1805 nd-6 Read online

  It is said that Boney himself went afloat in a gilded barge and that he dismissed Admiral Bruixfor attempting to draw a sword on him when he protested the folly of trying an embarkation in the teeth of a gale. What the truth of these rumours is I do not know, but it is certain that many men were drowned and some score or so of barges wrecked.

  He picked up his pen and finished the letter, then he sanded, folded and sealed it. Mullender came into the cabin and, at a nod from Drinkwater, poured him a glass of wine. He leaned back contented. Beyond the cabin windows the Channel stretched blue, calm and glorious under sunshine. Through the stern windows the reflected light poured, dancing off the deckhead and bulkheads of the cabin and falling on the portraits of his family that hung opposite. He became utterly lost in the contemplation of his family.

  His reverie was interrupted by a shouting on deck and a hammering at his cabin door.

  Drinkwater sat in his best uniform, flanked by Lieutenant Rogers and Lieutenant Fraser. The black shapes of their three hats sat on the baize tablecloth, inanimate indications of formality. Before them, uncovered, stood Midshipman Lord Walmsley. Drinkwater looked at the notes he had written after examining Midshipman Gillespy. The boy had been terrified but Drinkwater and his two lieutenants had obtained the truth out of him, unwilling to make matters worse by having to consult individual members of the boat's crew. Gillespy had withdrawn now, let out before Walmsley was summoned to hear the surgeon's report.

  Drinkwater had once entertained some hopes of the midshipman but this episode disgusted him. He himself had no personal feelings towards Waller beyond a desire to see him behave as any other pressed seaman on board and to see him treated as such. Walmsley knew of Waller's previous circumstances and Drinkwater assumed that this had led to his contemptuous behaviour.

  He looked up at the young man. Walmsley did not appear unduly concerned about the formality of the present proceedings. Drinkwater recollected his acquaintance with Camelford and wondered if Camelford's presence had set a portfire to this latent insolence and arrogance of Walmsley.

  The silence of waiting hung heavily in the cabin. Following the incident in the launch, Drinkwater had had the boats hoisted inboard. Their progress to the west was no longer necessary since their chase, a lugger holding a breeze inshore, had long ago disappeared to the south-west. There was a knock at the door.

  'Enter!'

  'Come in, Mr Lallo. Pray take a seat and tell us what is the condition of Waller.'

  The surgeon, a quiet, middle-aged man whose only vice seemed to be a messy reliance upon Sharrow's snuff, seated himself, sniffed and looked at Drinkwater. His didactic manner prompted Drinkwater to add: 'In words we all comprehend, if you please, Mr Lallo.'

  Mr Lallo sniffed again. 'Well, sir,' he began, casting a meaningful look at the back of Lord Walmsley, 'the man Waller has taken a severe and violent blow with a heavy object…'

  'A tiller,' put in Rogers impatiently.

  'Just so, Mr Rogers. With a tiller, which has caused an aneurism… a distortion of the arteries and interrupted the flow of blood to the cere… to the brain…'

  'You mean Waller's had a stroke?'

  Lallo looked resentfully at Rogers and nodded. 'In effect, yes. He is reduced to the condition of an idiot.'

  Drinkwater felt the particular meaning of the word in its real form. That Waller and his treason were no longer of any consequence struck him as an irony, but that a midshipman should have reduced him to that state by an over-indulgence of his authority was a reflection of his own powers of command. Drinkwater did not share Earl St Vincent's conviction that the men should respect a midshipman's coat if the object within was not worthy of their duty. He had always considered the training of his midshipmen a prime responsibility. With Walmsley he had failed. It did not matter that he had inherited his lordship from another captain. Nor, he reflected, could he hope that the processes of naval justice might redress something of the balance. The arrogance of well-connected midshipmen was nothing new in the navy, nor was the whitewashing of their guilt by courts-martial.

  'Thank you, Mr Lallo. You do not entertain any hopes for Waller's eventual recovery then?'

  'I doubt it, Captain Drinkwater. I believe him to have been a not unintelligent man, sir. He might be fit to attend the heads for the remainder of his days, though he is like to be afflicted with ataxia.' Lallo glared at the first lieutenant, defying him to require a further explanation.

