The Bomb Vessel

by Richard Woodman

  He did not know that the Viragos were inspired by the sight of their hatless captain, one foot on the rail, hacking murderously at the privateersmen like a devil incarnate.

  Drinkwater was only aware that it was over when there were no more Frenchmen to be killed and beneath him a widening gulf between the two hulls. He looked panting at his reeking hands; his right arm was blood-soaked to the elbow. He was sodden from the perspiration of fever and exertion. He watched their adversary drop astern, her sails flogging. She was low in the water, sinking fast. Several men swam round her, the last to leave Virago he presumed. Staggering as though drunk, he looked for the second lugger. Her foremast was gone and her crew were sweeping her up to the assistance of her foundering consort.

  Drinkwater was aware of a cheer around him. Men were shouting and grinning, all bloody among the wounded and the dead. Rogers was coming towards him his face cracked into a grin of pure delight. Then there was another cheer out to starboard and Virago surged past the anchored red bulk of the Sunk alarm vessel, her crew waving from the rail, her big Trinity House ensign at the dip.

  ‘They bastards’ve bin ’anging round three days ’n’ more,’ he heard her master shout in the Essex dialect as they passed.

  ‘I fancy we fooled the sods then, God damn ’em,’ said Rogers as the cheers died away. Drinkwater’s head cleared to the realisation that he was shivering violently. He managed a thin smile. Ship and company had passed their first test; they were blooded together but now there was a half-clewed main course to furl, a topsail to secure and a mainyard to fish.

  ‘Do you wish to put about and secure a prize, sir?’ asked the ever hopeful Rogers.

  ‘No Sam, Captain Martin would never approve of such a foolhardy act. Do you put about for Yarmouth, we must take the Shipway now. Those luggers’ll not harm the alarm vessel and have problems enough of their own. Mr Easton, a course to clear Orfordness if you please. See word is passed to Willerton to fish that bloody yard before it springs further, and for Christ’s sake somebody get that poor fellow Mason below to the surgeon.’

  Drinkwater was holding the poop rail to prevent himself keeling over. He was filled with an overwhelming desire to go below but there was one last thing to do.

  ‘Mr Q!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Do you bring me the butcher’s bill in my cabin directly.’

  * Early lightvessel with fixed lights; that at the Sunk was established in 1799.

  PART TWO

  Sir Hyde Parker

  “If you were here just to look at us! I had heard of manoeuvres off Ushant, but ours beat all ever seen. Would it were over, I am really sick of it!”

  NELSON, March 1801

  Chapter Eight February–March 1801

  An Unlawful Obligation

  ‘Hold him!’ Lettsom snapped at his two mates as they struggled to hold Mason down on the cabin table. A cluster of lanterns illuminated the scene as Lettsom, stripped to the shirt-sleeves, his apron stained dark with blood, bent again over his task.

  Despite a dose of laudanum Mason still twitched as the surgeon probed the wound in his lower belly. The bruised flesh gaped bloodily, the jagged opening in the groin where the splinter had penetrated welled with blood.

  Drinkwater stood back, against the bulkhead. Since the action with the luggers that morning he had slept for five hours and fortified himself against his fever with half a bottle of blackstrap. Virago was now safely anchored in Yarmouth Roads in company with a growing assembly of ships, partly the preparing Baltic fleet, partly elements of Admiral Dickson’s Texel squadron. Drinkwater was feeling better and the absence of Explosion had further encouraged him.

  Mason was the last of the three serious casualties to receive Lettsom’s attention. One seaman had lost an arm. Another, like Mason, had received severe splinter wounds. An additional eight men had received superficial wounds and there were four of their own people dead. The seven French corpses left on board had been thrown overboard off Lowestoft without ceremony.

  Lettsom had left Mason until Virago reached the relative tranquility of the anchorage. He knew that the long oak sliver that had run into Mason’s body could only be extracted successfully under such conditions.

  Drinkwater watched anxiously. He knew Lettsom was having difficulties. The nature of the splinter was to throw out tiny fibres of wood that acted like barbs. As these carried fragments of clothing into the wound the likelihood of a clean excision was remote. The set of Lettsom’s jaw and the perspiration on his forehead were evidence of his concern.

