The men could not obey fast enough to satisfy Drinkwater’s racing mind. He found himself beating his thighs with clenched fists as the cutter turned slowly.
‘Come on you bitch, come on,’ he muttered, and then he felt the deck move beneath him, ever so slightly upsetting his sense of balance, and another fact struck him.
He had run Kestrel aground.
Kestrel lay at an alarming angle and her sailing master was still writhing with mortification. Used as he had been to the estuary while in the buoy yachts of the Trinity House the situation was profoundly humiliating.
Lieutenant Griffiths had said nothing beyond wearily directing the securing of the cutter against an ingress of water when the tide made. It was fortunate that they had been running before what little wind there was and their centre plates had been housed. The consequences might have been more serious otherwise. An inspection revealed that Kestrel had suffered no damage beyond a dent in the pride of her navigator.
Below, Griffiths had regarded him in silence for some moments after listening to Drinkwater’s explanation of events. As the colour mounted to Drinkwater’s cheeks a tired smile curled Griffiths’s lips.
‘Come, come, Nathaniel, pass a bottle from the locker . . . it was no more than an error of judgement and the consequences are not terrible.’ Griffiths threw off his fatigue with a visible effort. ‘One error scarcely condemns you, bach.’
Drinkwater found himself shaking with relief as he thrust the sercial across the table. ‘But shouldn’t we have pursued sir? I mean it was Santhonax, sir. I’m damned sure of that.’ In his insistence to make amends, not only for grounding the cutter but for his failure earlier to report the presence of the French agent, the present circumstances gave him his opportunity. For a second he recollected that Griffiths might ask him how he was so ‘damned sure’. But the lieutenant was not concerned and pushed a full glass across the table. He shook his head.
‘Putting a boat away in this fog would likely have embroiled us in a worse tangle. Who ambushes whom in this weather is largely a matter of who spots whom first,’ he paused to sip the rich dark wine.
‘The important thing is what the devil is Santhonax doing in a warship’s launch going east on an ebb tide with a crew of British ne’er-do-wells?’
The two men sat in silence while about them Kestrel creaked as the first of the incoming tide began to lift her bilge. Was Santhonax a delegate from the Nore on his way to Yarmouth? If he was he would surely have used the Swin. Their own passage through the Prince’s Channel had been ordered to stop up the gap not covered by Vestal, Rose or Hope. And it was most unlikely that a French agent would undertake such a task.
If Santhonax’s task was to help suborn the British fleet he had already achieved his object by the open and defiant mutiny. So what was he doing in a boat? Escaping? Was the mutiny collapsing? Or was his passage east a deliberate choice? Of course! Santhonax had attempted to kill Drinkwater. Nathaniel was the only man whose observation of Santhonax might prejudice the Frenchman’s plans!
‘There would seem to be only one logical conclusion, sir . . .’
‘Oh?’ said Griffiths, ‘and what might that be?’
‘Santhonax must be going to bring aid to the Nore mutineers . . .’ He outlined his reasons for presuming this and Griffiths nodded slowly.
‘If he intends bringing a fleet to support the mutiny or to cover its defection does he make for France or Holland?’
‘The Texel shelters the largest fleet in the area, sir. Given a fair wind from the east which they’d need to get up the Thames with a fair certainty of a westerly soon afterwards to get ’em all out together . . . yes, I’ll put my money on the Texel, anything from Brest or the west’ll have the Channel to contend with.’
‘Yes, by damn!’ snapped Griffiths suddenly, leaning urgently forward. ‘And our fellows will co-operate with a fleet of protestant Dutch and welcome their republican comrades! By heaven Nathaniel, this Santhonax is a cunning devil! Cythral! I’ll lay gold on the Texel . . .’
The two of them were half out of their chairs, leaning across the table like men in heated argument. Then Griffiths slumped down as Kestrel lurched a little nearer the upright.
‘But our orders do not allow me discretion. Santhonax has escaped, in the meantime we must do our duty.’ He paused, rubbing his chin while Drinkwater remained standing. ‘But,’ he said slowly, ‘if we could discover the precise state of the mutiny . . . if, for instance there were signs that they were moving out from the Nore, then, by God, we’d know for sure.’
