Paine’s eyes opened wide. ‘Beat to quarters and clear for action. Aye, aye, sir!’
It was difficult to resist the boy’s enthusiasm, but Drinkwater concluded he could complete dressing properly before the bulkheads to his cabin were torn down. It was quite ten minutes before he appeared on deck, by which time the boatswain and his mates were shrilling their imperious pipes at every companionway and the slap of bare feet competed with the tramp of the marines’ boots as Andromeda’s thirteen score of officers and men, a few rooted rudely from their slumbers, went to their posts.
On the quarterdeck, Lieutenant Ashton was quizzing the three ships through a long glass. The sun was already climbing the eastern sky, but had yet to acquire sufficient altitude to illuminate indiscriminately. Its rays therefore shone through the breaking wave crests, giving them a translucent beauty, throwing their shadows into the troughs. This interplay of light threw equally long shadows across the deck, but most startling was the effect it had upon the sails of the three approaching ships, lighting them so that their pyramids of straining canvas seemed to glow.
‘I have ordered the private signal hoisted, sir,’ said Ashton, ‘and the ship is clearing for action.’ He shut his glass with a snap and offered it to the captain, ‘Up from Ushant, I shouldn’t wonder,’ he added, by way of justifying himself.
Drinkwater ignored the impertinence and declined the loan of the telescope. ‘Thank you, no. I have my own,’ and he fished in his tail-pocket and drew out his Dollond glass. Steadying it against a stay, he focused it upon the leading ship. She was a frigate of slightly larger class than Andromeda, he guessed, but while it was probable that her nationality was British, Drinkwater knew a number of French frigates were at large in the Atlantic, and the matter was by no means certain.
After a few moments scrutiny, Drinkwater lowered his glass. ‘Clew up and lay the maintopsail against the mast, Mr Ashton. Let us take the mettle of these fellows.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
As the order to ‘rise tacks and sheets’ rang out, the main and fore courses rose in their buntlines and clew garnets while the yards on the main mast were swung so as to bring the breeze on their forward surface and throw them aback. Andromeda lay across the wind and sea, almost stopped as she awaited the newcomers, apparently undaunted at their superior numbers.
‘Sir,’ said Ashton, ‘with Lieutenant Marlowe indisposed …’
‘Do you remain here, Mr Ashton. Frey can handle the gun-deck well enough.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
Frey’s seniority gave him prior claim to the post on the quarterdeck, but Drinkwater was happier if his more experienced lieutenant commanded the batteries, while Ashton would undoubtedly prefer the senior post at his side. Besides, Drinkwater reflected as he raised his glass again, he could keep an eye on Ashton, who was receiving the reports that the ship was cleared for action. He passed them on to Drinkwater.
‘Very well,’ Drinkwater acknowledged, keeping the glass to his eye. ‘Show them our teeth then, Mr Ashton, and run out the guns.’
The dull rumble of the gun trucks made the ship tremble as Andromeda bared her iron fangs.
‘They’re signalling sir,’ Paine’s voice cracked with excitement, descending into a weird baritone.
‘Well, sir, can you read her number?’ asked Drinkwater, aware that his own eyesight was not a patch on the lad’s, and saying in an aside to Ashton, ‘Better hang up our own.’
‘In hand, sir.’
‘Good … Well, Mr Paine?’ Drinkwater could see the little squares as flutterings of colour, but needed the midshipman’s acuity to differentiate them. The lad fumbled and flustered for a few moments, referring to the code-book, then looked up triumphantly.
‘Menelaus, sir, Sir Peter Parker commanding.’
‘Very well, Mr Paine. Mr Ashton, I shall want a boat…’
An hour later, rather damp from a wet transfer, Drinkwater stood in the richly appointed cabin of the thirty-eight gun frigate. Sir Peter Parker was a member of a naval dynasty, an urbane baronet of roughly equal seniority to Drinkwater.
‘We’ve been cruising off the Breton coast,’ he said, indicating the other two ships which had followed Parker’s example and hove-to. He handed Drinkwater a glass of wine and explained his presence. ‘I have received orders to sail for America once I have recruited the ship. I need wood and water, but can spare some powder and shot if we can get it across to you all right.’
