The Bomb Vessel

by Richard Woodman

  Drinkwater coughed as clouds of smoke erupted into the cabin from the bogey stove.

  ‘I beg you, Mrs Jex, to desist. I would rather sit in my cloak than be suffocated by that thing.’ He leant helplessly on the table, covered, as was usual, with papers.

  ‘ ’Twill not draw, Mr Drinkwater, ’tis the wind. For shame I will perish with the marsh ague if I do not freeze first.’ She sniffed and snuffled with a streaming cold.

  ‘Perhaps madam, if you wore more clothes . . .’ offered Drink-water drily.

  She gave him a cold look. Her early attempt to flirt with him had ceased when she learned of the bargain he had driven with her husband. He bent once more to the tedious task of the inventory, almost welcoming the interruption of a knock at the door, though the blast of icy air made him swear quietly as it blew papers from his desk.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir . . .’

  ‘Mr Willerton, come in, come in, and shut that door. What can I do for you?’

  ‘We needs a leddy, sir.’

  ‘A leddy? Ah, a lady, a figurehead, d’you mean?’

  ‘Aye sir.’

  Drinkwater frowned. It was an irrelevance, an expensive irrelevance too, one that he would have to pay for himself since he had spent the rest of Mr Jex’s contribution on barrels of sauerkraut. He shook his head. ‘I’m afraid that ain’t possible, Mr Willerton. We have a handsome scroll and, in accordance with regulations, as I have no doubt you well know, ships below the third rate are not permitted individual figureheads. Most make do with a lion, we have a handsome scroll . . .’ He tailed off, aware that Mr Willerton was not merely stubborn, but felt strongly enough to oppose his commander. Mr Willerton’s almost bald head was shaking.

  ‘Won’t do sir. Bad luck to have a ship without a figurehead, sir. I was in the Brunswick at the First of June, sir. Damned Frogs shot the duke’s hat off. We lashed a laced one on and sent the Vengeur to the bottom, sir. Ships without figureheads are like dukes without hats.’

  Drinkwater met the old man’s level gaze. There was not a trace of humour in his eyes. Mr Willerton spoke with the authority of holy writ.

  ‘Well, Mr Willerton, if you feel that strongly . . .’

  ‘I do, sir, and so does the men. We’ve raised a subscription of fifteen shillings.’

  ‘Upon my soul!’ Drinkwater’s astonishment was unfeigned. Together with the realisation that his financial preoccupations were making him mean, came the reflection that the carpenter’s request and the response of his motley little crew somehow reflected credit on the ship. He suddenly felt a pang of self-reproach for his tight-fistedness. If that shivering huddle of men he had seen on deck the morning he had read his commission at the gangway had enough esprit-de-corps to raise a subscription for a figurehead, the least he could do was encourage it. He tried to supress any too obvious emotion, but the brief silence had not gone unnoticed. Mr Willerton pressed his advantage. ‘I have ascertained, sir, that a virago is a bad tempered, shrewish woman what spits fire.’ Drinkwater watched a slight movement of his eyes to Mrs Jex, who sat huddled in sooty disarray over the smoking stove. As the former madame of a brothel she would have had a choice phrase or two to exchange with the men in one of her less ladylike moods.

  ‘I believe that is correct, Mr Willerton,’ replied Drinkwater gravely, mastering sudden laughter.

  ‘I have my eye on a piece of pine, sir, but it cost eight shilling. Then there is paint, sir.’

  ‘Very well, Mr Willerton.’ Drinkwater reached into his pocket and laid a guinea on the table. ‘The balance against your craftsmanship, but be careful how you pick your model.’

  For a second their eyes met. Willerton’s were a candid and disarming blue, as innocent as a child’s.

  Chapter Four December 1800–January 1801

  A Matter of Family

  Lieutenant Drinkwater was in an ill humour. It was occasioned by exasperation at the delays and prevarications of the dockyard and aggravated by petty frustrations, financial worries and domestic disappointment.

  The latter he felt keenly for, as Christmas approached, he had promised himself a day or two ashore in lodgings in the company of his wife. Elizabeth was to have travelled to Chatham with Tregembo and his own sea-kit, but now she wrote to say she was unwell and that her new pregnancy troubled her. She had miscarried before and Drinkwater wrote back urging her not to risk losing the child, to stay with Charlotte Amelia and Susan Tregembo in the security of their home.

