A Brig of War nd-3

by Richard Woodman

  'Damn you, Drinkwater, damn you to hell.' Rogers leapt from the chair.

  'Be silent, sir!' stormed Drinkwater, suddenly furious at Rogers. Then, in a quieter tone he turned to the master and surgeon. 'Well gentlemen, d'you agree?'

  'Of course, Nathaniel, damned stupid business if you ask me.' Appleby eyed Rogers disapprovingly.

  'Is my character to be disputed by an apology for a pox-doctor…?' he got no further. Emerging from his cabin Commander Griffiths appeared. The five men in the gunroom rose to their feet. He had clearly heard every word through the flimsy bulkhead.

  'I approve of your decision, Mr Drinkwater, just as I disapprove of your conduct, Mr Rogers.' Griffiths spoke slowly then paused turning his lugubrious face on Dalziell. His bushy white eyebrows drew together. 'As for you, sir, I can think of only one place where your presence will not infect us all. Proceed to the fore t'gallant masthead.'

  The commander passed between Rogers and the scarlet midshipman with ponderous contempt and made for the upper deck.

  They had rolled Polaris and the constellations of the far north below the horizon without ceremony. To the south blazed Canopus, Rigel Kentaurus and the Southern Cross, whilst Orion wheeled overhead, astride the equinoctial. They had picked up the south-east Trades in five degrees south latitude and romped southwards. The matter of Dalziell faded from Drinkwater's mind almost as soon as the boy had descended from the mastheading. Ruling all their lives, burying their petty quarrels with its stern and soothing rhythm, the routine of a King's ship proceeded remorselessly. They had avoided all ships in case any were French cruisers. It was unlikely, but only a single mischance could disrupt the delicate strategy of empire. Even a ship of equal force might jeopardise their mission and it was likely that a French cruiser in the South Atlantic would be one of their fast, well-found frigates.

  On a morning of alternating sunshine and shadow as an endless stream of fair-weather cumulus scudded before the fresh wind and the large dark petrels and bizarre red-footed boobies swooped about the ship, the matter of Dalziell was revived.

  Appearing to take his meridian altitude Mr Quilhampton was found to possess a black eye.

  'Where the deuce did you get that from, young shaver?' asked Drinkwater who had of late made a practice of joining Lestock on the tiny poop to help determine the brig's latitude.

  'Oh, I banged into my cabin door, sir.' The boy was nearly sobbing and the excuse was clearly fabricated. He failed to catch the sun successfully and it was Dalziell's smirking 'I made my altitude seventy degrees fifty-four minutes, Mr Lestock,' that formed the suspicion in Drinkwater's mind that he might be the cause of Mr Quilhampton's misery. It seemed confirmed by the muffled grunt from the young midshipman as the first lieutenant agreed his own altitude within a minute of Dalziell's. Lestock pursed his lips in disapproval when Quilhampton announced his failure.

  'Mr Q has a contused eye, Mr Lestock. Cut along to the surgeon, cully, and get him to look at it.' He watched the boy move away and turned to Mr Dalziell. 'Now what d'you make our latitude?' He knew he was displacing Lestock but noted that Dalziell was suddenly less confident. The sun was chasing them south, would cross the equator in a day or so and the calculation was elementary. A mere matter of addition and subtraction but Dalziell baulked at it. Drinkwater suspected he cribbed frequently from the younger boy who showed a certain aptitude for the mysteries of astronomical navigation.

  'Er, sixteen degrees, er… about sixteen degrees south, sir, er…' he frowned over his slate while Lestock tut-tutted and nodded agreement at Drinkwater's figures.

  'Perhaps you would do better studying Robinson, Mr Dalziell, than thrashing your messmate.'

  Dalziell's open-mouthed stare as he descended the ladder made him chuckle inwardly. He remembered wondering as a midshipman how the first lieutenant always seemed so omniscient. Experience was a wonderful teacher and there was little new under the sun. The reference to the late object of their observations further amused him and he was in a high good humour as he returned his quadrant to its carefully lashed mahogany box. It was only on straightening up from the task that his eye was caught by the little watercolour of the American privateer Algonquin, wearing British over Yankee colours. She had been his first command. It was a trifle stained by damp now and had been done for him by Elizabeth before they were married. The thought of Elizabeth scudded like one of those cumulus clouds over his good humour. In the oddly circuitous way the mind works it made him think of Quilhampton and the misery that could be a midshipman's lot. He called the messman. 'Pass word for Mr Quilhampton, Merrick.'

