1805

the frigate's young gentlemen to take advantage of circumstances. In manning the guns, Drinkwater had learned, most of the midshipmen had clambered into boats, and those who had not done so were now regretting their constraint.

Lord Walmsley had gone, followed by the Honourable Alexander Glencross, both under Rogers in the launch. Being well acquainted with his temperament, Drinkwater knew that Rogers would have—what was the new expression?—turned a blind eye, that was it, to such a lack of discipline. Wickham had also gone in the boats, carting off little Gillespy. Dutfield had not been on deck and Frey had too keen a sense of obligation to his post as signal midshipman to desert it without the captain's permission, even though the lack of visibility rendered it totally superfluous. As a consequence Drinkwater had posted Hill's two mates, Caldecott and Tyrrell, in the waist and in charge of the batteries.

'Gunfire to starboard, sir!'

The hail came from the fo'c's'le where someone had his arm stretched out. Drinkwater went to the ship's side and cocked his head outboard, attempting to pick up the sound over the water and clear of the muffled ship- noises on the deck. There was the bang of cannon and the crackle of small-arms fire followed by the sound of men shouting and cursing. It did nothing to lessen Drinkwater's anxiety but it provoked a burst of chatter amidships.

'Silence there, God damn you!' The noise subsided. Side by side with Hill, Drinkwater strained to hear the distant fight and to interpret the sounds. The cannon fire had been brief. Had Rogers attacked the brig successfully? Or had the brig driven Antigone's boats off? If so was Rogers pressing his attack against the invasion craft? And what had happened to little Gillespy and Mr Q? Anxiety overflowed into anger.

'God damn this bloody fog!'

As though moved by this invective there was a sudden lightening in the atmosphere. The sun ceased to be a pale disc, began to glow, to burn off the fog, and abruptly the wraiths of vapour were torn aside revealing Antigone becalmed upon a blue sea as smooth as a millpond. Half a mile away the brig lay similarly inert and without the aid of a glass Drinkwater could see her tricolour lay over her taffrail.

A cheer broke out amidships and beside him Hill exclaimed, 'She's ours, by God!' But uncertainty turned to anger as Drinkwater realised what Rogers had allowed to happen. He swept the clearing horizon with his Dolland glass.

'God's bones! What the hell does Rogers think he's about… Mr Hill!'

'Sir?'

'Hoist out my barge… and hurry man, hurry!'

Drinkwater swept the glass right round the horizon. There were no other ships in sight. But beyond the brig the convoy of chaloupes and péniches was escaping, quite unscathed as far as he could tell. In a lather of impatience Drinkwater sent Frey below for his sword and pistols.

'You will remain here, Mr Frey, to assist Mr Hill… Hill, you are to take command until Mr Rogers returns. I will take Tyrrell with me.' Frey opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again as he caught sight of the baleful look in his captain's eyes.

As he hurried into the waist, Drinkwater heard Hill acknowledge his instructions and then he was down in the barge and Tregembo was ordering the oars out and they were away, the oar looms bending under Tregembo's urging. He looked back once.

Antigone sat upon the water, her sails slack and only adding to the impression of confusion that the morning seemed composed of. He forced himself to be calm. Perhaps Rogers had had no alternative but to attack the brig. Drinkwater knew enough of Rogers's character to guess that the fog would have given him a fair excuse to ignore the invasion craft.

They were approaching the brig now. They pulled past three or four floating corpses. Someone saw their approach and then Rogers was leaning over the rail waving triumphantly.

'Pass under the stern,' Drinkwater said curtly to Tregembo, and the coxswain moved the tiller. Drinkwater stood up in the stern of the boat.

'Mr Rogers,' he hailed, 'I directed you to attack the invasion craft!'

Rogers waved airily behind him. 'Mr Q's gone in pursuit, sir.' The first lieutenant's unconcern was infuriating.

'You may take possession, Mr Rogers, and retain the quarter-boat. Direct Gorton and Mount to follow me in the launch!'

Rogers's crestfallen look brought a measure of satisfaction to Drinkwater, then they were past the brig and Drinkwater realised he had not even read her name as they had swept under her stern windows. Tregembo swung the boat to larboard as the invasion craft came into view.

Smaller than the brig and clearly following some standing order of the brig's commander, they had made off under oars as soon as Rogers's attack materialised. They were about a mile and a half distant and were no longer headed away from the brig. Seeing they were pursued by only a single boat they had turned, their oars working them round to confront their solitary pursuer. Mr Quilhampton's quarter-boat still pressed on, about half a mile from the French and a mile ahead of Drinkwater.

'Pull you men,' he croaked, his mouth suddenly dry; then, remembering an old obscenity heard years ago, he added, 'pull like you'd pull a Frenchman off your mother.'

There was an outbreak of grins and the men leaned back against their oars so that the looms fairly bent under the strain and the blades flashed in the sunshine and sparkled off the drops of water that ran along them, linking the rippled circles of successive oar-drips in a long chain across the oily surface of the sea. Drinkwater looked astern. The white painted carvel hull of the big launch was following them, but it was much slower. Drinkwater could see the black maw of the carronade muzzle and wished the launch was ahead of them to clear the way. The thought led him to turn his attention to the enemy. Did they have cannon? They would surely be designed to carry them in the event of invasion but were they fitted at the building stage or at the rendezvous? He was not long in doubt. A puff of smoke followed by a slow, rolling report and a white fountain close ahead of Quilhampton's boat gave him his answer. And while he watched Quilhampton adjust his course, a second fountain rose close to his own boat. For a second the men wavered in their stroke, then Tregembo steadied them. An instant later half a dozen white columns rose from the water ahead.

Beside him Tyrrell muttered, 'My God!' and Drinkwater realised the hopelessness of the task. What could three boats do against ten, no twelve, well-armed and, Drinkwater could now see, well-manned boats armed with cannon. One carronade was going to be damn-all use.

'Stand up and wave, Mr Tyrrell.'

'I beg pardon, sir?'

'I said stand up and wave, God damn you! Recall Quilhampton's boat before we are shot to bits!'

'Aye, aye, sir.' Tyrrell stood and waved halfheartedly.

'I said wave, sir, like this!' Drinkwater jumped up and waved his hat above his head furiously. Someone at the oars in Quilhampton's boat saw him.

'Swing the boat round, Tregembo, I'm breaking off the attack.'

'Aye, aye, zur,' Tregembo acknowledged impassively and the barge swung round.

He waved again, an exaggerated beckoning, until Quilhampton's boat foreshortened in its turn. 'Pull back towards the launch.' He sat down, relieved. Ten minutes later the three boats bobbed together in a conferring huddle while, nearly a mile away, the French invasion craft had formed two columns and were pulling steadily eastwards.

'Well they've lost a brig, sir,' said Mount cheerfully. A ripple of acknowledgement went round the boat crews, a palliative to their being driven off by the French.

'Very true, Mr Mount, and doubtless we'll all be enriched thereby, but the smallest of those péniches can carry fifty infantry onto an English beach and you have just seen how well they can hold off the boats of a man-of-war. If the French have a few days of calm in the Channel it will not matter how many of their damned brigs are waiting to be condemned by the Prize Court, if the Prize Court ain't able to sit because a French army's hammering on the doors.' He paused to let the laboured sarcasm sink in. 'In carrying out an attack with a single boat you acted foolishly, Mr Q.' Quilhampton's face fell. Drinkwater rightly assumed Rogers had ordered him forward, but that did not alter the fact that Drinkwater had nearly lost a boat-load of men, not to