  Tregembo was expected daily. The topman who had, years ago, attached himself to young Midshipman Drinkwater, was now both servant and confidant. Also expected was Mr Midshipman Quilhampton. Out of consideration for Louise, Drinkwater had left her son at home when he himself went to London. Later he had written off instructions to the young man to recruit hands for Virago. Now Drinkwater waited impatiently for those extra men.

  But it was not merely men that Drinkwater needed. As Christmas approached, the dockyard became increasingly supine. He wanted masts and spars, for without them Virago was as immobile as a log, condemned to await the dockyard’s pleasure. And Drink-water was by no means sure that Mr Jex was not having his revenge through the influence of his kinsman, the Commissioner. As the days passed in idleness Drinkwater became more splenetic, less tolerant of Mrs Jex, less affable to Rogers. He worried over the possibilities of desertion by his men and fretted over their absence every time a wooding party went to search the tideline for driftwood. Unable to leave his ship by Admiralty order he sat morosely in his cloak, staring gloomily out over the dull, frosty marshes.

  His misgivings over his first lieutenant increased. Rogers’s irascibility was irritating the warrant officers and Drinkwater’s own doubts about selecting Rogers grew. They had already argued over a matter of a flogging, Drinkwater ruling the laxer discipline that customarily prevailed on warships in port mitigated the man’s offence to mere impudence. The knock at the door brought him out of himself.

  ‘Come in!’

  ‘Reporting aboard, sir.’

  ‘James! By God, I’m damned glad to see you. You’ve men? And news of my wife?’

  James Quilhampton warmed himself over the smoking stove. He was a tall, spare youth, growing out of his uniform coat, with spindle-shanked legs and a slight stoop. Any who thought him a slightly ridiculous adolescent were swiftly silenced when they saw the heavy iron hook he wore in place of a left hand.

  ‘Aye sir, I have fifteen men, a letter from your wife and a surgeon.’ He stood aside, pulling a letter from his breast. Taking the letter Drinkwater looked up to see a second figure enter his cabin.

  ‘Lettsom, sir, surgeon; my warrant and appointment.’ Drink-water glanced at the proferred papers. Mr Lettsom was elderly, small and fastidious looking, with a large nose and a pair of tolerant eyes. His uniform coat was clean, though shiny and with overlarge, bulging pockets.

  ‘Ah, I see you served under Richard White, Mr Lettsom, he speaks highly of you.’

  ‘You are acquainted with Captain White, Lieutenant Drink-water?’

  ‘I am indeed, we were midshipmen together in the Cyclops, I saw him last at the Cape when he commanded the Telemachus.’

  ‘I served with him in the Roisterer, brig. He was soon after posted to Telemachus.’

  ‘I have no doubt we shall get along, Mr Lettsom.’ Drinkwater riffled through the papers on his table. ‘I have some standing orders here for you. You will find the men in reasonable shape. I have had their clothes replaced and we may thus contain the ship-fever. As to diet I have obliged the purser to buy in a quantity of sauerkraut. Its stink is unpopular, but I am persuaded it is effective against the scurvy.’ Lettsom nodded and glanced at the documents.

  ‘You are a disciple of Lind, Mr Drinkwater, I congratulate you.’

  ‘I am of the opinion that much of the suffering of seamen in general is unnecessary.’

  Lettsom smiled wryly at the earnest Drinkwater. ‘I’ll do my best, sir, but mostly it depends upon the condition of the men:


  When people’s ill, they come to I,

  I physics, bleeds and sweat’s ’em;

  Sometimes they live, sometimes they die,

  What’s that to I? I let’s ’em.’

  For a second Drinkwater was taken aback, then he perceived the pun and began to laugh.

  ‘A verse my cousin uses as his own, sir,’ Lettsom explained, ‘he is a physician of some note among the fashionable, but of insufficient integrity not to claim the verse as his own. I regret that he plagiarised it from your humble servant.’ Lettsom made a mock bow.

  ‘Very well, Mr Lettsom, I think we shall get along . . . Now gentlemen, if you will excuse me . . .’

  He slit open Elizabeth’s letter impatiently and began to read, lost for a while to the cares of the ship.

  My Dearest Husband,

  It is with great sadness that I write to say I shall not see you at Christmastide. I am much troubled by sickness and anxious for the child whom, from the trouble he causes, I know to be a boy. Charlotte chatters incessantly . . .

