In Distant Waters (26 page)

‘You speak excellent English, Captain Rakitin. Perhaps I can say that I have found no defence on earth effective against dishonourable men . . .'

The barb went home; Don Alejo's smile vanished, but Drinkwater found little comfort in Rakitin's reply.

‘I learnt to speak English in your navy, Captain Drinkwater,' the Russian answered in a chilling bass, ‘where I also learned that British officers do not do these things.' Rakitin paused to let the meaning of his words sink in, watching with satisfaction, the
colour drain from the Englishman's face. ‘But you have no further use for them now you are a prisoner. You have failed . . .' Rakitin turned away dismissively. Drinkwater felt as though he had been struck. Shaking violently from a hopeless anger, he was led out of the room. He scarcely saw his suroundings as he stumbled beside his escort across a courtyard to the steps which led to his cell below the stables. A dark shape swam mistily into his vision and then the virago-face of Doña Helena was thrust into his. She wore an expression of triumph, her tiny eyes blue chips of vindictiveness.

‘So God has delivered his enemies into our hands . . .'

Her vulturine swoop had halted Drinkwater. He pulled himself upright, suddenly recovering himself before this haggard crone. He mustered all the dignity of which he was capable and, remembering the old woman's office, said, ‘Please convey to Doña Ana Maria my sincere condolences upon her tragic loss.'

And as he swept her aside he felt a small satisfaction that the words had come as a surprise and caught her at a disadvantage.

Drinkwater had been imprisoned before. In the hectic days before the great battle off Cape Trafalgar, on his way in a small coasting vessel to command one of Nelson's battle-ships, he had been captured and thrown into a filthy gaol in the Spanish town of Tarifa. From there he had been taken to Cadiz, transferred to the custody of the French and interrogated by Admiral Villeneuve, Commander-in-Chief of the Combined Fleets of France and Spain.
*
During this period there had been a suffocating sense of frustration at the ill-luck of falling captive, an angry railing against fate in which self-recrimination was absent. But he had been within the orbit of great events, events which were gathering a momentum in which his circumstances might be rapidly altered. Now, however, the hopelessness of his situation was absolute. There was no likelihood of sudden advantage, he could expect no support, no intervention, no miraculous rescue. His ship was taken, his mission exposed, his people scattered beyond recall. He was utterly ruined, having so conspicuously
failed in his duty. In his heart he knew that providence had deserted him and that there was only one course of action open to an honourable man. For hours after his humiliating interview with the
Commandante
, Don Alejo and Prince Rakitin, he paced his cell; from time to time his fingers sought the pocketed shape of his pen-knife.

Resolved at last, he tore a page from his journal and began to write. His report to the Admiralty was a model of brevity, recording the essential facts without mentioning the disloyalty of his men, the cause of the leak or the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. Neither did he mention the breaking of their parole by Rubalcava and his men, nor the inhuman treatment he had been subjected to, for fear of Don José's destroying the despatch when it was discovered afterwards. As he wrote the superscription he knew it only necessary to record the end of
Patrician
and his own career. He sealed the folded paper with a blob of candle-wax, tore out another sheet and, dipping his pen, wrote
My Dearest Elizabeth
 . . .

Then his nerve failed him and he sat staring into the empty air, fighting back the waves of sick despair that threatened to engulf him. He found he could not conjure the image of his wife's face in his imagination; it seemed their enforced estrangement lay like a great barrier between them. Perhaps, he thought, his death would be the easier to bear. As for his children . . . he threw aside the thought and drew the penknife from his pocket, opening the blade and staring at the dull shine of it. He had no idea how long he sat in this cataleptic state. Daylight faded and the cell was in darkness when he heard the lock grind in a cautious tripping of its levers. He was instantly alert to the possibility of treachery. To take his own life as the only recourse open to him was one thing, to be foully murdered by his captors was another, not to be submitted to without a struggle. He gripped the tiny knife and rose to his feet. Beyond the door he heard a whisper. To his astonishment it was a woman's voice.

‘
Capitán
 . . . please you give your word of honour you will not make to run away . . . I
must
speak with you.'

