'You will do as you please, I reckon,' he said with some difficulty. Drinkwater jerked his head at Sergeant Blixoe.
'Take him below, Sergeant.'
He could afford clemency. It was good to have them all back together. Fraser, Lallo, Mount, Quilhampton, even the lugubrious chaplain, Jonathan Henderson. He looked astern through the cabin windows where, under Hill and Frey, the Virgen de la Bonanza danced in their wake. Perhaps best of all was to see little Mr Belchambers's cheerful smile, for Drinkwater did not think he could have brought himself to have written to explain the boy's loss to his trusting parents. It was true that there were still men missing, men who had been pressed by the Spaniards to labour on the wharves of San Francisco, but for the great majority the raid on the outpost on the Columbia River had reunited them in spirit, wiping out memories of discontent, disloyalty and desertion. It was less easy for Drinkwater to forget the depths to which he had sunk, of how near he had been to suicide; less easy to forget the risks he had run in his desperation, but the raid had had its effect, paltry enough though it had been in terms of military glory. They had landed by boat in the mist of early morning in a brief and bloody affair in which all the advantage had been with the assailants. They had carried off all that they had not destroyed, even Tregembo's swine, setting fire to the fort with the same enthusiasm they had burnt the first brig.
Drinkwater turned from the stern windows and glanced down at the chart on his table. They would do the same to the Russian outpost at Bodega Bay, where the mysterious mountain-man had first enslaved his own deserters. His men would enjoy that and he could set free Captain Mack, leave him to his damnable wilderness. Then he would return to San Francisco. His heartbeat quickened at the thought of confronting the Arguello brothers. How unexpected were the twists of fortune and how close he had come to ending his own life in the cell below the Commandante's residence. If it had not been for Doña Ana Maria…
He forced his mind into safer channels. His first consideration was the destruction of the second Russian post at Bodega Bay.
Lieutenant Quilhampton jumped into the water of Bodega Bay and led the men ashore. They splashed behind him, Mount leading the marines, Frey with his incendiary party. They met only token resistance. A couple of shots were fired at them out of bravado, but the two grubby wretches immediately flung down their muskets and surrendered. Surprise had been total and the British party entered the now familiar stockade with its stink of urine, grease and unwashed humanity, to set about its destruction.
Only when he saw the flicker of flames did Drinkwater leave the ship in the boat. In the stern-sheets, escorted by two of Mount's marines, sat Captain Mack. Wading ashore with the mountain-man's long rifle, Drinkwater indicated that the marines were to follow him with their prisoner. As they walked towards the blazing pine logs that exploded and split in great upwellings of sparks as the resin within them expanded and took fire, they met Quilhampton's party escorting a pathetic collection of bearded moujiks back to the boats.
'Where's the commandant?'
'No one seems to be in command, sir, just this handful of peasants.'
'He's a-fucking Indian women, Cap'n, or lying dead-drunk under a redwood tree,' drawled Captain Mack.
'Very well. Let him go.' Drinkwater motioned to the marines and they stood back. He jerked his head at the mountain-man. 'Vamos!'
Mack half-smiled at the irony, but held out his hand. 'My gun, Cap'n.'
'You get out of my sight now. When my boat pulls off the beach I'll leave your rifle on that boulder. You can get it then.'
'You don't trust me?'
'Somebody once told me the Cherokees called you people Yankees because they didn't trust you.'
'Ah, but others called us English then…'
Mack grinned, reluctantly acknowledging an equal and stalked away. He did not look back and his buckskins were soon as one with the alternate light and shade that lay beneath the trees. Drinkwater turned back to the incendiary roar and crackle of the burning fort when there came a shout, the snap of branches and a roar of anger. Drinkwater spun round.
Mack was running back towards them, pursued by a dark figure in an odd, old-fashioned full-length waistcoat. The man had lost his wig and hat but he held out a pistol and, as he took in the sight of the burning fort, he fired it screaming some frightful accusation after Mack. The mountain-man fell full length, his spine broken by the ball, and Drinkwater ran up to him as he breathed his last. Behind Drinkwater the marines brought down the wigless Russian.
