In Distant Waters (20 page)

‘Curiosity.' Drinkwater paused. It came back to him that there had been that atmosphere of hidden secrets about the
Commandante
and his entourage. ‘His brother then, Don Alejo?'

‘You're very shrewd, Captain Drinkwater, as well as being improperly named . . .' Grant refilled Drinkwater's glass. ‘You have heard of the lovely Doña Ana Maria Arguello de la Salas, eh?'

‘I have heard something of her . . . and also of a Russian . . .' He let the sentence trail off and sipped the glass. A feeling of contented well-being permeated him. His limbs felt weightless, his energies concentrating on thinking, of gauging this American and divining how much truth he was speaking.

‘Oh, yeah . . . I heard the damned Russkies had fallen out with good old King George. Well, he couldn't look after his own could he? Eh?'

Drinkwater sat quietly, refusing to be drawn, raising his good shoulder in a careless shrug.

‘Sure. Now I know why you're here. An' the damned Russkies. Don Alejo encourages them . . . and he trades . . . who wouldn't? A man must take something back to Castile better than button scurvy or mange from this desert of Nueva España. You've heard of Rezanov, Captain, eh?'

‘A little, perhaps. I understand he stands high in the favour of the lady you mentioned.'

‘Arguello's daughter?' Sure, she dotes on him and the match is encouraged by those Spanish apes.' Grant was suddenly serious. ‘She's a beautiful woman, Captain, perhaps the
most
beautiful woman. Certainly she's the most beautiful woman Jackson Grant has ever seen. Yes, sir. You haven't seen her . . . by God, she got eyes like sloes, shoulders like marble and a breast a man could do murder for . . .'

Drinkwater stirred uncomfortably, but Grant was oblivious in the fury of his passion. His weird eyes gleamed with an intensity that spoke of the coastal rivalries fired by the unfortunate beauty of Donã Ana Maria.

‘Why a man would pass over a score of these damned flat-nosed Indians, even a brace of the best-looking
Ladinos
from Panama with wanton arses and coconuts for tops'l yards, for an hour in that lady's company for all that she only strummed a guitar and wore the habit of a nun . . .' He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, poured another peg of brandy into his glass, tossed it back and refilled it again.

‘And Rezanov?' Drinkwater prompted.

‘Ah, Rezanov . . . Nicolai Petrovich Comte de Rezanov,' Grant lisped the name with an aping of a French accent, his eyes glaring with dislike. Then his faced cleared and he laughed, a cruel laugh. ‘You have not been in the Pacific long Captain . . . I consider you should not have come at all . . . you damned British have no right here . . . but neither have the damned Russkies . . .' Grant's voice was slurred, his mind shifted briefly to his Anglophobia and then slid back to a more personal hatred. He waved his hand towards the stern windows. The pale streak of the beach rising to dunes and dun coloured hills could be seen beyond the anchorage. ‘Nueva España . . . New Albion . . . New Muscovy . . . come Captain, it's not yours, nor Spain's, nor the fucking Tsar's. One day it'll be ours . . . a state of the Union, Californio . . . mark my words Captain, and Jackson Grant'll be a founding fucking father . . .' Again he held up the glass of
aguardiente
and glared through it with one bright blue eye.

‘Oh, Rezanov had his ideas . . . big ideas . . . he came out with an expedition under Captain Kruzenstern, accredited ambassador to the Mikado at Yedo, but the little yellow men kept
him kicking his heels at Nagasaki before kicking his arse out of their waters.' Grant chuckled. ‘Kruzenstern went on his way and left Rezanov in the
Juno
to inspect the factories, forts and posts of the Russian-American Company . . . now what d'you think the Russian-American Company was, eh? Nothing but a damned front for the bloody Tsar to get his claws on this part of the world. They trap the sea-otter and shoot the grizzly bear, but they can't get the bloody furs to Canton faster than Jackson Grant, and the poor bastards live in squalor in Alasky and the Kuriles. You should see them at Sitka, why it'd make your lower deck scum look like lords . . .

