Ebb tide

representations of nautical instruments and lighthouses. The Elder Brethren who formed the ruling court of this ancient body, as well as licensing pilots and buoying out the Thames Estuary, the Downs and Yarmouth Roads, and generally overseeing their own and private lighthouses, also examined the proficiency of candidates seeking warrants as masters or mates in the Royal Navy.

It was a contentious matter, for to command a brig-sloop or unrated ship of less than twenty guns, a lieutenant or commander was supposed to have passed an examination before the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House. Indeed, implicit in the very rank 'Master and Commander' was lodged an acknowledgement of navigational skill, allowing the holder the courtesy title of 'Captain', without the confirmed and irreversible rights attaching to that of 'Post-Captain'. Therein lay the rub. Despite the fact that the Brethren were mariners of experience, all having commanded ships, and in spite of the Corporation being empowered by Royal Charter, they were themselves merchant masters. Officers holding commissions from the King considered that to submit to such examination was an affront to their dignity. Thus the exigencies of service at sea and abroad, and the expediences of special cases, combined with the more powerful influences of blood and interest almost to negate the wise provision of this regulation. It was, therefore, unfortunately observed mostly in the breach. The resulting ineptitude of many commissioned officers as navigators had frequently caused danger to naval ships and ensured continuing employment for those men brought up in merchantmen, whose humbler path led them into the navy as masters and mates. These men had their certificates from the Trinity House and their warrants from the Navy Board but, competent though they might be, commissioned they were not.

Strictly according to regulation, a midshipman was not permitted to act as prize-master unless he had passed for master's mate and thus demonstrated his competence to bring his prize safely into port. A mixture of luck and expedience had secured Drinkwater his own warrant as master's mate when he had served briefly in the Corporation's yacht under Captain Poulter. At the time she had been flying the flag of Captain Anthony Calvert, an Elder Brother on his way to the westward from Plymouth, and Calvert had obtained a certificate for the young Midshipman Drinkwater. Despite this brief service in the Corporation's buoy-yacht, this was the first time Drinkwater had visited the elegant headquarters on Tower Hill, built by Samuel Wyatt.

Drinkwater was shown to a seat in an ante-room by a dark-suited clerk. An Indian carpet deadened all sound except the measured and mesmeric ticking of a tall long-case clock which showed the phases of the moon. On one wall a magnificently wrought painting by Thomas Butterworth depicted a ship being broken to pieces under beetling cliffs. Drinkwater rose and studied the picture more closely. It was of the Ramillus whose wrecking, Drinkwater recalled being told, was due to the errors made by her sailing master. The thought was uncomfortable and he turned, only to gaze into the forbidding stare of a pendulous bellied master-mariner whose portrait glared from under a full peruke wig. The mariner pointed to a chart on an adjacent table upon which were also a telescope and a quadrant. Beyond lay a distant view of an old ship, leaning to a gale.

'This way, sir.' The clerk's appearance made Drinkwater jump. Nervously gathering up his papers, he followed the man into an adjacent but larger chamber. Here more ancient sea-captains stared down at him, and a seductive view of a British factory somewhere, Drinkwater guessed, on the coast of India, occupied one entire wall. In the background, surrounded by green palm trees and some native huts, lay the grim embrasures of a dun- coloured fort above which British colours lifted languidly. In the foreground three Indiamen lay at anchor, with a fourth in the process of getting under weigh, while native boats plied between them. Between Drinkwater and the painting there was a long table upon which lay some books, charts, rules and dividers. Gingerly Drinkwater laid his papers alongside them on the gleaming mahogany.

A moment later a man in a plain blue coat with red cuffs, white breeches and hose, his hair powdered and tied in a queue, strode briskly into the room. Drinkwater recognized him as Captain Calvert.

'Mr Drinkwater, good morning. I recall our previous meeting. You caused me a deal of trouble.'

'I did sir?' Drinkwater's surprise was unfeigned. Such a beginning was unfortunate.

'The Navy Board wished you to sit a proper examination before they granted your warrant and referred the matter back to this House. I said you had passed a better examination than most of your ilk and the matter became a shuttlecock until they relented and issued you your warrant.'

'I had no idea, sir,' Drinkwater said. 'You must think me an ingrate for not thanking you properly'

'Not at all. It was a point of principle between us and the gentlemen in the Strand.' Calvert waved Drinkwater's embarrassment aside and asked for his journals.

'I do not have them, sir,' he began as Calvert looked up sharply and withdrew his expectant hand. 'I was ordered to present myself for examination as lieutenant aboard the Royal George on the fatal morning she capsized, sir ...' He paused and passed across the table a slim volume of manuscript. 'This is what I have done subsequently.'

'So you were one of the few to escape?'

'Yes, sir.'

'And would have passed for lieutenant otherwise?'

'I entertained that hope, yes, sir.'

'We are more exacting here, Mr Drinkwater. A master's certificate is not so easily come by.'

Calvert drew the book towards him and turned its pages with maddening slowness while Drinkwater sat, endeavouring to mask his nervousness. When he had finished, Calvert closed the book and looked up. 'Well, sir, you seem to have committed some knowledge to paper, let us determine to what extent you have retained it elsewhere.'

Drinkwater's mouth felt dry.

'How many methods are there to determine longitude?'

'Two, sir. By chronometer and by lunar distances.'

'And which would you employ?'

'The former, sir, though I have tried the latter.'

'And on what grounds do you favour the former method?'

'It is less complex and better suited to shipboard observations now that the necessary ephemerides are available.'

Calvert nodded. 'Very well. Pray, explain the principle of observation by chronometer.' Drinkwater launched himself into an explanation of the hour-angle problem, discoursing on polar distances and right ascensions. He had hardly finished before Calvert threw him a simple query about latitude. Drinkwater hesitated, sensing a trap, but then answered.

Without reacting, Calvert continued: 'You are asked by your commander to advise him of the best time for a cutting-out operation. On what would you base your response?'

Drinkwater's mind went obligingly blank. He had survived one such attempt by a French ship when Cyclops had been anchored in the Galuda. He remembered it only as a wild night of gun flashes, sword thrusts, shouts and mayhem.

'Come, come, Mr Drinkwater, this is not so difficult, surely?' Calvert prompted impatiently. 'Employ your imagination a little before you are dead with indecision.'

'I er, I should require a dark night... I should, er, make a study of any dangers to navigation and endeavour to supply sufficient details of these and any clearing marks which might aid the passage of boats ... Oh, and I should seek to make such an attempt when the tides were most favourable, particularly for bringing the prize out.'

'Very well.' Calvert unfolded a chart and, turning it, pushed it across the table. He also indicated an almanac, a sheet of paper and a pencil. 'I wish to make such an attempt on a vessel lying in Camaret Road within the next week. When should I carry it out?'

Drinkwater bent to his task. Calvert presumed he knew the location of Camaret Road which was unfortunate, because he was not certain, but he soon found it near Brest and began the calculation that would give him a moonless night with the most favourable tide. It took him fifteen minutes to resolve the problem satisfactorily. An ebb tide out of the Iroise and a dark night gave him three possibilities and he chose the first on the grounds that if the operation failed or the weather was inclement, he would have two alternatives. Calvert expressed his approval and went on to ask him more questions, questions concerned with anchoring and sail- handling.

After further calculations, Calvert asked to be 'conducted verbally in a frigate from Plymouth Sound to St Mary's Road, Scilly'. It was a chink of daylight, for both men knew Drinkwater had made such a passage in the