‘ ’Ere, ain’t that the bloody Himmortalitee?’ cried an excited seaman, and an equally effusive Hill agreed.
‘Aye, Marston, that is indeed the Immortalité, and a damned fine ship she was when I was in her as a master’s mate.’
‘Gorn to the devil, Mister ’Ill, now we oldsters ain’t there to watch. She used to gripe like a stuck porker in anything of a blow . . .’
‘God damn it the Belleisle, by all that’s holy . . .’
‘And the Goliath . . .’
Drinkwater tolerated the excitement as long as it did not mar the efficiency of the Antigone. One of the look-out cruisers broke away and hauled her yards to intercept them.
‘Permission to hoist the private signal, sir?’ James Quilhampton crossed the deck, touching his hat.
‘Very well, Mr Q.’ Drinkwater nodded and lifted his glass, watching the frigate close hauled on the wind as she moved to intercept the new arrival. She was a thing of loveliness on such a morning and was sending up her royals to cut a dash and impress the Antigone’s company with her handiness and discipline. The two frigates exchanged recognition and private signals.
‘Number Three-One-Three, sir. Sirius, thirty-six, Captain William Prowse.’
‘Very well.’ Drinkwater stood upon the carronade slide and waved his hat as the two cruisers passed on opposite tacks.
‘The flagship’s two points to starboard, sir,’ the ever-attentive Quilhampton informed him.
‘Very well, Mr Q, ease her off a little.’ He wondered how Antigone appeared from Sirius as the look-out frigate tacked in her wake and hauled her own yards, swinging round to regain station. Drinkwater cast a critical eye aloft and then along the deck. Tregembo was mustering the barge’s crew in the waist before ordering them into the boat. Although he was far from being a wealthy officer, he had managed a degree of uniformity for his boat’s crew due to the large number of slops he had acquired in two previous ships. Over their flannel shirts and duck trousers the men wore cut-down greycoats that gave the appearance of pilot jackets, while upon their heads Tregembo had placed warm seal-skin caps, part of the profit of the Melusine’s voyage among the ice-floes of the Arctic seas. It was a piece of conceit in which Drinkwater took a secret delight.
He was proud of the frigate too. Notwithstanding the deplorable state of the dockyards and the desperate shortage of every necessity for fitting out ships of war caused by Lord St Vincent’s reforms, she was cause for self-congratulation. The First Lord’s zeal in rooting out corruption might have long-term benefits, but for the present the disruptions and shortages had made the commissioning of men-of-war a nightmare for their commanders. Drinkwater recognised his good fortune. The dreadful condition of Melusine on her return from the Arctic had removed her from active service and they had managed to take out of her a quantity of stores which, with what the dockyard at Chatham allowed, had enabled them to get Antigone down to Black-stakes for her powder in good time. Best of all he had employed seamen in her fitting out and not the convict labour St Vincent advocated. Besides, the ship herself had been in good condition. Built by the French in Cherbourg only nine years earlier, she had been captured in the Red Sea in September 1798 by a party of British seamen that included Drinkwater himself. His appointment to this particular ship was, he knew, a mark of favour from the First Lord. Originally armed with twenty-six long 24-pounder cannon, she had been taken with most of her guns on shore and the Navy Board had seen fit to reduce her force to conform with other frigates of the Royal Navy. Now she mounted twenty-six black 18-pounder long guns upon her gun-deck, two long 9-pounder bow-chasers upon her fo’c’s’le together with eight stubby 36-pounder carronades. On her quarterdeck were eight further long nines and the two brass carronades that had formerly gleamed at the hances of Melusine.