‘I’m obliged to you, Sir Peter. I confess to the Prince’s orders being specific on the matter and, had I not run into you would have had to take my chance without replenishment.’
‘So,’ Parker frowned, ‘Silly Billy insisted you stood directly for the Azores in anticipation of Boney’s incarceration there, eh?’
Drinkwater nodded. ‘Yes. There seems to be a general anxiety about Boney and his eventual whereabouts. He’ll be conveyed to the Azores by a man-o’-war, but His Royal Highness thought it prudent to have a frigate on station there directly. I gained the impression the Prince and Their Lordships don’t see eye to eye …’
‘I suppose Billy wants to let them know he’s quite capable of thinking for himself,’ Parker remarked, laughing.
‘I daresay he had a point in believing the Admiralty Board would take their time in sending out a guardship,’ Drinkwater remarked pointedly.
‘Well, maybe Billy ain’t so silly, eh?’ smiled Parker, draining his glass. ‘Nor is it inconceivable that Bonapartists would want to spirit their Emperor across the Atlantic. He could make a deal of trouble for us there.’
‘Perish the thought,’ agreed Drinkwater, ‘though it is my constant concern.’
‘Well, we shall do what we can.’ Parker paused to pass word to his officers to get a quantity of powder and ball across to Andromeda, a task which would take some time, and invited Drinkwater to remain aboard the Menelaus for a while. The two captains therefore sat on the stern settee reminiscing and idly chatting, while the ships’ boats bobbed back and forth.
‘So you were part of the squadron that saw Fat Louis back to France then?’ Parker asked, and Drinkwater did his best to satisfy Sir Peter’s curiosity with a description of the event.
‘Seems an odd way to end it all,’ he remarked.
‘Yes. Somehow inappropriate, in a curious way,’ added Drinkwater.
‘I presume the Bourbon court will try to put the clock back, while we have to turn our attention to America.’
Drinkwater nodded. ‘Though if we bring our full weight to bear upon a blockade of the American coast, we should be able to bring the matter to a swift conclusion.’
‘Let us hope so, but I must confess the prospect don’t please me and if Boney interferes, we may be occupied for years yet,’ Parker said, a worried look on his face, but the conversation was interrupted by a knock at the cabin door and a midshipman entered at Parker’s command.
‘First lieutenant’s compliments, sir, but the wind’s freshening. He don’t think we can risk sending many more boats across.’ The midshipman turned to Drinkwater and added, ‘He said to tell you, sir, that we’ve sent twenty-eight small barrels and a quantity of shot.’
Drinkwater stood up. ‘Parker, I’m obliged to you…’ The two men shook hands and parted with cordial good wishes.
Out of the lee of the Menelaus’s, side, Drinkwater felt the keen bite of the wind; another gale was on the way, unless he was much mistaken, despite the fact that ashore the blackthorn would be blooming in the hedgerows.
The gale was upon them by nightfall. During the afternoon the sky gradually occluded and the horizon grew indistinct. The air became increasingly damp, the wind backed and a thickening mist transformed the day. The decks darkened imperceptibly with moisture and, although the temperature remained the same, the damp air seemed cooler.
‘Backs the winds against the sun, trust it not, for back ‘twill run.’ Birkbeck recited the old couplet to Mr Midshipman Dunn. ‘Remember that, cully, along with the other sa
ws I’ve already taught you and they’ll stand you in good stead.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Mr Dunn bit his lip; he had failed to learn any of the ‘saws’ the master had tried to teach him, but dared not admit it and was terrified Birkbeck was about to ask him to recapitulate. Mercifully the cloaked figure of the captain rose up the after companionway, and Dunn took the opportunity to dodge away.
Drinkwater cast a quick glance about. Aloft the second reef was being put into the topsails. The men bent over the yard, their legs splayed on the foot-rope. Drinkwater peered into the binnacle, the boat-cloak billowing around him. From forward, the smoke coiling out of the galley funnel was flattened and drove its fumes along the deck. Above their heads there was a tremulous thundering as the weather leach of the fore-topsail lifted.
‘Watch your helm there!’ Birkbeck rounded upon the quartermaster, who craned forward and stared aloft, ordering the helmsmen to put the helm up a couple of spokes, allowing Andromeda to pay off the wind a little. ‘You’ll have another man shivered off the yard if you’re not more careful,’ Birkbeck snapped reprovingly, then turning to Drinkwater he put two fingers to the fore-cock of his hat.
