A Brig of War (5 page)

‘There is
Hellebore
, Sir Horatio,' volunteered Griffiths.

‘Yes, Captain. Would that the whereabouts of the French squadron was my only consideration. But I know that their fleet, besides sail of the line, frigates, bomb vessels and so forth, also comprises three hundred troop transports; an armada that left Sicily with a fair wind from the west. It is clear their destination is to the eastward. I think their object is to possess themselves of some port in Egypt, to fix themselves at the head of the Red Sea in order to get a formidable army into India, to act in concert with Tipoo Sahib. No, Captain, I may not permit myself the luxury of retaining
Hellebore
 . . .' The admiral paused and Drinkwater felt apprehensive. Nelson made up his mind. ‘I must sacrifice perhaps my reputation but that must always subordinate itself to my zeal for the King's service which demands I acquaint the officer on the station of the danger he may be in. I have already written to
Mr Baldwin, our consul at Alexandria, to determine whether the French have any vessels prepared in the Red Sea. As yet I have had no reply. Therefore, my dear Griffiths, I desire that you wood and water without delay and send a boat for your written orders the instant you are ready to proceed to the Red Sea.'

Drinkwater felt his mouth go dry. The Red Sea meant a year's voyage at the least. And Elizabeth had given him expectation of a child in the summer.

Lieutenant Drinkwater stared astern watching the seas run up under the brig's larboard quarter, lifting her stern and impelling her forward, adding a trifle to her speed until they passed ahead of her and she dragged, slowly, into the succeeding trough.
Hellebore
carried sail to her topgallants as she raced south west before the trade wind, the coast of Mauretania twenty-five leagues to the east.

Drinkwater had been watching Mr Quilhampton heave the log and had acknowledged the boy's report, prompted by the quartermaster, that they were running at seven knots. Something would not let him turn forward again but kept him watching the wake as it bubbled green-white under the stern and trailed away behind them in an irregular ribbon, twisted by the yaw of the ship and the oncoming waves. Here and there a following seabird dipped into its disturbance.

He had felt wretched as they passed the Straits of Gibraltar and took their departure from Cape Espartel, for he had been unable to send letters back to Elizabeth, so swift had been
Hellebore
's passage from Syracuse, so explicit the admiral's orders. Now it was certain he would be separated from her until after the birth of their child, he regretted his inability to soften the blow of his apparent desertion.

He was aware of someone at his elbow and resented the intrusion upon his private thoughts.

‘Beg pardon, zur.' It was Tregembo. Ten years older than Drinkwater the able seaman had long ago attached himself to him with a touching and unsolicited loyalty. He had cemented the relationship by supplying Elizabeth with a cook in the person of his wife Susan, certain that service with the Drinkwaters represented security. The personal link between them both gratified and, at that moment, annoyed Drinkwater. He snapped irritably, ‘What is it?'

‘Your sword, zur, 'tis now but half a glass before quarters, zur.'

Drinkwater looked guiltily at the half-hour sand-glass in the
little binnacle and took his sword. Since they left the Mediterranean Griffiths had adopted the three watch system. It was kinder on the men and more suited to the long passage ahead of them. There were no dog watches now but at five hours after noon, ship's time, they went to general quarters to remind them all of the serious nature of their business.

Drinkwater turned forward and looked along the deck of the
Hellebore
. She was a trim ship, one of a new class of brig-sloop designed for general duties, a maid of all work, tender, dispatch vessel, convoy escort and commerce raider. He stood on a tiny raised poop which protected the head of the rudder stock and tiller. Immediately forward of the poop the tiller lines ran through blocks to the wheel with its binnacle, forward of which were the skylight and companionway to the officers' accommodation. Beneath the skylight lay the lobby which served her two lieutenants, master, surgeon, gunner and purser as a gunroom, their cabins leading off it. Griffiths messed there too, unless he dined alone in his cabin, set right aft and entered via the gunroom. Forward of the companionway to this accommodation rose the mainmast, surrounded by its pin rails and coils of manila rigging, its pump handles and trunks. Between the main and foremast, gratings covered the waist, giving poor ventilation to the berth space below, covered by tarpaulins at the first sign of bad weather. Here too was the capstan. Just beyond the foremast the galley chimney rose from the deck next to the companionway that led below to the berth space where the hundred men of
Hellebore
's company swung their hammocks in an overcrowded fug. The remaining warrant officers and their stores were tucked under the triangular foredeck. A tiny raised platform served as a fo'c's'le, providing just enough foothold to handle the headsail sheets and tend the catheads.

She was pierced with twenty gunports but so cluttered did she become in the eyes that the foremost were unoccupied. The remaining eighteen each sported an iron six-pounder. These guns were still a subject of frequent debate amongst her officers. Many vessels of similar size carried the snub barrelled carronades, short-ranged but devastating weapons that gave a small sloop a weight of metal heavy enough at close quarters to rival frigates of the sixth rate. But
Hellebore
had been armed by a traditionalist, retaining long guns each with its little canvas covered flintlock firing device. The only carronade she carried
was her twelve-pounder boat gun which lay lashed under the fo'c's'le.

