It was a fantastic effect, but their vision was still obscured at sea level, and for a further hour they moved slowly westward, Drinkwater still anxiously pacing the quarterdeck while on the knightheads Meetuck waited with the expectancy of a dog.
And then, about five bells in the morning watch, the visibility suddenly cleared. Melusine was almost at the head of the fiord. To the south stretched the cliffs and mountains that culminated in the cape beneath whose fissured rocks they had tacked the previous afternoon. This wall of rock curved round to the west and north, bordering the fiord. The northern shore was comprised of mountains but these were less precipitous, the littoral formed of bays and inlets some of which were wooded with low conifers. At the head of the fiord, where once a mighty glacier had calved bergs into the sea, was a bay, backed by rising ground, an alpine meadow-land that turned to scree, then buttresses of dark rock rising to mountain peaks.
On the fo’c’s’le Meetuck pointed triumphantly, capering about and clapping his hands, his lined face creased with happiness.
‘My God!’ exclaimed Drinkwater fishing for his glass. It was an anchorage without a doubt. Not a mile from them five ships lay tranquilly at anchor. One of them was the Requin, flying the tricolour of France.
An instant later she opened fire.
* Caused by a single-celled plant: Chlamydomonas nivalis.
Chapter Seventeen
August 1803
Nagtoralik Bay
‘Beat to quarters, Mr Bourne!’
Drinkwater ignored the bedlam surrounding him while Melusine was put into a state to fight. He swept the anchorage, pausing only briefly on each ship to determine its force. But it occurred to him as he did so that there was something remarkable about three of the ships in the bay. Identification of the Requin was simple. She must have arrived off Cape Jervis well ahead of the Melusine and now she was swung, a spring on her cable, every gun pointing at the British ship which, by its minute guns, had warned her of its approach.
Drinkwater swore, for he realised that anchored to the south of the Requin was a large lugger, a chassé marée, and to the east of her, the unpierced topsides of the Faithful. To find Sawyers’s ship in such circumstances was hardly reassuring, given that Melusine still laboured under her jury rudder.
To the west of Requin two more vessels lay at anchor and Drinkwater knew them instantly for whale ships. They were not immediately familiar and as Bourne reported the sloop cleared for action, Drinkwater ordered the course altered to starboard, risking raking fire, but anxious to close the distance a little before responding to Requin’s guns. Drinkwater began to calculate the odds. The big, French privateer made no obvious move to get under way. She would sit at anchor, in the centre of her captures, relying upon her superior weight of metal to keep Melusine at a distance. When she had driven off Melusine she would come in pursuit, to administer the coup de grace.
Drinkwater swore again. Their jury rudder and obvious reduction of rig bespoke their weakness. He looked again at the Requin for signs of damage to her bow. She had a bowsprit, perhaps a trifle shorter than when they had first met, and therefore a jury rig, but it looked perfectly serviceable.
‘That’s the bloody Nimrod!’ Hill called in astonishment, ‘and the Conqueror!’
Drinkwater swung his glass left. The extent of his own ineptness struck him like a blow even as Bourne replied to the sailing master.
‘They must have been taken off Spitzbergen, by God!’
Was Bourne right? Had the Requin taken Nimrod and Conqueror off Spitzbergen and cruised with complete impunity throughout the Greenland Sea? If so, Melusine’s presence had been a farce, a complete charade. Every exertion of her company a futile waste of time. He could see again the contempt for his own inexperience in Captain Ellerby’s pale blue eyes. How mortifyingly justified that contempt was now proved. He had bungled his commission from Lord St Vincent and failure stared at him from every one of Requin’s gun muzzles.
Drinkwater swallowed hard. He felt as though he had received a physical blow.
‘Make ready the larboard battery, Mr Bourne. Put the ship on the wind, Mr Hill, starboard tack. We will open fire on the Requin, Mr Bourne, all guns to try for the base of her mainmast.’ His voice sounded steady and assured despite his inner turmoil.
He nodded as the two officers acknowledged their orders, then he raised his glass again, anxious to hide his face.
