‘Diablo!’ he muttered, then nodded and, as de Soto straightened up, the Commandante said, ‘Capitán, there has been much trouble in the town. Some men from your ship . . . they run away . . . there is a mêlée and a woman is killed.’
* See 1805
CHAPTER 8
March 1808
Council of War
‘How many?’
In the light from the candle that stood on the cabin table Captain Drinkwater’s face was thrown into dramatic relief. His head was cocked slightly, revealing the damaged muscles of his wrecked shoulder, and the single flame emphasised the intensity of his eyes. He was pale with fury.
‘Eight, sir.’ Quilhampton had never seen Drinkwater so angry and felt like a chastened midshipman. Beside him Fraser fidgeted nervously.
‘Eight? Eight! God’s bones man, you had marines in that damned boat! Marines with bayonets, for God’s sake, and you let eight men run!’
‘Yes sir,’ Quilhampton mumbled unhappily.
‘And do you know what they have done? Do you know what your eight precious liberty-loving English jacks have done, sir?’
‘No sir.’
‘They swilled aguardiente and ran wild in a whore-house! The upshot of their desertion is that they have been accused of causing the death of a woman and . . . and . . .’
Drinkwater brought his clenched fist down on the table-top so that the candle flame guttered. ‘They have entirely compromised me, tied me hand and fist, God damn them!’
‘Sir?’ Quilhampton frowned, not understanding.
Drinkwater let out a long breath. ‘Good God, James, can you offer me nothing in extenuation?’
‘Only that there were many people on the quay and to shoot would have endangered the local people.’
‘Mr Quilhampton was much abused by the crowds, sir,’ put in Fraser, ‘much spat upon and the like.’
Drinkwater fell silent and then he asked: ‘What became of Rubalcava?’
‘He left in the first boat after you and Frey had gone ashore, sir.’
Drinkwater shook his head, then moved round the table and lifted three glasses from the fiddles atop the locker. ‘Pass that decanter, Mr Fraser . . . thank you.’
He poured the bual into the glasses and handed each of the two officers a glass. ‘What’s it like on deck?’
‘Still foggy, sir, and dead calm. You can hear the guard-boats . . . no fear of a surprise. Mylchrist’s up there now, reckons his fever’s sharpened all his instincts,’ replied Fraser who had not long come below.
Drinkwater grunted. ‘We’ve an hour or two, no more . . . well, your health.’
There was a pause and then Drinkwater looked at Quilhampton. ‘Ease your mind, James, ’tis I who am the greater fool.’
‘You sir?’
‘Yes . . . I have played right into their damned hands. I suspected something, but could not lay it by the tail . . . damned if I can now, but I’ll wager the whore’s death was contrived.’
‘Contrived? I’m sorry . . . I don’t follow . . .’
It had come to him in his enforced idleness, sitting in his barge as the oarsmen brought him back to the ship from the Commandante’s boat jetty below the battery. There had been that vague feeling of something passing between the Arguello brothers, that sensation of their using Doña Ana to distract him. Whether she was a party to this he did not know, but it seemed obvious that the news of the brawl had been engineered and it came to him in the boat that those eight seamen had been lured away on promises of safety, promiscuous sex and money.
‘Was there much contact between the people and the Spaniards while they were here?’ he asked flatly.
‘No sir,’ said Fraser, ‘no more than one would expect with them cooped up on board.
‘Mount mentioned he caught two seamen and a marine bartering for tobacco,’ Quilhampton added.
‘Did he indeed?’
‘But there is nothing particularly significant in that, sir,’ said Fraser.
‘Except that ample opportunity existed for a sum of money to pass to disaffected men,’ Drinkwater said, ‘and God knows it takes little enough to turn the heads of these poor devils. A gold dollar, the promise of a whore and a drink and a pass through the town . . .’ Conviction was forming in his mind.
‘And they’re in an ugly mood sir . . . simmering below the surface. They fought well enough, sir, but the smell of land . . .’
‘Aye, and women,’ growled Fraser, and Drinkwater felt guilt fuelling his anger.
‘And Don Alejo had gold, sir, a lot of gold.’
‘Why d’you say that, Mr Q?’
