A King's Cutter nd-2

by Richard Woodman

  Was Santhonax still at the Texel? Was Drinkwater right? Did the train of powder still sputter here, off the Haakagronden? Was De Winter under French pressure?

  'It's possible,' he repeated to himself, 'and there is only one way to find out.'

  And he shuddered, the old image of geese over a grave springing unbidden into his mind.

  Drinkwater was very tired. The regular swing of the oarsmen had a soporific effect now that they had run into the smoother water of the Zeegat van Texel. Astern of them in the darkness the curve of sand dunes and marram grass curled round to Kijkduin and the Schulpen Gat, where Kestrel lay at anchor. It was late before full darkness had come and they had little time to execute their task. Drinkwater pulled the tiller slightly to larboard, following the coast round to the east. He steadied it again, feeling the bulk of the man next to him.

  Major Brown, wrapped in a cloak under which he concealed a small bag of provisions, had insisted that he be landed. From his bunk Griffiths had been powerless to prevent what he felt to be a hopeless task. He did not doubt Brown's abilities but the gleaning of news of De Winter's intentions was a desperate throw. Griffiths had therefore instructed Drinkwater to land the agent himself. Johnson, the carpenter, had contrived a pair of clogs and they had been carefully scuffed and dirtied as Brown prepared himself in the seamen's cast-offs as a grubby and suitably malodorous fisherman.

  Drinkwater turned the boat inshore and whispered 'Oars'. The men ceased pulling and a few moments later the bow of the gig grounded with a gentle lift. Brown shrugged off the cloak and scrambled forward between the pairs of oarsmen. Drinkwater followed him on to the beach and walked up it with him to discover a landmark by which they might both return to the spot. They found some fishing stakes which were sufficient to answer their purpose.

  'I'll be off then, Mr Drinkwater.' Brown shouldered his bag and a dimly perceived hand was thrust uncertainly out in an uncharacteristic gesture. 'Until two days hence then. Wish me luck… I don't speak Dutch.'

  As he turned away Drinkwater noticed the carriage of confidence was missing, the step unsure. Then he jeered at his qualms. Walking in clogs was bad enough. Doing it in soft sand damned near impossible.

  On the afternoon of the day on which they were due to recover Major Brown, Kestrel sailed into the Schulpen Gat, taking the tide along the coast on her routine patrol. When the masts of the Dutch fleet had been counted over the intervening sand dunes and attempts made to divine whether De Winter had advanced his preparations to sail, which all except Drinkwater were now beginning to doubt, she would retire seawards until her midnight rendezvous with the agent.

  As she stood inshore towards the battery at Kijkduin, Drinkwater scanned the beach. The usual officer and orderly were observing their progress. He slewed the telescope and caught in its dancing circle the rampart of the battery. Then he saw something that turned his blood cold.

  A new structure had been erected above the gun embrasures, gaunt against the blue of heaven and terrifying in its sinister outline. And from the gibbet, unmistakable in the faded blue of Kestrel's slops, swung the body of Major Brown.

  Drinkwater lowered the glass and called for Jessup. The bosun came up immediately aware of the cold gleam in Drinkwater's grey eyes. 'Sir?'

  'See if Lieutenant Griffiths is fit enough to come on deck.' Drinkwater's voice was strangely controlled, like a man compelled to speak when he would rather weep.

  'Nat, what the deuce is this…?' Appleby came protesting out of the companionway.

  'Vast that, Harry!' snapped Drinkwater, seeing Griffiths following the surgeon on deck, the flutter of his nightgown beneath his coat.

  Without a word Drinkwater handed the telescope to Griffiths and pointed at the battery. Even as he watched the lieutenant for a sign of emotion Drinkwater heard the dull concussion of the first cannon shot roll over the sea. He did not see the fall of shot, only the whitening of the already pallid Welshman and when he lowered the glass Griffiths, too, spoke as though choking.

  'Our friend Santhonax did that, Mr Drinkwater, put the vessel about upon the instant.' Griffiths paused. 'That devil's spawn is here then,' he muttered, turning aft.

  Drinkwater gave orders and watched Griffiths stagger back to the companionway, a man who looked his years, sick and frail. The battery fired again, shot rained about them and they were hulled once. Running south with the wind free and his back to the gibbet, Drinkwater imagined he could hear the creaking of the contraption and the laughter of the gunners as they toiled beneath their grim trophy.

  The death of Major Brown had a desolating effect on Kestrel. The enigmatic army officer had become almost one of themselves and the cramped cabin was a sad place without him. For Madoc Griffiths the loss was more personal, their friendship one of long standing. In the twilit world of their professions strange and powerful bonds drew men together.

  'Brown was not his real name,' Griffiths had muttered, and it was all the epitaph the Major ever had.