Melusine headed inshore, her bowsprit pointing at the stern of the Faithful as Requin fired her second broadside. It was better pointed than the first as the British sloop stood well into range. Drinkwater felt shots go home, holes appeared in several sails and he felt acutely vulnerable with his clumsy jury steering gear. But a plan was formulating in his mind. If he could lay Melusine alongside the Faithful he might be able to launch a boat attack on the Requin while partially protecting Melusine’s weak stern from the Requin’s heavier guns.
‘Larboard battery ready, sir,’ Bourne reported, and Drinkwater took his glass from his eye only long enough to acknowledge the readiness of the gunners.
‘Fire when you bear, Mr Bourne.’
They were closing Faithful rapidly and more shots from Requin arrived, striking splinters from forward and sending Meetuck scampering aft and down the companionway like a scuttering rabbit. A roar of laughter ran along the deck and then Melusine’s guns replied, the captains jerking their lanyards in a rolling broadside.
‘Mr Mount! Your men are to storm the whaler Faithful when I bring the ship under her lee. I doubt she has more than a prize crew aboard and . . .’
‘Bloody hell!’ A heavy shot thumped into the quarter rail and smashed the timbers inboard. It was perilously close to Mr Hill as he stood by the big tiller and he swore in surprise. Drinkwater looked up to determine the source of the ball and another hit Melusine, dismounting an after larboard gun. It was carronade fire.
‘It’s the fucking Nimrod, by God!’ howled Hill, his face purple with rage as he capered to avoid the splinters. Whatever it was it was dangerous and Drinkwater decided to retire.
‘Larboard tack, Mr Hill, upon the instant!’
Hill jumped to the order with alacrity and Drinkwater swung his glass onto the whaler Nimrod. Smoke drifted away from her side and he saw another stab of yellow fire and a second later was drenched in the spray from the water thrown up no more than five yards astern.
‘By Christ . . .’ Drinkwater saw a black-beared figure standing on the rail. There was no doubt about it being Jemmett Ellerby and he was waving his hat as yet another shot was fired from his carronades.
Drinkwater’s blood froze. He wanted to make sure of what he saw and studied the big figure intently. Yes, there could be no doubt about it. Nimrod flew no colours while above his own head the British ensign snapped out as Melusine lay over to the larboard tack, exposing her stern, but rapidly increasing her distance from the enemy.
‘Ship full and bye on the larboard tack, sir,’ Hill reported. Drinkwater nodded, his brain still whirling with the evidence his senses presented him with. It seemed impossible, but then, as the ship stood out of danger to the eastward and he could order the gun crews stood easy, he gave himself time to think.
‘Beat to windward, Mr Hill. You may reduce sail and have the men served dinner at their guns . . .’
‘Look at that, sir! Do you see it?’ Lieutenant Bourne cried incredulously. He pointed astern to where, beyond the anchored ships what looked like stone huts, low and almost part of the beach, showed beyond the anchored ships. There was a flagpole and from it flew the unmistakable colours of Republican France.
Drinkwater attempted to make sense of the events of the forenoon. At first he was bewildered but after a while he set himself the task of assembling the evidence as he saw it. He retired to his cabin as Melusine stood eastward under easy sail, making short tacks. On a piece of paper he began to list the facts and as he wrote he felt a quickening of his pulse. Under the stimulus of a glass or two his memory threw up odd,
remembered facts that began to slot neatly together. He was seized by the conviction that his reasoning was running true and he sent for Singleton, explaining that he would land the missionary as soon as it was safe to do so but what appeared to be Frenchmen held the post at Nagtoralik.
‘I want you to question Meetuck exhaustively, Mr Singleton. His attitude to the guns has been odd, so has his attitude to myself. You recollect he talked of “bad” white men.’ Drinkwater explained and Singleton nodded.
‘I do not expect he is able to tell the difference between British, French, Dutch or Russians, all of whom have frequented these seas from time to time. He could not be expected to comprehend a state of war exists between us and the men occupying his village.’
‘You saw a village then?’
Singleton nodded. ‘I saw twenty or so topeks and a number of kayaks drawn up on the beach.’
Drinkwater sighed, biting off a sarcasm that Singleton would have been better employed in the cockpit. The divine was no longer bound to serve there, he was free to go ashore when circumstances permitted and, thank God, Melusine had suffered no casualties thanks to Drinkwater’s timely withdrawal.