  Lettsom withdrew the probe, inserted thin forceps and drew out a sliver of wood with a sigh. He held it up to the light and studied it intently. Drinkwater saw him swallow and his eyes closed for a moment. He had been unsuccessful. He rubbed his hand over his mouth in a gesture of near despair, leaving a smear of blood across his face. Then his shoulders sagged in defeat.

  ‘Put him in my cot,’ said Drinkwater, realising that to move Mason further than was absolutely necessary would kill him. Lettsom caught his eye and the surgeon shook his head. The two men remained motionless while the surgeon’s mates bound absorbent pledgets over the wound and eased Mason into the box-like swinging bed. Lettsom rinsed his hands and dropped his reeking apron on the tablecloth while his mates cleaned the table and cleared Drinkwater’s cabin of the gruesome instrument chest. Drinkwater poured two glasses of rum and handed one to the surgeon who slumped in a chair and drained it at a swallow.

  ‘The splinter broke,’ Lettsom said at last. ‘It had run in between the external iliac vein and artery. They were both intact. That gave me a chance to save him . . .’ He paused, looked at Drinkwater, then lowered his eyes again. ‘That was a small miracle, Mr Drinkwater, and I should have succeeded, but I bungled it. No don’t contradict me, I beg you. I bungled it. The splinter broke with its end lodged in the obturator vein, the haemorrage was dark and veinous. When he turns in his sleep he will move it and puncture his bladder. Part of his breeches and under garments will have been carried into the body.’

  ‘You did your utmost, Mr Lettsom. None of us can do more.’

  Lettsom looked up. His eyes blazed with sudden anger. ‘It was not enough, Mr Drinkwater. God damn it, it simply was not enough.’

  Drinkwater thought of the flippant quatrain with which Lettsom had introduced himself. The poor man was drinking a cup of bitterness now. He leaned across and refilled Lettsom’s glass. Drinkwater was a little drunk himself and felt the need of company.

  ‘You did your duty . . .’

  ‘Bah, duty! Poppycock, sir! We may all conceal our pathetic inadequacies behind our “duty”. The fact of the matter is I bungled it. Perhaps I should still be probing in the poor fellow’s guts until he dies under my hands.’

  ‘You cannot achieve the impossible, Mr Lettsom.’

  ‘No, perhaps not. But I wished that I might have done more. He will die anyway and might at least have the opportunity to regain his senses long enough to make his peace with the world.’

  Drinkwater nodded, looking at the hump lying inert in his own bed. He felt a faint ringing in his ears. The fever did not trouble him tonight but he seemed to float an inch above his chair.

  ‘I don’t believe a man must shrive his soul with a canting priest, Mr Drinkwater,’ Lettsom went on, helping himself to the bottle. ‘I barely know whether there is an Omnipotent Being. A man is only guts sewn up in a hide bag. No anatomist has discovered the soul and the divine spark is barely perceptible in most.’ He nodded at the gently swinging cot. ‘See how easily it is extinguished. How much of the Almighty d’you think he contains to be snuffed like this?’ he added with sudden vehemence.

  ‘You were not responsible for Mason’s wound, Mr Lettsom,’ Drinkwater said with an effort, ‘those luggers . . .’

  ‘Those luggers, sir, were simply a symptom of the malignity of mankind. What the hell is this bloody war about, eh? The king of Denmark’s mad, Gustav of Sweden’s mad, Tsar Paul is a dangerous and crimina
l lunatic and each of these maniacs is setting his people against us. And what in God’s name are we doing going off to punish Danes and Swedes and Russians for the crazy ambitions of their kings? Why, Mr Drinkwater, it is even rumoured that our very own beloved George is not all that he should be in the matter of knowing what’s what.’ Lettsom tapped his head significantly.

  ‘We are swept up like chaff in the wind. Mason is hit by the flail and I bungle his excision like a student. That’s all there is to it, Mr Drinkwater. One may philosophise over providence, or what you will, as long as you have a belly empty of splinters, but that is all there is to it . . .’

  He fell silent and Drinkwater said nothing. His own belief in fate was a faith that drew its own strength from such misgivings as Lettsom expressed. But he could not himself accept the cold calculations of the scientific mind, could not agree with Lettsom’s assumption of ultimate purposelessness.

