The Corvette

found it impossible. Then he became acutely aware that the boy beside him was his son, not the baby he had left behind, but Richard at ten or eleven years. The boy's face was glowing, his full lips sweet and his eyes the deep brown of his mother's.

'Farewell, father,' the boy was saying, 'farewell, for we shall never meet again…'

'No, stay…!' Drinkwater was fully conscious, his mind filled with the departing vision of his son. A seaman whose name he could not remember looked aft from the bow. Drinkwater came suddenly to himself, aware that the extremities of his limbs were lifeless. He tried to move the midshipman. Mr Frey was asleep.

'Mr Frey! Mr Frey! Wake up! Wake up, all of you! Wake up, God damn it… and you, forrard, why ain't you holloaing like you were ordered… Come on holloa! All of you holloa and sing! Sing God damn and blast you, clap your hands! Stamp your feet! Mr Frey give 'em grog and make the bastards sing…'

'Sing, sir?' Frey awoke as though recalled from a distant place.

'Aye, Mr Frey, sing!'

Realisation awoke slowly in the boat and men groaned with the agony of moving. But Frey passed the keg of grog and they drained it greedily, the raw spirit quickening their hearts and circulation so that they at last broke into a cracked and imperfect chorus of 'Spanish Ladies'.

And just as suddenly as Drinkwater had roused them to sing, he commanded them to silence. They sat, even more dejected now that the howl of the wind reasserted itself and the boat bucked up and down and water slopped inboard over them.

The minute gun sounded again.

'A six-pounder, by God!'

'M'loosine, zur,' said Tregembo grinning.

'Listen for the next to determine whether the distance increases.' They sat silent for what seemed an age. The concussion came again.

''Tis nearer, zur.'

'Further away…'

They sat through a further period of tense silence. The gun sounded yet again.

Three voices answered at once. They were unanimous, 'Nearer!'

'Let us bear off a little, Mr Q. Remain silent there and listen for the guns, but each man is to chafe his legs… Mr Frey perhaps you would oblige me by checking the priming of those muskets. Then you had better rub Mr Q's calves. His hand may be impervious to the cold but his legs ain't.'

Half an hour later they were quite sure the Melusine's guns were louder, but the sea was rising and water entering the boat in increasing amounts. The hands were employed baling and Drinkwater decided it was time they discharged the muskets. They waited for the sound of the guns. The boom seemed slightly fainter.

The muskets cracked and they waited for some response. Nothing came. The next time the minute gun fired it was quite definitely further away.

The fog lifted a little towards dawn. Those on Melusine's quarterdeck could see a circle of tossing and streaked water some five cables in radius about them.

'With this increase in visibility, Mr Bourne, I think we can afford to take a chance. I suggest we put the ship about and stand back to the northward for a couple of hours.'

Bourne considered the proposition. 'Very well, Mr Hill, see to it.'

Melusine jibbed at coming into the wind under such reduced canvas as she was carrying and Hill wore her round. She steadied on the larboard tack, head once more to the north and Hill transferred the duty gun-crew to a larboard gun. It was pointless firing to windward. After a pause the cannon, Number Ten, roared out. Melusine groaned as she rose and fell, occasionally shuddering as a sea broke against her side and sent the spray across her rail.

'Sir! Sir!' Midshipman Gorton was coming aft from the foremast where he had been supervising the coiling of the braces.

'What is it?'

'I'm certain I heard something ahead, sir…'

'In this wind?…'

'A moment, Mr Rispin, what did you hear?'

'Well sir, it sounded like muskets, sir…'

The quarterdeck officers strained their eyes forward.

'Fo'c's'le there!' roared Hill. 'Keep your eyes open, there!'

'There sir! There!' Midshipman Gorton was crouching, his arm and index finger extended over the starboard bow.

'Mark it, Mr Gorton, mark it. Leggo lee mizen braces, there! Mizen yards aback!'

'Thank God,' breathed Mr Rispin.

'Thank Hill and Gorton, Mr Rispin,' said Lieutenant Bourne.

Mr Frey saw the ship a full minute before Mr Gorton heard the muskets.

'Drop the sail, Mr Q! Man the oars my lads, your lives depend upon it!'

They were clumsy getting the oars out, their tired and aching muscles refusing to obey, but Tregembo cursed them from the after thwart and set the stroke.

Drinkwater took them across Melusine's bow to pull up from leeward. He could see the sloop was hove-to and making little headway but he felt easier when he saw the mizen topsail backed.

As they approached it was clear that even on her leeward side it was going to be impossible to recover the boat. He watched as several ropes' ends were flung over the side and men climbed into the chains to assist. The painter was caught at the third and increasingly feeble throw and the gig was dashed against Melusine's spirketting and then her chains. The tie-rods extending below the heavy timbers of the channels smashed the gunwhale of the boat, but as the gig dropped into the hollow of the sea Drinkwater saw one pair of legs left dangling over the ledge of the chains where willing hands reached down. It was not a time for prerogative and Drinkwater refused to leave the boat until all the others were safe. He had little fear for the seamen, for all were fit, agile and used to scrambling about. But Frey was very cold and his limbs were cramped. Drinkwater called for a line and a rope snaked down into the boat. He passed a bowline round Frey's waist as the men scrambled out of the boat. As the gig rose and the rope was hauled tight, Drinkwater tried to support the boy. Suddenly the boat fell, half rolling over as the inboard gunwhale caught again and threatened to overset it. Frey dangled ten feet overhead, the line rigged from the cro'jack yardarm had plucked him from the boat. One of his shoes fell past Drinkwater as he grabbed a handhold. He looked down to find the gig half full of water. The mizen whip was already being pulled inboard and Drinkwater shouted.

'Mr Q! Up you go!' Quilhampton waited his moment. As the boat rose he leapt, holding his wooden left hand clear and extending his right. He missed his footing but someone grabbed his extended arm and his abdomen caught on the edge of the channel. Hands grabbed the seat of his trousers and he was dragged inboard winded and gagging.

Only Drinkwater was left. He felt impossibly weak. Above him the whole ship's company watched. He was aware of Tregembo, wet to the skin and frozen after his ordeal, leaning outboard from the main chains. One hand was extended.

'Come on, zur!' he shouted, a trace of his truculent, Cornish independence clear in his eyes.

Drinkwater felt the boat rise sluggishly beneath him. She would not swim for many more minutes. He leaped upwards, aware that his outstretched arm was only inches from Tregembo's hand, but the boat fell away and he with it, suddenly up to his waist in water as the gig sank under him.

'Here, zur, here!'

He felt the rope across his shoulders and with a mighty effort passed a bight about his waist, holding the rope with his left hand and the loose end with his right. He felt himself jar against the barnacled spirketting and the weight on his left arm told where he hung suspended by its feeble grip, then that too began to slide while he tried to remember how to make a one-handed bowline with his right hand. Then Melusine gave a lee roll and a sea reached up under his shoulders. He was suddenly level with the rail, could see the faces lining the hammock nettings. In an instant the sea would drop away again as the sloop rolled to windward. He felt the