Ebb tide nd-14

by Ричард Вудмен

  'Where's Appleby?' Drinkwater asked as he ran the French blade into its scabbard.

  'In my cabin, recovering his wind. I gather the buggers ...'

  Wheeler broke off and turned to the contrite marine whom the sergeant brought forward into the circle of lantern light at the head of the companionway. 'How in Hades' name did you sleep through all this?' he asked the unfortunate man.

  'Dunno, sir. I'm very sorry, sir ...' The marine was trembling.

  'You stink. Were you drinking before you were posted?'

  'No, sir.'

  An insistent cough came from Sergeant Hagan and the man admitted, 'Yes, sir.'

  'You know what this means?'

  'Aye, sir.'

  'Post another sentinel, Sergeant, and put this ass in the bilboes. We'll deal with him later.'

  He had just finished berating the sentry when Callowell's door suddenly opened. 'What's all this damned racket?'

  In his hand Callowell held up a lantern. He peered about him, catching sight of the odd assembly of Wheeler, Drinkwater, Sergeant Hagan and the wretched marine at the head of the companionway. In the euphoria of his relief, Drinkwater almost burst out laughing at the ludicrous figure the first lieutenant cut in his night-shirt and tasselled night-cap. The spectacle clearly amused Wheeler also, for Drinkwater detected the catch in his voice as he replied, 'Damned sentry was dozing, Mr Callowell. Thanks to Mr Drinkwater's vigilance, he'll be punished.'

  'What's that?' Wheeler repeated the explanation while Drinkwater caught the marine's eye. It was unfortunate that the marine should suffer the inevitable cat, but he had been asleep deeply enough not to be woken by the confrontation further forward.

  'Damned certain he will be!' Callowell snorted, staring round him again. Appearing satisfied, he grunted and retired within his cabin. Wheeler and Drinkwater stood uncertainly for a moment, then Wheeler expelled his breath in a long, relieved sigh. 'Very well, Sergeant, carry on.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.'

  'Well,' said Wheeler in a low voice, 'as I said, poor old Appleby's hiding in my cabin where I've the remains of a bottle to crack.' Wheeler led aft, then paused, turned and giggled in Drinkwater's ear, 'Damn me if old Callowell don't remind me of Wee Willie Winkie!'

  Neither of them saw the pale face of Baskerville retreat into the darkness of the berth-deck below.

  Two days later, as Cyclops remained inert in the foggy calm, Drinkwater discovered a scrap of paper laid inside the lid of his sea-chest. On it were crudely spelt the words:

  Yr Honor Mr Drinkwater,

  Yr humble Servants of the Night present ther Duty

  and Thank You fr yr indulgence.

  Ever yr Faithfull Friends.

  In the days that followed, Drinkwater was more content and the incident appeared to have relieved the tension in the frigate. He felt an occasional anxiety when he thought of Baskerville's face peering from the cockpit, but with Lieutenant Wheeler's support and every appearance of the suppression of mutinous sentiments, this lessened as time passed.

  The fog persisted for several days, but eventually a cold breeze sprang up from the north-east and, under easy sail, Cyclops cast about between Helgoland and Borkum, still in search of an enemy sail. For her people, the wearying routine of the ship ground inexorably on. Occasional lighter moments were engineered when the weather served, and on the first afternoon of pallid sunshine, as the decks gradually dried after the fog, Lieutenant Wheeler determined to encourage some proficiency in fencing.

  'How many times do I have to tell you, Nat? The merest pronation and pressure with the thumb and forefinger are all that are required. Look.' Wheeler removed his mask and demonstrated the point with his own foil.

  Drinkwater and the marine officer occupied the starboard gangway during the afternoon watch. Both were stripped to shirt and breeches, despite the season, and their exertions had attracted a small crowd of off-duty sailors who sat on the forecastle guns or boats, or in the lower forward rigging, watching the two officers recommence the opening gambits of their bout.

  Wheeler advanced, changing his line. Then, with a quick shift of footing, he executed a balestra and lunged at the midshipman. Drinkwater was not so easily fooled. He parried Wheeler's blade and riposted, catching the marine officer's shoulder. The hit was acknowledged and they came en garde again and resumed, with Wheeler quickly advancing. Drinkwater retreated, disengaged and drew his blade, then swiftly cut over Wheeler's pointe, dropped his own and lunged low at Wheeler's stomach.