  When the boy came he had clearly been crying. He was fortunate, Drinkwater thought. The brig had no cockpit and the two midshipmen each had a tiny cabin, mere hutches set on the ship's plans as accommodation for stewards. At least they did not have to live in the festering stink of the orlop as he had had to aboard Cyclops. But the atmosphere of Quilhampton's environment was a relative thing. It might be easier than Drinkwater's had been, but it was no less unpleasant for the boy.

  'Come now, Mr Q, dry those eyes and tell me what happened.'

  'Nothing, sir.'

  'Come, sir, do not make honour a sticking point, what happened?'

  'N… nothing, sir.'

  Drinkwater sighed. 'Mr Q. If I were to instruct you to lead a party of boarders on to the deck of a French frigate, would you obey?'

  'Of course, sir!' A spark of indignant spirit was rekindled in the boy.

  'Then come, Mr Q. Do not, I beg you, disobey me now.'

  The muscles along Quilhampton's jaw hardened. 'Mr Dalziell, sir, struck me, sir. It was in a fair fight, sir,' he added hurriedly.

  'Fights are seldom fair, Mr Q. What was this over?'

  'Nothing, sir.'

  'Mr Quilhampton,' Drinkwater said sharply, 'I shall not remind you again that you are in the King's service, not the schoolroom.'

  'Well, sir, he was insulting you, sir… said something about you and the captain, sir… something not proper, sir.'

  Drinkwater frowned. 'Go on.'

  'I er, I thought it unjust, sir, and I er, demurred, sir…' The boy's powers of self-expression had improved immeasurably but the thought of what the boy was implying sickened Drinkwater.

  'Did he suggest that the captain and I enjoyed a certain intimacy, Mr Q?' he asked softly. Relief was written large on the boy's face.

  'Yes sir.'

  'Very well, Mr Q. Thank you. Now then, for fighting and for not obeying my order promptly I require from you a dissertation on the origin of the brig-sloop, written during your watch below this afternoon and brought to me when you report on deck at eight bells.'

  The boy left the cabin happier in spite of his task. But for Drinkwater a cloud had come permanently over the day and a dark suspicion was forming in his mind.

  He spoke to Dalziell when he relieved Rogers at the conclusion of the afternoon watch. Quilhampton had delivered into his hand an ink-spattered paper which he folded carefully and held behind his back.

  'For fighting, Mr Dalziell, I require an essay on the brig-sloop. I desire that you submit it to me when I am relieved this evening.'

  Dalziell muttered his acknowledgement and turned away. Drinkwater recalled him.

  'Tell me, Mr Dalziell, what is the nature of your acquaintanceship with Lord Dungarth?' Dalziell's face relaxed into a half-concealed smirk. Drinkwater hoped the midshipman thought him a trifle scared of too flagrantly punishing an earl's eleve. That feline look seemed to indicate that he was right.

  'I am related to his late wife… sir.'

  'I see. What was the nature of your kinship?'

  'I was second cousin to the countess.' He preened himself, as if being second cousin to a dead countess absolved him from the formalities of naval courtesy. Drinkwater did not labour the point; Mr Dalziell did not need to know that Lord Dungarth had been the director of the clandestine operations of the cutter Kestrel. 'You are most fortunate in your connections, Mr Dalziell,' he said as the boy s
mirked again.

  He was about to turn away and give his attention to the ship when Dalziell volunteered, 'I have a cousin on my mother's side who knows you, Mr Drinkwater.'

  'Really?' said Drinkwater without interest, aware that Rogers had neglected to overhaul the topgallant buntlines which were taut and probably chafing. 'And who might that be?'

  'Lieutenant Morris.'

  Drinkwater froze. Slowly he turned and fixed Dalziell with a frigid stare.

  'And what of that, Mr Dalziell?'