  It seemed that his death extinguished the powder train whose extent he had been so eager to determine. Whatever Santhonax's achievements in the apprehension of spies it was apparent to the watching British that he had failed to persuade De Winter to sail.

  Yet Duncan, and in a lesser way Nathaniel Drinkwater too, persisted in their belief that the Dutch might yet sally; or at least must be prevented from so doing. As the summer waned and turned to autumn the routine blockade wore down men and ships. Much of the time the line of battleships lay anchored, weighing and standing offshore, even sheltering in Yarmouth Road when the weather became too boisterous. Hovering on the western margins of the Haakagronden the inshore squadron, the frigates Beaulieu and Circe and the sloop Martin, maintained the visual link between the admiral and those in close contact with the enemy, the lieutenants in command of the little flotilla of cutters and luggers working inside the Haak Sand.

  The cutters Rose, King George, Diligent, Active and Kestrel kept their stations through the long weeks, assisted by the luggers Black Joke and Speculator. The last two named provided endless witticisms as to predicting whether the Dutch would, or would not, emerge. When Speculator was on an advanced station the chances were said to be better than when the sardonically named Black Joke was inshore.

  These small fry fell into a routine of patrolling the gatways, acting as fleet tenders and advice boats. It was exhausting work that seemed to be endless. Scouting through the approaches to the channels, counting the mastheads of the enemy, determining which had their topmasts up and yards across, constantly worrying about the shoals, the state of the tide and whether a change of wind might not bottle them up in range of a field-gun or battery.

  Griffiths's health improved and he reassumed effective command of Kestrel. But the Dutch did not come out. As week succeeded week, expectancy turned to irritation and then to grumbling frustration. In the fleet, officers, still suspicious after the mutiny, watched for signs of further trouble as the quality of rations deteriorated with the passing of time. Imperceptibly at first, but with mounting emphasis, discipline was tightened and a return 'to the old days' feared on every lower deck. Among the men the triumph of the mutiny was lost in petty squabblings and resentments. Men remembered that executions had followed the suppression of the Nore affair, that they still had had no liberty, that the pursers were not noticeably more generous or their pay more readily available.

  Then the weather worsened with the onset of September and the admiral, taking stock of the condition of his fleet, decided that he must return to Yarmouth to refit, replenish stores and land his sick. For scurvy had broken out and no admiral as considerate of his men as Adam Duncan could keep the sea under those circumstances. Yet, in the leaking cabin of Venerable he still fretted as to whether the Dutch, supine for so long, might not still take advantage of his absence.

  Drinkwater peered into the screaming darkness, holding on to the weather shrouds and bracing himself against the force of the westerly gale. Kestrel, hard reefed with he
r centre plates down, stood north-west, beating out of the Molen Gat, clawing to windward for sea-room and safety. Somewhere to the south of her, across the roaring fury of the breakers on the Haakagronden, Diligent would be thrashing out of the Schulpen Gat while Rose should have quitted the West Gat long since.

  Drinkwater rubbed his eyes, but the salt spray inflamed them and the fury of the wind made staring directly to windward impossible. He had hoped to see a lantern from Circe but he had difficulty seeing further than the next wave as it rose out of the darkness to larboard, its rolling crest already being torn to shreds by the violence of the wind.

  Kestrel's bow thumped into it, the long line of her bowsprit disappearing. Water squirted inboard round the lips of her gunports and a line of white foam rose to her rail but she did not ship any green water. Drinkwater was seized with a sudden savage satisfaction in the noble way the cutter behaved. In the tense moments when they could do nothing but hang on, trusting to the art of the Wivenhoe shipwrights who had built her, she never failed them.

  He turned and cautiously moved aft, his tarpaulin flapping round him. When he had checked the course, he secured himself by the larboard running backstay, passing a turn of its tail around his waist.

  Tregembo approached, a pale blur in the darkness. 'You sent for me sir?'

  'Aye, Tregembo. An occasional cast of the lead if you can manage it.' He sensed rather than saw the Cornishman grin.

  They must not go aground tonight.

  Drinkwater adjusted himself against the big stay's downhaul. He could feel the trembling of the top-hamper transmitted down to the hull as a gentle vibration that transferred itself to his body, so that he felt a part of the fabric of the cutter. It was a very satisfying feeling he concluded, a warm glow within him defying the hideous howl of the gale. For a time the image of Brown in his gibbet was dimmed.

  Drinkwater noted the helm relieved, the two men leaving the tiller, flexing their arms with relief and seeking shelter beneath the lee gig. A sea crashed against the hull and foamed brutally over the rail, sluicing the deck white and breaking in eddies round the deck fittings. They would be clearing the Molen Gat now, leaving the comparative shelter of the Haakagronden.