  Wheeler unmasked. 'By heaven, Nat, that was damnably good. To tell you the truth, I doubt there's much more I can teach you now you've digested my late point.'

  Drinkwater tugged his own mask off. He was grinning as the two shook their left hands.

  'Beg pardon, sir...' The former light dragoon Hollins approached Wheeler.

  'What is it?' Wheeler ran his hand over his damp hair.

  'Begging your pardon, sir, but have you ever considered introducing sabre parries for hand-to-hand fighting?'

  'Well, cutlass drill incorporates some elements ...' Wheeler blustered, but Hollins could barely stifle a snort. He had seen the jolly tars exercising. It scarcely compared with the precise sabre drill of the Queen's Own Light Dragoons.

  'May I, sir?' Hollins held out his hands to Drinkwater who relinquished foil and mask. Hollins flexed the blade, donned the mask, flicked a salute at Wheeler and came on to his guard. 'Cut at me, Mr Wheeler,' he said through the mesh of the mask, 'any point or direction.'

  Wheeler advanced and cut at Hollins's head and the dragoon parried with his own blade held horizontally above his head. Wheeler cut swiftly at his flank and again the dragoon's blade interposed. For four breathless minutes, closely observed by the watchers, Wheeler whirled the foil from every conceivable direction. Hollins always met it steel to steel. Then, as the marine lieutenant flagged, Hollins counter-attacked and cut at Wheeler's cheek so that the mask flew off. The watching seamen burst into a spontaneous cheer until a voice cut them short.

  'You there! With the mask!' It was Callowell who had come on deck. Disapproving of these sporting bouts, though unable to prevent them, Callowell had sought such an opportunity to curtail his subordinates' pleasure. He knew very well who the masked swordsman was, for the boots and cavalryman's breeches betrayed Roach's companion.

  Hollins drew off his mask. Callowell strode over to him, wrenched the foil from his grip and rounded on Wheeler. 'Is this yours?'

  'You know damned well it is. I lend it to Drinkwater,' Wheeler replied in a low, angry voice, darting glances at the surrounding seamen. Callowell was blind to the hint.

  'Did you give this to this man?' Callowell asked Drinkwater, gesturing at Hollins.

  'In a manner of speaking, sir.'

  'You gave this weapon to a man serving His Majesty under sentence of a court martial? A known and convicted criminal?'

  'It's only a practice foil...'

  'Never mind that, did you give it to him?' Callowell laid an implacable insistence upon the verb.

  'Well, I lent it to him, sir. We were only practising ...'

  'What is the trouble, Mr Callowell?' The captain's reedy voice interrupted Callowell's interrogation of the midshipman. He stood at the head of the companionway, pulling his cloak about him in the chill. Callowell stumped aft to report.

  'Get forrard, Hollins, and keep out of sight,' Wheeler muttered, gathering up the fencing equipment and nodding to Drinkwater to precede him below.

  'Mr Drinkwater!' Reluctantly Drinkwater laid aft to where Smetherley and Callowell stood beside the binnacle.

  'Sir?' After the events and responsibilities of the last few days, Captain Smetherley's self-assured youth struck Drinkwater with peculiar force.

  'Is it true that you gave a weapon to a seaman under punishment?'

  'I lent a practice foil to a man for the purpose of a demonstration...'

  'Did you, or did you not, give your weapon to this man ... er ...'

  'Hollins, sir,' off
ered Callowell helpfully.

  Drinkwater knew he had been boxed into a corner. 'I lent the foil I borrow from Lieutenant Wheeler to Hollins, yes, sir.'

  'Well, Mr Drinkwater, that is a serious misjudgement on your part. I cannot see why the late Captain Hope had such faith in you. Such behaviour is as irresponsible as it is reprehensible and I shall consider what measures I shall take. As for this habit of appearing on the quarterdeck improperly dressed', Smetherley indicated Drinkwater's shirt, 'and uncovered', the captain gestured at Drinkwater's bare head, 'I shall cure that immediately. What is our latitude, Mr Callowell?'

  'Fifty-four degrees north, sir.'

