The dull rumble of the gun trucks made the ship tremble as
'They're signalling sir,' Paine's voice cracked with excitement, descending into a weird baritone.
'Well, sir, can you read her number?' asked Drinkwater, aware that his own eyesight was not a patch on the lad's, and saying in an aside to Ashton, 'Better hang up our own.'
'In hand, sir.'
'Good ... Well, Mr Paine?' Drinkwater could see the little squares as flutterings of colour, but needed the midshipman's acuity to differentiate them. The lad fumbled and flustered for a few moments, referring to the code- book, then looked up triumphantly.
'Very well, Mr Paine. Mr Ashton, I shall want a boat...'
An hour later, rather damp from a wet transfer, Drinkwater stood in the richly appointed cabin of the thirty- eight gun frigate. Sir Peter Parker was a member of a naval dynasty, an urbane baronet of roughly equal seniority to Drinkwater.
'We've been cruising off the Breton coast,' he said, indicating the other two ships which had followed Parker's example and hove-to. He handed Drinkwater a glass of wine and explained his presence. 'I have received orders to sail for America once I have recruited the ship. I need wood and water, but can spare some powder and shot if we can get it across to you all right.'
'I'm obliged to you, Sir Peter. I confess to the Prince's orders being specific on the matter and, had I not run into you would have had to take my chance without replenishment.'
'So,' Parker frowned, 'Silly Billy insisted you stood directly for the Azores in anticipation of Boney's incarceration there, eh?'
Drinkwater nodded. 'Yes. There seems to be a general anxiety about Boney and his eventual whereabouts. He'll be conveyed to the Azores by a man-o'-war, but His Royal Highness thought it prudent to have a frigate on station there directly. I gained the impression the Prince and Their Lordships don't see eye to eye ...'
'I suppose Billy wants to let them know he's quite capable of thinking for himself,' Parker remarked, laughing.
'I daresay he had a point in believing the Admiralty Board would take their time in sending out a guardship,' Drinkwater remarked pointedly.
'Well, maybe Billy ain't so silly, eh?' smiled Parker, draining his glass. 'Nor is it inconceivable that Bonapartists would want to spirit their Emperor across the Atlantic. He could make a deal of trouble for us there.'
'Perish the thought,' agreed Drinkwater, 'though it is my constant concern.'
'Well, we shall do what we can.' Parker paused to pass word to his officers to get a quantity of powder and ball across to
'So you were part of the squadron that saw Fat Louis back to France then?' Parker asked, and Drinkwater did his best to satisfy Sir Peter's curiosity with a description of the event.
'Seems an odd way to end it all,' he remarked.
'Yes. Somehow inappropriate, in a curious way,' added Drinkwater.
'I presume the Bourbon court will try to put the clock back, while we have to turn our attention to America.'
Drinkwater nodded. 'Though if we bring our full weight to bear upon a blockade of the American coast, we should be able to bring the matter to a swift conclusion.'
'Let us hope so, but I must confess the prospect don't please me and if Boney interferes, we may be occupied for years yet,' Parker said, a worried look on his face, but the conversation was interrupted by a knock at the cabin door and a midshipman entered at Parker's command.
'First lieutenant's compliments, sir, but the wind's freshening. He don't think we can risk sending many more boats across.' The midshipman turned to Drinkwater and added, 'He said to tell you, sir, that we've sent twenty- eight small barrels and a quantity of shot.'
Drinkwater stood up. 'Parker, I'm obliged to you...' The two men shook hands and parted with cordial good wishes.
Out of the lee of the
The gale was upon them by nightfall. During the afternoon the sky gradually occluded and the horizon grew indistinct. The air became increasingly damp, the wind backed and a thickening mist transformed the day. The decks darkened imperceptibly with moisture and, although the temperature remained the same, the damp air seemed cooler.
'Backs the winds against the sun, trust it not, for back 'twill run.' Birkbeck recited the old couplet to Mr Midshipman Dunn. 'Remember that, cully, along with the other saws I've already taught you and they'll stand you in good stead.'
'Aye, aye, sir.' Mr Dunn bit his lip; he had failed to learn any of the 'saws' the master had tried to teach him, but dared not admit it and was terrified Birkbeck was about to ask him to recapitulate. Mercifully the cloaked figure of the captain rose up the after companionway, and Dunn took the opportunity to dodge away.
Drinkwater cast a quick glance about. Aloft the second reef was being put into the topsails. The men bent over the yard, their legs splayed on the foot-rope. Drinkwater peered into the binnacle, the boat-cloak billowing around him. From forward, the smoke coiling out of the galley funnel was flattened and drove its fumes along the deck. Above their heads there was a tremulous thundering as the weather leach of the fore-topsail lifted.
'Watch your helm there!' Birkbeck rounded upon the quartermaster, who craned forward and stared aloft, ordering the helmsmen to put the helm up a couple of spokes, allowing
'North of west, sir, I'm afraid,' Birkbeck reported apologetically to Drinkwater.
'It cannot be helped, Mr Birkbeck.'
They would have to endure another miserable night bouncing tiringly up and down, while the grey Atlantic responded to the onslaught of the wind and raised its undulating swells and sharper waves. It would be chilly and damp below decks; the hatches would be closed and the air below become poor and mephitic, a breeding ground for the consumption and an aggravation for the rheumatics, Drinkwater reflected gloomily. He tucked himself into the mizen rigging and sank into a state of misery. His tooth had ceased to equivocate and the infection of its root raged painfully. He had known for days that the thing would only get worse and it chose the deteriorating weather to afflict him fully. He would have to have the tooth drawn and the sooner the better; in fact a man of any sense would go at once to the surgeon and insist the offending tusk was pulled out. But Drinkwater did not feel much like a man of sense; toothache made a man peevishly self-centred; it also made him a coward. Having his lower jaw hauled about by Kennedy who, with a knee on his chest, would wrest the bulk of his pincers around until the tooth submitted, was not a prospect that attracted Drinkwater. As the sun set invisibly behind the now impenetrable barrier of cloud, the fading daylight reflected the captain's lugubrious mood.
He could, of course, insist Kennedy gave him a paregoric. A dose of laudanum would do the trick, at least until the morning. The idea made him think of Marlowe languishing in his bunk and his conscience stung him. Forcing himself to relinquish the clean, if damp, air of the deck, he went reluctantly below.
In the wardroom Lieutenant Hyde had discovered an equilibrium of sorts, having braced his chair so that he might lean back and read with his booted feet on the wardroom table. At the after end of the bare table Lieutenant Ashton sat in a Napoleonic pose, his expression remote, his hands playing with a steel pen, a sheet of paper before him. Neither officer realized who their visitor was until Drinkwater coughed.
'Oh! Beg pardon, sir.' Hyde's boots reached the deck at the same moment as all the legs of his chair, a sudden, noisy movement which snapped Ashton from his abstraction. He too stood up.