Drinkwater bent over the dying Mack. '… Thought… I'd betrayed…' he got out through clenched teeth, and Drinkwater looked at the Russian, rolling beneath the bayonets of the marines. It must have been the returning commandant, misinterpreting the mayhem before him as his post blazed and Mack walked insouciantly away from the scene.
Drinkwater watched as life ebbed from the tumbled goliath, shot so ignominiously by a debauched ne'er-do-well, and felt that sharp pang of regret, that sense of universal loss that accompanied certain of the deaths he had witnessed. He was about to stand when his eye fell upon something bright.
Half a dozen huge nuggets of the purest gold had rolled out of the mountain-man's leather pouch.
'Bury 'em both,' he called to the marines, and scooping up the treasure he swept them into his pocket.
Gold.
It threw off the reflections of the candle flames leaping and guttering as Patrician worked her way off shore in the first hours of the night. Tomorrow she would appear off Point Lobos, but tonight she would hide herself and her prize in the vastness of the Pacific.
Gold.
A king's ransom lay before him. No wonder Mack had scorned the idea of payment for passing Patrician's deserters to the Russians, and no wonder he had not wanted those same men wandering over wherever it was he found the stuff, for that was the only implication that fitted his deed and his character. He would not encourage the Spaniards, for their tentacles would spread inexorably northwards, while the Russians could supply him with those necessities he was compelled to get from civilisation. Powder, shot, steel needles, flints… Drinkwater had no idea how many natural resources the wilderness contained.
But it contained gold.
And what the devil would such an unworldly man as 'Captain Mack' do with such a treasure? That was a mystery past his divining.
'Cleared for action, sir!'
'Very well, Mr Fraser.'
Above their heads the white ensign snapped in the breeze from the north that had blown fresh throughout the night and was only now losing its strength as they came under the lee of the land. From his post on the gun-deck, Quilhampton tried to locate the little cove where he and the cutter's crew had holed up and from where he had seen the Patrician carried off into captivity. Suppose the Suvorov was waiting for them under the protection of the Spanish battery on Point Lobos? What would be the outcome of the action they were about to fight?
He found he dare not contemplate defeat, and felt the atmosphere aboard the ship imbued with such a feeling of renewal that defeat must be impossible, no matter what the odds. Those two raids, little enough in themselves, had patched up morale, made of them all a ship's company again, a ship's company that had endured much. There was talk of going home after the job was done, after the Spanish and the Russians had been made to eat their own shit, and the gun-captains kneeled with their lanyards taut in their fists in anticipation of this event.
'Thou art my battle-axe and weapons of war,' the Reverend Jonathan Henderson had declaimed at Divine Service that morning, 'for with Thee I will break in pieces the nations, and with Thee I will destroy kingdoms,' he had railed, and if no one understood the finer theological points of his subsequent deductions, all made the blasphemous connection between Jeremiah's imputed words and themselves.
'Stand ready, sir,' Mr Belchambers squeaked at the companion-way, 'maximum elevation,' he went on repeating Drinkwater's orders from the quarterdeck, 'no sign of the Russian ships. Target to
be the battery, starboard broadside.'
Quilhampton grinned. The boy had the phrases arse-about-face, but he was cool enough. He stooped and peered through the adjacent gun-port. He saw the smoke suddenly mushroom from the end cannon, wafting outwards in a great smoke-ring, but no fall of shot followed.
'Make ready!' Belchambers's squeak came again.
'Make ready there, starbowlines!' Quilhampton roared with mounting excitement.
A second smoke-ring mushroomed from the embrasures of Point Lobos.
'They're bloody well saluting us,' muttered Quilhampton, frowning.
'Hold your fire, sir! There's a flag of truce putting off from the shore.'
A groan of disappointment ran along the gun-deck.
'Capitán, my brother, Don José Arguello de Salas, Commandante of His Most Catholic Majesty's city of San Francisco, extends his most profound apologies for this most unfortunate mistake.'
