The Corvette (3 page)

‘Oh, I know very well how your minds work . . . You are like children . . .' Her voice softened. ‘You are worse than children.' She turned to her husband. ‘You had better find something with which to drink to your new command.' She smiled sadly as Drinkwater stepped suddenly forward and raised her hand to his lips. She seated herself and he went in search of a bottle, waving Quilhampton to a chair.

‘Look after him for me James,' she said quietly. ‘His wound will trouble him for many months yet, you know how tetchy he becomes when the wind is in the south-west and the weather thickens up.'

Quilhampton nodded, moved by Elizabeth's appeal.

‘This is the last of Dick White's malmsey.' Drinkwater re-entered the room blowing the dust off a bottle. He was followed by the dark-haired figure of his daughter who swept into the room in a state of high excitement.

‘Mama, mama! Dickon has fallen into the Tilbrook!'

‘What did you say?' Elizabeth rose and Drinkwater paused in the act of drawing the cork.

‘Oh, it's all right,' Charlotte said, ‘Susan has him quite safe. He's all wet, though . . .'

‘Thank God for that. How did it happen?'

‘Oh, he was a damned lubber, Mama . . .'

‘Charlotte!' Elizabeth suppressed a smile that rose unchecked on the features of the two men. ‘That is no way for a young lady to speak!'

Charlotte pouted until she caught the eye of her father.

‘Perhaps,' said Elizabeth, seeing the way the wind blew, ‘perhaps it would be better if you two went to sea again.' And then she began to explain to Charlotte Amelia that old King George had written a letter to Papa from Windsor and that Papa was to go away again and fight the King's enemies. And James Quilhampton sipped his celebratory malmsey guiltily, aware of the reproach in Elizabeth's gentle constancy.

Captain Drinkwater eased his shoulders slightly and settled the heavy broadcloth coat more comfortably. The enlarged shoulder pad which he had had the tailor insert to support the strained and wasted muscles of his neck did not entirely disguise the misalignment of his shoulders nor the cock of his head. The heavy epaulette only emphasised his disfigurement but he nodded his satisfaction at the reflection in the mirror and pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket. It wanted fifteen minutes before six in the morning. Earl St Vincent, First Lord of the Admiralty, had already been at his desk for forty-five minutes. Drinkwater swallowed the last of his coffee, hitched his sword and threw his cloak round his shoulders. Picking up his hat from its box, he blew out the candle and lifted the door latch.

Three minutes later he turned west into the Strand and walked quickly through the filth towards Whitehall. He dismissed any last minute additions he should have made to the shopping list he had left with Tregembo and composed his mind for his coming interview with the First Lord. He paused only to have his shoes blacked by a skinny youth who polished them with an old wig.

As the clock at the Horse Guards, the most accurate timepiece in London, struck the hour of six he turned in through the screen wall that separated the Admiralty from the periodical rioting seamen who besieged it for want of pay. He touched two fingers to his hat brim at the sentry's salute.

Beyond the glass doors he stopped and coughed. The Admiralty messenger woke abruptly from his doze and almost fell as he rose to his feet, extricating them with difficulty from the warming drawer set in the base of his chair. This he contrived to do without too much loss of dignity before leaving the hall to announce Commander Nathaniel Drinkwater.

Earl St Vincent rose as Drinkwater was ushered into the big office. He wore an old undress uniform with the stars of his orders embroidered upon his breast.

‘Captain Drinkwater, pray take a seat.' He used the courtesy title and motioned Drinkwater to an upright chair and re-seated himself. Somewhat nervously Drinkwater sat, vaguely aware of two or three portraits that stared down at him and a magnificent sea-battle that he took for a representation of the action of St Valentine's Day off Cape St Vincent.

‘May I congratulate you, Captain, upon your appointment.'

‘Thank you, my Lord. It was unexpected.'

‘But not undeserved.'