  'Fifty-four north and November. Fore t'gallant masthead, Mr Drinkwater. Perhaps that will teach you to behave properly'

  The hours he spent aloft in this second mastheading were of almost unendurable agony. After the perspiration of the bout and the climb, the light wind quickly began to chill him and his nose, ears, fingers and feet were soon numbed, while his body went into uncontrollable fits of shivering. He had, as before, lashed himself securely out of a sense of self-preservation, but it was not long before he could not have cared less whether he lived or died, and then he was walking with Elizabeth through knee-length grass and would have been happy had there not been the anxiety that the fields through which they wandered hand-in-hand were limitless. The disquiet grew and grew, robbing him of any comfort until, looking at her, he found Elizabeth had gone and he held the frozen hand of a pallid and terrible Medusa and recognized the hideous pale succubus of his recurring dream.

  But it was in fact Midshipman White, shaking him and calling him to wake up and wrap himself in the greygoe and tarpaulin he had hauled aloft. From that point, Drinkwater drifted in and out of semiconsciousness until Captain Smetherley ordered him on deck at midnight to stand his watch. The agony of returning movement wakened him and when he finally went below to his hammock a further four hours later, he was exhausted and fell asleep immediately.

  The following morning, Appleby averred it was a miracle that he had survived, but Wheeler remarked that Drinkwater was 'an individual of considerable inner resource', a remark deliberately made in Callowell's hearing, though in the course of a half-private conversation between the marine officer and the surgeon.

  At four bells in the forenoon watch, Captain Smetherley sent for Drinkwater. As he entered the cabin from the gloom of the orlop, his head and body still wracked by aches and pains from the previous evening, Drinkwater could see little of Smetherley but the captain's bust silhouetted against the stern windows. Beyond a watery sunlight danced wanly upon the wavetops and the bubbling wake as it drew out from under the hull. On the captain's left sat Lieutenant Callowell and also present, but standing, was Lieutenant Wheeler. The marine officer was in the panoply of full dress and his gorget reflected the light off the sea. As he entered the cabin, Drinkwater was aware that Wheeler was concluding an account of the fencing bout, prolonging it for Drinkwater's own benefit, that he might divine how matters lay. It seemed to Drinkwater that Smetherley might be beginning to perceive he was in danger of being made a fool of, for in his conclusion Wheeler was astute enough to placate Smetherley and to offer the captain some way out of his dilemma, without unduly arousing Callowell's further hostility.

  'And so, sir, my excess of enthusiasm for the sport led to foolishness on my part, compromising Midshipman Drinkwater. Mr Callowell misunderstood the situation but, as a zealous officer, sought to prevent a, er ...', Wheeler strove to find the means of explaining himself, '... a contretemps.'

  Smetherley shifted uncomfortably in his seat and turned his attention to Callowell. 'Well, Mr Callowell?'

  'The offence was committed, sir. A weapon was deliberately given to a man under punishment... Mr Drinkwater's part in the affair is uncontestable: he admitted culpability in your hearing.'

  'It was a foil, Callowell,' an exasperated Wheeler broke in, but Smetherley silenced him and Callowell pressed doggedly onwards.

  'The weapon was deliberately given to a man under punishment by a man ...', Callowell paused and fastened his eyes upon Drinkwater who felt an instinctive fear of what the first lieutenant was about to say, 'by a man, sir, who has been seen engaged in conduct of a mutinous nature.'

  Drinkwater felt himself go light-headed. Weakened as he was, his whole being fought the desire to faint and he clutched at the back of an adjacent chair while Wheeler took a half-step towards him out of concern before voicing his protest, but Smetherley's hand again restrained him.

  'You talk in riddles, Mr Callowell'

  'Aye, sir, because I am unsure of the exact nature of the facts, not being a witness to the entire event, and I was apt to put a more charitable explanation upon matters until this present incident persuaded me that I had failed in my duty and should have reported my misgivings earlier.'

  'Sir,' interjected Wheeler,' this is a preposterous notion ...'

  'Mr Wheeler, your partiality to a former messmate does you some credit, but let us hear what Mr Callowell has to say' Smetherley was watching Drinkwater as the accused young man fought to master himself. 'I am marking the reaction of Mr Drinkwater with interest, and I wish to hear of what this event consisted. Mr Callowell, pray continue.'

  'Well, sir, 'tis simple enough. The midshipman was outside my cabin the other night at the head of a number of other scum, known trouble-makers, sir, Hollins among 'em. Had not Lieutenant Wheeler arrived in the nick of time, at which this jackanapes put up his sword and whispered to the conspirators to disperse, you and I might not be sitting here now ...'

