The Corvette

'Sir, I, I protest…' Drinkwater mastered his amusement.

'Mr Singleton, you may rest easy. The solitude of command compels me to take the occasional advantage… But I am in desperate need of a surgeon. Macpherson has, as you know, been in a straitjacket for three days…'

'The balance of his mind is quite upset, sir, and the delirium tremens will take some time to subside. Peripheral neuritis, the symptom of chronic alcoholic poisoning…'

'I am aware that he is a rum-sodden wreck, devil-take it! That is why I need your knowledge as a physician.'

Melusine's motion eased as Rispin came across the deck and knuckled his hatbrim to report the topgallant masts struck. 'Very well, Mr Rispin. You may pipe the watch below.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

'And send Mr Quilhampton to me.' He dismissed Rispin and turned to Singleton. 'Very well, Mr Singleton. I admire your sense of vocation. It would be an unwarranted abuse of my powers to compel you to do anything.' He paused and fixed Singleton with his grey eyes. 'But I shall expect you to volunteer to stand in for Macpherson until such time as we land you upon the coast of Greenland. Ah, Mr Q, will you attend the quarterdeck with your quadrant and bring up my sextant. Have Frey bring up the chronometer…'

Singleton turned to windward as the captain left him. The wind and sea struck him full in the face and he gasped with the shock.

Mr Midshipman the Lord Walmsley nodded at the messman. The grubby cloth was drawn from the makeshift table and the messman placed the rosewood box in front of his lordship. Drawing a key from his pocket Lord Walmsley unlocked and lifted the lid. He took out the two glasses from their baize-lined sockets and placed one in front of himself and one in front of Mr Midshipman the Honourable Alexander Glencross whose hands shot out to preserve both glasses from rolling off the table.

'Cognac, Glencross?'

'If you please, my Lord.'

Walmsley filled both glasses to capacity, replaced the decanter and locking the box placed it for safety between his feet. He then took hold of his glass and raised it.

'The fork, Mr Dutfield.'

'Aye, aye, my Lord.' Dutfield picked up the remaining fork that lay on the table for the purpose and stuck it vigorously into the deck beam. The dim lighting of the cockpit struck dully off it and Walmsley and Glencross swigged their brandy.

'Damn fine brandy, Walmsley.'

'Ah,' said his lordship from the ascendancy of his position and his seventeen years, 'the advantages of peace, don't you know.' He frowned and stared at the two midshipmen at the forward end of the table then, catching Dutfield's eye raised his own to the fork above their heads. 'The fork, Mr Dutfield.'

Mr Frey looked hurriedly up from his book and then snapped it shut, hurrying away while Dutfield's face wrinkled with an expression of resentment and pleading. 'But mayn't I…?'

'You know damn well you mayn't. You are a youngster and when the fork is in the deck beam your business is to make yourself scarce. Now turn in!'

Mumbling, Dutfield turned away.

'What did you say?'

'Nothing.'

Walmsley grinned imperiously. 'Dutfield you have forgot your manners. I could have sworn he said 'good night', couldn't you, Glencross?'

'Oh, indeed, yes.'

Dutfield began to unlash his hammock. 'Well, Dutfield, where are your manners? You know, just because The Great Democrat has forbidden any thrashing in the cockpit does not prevent me from having your hammock cut down in the middle watch. Now where are your manners?'

'Good night,' muttered Dutfield.

'Speak up damn you!'

'Good night! There, does that satisfy you?'

Walmsley shook his head. 'No, Dutfield,' said his lordship refilling his glass, 'it does not. Now what have I told you, Dutfield, about manners, eh? The hallmark of a gentleman, eh?'

'Good night, my Lord.'

'Ah…' His lordship leaned back with an air of satisfaction. 'You see, Glencross, he isn't such a guttersnipe as his pimples proclaim…'

'Are you bullying again?' Quilhampton entered the cockpit. 'Since when did you take over the mess, Walmsley?'

'Ah, the harmless Mr Q, together with his usual ineffable charm…' Walmsley rocked with his own wit and Glencross sniggered with him.

'Go to the devil, Walmsley. If you take my advice you'd stop drinking that stuff at sea. Have you seen the state of the surgeon?'

'Macpherson couldn't hold his liquor like a gentleman…'

'God, Walmsley, what rubbish you do talk. Macpherson drinks from idleness or disappointment and has addled his brain. Rum has rotted him as surely as the lues, and the same will happen to you, you've the stamp of idleness about you.'

'How dare you…!'

'Pipe down, Walmsley. You would best address the evening to consulting Hamilton Moore. I am instructed by the captain that he wishes to see your journals together with an essay upon the 'Solution of the longitude problem by the Chronometer'.'

'Bloody hell!'

'Where's Mr Frey?'

'Crept away to his hammock like a good little child.'

'Good. Be so kind as to tell him to present his journal to the captain tomorrow. Good night.' Quilhampton swung round to return to the deck, bumping into Singleton who entered the cockpit with evident reluctance.

'Cheer up, sir!' he said looking back into the gloom, 'I believe the interior of an igloo to be similar but without some of the inconveniences…' Chuckling to himself Quilhampton ran up the ladder.

'Good evening, gentlemen.' Singleton's remark was made with great forbearance and he moved stealthily as Melusine continued to buck and swoop through the gale.

He managed to seat himself and open the book of sermons, ignoring the curious and hostile silence of Walmsley and Glencross who were already into their third glass of brandy. They began to tell each other exaggerated stories of sexual adventure which, Singleton knew, were intended to discomfit him.

'… and then, my dear Glencross, I took her like an animal. My, there was a bucking and a fucking the like of which would have made you envious. And to think that little witch had looked at me as coy as a virgin not an hour since. What a ride!'

'Ah, I had Susie like that. I told you of Susie, my mother's maid. She taught me all I know, including the French way…' Glencross rolled his eyes in recollection and was only prevented from resuming his reminiscence by Midshipman Wickham calling the first watch. The two half-drunk midshipmen staggered into their tarpaulins.

Singleton sighed with relief. He had long ago learned that to remonstrate with either Walmsley or Glencross only increased their insolence. He put his head in his hands and closed his eyes. But the vision of Susie's French loving would not go.

Eight bells rang and Walmsley and Glencross staggered out of the cockpit. As he passed Dutfield's hammock, his lordship nudged it with his shoulder.

'Stop that at once, Dutfield,' deplored Walmsley in a matriarchal voice, 'or you will go blind!'

Captain Drinkwater looked from one journal to another. Mr Frey's was a delight. The boy's hand was bold and it was illustrated by tiny sketches of the coastline of east Scotland and the Shetlands. There were some neat drawings of the instruments and weapons used in the whale-fishery and a fine watercolour of Melusine leading the whalers out of the Humber past the Spurn Head lighthouse. The others lacked any kind of redeeming feature. Wickham's did show a little promise from the literary point of view but that of Lord