A King's Cutter

by Richard Woodman

  Drinkwater grinned. ‘Well, sir, nothing official, sir, but scuttlebutt has it that we’re for the North Sea station, Admiral MacBride’s squadron.’

  It seemed to Nathaniel as he left the hospital that the news might restore Griffiths’s health more rapidly than the doctors’ physic.

  The drawings spread over the cabin table slid to the deck from where the master shipwright recovered them, an expression of pained forbearance on his face. Captain Schank he knew and could tolerate, his post-rank was sufficiently awe-inspiring, but this younker who was no more than a master’s mate: God preserve patient and professional craftsmen from the meddling of half-baked theorists.

  ‘But if, as you say, it is the depth that’s effective, sir, and the cutter’s to work in shallow water, then a vertically supported plate might be very dangerous.’ Drinkwater’s imagination was coping with a vision of Kestrel’s extended keel digging into a sandbank, oversetting her and possibly splitting her keel. ‘But if you had a bolt forward here,’ he pointed to the plan, ‘then it would hinge and could rise up into the casing without endangering the cutter.’ He looked at the captain.

  ‘What d’you think Mr Atwood?’ The master shipwright looked over the pencil marks, an expression of scepticism on his face.

  Drinkwater sighed with exasperation. Dockyard officers were beginning to rile him. ‘Barrallier could do it, sir,’ he said in a low voice. He thought he detected a half smile twitch Schank’s face. Atwood’s back stiffened. After a second or two of real attention to the plan he straighted up. ‘It could be done, sir,’ he ignored Drinkwater, ‘but I don’t want that Froggie whoremonger with his dancing master ways messing about with it . . .’

  A day later they were warped alongside the sheer hulk and the mast was removed. Then they were hauled out. The work went well and a week later Griffiths reappeared with a cheerful countenance and a lightness of step that betrayed neither his age nor his recent indisposition.

  He advised Drinkwater to air his best uniform coat, the new acquisition from Mr Morgan’s. ‘We are invited to dine with Lord Dungarth, Mr Drinkwater, at the George . . . hey Merrick! God I’m getting old, why do the damned artificers always leave a job half finished, dismantling the companionways and leaving rickety ladders? Ah, Merrick, pass along my best uniform coat and air Mr Drinkwater’s. Polish his best shoes and get some sharkskin for that damned murderous French skewer he calls a sword,’ he turned to Drinkwater, all traces of fever absent from his face. ‘I’ve a feeling there’s more to tonight’s meal than mere manners . . .’ Drinkwater nodded, aware that Griffiths’s instinct was usually uncannily accurate and glad to have the old man on board again.

  The George Inn at Portsmouth was traditionally the rendezvous of captains and admirals. Lieutenants like Griffiths patronised the Fountain, while master’s mates and midshipmen made a bear pit of the Blue Posts, situated next to the coach office. There were, therefore, a number of raised eyes when, amidst an unseasonal swirl of rain and wind, Griffiths and Drinkwater entered the inn and the removal of their cloaks revealed them as an elderly lieutenant and what appeared to be a passed over mate.

  Their presence was explained by the appearance of Lord Dungarth who greeted them cordially. ‘Ah, there you are gentlemen, pray be seated. Flip or stingo on such a wretched night? Well Madoc, what is it like wiping the arses of frigate captains after your independence, eh?’

  Griffiths smiled ruefully. ‘Well enough, my lord,’ he said diplomatically. An elderly captain at the next table turned a deep puce with more than a hint of approaching apoplexy in it and muttered that the service was ‘Going to the dogs.’

  Dungarth went on heedlessly, an old, familiar twinkle in his eye. ‘And you Nathaniel, I heard you took that lugger single handed. An exaggeration I suppose?’

  ‘Aye my lord, a considerable one I’m afraid.’

  Dungarth went on, ‘I suppose the dockyard are prevaricating with your refit in the customary fashion, eh?’

  Griffiths nodded. ‘Yes, my lord. I believe they consider us too insignificant a cruiser to take note of,’ he said, a bright gleam in his eye and noting Dungarth cast significant glances at other officers in the room, several of whom Drinkwater recognised as dockyard superintendents.

