The problem of rigging some steering arrangement proved the most difficult. The idea of lashing a tiller was rejected owing to the great strain upon it which would almost certainly result in the lashing turning about the round mast. In the end it was found necessary to bore the mast, a long task with a hand auger that occupied some four hours work. Into the mortice thus made, the yard arm of the mizen topgallant yard was prepared to go to become a clumsy tiller.
While these works were in progress Drinkwater frequently called for reports from the masthead about the movement of the Requin. But she, too, seemed to be refitting, although her inactivity did not remit the anxiety Drinkwater felt on her account, and he fumed at every trivial delay.
His impatience was unjust for, as he admitted to himself, he could not have been better served, particularly by Hill, Bourne, Gorton and Quilhampton. Comley, the bosun and Mr Marsden, the carpenter were indefatigable, while the men, called upon to exert themselves periodically in heaving the heavy timbers into position, in fetching and carrying, in the rigging of tackles and the frequent adjustment of leads until all was to the demanding exactness Drinkwater knew was the secret of such an operation, carried out their multifarious orders willingly.
There were considerable delays and a few setbacks, but after eight hours labour the timbers assembled on the quarterdeck looked less like a lowered mast and more like a rudder and stock. In one of these delays Drinkwater took himself below to attend the wounded.
Melusine had suffered greatly in the action, not only in her fabric, but in her company. As Drinkwater made his way below to the cockpit he refused to allow his mind to dwell on the moral issues that crammed the mind in the aftermath and anti-climax of action. No doubt Singleton would hector him upon the point in due course and Drinkwater felt a stab of conscience at the way he had been instrumental in turning little Frey from a frightened boy to a murderous young man who had killed in the service of his King and Country. Still, Drinkwater reflected, that was better than fulfilling that mendacious platitude: Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori.
But it was not Singleton’s face that reproached him in the gloom of the cockpit. Skeete leered at him abruptly, holding up the horn lantern to see who it was.
‘Are ’ee wounded, Cap’n, sir?’ The foul breath of Skeete’s carious teeth was only marginally worse than the foetid stink of the space, crammed as it was with wounded men. They lay everywhere, some twisted in agony, some slumped under the effects of laudanum or rum, some sobbed and cried for their wives or mothers. Singleton looked up as Drinkwater leaned over the body of Mr Rispin. Their eyes met and Singleton gave the merest perceptible shake to his head. Drinkwater knelt down beside the lieutenant.
‘Well now, Mr Rispin. How goes it, eh?’ he asked quietly.
Rispin looked at him as though he had no idea who it was. There was very little left of Rispin’s chest and his eyes bore testimony to the shock his body had received. His pupils were huge: he was already a dead man, astonished to be still alive, if only for a little longer.
Drinkwater turned aside. He almost fell over one of the ship’s nippers, a boy of some nine years of age named Maxted, Billy Cue Maxted, Drinkwater remembered from the ship’s books, named for the battleship Belliqueux, from whence his father had come to ruin the reputation of poor Mollie Maxted. Now little Billy was a cripple. He had been carrying powder to his gun when a ball knocked off both his legs. They were no more than dry sticks and he was conscious of their loss. Drinkwater knelt down beside him.
The child’s eyes alighted on the captain and widened with comprehension. He struggled to rise up, but Drinkwater pushed him back gently, feeling the thin shoulder beneath the flannel shirt.
‘Oh, Cap’n Drinkwater, sir, I’ve lost both my legs, sir! Both on ’em, and this is my first action, sir. Oh, sir, what’m I going to do, sir? With no legs, who’ll carry powder to my gun, sir, when next we fights the Frogs, sir?’
‘There, Billy, you lie back and rest. It’s for me to worry about the guns and for you to be a good boy and get well . . .’
‘Will I get well, sir?’ The boy was smiling through his tears.
‘Of course you will, Billy . . .’
