It occurred to him that it was easier to kill at a distance, removed from the confrontation from which Santhonax had just escaped. He had only to jerk the lanyard and Santhonax would die. He thought of the grey eyes staring from the portrait below, and of how he and Dungarth had let her go. From Hortense he thought of Elizabeth. The boat's transom crossed the end of the barrel. He jerked the lanyard.
The carronade roared back on its slide. Drinkwater leapt up to mark the fall of shot. He saw the spout of water a foot off the boat's quarter. He was surprised at the relief he felt.
'Let's try for a frigate,' Drinkwater spun the elevating screw again, bringing the retreating Romaine into his sights as, with crippled masts she moved sluggishly away. The wind was falling light, the concussion of their guns having killed it. They fired six shots before giving up. Romaine was out of range.
They craned their necks to see what was happening. They saw their rescuer begin to turn, trying to work across Romaine's stern to rake. The French captain put his helm over and followed the British ship so they circled one another like dogs, nose to tail. A shattering broadside crashed from Romaine, a slighter response from the other. Another came from the Britisher. The Romaine began to draw off to the south-east. The stranger wore in pursuit, her mizen topmast going by the board as she did so.
'Telemachus,' Drinkwater spelled out, peering through his glass. The two ships moved slowly away, leaving Antigone rolling easily. The boat had vanished.
Drinkwater turned inboard. He and Morris exchanged a glance. Beneath his hooded lids Morris bore a whipped look. He went below.
Without any feeling of triumph Drinkwater's eyes fell upon the body of Quilhampton. Tregembo joined him.
'There's not a mark on him. Hold, he's not gone… Mr Q! Mr Q! D'you hear me?' Drinkwater began to chafe the boy's wrists. His eyes fluttered and opened. Rogers bent over them. 'Winded by a passing shot. He'll live,' said Rogers.
It took three days to re-rig the frigate, three days of strenuous labour during which the much depleted crew struggled and cursed, ate and slept between the guns. But although they swore they laboured willingly. They were not Antigones but Hellebores and the big frigate was their prize, the concrete proof of their corporate endeavours. She was also the source of prize money, and their shrinking numbers increased each individual's share.
By dint of their efforts they sent up new or improvised topmasts and could cross courses and topsails on all three masts. Later, Drinkwater thought, after they had carried out some additional modifications to the salvaged broken spars they might manage a main topgallant.
For Drinkwater the need to bring the frigate under command over-rode everything else. Morris retired to his cabin from whence came the news that he was keeping food down at last. From the cockpit came the hammock-shrouded corpses that failed to survive Appleby's surgery, the bravely smiling wounded and the empty rum bottles that sustained Appleby during the long hours he spent attending his grim profession.
Johnson reported they had been struck in the hull by twenty-one shot, but only two low enough to cause serious leakage.
The pumps clanked regularly even as the remaining men toiled to slew those half-dozen eighteen-pounders back into their larboard ports. They had lost sixteen men killed and twenty wounded in the action. Rank had almost ceased to exist as Drinkwater urged them on, officers tailing on to ropes and leading by example. Mr Lestock shook his head disapprovingly and Drinkwater left the deck watch to him and his precious sense of honour, deriving great comfort from the loyal support of Tregembo and even poor, handless, Mr Quilhampton who did what he could. Samuel Rogers emerged as a man who, given a task to do, performed it with that intemperate energy that so characterised him.
Late in the afternoon of the third day after the action with Romaine a sail was seen to leeward. Nervously glasses were trained on her, lest she proved the re-rigged Romaine come to finish off her late adversary. The last anyone aboard Antigone had seen of the two ships had been the Telemachus in pursuit of the Romaine. There had been no sign of Santhonax and the French boat and it was supposed that she had made the shelter of Romaine.
Drinkwater put Antigone on the wind and informed Morris. He was favoured with a grunt of acknowledgement.
'I think she's the Telemachus, sir,' Quilhampton informed Drinkwater when he returned to the deck.
'Hoist the interrogative, Mr Q. Mr Rogers! General quarters if you please!'