  ‘Insignificant!’ exclaimed his lordship. ‘Indeed. Damned crowd of peculating jobbers, rotten to the core. The greatest treason is to be found in His Majesty’s dockyards, from time to time they hang an arsonist to assure their lordships of their loyalty . . .’ Dungarth distributed the glasses. ‘Your health gentlemen. Yes, you remark me well, one day they will receive their just deserts. You remember the Royal George, Nathaniel, aye and you’ve good cause to . . . Well gentlemen if you feel recovered from this damnable weather I’ve a fine jugged hare and a saddle of mutton awaiting you.’ They emptied their glasses and followed Dungarth to a private room. Drinkwater was aware that their exit appeared most welcome.

  Conversation remained light. Dungarth had dismissed his servants and they attended to themselves. As they finished the hare he announced ‘I am expecting another guest before the night is out, but let the business of the evening wait upon his arrival, it is a long time since I set a t’gallant stuns’l even over a meal . . .’

  They were attacking the mutton when a knock at the door occurred.

  ‘Ah Brown, come and sit down, you know the company.’

  Major Brown, smoothing his hair and muttering that the night was foul and diabolical for early June, nodded to the two naval officers. ‘Your servant, my lord, gentlemen.’

  ‘Sit down, some of this excellent mutton? Madoc would you assist the major? Good . . .’ Dungarth passed a plate. Drinkwater was aware that Griffiths’s theory about the reason for their summons to dinner might be right. Major Brown had brought more than a waft of wet air into the room. Dungarth shed his familiar air and became crisply efficient. ‘Well? D’ye find anything?’

  Brown fixed Dungarth with a stare. ‘Nothing of real significance. And you my lord?’

  ‘No.’ Dungarth looked at Griffiths and Drinkwater objectively, apparently forgetful that the last hour had been spent in genial conversation. He asked Nathaniel to pass another bottle from the sideboard then said: ‘The information you forwarded, Madoc, that Nathaniel here found aboard the chasse marée confirms what we have for some time suspected, that Capitaine Santhonax is an agent of the French government with considerable contacts in this country. The later information that you submitted about Nathaniel’s supposed link between him and the Montholon woman seems not to be so . . .’ Drinkwater swallowed awkwardly.

  ‘Hmm, the evidence was somewhat circumstantial my lord, I thought it my duty . . .’

  ‘You did quite rightly. Do not reproach yourself. We took it seriously enough to send Brown here to ferret out the whereabouts of Miss Montholon since there had been other indications that your theory might not be as wild as it might first appear.’ He paused and Drinkwater found his heart-beat had quickened. He waited patiently while Dungarth sipped his wine and dabbed his lips with a napkin.

  ‘When De Tocqueville died in London it was given out that he had been robbed by footpads. He had been robbed all right, a considerable sum was found to be missing from his lodgings, not his person. They had also been ransacked. The count had been run through by a sword. Murdered; and in the subsequent search of his rooms, papers were discovered that indicated he had not only contracted a marriage with Miss Montholon but arranged for its solemnisation. The woman was therefore located living with the count’s mother in Tunbridge Wells. Although there was an outpouring of grief it came, I believe, mainly from the mother . . . Major . . .’

  Brown swallowed hastily and took up the tale. ‘As I mentioned to you some time ago Santhonax was known to me as a capitaine de frégate, yet he has never held an independent command, always being on detached duty like myself. We know he is the head of naval intelligence for the Channel area and extensively employs chasses marées, like the one you captured, to make contact with his a
gents in this country. He is also bold enough to land, even, perhaps to spend some time in England . . .’

  Brown chewed then swallowed a final mouthful and washed it down in complete silence. He continued: ‘We believe him responsible for the death of De Tocqueville and your suggestion that there might be a connection with Mlle Montholon was most interesting.’ He shrugged with that peculiar Gallic gesture that seemed so out of place. ‘Though the letter you captured might confirm a suspicion it does not prove a fact, and to date surveillance has failed to indicate anything other than that Mlle Montholon is the unfortunate affianced of the late count who, in her present extremity, is a companion to her late lover’s mother, herself widowed by the guillotine. I am told that their mutual grief is touching . . .’ Brown’s ironic tone led Drinkwater to assume that his own suspicions were not yet satisfied.

  ‘But is Santhonax likely to continue his activities after losing his papers?’ asked Griffiths.