Drinkwater grunted his satisfaction as Hill reported the flagship a league distant and gave his permission for sail to be shortened. There were occasions when he regretted not being able to handle the ship in the day-to-day routines but on an occasion such as the present one it gave him equal pleasure to watch the officers and men go about their duty, to remark on the performance of individuals and to note the weaker officers and petty officers in the ship. There was also the necessity to observe the whale-men he had pressed from the Hull whalers Nimrod and Conqueror; in particular a man named Waller, formerly the commander of the Conqueror, who had only escaped hanging by Drinkwater’s clemency.* Waller was expiating treason before the mast as a common seaman and Drinkwater kept an eye on him. He had had Rogers, the first lieutenant, split all the whale-men into different messes so that they could not confer or form any kind of a combination. For a minute he was tempted to send Waller with the two score of pressed men taken aboard from the Nore guardship as replacements for the Channel Fleet. But he could not abandon his responsibilities that easily. It was better to keep Waller under his own vigilant eye than risk him causing trouble elsewhere in the fleet. The rest behaved well enough. Good seamen, most had come from the Melusine where they had originally been volunteers during the short-lived Peace of Amiens.
‘Hoist the signal for dispatches, sir?’
Drinkwater turned to find the diminutive Mr Frey looking up at him. He nodded. ‘Indeed yes, Mr Frey, if you will be so kind.’ He smiled at the boy who grinned back. All in all, reflected Drinkwater, he was one of the most fortunate of all the post-captains hereabouts, and he cast his eyes round the horizon where ship after ship of the British fleet cruised under easy sail in three great columns with the frigates cast out ahead, astern and on either flank.
Drinkwater sniffed the fresh north-westerly breeze and felt invigorated by the delightful freshness of the morning. The storm of two nights previously had cleared the air. Even here, a hundred miles off the Isles of Scilly where already the first crocuses would be breaking through the soil, spring was in the air. He nodded at Rogers who walked over to him.
‘Mornin’, Sam.’
‘Good morning, sir. Sail’s shortened and the barge is ready for lowering.’
Drinkwater regarded his first lieutenant, remembering their previous enmity aboard the Hellebore when they had been wrecked after an error of judgement made by Samuel Rogers, and of their successes together in the Baltic in the old bomb-vessel Virago. Rogers was a coarse and vulgar man, no scientific officer and only a passable navigator, but he was a competent seaman and his valour in action was too valuable an asset to be lightly set aside merely because he lacked social accomplishments. Besides, in his present situation he would have precious little opportunity to worry over such a deficiency. He was, Drinkwater knew, perfect as a first luff; the very man the hands loved to hate, who was indifferent to that hatred and who could take the blame for all the hardships, mishaps and injustices the naval service would press upon their unfortunate souls and bodies.
‘She’s looking very tiddly, Sam. Fit for an admiral’s inspection already. I congratulate you.’
Rogers gave him a grin. ‘I heard about your appetite for tiddly ships after the Melusine, sir.’
Drinkwater grinned back. ‘She was a damned yacht, Sam. You should have heard the gunroom squeal when I cut off her royal masts and fitted a crow’s nest to con her through the ice.’
‘She was different from the old Virago then?’
‘As chalk is from cheese . . .’
They were interrupted by Lieutenant Quilhampton. ‘Flag’s signalling, sir: ‘Captain to come aboard”.’
‘Very well. Bring the ship to under the admiral’s lee quarter, Mr Q . . . Sam be so good as to salute the flag while I shift my coat.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ The two officers began to carry out their orders as Drinkwater hurried below to where an anxious Mullender had coat, hat, cloak and sword all ready for him.
* See The Corvette
Chapter 3
March 1804
The Spy Master
Admiral Sir William Cornwallis rose from behind his desk and motioned Drinkwater to a chair. His flag-lieute
nant took the offered packet of Admiralty despatches and handed them to the admiral’s secretary for opening.
‘A glass of wine, Captain?’ The flag-lieutenant beckoned a servant forward and Drinkwater hitched his sword between his legs, laid his cocked hat across his lap and took the tall Venetian goblet from the salver. ‘Thank you. I have two bags of mail for the fleet in my barge and a draft of forty-three men for the squadron . . .’
‘I shall inform the Captain of the Fleet, sir. Sir William, your permission?’