The pipes squealed at the hatchways and the pitifully small crew tumbled up, augmenting the watch on deck. The stranger was coming up fast, pointing much higher than the wounded frigate. The recognition signal streamed from her foremasthead. 'She's British, then,' said Lestock unnecessarily.
Drinkwater kept the men at their stations as the ship closed them. At a mile distance she fired a gun to leeward and hoisted the signal to heave to.
Drinkwater gave the order to back the main topsail. In her present state Antigone could neither outsail nor outfight the ship to leeward.
'Sending a boat, sir,' Quilhampton reported.
Drinkwater went below to inform Morris. He found the commander watching the newcomer from the larboard quarter gallery.
'A twenty-eight, eh? A post ship. D'you know who commands her?'
'No, sir.'
'I'll come up.'
The boat bobbed over the wave-crests between them. 'There's a midshipman in her, sir,' reported Mr Quilhampton, his eyes bright with excitement. It occurred to Drinkwater that Mr Q was suddenly proud of his lost hand. It was little enough compensation, he thought. 'Do you meet the young gentleman, Mr Q.'
The men were peering curiously at the approaching boat, those at the guns through the ports. 'Let 'em,' said Drinkwater to himself. They had earned a little tolerance.
His uniform awry Morris came on deck, holding out his hand for a glass. Lestock beat Dalziell in the matter. The midshipman swung himself over the side. There were catcalls from the lower gunports and Rogers's voice snapped 'Silence there!' The boat's crew were tricked out in blue and white striped shirts and trousers of white jean. They wore glazed hats with ribbons of blue and white and their oars were picked out in the same colours. Such a display amused the Hellebores and led Drinkwater to the conclusion that her captain was a wealthy man. An officer with interest of the 'Parliamentary' kind, probably young and probably half his own age. He was almost right.
Quilhampton approached the quarterdeck, saw Morris and diverted his approach from Drinkwater to the commander. 'Mr Mole, sir.'
The midshipman bowed. His tall gangling fair haired appearance was in marked contrast with his name. His accent was rural Norfolk, though mannered.
'My respect, sir, Commander Morris, I believe.' Morris stiffened.
'Captain to you, you damned brat. Who commands your vessel, eh?'
The lad was not abashed. 'Captain White, sir, Captain Richard White, he desires me to offer whatever services you require, though I perceive,' he swept his hand aloft, 'that you have little need of them. My congratulations.'
Drinkwater smiled grimly. The young gentleman's affront could only be but admired, particularly as he appeared impervious to Morris's forbidding aspect.
Morris's mouth fell open. He closed it and turned contemptuously away, crossing the deck towards the companionway. 'Mr Drinkwater, I expect the nob who commands yonder will want us to obey his orders. Tell this dog's turd what we want, then kick his perfumed arse off my ship.' He disappeared below.
'Aye, aye, sir.' Drinkwater regarded the midshipman. 'Well, Mr Mole, are you commonly addressing senior officers in that vein?'
The boy blinked and Drinkwater went on, 'Your captain; is that Richard White from Norfolk, a small man with fair hair?'
'Captain White is of small stature, sir,' Mole said primly.
'Very well, Mr Mole, I desire you to inform Captain White that we are short of men but able to make the Cape. We carry dispatches from Admiral Blankett and are armed en flute. We are the prize of a brig and most damnably grate
ful for your arrival the other day.'
Mole smirked as though he had been personally responsible for the timely arrival of Telemachus.
'Oh, and Mr Mole, I desire that you inform him that the captain's name is Augustus Morris and my name is Drinkwater. I urge that you give him those particulars.'
Mole repeated the names. 'By the way, Mr Mole, what became of the Frenchman?'
'He slipped us in the night, sir.'
'Tut tut,' said Drinkwater catching Quilhampton's eye. 'That would never have happened to us, eh, Mr Q?'
'No, sir,' grinned Quilhampton.
'See what happened to Mr Quilhampton the last time we had an engagement…'
Quilhampton held up his stump. 'Mr Quilhampton stopped the enemy from running by taking hold of her bowsprit…' Laughter echoed round Antigone's scarred quarterdeck and Mole, aware that the joke was on him, touched his forehead and fled.
'Boat ahoy!' Lestock hailed the returning boat.