  There was a page of his daughter’s exploits and a curl of her hair. He learned that the lateness of Tregembo’s departure was caused by a delay in the preparation of his Christmas gift and that Louise Quilhampton was having her portrait painted by Gaston Bruilhac, a paroled French sous-officier, captured by Drinkwater in the Red Sea who had executed a much admired likeness of his captor during the homeward voyage. There was town gossip and Elizabeth’s disapproval of Mr Quilhampton’s recruiting methods. Then, saved in Elizabeth’s reserved manner for a position of importance in the penultimate paragraph, an oddly disquieting sentence:

  On Tuesday last I received an odd visitor, your brother Edward whom I have not seen these five or six years. He was in company with a lively and pretty French woman, some fugitive from the sans culottes. He spoke excellent French to her and was most anxious to see you on some private business. I explained your whereabouts but he would vouchsafe me no further confidences. I confess his manner made me uneasy . . .

  Drinkwater looked up frowning only to find Quilhampton still in the cabin.

  ‘You wish to see me, Mr Q?’

  ‘Beg pardon, sir, but I am rather out of pocket. The expense of bringing the men, sir . . .’

  Drinkwater sighed. ‘Yes, yes, of course. How much?’

  ‘Four pounds, seventeen shillings and four pence ha’penny, sir. I kept a strict account . . .’

  The problem of the ship closed round him again, driving all thoughts of his brother from his mind.

  Mr Easton, the sailing master, with a brand new certificate from the Trinity House and an equally new warrant from the Navy Board joined them on the last day of the old century. Six days later Drinkwater welcomed his final warrant officer aboard. They had served together before. Mr Trussel was wizened, stoop-shouldered and yellow skinned. Lank hair fell to his shoulders from the sides and back of his head, though his crown was bald.

  ‘Reporting for duty, Mr Drinkwater.’ A smile split his face from ear to ear.

  ‘God bless my soul, Mr Trussel, I had despaired of your arrival, but you are just in time. Pray help yourself to a glass of black-strap.’ He indicated the decanter that sat on its tray at the end of the table, remembering Trussel’s legendary thirst which he attributed to a lifelong proximity to gunpowder.

  ‘The roads were dreadful, sir,’ said Trussel, helping himself to the cheap, dark wine. ‘I gather we are a tender, sir, servicing bombs.’

  ‘Exactly so, Mr Trussel, and as such most desperately in want of a gunner. I shall rely most heavily upon you. As soon as we are rigged we are ordered to Blackstakes to load ammunition and ordnance stores. You will of course have finished your preparations of the magazines by then. Willerton, the carpenter, has a quantity of tongued deals on board and has made a start on them. I’ve no need to impress upon your mind that not a nail’s to be driven once we’ve a grain of powder on board.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’ He paused. ‘I saw Mr Rogers on deck.’ The statement of fact held just the faintest hint of surprise. Trussel had been gunner of the brig Hellebore when Rogers wrecked her in the Red Sea.

  ‘Mr Rogers is proving a most efficient first lieutenant Mr Trussel.’ Drinkwater paused, watching Trussel’s face remain studiously wooden. ‘Well, I’d be obliged if you would be about your business without delay; time is of the very essence.’

  Trussel rose. ‘One other thing, sir.’

  ‘Yes, what is that?’

  ‘Are we to embark a detachment of artillerymen?’

  Drinkwater nodded. ‘I have received notice to that effect. It is customary to do so when ordnance stores are loaded.’

  ‘Then we are for the Baltic, sir?’

  Drinkwater smiled. ‘You may conjecture as you see fit. I have no orders beyond those to load powder at Blackstakes.’ Trussel grinned comprehendingly back.

  ‘I hear Lord Nelson is to be employed upon a secret expedition. The papers had it as I came through London.’ He smiled again, aware that the news had come as a surprise to the lieutenant.

  ‘Lord Nelson . . .’ mused Drinkwater, and it was some moments before he bent again to his work.

  ‘I congratulate you, Mr Willerton.’ Drinkwater regarded the brilliantly painted figurehead that perched on Virago’s tiny fo’c’s’le. The product of Willerton’s skill with mallet and gouge was the usual mixture of crude suggestion and mild obscenity. The half-bust showed a ferociously staring woman with her head thrown back. A far too beautiful mouth gaped violently revealing a protruding scarlet tongue, like the tongue of flame that must once have issued from Virago’s mortars.