Drinkwater nodded. He was not certain how they could discover this without running their heads into a noose, but he could not now tell Griffiths of the encounter in Sheerness and the premonitions that were consuming him at that very moment. For the time being he must rest content.
Two hours later they were under way again. The breeze had come up, although the fog had become a mist and the warmth of the sun could be felt as Kestrel resumed her westward passage. It was late afternoon when a cry from forward caught the attention of all on deck.
‘Sir!’
‘What is it?’ Drinkwater scrambled forward.
‘Sort of smashing sound,’ the man said, cocking one ear. They listened and Drinkwater heard a muffled bang followed by crashes and the splintering of timber. He frowned. ‘Swivel gun?’ He turned aft. ‘Call all hands! Pass word for the captain! Clear for action!’ He was damned if he was going to be caught a second time.
In a few moments the lashings were cast off the guns and the men were at their stations. Griffiths emerged from the companionway pale and drawn. Drinkwater launched into an explanation of what they had heard when suddenly the fog lifted, swept aside like a curtain, and bright sunshine dappled the water.
‘What the devil . . . ?’ Griffiths pointed and Drinkwater turned sharply, then grinned with relief.
‘It’s all right, sir, I recognise her.’
Ahead of them, a cable distant, lay an ornate, cutter-rigged yacht, decorated aft like a first rate, with a beak head forward supporting a lion guardant. Alongside the yacht the painted bulk of the Nubb buoy was being systematically smashed by axes and one-pound swivel shot.
‘Trinity Yacht ahoy!’ Faces looked up and Drinkwater saw her master, Jonathan Poulter, direct men aft to where she carried carronades. He saw the gunports lift and the muzzles emerge.
‘Hold your fire, damn your eyes! We’re a King’s cutter,’ then in a lower voice as they closed the yacht, ‘Heave to, Mr Drinkwater, while we speak him.’
The two cutters closed, their crews regarding each other curiously. ‘Do you have news of the Nore fleet, is there any sign of them moving?’
A man in a blue coat stood beside Poulter and Drinkwater recognised Captain Calvert, an Elder Brother of Trinity House.
‘No, sir,’ Calvert called, ‘and they’ll find it impossible when we’ve finished. All the beacons are coming down and most of the buoys are already sunk. Another night’s work will see the matter concluded . . . is that Mr Drinkwater alongside of you?’
Drinkwater stood on the rail. ‘Aye sir, we had hopes that you might have news.’
‘They had a frigate down at the Middle flying the red flag yesterday to mark the bank and the fear is they’ll try treason . . . they’ve gone too far now for anything else . . . my guess is they’ll try for France or Holland. Are you from Duncan?’
‘Aye,’ it was Griffiths who spoke now. ‘Are you sure of your facts, sir?’
‘Aye, sir. We left Broadstairs yesterday. The intelligence about the frigate we learned from the buoy yacht Argus from Harwich; I myself called on Admiral Buckner at Sheerness on my way from London.’
Griffiths reflected a moment. ‘And you think they’ll try and break out?’
‘It’s that or starve and swing.’
Griffiths eyed the pendant. ‘Starboard tack, Mr Drinkwater,’ then in a louder voice as Kestrel turned away, ‘Much obliged to you, sir, God speed.’
The tw
o cutters parted, Kestrel standing seawards again. Griffiths came aft to where Drinkwater was setting the new course.
‘Black Deep, sir?’
‘Aye if she’ll hold the course.’ Griffiths shivered and wiped the back of his hand across his forehead.
‘She’ll hold it, sir, with the centre plates down. I take it we’re for Yarmouth?’
Griffiths nodded. ‘Mr Drinkwater . . .’ He jerked his head sideways and walked to the rail, staring astern to where, alongside the Trinity Yacht, the Nubb buoy was sinking. In a low voice he said, ‘It seems we have our proof, Nathaniel . . .’ His white eyebrows shot up in two arches.
‘Aye sir. I’d come to pretty much the same conclusion.’
After Kestrel the admiral’s cabin aboard Venerable seemed vast, but Admiral Duncan was a big man with a broad Scots face and, even seated, he dominated it. There was a story that he had subdued Adamant’s crew by picking up one of her more vociferous seamen and holding him, one armed, over the side with the sarcastic comments that the fellow dared deprive him of command of the fleet. The general laughter that followed this spectacle had ensured Adamant’s loyalty.
