The Corvette

'And left him to the polar bears, eh?'

'Exactly so, sir.'

Singleton had reached under the man's jerkin and was palpating the stomach. Curiously the eskimo did not seem to mind but began to point to his mouth.

'He's had little to eat, sir, for some time,' Singleton stood back, 'and I doubt whether soap has ever touched him.' Several noses wrinkled in disgust.

'Very well. Take him below and get that arm dressed. Give the poor devil some laudanum, Mr Singleton. As for the rest of you, you may give me a full account of your adventure at dinner.' He turned aft and nearly bumped into little Frey. 'Ah, Mr Frey…'

'Sir?'

'Do you think you could execute a small sketch of our friend?'

'Of course sir.'

'Very good, I thank you.'

The meal itself proved a great success. The trestle table borrowed from the wardroom groaned under the weight of fresh meat, an unusual circumstance of a man-of-war. In an ill-disguised attempt to placate his commander Lord Walmsley had offered Drinkwater two bottles of brandy which the latter did not refuse. The conversation was naturally about the afternoon's adventure and Drinkwater learnt of little Frey's sudden, frightening discovery of the sleeping polar bear which the boy re-told, his eyes alight with wine and the excitement of recollected fear. He heard again how Quilhampton, his musket resting in his wooden hand, had struck the animal in the shoulder and how Mount had established his military superiority by lodging a ball in the bear's skull.

'By comparison Bourne's triumph over the seals was of no account, sir, ain't that so, Bourne?' Mount said teasing his young colleague.

'That is an impertinence, Mount, if I had not had to secure the boat while you all raced in pursuit of quarry I should have downed the beast with a single shot.'

'Pah!' said Mount grinning, 'you should have left the boat to Walmsley or Glencross. I conceive it that you were hanging back from the ferocity of those somnolent seals.'

'Come, sir,' said Bourne with mock affront, 'd'you insinuate that I was frightened of an old bear who ran away at the approach of Mr Frey…'

Drinkwater looked at Frey. The boy coloured scarlet, uncertain how to take this banter from his seniors. Was Bourne implying the bear was scared by his own size or his own courage? Or that polar bears really were timid and his moment of triumph was thereby diminished?

Drinkwater felt for the boy, particularly as Walmsley and Glencross joined the raillery. 'Oh, Mr Bourne, the bear was absolutely terrified of Frey, why I saw him positively roll his eyes in terror at the way Frey hefted his musket. Did you not see that, Glencross?' asked Lord Walmsley mischievously.

'Indeed I did, why I thought he was loading with his mouth and firing with his knees…' There was a roar of laughter from the members of the hunting party who had witnessed the excited midshipman ascend an ice hummock with a Tower musket bigger than himself. He had stumbled over the butt, tripped and fallen headlong over the hummock, discharging the gun almost in the ear of the recumbent bear.

Poor Frey was in no doubt now, as to the purpose of his seniors' intentions. Drinkwater divined something of the boy's wretchedness.

'Come, gentlemen, there is no need to make Mr Frey the butt of your jest…'

There was further laughter, some strangled murmurs of 'Butt… butt… oh, very good, sir… very apt' and eventual restoration of some kind of order.

'Well, Mr Singleton,' said Drinkwater to change the subject and addressing the sober cleric, 'what d'you make of our eskimo friend?'

'He is named Meetuck, sir and is clearly frightened of white men, although he seems to have reconciled himself to us after he was offered meat…'

'Which he ate raw, sir,' put in Frey eagerly.

''Pon my soul, Mr Frey, raw, eh? Pray continue, Mr Singleton.'

'He claims to come from a place called Nagtoralik, meaning a place with eagles, though this may mean nothing as a location as we understand it, for these people are nomadic and follow their food sources. He says…'

'Pardon my interruption, Mr Singleton but do I understand that you converse with him?'

Singleton smiled his rare, dark smile. 'Well not converse, sir, but there are words that I comprehend which, mixed with gesture, mime and some of Mr Frey's quick drawings, enabled us to learn that he had found a putulik, a place with a hole in the ice through which he was presumably catching fish when he was attacked by a bear. He made his escape but in doing so fell and injured himself, breaking his arm. I think that scuppers the arguments of Mr Frey's persecutors, sir, that even an experienced hunter may fall in such terrain and also that the polar bear is capable of great ferocity.'

'Indeed, Mr Singleton, I believe it does,' replied Drinkwater drily. Cawkwell drew the cloth in his silent ghost- like way and the decanters began to circulate.

'Tell us, Mr Singleton how you came to learn eskimo,' asked Mount, suddenly serious in the silence following the loyal toast.

Singleton leaned forward with something of the proselytiser, and the midshipmen groaned inaudibly, but sat quiet, gulping their brandy avidly.

'The Scandinavians were the first Europeans to make contact with the coast of Greenland sometime in the tenth century. Their settlements lasted for many years before being destroyed by the eskimos in the middle of the fourteenth century. When the Englishman John Davis rediscovered the coast in 1585 he found only eskimos. Davis,' Singleton turned his gaze on the midshipmen with a pedagogic air, 'gave his name to the strait between Greenland and North America… The Danish Lutheran Hans Egede was able to study the innuit tongue before embarking with his family and some forty other souls to establish a permanent colony on the West Coast of Greenland. When he returned to Copenhagen on the death of his wife he wrote a book about his work with the eskimos among whom he preached and taught for some fifteen years. His son Povel remained in Greenland and completed a translation of Our Lord's Testament, a catechism and a prayer book in eskimo. Povel Egede died in Copenhagen in '89 and I studied there under one of his assistants.' Singleton paused again and this time it was Drinkwater upon whose face his gaze fixed.

'I refused to leave during the late hostilities and was in the city when Lord Nelson bombarded it.'

'That,' replied Drinkwater meeting Singleton's eyes, 'must have been an interesting experience.'

'Indeed, Captain Drinkwater, it persuaded me that no useful purpose can be served by armed force.'

A sense of affront stiffened the relaxing diners. To a man their eyes watched Drinkwater to see what reply their commander would make to this insult to their profession. From little Frey, ablaze with brandy and bravado; the arrogant insensitivity of Walmsley and Glencross and the puzzlement of Mr Quilhampton, to the testy irritation of a silent Mr Hill and the colouring anger of Mr Mount, the table seethed with a sudden unanimous indignation. Drinkwater smiled inwardly and looked at his first lieutenant. Mr Germaney had said not a word throughout the entire meal, declined the brandy and merely toyed with his food.

'That, Mr Singleton, is an interesting and contentious point. For my own part, and were the world as perfect as perhaps its maker intended, I should like nothing better than to agree with you. But since the French do not seem to be of your opinion the matter seems likely to remain one for academic debate, eh? Well, Mr Germaney, what do you think of Mr Singleton's proposition?'

The first lieutenant seemed at first not to have heard Drinkwater. Hill's nudge was far from surreptitious and Germaney surfaced unsure of what was required of him.

'I… er, I have no great opinion on the matter, sir,' he said hurriedly, hoping the reply sufficient. Remarking the enormity of Germaney's abstraction with some interest Drinkwater turned to the bristling marine officer.

'Mr Mount?'

'Singleton's proposition is preposterous, sir. The Bible is full of allusions to the use of violence, Christ's own eviction of the moneylenders from the Temple notwithstanding. Had he argued the wisdom of bombarding a civilian population I might have had some sympathy with his argument for it is precisely to preserve our homes that we serve here, but the application of force is far from useless…'

'But might it not become an end, rather than a means, Mr Mount?' asked Singleton, 'and therefore to be