'Telemachus!' That hail confirmed that she bore the frigate's captain.
'How d'you propose we man the side, Mr Drinkwater?' Lestock asked sarcastically. Drinkwater lowered his glass, having recognised the little figure in the stern.
'Oh, I'd say that you and Mr Dalziell will do for decoration, Mr Grey with his mates for sideboys. This ain't the time for punctiliousness. Mr Q!'
'Sir?'
'Inform the captain that Captain White is coming aboard.'
'Aye, aye, sir.' Drinkwater went forward to join the side party. Lestock was furious.
Grey's pipe twittered and Drinkwater swept his battered hat from his head.
'Strap me, but it is you!' Richard White, gold lace about his sleeve and upon his shoulder, held out his hand in informal greeting, 'Deuced glad to see you, Nat…' he looked round the deck expectantly. 'What's it that imp of Satan Mole said about…?' he paused and Drinkwater turned to see Morris emerging on deck.
'Well damn my eyes, if it isn't that bugger Morris!'
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Cape of Good Hope
November 1799-January 1800
Captain Richard White had many years earlier suffered from the sadistic bullying of Morris when he and Drinkwater served on the frigate Cyclops as midshipmen. Since that time, when the frightened White had been protected by Drinkwater, service under the punctilious St Vincent followed by absolute command of his own ship had turned White into an irascible, forthright character. Beneath this exterior his friends might perceive the boyish charm and occasional uncertainty of a still young man, but the accustomed authority that he was now used to, combined with an irresistible urge to thus publicly humiliate his former tormentor.
There was for a moment a silence between the three men that was pregnant with suppressed emotions. Drinkwater, caught like a shuttlecock between two seniors, prudently waited, watching Morris's reaction, aware that White had committed a gross impropriety. Unaccountably Drinkwater felt a momentary sympathy for Morris. If the commander called for satisfaction at the Cape he would have been justified, whatever the naval regulations said about duelling. For his own part White was belligerently unrepentant, weeks of adolescent misery springing into his mind as he confronted his old tormentor.
Morris stood stock still, colour draining from his face as the insult on his own quarterdeck outraged him. Brought up in the old school of naval viciousness, protected by petticoat influence from the consequences of his vice, his brutal nature protected by the privileges of rank for so long, Morris now found himself confronted by a moral superiority undeterred by the baser motives of naval intrigue. White's impetuous candour had disarmed him.
Morris shot White a look of pure venom, but his new-found accession to command caused him to hold his tongue. He turned and made for the companionway below, half jostling Drinkwater as he did so, his mouth twisted with rage and humiliation.
White ignored Drinkwater's embarrassed glance after the retreating figure of Morris. 'Well, Nat, I'm darned sorry we lost the Frog, gave me the slip during the night. Blasted wind fell light under a threatening overcast. Black as the Earl of Hell's riding boots, by God. A damned shame.' He cast his eyes over Antigone's spars and rigging. By comparison with when he had last seen them they had all the hallmarks of Drinkwater's diligence. 'You've been busy I perceive. But come, tell me what the deuce became of that brig I last saw you on, heard you'd been sent to the Red Sea. St Vincent was damned annoyed. I do believe if Nelson had not blown Brueys to hell at Aboukir he might have been called to account.' White grinned his boyish smile. 'I wrote to Elizabeth and told her. Didn't think you'd get word off until you reached the Cape…' Drinkwater tried to express his thanks but White rattled on, all the while pacing the deck and staring curiously about him. 'By the devil but you've a fine frigate here, and no mistake. Mole said you were en flute.'
'Aye, sir. Twelve eighteens on the main deck.'
'And you fought the Romaine with a broadside of six, eh?'
'Not quite. We had 'em all mounted to starboard.' White's eyebrows went up and then came down with comprehension. 'So your larboard battery was empty?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well stap me. You're becoming as unorthodox as Nelson. But we thought you'd struck.'
'Ensign halliards shot through,' Drinkwater said obscurely.
'Ahhh.' White gave Drinkwater a quizzical look. 'We had been looking for a French cruiser ever since Jupiter was mauled by Preneuse in October. We thought Romaine was the Pfeneuse, damn it.' He rubbed his hands. 'Still, we will see you to the Cape, eh? Table Bay for orders, you may tell Morris that. What d'you say to dinner on the Telemachus, eh?'