Drinkwater descended from the poop as Griffiths came on deck. The glass was turned and the people piped to general quarters. The hands tumbled up willingly enough, the bosun's mates flicking the occasional backside with their starters more for form than necessity. But Drinkwater was not watching that; he was seeing his laboriously drawn up quarter-bill come to life. The gun crews ran to their pieces to slip the breechings and lower the muzzles off the lintels of the gunports. The port lids were lifted as the coloured tompions were knocked out and the men threw their weight on the train tackles. Irregularly, but not unpleasantly discordant, the trucks rumbled over the deck. One by one the gun captains raised their right arms as their crews knelt at the ready position. It was not quite like a frigate. There were no bulkheads to come down since
Hellebore
carried her artillery on her upper deck, there was no marine drummer to beat the
rafale
; not many officers to go round once the gunner had disappeared into his magazine and Lestock and Drinkwater had come aft to the quarterdeck. There was a quarter gunner to each section and a master's mate at either battery. Second Lieutenant Rogers was in overall command of the engaged side with Mr Quilhampton (nominally a ‘servant' on the ship's books, but fulfilling the function of a midshipman) as his messenger. Dalziell, the only midshipman officially allowed the brig, commanded the firemen, two men from each gun who assisted each other to extinguish any fires started by an enemy. Drinkwater himself commanded the boarders while Lestock attended to the sails. Under the first lieutenant's command were the men in the tops, sail trimming topmen and a detail of sharpshooters, seamen picked from a competition held weeks earlier in the Downs, and mostly landsmen whose past included either service in the sea fencibles, the volunteers or in a longer feud with their local gamekeepers.

Drinkwater glanced aloft to where Tregembo as captain of the maintop touched his forehead and a man named Kellet acknowledged his section alert in the foretop. He uncovered to Griffiths. ‘Main battery made ready, sir. I'll check below.'

‘Very good.'

It was only a formality. Below her upper deck
Hellebore
's accommodation, stores and hold consisted of ‘platforms' set at various levels according to the breadth of the hull available at
each given point. Her berth space, above the main hold, was no more than five feet deep. In the gloom of the hammock space he found the carpenter with his two mates, their tools and a bag of shot plugs. ‘All correct Mr Johnson?' The man grinned. His creased features and his Liverpool accent reminded Drinkwater of
Kestrel
and the same Johnson hacking the anchor warp as they beat off the French coast one desperate night two years earlier. ‘All correct, Mr Drinkwater.'

He passed on, descending a further ladder to where, whistling quietly to himself Mr Appleby presided over his opened case of gruesome instruments, the lantern light gleaming dully on his crowbills, saws, daviers and demi-lunes. His two mates sat on the upturned tubs provided for the amputated limbs honing surgical knives. A casual air prevailed that annoyed Drinkwater when compared to the deck above. He raised an eyebrow at Appleby who nodded curtly back conveying all his professional hostility to the rival profession of arms that made his presence in the septic stink of the hold necessary. Drinkwater proceeded aft, beneath the officers' quarters where, in less than four feet of headroom, lay the magazine. Trussel's face peered at him through the slit in the felt curtain.

‘Ready Mr Trussel?'

‘Aye, sir, ready when you are.' His ugly face was illuminated by fiercely gleaming yellow eyes that caught the light from the protected lanterns and Drinkwater was reminded of a remark of Appleby's when he was dissecting the physiognomy of his messmates. ‘Yon's arse spends so much time six inches from powdered eternity that it's bound to have an effect on the features.' The gunner's bizarre head, disembodied by the felt, was reflected in the awesome apprehension of the quartet of powder monkeys, boys of eight or nine who crouched ready to bear the cartridges, hot-potato like, to the guns above.

Drinkwater returned to the hammock space, passing the cook and his assistant in the galley standing amid the steam generated by the extinguishing of the fire and the purser at his post by the washdeck pump. He blinked at the brightness of the daylight after the gloom of the brig's nether regions.

‘Ship cleared for action, sir,' he reported.

‘Very well. Mr Rogers, larboard broadside, run in and load. Three rounds rapid fire, single ball.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.'

Drinkwater watched Rogers draw his sword with a flourish, watched little Quilhampton run to the after grating and call for powder. In a small ship on such a long passage Griffiths refused to keep his guns loaded, considering the morning discharge practised on so many ships to rid the guns of damp powder as a quite unnecessary extravagance. The two powder monkeys serving the larboard battery emerged to scamper across to the nine six-pounders trundled inboard. The charges, wads and balls were rammed home and the gun captains inserted their priming quills as Rogers barked out the ordered steps. ‘Cock your locks!' The crews moved back from the guns as the captains stretched their lanyards. Each raised his free hand.

‘Larboard battery made ready, sir!' reported Rogers.

‘You may open fire,' ordered Griffiths.

‘Fire!'

The rolling roar that erupted in a line of flame and smoke along the brig's side was matched inboard by the recoil of the squealing trucks. Daily practice had made of the broadside a thing of near unanimity.

‘Fire as you will!'

For the next two minutes the larbowlines, watched critically by the idlers on the starboard side, sponged and rammed and hauled up their pieces in a frenzy of activity.

‘Numbers two and eight are good, sir,' shouted Drinkwater above the din.

‘Let's wait until we are becalmed and try them at a target Mr Drinkwater, then I'll be looking for accuracy not speed.'

Number eight gun was already secured, its crew kneeling smartly rigid but for the panting of their bare torsos.

There was a scream from forward. In their haste not to be last, Number Four gun had been fired too early. The recoiling truck had run over the foot of the after train tackle man. He lay whimpering on the deck, blood running from his bitten tongue, his right foot a bloody mess. Drinkwater ran forward.

‘Mr Q, warn the surgeon to make ready, you there, Stokeley, bear a hand there.' They dragged the injured man clear of the gun and Drinkwater whipped his headband off, twisting it swiftly round his ankle. He had fainted by the time the stretcher bearers came up.

‘Secure all guns! Secure there!' Rogers was bawling, turning the men back to their task. As Drinkwater saw the casualty carried
below, the guns were fully elevated and run up with their muzzles hard against the port lintels. The lids were shut and the breechings passed.

‘Both batteries secured, sir,' reported Rogers, ‘bloody fool had his damned foot in the way . . .'