  'Thank you, Mr Lallo. That will be all.'

  After the surgeon had left, Drinkwater turned his full attention upon Walmsley.

  'Well, Mr Walmsley. Do you have anything to say?'

  'I did my duty, sir. The man was insolent. I regret…'

  'You regret. You regret hitting him so hard, I suppose. Eh?'

  Walmsley swallowed. 'Yes, sir.'

  'Lord Walmsley,' Drinkwater said, using the title for the first time, 'you are a young man with considerable ability, aware of your position in society and clearly contemptuous of your present surroundings. It is my intention to punish you as you are a midshipman. What you do after that as a gentleman is a matter for your own sense of honour. You may go now.'

  'May I not know my punishment?'

  'No. You will be informed. Whatever you appear at the gaming tables, you are, sir, only a midshipman on board this ship!'

  Walmsley stood uncertainly and Drinkwater saw, for the first time, signs that the young man's confidence was weakening. There was a trembling about the mouth and a brightening of the eyes.

  Walmsley turned away and the three officers watched him leave the cabin.

  Next to him Drinkwater heard Lieutenant Fraser expel his breath with relief. Drinkwater turned to him. 'Well, Mr Fraser, it is customary upon these occasions to ask the junior officer present to give his opinion first.'

  'Court-martial, sir…'

  'But upon what charge, Fraser, for God's sake?' put in Rogers intemperately and Drinkwater smelt the drink on him. 'No, sir, he's too much influence for that. I doubt that'd do any of us any good.' Rogers spoke with heavy emphasis and Drinkwater raised an eyebrow. 'Besides he's done no more than many, and Waller was an insolent bastard at times. My advice, sir, is keep it in the ship.'

  'Not a bluidy mastheading, for God's sake, sir,' expostulated Fraser who was showing signs of ability and perception far exceeding the first lieutenant's.

  'No, gentlemen,' Drinkwater cut in. 'Thank you both for your opinions, so succinctly put,' he added drily. 'You are both right. The matter should not go outside the ship, but I do not hold with officers abusing their powers. Whatever Walmsley's expectations he is but a midshipman, and a midshipman going to the bad. It is not my intention to encourage him further. As for his punishment, we shall marry him to the gunner's daughter.'

  Drinkwater rose from the table and took up his hat. The two lieutenants scrambled to their feet.

  'Pipe all hands to witness punishment, Mr Rogers!'

  Drinkwater emerged on deck some few minutes later, the punishment book in his hand. It contained few entries since Drinkwater was reluctant to administer corporal punishment for any but serious offences and had adopted such measures as stoppage of grog and the wearing of a collar as a public humiliation, finding them much more appropriate and effective for the trivial offences usually committed. This morning, however, would be different.

  He took his place at the head of the officers who stood in a half-circle, their swords by their sides. Behind them in three ranks, Mount's marines were paraded, a glittering assembly of scarlet, white and steel. The men were crowded in the waist, over the boats and the hammock nettings in the gangways. Word had got about that Walmsley was to be punished and the hands were in a state of barely suppressed glee. In the circumstances and in view of the offender's station, Drinkwater called him forward and read the usually curtailed preamble with formal gravity.

  'Silence there!' barked Rogers as the hands murmured their delight when Walmsley stepped uncertainly forward. He had lost hi
s cocksure attitude and was clearly very apprehensive. It occurred to Drinkwater that Walmsley might have imagined such a thing as this could never happen to him, that it was something that affected others not of his standing.

  'Mr Walmsley, the enquiry held by myself and the officers of His Britannic Majesty's frigate under my command have examined and condemned your conduct this forenoon and found you guilty of behaviour both scandalous and oppressive. This crime, not being capital, shall be punished according to the Custom of the Navy under the Thirty-Sixth Article of War, as enacted by the King's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of, Drinkwater paused and fixed his eyes on the abject Walmsley, 'the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament assembled.

  'You are, Mr Walmsley, to be flogged over the breech of a gun.' He snapped the book closed. 'Mr Comley!' The boatswain stepped forward. 'Two dozen strokes, sir. And lay 'em on!'