Drinkwater cast a rueful glance at the cabin skylight. 'I shall be honoured to accept, sir. And I am indebted to you for writing to Elizabeth. She was with child d'you see.'
White made a deprecating gesture with his hand, pregnant women being outside his experience. He had caught the significance of Drinkwater's concern for the smouldering Morris beneath them. 'Haven't made it too hard for you, have I? Between you and Morris, I mean?'
'It couldn't be much worse, sir.'
White cocked a shrewd eye at Drinkwater. 'Had you struck?'
'I hadn't sir.' Drinkwater returned the stare and emphasised the personal pronoun.
'I'll see you at the Cape, Nat.' Drinkwater watched White's gig pull smartly away. The Cape of Good Hope was still a thousand miles distant and seamen called it the Cape of Storms. It had been that on the outward voyage, he hoped it might live up to its other name on the homeward. Drinkwater put his hat on.
'Brace her sharp up, Mr Lestock. A course of south-west if she'll take it.'
He went below to confront Morris.
The commander sat bolt upright in his chair, his hands gripping the arms. He was paralysed by the judicial implications of White's remark and fear of the noose warred with a sense of outrage at being humiliated on his own quarterdeck. The timid White had become a choleric, devil-may-care captain, a coming man and recognisably dangerous to Morris's low cunning.
Drinkwater had the distinct impression that Morris would spring at his throat even while he sat rigid with shock. Perhaps Nathaniel saw in his mind's eye the intent of Morris's spirit.
'I am sorry for Captain White's remark sir, I was not a party to…'
'God damn you, Drinkwater! God damn you to hell!' Morris spat the words from between clenched teeth, but so great was his fury as it burst through his self-restraint that his words became an incomprehensible torrent of filth and invective.
Drinkwater spun on his heel. Later Rattray came in search of Dalziell.
Two weeks passed during which Morris made no appearance on deck. Appleby paid him daily visits, announcing that though there was some improvement in his condition it was not as rapid as he himself had hoped. He did not amplify the remark but it was made with a significant gravity that was not lost on Drinkwater.
They were not to come to the shelter of Table Bay without leave of the sea. Antigone carried the favourable current roun
d the southern tip of Africa ignorant of the fact that somewhere off the Agulhas Bank, where the continental shelf declines into the depths of the Southern Ocean, a combination of the prevailing westerlies opposing the force of the current produces some of the most monstrous seas encountered by man.
As the frigate beat laboriously to windward, her small crew wet through, tired and hungry, the westerly gales blew furiously. Even the bad jokes about the southern summer faded, giving way to hissed oaths as men struggled to haul the third earings out to the topsail yardarms.
In the screaming madness of an early morning Lieutenant Drinkwater clung onto a mizen backstay. The decks were shiny with water, pools of it still running out through the lee ports from the last inundation. Every rope ran with water, the sails were stiff with it. To windward Telemachus butted into the seas.
Amidships he heard a cry and saw the seaman's pointing arm.
'Oh, my God,' whispered Drinkwater, his voice filled with awe. He reached for the speaking trumpet: 'Hold fast! Hold fast there !'
At the cry Mr Quilhampton looked up from the coil of log line in its basket. His gaze fell stupidly on his left arm. He had a hook there now, cunningly fashioned from a cannon worm by Mr Trussel. Ho flung himself down behind the aftermost carronadc slide and hooked its point round a slewing eye, throwing a bight of the train tackle round his waist and catching a turn on the gun's cascabel. It was his very vulnerability that saved him.
At the main deck companionway Dalziell emerged on deck unbidden, dismissed by Morris in the dawn. The wave was three-quarters of a mile away when they had seen it, looming huge over the crests before it, a combination of forces far beyond the imagination. Its crest was reaching that critical state of instability that would induce its collapse in a rolling avalanche of water.
The frigate fell into the trough and her sails cracked from loss of wind. Even in the depths of her hull, where Appleby was doing his morning rounds this momentary hiatus was felt. Then the mass of solid water thundered over the ship.
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