‘But the lady’s no fool, Mr Lettsom, and I’ll not subscribe to her ignorance.’ Rogers said as the laughter died away. ‘Parker flew his flag in the West Indies. He’s the richest admiral on the list. His fortune is supposed to be worth a hundred thousand and all she has to put up with is a few years of the old pig grunting about the sheets before the lot’ll fall into her lap. Why ’tis a capital match and I’ll drink to Lady Parker. There’s many a man as would marry for the same reason, eh Mr Jex?’ Rogers leered towards the purser.
Jex shot a venomous look at the first lieutenant. His conduct during the fight with the luggers had not been exactly valorous and he had dreaded this exposure as the butt of the officers’ jests.
‘Ah, Mr Jex has seen victory betwixt the sheets and is accustomed to seek it between the sails, eh?’ There was another roar of laughter. At the end of the action off the Sunk Jex had been discovered hiding in the spare sails below decks.
‘You are being uncharitable towards Mr Jex, Mr Rogers. I have it on good authority he was looking for his honour,’ Lettsom said as Jex stormed from the cabin the colour of a beetroot.
‘Come in. Yes Mr Q, what is it?’ Drinkwater’s voice was weary.
‘Beg pardon, sir, but the vice-admiral’s entering the anchorage.’ Drinkwater looked up. There was a light in the young man’s eyes. ‘Lord Nelson, sir,’ he added excitedly. Drinkwater could not resist Quilhampton’s infectious enthusiasm.
‘Thank you, Mr Q,’ he said smiling. The hero of the Nile had a strange way of affecting the demeanour of his juniors. Drinkwater remembered their brief meeting at Syracuse and that same infectious enthusiasm that had seemed to imbue Nelson’s entire fleet, despite their vain manoeuvrings in chase of Bonaparte. What a shame the same spirit was absent from the present assembly of ships. Drinkwater sighed. The subsequent scandal with Hamilton’s wife and the vainglorious progress through Europe that followed the victory at Aboukir Bay, had curled the lip of many of Nelson’s equals, but Drinkwater had no more appetite for his paper-work and he found himself pulling a muffler round his neck under his boat cloak to join the men at Virago’s rail cheering the little admiral as the St George stood through the gatway into Yarmouth Roads.
The battleship with her three yellow strakes flew a blue flag at her foremasthead and came in with two other warships. Hardly had her sheet anchor dropped from her bow than her cannon boomed out in salute to Parker’s flag, flying nominally at the mainmasthead of the 64-gun Ardent until the arrival of Parker’s proper flagship. The flag’s owner was still accommodated at the Wrestler’s Inn and this fact must have been early acquainted to Nelson for his barge was shortly afterwards seen making for the landing jetty. It was later rumoured that, although he received a cordial enough welcome from the commander-in-chief, Parker refused to discuss arrangements for the fleet on their first meeting.
Although a man who appeared to have lost both head and heart to Emma Hamilton, Nelson had never let love interfere with duty. It was soon common knowledge in the fleet that his criticisms of Parker were frank, scatological and scathing. Nelson’s dissatisfaction spread like wildfire, and ribald jests were everywhere heard, particularly among the hands on the ships that waited in the chill winds and shivered in their draughty gun decks while Sir Hyde banked the bedroom fire in the Wrestler’s Inn. In addition to Lettsom’s doggerel there were other ribaldries, mostly puns upon the name of the hostelry where Parker lodged and all of them enjoyed with relish in gunrooms as on gun decks, in cockpits and in staterooms. Nelson had given a dinner the evening of his arrival and expressed his fears on the consequences of a delay. His impatience did not improve as day succeeded day.
The final preparations for the departure of the expedition were completed. Nearly eight hundred men of the 49th Foot with a company of rifles had been embarked under Colonel Stewart. Eleven masters of Baltic trading ships and all members of the Trinity House of Kingston-upon-Hull had joined for the purpose of piloting the fleet through the dangers of the Baltic Sea. On Monday 9th March Parker’s flagship the London arrived and his flag was ceremoniously shifted aboard her at eight o’clock the next morning. The admiral remained ashore.