  They were both drunk, but at that brief and peculiarly lucid state of drunkenness that it is impossible to maintain and is gone as soon as attained. In this moment of clarity Drinkwater thought himself the greater coward.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Lettsom at last, ‘the French did themselves a service by executing King Louis, much as we did the first Charles. Pity of the matter is we replaced a republic by a monarchy and subjected ourselves voluntarily to the humbug of parliamentary politics . . .’

  ‘You are an admirer of the American rebels, Mr Lettsom?’

  The surgeon focussed a shrewd eye on his younger commander. ‘Would you not welcome a world where ability elevated a man quicker than birth or influence, Mr Drinkwater?’

  ‘Now you sound like a leveller. You know, you quacks stand in a unique position in relationship to the rest of us. Wielding the knife confers a huge moral advantage upon you. Like priests you are apt to resort to pontification . . .’

  ‘Moral superiority is conferred on any man with a glass in his hand . . .’

  ‘Aye, Mr Lettsom, and when we rise tomorrow morning the world will be as it is tonight. Imperfect in all its aspects, yet oddly beautiful and full of hidden wonders, cruel and harsh with battles to be fought and gales endured. There is more honesty at a cannon’s mouth than may be found elsewhere. Kings and their ambition are but a manifestation of the world’s turbulence. As a scientist I would have expected you to acknowledge Newton’s third law. It governs the entire travail of humanity Mr Lettsom, and is not indicative of tranquil existence.’

  Lettsom looked at Drinkwater with surprise. ‘I had no idea I was commanded by such a philosopher, Mr Drinkwater.’

  ‘I learnt the art from a surgeon, Mr Lettsom,’ replied Drinkwater drily.

  ‘Your journals, Mr Q.’ Drinkwater held out his hand for the bound notebooks. He opened the first and turned over the pages. The hand-writing was large and blotchy, the pages wrinkled from damp.

  ‘They were rescued from the wreck of the Hellebore, sir,’ offered the midshipman.

  Drinkwater nodded without looking up, stifling the images that rose in his mind. He took up a later book. The calligraphy had matured, the entries were briefer, less lyrical and more professional. A drawing appeared here and there: The arrangement of yards upon a vessel going into mourning. Drinkwater smiled approvingly, discovering a half-finished note about mortars.

  ‘You did not complete this, Mr Q?’

  ‘No sir. Mr Tumilty left us before I had finished catechising him.’

  ‘I see. How would you stow barrels, Mr Q?’

  ‘Bung up and bilge free, sir.’

  ‘A ship is north of the equator. To find the latitude, given the sun’s declination is south and the altitude on the meridian is reduced to give a correct zenith distance, how do you apply that zenith distance to the declination?’

  ‘The declination is subtracted from the zenith distance, sir, to give the latitude.’

  ‘A vessel is close hauled on the larboard tack, wind southwesterly and weather thick. You have the deck and notice the air clearing with blue sky to windward. Of what would you beware and what steps would you take?’

  ‘That the ship might be thrown aback, the wind veering into the north west. I would order the quartermaster to keep the vessel’s head off the wind a point more than was necessary by the wind.’

  ‘Under what circumstances would you not do this?’

  Quilhampton’s face puckered into a frown and he caught his lip in his teeth.

  ‘Well, Mr Q? You are almost aback, sir.’

  ‘I . . . er.’

  ‘Come now. Under what circumstances might you not be able to let the vessel’s head pay off. Come, summon your imagination?’

  ‘If you had a danger under the lee bow, sir,’ said Quilhampton with sudden relief.

  ‘Then what would you do?’

  ‘Tack ship, sir.’

  ‘You have left it too late, sir, the ship’s head is in irons . . .’ Drinkwater looked at the sheen of sweat on the midshipman’s brow. There was enough evidence in the books beneath Drinkwater’s hands of Quilhampton’s imagination and he was even now beset by anxiety on his imaginary quarterdeck.

  ‘Pass word for the captain, sir?’ Quilhampton suggested hopefully.

  ‘The captain is incapacitated and you are first lieutenant, Mr Q, you cannot expect to be extricated from this mess.’