  ‘I do not think a man of his calibre and resource will lightly be deterred,’ answered Dungarth. ‘Besides, it depends how incriminating he regards what he lost. We are all hostages to fortune in this business but the odds against someone finding and identifying the letter and its writer must be very long. After all I doubt the lugger was the only one in the Channel that night with charts of our coasts, nor money. The gentlemen devoted to free trade might conceivably be similarly equipped . . .’

  ‘But the uniform, my lord,’ put in Drinkwater. Dungarth shrugged. ‘I’ll warrant Santhonax will not abandon his little projects over that, though doubtless whoever ordered his lugger to assist that convoy is now regretting his action. No, we’ll back Nathaniel’s hunch a little longer with surveillance on the De Tocqueville menage. As for you fellows,’ the earl leaned forward and fished in his tail pocket, drawing out a sealed packet, ‘here are your orders to cruise in the Channel in theory against the enemy’s trade. In fact I want you to stop every lugger, punt, smack and galley ’twixt the North Foreland and the Owers and search ’em. Perhaps we’ll apprehend this devil Santhonax before more mischief occurs . . . Now Nat pass that bottle or, here, Madoc you are partial to sercial, those damned slaving days, I suppose.’ The atmosphere changed, lightened a little as a sense of self-satisfaction embraced them.

  ‘My lord,’ said Griffiths at last, ‘I should like to solicit your interest in favour of a commission for Mr Drinkwater here. Is there no way you might induce their lordships to reward a deserving officer?’

  Drinkwater thrust aside a haze that was not entirely due to the tobacco smoke out of which he had been conjuring images of the beautiful Hortense.

  Dungarth was shaking his head, his speech slurring slightly. ‘My dear Madoc I would like nothing better than to oblige by confirming Nathaniel’s commission but, by an irony, I am out of favour with the present Board having criticised Earl Howe’s failure to stop that deuced grain fleet. Brown’s intelligence was laid before the Board and they had plenty of warning that it should be stopped at all costs. We might have destroyed France at a blow.’ Dungarth was leaning forward, his voice sharp and a cold fire in his hazel eyes. Then he sat back, slumping into his chair and brushing a weary hand across his forehead. ‘But the pack of poxed fools ignored me and Brown’s sojourn at the peril of his life was wasted . . .’

  Later, splashing through puddles as the rain gurgled in drainpipes and their white hose were spattered black; leaning together like sheer-legs, Griffiths and Drinkwater staggered back from the George. They had dined and drunk to excess and Griffiths kept muttering apologies that Dungarth had failed him in the matter of the commission while Nathaniel assured him with equal insistence that it did not matter. Drinkwater felt fortified against disappointment. The evening had brought him a kind of victory and in his drunken state his belief in providence was absolute. Providence had brought him to Kestrel and providence had had a hand in his presence at Beaubigny. Providence would see he had a lieutenant’s cockade when it was due. And the ringing in his ears said the time was not yet.

  It was only when they passed the momentary shelter of the dockyard gate and Griffiths roared the countersign at the sentry that it occurred to Nathaniel how foolish they must seem. And suddenly he wished he were in bed beside Elizabeth instead of lurching along in the wet and windy darkness supporting his increasingly heavy commander.

  Chapter Eight

  September–December 1795

  The Black Pendant

  The Royal William, receiving ship, was one of the oldest vessels in the British Navy. She had brought Wolfe’s body home from Quebec and now played host to the bodies of unfortunate men waiting to be sent to ships. Like all such hulks she smelt, not the familiar living odour of a ship in commission but a stale, damp, rotting smell that spoke of stagnation, of neglect, idleness and despair. At the time of Drinkwater’s visit she had nearly three hundred wretched men on board, from which Kestrel must replace her deserters. There were pressed men, Lord Mayor’s men and quota men. There were even, God help them, volunteers, an isolated minority of social misfits with no other bolt hole to run to. There were disenchanted merchant sailors, home after long voyages and taken by the press or the patrolling frigates in The Soundings and sent into Portsmouth in the despatch boats. There were the pressed men, the pariahs, the drunks and the careless who had been caught by the officers of the Impress Service and brought by the tenders to be incarcerated on the Royal William until sent to ships. Here they were joined by village half-wits and petty thieves generously supplied by patriotic parish fathers as part of their quota. From London the debtors, felons, reprieved criminals and all the inadequate and pathetic flotsam of eighteenth-century society came fortnightly by the Tower tender. As a consequence the old ship groaned with misery, dirt, indiscipline and every form of vermin parasitic upon unwashed humanity. Royal William was little distinguishable from the prison hulks further up the harbour with her guard boats, gratings and sentries.

