The Corvette

A quick kill, a short voyage, the success of a task that had seemed once so very difficult and French privateers a figment of the First Lord's overworked imagination. He had only one reservation, and his inexperience in ice nagged him.

'How far into the lead will they go, Captain Harvey? That looks like dense shelf ice to me, if it closes you may survive but this ship will be crushed like an egg-shell.'

Harvey shook his head. 'I've heard of this happening once before, Captain Drinkwater, in my father's day, sixty-eight or nine, I think. Happen if the whales take themselves into the lead then it'll not close.'

Drinkwater could see Harvey's argument, but it was imperfect. The whales might turn and swim back faster than a ship could beat to windward, the wind might shift and blow the ice to the south-west of them to the north again. He said as much to Harvey and watched the disappointment in the Yorkshireman's eyes.

'The ice'll not close, not for a week at least, and we'll have our casks full by then…' The lust of the hunter was strong in him. Drinkwater could sense his sudden impatience to be gone, to be pointing the harpoon gun that gleamed dully in the bow of his whale-boat.

A short voyage. Home and an end to the ache in his shoulder. Elizabeth…

'Very well, three days, damn you.' He grinned and Harvey grinned and smacked him painfully upon his shoulder. The lése-majesté caused the waiting officers to hide their grins and the instant Harvey had regained his boat Drinkwater called for all hands. He would make them pay for their impertinence, damn it!

'Set the t'gallants, Mr Rispin!'

'Set t'gallants, sir.' He watched Rispin pick up the speaking trumpet as the watch below tumbled up the hatchways. The lieutenant launched into his customary stream of largely superfluous orders.

'After guard to hoist the main t'garns'ls. Bosun's mate, send the after guard to man the main t'garns'l halliards, there! Corporal of marines, send the marines aft to man the mizen t'garns'ls halliards. Master at arms! Send below and turn up the idlers, stewards and servants, messmen, cooks-mates, sweepers and loblolly boys!'

This volley of orders was answered by the petty officers who thumped the fife-rails for good effect with their starters, cursing and shouting at the men.

'Topmen aloft, aloft…' Rispin's strange, hysterical system seemed to galvanise the hands, as though they were all suddenly aware that the hunt for whales had taken on a new, more primitive flavour. And yet, watching from the larboard hance, one foot upon the slide of Palgrave's fancy brass carronade, Drinkwater once again received the strong impression that they were engaged upon a yachting excursion. Perhaps it was just the excitement, perhaps the extravagance of Rispin's fancy orders that had about it that ritual quality he had observed aboard such craft as the Trinity House Yacht back in eighty-eight, or perhaps it was the fantastic cake-icing seascape that surrounded him that induced the Arctic calenture.

'Let fall! Sheet home!' The yards rose as the canvas fell.

He shook off the ridiculous feeling. 'Mr Quilhampton!'

'Sir?'

'Aloft with you, we shall run into the ice lead and work ahead of the whales.'

'Aye, aye, sir.' Drinkwater looked at the compass.

'Steer west by north.'

'West by north, sir… west by north it is, sir.'

'Sheet home there! Belay!' Rispin at last pronounced topgallants hoisted.

'Square the yards, Mr Rispin, course west by north.'

Rispin acknowledged the order and his voice rose again as he bawled through the trumpet.

'After guard and marines to the weather mainbrace! Forebrace there! Bosun's mate start those men aft here! Haul in the main brace, pull together damn you and mind the weather roll! That's very well with the main yard! Belay there! Belay! Belay the fore-yard, don't come up any…!'

It went on for some minutes before Mr Rispin, fussing under his captain's eye, was satisfied with the trim of the yards and Melusine had already gathered way. From her leeward position she was up among the whalers and their boats now. Two boat-flags were already up, with Narwhal's colours on them, Drinkwater noticed. He raised his hat to Harvey's mate who conned the whaler while his commander was out after the fish. He saluted Abel Sawyers as Melusine swept past the Quaker in his boat, his men pulling furiously to catch a great bull whale a musket shot on the sloop's starboard bow. Then they were in among the whales, the air misty with their breathing, a foetid taint to it. The humps of the shining backs, the flick of a great tail and once a reappearance of that great ugly-noble head as it sluiced the water through the baleen in an ecstasy of surfeit.

'Beat to quarters, Mr Rispin,' Drinkwater said it quietly, watching the young officer's reaction. He noted the surprise and the hesitation and then the acknowledgement.

Pipes squealed again and the marine drummer began to beat the rafale. Men ran to their stations and knelt by the guns, the officers and midshipmen drew their dirks and swords and the gun- captains raised their hands as their guns became ready.

'Sail trimmers, Mr Hill. We'll heave-to and fire a broadside ahead of the leading whales!' Hill was at his station and had relieved Rispin. There was now an economy of orders as Hill deployed the men chosen to trim the Melusine's sails and spars in action. Bourne too was beside him, ready to pass orders to the batteries. 'Load ball, Mr Bourne, all guns at maximum depression, both broadsides to be ready.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Melusine had entered the lead now. On either side the backs of whales still emerged, their huge tails slowly thrusting the water as they drove majestically along. Beyond the whales, close to larboard and some miles distant to starboard, the ice edge glittered in the sunlight, full of diamond brilliants shading to blue shadows with green slime along the waterline.

He was aware of Mr Singleton on the quarterdeck. 'Should you not be at your station?' he asked mildly.

'I beg your pardon, sir, I took it to be another of these interminable manoeuvres that…'

'Never mind, never mind. You may watch now you are here.'

Singleton turned to see Meetuck pointing excitedly from the fo'c's'le as a female whale rolled luxuriously on her side, exposing her nipple for her calf. 'It seems scarcely right to kill these magnificent creatures,' he muttered to himself, remembering the Benedicite. The mother and calf fell astern.

'Down helm, Mr Hill, you may heave the ship to…' There were more orders and Melusine swung to starboard, easing her speed through the water to a standstill.

'Larboard battery! Make ready!' The arms went up and he nodded to Bourne.

'Fire!'

The broadside erupted in smoke and flame with a roar that made the ears tingle. The balls raised splashes, a cable to leeward where two big whales had been seen. Through the drifting smoke Drinkwater saw one huge fluke lift itself for a moment as the whale dived, but he had no idea whether he had reversed its course.

'Reload!' There was a furious and excited activity along the larboard waist. There was nothing to compare with firing their brute artillery that so delighted the men, officers and ratings alike.

'You may give them another broadside, Mr Bourne.'

Again the arms went up and again the shots dropped ahead of the whales. Drinkwater turned to starboard, to look back up the strait. The whalers were three miles away and between them and the Melusine was a most extraordinary sight. The sea seemed to boil with action. He could see more than a dozen boats. Three were under tow by harpooned whales, others were in the act of striking, their harpooners up in the bows as the tense steersmen brought their flimsy oars into the mass of whales that had now taken alarm and were swimming south-west, along the line of the lead. Beyond these two boats crews were lancing their catches, probing for the lives of the great beasts as their victims rolled and thrashed the water with their great tails. Through his glass Drinkwater could see the foam of their death agonies tinged with blood. A few flags were up on dead carcases and these were either under tow to the whalers or awaiting the few boats that could be spared for this task.

Drinkwater saw at once that he could not fire his starboard guns without endangering the boats but their crews were excitedly awaiting the order that would send their shot in amongst the whales.

'By God,' he heard Walmsley mutter to Glencross, 'this is better than partridge.'