As Griffiths, unwell and sweating profusely, strove to explain the significance of their news, Drinkwater examined the other occupants of the cabin in whose august company he now found himself. There was Captain Fairfax, Duncan’s flag-captain, and Captain William Bligh. Drinkwater regarded ‘Bounty’ Bligh with ill-concealed curiosity. The captain had a handsome head, with a blue jaw and firm chin. The forehead was high, the hairline balding and his grey hair drawn back into a queue. Bligh’s eyes were penetrating and hazel, reminding Drinkwater of Dungarth’s, the nose straight and flanked with fine nostrils. Only the mouth showed anything in the face that was ignoble, a petulance confirmed by his voice which had a quality of almost continuous exasperation. The remaining person was Major Brown, summoned by telegraph from London and still eating the chicken leg offered him on his arrival.
‘Now I’m not quite clear about the significance of this Santhonax,’ frowned the admiral, ‘if I’m losing my ships do I really have to bother about one man?’
‘If he’s the man we think, sir,’ put in Bligh in his high-toned voice, ‘I consider him to be most dangerous. If he is the man said to have been seen aboard several of the ships at the Nore as this genleman,’ Bligh indicated Brown, ‘seems to think, then I’d rate him as the most seditious rascal among that clutch of gallows-birds. They deserve to swing, the whole festering nest of them.’
‘Thank ye, captain,’ said Duncan, with just a touch of irony. ‘Major Brown?’
The major always seemed to be called on for explanations in the middle of a mouthful, thought Drinkwater as he pricked up his ears to hear what news Brown had brought.
‘It seems certain, gentlemen, that this man was indeed Capitaine Santhonax, a French agent whose current duty seems to be to suborn the Nore fleet. There were reports of him in connection with the Culloden affair. One of the sailing masters held aboard Sandwich recognised him as a Frenchman and smuggled word ashore by a bumboat. Apparently they had fought hand to hand off Trincomalee in the last war,’ he explained, ‘and a number of other reports,’ here he paused and inclined his head slightly towards Drinkwater and Griffiths, ‘have led us to take an interest in him . . . it would appear he has been the eminence grise behind Richard Parker.’
Bligh nodded sharply, ‘And behind the removal of myself and my officers from my ship!’
‘But he has escaped us now,’ soothed Duncan, ‘so where’s all this leading us?’
Brown shrugged, ‘Captain Fairfax tells me you captured the Nore delegates on their way here.’
‘Aye, Major, Rose took Cygnet off Orfordness so our friend is not coming here.’
Drinkwater looked desperately round the circle of faces. Did none of them see what was obvious to him? He looked at Griffiths but the lieutenant had drifted into a doze.
‘Excuse me sir.’ Drinkwater could hold his tongue no longer.
‘Yes, what is it Mr, er, Drinkwater?’ Duncan looked up.
‘With respect, sir, may I submit that I believe Santhonax was in the boat on passage to Holland . . .’ he paused, faltering before the gold lace that appeared to take heed of him for the first time.
‘Go on, Mr Drinkwater,’ encouraged Brown, leaning forward a half-smile on his face.
‘Well sir,’ Drinkwater doggedly addressed the admiral, ‘I believe from all the facts I know, including the news from the Trinity Yacht relative to the movements of the Nore ships, that a defection of the fleet was ripe. Santhonax was bound for Holland to bring out Dutch ships . . .’
‘To cover the defection of the Nore squadron, by heaven!’ Fairfax finished the sentence.
‘Exactly, sir,’ Drinkwater nodded.
‘But that smacks of conspiracy, gentlemen, of collusion with a foreign power. Och, I don’t believe it, man.’ The admiral looked for support to Fairfax who, with the discretionary latitude of a flag-captain said gently, ‘Your good-nature, sir, does you credit but I fear Mr Drinkwater may be right. Jack Tar is not always the easy-going lion the populace likes to imagine him . . .’ They all looked at the old admiral until Brown’s voice cut in.
‘We have a woman in Maidstone Gaol that would support Mr Drinkwater’s theory, sir.’
‘A woman, sir! What in God’s name has a woman to do with a fleet mutiny?’
Drinkwater’s pulse had quickened as he realised Brown knew more than he had so far admitted. He was eager to ask the woman’s identity but he already knew it.