He knew the voice instantly, recalled her spectacular beauty
and felt his heart hammer painfully in his breast. Her tone was insistent, foolhardy.

‘
Sí, Señorita
. I understand . . . you have my word.'

How had she obtained the keys? Was she being used and was he about to die in circumstances that had been contrived to compromise not only his professional, but his personal honour? His fist crumpled the unwritten letter to his wife, then the bolts drew and the door swung suddenly inwards. She came inside, a wild perfumed swirl of dark brocade, to lean on the door, swiftly closed behind her.

‘
Capitán
 . . . ?' her voice was uncertain in the darkness of the cell. He could see the paleness of her skin and the heaving of her breast as he crossed to the table to strike a flint and steel, slipping the pen-knife into his pocket.

‘Pardon,
Señorita
, I was not expecting a guest.'

The sarcasm did him good, driving the gloom from his mind. The tinder caught and he lit the candle stump. The flame rose brilliant and he turned towards her holding it in front of him. She drew in her breath sharply and he realised his appearance was unprepossessing. He rubbed his bearded cheek.

‘A razor is not permitted . . .' The incongruity of the remark almost made him laugh, considering what he was about to attempt with his pen-knife blade, and then he saw the state she was in. The candlelight danced in eyes that were full of tears and the heaving of her breast was not due to the excitement of her strange tryst with an enemy officer or the animal stench of his quarters.

‘
Señorita
, what is it? What is the matter?'

‘
Capitán
 . . . what is it that you mean by your words to Doña Helena? It is not true . . . tell me it is not true.'

He frowned, then drew out the chair for her. She shook her head. The candle caught the tears flung from her eyes, the dark shadow of a wave of hair fell across her forehead, too hurriedly put up.

‘
Señorita
 . . .'

‘Prince Vladimir arrived today, but Nicolai is not with him. I ask where is Nicolai and Rakitin says nothing.' She spat the Russian's name as though flinging it from her with contempt.
‘But I know his ship has come from the north, he must know about Nicolai.'

She was weeping now. He wanted to comfort her but dare not move. He knew now that he had seen Rakitin's ship off the Horn and that in the interval the Russian had been north to the Tsar's settlements on the coast of Alaska.

‘What does your father tell you?' he asked gently. She shook her head, trying to speak through her grief.

‘Nothing. Don Alejo promises Nicolai will come on the
Juno
as before,' she threw up her head, ‘but I do not believe Don Alejo,' she said in a voice which conveyed the impression that she did not trust her uncle. ‘And then you say that thing to Doña Helena,' there was a pause and then she added in a lower voice, a voice that spoke of confidentiality and trust, ‘she would not believe you.'

Drinkwater sighed. The honour was one he could have done without at such a moment. ‘
Señorita
, I do not know that I can tell you the truth, I can only tell you what I have myself been told.' He paused and motioned her again to the chair. This time she moved slowly from the door and sank onto it. There was the faintest breath of air through the cell, reminding Drinkwater that the door was open. For a moment he was a prey to emotions as savage as those which tore at the young woman.

‘I was told that Nicolai Rezanov was dead,' he said flatly.

The finality of the word seemed to staunch the flow of tears. Truth was, Drinkwater thought as he held her gaze, always easier to face than uncertainty. ‘I may have been misinformed . . . told wrong. I hope,
Señorita
, that I have been . . .'

A ghost of a smile crossed her face and her fingers rested lightly upon his hand. ‘Who told you,
Capitán
?'

‘An American. Captain Jackson Grant.'

He saw her pupils contract and her nostrils flare with anger and he sensed her resolution. A sudden hope sprang into his mind. ‘I know he is not to be trusted. Did he not come here to see your father and betray me?'

‘Perhaps,' she frowned, ‘yes . . . yes he was here. I heard he knew where your ship was.'

‘Then he is
not
to be trusted,' Drinkwater said hopefully. ‘He is
a man who seeks for himself . . . one perhaps who would be in Nicolai Rezanov's place,' he added in a lower voice.

She flashed him a look of imperious suspicion, then her expression softened. ‘And you,
Capitán
?' she asked raising her fingers from his hand, ‘where do you wish to be? Are
you
to be trusted?'

