The Shadow of the Eagle

by Richard Woodman

  The gunnery exercise had gone off well enough and Ashton’s divisions had acquitted themselves with proficiency, but this was due to the drilling and experience the majority of the men had acquired in the past. Marlowe had been conspicuously inactive on the quarterdeck, though Drinkwater had made nothing of it; he had to give the man time to pull himself together and was eager to put the encounter of the previous night behind them both. He was more concerned with maintaining the gun crews’ skill. Anxious not to halt the westward progress interrupted by the necessity of burying Watson, they had not lowered a target, but practised broadside firing with unshotted guns and half charges, for Drinkwater could not afford to be prodigal with his powder and had to conserve all his shot.

  Nevertheless the activity had been worthwhile, and the concussions of the guns had satisfied their baser instincts. Hyde had employed the usual expedient of having his marines shoot wine bottles to shivers from the lee main yard-arm. ‘Generous of the first luff to provide us with targets,’ Drinkwater overheard Hyde remark to Frey and was pleased to see the quick flash of amusement cross Frey’s serious features. At least, Drinkwater concluded, those two seemed to be getting along well, though Frey’s protracted introspection worried him, bringing back gloomy thoughts of its cause.

  Going below after the guns had fallen silent, Drinkwater fought off an incipient onslaught of the blue-devils by writing up his journal, but his words lacked the intensity of his feelings and he abandoned the attempt. He was racked with a score of doubts now about the wisdom of backing Hortense’s intelligence, of his folly and presumption in badgering Prince William Henry, of the whole ridiculous idea of seeking two frigates in the vastness of the Atlantic and of the preposterous nature of the notion of Bonaparte escaping Allied custody.

  In fact, sitting alone in his cabin, rubbing his jaw where a tooth was beginning to ache, he stared astern and watched the horizon rise and fall with the pitch of the ship. It was quite possible to doubt he had received a visitor at all. The surge of the wake as the water whorled out from under the stern where the rudder bit into it seemed real enough, but it too was remote, a near silent event beyond the shuttering of the crown-glazed windows. Through the sashes he watched a shearwater sweep across the wake, following the ever-changing contours of the sea in its interminable search for food. Though skimming the water, its wings constantly adjusting to maintain this position, it avoided the contact which would have brought it down.

  The confidence and poise of the bird struck him as something almost miraculous. How did it learn such a skill? Was it taught, or did the bird acquire it by instinct, as a human child learned to breathe and talk? The power and mystery of instincts capable of forming the conduct of shearwaters and the human young, moved ineluctably through all forms of life. The shearwater did not resist the urge to skim the waves, or doubt its ability to do so faultlessly: it simply did it.

  Drinkwater grunted and considered himself a fool. Was it doubt more than knowledge that set men apart from the beasts; doubt which caused them to falter, to intellectualize and rationalize what would be simple if they followed their instincts? Hortense Santhonax had been in this very cabin, not a week earlier. She had communicated urgent news and he had believed her, believed her because between them something strange and almost palpable existed. He felt the skin crawl along his spine at the recollection. Instinct as much as the nature of her news had made him act as he did, and he felt in that solitary moment a surge of inexplicable but powerful self-confidence.

  He was so deep in introspection that the knock at the door made him jump. It was the surgeon.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Captain Drinkwater …’

  ‘Mr Kennedy, come in, come in. Is something the matter?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes. It’s the first lieutenant; he’s taken to his bed, claims he’s unwell, suffering from a quotidian fever.’

  ‘I gather you do not entirely believe him?’ Drinkwater asked, smiling despite himself.

  Kennedy pulled a face. ‘I tend to be suspicious of self-diagnosis; it has a tendency to be subjective.’

  ‘So what do you recommend?’

  ‘In view of all the circumstances, I think it best to humour him for a day or two. He may be attributing his misjudgements to having been unwell.’

  ‘Yes, that is what I was thinking. It might be an advantage to us all if we were to foster that impression. It would certainly be the best course of action for the ship.’

  ‘D’you want me to cosset him then? Keep him, as it were, out of the way? Just for a little while.’

  ‘Laudanum?’