  To the face of this harpy Mr Willerton’s artistry had added the pert, up-tilted breasts of a virgin, too large for nature but erotic enough to satisfy the prurience of his shipmates. But it was the right arm that attested to Mr Willerton’s true genius. While the left trailed astern the right crooked under an exaggerated breast, its nagging forefinger erect in the universally recognisable position of the scold. The ‘leddy’ was both termagant wanton and nagging wife, a spitfire virago eminently suitable to a bomb vessel. It was a pity, thought Drinkwater as he nodded his approval, that they were not so commissioned.

  The handful of men detailed by Lieutenant Rogers to assist Willerton in fitting the figurehead grinned appreciatively, while Willerton sucked his teeth with a peculiar whistling noise.

  ‘Worthy of a first rate, Mr Willerton. A true virago. I am glad you heeded my advice,’ he added in a lower voice.

  Willerton grinned, showing a blackened row of caried teeth. ‘The right hand, sir, mind the right hand.’ His blue eyes twinkled wickedly.

  Drinkwater regarded the nagging finger. Perhaps there was some suggestion of Mrs Jex there, but it was not readily recognisable to him. He gave Willerton formal permission to fit the figurehead and turned aft.

  A keen easterly wind canted Virago’s tub-like hull across the river as she lay to her anchor clear of the sheer hulk. The three lower masts had been stepped and their rigging, already made up ashore and ‘lumped’ for hoisting aboard, had been fitted over the caps and hove tight to the channels by deadeyes and lanyards. The double hemp lines of fore, main and mizzen stays had been swigged forward and tightened. Rogers and Matchett were at that moment hoisting up the maintopmast, its heel-rope leading down to the barrel windlass at the break of the fo’c’s’le, the pawls clicking satisfactorily as the topmast inched aloft.

  Drinkwater began to walk aft, past the sweating gangs of sea and landsmen being bullied and sworn at by the bosun’s mates, round the heaps and casks being counted by Mr Jex, and ascended the three steps to the low poop. He cast a glance across the river where Mr Quilhampton brought the cutter out from the dockyard, towing the mainyard from the mast pond. Over the poop with its huge tiller, a mark of Virago’s age, fluttered the ensign. In its upper hoist canton it bore the new Union flag with St Patrick’s saltire added after the recent Act of Union with Ireland. For a second he regarded it curiously, seeing a fundamen
tal change in something he had come to regard as almost holy, something to fight and perhaps to die under. Of the Act and its implication he thought little, though it seemed to make sense to his ordered mind as did Pitt’s attempt to emancipate the Roman Catholics of that unfortunate island.

  He descended the companionway into his cabin. Mrs Jex had been evicted. On 27th January the Admiralty had ordered a squadron of bombs and their tenders to assemble at Sheerness. The dockyard had woken to its responsibilities. All was now of the utmost urgency before their Lordships started asking questions of the Commissioner.

  Tregembo was hanging Elizabeth’s gift, the cause of his delay in joining. Drinkwater watched, oddly moved. Bruilhac’s skill as a portraitist showed Elizabeth cool and smiling with Charlotte Amelia chubby and serious. He was suddenly filled with an immense pride and tenderness. From his position at the table his two loved ones looked down at him, illuminated by the light that entered the cabin from the stern windows behind him, the moving light that, even on a dull day, did not enter his cabin without reflecting from the sea.

  Mr Quilhampton interrupted his reverie. ‘Mainyard’s alongside, sir, and I’ve a letter left for you at the main gate.’ He handed the paper over and Drinkwater slit the wafer.

  My Dear Nathaniel,

  I’d be obliged if you would meet me at the sign of the Blue Fox this evening.

  Your brother, Edward

  He looked up. ‘Mr Q. Be so good as to ask the first lieutenant to have a boat for me at four bells.’

  The Blue Fox was in a back street, well off the Dock Road and in an alley probably better known for its brothels than its reputable inns. But the place seemed clean enough and the landlord civil, evincing no surprise when Drinkwater asked for his brother. The man ushered Drinkwater to a private room on the upper floor.

  Edward Drinkwater rose to meet him. He was of similar height to Nathaniel, with a heavier build and higher colour. His clothes were fashionably cut, and though not foppish, tended to the extremes of colour and decoration then de rigeur.