‘He was concealing something on himself when he was compelled to abandon the Santa Monica. I thought it was a purse at the time. Then later, when he was quartered in my cabin, I went there by mistake, came below and without thinking, proceeded directly to my cabin. I opened the door before I realised my stupidity. Don Alejo was sitting smoking one of those damned cigars. He was half-undressed, lounging in my chair and on the cot lay his sword, some papers and a leather purse, the same one I had seen aboard the Santa Monica. It was bulging, sir, to the extent of revealing its contents . . . gold sir.’
‘Dollars, or pistoles or something very like . . .’
‘No sir, gold nuggets . . .’
‘The treasures of the Manila galleon, eh?’
‘I think perhaps only a little . . . a private speculation like the nabobs of the East India Company.’
‘H’m. How did he take the intrusion?’ Drinkwater asked.
‘He was not pleased. I told him the stink of his cigar had attracted my attention and that smoking was forbidden below decks.’
‘You should day-dream more often of Mistress MacEwan if it leads you into such adventures, Mr Q. Very well, then, it only serves to confirm my suspicions that some of the men were suborned. More may be preparing to desert at the first opportunity, we shall have to proceed warily . . .’
‘Sir, Ah’d be obliged . . .’ Fraser frowned.
‘Yes, Mr Fraser, I’ll explain.’ Drinkwater motioned them to sit. He was past mere tiredness, the events of the last hours had stimulated him and his active brain was whirling with the problems that suddenly beset him. He passed his hands over his face, seeking a place to begin his explanation.
‘Well gentlemen, the main purpose of our cruise is to dislodge any attempt by the Russians to establish territorial claims northward of the Spanish domain of Nueva España. Since the Tsar repudiated his alliance with us last summer, it is believed that it is the intention of the Russian court to settle southwards from Alaska. Some reports, brought into Canada by voyageurs indicated Russian incursions up the Colombia River, further north from here . . . it’s all very vague, but as welcome to us as the Spanish claim to Nootka Sound was. Although they have a fur-trading depot at Sitka, in Alaska, the tenuous claims of Captain Vancouver lie between Sitka and here, from whence, if the evidence in the bay is anything to go by, the Russians obtain many necessary supplies.’
‘I counted seven Russian vessels in the anchorage, sir, a schooner, three brigs, a barque and a ship, sir.’
‘Yes. I saw them last night. They will be expected on the Alaskan coast soon, and now we have arrived, just at the wrong moment for them. Not only have we advertised our presence, but we have destroyed one unit of the Spanish squadron that might have protected their trade.’
‘But it’s Russian trade, sir. I mean, are the Dons that interested in protecting it?’ asked Fraser, to whom the matter was still confused.
‘I presume they would not want it destroyed,’ Drinkwater replied.
‘But the Russians, sir, if they are seeking territory, will become a direct threat to the Spaniards, competing for the same length of coast.’ Fraser frowned.
‘Yes. Eventually they might, once our claims of land and our failure to maintain them are dealt with. But, for the meantime, they are allies of expedience. Besides, this could become a matter of national prestige. I imagine the Dons would lik
e their revenge for the loss of Nootka Sound. They only capitulated before because they lost the French monarchy as a support. Now they have Tsar Alexander. I believe they are about to settle the coast between them.’
‘With what force?’
‘The destruction of the Santa Monica does not draw all their teeth, Mr Fraser. Their main Pacific base is at Acapulco, they will have ships at Panama and, from what I heard tonight, there is a garrison at Monterey. I learnt something else tonight gentlemen, and this is the reason why we have been compromised. The murder, if indeed there has been a murder, is a prevarication, a means to delay us. The Commandatore has agreed to meet me to discuss the return of our men after the murderer has been tried. He has made protestations of not wishing to impugn the honour of our flag after our courtesy to our prisoners. In the same breath he is talking of our breaking the terms of the truce, of referring to Monterey for instructions . . . in short, any damned obstruction that will delay us while we are enmeshed in some specious diplomatic tangle.’
‘But sir, they have no force to keep us here!’ expostulated Fraser. ‘We can tow out from their guns in a couple of hours and those toy brigs wouldn’t knock the marines’ shakoes off.’
‘You are correct in your specific, but not your diagnosis. We can tow out, Mr Fraser, but we may well meet a line-of-battle-ship coming in.’