'Damn you, Don Alejo. Where is your brother? I demand to know more of this affair, this so-called mistake which I know to be nothing short of a towering fabrication, a… a…' words failed to express Drinkwater's angry sense of outrage.
So many half-guessed-at truths had found their answers in the hour since the flag-of-truce had first been seen. But Don Alejo was not a man to concede a thing. As Drinkwater faltered, the wily Spaniard rammed home his counter-stroke.
'We are both guilty, Capitán. You, please, you steal our schooner, La Virgen de la Bonanza.'
'That is an outrageous allegation…'
'Capitán, please, it is one of the confusions of this war.'
'If you had informed me, as you were duty bound to do, that she brought news of our new alliance, I should not have been forced to capture her. You, Don Alejo, acted outside all international law by selling, yes sir, selling His Britannic Majesty's ship Patrician to the Russian power in the person of Prince Rakitin after you had heard that your country was once again an ally of mine. Such an action is the basest and most dishonourable that I have ever heard of.'
'A little mistake, Capitán Drinkwater,' snapped Don Alejo, 'a little… what did your English papers say, eh? Ah, sí, a quibble, like when your ships come under your Admiralty orders and attack Bustamente's frigates and blow up the Mercedes and send women to God before you have a declaration of war! It is nothing! Nothing!' Don Alejo made a gesture of contemptuous dismissal.
'But you traded, Don Alejo, sold my ship. You have been trading with the Russians ever since Rezanov came, eh? Your Most Catholic Master does not approve of his servants trading in his monopolies.'
'It was for my country that I remove your ship. You too-much disturb trade. Now we are at peace and allies, you have your ship back.' Don Alejo spoke in a lower key. 'Perhaps, Capitán Drinkwater, you should be a little obliged to me…'
'Upon my soul, why?' asked Drinkwater aback.
'When you first take me prisoner, Capitán, Don Jorge Rubalcava, he want to tell you to go to Monterey. There you not escape. There you lose your ship. Here in San Francisco…' He shrugged, a gesture full of implications, and Drinkwater understood that Don Alejo was beyond his comprehension in cunning. Whatever the venal sins of his brother, Don Alejo would emerge on the winning side, if he knew of the presence of gold in California, as that shrewd observation of Quilhampton's suggested, Don Alejo was not the man to make the knowledge public. Had he in some subtle way suggested to Doña Ana Maria that honour was at stake and so ensured Drinkwater's escape through her action? Looking at him, Drinkwater thought the thing at least a possibility. And Don Alejo had nothing to lose by it, for Drinkwater might have failed, lost in some obscure and savage fracas on the coast. He shuddered at the mere recollection of the night raid on the Columbia River.
'Now, Capitán, as to the matter of your men…' said the Spaniard smoothly.
Drinkwater frowned. 'I shall expect them returned instantly.'
'As soon as Don Jorge takes possession of the aviso, Capitán.' Don Alejo smiled victoriously. Drinkwater opened his mouth to protest the injustice of losing their prize. Then he remembered the gold and felt the weight of those nuggets dragging down the tails of his full-dress coat. When the time came, he thought, he could purchase comforts enough to compensate his men for the loss of their paltry share in the schooner. Perhaps they were better off, for the matter might lie before a prize-court for years, and only the attorneys would benefit. Besides, he had other matters to attend to. There were despatches, brought weeks earlier, carried overland to Panama with the news of the rising against the French, then up the coast in La Virgen de la Bonanza. Don Alejo swore he had intended to pass them to Drinkwater on his release, the very day Drinkwater had succeeded in escaping. And there was still the Russian power to destroy.
Don Alejo was holding out a glass.
'A toast to our new alliance, Capitán … to Dos de Mayo… the second day of May, the day Madrid rose against the French. It is a pity good news travels so slow, eh?'
He knew he was not supposed to see her, that she broke some imposition of her father's or her uncle's to contrive this clumsy meeting on the path. She was as lovely as ever and yet there was something infinitely sad about the cast of her features, despite her smile. She held two books out to him. They were his log and journal and he took them, thanking her and tucking them under his arm with the bundle of despatches Don Alejo had at last given him. He smiled back at her.