  The regulating captain in charge of the Impress Service regarded Drinkwater with a jaundiced eye. For a moment or two Drinkwater could not understand the man’s obvious hostility, then he recognised the apoplectic captain from the George the night they had dined with Dungarth.

  ‘Six men! Six! Now where in the world d’you think I can find six men, God rot ye? And for what? A third rate? A frigate? No! But for some poxy little cutter whose officers spend their time ashore in ill-mannered abuse of their betters. No sir! You may think that because I have a deck full of hammocks I’ve men to spare. I don’t doubt that suspicion had crossed your mind, but six men for an unrated cutter . . .’ Drinkwater stood silently waiting for the man to finish blustering and cursing until, at last, he turned up a ledger, ran his finger down a column, shook his head and slammed the book shut.

  ‘Scratch!’ He shouted.

  An obsequiously cowed clerk entered, dragging a misshapen foot behind him. ‘Sir?’

  ‘Present complement and dispositions please.’

  ‘Ah, yes sir, er,’ the man thought for a moment then rattled off, ‘two hundred and ninety-one men on board sir. Sixty-two prime seamen, eighty-five with previous service, ninety-one mayor’s men and fifty-three from the parishes. Er, three tailors among ’em, four blacksmiths, a locksmith, four cobblers, one apothecary under sentence for incest . . .’ The man’s eyes gleamed and Drinkwater was reminded of some carrion eater that subsisted on the dying bodies of ruined men.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said the regulating captain testily, obviously considering his clerk was ruining his own case, ‘now the dispositions.’

  ‘Ah, yes, sir, well, most for Captain Troubridge on the Culloden, thirty-eight to go to Plymouth for Engadine, two dozen for Pomone, six to be discharged as unfit and the balance replacements for the Channel Fleet, sir, leaving a few odds and ends . . .’

  ‘They will do us, sir,’ suggested Drinkwater in an ill-timed remark that robbed the regulating captain of his triumph.

  ‘Hold your damned tongue!’ He snapped, nodding his thanks to the clerk. �
�Now my young shaver, you perceive I do not have men to spare for your cutter. Tell your commander he can do his own recruiting. As far as I’m concerned the thing’s impossible, quite impossible. My lieutenants are out scouring the country for the fleet, your damned cutter can go to the devil!’ The regulating captain’s face was belligerently red. He dismissed Drinkwater with a wave and the latter followed the sallow, misshapen little clerk in brown drab out of the cabin.

  Furious Drinkwater made eagerly for the side, anxious to escape the stink of the ship when he felt a hand on his arm. ‘Do not act so intemperately, young man, pray stay a moment.’ The clerk’s tone was all wheedling. ‘For a consideration, sir,’ he whined, ‘I might be able to oblige a young gentleman . . .’

  Drinkwater turned back, contempt rising in him like bile in the throat. Then he recalled the state of the cutter and the pressing need for those few extra men. He swallowed his dislike. Finding he had a couple of sovereigns on him he held one out to the clerk who took it in the palm of his hand and stared at it.

  Drinkwater sighed and gave him the second coin. Like a gin-trap the man’s hand closed on the gold and he spoke insolently. ‘Now, young man we can perhaps do a little business . . . your name?’ The clerk opened his book on an upright desk and ran a finger down a column of names, muttering to himself. He drew up a list and handed it to Drinkwater. ‘There, Mr Drinkwater, six men for your cutter . . .’ he chuckled wickedly, ‘you might find the apothecary useful . . .’

  ‘Send a boat for ’em in the morning,’ said Griffiths, removing his hat and sitting heavily. Meyrick brought in a pot of coffee and a letter. Griffiths opened it and snorted. ‘Huh! and about time too. It seems we are at last to be manned on the proper establishment,’ his face dropped, ‘oh . . .’