‘Rezanov thought he could kill all these ills . . . damned odd lot these Russians. Rezanov thought he was a prophet . . . guess that's why the Doña Ana fell for his line of speaking, her being influenced by the papist church . . . Well . . . he came prospecting down the coast . . . Sitka, Nootka, the Colombia River, Bodega Bay and San Francisco . . . and Doña Ana Maria and her father,
El Commandante
 . . .'

‘And he secured an alliance to trade?'

Grant shrugged. ‘Sure, something of the sort, I guess. They say he bettered that Franciscan corpse that passes for a confessor . . . Don Alejo at least had gold from him . . . Tartar gold, and that's fact . . .'

‘And from Doña Ana Maria?'

‘A promise of marriage . . .' Grant stared gloomily into his glass, the brown eye lugubrious.

‘And Rezanov returned to the north?'

‘Yeah. I last saw him at Sitka. I heard later he'd set off for Russia to confirm a treaty with the Tsar . . . get it ratified, or whatever the hell they do with these things. He got his own back on the yellow men, too,' Grant laughed, ‘sent men and ships and took the island of Sakhalin from them to please his master, I guess. Reckon a Tsar's signature must be worth an island or two, eh, Captain?'

‘And when is he expected to return, this Rezanov?'

Grant frowned, the drink clouding his powers of thought. He seemed to be trying to recall a lost fact. Then, as he remembered, he smiled. ‘Never, Captain . . . you see Rezanov's
been dead a year . . . just heard the news in Sitka . . . he died like a dog in Krasnoiarsk . . . left the field plum clear for Jackson Grant . . .'

Grant chuckled and Drinkwater considered the import of this news. Apart from altering the life of Doña Ana he did not see that it was of much effect to him. There was still that Russian battle-ship.

‘Captain Grant, have you seen anything of a Russian man-o'-war on the coast?'

‘Sure. The
Juno
's at Sitka, or was when I left, bound, so word had it, for the Colombia River . . .'

‘But the
Juno
's been in the Pacific for some time, hasn't she?'

‘Yeah. She was built on the coast, a frigate . . . maybe thirty, forty guns.' Grant craned unsteadily on one chair leg, staring at the distant
Patrician
. ‘ 'Bout the same size as yourself . . .'

‘What about a bigger ship? A two-decked line-of-battle-ship with a black hull? Have you seen such a vessel?'

Grant shook his head. ‘No . . .'

‘And where are you bound from here?'

‘San Francisco . . .'

‘To tell Doña Ana her lover is dead?'

Grant frowned through his drunkenness. ‘They don't know?'

‘They were expecting him.'

‘What? How the hell do you know that?' Grant attempted to rise, but fell back.

‘I was there a fortnight ago.'

‘Shit, Captain . . .' He broke off to think, rubbing his hand across his mouth again and then pouring out more brandy. ‘How the hell did you get into there and out again without the bloody Inquisition catching you? You're at war with the Spaniards, ain't ya?'

‘Under a flag of truce, Captain. I was a cartel . . . returning Spanish prisoners. We took the frigate
Santa Monica
.'

‘
Dios!
And Rubalcava? Did you take him a prisoner, or did you kill the bastard?'

‘I took him prisoner. I imagine he's pleading his suit with Doña Ana at this moment.'

Grant looked up, fixing Drinkwater with his odd eyes, the one
dark and agonised like a whipped cur's, the other flinty with hatred. Drinkwater was surprised at the depth of the wound he had inflicted. ‘All's fair, they say, in love and war . . .'

Grant's mouth hung open when suddenly the sound of distant shots came through the open stern windows. Drinkwater rose and peered in the direction of the
Patrician
. Even at this distance he could see the smoke of powder hovering over the deck, and the desperately rowed boat was making for the shore full of men. He grasped the situation in an instant. His men were deserting!

‘God's bones!' he hissed through clenched teeth, picking up his hat and making for the door. ‘Your servant, Captain Grant, and good luck!'

