask the first lieutenant to have a boat for me at four bells.'

The Blue Fox was in a back street, well off the Dock Road and in an alley probably better known for its brothels than its reputable inns. But the place seemed clean enough and the landlord civil, evincing no surprise when Drinkwater asked for his brother. The man ushered Drinkwater to a private room on the upper floor.

Edward Drinkwater rose to meet him. He was of similar height to Nathaniel, with a heavier build and higher colour. His clothes were fashionably cut, and though not foppish, tended to the extremes of colour and decoration then de rigeur.

'Nathaniel! My dear fellow, my dear fellow, you are most kind to come.'

'Edward. It has been a very long time.' They shook hands.

'Too long, too long… here I have some claret mulling, by heaven damned if it ain't colder here than in London… there, a glass will warm you. Your ship is nearly ready then?'

Nathaniel nodded as he sipped the hot wine.

'Then it seems I am just in time, just in time.'

'Forgive me, Edward, but why all the mysterious urgency?'

Edward ran a finger round his stock with evident embarrassment. He avoided his brother's eyes and appeared to be choosing his words with difficulty. Several times he raised his head to speak, then thought better of it.

'Damn it Ned,' broke in Drinkwater impatiently, ''tis a woman or 'tis money, confound it, no man could haver like this for ought else.'

'Both Nat, both.' Edward seized on the opportunity and the words began to tumble from him. 'It is a long story, Nat, one that goes back ten or more years. You recollect after mother died and you married, I went off to Enfield to work for an India merchant, with his horses. I learned a deal about horses, father was good with 'em too. After a while I left the nabob's employ and was offered work at Newmarket, still with horses. I was too big to race 'em but I backed 'em and over a long period made enough money to put by. I was lucky. Very lucky. I had a sizeable wager on one occasion and made enough in a single bet to live like a gentleman for a year, maybe two if I was careful.' He sighed and passed a hand over his sweating face.

'After the revolution in France, when the aristos started coming over there were pickings of all sorts. I ran with a set of blades. We took fencing lessons from an impoverished marquis, advanced an old dowager some money on her jewels, claimed the debt… well, in short, my luck held.

'Then I met Pascale, she was of the minor nobility, but penniless. She became my mistress.' He paused to drink and Drinkwater watching him thought what a different life from his own. There were common threads, perceptible if you knew how to identify them. Their boyhood had been dominated by their mother's impecunious gentility, widowed after their drunken father had been flung from a horse. Nathaniel was careful of money, neither unwilling to loot a few gold coins from an American prize when a half-starved midshipman, nor to lean a little on the well-heeled Mr Jex. But where he had inherited his mother's shrewdness Edward had been bequeathed his father's improvidence as he now went on to relate.

'Things went well for a while. I continued to gamble and, with modest lodgings and Pascale to keep me company, managed to cut a dash. Then my luck changed. For no apparent reason. I began to lose. It was uncanny. I lost confidence, friends, everything.

'Nathaniel, I have twenty pounds between me and penury. Pascale threatens to leave me since she has received an offer to better herself…' He fell silent.

'As another man's mistress?'

Edward's silence was eloquent.

'I see.' Drinkwater felt a low anger building up in him. It was not enough that he should have spent a great deal of money in fitting out His Britannic bloody Majesty's bomb tender Virago. It was not