behalf of the mess to make some purchases of wine, a decent cheese and some fat poultry. He was approaching the Sally Port and looking for Tregembo, the able seaman he had ordered to take back one load of mess stores, when a portly clerk bustled up to him.
'Excuse me, young sir ...' The man attached himself to Drinkwater's sleeve.
'Yes? What is it?'
The clerk was breathless and anxious, wiped his face with a none-too-clean handkerchief and gaspingly explained his predicament. 'Oh sir, I just missed Acting Lieutenant Durham, sir, he's aide to Rear-Admiral Kempenfelt... There's his boat, confound it...' The little man pointed at a smart gig just then pulling offshore. Plunging his handkerchief back in his pocket, he drew a letter from his breast. It was sealed with the dockyard wafer.
'I wonder, sir, if I might trouble you to deliver this to the admiral aboard the
'But,' the clerk ran on, 'he is a most precipitate young man and had left before I had completed the copying...'
'Please don't concern yourself further,' Drinkwater interrupted impatiently. 'The flagship lies in my way. I only hesitate because I am waiting for some provisions and it may be ten or twenty minutes before I am ready to leave.'
Relief flushed the clerk's face and he pawed at Drinkwater in an effusion of gratitude. 'Oh, my dear sir, I require only your assurance that you will deliver the letter this afternoon, otherwise in your own good time, sir, in your own good time, to be sure.'
'Well you may rest assured of that.'
'And pray to whom am I indebted, sir?'
'Drinkwater, fourth of the
'Ah yes, Captain Hope. A most tenacious officer. Thank you, sir, thank you. I am vastly obliged to you, vastly obliged.' And the curious fellow backed away into the crowd, half bowing as he retreated. Drinkwater was left pondering the aptness of the adjective 'tenacious' as it applied to Hope.
A quarter of an hour later,
Compared to the clerk, he was indeed fortunate, and it occurred to him that the encounter might be fortuitous, if not providential. The order in his pocket offered him an opportunity to present himself before Kempenfelt. The thought gave him a private satisfaction and his mind ran on to the order in his pocket, recollecting that other boat trip he had made in the chilling winter wind when the wherry-man had given him lessons on ship- building and the erection of fences.
When they arrived alongside the flagship, Drinkwater ordered the cutter to lie off and wait, then scrambled up the huge ship's tumble-home and stepped into the gloom of the entry. The marine sentry came to attention at the sight of his blue coat whence the white collar patches had been removed but which betrayed their recent presence, and the duty midshipman, a young boy of perhaps eleven years of age, accosted him.
'May I enquire your ship and business?' the boy asked in a falsetto pipe that seemed incongruous against the dark and heaving background of the gun-deck.
'Drinkwater, fourth lieutenant of the
Drinkwater was shown into Kempenfelt's dining quarters which served, betwixt dinners, as an ante-room. At the table sat a man in a plain civilian coat. His pen moved industriously across a sheet of paper, stopping occasionally to recharge itself with ink from the well. Drinkwater observed that this action was so familiar to the admiral's secretary that he did not have to look up, but dipped his pen with unerring accuracy. Completing his task, the secretary sanded the paper, shook it and looked up over the top of a pair of half-moon spectacles. He had a shrewd face and his eyes did not miss the betraying patches of unweathered broadcloth on Drinkwater's lapels.
'Well, sir? State your business.'
'I bear a letter from the dockyard for His Excellency. I believe it was not ready when Lieutenant Durham left.' Without a word, the secretary held out his hand. Anxious to secure at least a glimpse of Kempenfelt, Drinkwater added conversationally, 'I understand the admiral is most anxiously awaiting it...'
'Then give it here, sir, and remove the anxiety from your mind,' the clerk retorted, his outstretched fingers making an impatient little flutter. At that moment the door to the great cabin opened and the light from the stern windows shone through, silhouetting a tall figure.
'Is Durham back with that order to dock yet, Scratch?'
'No, Sir Richard, but this young man has it.' Drinkwater relinquished the letter and the secretary applied his paper-knife while Kempenfelt regarded the stranger.
'Have I seen you before?' he asked, stepping out of the doorway so that Drinkwater could see his face properly.
'I think not, Sir Richard,' Drinkwater bowed, 'Drinkwater, acting fourth of the
'Ah yes, Hope's hopeful' Kempenfelt smiled. 'You've been wounded.'
'In the taking of
'The Carolinas?' Kempenfelt's brow furrowed in recollection. 'Ah yes, I recall the business. A privateer, eh? A murderous skirmish, no doubt. Now Scratch,' went on the admiral, turning to his secretary who had read the note, 'what d'ye have there? Good news, I hope.' Kempenfelt held out his hand. 'Good day to you, Mr Drinkwater.'
Drinkwater retired crest-fallen, once again disappointed in the high aspirations of impatient youth.
'Our number, sir,' Midshipman White reported formally to Drinkwater, 'send a boat.'
Drinkwater raised the long watch glass and studied the
'Very well, Chalky, do you take the starboard cutter and see what they want, and while you're over there, try and find out why she hasn't been taken to dock. I took aboard an order for it and they seemed anxious to get her in.'
White obeyed the order with evident reluctance. The seductive smell of coffee and something elusive wafting up from below reminded them both that they had been on deck for some hours and were eager to break their fasts. A trip to the
Drinkwater fell to pacing the deck. Along the starboard gangway the sergeant of marines was parading his men for Lieutenant Wheeler's routine morning inspection prior to changing the sentries. Below, in the waist, the sail-maker had half the watch with needles and palms stitching a new main topsail. Hanks of sail-twine and lumps of beeswax were in evidence as the heavy canvas was stretched by means of hooks and lanyards to facilitate the difficult job of creating the sail. Old 'Sails' wandered round, looking over the shoulders of the seamen as they laboured, chatting quietly among themselves. Woe betide any man who drew less than ten stitches per needle- length, for he would receive a mouthful of abuse from the sail-maker. 'Such neat work would put a seamstress to envy,' Drinkwater recollected being told by Mr Blackmore, the sailing master, 'and so it should, for what seamstress