‘North of west, sir, I’m afraid,’ Birkbeck reported apologetically to Drinkwater.
‘It cannot be helped, Mr Birkbeck.’
They would have to endure another miserable night bouncing tiringly up and down, while the grey Atlantic responded to the onslaught of the wind and raised its undulating swells and sharper waves. It would be chilly and damp below decks; the hatches would be closed and the air below become poor and mephitic, a breeding ground for the consumption and an aggravation for the rheumatics, Drinkwater reflected gloomily. He tucked himself into the mizen rigging and sank into a state of misery. His tooth had ceased to equivocate and the infection of its root raged painfully. He had known for days that the thing would only get worse and it chose the deteriorating weather to afflict him fully. He would have to have the tooth drawn and the sooner the better; in fact a man of any sense would go at once to the surgeon and insist the offending tusk was pulled out. But Drinkwater did not feel much like a man of sense; toothache made a man peevishly self-centred; it also made him a coward. Having his lower jaw hauled about by Kennedy who, with a knee on his chest, would wrest the bulk of his pincers around until the tooth submitted, was not a prospect that attracted Drinkwater. As the sun set invisibly behind the now impenetrable barrier of cloud, the fading daylight reflected the captain’s lugubrious mood.
He could, of course, insist Kennedy gave him a paregoric. A dose of laudanum would do the trick, at least until the morning. The idea made him think of Marlowe languishing in his bunk and his conscience stung him. Forcing himself to relinquish the clean, if damp, air of the deck, he went reluctantly below.
In the wardroom Lieutenant Hyde had discovered an equilibrium of sorts, having braced his chair so that he might lean back and read with his booted feet on the wardroom table. At the after end of the bare table Lieutenant Ashton sat in a Napoleonic pose, his expression remote, his hands playing with a steel pen, a sheet of paper before him. Neither officer realized who their visitor was until Drinkwater coughed.
‘Oh! Beg pardon, sir.’ Hyde’s boots reached the deck at the same moment as all the legs of his chair, a sudden, noisy movement which snapped Ashton from his abstraction. He too stood up.
‘Good evening, gentlemen. Pray pardon the intrusion …’
‘Lieutenant Frey has turned in, sir,’ offered Ashton.
‘I came to see Lieutenant Marlowe.’
Hyde indicated the door to the first lieutenant’s cabin and Drinkwater nodded his thanks, knocked and ducked inside. Behind him Ashton and Hyde exchanged glances.
The quarters provided for Andromeda’s officers were spartan and what embellishments an officer might bring to his hutch of a cabin conferred upon it a personality. Lieutenant Frederic Marlowe had two small portraits, a shelf of books and an elegant travelling portmanteau which, standing in the corner, held in its top a washing basin and mirror.
Of the portraits, one was a striking young woman whom Drinkwater took to be Sarah Ashton, though there was little resemblance to the officer he had just seen in the wardroom; the other was of a man dressed in the scarlet and blue of a royal regiment, the gold crescent of a gorget at his throat.
These appointments were illuminated by a small lantern, the light of which also fell upon the features of Marlowe himself. Drinkwater was shocked by the young man’s appearance. Kennedy had led him to believe Marlowe’s trouble to be no more than a malingering idleness, but the gaunt face appeared to be that of a man afflicted with a real illness, or at best in some deep distress. Marlowe’s eyes were sunk in dark hollows and regarded Drinkwater with an obvious horror.
‘Mr Marlowe,’ Drinkwater began, ‘how is it with you?’
Marlowe’s lower lip trembled and he managed to whisper, ‘Well enough, sir.’
‘What is the matter?’
‘Quotidian fever, sir, or so the sawbones says.’
Drinkwater had a rather different perception. He looked round the cabin. A small glass stood in the wash basin, and Drinkwater picked it up and sniffed it. The faint scent of tincture of opium was just discernible. For a moment Drinkwater stood undecided, then he turned back to the invalid, and sat himself down in the single chair that adorned the cabin.