And the words ‘All's fair in love and war' tormented him with their accuracy all the way back to the
Patrician
in the cutter.

*
See
An Eye of the Fleet

‘How many?' he asked, aware that he had asked the question before. Last time the answer had shocked him, now it appalled him.

‘Forty-eight, sir.'

He looked down the list that Fraser handed him and then at the remnants of
Patrician
's company assembled in the waist. With Mount absent the bayonets of Blixoe's marines seemed a thin defence against a rising of the rest. Forty-eight men lost in a single act of mutinous desertion. And the remainder were in a black mood. How many of them would have run given the opportunity, seduced by over-long a proximity to the shore yet deprived of even the feel of warm sand under their feet? And he was half-drunk and the day not far advanced . . .

‘We were heaving her round, sir, as you said, ready to bring her out of the bay and someone cut the after cable. She swung to the wind and the stern's touching the bottom.'

‘Thank you, Mr Fraser.' He looked round the deck and coughed to clear his throat. ‘Very well, lads, if there's another man who wishes to go I'll not stand in his way. But I warn you I'll hang anyone . . . 
anyone
I catch. Those of you that remain need fear nothing. We shall haul the ship off and complete rigging her. We are better off without unwilling ship-mates. Now let's to work . . .'

Drinkwater turned away, sick with despair, aware of the brandy on his breath and guilt-ridden by his absence at a crucial moment.

‘Ah'm sorry, sir, I couldna' gie chase, we had just cast loose the barge frae the raft, an' you had the only other boat . . .'

Fraser's acccent was exaggerated by stress. Wearily Drinkwater acknowledged his plight.

‘It's not your fault, Mr Fraser, not entirely. We must worry about Mount. I hope to God he does not run foul of those men. Have they arms?'

‘Two or three were marines, sir . . . aye, they've a gun or two between them.'

‘Get a signal of recall up to Mount and then let us haul her into deeper water.'

Suddenly the danger from surprise attack by Russian battle-ships seemed a foolishly mythological preoccupation.
Patrician
herself appeared to carry her own ill-luck.

Drinkwater stared down at the rag tied round the hawser. It had definitely crawled aft an inch or two. By a stroke of misfortune the ship had grounded close to high water, and now she was reluctant, twelve hours later, to come off. Above them a full moon hung in the velvet sky and from time to time the ship lifted and then bumped on the bottom as a low swell rolled in from a distant gale somewhere in the vast Pacific.

‘Again, my lads.' He could hear the creak of the capstan, the grunts of the straining men and the slither of their bare and sweaty feet on the planking. The rag moved aft another inch. A feeling of hope leapt in Drinkwater's breast. ‘Again, lads, again!'

They caught his tone and the grunts came again. He heard Lieutenant Quilhampton's exhortations. Thank heavens they had shoed the anchors, augmented the palms of the flukes with facing pieces of hard-wood, so that they held better and allowed the anchors to bite and not drag home to the ship before they had hauled her into deep water.

The rag jerked again and then began to move steadily. The ship lifted to a swell, the rag surged aft, there was a dipping in the rope and the men cheered, they could feel the tension on the messenger and the nippers ease, someone had fallen over and a ribald laugh came to him. The swell crashed onto the beach and the ship shook with great violence as the entire length of her keel struck the bottom.

‘Heave again . . . heave away!'

She was off now, he could feel it through the deck. The next swell passed under her and, though he waited for it, she did not strike in the low trough that followed. Half-an-hour later they had her safe in deeper water.

‘Stand the men down, now, Mr Fraser. Six hours below, then turn 'em out again. I want this ship in fighting trim by this time tomorrow.'

They had not finished by the following night, for the long presaged gale burst upon them in the late afternoon. The lurid sunset of the previous evening, green as verdigris, had held its ill-promise by a deceptively mild morning; but gradually cloud had obscured the sun and a damp, misty wind had rolled in from the Pacific. Urgently they had hoisted in the boats and had recovered all but the damaged barge abandoned by the deserters on the distant beach. Even the masts and spars were ready to go aloft again.