The shadow of the eagle

This was imagined as perfectly possible among the prurient midshipmen, but when it was later postulated in the wardroom, Lieutenant Marlowe pooh-poohed it as ridiculous.

'D'you think I would not know a woman when she came aboard,' Marlowe said dismissively. 'A lot of Frenchmen do not have deep voices.'

This statement divided the wardroom officers into the credulous and the contemptuous, further disturbing the tranquillity of the ship.

'Well, what d'you think, Frey?' Ashton asked as he helped himself to a slice of cold ham. 'You've sailed with the queer old bird before.'

Frey shrugged. 'I really have no idea,' he replied evasively.

'But you must have!'

'Why?' Frey looked up from his own platter.

'Well, I mean does our Drink-water,' Marlowe laboured the name, thinking it witty, 'make a habit of entertaining French whores?'

Frey casually helped himself to coffee. It was painful to hear Drinkwater spoken of in such terms by this crew of johnny-come-latelies, but Frey was too open a character to dissemble. Drinkwater had, he knew, been a party to some odd doings during the late war, but he did not wish to expatiate to his present company. Why should he? These men were not comrades in the true sense of the word; they were merely acquaintances, to be tolerated while the present short commission was got over. Nevertheless he was assailed by a growing sense of anticlimax in all this. Superficially the task of conveying the rightful king of France back to his realm had a comfortably conclusive feeling about it. It was like the end of a fairy story, with the kingdom bisected in favour of the parvenu hero, and the princess given in marriage to cement the plot. Except that that was not what had happened; the parvenu hero had lost, the princess was snatched back by her father and the kingdom was being returned to the ogre.

'Well, Frey? It seems by your silence that you know damned well our Drinkie's a famous libertine, eh?' goaded Ashton.

'What confounded nonsense!' Frey protested. He did not like Ashton, seeing in the third lieutenant a manipulative and unpleasant character, but his introspection had delayed his response and he had left it too late to defend Drinkwater.

'Tut, tut. Now we know why he never hoisted himself up the sides of a two-decker,' said Marlowe pointedly and with such childish delight that a disappointed Frey concluded the man was either superficial, or of limited intelligence.

'You know very well we were only attached to the Royal Squadron in honour of His Royal Highness,' Frey said, trying to recover lost ground.

'I suppose they had to leave Drinkwater in her,' Hyde, the hitherto silent marine officer, put in, looking up briefly from his book. 'After all he has just taken a Danish cruiser ...'

'I heard he was damned lucky to get away with that,' said Ashton maliciously, 'and I heard he took a fortune in specie.'

'Is that true, Frey?' asked Marlowe, provoking Hyde to abandon his book.

Frey finished his coffee and rose from the table as Andromeda hit a wave and shuddered. An explosion of oaths from his brother officers revealed they had yet to acquire their sea-legs while his were perfectly serviceable.

'I expect so, gentlemen. But if you're so damnably curious, why don't you ask him yourself.' And clapping his hat upon his head, Lieutenant Frey left for the quarterdeck.

Later, Lieutenant Marlowe, having plucked up enough courage from the urgings of Lieutenant Ashton, took Frey's advice. He began to cross the deck, colliding with Birkbeck beside the binnacle as he made his way upwards from the lee hance.

'Steady, Mr Marlowe,' Birkbeck growled, 'in more ways than one.'

'What d'you mean by that?' asked Marlowe, reaching a hand out to support himself by the binnacle.

'I mean,' said Birkbeck in as quiet a voice as would carry above the low moan of the wind in the rigging and the surge and rush of the sea alongside, 'I shouldn't go a-bothering the captain just at the moment.

Marlowe looked askance at Birkbeck. The old man had been on deck since Andromeda had got under weigh, seeing her clear of the South Sand Head of the Goodwins and the Varne Bank. He had not been party to the speculation in the wardroom, so how did he know what was in Marlowe's mind? Moreover, he was unshaven and his hair, what there was of it, hung down from the rim of his hat in an untidy and, to Marlowe, offensive manner. Marlowe concluded the ruddy faced old man was an insolent fool. Damn-it, the man was not fit for a quarterdeck!

'I'll trouble you to mind your own business, Mister Birkbeck, while I mind mine.'

Birkbeck shrugged. 'Have it your own way, young shaver,' he replied as Marlowe, flushed with the insolence, strove to reach Drinkwater.

The captain had lodged himself securely against the larboard mizen pinrail which, although on the windward side of the ship was, from the effect of the frigate's tumblehome, the least windy place on the quarterdeck. He was staring forward, an abstracted look on his weatherbeaten features against which the line of a sword-scar showed livid.

Just as Lieutenant Marlowe reached the captain, Andromeda's bow thumped into the advancing breast of a wave. She seemed to falter in mid-stride, kicked a little to starboard as the wave sought to divert her from her chosen track, then found her course again. But the sudden increase in heel caught the unsteady Marlowe off balance. To preserve his dignity and prevent himself from falling ignominiously, Marlowe's hands reached out and scrabbled for the ropes belayed to the mizen pinrail. Instead they encountered Drinkwater's arm.

'What the ... ?'

Drinkwater turned, feeling the young man's vain attempt to seize him, then quickly reacted and seized Marlowe's outstretched hand.

'Come, sir, steady there! What the devil's the matter?'

Marlowe regained his balance, but lost his aplomb. 'I beg pardon, sir,' he gabbled all in a breath, 'but I wondered if you have any orders, sir.'

Had Drinkwater not been so dog-tired and had he not been almost asleep on his feet, he might have been in a better humour and laughed at the young officer's discomfiture. Reluctant to leave the deck, yet content to abandon matters to Birkbeck's competence, he had been languishing in the comfortable compromise of a reverie. As it was, only the helmsmen laughed surreptitiously, while Drinkwater showed a testy exasperation.

'Mr Birkbeck?' he called sharply.

'Sir?' Birkbeck came up the sloping deck with a practised, almost, Marlowe thought, insulting ease.

'What orders d'you have?'

'Why, sir, to keep her full-and-bye and make the best of our way down Channel.'

Drinkwater turned his gaze on Marlowe. 'There, Mr Marlowe, does that satisfy you?'

'Well, not really sir. I had hoped that you might confide in me, sir.'

'Confide in you, sir? If you sought a confidence, should not you have been on deck earlier, Mr Marlowe, when we were getting under weigh? After all, you knew of our visitor last night.'

'Well, sir, you did not condescend to inform me of anything consequent upon your visitor. As you know, under normal circumstances as first lieutenant I should not keep an anchor watch, but having done so since we were engaged upon a special duty, I had turned in and there was nothing in your night orders to suggest...'

'That you had to forgo your breakfast, no, of course not; but you are first lieutenant of a frigate on active service.'

'Active service, sir?' Marlowe frowned, looking round at Birkbeck who caught his eye and turned away. 'I do not think I quite understand, sir.'

'I am very certain you do not understand, Mr Marlowe.'

'But sir,' Marlowe's tone was increasingly desperate, 'might I not be privy to ... ?'

'No sir, you may not. Not at this moment. If Lieutenant Colville was sent out of hearing while His Royal Highness', Drinkwater invoked the pompous title with a degree of pleasure, sure that it would silence his tormentor,