‘Mr Marlowe, I do not believe you have a quotidian fever. Pray tell me, to what extent do you owe your present indisposition to the influence of Lieutenant Ashton?’ Marlowe’s eyes widened as Drinkwater’s barb struck home. His eyes glanced at the door to the wardroom, confirming, if confirmation were necessary, the accuracy of Drinkwater’s assumption. ‘I am aware of your situation vis-a-vis Ashton; perhaps, if you wished, you could confide in me. I cannot afford to have my first lieutenant incapacitated; I need you on deck, Mr Marlowe, gaining the confidence of the people …’
The shadow of recollection passed across Marlowe’s haggard features, then he shook his head vigorously and turned his face away. Drinkwater lingered a moment, then rose, the chair scraping violently on the deck, but even this noise evoked no response from the first lieutenant. ‘Damnation,’ he muttered under his breath, and stepped back into the wardroom.
Hyde had resumed his reading, though his boots were no longer on the table. Ashton had bent to his writing, but looked up sharply as Drinkwater shut the door behind him and stood before the officers. Realizing their manners, both men made to rise to their feet.
‘Please do not trouble yourselves, gentlemen. Good night.’
Rather than returning directly to his own cabin or the deck, Drinkwater descended a further deck in search of the surgeon. He found Kennedy playing bezique with the midshipmen. The intrusion of the captain’s features in the stygian gloom of the cockpit produced a remarkable reaction: the midshipmen jumped to their feet, the cards were scattered and Kennedy, who had had his back to Drinkwater, turned slowly around.
‘Oh, sir, I er … Did you want me?’
‘Indeed, Mr Kennedy. I would be obliged if you would pull a tooth for me. At your convenience.’
‘There’s no time like the present, sir. These young devils have a decided advantage.’
Drinkwater, followed by the surgeon, retired to the half-suppressed sound of sniggering midshipmen.
A few moments later Kennedy joined him in the cabin, producing a small bag from the dark and sinister interior of which gleamed the dull metal of instruments. Drinkwater sat down and braced himself, as much against the motion of the ship as in preparation for Kennedy’s ministrations. There was a brief exchange between them, then Drinkwater opened his mouth and allowed Kennedy to probe his lower mandible. It took the surgeon only a few seconds to locate the source of the trouble. He withdrew his probe and searched his bag for another implement. His hand emerged with a pair of steel pincers.
‘Humour me and rinse those things in some wine, if you please.’
‘It is quite unnecessary …’
‘Oblige me, if you please …’
‘Very well.’
Kennedy poured a glass of wine from the stoppered decanter lodged in the fiddles and dipped the closed pincers in it. Andromeda groaned mournfully about them as he turned and approached his patient. Drinkwater’s knuckles were white on the arms of his chair. Kennedy opened the grim steel tool and bent over Drinkwater, who felt the uncompromising bite of the serrated steel clamp over his own, less robust tooth. There was an excruciating pain which shot like a white hot wire through Drinkwater’s brain and he felt the tooth wrenched this way and that as Kennedy bore down on him, twisting his powerful wrist. A faint grinding sound transmitted itself through Drinkwater’s skull as Kennedy wrestled with the resisting fang; then it gave way, Andromeda lurched and Kennedy almost fell backwards. The pincers struck the teeth in Drinkwater’s upper jaw, jarring his whole head. The wine glass fell to the deck and smashed.
A stink filled Drinkwater’s nostrils as Kennedy waved the rotting tooth under his wrinkling nose. The surgeon dropped the tooth and pincers, took another glass, filled it and handed it to his spluttering patient.
‘God damn and blast it!’ Drinkwater bellowed, clapping his hand to his mouth.
‘I wouldn’t recommend you to swallow, sir. Perhaps the quarter-gallery …’
Drinkwater did as he was bid, rinsed his mouth with wine and spat it down the closet. His tongue explored the gaping hole in his teeth as he clambered back into the cabin, a little dizzy and in some pain from the blow to his upper jaw.
Kennedy was clearing away and Drinkwater refilled his glass and filled another for the surgeon.
‘Damn me, Kennedy, but you’re a confounded brute, and no mistake.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Kennedy said, smiling, accepting the glass. ‘The confounded ship …’
‘Quite so, but a moment…’
‘There is something else, sir?’
‘Yes. I wish you to cease giving Marlowe laudanum. I am not certain it is having anything other than a deleterious effect.’
The Shadow of the Eagle Page 12