‘That, Admiral Duncan, is something we’d very much like to know.’
‘Well has the woman told ye anything?’
Brown smiled. ‘She is not the type to go in for confessions, sir.’
‘But she is not beyond sustaining a conspiracy, sir,’ put in Drinkwater with a sudden vehemence.
‘So you ken the woman, Mr Drinkwater?’ The admiral’s brows showed signs of anger. ‘There seems to be a deal about this matter that is known to the masters of cutters and denied to commanders in chief. Now, sir,’ he rounded on Brown, ‘d’ye tell me exactly who and what this woman is, what her connection is with our French agent and what it’s all to do with my fleet.’
‘Kestrel brought Mlle Montholon, the woman now in custody, out of France, sir . . .’ Brown went on to outline the incidents that had involved the cutter. Drinkwater only half listened. So Hortense was in prison now. His suspicions had been confirmed after all. He wondered if Santhonax knew and doubted it would have much effect on him if he did. Hortense would not have confessed, but he guessed her pride had made her defiant and she had let slip enough. He wondered how Brown’s men had eventually taken her and was satisfied in his curiosity as the major concluded: ‘. . . and so it seemed necessary to examine the young woman more closely. A theft of jewellery was, er, traced to a footman attending the Dowager Comtesse De Tocqueville and in the resulting search of her house a number of interesting documents and a considerable sum of gold was discovered.’ He paused to sip from a glass of wine and ended with that curiously Gallic shrug. ‘And so we had her.’
When he had finished Duncan shook his head. ‘It’s all most remarkable, most remarkable. She must be a she-devil . . .’
Beside Drinkwater Griffiths stirred and growled in Welsh, ‘Hwyl, sir . . . she has hwyl, the power to stir men’s bowels.’
‘But it is not the woman that concerns us now, Admiral Duncan,’ said Brown. ‘The man Santhonax is the real danger. Mr Drinkwater is right and we are certain he intends to bring out the Dutch. He has been in close consultation with Parker and if the mutiny is wavering De Winter must come out at the first opportunity or be more securely shut up in the Texel. If, on the other hand, he emerges to cover the Thames and the Nore ships join him, I leave the consequences to your imagination. Such a force on the doorstep of London would draw the Channel fleet east uncovering Brest, leaving the road clear for Ireland, the West Indies, India. Whichever way you loo
k at it to have the Dutch at sea, mutiny or not, would put us in a most dangerous situation. Add the complication of an undefended east coast and a force of republican mutineers in the Thames then,’ Brown spread his hands and shrugged again in that now familiar gesture that was a legacy of his sojourns amongst the Canadians and the French. But it was supremely eloquent for the occasion.
Duncan nodded. ‘Those very facts have been my constant companions for the past weeks. I begin to perceive this Santhonax is something of a red hot shot.’
‘What is the state of your own ships, Admiral?’ asked Brown.
‘That, Major, is a deuced canny question.’
Admiral Duncan’s fleet deserted him piecemeal in the next few days. Off the Texel Captain Trollope in the Russell, 74, with a handful of cutters, luggers and a frigate or two, maintained the illusion of blockade. Five of his battleships left for the Nore.
On the 29th May Duncan threw out the signal to weigh. His remaining ships stood clear of Yarmouth Roads until, one by one, they turned south-west, towards the Thomas. Three hours after sailing only Venerable, 74, Adamant, 50 and the smaller Trent and Circe, together with Kestrel, remained loyal to their admiral.
The passage across the North Sea was a dismal one. In a way Drinkwater was relieved they were returning to the Texel. Wearying though blockade duty was, he felt instinctively that that was where they should be, no matter to what straits they were reduced. Brown thought so too, for after sending a cipher by the telegraph to the Admiralty, he had joined the cutter with Lord Dungarth’s blessing.
‘I think, Mr Drinkwater,’ he had said, ‘that you may take the credit for having set a portfire to the train now and we must wait patiently upon events.’
And patiently they did wait, for the first days of June the wind was in the east. De Winter’s fleet of fourteen sail of the line, eight frigates and seventy-three transports and storeships were kept in the Texel by the two British battleships, a few frigates and small fry who made constant signals to one another in a ruse to persuade the watching Dutch that a great fleet lay in the offing of which this was but the inshore squadron.
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