The Corvette

gunner checked the flints in the gun-locks, he felt that the ship's services were somewhat wasted. They still went to quarters twice a day and exercised the guns with powder every third day; the unaccustomed presence of a marine sentry at his door and the pendant of a 'private' ship of war at the mainmasthead were constant reminders that Melusine was a King's ship, a man-of-war.

But Drinkwater was aware of a feeling seeping through the ship that she had undergone some curious enchantment, that, for all the hazards they had and would encounter, these were natural phenomena. He could not throw off the growing feeling that they were on some elaborate, dangerous but nevertheless curious pleasurable yachting excursion. Preoccupied with this consideration he was surprised at the little party of officers that suddenly confronted him.

'Beg pardon, sir.'

'Yes, Mr Mount, what is the matter?' It seemed like some deputation and for a moment his heart missed a beat in alarm, for his thoughts had run from yachting to naval expeditions like Cook's and, inevitably, Bligh's. He looked at the officers. With Mount were Rispin and Hill, Gorton, Quilhampton.

Walmsley, Glencross, Dutfield and Wickham with an angry Obadiah Singleton apparently were bringing up the rear with some reluctance. They seemed to be carrying a bundle.

'We thought, sir, that you might consider accepting a gift from us all…'

'Gift, Mr Mount…?'

'Something to keep you warm, sir, as Mr Hill informs me we crossed the seventy-second parallel at noon.'

They offered him the magnificent pelt of the polar bear.

Greatly daring Mount said, 'The Thirty-sixth Article of War is of little use in a boat sir.' It was an impropriety, but an impropriety made in the spirit of the moment, in tune with the bitingly cold, clean air and the sunshine breaking through the clouds. It was all thoroughly unreal for the quarterdeck of a sloop of war.

'Thank you, gentlemen,' he said, 'thank you very much. I am indebted to you all.'

Bourne crossed the deck to join them. 'Perhaps, sir, at a suitable occasion you will honour the gunroom for dinner.'

Drinkwater nodded. 'I shall be delighted,' he said, removing cloak and greygoe and flinging the great skin around him. 'What happened to the animal's head?'

'We had him Mounted, sir,' said Walmsley mischieviously and they drifted forward in high spirits, just as if they were on a yachting cruise.

Chapter Eleven The Great Hunt

 July 1803

Mr Quilhampton swung the glass from larboard beam to starboard bow. At first he saw nothing unusual for they had been aware that the loose floes would give way to close pack ice and probably to an ice shelf, from the ice blink that had been in sight for some twelve hours. He was taking some comfort from the isolation of the crow's nest to nurse his wounded pride. He was disappointed at Mr Gorton's advancement, and although he acknowledged the kindness of Mr Hill in mollifying him, it did not prevent him from suffering. He would have liked to return home a lieutenant, to indulge in a little swagger with a new hanger at his hip and a cuff of buttons instead of the white collar patches of the novice, when he entered the Edinburgh drawingroom of Catriona MacEwan. He had already furnished and populated the room in his imagination, but he was still perfecting the manner of his entrance, torn between an amusing frightening of Catriona's perfectly awful aunt with his wooden hand, or the upstaging of a languid rival who would probably be wearing the theatrical uniform of a volunteer yeomanry regiment, Although amusing, he had already astonished the old lady with his hand, and, in any case, the jape smacked more of the cockpit he wished to leave, than the gunroom to which he aspired. No, the discomfiture of the rival it must be, then…

'Masthead there!' He looked down. The master was looking aloft.

'Sir?'

'Narwhal's signalling, what d'you make of it?'

Recalled to his duty Quilhampton levelled the big watch glass. The six whalers were bowling along on the larboard tack. Melusine was slightly to leeward of them all, but astern of Narwhal. The whaler's signal flaps streamed out in a straight line towards the sloop and were impossible to read. He struggled with the glass but could not make head or tail of the flag hoist. He hailed the deck and told Hill. Looking round the horizon again he saw the reason almost at once. The fast moving school of whales that they had so patiently followed for three days now, beating to windward as the great fish swam with steady purpose to the north-west had slowed. They were circling and there were more of them. Quilhampton wondered if it was the entire school on the surface at the same time or whether they had made some sort of rendezvous for breeding purposes. And then he saw something else, something quite extraordinary.

Opening up upon their larboard beam was a great channel in the ice shelf. Quilhampton realised the extent of his preoccupation in not noticing it before. Apart from loose floes he estimated the opening was several miles wide, partly hidden by a low raft of hummocked ice. In the channel the water appeared greener, forming an eutrophid strait between great continents of ice. Here was the reason for the whales' mysterious migration, a krill and plankton-rich sea which they had sensed from a distance.

Already Narwhal had two boats in the water. Provident, Earl Percy and Faithful were heaving to. Diana had still to come up and Truelove, fallen off to the eastward, had seen Narwhal's signal and altered to the west.

Quilhampton swung himself through the trapdoor and hurried down the mainmast rigging.

Drinkwater realised the significance of the great ice-free lead as soon as he reached the crow's nest. He was perceptive enough to know that the strange channel that seemed to exist as far as the eye could see to the westward was unusual. Entering the channel the right whales had slowed. He could see twenty or thirty at any one time on the surface, their spouts so numerous as to form a cloud above them as they vented through their spiracles. From time to time a great, blunt head would appear, the baleen gleaming in a rigid grin while seawater poured from the corners of the gaping mouth as the fibrous whale-bone strained the tiny organisms from the sea.

He sensed, too, a change of tempo from the pursuing whalers. As he swung his glass on the two nearer ships he counted the boats already in the water. Narwhal and the nearer ships had all their boats out, Diana, a little to the east was lowering, while Truelove had hoisted her topgallants in her haste to join the great hunt.

Surprisingly he saw a boat from Narwhal turn away from the whales towards the sloop and through the glass he could see Harvey himself standing in the bow. He swung his glass once more to the west. The open lead, with hardly a floe loose on its extraordinary surface, beckoned them to the westwards. It seemed to Drinkwater that the ice shelf had suddenly split, moved by some elemental force, and pulled apart. Momentarily he wondered whether that force might be reversed, that if they entered the channel they might be trapped and crushed. Shaking off his apprehension he made his way below, arriving on the quarterdeck as Harvey's boat came up under the quarter and Lieutenant Rispin, at a nod from Drinkwater, invited Harvey on board.

Harvey's eyes were shining with excitement, illuminating his snubnosed face and eradicating the disfigurements of the smallpox. Drinkwater immediately warmed to him. 'Good morning, Captain Harvey, I am surprised you are not in hot pursuit of the fish.'

Harvey grinned and dispensed briefly with the formalities. 'There will be enough pickings here, captain, if we can hold the whales, to fill all our empty casks and send us safe back to Hull, but we want your assistance.'

'How so?'

'Well, the whales will likely follow th'krill and all into yonder lead. Once we get amongst them they'll swim to west, like. If you'd put this ship ahead of the fish and drop cannon fire ahead of them it'll slow them like, stop them escaping… will you do it?'