  “Tis said to be a very specific febrifuge for some forms of the quotidian ague, Captain Drinkwater,’ said Kennedy, rising, his voice dry and a half-smile hovering about the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Don’t you have a less drastic paregoric?’

  ‘He has already tried that, sir,’ Kennedy flashed back.

  Drinkwater sighed. ‘Very well, but only a small dose.’ Drinkwater had a sudden thought. ‘Oh, Mr Kennedy.’ The surgeon paused with one hand on the cabin door. ‘Would you be so kind as to join me for dinner today?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘Then pass my compliments to Mr Hyde and Mr Ashton, oh, and the purser, Birkbeck and two of the midshipmen. Paine and Dunn will do.’

  ‘Of course, sir, with pleasure.’

  ‘Well, well,’ Drinkwater muttered to himself, following Kennedy to the door. Opening it, he confronted the marine sentry. ‘Pass word for my servant.’

  It was only after the surgeon had left, he thought he should have mentioned his incipient toothache.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Consequences of Toothache

  April 1814

  ‘I am sorry indisposition keeps Marlowe from our company tonight, Mr Ashton,’ Drinkwater said, leaning over and filling the third lieutenant’s glass. He had been chatting to Ashton for some time, regularly topping his glass up and the lieutenant was already flushed. About them the dinner in Drinkwater’s cabin appeared to be cheerfully convivial. As was customary, a small pig had been butchered for the occasion and the rich smell of roast pork filled the cabin.

  ‘Indeed sir, ‘tis a pity’

  ‘I understand you know him well. Have you sailed with him before?’

  ‘Yes. We were midshipmen in the old Conqueror and later lieutenants in the Thunderer.”

  ‘Really?’ remarked Drinkwater, reflecting that had matters turned out differently, Marlowe and Ashton might have served under his command much earlier. He forbore drawing this to Ashton’s attention, however, for the wine was working on his tongue.

  ‘As a consequence of our having been shipmates, Frederic, I mean Marlowe, became acquainted with my sister.’

  Drinkwater gave his most engaging smile. ‘Do I gather that they are now intimate?’

  Ashton nodded. ‘They became betrothed shortly before we sailed.’ There was a distinct air of satisfaction about Ashton. ‘I imagine Sarah will take our diversion amiss …’

  ‘It will not be unduly long, I hope,’ Drinkwater persisted, maintaining his mood of confidentiality, but returning the conversation to the personal. ‘I suppose the match is an advantageous one?’

  Ashton swallowed a mouthful of wine. ‘Sarah’s a very handsome young lady,’ Ashton said, ‘as for Fred, well, he’ll inherit his father’s title and …’ Ashton seemed suddenly aware of what he was saying and hesitated, but it was too late, he had already indicated Marlowe stood to inherit some considerable wealth.

  ‘Well,’ remarked Drinkwater smoothly, as though not in the least interested in Marlowe’s expectations, ‘I hope the poor fellow is soon back on his feet again.’

  ‘I am sure he soon will be …’

  ‘Tell me something about yourself, Mr Ashton. Have you ever been under fire?’ Drinkwater closely watched his victim’s face.

  ‘Well no, not exactly under fire in the sense you mean. I took part in some boat operations off the Breton coast. We cut ou
t apéniche...’

  ‘That was alongside Mr Marlowe, was it not?’ hazarded Drinkwater. Ashton nodded. ‘But no yard-arm to yard-arm stuff, eh?’

  ‘Well no, not exactly, sir.’

  ‘Pity. Still, we shall have to see what we can do about that, eh, Mr Ashton?’

  ‘Er, yes, sir.’ Ashton was visibly perspiring now, though whether owing to the heat of the candles, the fullness of his belly or apprehension, Drinkwater was quite unable to say.

  ‘Well, Mr Ashton, we never know what lies just over the horizon, do we?’

  ‘I suppose not, sir …’

  The meal proceeded on its course and when the company rose they were in good heart. Left alone in his cabin while his servant cleared away, Drinkwater mused on his conversation with Ashton until Frampton’s fossicking distracted him and drove him on deck.

