The Corvette

'Have you any questions, gentlemen?'

The assembled officers shook their heads. Sawyers of Faithful had loaned his speksioneer, Elijah Pucill, to assist Mr Quilhampton in bringing home Nimrod. Gorton was sufficiently recovered to command Conqueror, seconded by Lord Walmsley. Sawyers's son was assisting Glencross in the Aurore. The crews of the two whalers had been tempered by prize crews from Melusine while those elements whose loyalty might still be in doubt were quartered aboard the sloop herself. Drinkwater dismissed them, each with a copy of his orders. They filed out of the cabin. Captain Sawyers hung back.

'You wished to speak to me, Captain Sawyers?'

'Aye, Friend. We have both been busy men during the past five days. I wished for a proper opportunity to express to thee my gratitude. I have thanked God, for the force of thine arm was like unto David's when he slew Goliath, yet I know that to be an instrument of God's will can torture a man severely.'

Drinkwater managed a wry smile at Sawyers's odd reasoning. 'I am considering it less hazardous to be surrounded by ice than by theologians. But thank you.'

'I have left thy servant, the Cornishman, a quantity of furs. Perhaps thou might find some use for them better than draped over the horses of the un-Godly.'

Drinkwater grinned. Some explanation of Sawyers's activities in the last few days suggested itself to Drinkwater. It occurred to him that Sawyers knew all along of Ellerby's treachery but his religious abhorrence of war enabled him to overlook it. Besides, now the shrewd Quaker had most of Nimrod's cargo of furs safely stowed aboard the Faithful.

'What have you entered in your log book concerning your capture?'

'That I was taken by a French privateer, conducted to an anchorage and liberated by thyself. I have no part in thy war beyond suffering its aggravations.'

'Good. It was not my intention to advertise this treachery. Much distress will be caused thereby to the families of weak and defenceless men.'

Sawyers raised an eyebrow. 'Canst thou afford such magnanimity? Seamen gossip, Friend.'

'Captain Sawyers, if you were to come upon two unmanned whalers anchored inside the Spurn Head, would you ensure they came safely home to their owners?'

A gleam of comprehension kindled in Sawyers's eyes. 'You mean to press the crews when you have anchored the ships?'

'There are a few of your men already on board to claim salvage. I am not asking you to falsify your log, merely amend it.'

Sawyers chuckled. 'A man who cannot write a log book to his own advantage is not fit to command a ship, Captain Drinkwater.' He paused. 'But what advantage is there to thee?'

Drinkwater shrugged. 'I have a crew again.'

'Patriotism is an unprofitable business and thy acumen recommends thee for other ventures. But have you considered the matter of their press exemptions?'

'I had them collected from the two ships. They burned with Requin.'

'And Waller?' asked Sawyers, raising an eyebrow in admiration.

Drinkwater smiled grimly. 'Ellerby may take the burden of treachery dead. Waller can expiate his greed if not his treason by serving the King along with the rest of the whale-men. It is better for them to dance at the end of the bosun's starter rather than a noose. Besides, as Lord St Vincent was at pains to point out to me, loss of whale-men means loss of prime seamen. It seems a pity to deprive His Majesty of seamen to provide employment for the hangman.'

Sawyers laughed. 'I do not think that it is expiation, Friend. It seems to be immolation.'

Drinkwater lingered a while after the Quaker had departed, giving him time to return to Faithful, then he reached for his hat and went on deck to give the order to weigh anchor.

Drinkwater stared astern. Gulls dipped in Melusine's wake and beside him the jury rudder creaked. As if veiling itself the coast of Greenland was disappearing in a low fog. Already Cape Jervis had vanished.

Far to the west, above the fog bank, disembodied by distance and elevation, the nunataks of the permanent ice-cap gleamed faintly, remote and undefiled by man.

Drinkwater turned from his contemplation and began to pace the deck. He thought of Meetuck who had disappeared for several days, terrified of the guns that rumbled and thundered over his head. He had reappeared at last, driven into the open by hunger and finally landed a hero among his own people. He remembered the thirty odd Melusines that would not return, Bourne among them. And the survivors; Mr Midshipman Frey, Gorton, Hill, Mount and James Quilhampton. And little Billie Cue about whose future he must write to Elizabeth.

He looked astern once more and thought of Singleton, ministering to the sick veterans of an atheist government who were corrupting the eskimos. Singleton would die attempting to alleviate their agonies and save their souls whilst proclaiming the existence of a God of universal love.

There was no sense in it. And yet what was it Singleton had said?

'Mr Frey!'

'Sir?'

'Be so kind as to fetch me a Bible.'

'A Bible, sir?'

'Yes, Mr Frey. A Bible.'

Frey returned and handed Drinkwater a small, leatherbound Bible. Drinkwater opened it at St John's Gospel, Chapter Fifteen, verse thirteen. He read:

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Then he remembered Singleton's muttered quotation as they had stared at the French veterans: 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.'

'It's all a question of philosophy, Mr Frey,' he said suddenly, looking up from the Bible and handing it back to the midshipman.

'Is it, sir?' said the astonished Frey.

'And the way you look at life.'

Chapter Twenty-One The Nore

November 1803 

'Square the yards, Mr Hill, and set t'gallants.'

Drinkwater watched the departing whalers beat up into the Humber, carried west by the inrush of the flood tide. He had at least the satisfaction of having obeyed his orders, collecting the other ships, the Earl Percy, Provident, Truelove and the rest, at the Shetland rendezvous. He had now completed their escort to the estuary of the River Humber and most of them were taking advantage of the favourable tide to carry them up the river against the prevailing wind. Only Nimrod, Conqueror and Faithful remained at anchor in Hawke Road while Sawyers shipped his prize crews on board to sail the remaining few miles to the mouth of the River Hull.

Amidships Drinkwater watched Mr Comley's rattan flick the backsides of reluctant whalemen into Melusine's rigging. Their rueful glances astern at their former ships tugged at Drinkwater's conscience. It had been a savage and cruel decision to press the crews of the Nimrod and Conqueror, but at least his action would appear to have the sanction of common practice and no-one would now hang for the treachery of Jemmett Ellerby. The irony of his situation did not escape him. A few months earlier he had given his word that no-one would be pressed from his convoy by a marauding cruiser captain intent on recruiting for the Royal Navy here off the Spurn. Now he had done