‘We can outmanoeuvre a Spanish battle-ship, sir,’ said Fraser almost flippantly.
‘She will be Russian, Mr Fraser, we saw her off Cape Horn and by the certainty with which our friends ashore are behaving, I believe her arrival imminent.’
‘Do we tow out, sir?’ Quilhampton asked, that inchoate sense of foreboding closing round him again. He had found its first physical manifestation at Más-a-Fuera and the second had dotted him with the spittle of hostile Spaniards, half-castes and Indians. Now every moment of delay increased its intensity.
‘Yes, make your preparations. Let us slip our cable and use the fog to make a virtue of necessity. In an hour then . . .’
They left him, scuttling out to pass word to the watch and turn out those sleeping below and at the guns. They would all be ragged-nerved and foul-tempered by the time they had laboured at the oars of the boats and dragged Patrician’s inert mass clear of the bay. He would have to be patient with them and watch for outbursts of disaffection. In the meantime he would have to wait. He could not sleep, although he was haggard with exhaustion. An hour’s sleep would make him feel worse than none at all. He poured the last of the bual into his glass and went on an impulse to his sea-chest. Rummaging in the bottom he drew out a frayed roll of canvas. Spreading it on the table he looked down at it. It was the portrait of a woman, painted long ago by the French Republican artist Jacques Louis David. In addition to the frayed edges and cracked paintwork, little circles of mould were forming on the canvas, perverting the purity of the colours, and there were three holes, where the tines of a fork had once pierced it.
Hortense Santhonax stared back at him from cool grey eyes. Beneath the studied negligence of her pearl-wound and piled auburn hair, her lovely face held a hint of a smile. He remembered her, years ago, almost as long ago as the Spanish outrage at Nootka Sound, before she married Edouard Santhonax and espoused the Bonapartist cause. She had been a frightened emigrée then, Hortense de Montholon, running from the vengeful howl of the pursuing mob, to be rescued by an impoverished master’s mate named Nathaniel Drinkwater.*
He had been half in love with her then, before she turned her coat and married his enemy.
He had killed Edouard Santhonax less than a year previously, killed him to preserve the secret he had brought out of Russia. He had widowed her in the line of duty. Or had he and why did he stare at her portrait now? The bare shoulders and the soft breasts were barely concealed by the wisp of gauze artfully placed by the skilled hand of a seductress. She was already rumoured to be the mistress of Talleyrand, a fading beauty he supposed. It made no sense to be subject to so compelling an urge as had driven him to remove her portrait from the obscurity of his sea-chest.
Except that she was providence, an ikon, presentient as his dream and an impulse to be obeyed in those rare moments of hiatus when his tired mind was in revolt. An ikon: an apt simile. He was unable to shake off that old superstition of his destiny. She had become the embodiment of the spirit of France, inhabiting the subconscious recesses of his imagination and marrying the man whose fate had become inextricably bound up with his own. The dice had fallen his way last, it had not always been thus as his wrecked shoulder testified; but he was not yet free of Santhonax’s ghost. The secret from Russia still haunted him, even here in the Pacific.
‘Witchcraft,’ he muttered and let the margin of the canvas go. It coiled itself like a spring and he looked up to see the faithful, pale oval of Elizabeth’s portrait staring at him from its frame. ‘Witchcraft,’ he repeated and, hiding the canvas again, he drew on his cloak and went on deck.
In some strange way he felt relieved by the power the portrait of Hortense possessed. There was a reassuring quality of normality about it: a familiar neurosis. He had not been too much overcome by the beauty of Ana Maria.
* See A King’s Cutter
CHAPTER 9
April 1808
The Leak
‘If you wish to say something Tregembo, for God’s sake say it and stop fiddling with those damned pistols!’ Drinkwater snapped irritably. Mullender’s duster and Tregembo’s fidgeting had driven him on deck where a sleeting rain had turned him below again. Patrician bucked to the onset of the rain-bearing squall and gusts of cold, damp air rattled in through the sashes of the stern windows.
‘You’ll be needing ’em ’fore long zur, if I ain’t mistaken,’ Tregembo growled.
‘The pistols? Would to God I needed ’em instanter! That damned convoy should have appeared by now . . .’