  A gibbous moon hung above a black and silver sea and Drinkwater found Frey, an even blacker figure, wrapped in his cloak. At Drinkwater’s appearance Frey detached himself from the weather rigging.

  ‘Good evening, sir.’

  ‘Mr Frey, would you take a turn or two with me?’

  The two men fell in step beside one another and exchanged some general remarks about the weather. The wind held steadily from the north-west and the pale moonlight threw their shadows across the planking of the quarterdeck to merge with those of the rigging and sails. These moved back and forth as Andromeda worked steadily to windward, pitching easily and giving a comfortable, easy roll to leeward.

  ‘It’s a beautiful night, Mr Frey’

  ‘It is, sir.’

  ‘I am sorry that your duty kept you from joining me for dinner, but,’ Drinkwater lowered his voice, ‘truth to tell, I wanted to sound Ashton about Marlowe. I understand the first lieutenant is betrothed to Ashton’s sister …’

  ‘Ah, that is not known in the wardroom,’ Frey said, reflectively.

  ‘That is unusual.’

  ‘But not’, said Frey with some emphasis, ‘if you had a reason for not wanting the matter known publicly’

  ‘You mean, if neither party wanted it known?’ queried Drinkwater, intrigued and wondering what Frey was driving at.

  ‘Neither party would want it generally gossiped about if, on the one hand, one did not want the matter to progress; and, on the other, one feared that it would not come to the desired conclusion.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ chuckled Drinkwater. ‘You mean Ashton disapproves and Marlowe wishes it.’

  ‘Quite the opposite,’ replied Frey, and Drinkwater found himself realizing that Ashton’s behaviour did not square with his own hypothesis. ‘Ashton wants it,’ said Frey, ‘but Marlowe does not.’

  ‘Now I come to think of it,’ Drinkwater replied, aware the wine had made him dull-witted, Ashton seemed keen enough, but what exactly are you hinting at?’

  ‘I may be incorrect, sir, but I believe Ashton has his claws into Marlowe and whatever part Miss Ashton has to play in all this, it would ultimately be to Ashton’s advantage.’

  ‘There was some allusion to wealth …’

  ‘A considerable inheritance from his father, and, if one can believe the shrewd lobster,’ it took Drinkwater a moment to realize Frey was referring to Hyde, ‘there is money on his mother’s side too.’

  ‘Well, well, well,’ Drinkwater said, lapsing into silence for a while as the two men paced between the carronade just abaft the starboard hance, turned and strode back again towards the taffrail and its motionless marine sentry. ‘So how has Ashton achieved this ascendancy?’

  ‘According to Hyde, by the normal manner.’

  ‘You mean the lady has anticipated events?’

  ‘I’d say they had both anticipated events, sir,’ Frey remarked drily.

  ‘But if Hyde knows of this scandal, how is the matter not known of in the wardroom?’

  ‘I did not say the scandal was not known about, sir,’ said Frey, ‘I said the betrothal was not common knowledge.’

  ‘So you did, so you did. I should have been more alert to the subtleties of the affair.’ Drinkwater was faintly amused by the matter. ‘Now I perceive the effect our diversion into the Atlantic has on all parties,’ he remarked, ‘not least on poor Miss Ashton.’ And in the darkness beside him he heard Frey chuckle.

  And as if to chide him for their lack of charity, Drinkwater’s tooth twinged excruciatingly.

  The frigate settled into her night routine. One watch was turning in, another was already in their hammocks, and the so-called idlers, who had laboured throughout the day, were enjoying a brief period of leisure. The cooks, the carpenter and his mates, many of the marines whose duties varied from those of the seamen, chatted and smoked or engaged in the sailor’s pastimes of wood-whittling or knotting.

  A few read, and although there were not many books on the berth-deck other than the technical works on navigation which were occasionally perused by the midshipmen, Sergeant McCann was known to have a small box of battered volumes which he had picked up from various sources. His most recent acquisition, Miss Austen’s novel, purchased new and which Lieutenant Hyde was so enjoying, was just one of those which he had bought before the ship had sailed. McCann himself, though he had admired the work, had found its reminders of domestic life too painful. At the same time that he had bought Pride and Prejudice, he had also acquired a second-hand copy of Stedman’s monumental history of the first American War, that struggle for independence which had rendered men like McCann homeless. And although McCann had avoided too often reflecting upon the past, Stedman’s partiality for the loyalist cause reopened old wounds.