  Suddenly it occurred to Dalziell that he might be mistaken in securing an advantage over the first lieutenant so soon after the tribunal. He realised Mr Drinkwater would not cringe from mere innuendo, nor could he employ the crudities that had upset Quilhampton. 'Oh, n… nothing sir.'

  'Then get below and compose your essay.' Drinkwater turned away and fell to pacing the deck, forgetting about the topgallant buntlines. He hated the precocity of Dalziell and his ilk. The day was ruined for him, the whole voyage of the Hellebore poisoned by Dalziell, a living reminder of the horrors of the frigate Cyclops and Morris, the sodomite tyrant of the midshipman's mess. Many years before, during the American war, Drinkwater had been instrumental in having Morris turned out of the frigate. Morris was lucky to have escaped with his life: an Article of War punished his crime with the noose. Now a drunken threat, uttered by Morris before he left the frigate, was recalled to mind. It seemed Morris had kept in touch with his career, might have been behind Dungarth's request that Dalziell be found a place, though it was certain the earl knew nothing of it. Something about Dalziell's demeanour seemed to confirm this suspicion. For half an hour Drinkwater paced furiously from the poop ladder to the mainmast and back. His mind was filled with dark and irrational fears, fears for Elizabeth and her unborn child far behind in England, for long ago Morris had discovered his love for her and had threatened her. Gradually he calmed himself, forced his mind into a more logical track. Despite the influence he once appeared to wield at the Admiralty through the carnal talents of his sister, he had risen no further than lieutenant and many years had passed since that encounter in New York. Perhaps, whatever Dalziell knew of the events aboard Cyclops, it would be no more than that he and Morris were enemies. Surely Morris would have concealed the reason for their enmity. Strange that he had planted in the midshipman's mind the notion that Drinkwater indulged in the practices that had come close to breaking Morris himself. Or perhaps it was not so strange. Evil was rightly represented as a serpent and the twists of the human mind to justify its most outrageous conduct were, when viewed objectively, almost past belief.

  Nevertheless, two hours passed before Drinkwater remembered the topgallant buntlines. He found Mr Quilhampton had already attended to them.

  Chapter Five

  The Mistress Shore

  September-October 1798

  The following morning Drinkwater found a moment to study the literary efforts of the two midshipmen. It was clear that Mr Dalziell's essay had suffered from being written after that by Mr Quilhampton. True the penmanship was neater and better formed than the awkward, blotchy script of Mr Q, but the information contained in the composition was a crib from Falconer's Marine Dictionary with a few embellishments in what Mr Dalziell clearly considered was literary style.

  …And so the Brig-Sloop, so named to indicate that she was commanded by a Commander or Sloop-Captain, as opposed to a Gun-Brig, merely the command of a Lieutenant, arrived to take its place in the lists of the Fleet and perform the duties of a small Cruiser to the no small satisfaction of Admiralty… Was there a sneer within the lengthy sentence? Or was Drinkwater unduly prejudiced? Certainly there was little information.

  By contrast Mr Quilhampton's erratic, speckled contribution, untidy though it was, demonstrated his enthusiasm.

  …The naval Brig was developed from the merchant Snow and Brig, both two-masted vessels. In the former the mainmast carried both a square course and a fore and aft spanker which was usually loose footed. Its luff was secured to a small mast, or horse, set close abaft the lower mainmast. The merchant Brig did not carry the maincourse, the maintopsail sheeting to a lower yard of smaller dimensions, not unlike the cross-jack yard. The mainsail was usually designated to be the fore and aft spanker which was larger than that of the snow and furnished with a boom, extending its parts well aft and making it an effective driver for a vessel on the ivind…

  Drinkwater nodded, well satisfied with the clarity of Mr Quilhampton's drift, but the boy was in full flood now and did not baulk at attempting to untangle that other piece of etymological and naval confusion.