‘I didn’t mean for that, zur . . .’
‘Eh?’ Drinkwater frowned, looking at his coxswain with sudden attention. ‘What the devil did you mean then?’
Tregembo laid the pistol down in its box and waited until Mullender had gone into the pantry. His old face, lined and scarred as it was, bore every indication of concern. ‘Zur . . .’ The door to the tiny pantry stood open behind him. Drinkwater crossed the cabin and closed it. ‘Well?’
‘The people, zur . . . you know they’re disaffected . . . ’tis common enough upon a long commission an’ they mean no harm to you, zur . . . but . . .’
‘Spit it out Tregembo, I’m in no mood for puzzlements.’
‘ ’Tis the men you left behind, zur . . . ’tis scuttlebutt they’re to hang, an’ such rumouring is having a bad effect, zur . . .’
‘For God’s sake Tregembo, those men deserted . . .’ Drinkwater sat and stared gloomily at the old Cornishman.
‘There are stories of women, zur . . . the boat’s crews saw women ashore, an’ there are grog shops a-plenty . . . those merchant-seamen were three sheets to the wind, they’m saying . . . they be powerful reasons for making a man run, zur.’
Drinkwater nodded. ‘I know all this, Tregembo . . . why tell me now?’
‘Because it won’t be single men, zur. Next time it’ll be a boat’s crew, zur, an’ the word, as I hear it, is to hell with the officers . . .’
There was a peremptory knock at the cabin door. Instantly Tregembo turned away, picked up the pistol case, shut it and slid it into its stowage in the locker.
‘Come!’
It was Fraser. He was followed by the elderly Mr Marsden, a wizened and wrinkled man skirted with a leather apron which hid bandy legs but revealed a powerful torso, muscular arms and hands of immense size. The sudden irruption of the first lieutenant and the carpenter into Drinkwater’s cabin indicated something serious had happened.
‘Begging your pardon, sir, but Mr Marsden has just made an urgent report to me concerning water in the wells.’
Drinkwater looked sharply at the carpenter. ‘Well, Mr Marsden?’
‘T
hree feet, sir, in two hours, and making fast.’
‘When were the wells last pumped? At the change of the watch?’
‘Yes, sir, an’ nothink much in ’em bar what you’d expect.’
‘Something adrift below, then?’
Marsden nodded. ‘Seems likely, sir.’
‘Any idea what?’
‘No sir . . .’
‘No shot holes . . .’
‘Not that I can see, sir . . . ’sides we engaged that Spaniard wi’ the larboard broadside . . .’
‘Aye, and now we’re on the larboard tack! Mr Fraser, put the ship about on the instant! Mr Marsden pump the wells dry, let’s see if the other tack makes any difference.’ He rose, perversely relieved in the need for action, potentially disastrous though the news was. For the ship suddenly to make so much water could be due to any one of a hundred reasons, none of them easy to determine, let alone overcome. ‘Come gentlemen, let us be about our business!’
Grabbing hat and cloak Drinkwater hustled Fraser and the carpenter out of his cabin and followed them on deck. Alone in the cabin Tregembo watched the surge of the smooth wake as it rose, bubbling green from Patrician’s transom. A long-tailed Bosun-bird slid across his field of view, quartering the wake for prey. ‘Don’t you forget what I told ’ee,’ he muttered after Drinkwater.
On deck the watch were running to their stations to tack ship. Drinkwater took no part in the manoeuvre, instead he fished in the tail-pocket of his coat for his glass then levelled it to the eastward.
Banks of slate-coloured clouds rolled to leeward dragging dull curtains of rain behind them, blotting out sections of the faint blue line of the coastal mountains of California. From one such shroud the low line of Punta de los Reyes was emerging. Patrician had spent nine days keeping station off the point round which any convoy from San Francisco must pass on its way to the Alaskan settlements of the Tsar. They had kept well to seaward of the long, low arm of sand-dunes and marram grass, lurking out of sight to avoid either of those two man-of-war brigs that might be sent to see if the coast was clear. Even allowing a week for the tardiest merchant ship to complete her lading, it would be reasonable, Drinkwater argued to himself, for them to have intercepted some trading vessels moving north by now.
In Distant Waters Page 11