Later that day an Admiralty messenger arrived in Yarmouth with an order for Parker to sail, but still he prevaricated. His wife had arranged a ball for the coming Friday and, to indulge his Fanny, Parker postponed the fleet’s departure until after the event.
That evening Lieutenant Drinkwater also received a message, scribbled on a piece of grubby paper:
Nathaniel
I beg you come ashore at eight of the clock tonight.
I must see you on a matter of the utmost urgency.
I beg you not to ignore this plea and I will
await you on the west side of the Yare ferry.
Ned
The word must was underlined heavily. Drinkwater looked up at the longshoreman who had brought the note and had refused to relinquish it to Mr Quilhampton who now stood protectively suspicious behind the ragged boatman.
‘The man was insistent I give it to you personal, sir,’ he said in the lilting Norfolk accent.
‘What manner of man was it gave you this note?’
‘Why, I’d say he were a serving man, sir. Not a gentleman like you sir, though he was gen’rous with his master’s money . . .’ The implication was plain enough without looking at the man’s face. Drinkwater drew a coin from his pocket.
‘Here,’ he passed it to the boatman, frowning down at the note. He dismissed the man. ‘Mr Q.’
‘Sir?’
‘A boat, please, in an hour’s time.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
‘And Mr Q, not a word of this to anyone if you please.’ He fixed Quilhampton with a baleful glance. If Edward was reduced to penury in a matter of weeks he did not want the world to know of it.
A bitter easterly wind blew across the low land south of the town. The village of Gorleston exhibited a few lights on the opposite bank as he descended into the ferry. Darkness had come early and the fresh wind had led him to order his boat off until the following morning. To the half guinea the note had cost him it now looked as though he would have to add the charge of a night’s lodging ashore. Brotherly love was becoming an expensive luxury which he could ill afford. And now, he mused as the ferryman held out a fist, there was an added penny for the damned ferry.
Clambering up the far bank he allowed the other passengers to pass ahead of him. He could see no one waiting, then a shadow detached itself from a large bush growing on the river bank.
‘God damn it, Ned. Is that you?’
‘Ssh, for the love of Christ . . .’
‘What the devil are you playing at?’
‘I must talk to you . . .’ Edward loomed out of the shadows, standing up suddenly in front of Drinkwater. Beneath a dark cloak Drinkwater could see the pale gleam of a shirt. Edward’s hair was undressed and loosely blowing round his face. Even in the gloom Drinkwater could see he was in a dishevelled state. He was the longshoreman’s ‘serving man’.
‘What in God’s name . . . ?’
‘Walk slowly, Nat, and for heaven’s sake spare me further comment. I’m deep in trouble. Terrible trouble . . .’ Edward shivered, though whether from cold or terror his brother could not be sure.
‘Well come on, man, what’s amiss? I have not got all night . . .’ But of course he had. ‘Is it about the money, Edward?’
He heard the faint chink of gold in a purse. ‘No, I have the remains of that here. It is not a great deal . . . Nat, I am ruined . . .’
Drinkwater was appalled: ‘D’you mean you have lost that two hundred and fifty . . . ? My God, you’ll have no more!’
‘God, Nat, it isn’t money that I want.’
‘Well what the devil is it?’
‘Can you take me on your ship? Hide me? Land me wherever you are going. I speak French. Like a German they say. For God’s sake, Nat you are my only hope, I beg you.’
Drinkwater stopped and turn
ed to his brother. ‘What the hell is this all about, Ned?’
‘I am a fugitive from the law. From the extremity of the law, Nat. If I am taken I . . .’ he broke off. ‘Nat, when I heard your ships were assembling at Yarmouth and arrived to find Virago anchored off the shore I . . . I hoped . . .’
‘What are you guilty of?’ asked Drinkwater, a cold certainty settling round his heart.
‘Murder.’
There was a long silence between the brothers. At last Drinkwater said, ‘Tell me what happened.’
‘I told you of the girl? Pascale?’
‘Aye, you did.’
‘I found her abed with her God damned marquis.’
‘And whom did you murder?’
‘Both of them.’