‘And what’ll happen to me, sir?’ Drinkwater swallowed. How could you tell a nine-year-old he was a free-born Briton who would never be a slave? He was free to rot on whichever street corner took his fancy. He might get a pension. Perhaps ten pounds a year for the loss of two legs, if someone took up his case. Drinkwater sighed.
‘I’ll look after you, Billy. You come and see me when you’re better, eh? We’ll ship you a pair of stumps made of whale ivory . . .’
‘Aye, sir, an a pair o’ crutches out o’ the Frog’s topgallant yards, eh, Cap’n?’
An older seaman lying next to Billy hoisted himself on one elbow and grinned in the darkness. Drinkwater nodded, rose and stepped over the inert bodies. Rispin had died. Somewhere in the stinking filth of the orlop his soul sought the exit to paradise, for there were no windows here to throw wide to the heavens, only a narrow hatchway to the decks above. At the ladder Drinkwater paused to look back.
‘Three cheers for Cap’n Drinkwater!’ It was little Billy’s piping voice, and it was answered by a bass chorus. Drinkwater shuddered and reached for the ladder man-ropes.
Dulce et decorum est . . .
He had not seen Tregembo in the cockpit, he realised as he passed the marine sentry stationed outside his cabin. He opened the door only to find a party of men under Mr Quilhampton completing the lashings of the mizen topgallant mast across the stern.
‘We had to break two of the glazings, sir,’ said Quilhampton apologetically, pointing at the knocked-out corners of the stern windows.
‘No matter, Mr Q. How does it go?’
‘Just passing the final frappings now.’
‘Very well.’ Drinkwater paused and looked hard at one of the men. The fellow had his back to Drinkwater and was leaning outboard. ‘Is that Tregembo?’
‘Yes, sir. He refused to stay in the cockpit,’ Quilhampton grinned, ‘complained that he wasn’t having a lot of clumsy jacks in his cabin.’
Drinkwater smiled. ‘Tregembo!’
The Cornishman turned. ‘Aye, zur?’ His head was bandaged and he spoke with difficulty.
‘How is your face?’
‘Aw, ’tis well enough, zur. Mr Singleton put a dozen homeward bounders in it an’ it’ll serve. I reckon I’ll be able to chaw on it.’
Drinkwater wondered what sort of an appearance Tregembo would make, his cheek crossed by the scars of Singleton’s sutures. If they ever reached Petersfield again he could expect some hard words from Susan. He nodded his thanks to the man for saving his life. The Cornishman’s eyes lit. There was no need for words.
‘Very well.’
‘You’ve broke your sword, zur.’ Tregembo was reproachful. The French sword had hung on his hip since he had taken it from the dead lieutenant of La Creole twenty-odd years ago off the coast of Carolina. He had forgotten the matter.
‘You’d better have Mr Germaney’s, zur. For the time bein’.’
Drinkwater nodded again, then turned to Quilhampton.
‘Carry on, Mr Q.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
They were ready to heave the jury rudder over the taffrail when he returned to the deck. All the purchases were manned, each party under the direction of an officer or midshipman. The former mizen topmast, the ball from the Requin prised out of it and the improvised rudder blade bound to it, jutted out over the stern. The heel-iron at its extremity was fitted with the requisite chains and hackles and the head of the mast was, where it passed through the heel-iron, well slushed with tallow to allow free rotation.
‘All ready, sir.’ Bourne touched his hat.
‘Very good, Mr Bourne. Let’s have it over . . .’
‘Aye, aye, sir. Set tight all. Ready, Mr Gorton?’ Gorton was up on the taffrail, hanging overboard with two topmen.
‘Ready, sir.’
> Bourne lifted the speaking trumpet and turned forward. ‘Mr Wickham! Mr Dutfield! Your parties to take up slack only!’
‘Ay, aye, sir!’ The tackles from the heel iron came inboard at the chess-trees and here the two midshipmen had half a dozen men each to set the heel of the rudder tight.
‘Very well, Mr Comley, haul her aft.’
‘Haul aft, aye, aye . . .’