  ‘Make a stern board and hope to throw the ship upon the starboard tack, sir.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Drinkwater looked fixedly at the midshipman. ‘What if you fail in the stern-board?’

  ‘Anchor, sir.’

  ‘At last! Never neglect the properties of anchors, Mr Q. You may lose an anchor and not submit your actions to a court-martial, but it is quite otherwise if you lose the ship. A prudent man, knowing he might be embayed, would have prepared to club-haul his ship with the larboard anchor. Do you know how to club-haul a ship?’

  Quilhampton swallowed, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing round his grubby stock.

  ‘Only in general principle, sir.’

  ‘Make it your business to discover the matter in detail. Now, how is a topmast stuns’l set?’

  ‘The boom is rigged out and the gear bent. Pull up the halliards and tack, keeping fast the end of the deck sheet. The stops are cut by a man on the lower yard. The tack is hauled out and the halliards hove. The short sheet is rove round the boom heel and secured in the top.’

  Drinkwater smiled, recognising the words. ‘Very well, Mr Q. Consequent upon the death of Mr Mason I am rating you acting master’s mate. You will take over Mason’s duties. Please take your journals with you.’

  He waved aside Quilhampton’s thanks. ‘You will not thank me when the duty becomes arduous or I am dissatisfied with your conduct. Go and look up how to club-haul in that excellent primer of yours.’

  Drinkwater picked up his pen and returned to the task he had deliberately interrupted by summoning Quilhampton.

  Dear Sir, he began to write, It is with great regret that my painful duty compels me to inform you of the death of your son . . .

  Explosion and the rest of the squadron came into Yarmouth Roads during the next two days to join the growing number of British men of war anchored there. Most of the other bomb vessels had been blown to leeward and Martin merely nodded when Drinkwater presented his report. The fleet was reduced to waiting while the officers eagerly seized on the newspapers to learn anything about the intentions of the government in respect of the Baltic crisis.

  A number of British officers serving with the Russian navy returned to Britain. One in particular arrived in Yarmouth: a Captain Nicholas Tomlinson, who had been reduced to half-pay after the American War and served with the Russians at the same period as the American John Paul Jones. He volunteered his services to the commander-in-chief. Admiral Parker, comfortably ensconced at the Wrestler’s Inn with his young bride, refused to see Tomlinson.

  No orders emanated from either Parker or London. It was a matter that pre-occupied the officers of Virago as they dined in their captain�
�s absence.

  ‘Lieutenant Drinkwater is endeavouring to discover some news of our intentions either from Martin or anyone else who knows,’ explained Rogers as he took his place at the head of the cabin table and nodded to the messman.

  ‘I hear the King caught a severe chill at the National Fast and Humiliation,’ said Mr Jex in his fussy way, ‘upon the thirteenth of last month.’

  ‘National Farce,’ corrected Rogers, sarcastically.

  ‘I heard he caught a cold in the head,’ put in the surgeon with heavy emphasis.

  ‘At all events we must wait until either Addington’s kissed hands or Parker has got out of his bed,’ offered Easton.

  ‘At Parker’s age he’ll be a deuced long time getting up with a young bride in his bed,’ added Lettsom with a grin, sniping at the more accessible admiral in the absence of a king.

  ‘At Parker’s age he’ll be a deuced long time getting it up, you mean Mr Lettsom,’ grunted Rogers coarsely.

  ‘Yes, I wonder who exhausts whom, for it is fearful unequal combat to pit eighteen years against sixty-four.’

  ‘Experience against enthusiasm, eh?’

  ‘More like impotence against ignorance, but wait, I have the muse upon me,’ Lettsom paused. ‘I am uncertain on whom to lay the greater blame for our woes.

  ‘Why here is a thing to raise liberal hopes;

  Government can’t do as it pleases,

  While the entire fleet ’waits the order to strike

  Addington awaits the King’s sneezes.’

  A cheer greeted this doggerel but Lettsom shook his head with dissatisfaction.

  ‘It don’t scan to my liking. I think the admiral the better inspiration:

  ‘ ’Tis not for his slowness in firing his shot

  That our admiral is known every night,

  But his laxness in heaving his anchor aweigh

  Must dub him a most tardy knight.’

  There were more cheers for the surgeon and it was generally accepted that the second verse was much better than the first.