‘Your Lordship is most kind.' Drinkwater bowed awkwardly from the waist and submitted himself to the First Lord's scrutiny. St Vincent congratulated his instinct. Commander Drinkwater would be about forty years of age, he judged. The grey eyes he remembered from their brief encounter in '98, together with the high forehead and the mop of hair that gave him a still youthful appearance despite the streaks of grey at his temples. The mouth was a little compressed, hiding the fullness of the lips and deep furrows ran down from his nose to bracket its corners. Drinkwater's complexion was a trifle pale beneath its weathering but it bore the mark of combat, a thin scar down the left cheek from a sword point, St Vincent thought, together with some tiny powder burns dotted over one eye like random ink-spots.

‘You have quite recovered from your wound, Captain?'

‘Quite, my Lord.'

‘What were the circumstances of your acquiring it?'

‘I commanded the bomb
Virago
, my Lord, in Lord Nelson's attack on the Invasion Flotilla in December of year one. I had gone forward in a boat to reconnoitre the position when a shell burst above the boat. Several men were regrettably lost. I was more fortunate.' Drinkwater thought of Mr Matchett dying in his arms while the pain from his own wound seeped with a curiously attenuated shock throughout his system.

St Vincent looked up from the papers on his desk. The report of Commander Drinkwater's boat expedition into Boulogne was rather different, but no matter, St Vincent liked his modesty. A hundred officers would have boasted of the night's exploit and measured the risk according to the number of corpses in their boats. Palgrave would have done that, St Vincent was certain, and the thought pleased the old man in the rightness of his choice.

‘Lord Dungarth speaks well of you, Captain.'

‘Thank you, my Lord.' Drinkwater was beginning to feel uneasy,
undermined by the compliments and aware that an officer with St Vincent's reputation was tardy of praise.

‘You are perhaps thinking it unusual for a newly appointed sloop-captain to be interviewed by the First Lord, eh?'

Drinkwater nodded. ‘Indeed, my Lord.'

‘The
Melusine
is a fine sloop, taken from the French off the Penmarcks in ninety-nine and remarkably fast. What the French call a “corvette”, though I don't approve of our using the word. Not an ideal ship for her present task . . .'

‘No, my Lord?'

‘No, Captain, your old command might have been better suited. Bomb vessels have proved remarkably useful in Arctic waters . . .'

Drinkwater opened his mouth and thought better of it. Before he could reflect further upon this revelation St Vincent had passed on.

‘But it is not intended that you should linger long in northern latitudes. Since the King's speech in March it has been clear that the Peace would not last and we have been requested by the northern whale-fishery to afford some protection to their ships. During the last war it was customary to keep a cruiser off the North Cape and another off the Faeroes during the summer months while we still traded with Russia. Now that Tsar Alexander has reopened trade this will have to be reinstated. The whale-fishery, however, is sensitive. A small cruiser, the
Melusine
to be exact, was long designated to the task, principally because she was in commission throughout the peace.

‘Now that war has broken out again her protection is the more necessary and the Hull ships are assembled in the Humber awaiting your convoy. That is where the
Melusine
presently lies. Her captain has recently become, er, indisposed, and you have been appoined in his stead . . .'

Drinkwater nodded, listening to the First Lord and eagerly wishing that he had known his destination was the Arctic before he despatched Tregembo and Quilhampton on their shopping expeditions. But there was also a feeling that this was not the only reason that he was waiting on the First Lord.

‘During the peace,' St Vincent resumed, ‘the French have despatched a vast number of privateers from their ports. These letters-of-marque have been reported from all quarters, most significantly on the routes of the Indiamen and already cruisers are ordered after them. That is of no matter to us this morning . . .' St Vincent rose and turned to the window. Drinkwater regarded the small, hunched back of the earl and tried to catch what he was saying as he addressed his
remarks to the window and the distant tree-tops of the park.

‘We believe some of these private ships have left for the Greenland Sea.' St Vincent spun round, a movement that lent his words a peculiar significance. ‘Destruction of the northern fishery would mean destitution to thousands, not to mention the removal of prime seamen for His Majesty's ships . . .' He looked significantly at Drinkwater. ‘You understand, Captain?'

‘Aye, my Lord, I think so.'