The mast was pushed aft, the tackles overhauling or tightening as necessary. At the point of equilibrium the weight was slowly taken on the side tackles that led downwards from the mizen topgallant mast, Mr Gorton shouting directions to Quilhampton in the cabin below, where the hauling parts came inboard.
‘Some weight on the retaining tackle, Mr Comley . . .’
‘Holding now, sir.’ They had rigged a purchase from the base of the mizen mast to the upper end of the rudder stock. This now took much of the weight until the stock approached a more vertical angle and the full weight was taken by Quilhampton’s quarter tackles. The rudder blade dipped down and entered the sea. There was an ominous jerk as Comley eased his purchase and the weight came upon the quarter tackles. But they were heavy blocks, with sufficient mechanical advantage to handle the weight. The rudder stock approached the vertical, coming to rest on the pudding fender and, further down, the cross member formed by the mizen topgallant mast.
‘I think some parcelling there, Mr Gorton, together with a loose frapping will make matters more secure,’ said Drinkwater, leaning over the stern by the starboard stern davit.
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ He called down to Quilhampton and explained what Drinkwater wanted. Looking down, Drinkwater could see Quilhampton’s quarter tackles disappear into the water. They were bar-tight. Above his head Comley was removing the purchase to the mizen mast and setting up two side purchases, stretched out to the arms of the cross-jack yard which was lashed up under the boat davits. This was to ease some of the effects of torsion the improvised rudder could be expected to undergo.
Forward Wickham and Dutfield were hauling their tackles tight under Bourne’s direction. As Comley clambered down Drinkwater directed him to set up some additional bracing lines to support the extremities of the mizen topgallant mast and the cross-jack yard. He felt his anxiety subside and rubbed his hands with satisfaction.
‘Well done, Mr Bourne, a splendid achievement.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Drinkwater hailed the masthead. Mr Frey looked over the rim of the crow’s nest.
‘Any sign of the Requin, Mr Frey?’
‘No change, sir! East-nor’-east, distant three or four leagues, sir!’
‘Very well!’ Drinkwater turned to Bourne. ‘Heave the ship to, Mr Bourne, then set an anchor watch. Pipe “Up spirits”, all hands to have a double tot and then send ’em below. We’ll lie-to, then get under way in four hours. The masthead is to be continually manned. Carry on.’
Drinkwater was cheered for the second time that day, only on this occasion he felt less guilty.
Chapter Sixteen
July–August 1803
A Providential Refuge
‘We therefore commit their bodies to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body (when the sea shall give up her dead) . . .’
Obadiah Singleton, the stole of ordained minister of the Church of England about his muffled neck, read the solemn words as Melusine’s entire company stood silently in the waist. Drinkwater nodded and the planks lifted. From beneath the bright bunting of the ensigns the hammocks slid over the standing part of the fore-sheet, to plunge into the grey-green sea.
There were fifteen to bury, with the likelihood of a further seven or eight joining them within a day or two. They did not go unmourned. Among Melusine’s company, friends grieved the loss of shipmates. For Drinkwater there was always the sense of failure he felt after sustaining heavy losses and among those rigid bundles lay Cawkwell, his servant. He wondered whether he had been wise to have held Melusine’s fire for so long, and yet he knew he had inflicted heavy casualties upon the Requin, that her reluctance to renew the action could only in part have been due to the physical damage they had done to her fabric. From what he had seen of her commander the purely commercial nature of privateering would not prevent him from seeking a chance of glory. Drinkwater knew that the ablest of French seamen were not in the Republic’s battle-fleet, rotting in her harbours, penned in by the Royal Navy’s weary but endless blockade. France’s finest seamen were corsairs, aboard letters-of-marque like the Requin, as intrepid and daring as any young frigate captain in the Royal Navy. They were pursuing that mode of warfare at which they excelled: the war against trade, wounding the British merchants in their purses and thus bringing opposition to the war openly into Parliamentary debate. It was not without reason that First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte described the British as ‘a nation of shopkeepers’. Singleton closed the prayerbook as the Melusines mumbled their final ‘Amens’.