  Comley put his hand on Walmsley's shoulder and pushed him forward until he stood by the breech of one of the quarterdeck guns. A shove sent the young man over the cannon and Comley drew back his rattan. In the next few minutes the boatswain did not spare his victim.

  Captain Drinkwater continued walking the windward side of the quarterdeck long after sunset. The blazing riot of scarlet had faded by degrees to a pale lemon yellow and finally to a duck-egg blue that remained slightly luminous as the stars in their constellations blazed overhead. The air remained warm although there was enough of a breeze to enable Antigone to be steered under her topsails, and she cruised slowly southwards.

  Drinkwater thought over the events of the day, distressed by the incident in the boats and aware that he had dealt with it in the only just way. Walmsley had begged an interview with him which he had refused, and the sight of Waller lying inert in the care of Mr Lallo convinced him that he was right, that the longer the young man felt his punishment the better. Drinkwater sighed, worrying about the effect on the rest of the ship's company. The internal business of the ship was oppressing him, already the tedium of blockade, even in this relatively independent form of cruising, was making him irritable and the ship's company fractious. The fine summer weather and apparent inactivity of the French seemed to lend a quality of futility to their movements, although logic proclaimed the necessity of their presence, along with the other independent frigates and all the vessels of the various blockading squadrons. There was a quality of stalemate in the war and it was difficult to determine what would happen next. It seemed to Drinkwater that the equation was balanced, that even the weather, usually so impartial a player in the game, had assimilated some of this inertia and put no demands on his own skill or the energies of his people. It seemed an odd contrast to the previous summer when the changeable moods of the Greenland Sea kept them constantly about the business of survival.

  He found himself longing for action. Antigone had missed the bombardment of Havre in late July and seen no more than some pedestrian chases after small fry which had achieved little. At the beginning of August had come the news that Admiral Ganteaume had attempted a break-out from Brest, but had turned back; so that the equation, showing for a moment signs of imbalance, had had its equilibrium re-established.

  Drinkwater heard seven bells struck. Eleven o'clock. It was time he took himself below. Mr Quilhampton, who had been confined to the lee quarterdeck in the down-draught from the main-topsail for his entire watch, looked after the retreating figure and clucked his tongue sympathetically.

  'Poor fellow,' he muttered to himself, taking up the weather side and ordering Gillespy to heave the log, 'fretting over a pair of ne'er-do-wells!'

  Chapter Nine

  Orders

  August-December 1804

  'All hands, ahoy! All hands, reef topsails!'

  Drinkwater staggered as Antigone slammed into a sea. A burst of spray exploded over her weather bow and whipped aft, catching the officers on the quarterdeck in the face to induce the painful wind-ache in their cheeks. The equinox had found them at last and Drinkwater experienced a pang of sudden savage joy. He had been warned of the onset of the gale by the increasing ache in his neck and shoulder that pressaged damp weather. During the long, warm, dry days of that exceptional summer he had hardly been reminded of his wound, but now the illusions were gone, stripped aside in that first wet streak of winter that incommoded his officers and afforded him his amusement.

  He clapped his hand to his hat as a gust more violent than hitherto laid the ship over. 'Mr Rogers!'

  'Sir?'

  'We'll reef in stays, Mr Rogers. See what the hands can do!' He saw Rogers's look of incredulity and grinned as the first lieutenant turned away.

  'Hands, tack ship and reef topsails in one!' bawled Rogers through his speaking trumpet. It amused Drinkwater to see the variety of reactions his order provoked. Hill caught his eye with a twinkle, Quilhampton grinned in anticipation, while Lieutenant Fraser, still considering Drinkwater something of an enigma, looked suitably quizzical. The hands milled at their mustering points.

  'Man the rigging! 'Way aloft, topmen!'

  Drinkwater crossed the deck and stood by the helm. 'Keep her off the wind a half point, quartermaster.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.'

  Drinkwater felt the thrill of anticipation. There was no real need to put the ship upon the other tack at this precise moment, but the evolution of going about and reefing the topsails at the same moment was an opportunity for a smart frigate to demonstrate the proficiency of her ship's company. By the eagerness with which the topmen lay aloft, some of this had communicated itself to them. One could always count on an appeal to a professional seaman's skill.