‘Very well. Be a good fellow and see what information you can extort from our eskimo friend. I am almost certain that Ellerby, the master of the Nimrod, is in league with whoever is ashore there. He opened fire on us.’
Singleton nodded. ‘I wish to land in a place untainted by such doings, Captain Drinkwater. I shall see what I can do.’
After he had gone Drinkwater again gathered his thoughts. Of course St Vincent had not guessed that the French would attempt to make settlements in Greenland. Drinkwater could only imagine what privations the inhabitants endured during the Arctic winter. But since the loss of Canada forty years earlier France had held St Pierre and Miquelon and it was not inconceivable that now she dominated Denmark, the country that claimed sovereignty over these remote coasts, France might not attempt such a thing. St Vincent had mentioned Canada and had seemed certain that some moves were being made by Bonaparte’s government or its agents, official or entrepreneurial, in these northern seas. ‘This is no sinecure,’ the Earl had said, ‘and I charge you to remember that, in addition to protecting the northern whale-fleet you should destroy any attempt the French make to establish their own fishery . . .’
Was that what they were doing? It seemed possible. The Portuguese hunted the whale from island bases and, although the winter ice would close the bay, the collusion of a traitor like Ellerby to supply whales, blubber, oil and baleen to them began to make a kind of sense. He began to consider Ellerby and as he did so the figure of Waller insinuated itself into his mind. Conqueror was the other ship in the anchorage. Was Waller tied up with Ellerby? Had Conqueror also fired into Melusine unobserved?
Drinkwater thought back to Hull. Waller had seemed like Ellerby’s familiar then. They had clearly acted together, Drinkwater concluded, as he recollected other things about the two men. Ellerby’s hostility to Palgrave had resulted in a duel. It occurred to Drinkwater that whatever his prejudices against a man of Palgrave’s stamp the quarrel might have been deliberately provoked. And there was Ellerby’s affirmation at the Trinity House that he intended to fish for whales where the whim took him. ‘Do not expect us to hang upon your skirts like frightened children,’ he had said insolently. The recollection stimulated others. When Drinkwater had mentioned the menace of French privateers and the sailing of enemy ships for the Arctic seas he had intended a deliberate exaggeration, a hyperbole to claim attention. He remembered the look of surprise that the black-bearded Ellerby had exchanged with the master sitting next to him. That man had been Waller.
Later, in Bressay Sound, Waller had shown considerable interest in Drinkwater’s intentions. It was with some bitterness that Drinkwater realised he had taken little note of these events at the time and had been hoist by his own petard to some extent. And there was something else, something much more significant and, to a seaman much less circumstantial. Waller’s attitude to Drinkwater’s offer of protection had been dismissive. How dismissive and how ineffectual that offer had been, now burned him with shame; but that was not the point. Waller had stated that the masters of whalers resented interference and when Drinkwater had nominated the rendezvous position Waller had smoothed the chart out. He had been on the left of Drinkwater, looking at the west Greenland coast, yet he and Ellerby intended to hunt whales off Spitzbergen!
The deception was simple. Ellerby, who had already attempted and failed to intimidate Drinkwater, took a back seat and sent Waller to the conference at Bressay Sound. Waller checked Drinkwater’s methods and intentions, sounded him and gauged his zeal and ability before reporting back to Ellerby. Drinkwater cursed under his breath. It explained why, after his public humiliation leaving the Humber, Ellerby’s Nimrod had behaved with exemplary regard for the convoy regulations. Yet Sawyers himself had remarked upon Ellerby’s ‘massive pride’, spoken figuratively of David and Goliath and warned Drinkwater about Ellerby. For a fleeting second Drinkwater thought Sawyers too might be a part of the conspiracy, given his religious contempt for war and the rights and wrongs of the protagonists. Allied with the well-known Quaker liking for profit it made him an obvious suspect. But Faithful had been captured under Drinkwater’s very nose and Sawyers’s behaviour did not really give any grounds for such a suspicion.
