The Bomb Vessel (34 page)

When the first lieutenant had left them Lettsom lowered his flute, blew the spittle out of it and dismantled it, slipping it into his pocket.

‘I see you believe in providence, Mr Drinkwater . . .'

‘What makes you say that?'

‘Only a man with some kind of faith would have done what you did . . .'

‘You speak in riddles, Mr Lettsom . . .'

‘Mr Jex confided in me, I've known all along about your brother.'

‘God's bones,' Drinkwater muttered as he felt a cold sensation sweep over him. He went deathly pale.

‘I'm an atheist, Mr Drinkwater. But you are protected by my Hippocratic oath.' Lettsom smiled reassuringly.

A week later Admiral Pole took command of the fleet. The Baltic States were quiescent and, like Lord Nelson, the bomb vessels were ordered to England.

Commander Nathaniel Drinkwater knocked on the door of the elegant house in Lord North Street. Under his new full-dress coat with its single gleaming epaulette he was perspiring heavily. It was not the heat of the July evening that caused his discomfort but apprehension over the outcome of the forthcoming interview with Lord Dungarth.

The door opened and a footman showed him into an anteroom off the hall. Turning his new cocked hat nervously in his hands he felt awkward and a little frightened as he stood in the centre of the waiting room. After a few minutes he heard voices in the hall following which the same footman led him through to a book-lined study and he was again left alone. He looked around him, reminded poignantly of the portrait of Hortense Santhonax for, above the Adam fireplace, the arresting likeness of an elegant blonde beauty gazed down at him. He stared at the painting for some time. He had never met Dungarth's countess but the Romney portrait was said not to have done justice to her loveliness.

‘You never met my wife, Nathaniel?' Drinkwater had not heard the door open and spun to face the earl. Dungarth was in court dress, his pumps noiseless upon the rich Indian carpet. Dungarth crossed the room and stood beside Drinkwater, looking up at the painting.

‘Do you know why I detest the French, Nathaniel?'

‘No my lord?' Drinkwater recollected Dungarth had conceived a passionate hatred for Jacobinism which was at variance with his former Whiggish sympathies with the American rebels.

‘My wife died in Florence. I was bringing her body back through France in the summer of '92. At Lyons the mob learnt I was an aristocrat and broke open the coffin . . .' he turned to a side table. ‘A glass of oporto?'

Drinkwater took the wine and sat down at Dungarth's invitation. ‘We sometimes do uncharacteristic things for those close to us, and the consequences can last a lifetime.'

Drinkwater's mouth was very dry and he longed to swallow the
wine at a gulp but he could not trust his hand to convey the glass to his lips without slopping it. He sat rigid, his coat stiff as a board and the silence that followed Dungarth's speech seemed interminable. Drinkwater was no longer on his own quarterdeck. After the heady excitement of battle and promotion the remorseless process of English law was about to engulf him. The colour was draining from his face and he was feeling light-headed. An image of Elizabeth swam before his eyes, together with that of Charlotte Amelia and the yet unseen baby, little Richard Madoc.

‘Do you remember Etienne Montholon, Nathaniel?' Dungarth suddenly said in a conversational tone. ‘The apparently wastrel brother of that bitch Hortense Santhonax?'

Drinkwater swallowed and recovered himself. ‘Yes, my lord.' His voice was a croak and he managed to swallow some of the port, grateful for its uncoiling warmth in the pit of his stomach.

‘Well, it seems that he became so short of funds that he threw in his lot with his sister and that fox of a husband of hers. The emergence of the consulate in France is attracting the notice of many of the younger émigrés who thirst for a share in
la gloire
of the new France.' Dungarth's expression was cynical. ‘The rising star of Napoleon Bonaparte will recruit support from men like Montholon who seek a paymaster, and couples like the Santhonaxes who seek a vehicle for their ambition.'

‘So Etienne Montholon returned to France, my lord?'

‘Not at all. He remained in this country, leading his old life of gambling and squabbling, like all the émigré population. He served Bonaparte by acting as a clearing agent for information of fleet movements, mainly at Yarmouth in connection with the blockade of the Texel, but latterly watching Parker's squadron. The intransigence of the Danish Government was largely due to knowledge of Parker's dilatory prevarications and delays . . .' Dungarth rose and refilled their glasses. ‘Etienne Montholon is dead now, he called himself
Le Marquis De La Roche-Jagu
and was killed by a jealous lover when in bed with his mistress at Newmarket . . .'