‘By all means.’ The admiral bent over the opened dispatches as the flag-lieutenant left the cabin. The servant withdrew and Drinkwater was left with Cornwallis, his immobile secretary and another man, a dark stranger in civilian clothes, who seemed to be regarding Drinkwater with some interest and whose evident curiosity Drinkwater found rather irksome and embarrassing. He avoided this scrutiny by studying his surroundings. The great cabin of His Britannic Majesty’s 112-gun ship Ville de Paris was a luxurious compartment compared with his own. As a first-rate line of battleship the Ville de Paris was almost a new ship, built as a replacement for Rodney’s prize, the flagship of Admiral De Grasse, taken at the Battle of Saintes in the American War and so badly knocked about that she had foundered on her way home across the stormy Atlantic. It was an irony that a ship so named should bear the flag of the officer responsible for keeping the French fleet bottled up in Brest. Drinkwater did not envy the admiral his luxury: the monotony of blockade duty would have oppressed him. Even in a frigate attached to the inshore squadron cruising off Ushant, the perils of tides and rocks would far outweigh the risk of danger from the enemy coupled as they were with the prevailing strong westerly winds. As his old friend Richard White constantly wrote and told him, he was lucky to have avoided such an arduous and thankless task. There were a few who had carved out a glorious niche for themselves with brilliant actions. Pellew, for instance, in the Indefatigable and with Amazon in company had caught the French battleship Droits de l’Homme, harried her all night and forced her to become embayed in Audierne Bay where she was wrecked. The thought of embayment still caused him a shudder and he recollected that Pellew’s triumph had also caused the loss of Amazon from the same cause. No, for the most part the maintenance of this huge fleet with its frigates and its supply problems was simply to keep Admiral Truguet and the principal French fleet capable of operating in the Atlantic, securely at its moorings in Brest Road. By this means Napoleon would not be able to secure the naval supremacy in the Channel that he needed to launch his invasion. Whatever the monotony of the duty there was no arguing its effectiveness. All the same Drinkwater was not keen to be kept under the severe restraint of commanding a frigate on blockade.
There was a rustle as Cornwallis lowered the papers and leaned back in his seat. He was a portly gentleman of some sixty years of age with small features and bright, keen blue eyes. He smiled cordially.
‘Well, Captain Drinkwater, you are not to join us I see.’
‘No, Sir William. I am under Lord Keith’s command, attached to the Downs Squadron but with discretionary orders following the delivery of those dispatches.’ He nodded at the contents of the waterproof packet which now lay scattered across Cornwallis’s table.
‘Which are . . . ?’
‘To return to the Strait of Dover along the French coast, harrying trade and destroying enemy preparations for the invasion.’
‘And not, I hope, wantonly setting fire to any French villages en route, Captain?’ It was the stranger in civilian dress who put this question. Drinkwater opened his mouth to reply but the stranger continued, ‘Such piracy is giving us a bad name, Captain Drinkwater, giving the idea of invasion a certain respectability among the French populace that might otherwise be not over-enthusiastic about M’sieur Bonaparte. Hitherto, whatever the enmities between our two governments, the people of the coast have maintained a, er, certain friendliness towards us, eh?’ He smiled, a sardonic grin, and held up his glass of the admiral’s claret. ‘The matter of a butt or two of wine and a trifle or two of information; you understand?’
Drinkwater felt a recurrence of the irritation caused earlier by this man, but Cornwallis intervened. ‘I am sure Captain Drinkwater understands perfectly, Philip. But Captain, tell us the news from London. What are the fears of invasion at the present time?’
‘Somewhat abated, sir. Most of the news is of the problems surrounding Addington’s ministry. The First Lord is under constant attack from the opposition led by Pitt . . .’
‘And we all know the justice of Billy Pitt’s allegations, by God,’ put in the stranger with some heat.
Drinkwater ignored the outburst. ‘As to the invasion, I think there is little fear while you are here, sir, and the French fleet is in port. I believe St Vincent to be somewhat maligned, although the difficulties experienced in fitting out do support some of Mr Pitt’s accusations.’ Drinkwater judged it would not do him any good to expatiate on St Vincent’s well-meaning but near-disastrous attempts to root out corruption, and he did owe his own promotion to the old man’s influence.
Cornwallis smiled. ‘What does St Vincent say to Mr Pitt, Captain?’
‘That although the French may invade, sir, he is confident that they will not invade by sea.’