‘I can only tell you what I have been told,
Señorita
. I would not cause you distress. I have nothing. All I know is that you expected Rezanov and he has not come. Rakitin is silent, but Jackson told me he died in Krasnoiarsk . . . yes, that was the place.'

‘He was a good man,
Capitán
 . . . can you comprehend that?'

‘Yes. Grant said that.'

But she seemed not to hear him. ‘. . . A good man, perhaps a saint . . . not like Rakitin.' Again the utterance of the Russian's name disgusted her. It appeared that Rakitin had joined the list of Doña Ana Maria's would-be and unwanted suitors. She let out a long, shuddering sigh. ‘And in my heart I know he is dead.'

She crossed herself and Drinkwater put his hand gently upon her shoulder. The warmth of her flesh seemed to sear him. She looked up at him for a long moment so that the temptation to bend and kiss her flared across his brain and then she rose and the moment was gone.

‘
Gracias, Capitán
, you have been . . . you have your own misfortune. I shall pray for you.'

Drinkwater recalled the papal attitudes to suicide. ‘You do me too much honour,
Señorita
 . . . pray for my wife and children.'

She paused in the act of turning for the door. In the gloom of the cell her dark dress and the black pile of her hair merged into the shadows, so that the single light of the candle threw her face into a spectral detachment which seemed to diminish from his vision as in a dream and he stood, long after her departure, with its lovely image imprinted on his retina, unaware of the grind of the bolts or the tumbling of the lock.

‘ “Whom the gods wish to destroy”,' he quoted softly to himself, ‘ “they first make mad.” '

*
See
1805

He did not go mad. The appearance, or perhaps the disappearance, of Doña Ana Maria saved him from himself. He no longer paced like a lion confined in the Tower menagerie but stood stock-still, held in that cataleptic state familiar to commanders of ships whose duty requires their presence on deck long after the exhausted body is capable of sustaining it. They stand, as Drinkwater stood now, immobilised, faculties reduced to the barely necessary, like a submerged whale, eyes open yet in a strange detachment, all but lost to exterior circumstances so that they endure cold and sleeplessness unaware of cramps or the passage of time, though instantly ready to respond to sudden emergency.

In this condition the mind behaves oddly, ranging over vast plains of consideration, soaring above mountains of fantasy and pausing beside dark lakes of doubt, dispensing with the formality of language and encompassing thoughts and images beyond the powers of expression. Drinkwater's thoughts came and went, slipped in and out of rationality, leapt deep chasms of pure reason and became part of an infinite consciousness beyond himself. In this enchantment Drinkwater slipped the bonds of honour and reaffirmed his faith in providence. All thoughts of suicide left him and it seemed he felt, as he had once before felt when lost in a small boat in the fog of the Greenland Sea, a haunting intimacy with Elizabeth and his family.

He remained in this state for many hours. Even when the candle stump expired with an upward and pungent twist of smoke, he did no more than acknowledge the onset of total blackness without it moving him. In this trance the night passed
and grey dawn filtered in through the barred window of his cell before he came to himself, shuddering with the cold and the pain of movement as he returned to full consciousness. But it was more than dawn that had woken him; his seaman's instincts had been stirred by distant noises in the fading night: the splash of an anchor, a few shouts and later the noise of impatient boots upon the steps that ran up from the boat landing somewhere below his cell-window. They echoed in the corridor beyond his barred door and he heard the guard accosted, and then the sounds faded. He dragged the chair to the window and strained to peer below. The harbour was still, the gentle ruffling of the slight breeze had kept the usual morning fog away, enabling the newcomer to work into the anchorage, close under the Residence. She was a schooner, an
aviso
, a Spanish despatch-vessel with tall, raked masts and the look of speed about her. From where had she come? Monterey? San Diego? Panama? And what news did she bring that was so urgent that her commander must bring her in so early and wake the
Commandante
's household? Did it concern him? Was he perhaps to be taken south, or disposed of in some Spanish oubliette? Inexplicably he felt his long-stilled pulse begin to race.