‘On hats!’
Drinkwater turned away for the companionway and his cabin. Already Bourne was piping the hands to stations for getting under way.
Drinkwater looked up at the stump of the mizen mast. They would set no more than the spanker on that, but the wind, although it had swung round to the south, remained light. It had brought with it a slight lessening of the visibility and they had not seen the Requin for three hours.
However, although Drinkwater’s anxiety was eased he was still worried about the rudder and had ordered Bourne to hoist only spanker, main topsail and foretopmast staysail to begin with. It was one thing to devise extempore measures and quite another to get them working. But while Bourne brought the ship onto a course for the Greenland coast there was something else Drinkwater had to attend to, an inevitable consequence of death.
‘Pass word for Mr Quilhampton,’ he said to the marine sentry who came to attention as Drinkwater opened the cabin door. Drinkwater took off his full-dress coat and changed it for the stained undress he wore over the blue guernsey that had become an inseparable, if irregular, part of his uniform clothing. The air had warmed slightly with the onset of the southerly breeze, but it had also become damp again and Drinkwater felt the damp more acutely in his bones and shoulder than the very cold, drier polar airstream of the northerly.
Drinkwater heard the knock at the door. ‘Enter!’
‘You sent for me, sir?’
‘Ah, yes, sit down a moment. Pray do you pour out two glasses there.’ He nodded at the decanter nestling between the fiddles on the locker top. Quilhampton did as he was bid while Drinkwater opened a drawer in his desk and removed a paper.
‘Far be it from me to rejoice in the death of a colleague, James, but what may be poison to one man, oft proves meat to another.’ He handed the sheet to Quilhampton who took it frowning. The young man’s brow cleared with understanding.
‘Oh . . . er, thank you, sir.’
‘It is only an acting commission, Mr Q, and may not be ratified by their Lordships, and although you have passed your Master’s Mate’s examination you have not yet sat before a Captains’ board to pass for lieutenant . . . you understand?’
Quilhampton nodded. ‘Yes sir, I understand.’
‘Very well. You will take Mr Rispin’s watch . . . and good luck to you.’ Drinkwater raised his glass and they sipped for a moment in companionable silence. Quilhampton gazed abstractedly through the stern windows, the view was obscured by the spars and lashings of the jury rudder but he was unaware of them. He was thinking of how he could now swagger into Mrs McEwan’s withdrawing-room, to make a leg before the lovely Catriona, and send that damned lubber of a Scottish yeoman to the devil!
‘I see,’ said Drinkwater turning, ‘that you are watching the effects of the ship getting under way upon the rudder.’
‘Eh? Oh, oh, yes sir . . .’ Quilhampton focussed his eyes as Drinkwater drained his glass, rose and picked up his hat.
‘Well, Mr Q, let us go and see how it answers our purpose . . .’
It answered their purpose surprisingly well. Kept under easy sail after a little experimenting with balancing the rig, and running tiller lines to the mizen royal yard in a manner which best suited steering the ship, Melusine made west-north-west. There was a thinning of the floes and although the wind remained from the south, it began to get colder. Fog patches closed in and from these circumstances Drinkwater deduced that the coast of Greenland could not be very far distant. There were other indications that this was so; an increase in the number of birds, particularly eider ducks, and a curious attentive attitude on the part of Meetuck who, having hidden during the action with the Requin to the amusement of the Melusines, now hung about the knightheads sniffing the air like a dog.
Then, shortly before eight bells in the morning watch the next day he was observed pointing ahead with excitement. He repeated the same word over and over again.
‘Nunataks! Nunataks!’
The hands, with their customary good-natured but contemptuous ignorance, laughed at him, tapping their foreheads and deriving a good deal of fun at the eskimo’s expense. Quilhampton had the watch and was unable to see anything unusual. Nevertheless he went forward and had Singleton turned out of his cot to translate.
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