Drinkwater sat back in his chair, certain that he had solved the riddle. For some reason the French had established a settlement on the Greenland coast in a position that was demonstrably ice-free, to use for shipping whale products back to France. The risks were high, given the closeness of the British blockade. How much easier to establish contact with British ship-masters who could facilitate the return of the cargoes to France via the good offices of a smuggler or two. From Hull the coast of the Batavian Republic was easily accessible and Drinkwater, like every other officer in the Navy, had heard that French soldiers preferred to march in Northampton boots, rather than the glued manufactures of their own country.
The provision of a powerful French privateer, more frigate than corsair, argued in favour of his theory. Encountered at sea she gave nothing away about official French involvement with the settlement, thus avoiding problems with the Danes, and her loss, if it occurred, would cause no embarrassment to First Consul Bonaparte.
Drinkwater nodded with satisfaction, convinced of Ellerby’s treachery, almost certain of Waller’s and then, with a start, recollected that Earl St Vincent would not so easily be satisfied.
A knock came at his door. Frey’s head was poked round the door when Drinkwater called him in.
‘Beg pardon, sir, but Mr Hill says to tell you that there’s three ships crowding on sail astern.’
‘Very well, Mr Frey. My compliments to the first lieutenant and he’s to issue spirits to all hands and then we’ll give these fellows a drubbin’, eh?’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Drinkwater sat a moment longer and considered the news. One of the ships would be Requin and the second almost certainly Nimrod. Was the third Conqueror or that damnable lugger? He sighed. He would have to go on deck to see. Whatever the third ship was, Drinkwater was uncomfortably aware that he was outnumbered, outgunned and might, in an hour, have followed Germaney and Rispin into the obscurity of death.
The third ship turned out to be the lugger, her big sails proving more efficient to windward than the other two. He had been right about them. They were indeed Requin and Nimrod. He studied them through his glass. Nimrod was astern of Requin, hiding behind the more numerous guns of the big privateer, but ready to bring the smashing power of those heavy carronades to bear upon a Melusine that, in her captain’s mind’s eye, was already a defenceless hulk under the Requin’s guns.
Drinkwater summoned Singleton and requested his help after the action which, he confided, he expected to be bloody. He also asked about Meetuck’s interrogation.
‘It is a complicated matter, but there is much about a big,
bearded man with eyes the colour of, er, “shadowed ice”, if that makes sense to you.’
‘I am indebted to you.’ Drinkwater smiled and Singleton felt an immense compassion for the cock-headed captain and his terrible profession. ‘And now, Mr Singleton, I’d be further obliged to you if you would read us the Naval Prayer.’ Drinkwater called the ship’s company into the waist. Seamen and officers bared their heads and Obadiah Singleton read the words laid down to be used before an action.
‘Oh most powerful and Glorious Lord God, the Lord of Hosts, that rulest and commandest all things . . .’
When it was over Singleton exceeded his brief and led the ship’s company into the Lord’s Prayer with its slurred syllables and loud, demotic haste. He finished with the Naval Prayer and Bourne, casting an agonised look at the closing enemy, hastily ordered the men back to their stations.
Scarcely less impatient, Drinkwater ordered more sail and turned to Hill, explaining his intentions and those he thought that would be the enemy’s.
‘Requin will seek to disable us, Mr Hill, aiming high from a range that will favour her long guns. The instant we are immobilised he will board while the Nimrod ranges alongside and pummels us with those damned carronades. He hasn’t many of them, but I’ll wager they’ll be nasty.’
‘Beg pardon, sir, but is Nimrod manned by a prize crew?’
‘I don’t believe she is, Mr Hill. I’m not certain, but I am sure that she’s commanded by her British master, one Jemmett Ellerby who deserves to swing for his treachery.’
‘Jesus . . .’
‘Very well. Now we will bear up and put the ship before the wind. Mr Bourne! A moment of your time. We will run down on the lugger. She is in advance of the other vessels and is doubtless ready to run alongside and pour in men when Requin boards. If we can hit her hard with round shot and canister I’ll be happy. Then I intend to manoeuvre and avoid Requin, using our long guns to come up with Nimrod and disable her . . .’ He outlined Ellerby’s treachery for Bourne’s benefit and saw the astonishment in his expression harden to resolution. Drinkwater did not say that he intended to destroy Nimrod in the belief that they stood little chance of ultimate survival after an action with Requin.
The Corvette Page 24