St Vincent continued in a more conversational tone. ‘The French are masters of the war upon trade, whether it be Indiamen or whalers, Captain. This is no sinecure and I charge you to remember that, in addition to protecting the northern whale-fleet you should destroy any attempt the French make to establish their own fishery. Do you understand?'

‘Yes, my Lord.'

‘Good. Now your written instructions are ready for you in the copy-room. You must join
Melusine
in the Humber without delay but Lord Dungarth asked that you would break your fast with him in his office before you left. Good day to you, Captain Drinkwater.'

Already St Vincent was bent over the papers on his desk. Drinkwater rose, made a half-bow and went in search of Lord Dungarth.

‘Nathaniel! My very warmest congratulations upon being given
Melusine
. Properly she is a post-ship but St Vincent won't let that stop him.'

Lord Dungarth held out his hand, his hazel eyes twinkling cordially. He motioned Drinkwater to a chair and turned to a side table, pouring coffee and lifting the lid off a serving dish. ‘Collops or kidneys, my dear fellow?'

They broke their respective fasts in the companionable silence of gunroom tradition. Age was beginning to tell on the earl, but there was still a fire about the eyes that reminded Drinkwater of the naval officer he had once been; ebullient, energetic and possessed of that cool confidence of his class that so frequently degenerated into ignorant indolence. Lord Dungarth wiped his mouth with a napkin and eased his chair back, sipping his coffee and regarding his visitor over the rim of the porcelain cup.

When Drinkwater had finished his kidneys and a servant had been called to remove the remains of the meal, Dungarth offered Drinkwater a cheroot which he declined.

‘Finest Deli leaf, Nathaniel, not to be found in London until this war is over.'

‘I thank you, my Lord, but I have not taken tobacco above a dozen times in my life.' He paused. Dungarth did not seem eager to speak as he puffed earnestly on the long cigar. ‘May I enquire whether you have any news of, er, a certain party in whom we have . . .'

‘A mutual interest, eh?' mumbled Dungarth through the smoke. ‘Yes. He is well and has undertaken a number of tasks for Vorontzoff who is much impressed by his horsemanship and writes that he is invaluable in the matter of selecting English Arabs.' Drinkwater nodded, relieved. His brother Edward, in whose escape from the noose Drinkwater had taken an active part, had a habit of falling upon his feet. ‘I do not think you need concern yourself about him further.'

‘No.' In the service of a powerful Russian nobleman Edward would doubtless do very well. He could never return to his native country, but he might repay some of his debt by acting as a courier, as was implied by Dungarth. Vorontzoff, a former ambassador to the Court of St James, was an anglophile and source of information to the British government.

‘I am sorry you were not made post, Nathaniel. It should have happened years ago but,' Dungarth shrugged, ‘things do not always take the turn we would wish.' He lapsed into silence and Drinkwater was reminded of the macabre events that had turned this once liberal man into the implacable foe of the French Republic. Returning through France from Italy where his lovely young wife had died of a puerperal fever, the mob, learning that he was an aristocrat, had desecrated her coffin and spilled the corpse upon the roadway where it had been defiled Dungarth sighed.

‘This will be a long war, Nathaniel, for France is filled with a restless energy and now that she has worked herself free of the fervour of Republican zeal we are faced with a nationalism unlikely to remain within the frontiers of France, “natural” or imposed.

‘Now we have the genius of Bonaparte rising like a star out of the turmoil, different from other French leaders in that he alone seems to possess the power to unite. To inspire devotion in an army of starving men and secure the compliance of those swine in Paris
is
genius, Nathaniel. Who but a fated man with the devil's luck could have escaped our blockade of Egypt and returned from the humiliation of defeat to retake Italy and seize power in France, eh?'

Dungarth shook his head and stood up. He began pacing up and down, stabbing a finger at Drinkwater from time to time to make a point.

‘It is to the navy that we must look, Nathaniel, to wrest the
advantage from France. We must blockade her ports again and nullify her fleets. God knows we can do little with the army, except perhaps a few conjoint operations, and they have been conspicuously unsuccessful in the past. But with the Navy we can prop up our wavering allies and persuade them to persist in their refusal to bow to Paris.'

‘You think it likely that Austria will ever reach an accommodation with a republic?'