  As a consequence of reading Stedman’s book, McCann was unable to avoid the workings of memory and take refuge in his hitherto successful ploy of submerging the past in the present. Moreover, such were McCann’s circumstances, that the book shook his sense of loyalty. He had nothing against Lieutenant Hyde, in fact he liked his commanding officer and enjoyed the freedom of action Hyde’s inertia allowed him. But it had been officers like Hyde, indolent, careless and selfish, who had degraded his mother and debauched his young sister. He now heartily wished he had not picked up the two heavy volumes of Stedman’s works, but having done so, his conscience goaded him unmercifully. Could he not have done more for his mother and sister? He had come to London to seek compensation in order to return to America and rehabilitate his unfortunate dependants, but there had been no money to be gained, and in order to survive he had eventually returned to the only profession war had taught him: soldiering. He had joined the marines with some vague idea that by going to sea he would be the more likely to get back to his native land, though this had proved a nonsense. Year had succeeded year and he had had to abandon hope and find a means to live.

  He was no longer a young man; his eyesight was failing and he could not read the pernicious book without a glass. The physical infirmity prompted the thought that time was running out, and while he entertained no doubt that his mother had long since died, he often and guiltily wondered about his sister. But a man who has adopted a mode of acting and made of it the foundation of his existence does not abandon it at once. Indeed, he discovers it is extremely difficult to throw off, so subject to habit does he become. Thus Sergeant McCann at first only indulged in an intellectual rebellion, regarding both Lieutenant Hyde and his own position in relation to his superior officer with a newly jaundiced eye. It was a situation which had, as yet, nothing further to motivate it beyond an underlying discontent. Indeed, McCann was subject to the conflicting emotion of self-contempt, regarding himself as author of his own misery and attributing the abandonment of his sister to base cowardice, ignoring his original motives for leaving North America.

  In this he was unfair to himself; but he was unable to seek consolation by discussing the matter with anyone else and consequently endured the misery of the lonely and forlorn. For the time being, therefore, there was no apparent change in the behaviour of Sergeant McCann. But to all this personal turmoil, Drinkwater’s explanation of And
romeda’s mission came as a providential coincidence. McCann was uncertain as to how this might help him, but the news brought the current war in America much closer, offering his confused and unhappy mind a vague hope upon which he built castles in the air. Some opportunity might present itself by which he might regain his social standing, and perhaps with it his commission. He conveniently forgot he was no longer young; ambition does not necessarily wither with age, particularly under the corrosive if unacknowledged influence of envy and long-suppressed hatred. Nor did it help that in his conclusion to his master-work, Stedman, a British officer who had served from Lexington to the Carolinas, conferred the palm of victory to the Americans because they deserved it; nor that Miss Austen affirmed that lives had satisfactory conclusions.

  Drinkwater was interrupted in his shaving the following morning by Mr Paine who brought him the news that the sails of three ships were in sight to the south-west.

  ‘They’re coming up hand over fist, sir,’ Paine explained enthusiastically, ‘running before the wind with everything set to the to’garn stuns’ls!’

  ‘What d’you make of ‘em, Mr Paine?’

  ‘Frigates, sir.’

  ‘British frigates, Mr Paine?’ Drinkwater asked, stretching his cheek and scraping the razor across the scar a French officer had inflicted upon him when he had been a midshipman just like Paine.

  ‘I should say so, sir!’

  ‘I do so hope you are right, Mr Paine, and if you are not, then they have heard we are at peace.’

  ‘I suppose they could be American…’ The boy paused reflectively.

  ‘Well, what the deuce does the officer of the watch say about them?’

  ‘N… nothing sir; just that I was to tell you that three ships were in sight to the south-west…’

  ‘Then do you return to the quarterdeck and present my sincerest compliments to Mr Ashton and inform him I shall be heartily obliged to him if he would condescend to beat to quarters and clear the ship for action.’