‘God’s bones!’ Drinkwater took a few paces away from his brother, his brain a turmoil. Like at that moment in the Strand, his instinct for order reeled at the prospect of consigning his brother to the gallows. He remembered his mother, then his wife and child in a bewildering succession of images that drove from his mind the necessity of making a decision and only further confused him. Edward was guilty of Edward’s crimes and should suffer the penalty of the law; yet Edward was his brother. But protecting Edward would make him an accessory, while Edward’s execution would ensure his own professional oblivion.
He swore beneath his breath. In his passion Edward had murdered a worthless French aristocrat and his whore. How many Frenchmen had Nathaniel murdered as part of his duty? Lettsom’s words about duty came back to him and he swore again.
But those were moral judgements of an unrecognised morality, a morality that might appeal to Lettsom and his Paine-like religion of humanity. In the harsher light of English justice he had no choice: Edward was a criminal.
The vain pontifications of the other night, as he and Lettsom had exchanged sallies over the dying body of Mason, came back to confront him now like some monstrous ironic joke. He felt like a drowning man. What would Elizabeth think of him if he assisted his brother up the steps of the scaffold? Would she understand his quixoticism if he helped Edward escape? Was his duty to Edward of greater significance than that he owed his wife?
‘Nat, I beg you . . .’
‘I do not condone what you have done. You confront me with an unlawful obligation.’
A thought occurred to him. At first it was no more than a half-considered plan and owed its inception to a sudden vicious consideration that it might cost this wastrel brother his life. Edward would have to submit to the harsh judgement of fate.
‘How much money have you left?’
‘Forty-four pounds.’
‘You must return it to me. You have no need of money.’ He heard the sigh of relief. ‘You will accompany me back to the ship and will be entered on the books as Edward Waters, a landsman volunteer. Tell your messmates you are a bigamist, that you have seduced a young girl while being married yourself, any such story will suffice and guarantee they understand your morose silences. You will make no approach to me, nor speak to me unless I speak to you. If you transgress the regulations that obtain on board you will not be immune from the cat. As far as I am concerned you importuned me whilst ashore and asked to volunteer. Being short of men I accepted your offer. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, Nat, And thank you, thank you . . .’
‘I think you will have little to thank me for, Ned. God knows I do not do this entirely for you.’
Chapter Nine Tuesday, 10 March 1801
Batter Pudding
Drinkwater woke in the pre-dawn chill. By an inexplicable reflex of the human brain he had fallen instantly asleep the night before, but now he awoke, his mind restlessly active, his body in a lather of sweat, not of fever, but of fear.
His first reaction was that something was terribly wrong. It took him a minute to separate fact from fancied dreaming, but when he realised the extent of reality he was appalled at his own conduct. He got out of his cot, dragged his blankets across the deck and slumped in the battered carver he had inherited as cabin furniture in the Virago.
Staring unseeing into the darkness it was some time before he had stopped cursing himself for a fool and accepted the events of the previous evening as accomplished facts. The residual effects of his fever sharpened his imagination so that, for a while, his isolation threatened to prevent him thinking logically. After a little he steadied himself and began to examine his actions in returning to the ship.
The first point in his favour was that he and Edward had returned in a hired beach boat picked up in the River Yare. The boatmen had got a good price for the passage out through the breakwaters and Edward a soaking by way of an introduction to the sea-service. Drinkwater had insisted on his brother leaving the cloak on the bank of the Yare, thinking the more indigent he looked the better. The fugitive had been frozen, wet and dishevelled enough not to excite any comment as to there being any connection between the two men. Indeed the silence between them had been taken for disdain on Drinkwater’s part to the extent of one of the longshoremen offering a scrap of tarpaulin to the shuddering Edward. And, now that he recollected it, he had heard a muttered comment about ‘fucking officers’ from the older of the two boatmen as he had agilely scrambled up Virago’s welcome tumblehome.
He wondered if he had over-played his hand in arriving upon the deck, for in the darkness the officer on watch, already expecting the captain to remain ashore until the morning, had not manned the side properly. Trussel’s embarrassment was obvious and Drinkwater pitied the quartermaster who had not spotted the boat in time.
Trussel’s apologies had been profuse and Drinkwater had excused them abruptly.