Cornwallis laughed. ‘There, at least, St Vincent and I would find common ground. Philip here is alarmed that any relaxation on our part would be ill-timed.’ Then the humour went out of his expression and he fell silent. Cornwallis occupied the most important station in the British navy. As Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Fleet he was not merely concerned with blockading Brest, but also with maintaining British vigilance off L’Orient, Rochefort and even Ferrol where neutral Spain had been coerced into allowing France to use the naval arsenals for her own. In addition there was the immense problem of the defence of the Channel itself, still thought vulnerable if a French squadron could be assembled elsewhere in the world, say the West Indies, and descend upon it in sufficient force to avoid or brush aside the Channel Fleet. On Cornwallis’s shoulder fell the awesome burden of ensuring St Vincent’s words were true, and Cornwallis had transformed the slack methods of his predecessor into a strictly enforced blockade, earning himself the soubriquet of ‘Billy Blue’ from his habit of hoisting the Blue Peter to the foremasthead the instant his flagship cast anchor when driven off station by the heavy gales that had bedevilled his fleet since the New Year. It was clear that the responsibility and the monotony of such a task were wearing the elderly man out. Drinkwater sensed he would have liked to agree with the current opinion in London that the threat of invasion had diminished.
‘Did you see much of the French forces or the encampments, Captain?’ asked the stranger.
‘A little above Boulogne, sir, but I was fortunate in having a favourable easterly and was ordered out by way of Portsmouth and so favoured the English coast. I took aboard the Admiralty papers at Portsmouth.’
‘It is a weary business, Captain Drinkwater,’ Cornwallis said sadly, ‘and I am always in want of frigates . . . by heaven ’tis a plaguey dismal way of spending a life in the public service!’
‘Console yourself, Sir William,’ the stranger put in at this show of bile, and with a warmth of feeling that indicated he was on exceptionally intimate terms with the Commander-in-Chief. ‘Consider the wisdom of Pericles: “If they are kept off the sea by our superior strength, their want of practice will make them unskilful and their want of skill, timid.” Now that is an incontestable piece of good sense, you must admit.’
‘You make your point most damnably, Philip. As for Captain Drinkwater, I am sure he is not interested in our hagglings . . .’
The allusion to Drinkwater’s junior rank, though intended to suppress the stranger, cut Drinkwater to the quick. He rose, having no more business with the admiral and having securely lodged his empty glass against the flagship’s roll. ‘I would not have you think, Sir William, that I am anxious to avoid any station or duty to which their Lordships wished
to assign me.’
Cornwallis dismissed Drinkwater’s concern. ‘Of course not, Captain. We are all the victims of circumstance. It is just that I feel the want of frigates acutely. The Inshore Squadron is worked mercilessly and some relief would be most welcome there, but if Lord Keith has given you your orders we had better not detain you. What force does his Lordship command now?’
‘Four of the line, Sir William, five old fifties, nine frigates, a dozen sloops, a dozen bombs and ten gun-brigs, plus the usual hired cutters and luggers.’
‘Very well. And he is as anxious as myself over cruisers I doubt not.’
‘Indeed, sir.’
Drinkwater moved towards the door as Cornwallis’s eyes fell again to the papers. These actions seemed to precipitate an outburst of forced coughing from the stranger. Cornwallis looked up at once.
‘Ah, Philip, forgive me . . . most remiss and I beg your pardon. Captain Drinkwater, forgive me, I am apt to think we are all acquainted here. May I introduce Captain Philip D’Auvergne, Duc de Bouillon.’
Drinkwater was curious at this grandiose title. D’Auvergne was grinning at his discomfiture.
‘Sir William does me more honour than I deserve, Captain Drinkwater. I am no more than a post-captain like yourself, but unlike yourself I do not have even a gun-brig to command.’
‘You are a supernumerary, sir?’ enquired Drinkwater.
Both Cornwallis and D’Auvergne laughed, implying a knowledge that Drinkwater was not a party to.
‘I should like you to convey Captain D’Auvergne back to his post at St Helier, Captain, as a small favour to the Channel Fleet and in the sure knowledge that it cannot greatly detain you.’
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