The point of his lordship's narrative struck Drinkwater like a blow. He felt his body a prey to the disorder of his mind which presented him with a bewildering succession of images: of Edward shivering on the bank of the River Yare, of Jex confronting him with the truth, of Edward walking ashore without looking back, of Jex's drunken death. Faintly he heard Dungarth say, ‘By
an odd coincidence the man suspected of the double murder had the same surname as yourself . . .'

Drinkwater turned to look the earl in the face. An ironic smile twisted Dungarth's mouth. ‘ 'Tis curious, is it not,' he said, ‘how a man may flinch in perfect safety who would not deign to quail under a hail of shot?'

I, er, I . . .'

‘You need a little more wine, Nathaniel . . .' The glasses were again refilled and Dungarth resumed his tale.

‘The suspect's cloak was found on the bank of the River Yare and it was supposed he drowned himself in a fit of remorse. Odd, though, that he should do his country such a service, eh?' Dungarth smiled. ‘As for the girl, a certain Pascale Vrignaud, she suffered the fate of many whores. Odd little story, ain't it?'

‘Yes.' Drinkwater swallowed the third glass of port at a gulp.

‘I thought it would interest you,' added Dungarth smiling. ‘You need give no further thought to the matter. Now, as to this fellow you feel may be of interest to me, whoever he is, I sent him from Hamburg with letters to Prince Vorontzoff in St Petersburg. The prince is a former ambassador to the Court of St James and has agreed to find him employment. Not unlike yourself, Nathaniel, this fellow Waters seems to be a child of fortune. Has a gambler's luck, wouldn't you say?'

Drinkwater returned Dungarth's grin. He felt no remorse for the death of Etienne Montholon, regretting that the man's rescue from the Jacobins had cost the lives of two British seamen. He wondered if Hortense would ever learn the name of her brother's executioner. It was a strange, small world. He saw the wheels of fate turning within each other and recalled Lettsom's observations on providence. As for Pascale, Edward would have her upon his own conscience. But Edward had a gambler's amorality as well as a gambler's luck. Drinkwater smiled at the aptness of Dungarth's last remark. The earl rose and refilled their glasses for the fourth time.

‘I must thank you for your efforts . . . on my behalf, my lord,' said Drinkwater carefully, not wishing to break the delicate ice of ambiguity around the subject.

‘It only remains,' replied Dungarth smiling, ‘to see whether this man Waters is to be of any real use to us.'

Drinkwater nodded.

‘And, of course, to drink to your swab . . .'

Author's Note

The part played by Nathaniel Drinkwater in the Copenhagen campaign is not entirely fiction. Extensive surveying and buoylaying were carried out prior to the battle, mainly by anonymous officers. It seems not unreasonable to assume that Drinkwater was among them.

Drinkwater's bomb vessel is not listed as being part of Parker's fleet but as she was nominally a tender this is to be expected. When ships of the line are engaged historians are apt to overlook the smaller fry, even, as occurred at Copenhagen, when it was the continuing presence of the bomb vessels left before the city after Nelson withdrew, that finally persuaded the Danes to abandon their intransigence. It has also been suggested that Nelson's success was not so much due to his battleships, which were in some difficulties at the time fighting an enemy who refused to capitulate, but to the effect of the bombs, throwing their shells into the capital itself.
^*

The presence of the Royal Artillery aboard bomb vessels is not generally known and it was 1847 before the three surviving artillerymen received recognition with the Naval General Service Medal and the clasp ‘Copenhagen', confirmation of that famous regimental motto ‘Ubique'.

Evidence suggests only four bombs got into station though contemporary illustrations show all seven. Quite possibly one of the four was
Virago
.

The hoisting of the contentious signal No 39 by Sir Hyde Parker has been the subject of controversy which has been clouded by myth. Given Parker's vacillating nature, his extreme caution and the subsequent apotheosis of Nelson, I have tried to put the matter in contemporary perspective.

As to the landing of Edward Drinkwater, the ‘Berlingske Tidende' of 27th March 1801 stated that British seamen landed near Elsinore the day before ‘for water' without committing any excesses. This landing does not appear to be corroborated elsewhere.

*
See Journal of the Royal Artillery, Vol LXXVI Part 4, 1949, October, pages 285–294.