  The naval brig is divided into two classes, the gun-vessel, usually of shallow draft and commanded by a Lieutenant, and the brig-sloop, under a Commander. The term 'sloop' in this context (as with the ship-sloop, or corvette) indicates its status as the command of Captain or Commander, the ship-sloop of twenty guns being the smallest vessel commanded by a Post-Captain. The Captain of a brig-sloop, (sometimes known, more particularly in foreign navies, as a brig-corvette) is always addressed as 'Captain' by courtesy but is in reality called Master and Commander since at one time no master was carried to attend to the vessel's navigation. The term 'sloop' used in these contexts, should not be confused with the one-masted vessel that has the superficial [there were several attempts to spell this word] appearance of a cutter. These type of sloops are rarely used now in naval service, having been replaced by the faster cutter. They differ from the cutter in having less sail area, a standing bowsprit and a beakhead…

  Drinkwater lowered this formidable document in admiration. Young Mr Q had hit upon some interesting points, particularly that of Masters and Commanders. He knew that many young and ambitious lieutenants had objected to submitting themselves for the navigational examination at the Trinity House to give them the full claim to the title, and that the many promotions on foreign stations that answered the exigencies of war had made the system impracticable. The regulation of having a midshipman pass for master's mate before he could be sent away in a prize was also one observed more in the breach than otherwise. As a result the Admiralty had seen fit to appoint masters or acting masters to most brigs to avoid losses by faulty navigation. In Mr Lestock's case Drinkwater was apt to think the appointment more of a burden to the ship than a safeguard.

  Quilhampton's essay echoed the gunroom debate as to the armament of brigs, repeating the carronade versus long gun argument and concluding in didactic vein… whatever the main armament of the deck, the eighteen-gun brig-of-war is, under the regulation of 1795, the smallest class of vessel to carry a boat carronade.

  Drinkwater was folding the papers away when a cry sent him hurrying on deck.

  'Deck there! Sail on the weather bow!'

  He drew back from the ladder to allow Griffiths, limping painfully but in obvious haste, to precede him up the ladder. As the two men emerged on deck the pipes were shrieking at the hatchways. Lestock jumped down from the weather rail and offered his glass to Griffiths. Trench cruiser, by my judgement.'

  Griffiths swore while Drinkwater reached in his pocket for his own glass. It was a frigate beyond doubt and a fast one judging by the speed with which her image grew. She was certainly French built and here, south of Ascension Island in the path of homecoming Indiamen, probably still in French hands.

  'All hands have been called, sir,' said Lestock primly.

  'Mr Drinkwater, have the mast wedges knocked out and I want preventer backstays rigged to't'gallant mastcaps!'

  'Aye, aye, sir!' Lestock was already bawling orders through the speaking trumpet and the topmen were racing aloft to rig out the stunsail booms. Drinkwater slipped forward to where Johnson, the carpenter, was tending the headsails, hoisting a flying jib and tending its sheet to catch any wind left in the lee of the foresails as their yards were braced square across the hull.

  'Mr Johnson, get your mates and knock the mast wedges out, give the masts some play: we want every fraction of a knot out of her. Then have t
he bilges pumped dry and kept dry for as long as this goes on.' Drinkwater jerked his head astern.

  Johnson acknowledged the order and sung out for his two mates in inimitable crudity. Drinkwater turned away and sought out Grey, the bosun.

  'Mr Grey, I want two four-inch ropes rigged as preventer backstays. Use the cable springs out of an after port. Get 'em up to the t'gallant mastcaps and secured. We'll bowse 'em tight with a gun tackle at the rail.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.'

  'And Mr Grey…'

  'Sir?'

  'I don't want any chafing at the port. See to it if you please.' It was stating the obvious to an experienced man, but in the excitement of the moment it was no good relying on experience that could be lost in distraction.

  As he went aft again Drinkwater was aware of the lessening of the wind noise in the rigging. Running free cut it to a minimum, while the hull sat more upright in the sea and it was necessary to look to the horizon to see the wave-caps still tumbling before the strong breeze to convince oneself that the weather had not suddenly moderated. Already the stunsails were being hoisted from their stowage in the tops, billowing forward and bowing their thin booms. Lestock was bawling abuse at the foretopmen who had failed in the delicate business of seeing one of them clear of the spider's web of ropes between the top and its upper and lower booms. A man was scrambling out along the topgallant yard and leaning outwards at the peril of his life to clear the tangle.