'Señorita, I am indebted to you for ever for my freedom, even,' he added, the smile passing from his face, 'for my very life.' He paused, recalling how close he had come to the ultimate act of despair and her face reflected her own grief. Then he brightened. 'And thank you for your kindness in retrieving my books.'
'It was nothing…'
'You knew about the changes in your country's circumstances?'
She nodded. 'Sí.'
'And disobeyed your father?'
'My father is sometimes deceived by Don Alejo.' Drinkwater remembered her obvious dislike of Don Alejo.
'He was engaged in some illegal traffic with the Russians?'
She shrugged. 'All would have been well had Nicolai lived.'
'It was fated otherwise, Señorita.'
'Si. Que sera sera,' she murmured.
'Why did you release me?'
She looked him full in the face then. 'Because you told the truth about Nicolai.'
'It was a small thing.'
'For me it was not. It has changed my life. I am to go into a convent.'
He remembered the Franciscan. 'It is the world's loss, Señorita.'
'I prayed for your wife and family… Adios, Capitán.'
'Adios, Señorita.' He bowed as she turned away.
Drinkwater watched through his glass as Hill brought La Virgen de la Bonanza to her anchor under Point Lobos that evening. He watched Don Jorge Rubalcava board her and wished he could shoot the treacherous dog with Mack's long rifle that now lay below in his cabin. Then he swung his glass to see if the rest of the bargain was being kept. He watched the boat approach, returning the ragged remnants of his men from the chain gang of servitude. By the time Hill and Frey came back from the schooner, Patrician's anchor was a-trip.
'I would not stay in this pestilential spot another moment,' he remarked to Hill as the sailing master made his report. The knot of officers within hearing nodded in general agreement. Only Mr Frey stood pensively staring astern.
'She intends to become a nun, Mr Frey,' he snapped, an unwonted harshness in his voice.
Chapter Twenty-One
The Night Action
September 1808
Drinkwater stared at the empty bulkhead. The paint was faintly discoloured where the portraits of Elizabeth and the children used to hang. Before him, on the table, were scattered the contents of the despatch brought weeks ago by the aviso. It had been a day of explanations, not least that of the most perplexing of his worries, one that had concerned him months earlier at the time of their departure from the Nore.
Some departmental ineffi
ciency had delayed it and now it had been sent out after him to the West Indies, overland to Panama by mule and shipped up the Isthmus, to be opened and scrutinised by Don Alejo Arguello, no doubt, before finding its way to him. It was months old, so old, in fact, that its contents were rendered meaningless by the train of events, except that they heartened him, gave him some insight into his apparent abandonment by the head of the Admiralty's Secret Department Lord Dungarth. He read the relevant passage through again.
I write these notes for your better guidance, my dear Drinkwater, for I find upon my return from Government business elsewhere, that Barrow has sent you out insufficiently prepared. Seniavin declined to serve against us after his Imperial master succumbed to the seductions of Bonaparte, having seen service with us at an earlier period in his career. Rakitin is a less honourable man, untroubled by such scruples and well-known to some of your fellow officers. I would have you know these things before you reach the Pacific, for it reaches me that he is to command a ship of some force, perhaps a seventy-four, and capitalise upon the work done by Rezanov…
Drinkwater folded the letter. So, Dungarth had been absent on Government business elsewhere. Drinkwater was intrigued as to where that business might have been. Had his Lordship been back to France? He had made some vague allusions to Hortense Santhonax having become the mistress of Talleyrand. She had turned her coat before, might she not do so again?
He thrust the ridiculous assumption aside. That was altogether too fanciful. What advantage could either Hortense Santhonax or the French Foreign Minister derive from betraying such an unassailably powerful man as the Emperor Napoleon? It was a preposterous daydream. He picked up another letter. The superscription was familiar, but he could not place it. Then he recollected the hand of his friend, Richard White. Drinkwater slit the seal, anticipating his old shipmate must be writing to inform him he had hoisted a rear-admiral's flag.
A deck below Captain Drinkwater, Lieutenant Quilhampton was also reading a letter.
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