  'Deck there!' The masthead look-out was hailing. 'Sail four points on the weather bow, sir. Looks like a cutter!'

  Drinkwater acknowledged the hail, his sense of satisfaction growing. They now had a reason for tacking and an audience, and Fraser was looking at Drinkwater as if wondering how he had known of the presence of the other vessel.

  'Down helm!'

  Next to Drinkwater the four men at the double wheel spun the spokes through their fingers. Antigone came upright as she turned into the wind, the rush of her forward advance slowed rapidly and the scream of the wind across her deck diminished.

  'Clew down topsails! Mainsail haul! Trice up and lay out!'

  This was the nub of the manoeuvre, for the main and mizen yards were hauled with the topmen upon them at the same moment as the topsail yards were lowered on their halliards, the braces tended, the bowlines slacked off and the reef-pendants hauled up. Apart from Drinkwater's orders to the helmsmen and the general commands to the deck conveying the progress of the manoeuvre, there was a host of subsidiary instructions given by the subordinate officers and petty officers at their stations at the pin rails, the braces, the halliards and in the bunts of the topsails aloft.

  As the yards were lowered, the studding sail booms lifted and the main and mizen topsails flogged, folding upwards as the reef-pendants did their work. Antigone continued her turn, heeling over to her new course as the fore topsail came aback, spinning her head with increasing speed.

  'Midships and meet her.' Drinkwater peered forward and upwards where he could see the foretopmen having the worst time of it, trying to reef their big topsail while it was still full of wind.

  'Man the head-braces! Halliards there!'

  Rogers watched for the hand signals of the mates and midshipmen aloft to tell him the earings were secured and the reefpoints passed round the reduced portions of each topsail. Meanwhile Antigone crabbed awkwardly to leeward.

  'Hoist away topsails! Haul all!'

  Aloft the topsails rose again, stretched and reset, assuming the flat curve of sails close hauled against the wind as the forebraces hauled round their yards parallel with those on the main and mizen masts. On deck the halliards were sweated tight and the bowlines secured against the shivering of the weather leeches, belayed ropes were being coiled down and the topmen were sliding down the backstays, chaffing each
other competitively. Antigone stopped crabbing and began to drive forward again on the new tack. She butted into a sea and the spray came flying aft over the other bow.

  'Steady,' Drinkwater ordered the helmsmen, peering into the binnacle at the compass bowl. 'Course Nor'west by west.'

  'Steady, sir. Course Nor'west by west it is, sir.'

  Rogers came aft and touched his hat. He was grinning back at Drinkwater. 'Ship put about on the larboard tack, sir, and all three topsails reefed in one.'

  'Very creditable, Mr Rogers. Now you may pipe "Up spirits" and let us see what this cutter wants.'

  Drinkwater glanced through the stern windows where the Admiral Mitchell danced in their wake. The lieutenant in command of her had luffed neatly under their lee quarter half an hour ago and skilfully tossed a packet of dispatches on board from her chains. She now lay waiting for him to digest the news they contained. He studied the written orders for some moments, put aside the private letters and newspapers, and summoned Lord Walmsley. To Drinkwater's regret Walmsley had not offered to resign, though Drinkwater knew he could afford to and had therefore taken steps to settle the midshipman elsewhere. The young man knocked and entered the cabin.

  'Sir?' Walmsley had been rigidly formal since his punishment. The experience had been deeply engraved upon his consciousness, yet Drinkwater sensed beneath this formality a deep and abiding resentment. Walmsley was still not convinced that he had erred.

  'Mr Walmsley, I have for some time been considering your future. I have been successful in obtaining for you another berth. Rear-Admiral Louis who has, as you know, hoisted his flag aboard the Leopard to assist Lord Keith in the Strait of Dover, has agreed to take you on board.'

  Walmsley had clearly not expected such a transfer and Drinkwater hoped that he would be appreciative of it. 'I hope,' he added, 'that you are sensible of the honour done you by Admiral Louis. No word of your conduct has been communicated to the Leopard. You will join with a clean slate. Do you understand?'