‘ ’Tis no matter, Mr Trussel, I went upon a fool’s errand and am glad to be back.’ Drinkwater turned aft and had one foot on the poop ladder when he appeared to recollect something. ‘Oh, Mr Trussel,’ he looked back at the rail over which the sopping figure of Edward was clambering. He had clearly been sluiced by the sea as he jumped from the boat and even in the gloom the dark stain of water was visible around his feet. He stood shivering, pathetically uncertain.
‘This fellow importuned me ashore. Damned if he didn’t volunteer; on the run from some jade’s jealous husband I don’t wonder. See he’s wrapped up for the night and brought before Lettsom and the first lieutenant in the morning.’
He heard Trussel acknowledge the order and knew Edward’s reception would be cruel. Trussel would not welcome the necessity of turning out blankets and hammock at that late hour and Jex, the issuing officer, would be abusive at being turned from his cot to oblige the gunner. Trussel’s own irritation at being found wanting in his duty on deck only added to the likelihood of Edward becoming a scapegoat. Now, in the cold morning air, Drinkwater hoped that his play-acted unconcern had sounded more genuine to Trussel and the other members of the anchor watch than to his own ears.
He made to find his flint to light a lantern, then realised that it would not do to let the morning anchor watch know he was awake by the glow in the skylight. He continued to sit until the wintry dawn threw its cold pale light through the cabin windows, gleaming almost imperceptibly on the black breeches of the two stern chasers. Then he roused himself and passed word for hot water. Already the hands were turning up to scrub decks. After he had shaved and dressed his mind was more composed. He had formulated a plan to save Edward’s neck and his own honour. By the time he was ready to put it into practice there was enough light in the cabin by which to write.
The easterly wind had died in the night and the morning proved to be one of light airs and sunshine, picking out the details of the fleet with great clarity, lending to the bright colours of the ensigns, jacks, command flags and signals the quality of a country fair; quite the reverse of their stern military purpose. Had Drinkwater been less preoccupied by his dilemma he might have remarked on the irony of the situation, for the Baltic enterprise seemed to be in abeyance while preparations were made for Lady Parker’s ball. Around St George there congregated
an early assortment of captain’s gigs; water beetles collecting round the core of disapproval at the frivolous attitude of the fleet’s commander-inchief.
Pacing his tiny poop Drinkwater resisted the frequent impulse to touch the sealed letter in his breast pocket. He should have called his own boat away half an hour ago but morbid curiosity kept him on deck to see what his brother would make of his first forenoon in the Royal Navy. Edward had one powerful incentive to keep his mouth shut and Drinkwater had advised him of it just before he hailed the boatman on the beach the previous night.
‘If the people ever learn they’ve their captain’s brother among them they will make your life so hellish you’d wish you’d not asked for my protection.’
If Edward had doubted his brother then, he had little cause to this morning. Graham, bosun’s mate of the larboard watch, was giving him a taste of the starter as he hustled the new recruit aft to where Mr Lettsom sat on the breech of a gun waiting to give the newcomer his medical examination.
Drinkwater stopped his pacing at the poop rail. ‘Is that our new man, Mr Lettsom?’
‘Aye sir.’ Lettsom looked up at his commander. Drinkwater studiously ignored his brother although he felt Edward’s eyes upon him.
‘I don’t want that fellow bringing the ship-fever aboard. God knows what hole he’s out of, but if he wants a berth aboard Virago he must formerly have been quartered in a kennel.’
Lettsom grinned with such complicity that Drinkwater thought his own performance must be credible. With an assumed lofty indifference he resumed his pacing as Lettsom commanded ‘Strip!’
As Drinkwater paced up and down he caught glimpses of his unfortunate brother. First shivering naked, then being doused by a washdeck hose pumped enthusiastically by grinning seamen, and finally bent double while Lettsom examined him for lice.
‘Well, Mr Lettsom?’
‘No clap, pox or crabs, sir. Teeth fair, no hernias, though a little choleric about the gills. Good pulse, no fever. Sound in wind and limb. Washed from truck to keel in the German Ocean and fit for service in His Britannic Majesty’s Navy.’
The Bomb Vessel Page 9