  Drinkwater had mastered his nausea now and was filling with a contrary sense of burning outrage. He recalled Baskerville's face and knew for a certainty that the younger midshipman had concocted some malicious tale and let it be known to Callowell. He had little doubt that to Callowell, Drinkwater could be represented as a man nurturing an embitterment, though why that should act as incitement to mutiny seemed so perverse a sequence of cause and effect that it begged the motive of jealousy. Drinkwater's analysis was more accurate than he knew; it was also a shrewd summation of Callowell's own bitterness. Deprived of patronage himself, he habitually clipped the wings of any young rooster who seemed likely to get on. As for Baskerville, he was a nasty little toady, a boy for whom survival had been a matter of constant currying of favour and at which he had become expert. Baskerville was quite unable to see that, sooner or later, Callowell would select him for similar treatment.

  For a moment there was silence in the cabin, then Drinkwater said in a low voice, 'That is a damned lie, Lieutenant Callowell, and since you have made it so publicly, I shall ask you to retract it, or I shall...'

  'The only part of your statement that bears the slightest shred of truth, Callowell, is the fact that I arrived in time,' Wheeler broke in before Drinkwater could fling himself into deeper trouble. 'Mr Drinkwater had sent for me since he had the notion there was some trouble brewing after the death of Roach.'

  'And was there?' Smetherley asked sharply.

  'Oh yes,' Wheeler replied with cool assurance, 'and I, sir, was not surprised, neither in an emotional nor a practical sense ...'

  'Are you implying...?'

  'I am implying nothing, sir,' Wheeler said with more force, 'I am merely stating that both Mr Drinkwater and myself in particular, as the officer commanding the marines, did our duty with an assiduity of which even Mr Callowell should have approved.'

  'And you would have concealed this ... this evident combination from me?'

  Wheeler shook his head. 'I do not know where you received the idea of a mutinous combination, sir. Had it been such a thing, I doubt Mr Drinkwater would have survived his ordeal, since he confronted the disaffected men alone, and by the time I arrived he had cooled their ardour.'

  'Well, what in God's name d'you think a party of men wanderin' around in the middle of the night is about, if it ain't murdering their officers?'

  'Had they been intent on so doing, sir, Mr Drinkwater w
ould not be here. He turned aside their anger very quickly ...'

  'What the devil d'you mean, "anger"?'

  Wheeler sighed. 'Sir, in my opinion, and since you press me on the matter, it was unwise to have flogged Roach on the word of Midshipman Baskerville.' Wheeler paused for a second and then an idea seemed to strike him, for he suddenly asked, 'Mr Callowell, did you see Mr Drinkwater with a drawn sword?'

  'I knew he had drawn his sword ...'

  'But did you see him?'

  'Well, I, er ...' Callowell scratched his head.

  'Or did Midshipman Baskerville tell you he had seen Mr Drinkwater with a drawn sword?'

  'What the devil has Baskerville got to do with all this?' Smetherley asked, signs of boredom evident in the captain's face.

  'He's a veritable imp of Satan, Captain Smetherley. I'm surprised you didn't know that...'

  'But you lied to me, Wheeler,' Callowell said, 'you told me Drinkwater had called your attention to that marine we flogged for being asleep at his post.'

  'That was not a lie, Mr Callowell, that was the perfect truth.'

  'It wasn't all...'

  But before Callowell had completed his new explanation or Smetherley had gathered his wits, a peremptory knock at the cabin door ushered in Midshipman White. 'Mr Wallace's compliments, sir, but we've a frigate under our lee and Mr Wallace thinks it's the man-o'-war we've been looking for!'

  There was a moment's hiatus in the cabin, then Captain Smetherley shoved his chair back and rose to his feet. 'I shall have to give this matter further consideration, gentlemen. It seems we have more pressin' matters to hand. We shall resolve this later.'

  The strange sail lay to until Cyclops, foaming downwind towards her, bared her iron teeth and broke out British colours at her peak. Having expected a friend and now realizing his rashness, the stranger crowded on sail and a chase began.

  As they had left the captain's cabin with Smetherley's 'we shall resolve this later' ringing ominously in his ears, Drinkwater had expressed his gratitude to Wheeler.