  Again he peered to windward seeking a light from the frigate. Nothing.

  The Dutch would never come out in weather like this, thought Drinkwater. It was going to be a long, dirty night for the British blockaders and there was little glory in such a gale.

  They reached the admiral at ten in the morning. The gale was at its height, a low scud drifting malignantly across the sky reducing the visibility to a monotonous circle of grey breaking waves, streaked with white spindrift that merged at its margins with the lowering clouds. In and out of this pall the pale squares of reefed topsails and the dark shapes of hulls streaming with water were all that could be seen of the blockading battleships. Even the patches of the blue ensigns of Duncan's squadron seemed leeched to the surrounding drab.

  Kestrel had come up under Venerable's lee quarter like a leaping cork, or so it seemed to the officers on the flagship's quarterdeck, and the admiral had had his orders sealed in a keg and thrown into the sea.

  With great skill Griffiths had manoeuvred in the flagship's wake to recover the keg. 'Orders for the fleet, Mr Drinkwater, excepting for Russell, Adamant, Beaulieu, Circe, Martin and two cutters, ah, and Black Joke, the fleet's for Yarmouth Road.'

  'And we're to tell 'em?'

  Griffiths nodded. 'Very good, sir, we'll bear away directly.'

  Dipping her ensign in acknowledgement of her instructions Kestrel turned away.

  As she steadied on her course Drinkwater returned to Griffiths's side. 'What about us, sir?'

  'Active and Diligent to remain, the rest of us for Yarmouth.'

  Drinkwater nodded. The nagging notion that they had unfinished business off the Texel caused him to catch Griffiths's eye. Griffiths held his gaze but said nothing. Both of them were thinking of the shrivelling body of their friend.

  They were running downwind now, closing Vice-Admiral Onslow in the Monarch. Passing their message they reached down the line of Onslow's division, watching the lumbering third rates, Powerful, Montagu and Russell, the smaller sixty-fours Veteran and Agincourt with Bligh's Director. Next they passed word to the obsolete old Adamant, she that so gallantly supported Duncan's deception off the Texel. They found Circe and Beaulieu and both the luggers hanging on to the frigates like children round their mother's skirts. It was dark before they returned to Venerable and sent up a damply fizzing blue rocket as a signal to the admiral.

  Drinkwater scrambled below, jamming himself into a corner of the cabin and gratefully accepted a bowl from Merrick. The skilly-golee was all that could be heated on the galley stove but it tasted excellent laced with molasses and he wolfed it, aware that Appleby was hovering in the doorway.

  'D'you want me, Harry?' Drinkwater asked, nodding to Traveller who was groping his way into the cabin, bracing himself against the violence of the cutter's motion, also in search of something to eat.

  Appleby nodded too. 'A word, Nat, if you've a moment…' He plucked at Drinkwater's sleeve and drew him towards his own cabin.

  'By God, that skilly was good… Hey! Merrick! D'you have any more?' Fresh from the deck and very hungry Drinkwater found Appleby irritated him.

  'Nat, for heaven's sake, a moment of your time. Listen, while you and Griffiths have been busy on deck I have been increasingly aware of unrest in the ship… nothing I can pin down, but this miserable blockade duty at a season of the year when no self-respecting Dutchman is going to emerge into the North Sea when he has a bed ashore, is playing the devil with the men. No, don't dismiss me as a meddling old fool. I have observed glances, mutterings, listened to remarks dropped near me. Damn it, Nat, you know the kind of thing…'

  'Oh come now Harry, I doubt now that we're going back to Yarmouth that anything will materialise,' Drinkwater bit off a jibe at Appleby's increasing preoccupation with mutiny. Blockade duty in such a small vessel was playing on all their nerves, even those of the men, and it was doubtless this irritation had manifested itself to Appleby. 'What seaman doesn't grumble, Harry? You are worrying for nothing, forget it…'

  There was a thumping crash and the bulkhead behind them trembled. From the lobby outside a torrent of Welsh oaths mixed with Anglo-Saxon expletives ended the conversation. Appleby threw open the door to reveal Lieutenant Griffiths lying awkwardly at the foot of the ladder. His face contorted with pain.

  'My leg, doctor… By damn, I've broken my leg!'

  Chapter Fourteen

  A Private Insurrection

  5th-7th October 1797

  'Can you manage the cutter, Mr Drinkwater?'

  Drinkwater looked at the admiral. Duncan's eyes were tired from a multitude of responsibilities. He nodded. 'I believe so, sir.'

  'Very well. I will have an acting commission made out immediately. You have been acting before, have you not?'

  'Yes sir. Twice.'

  Duncan nodded. 'Good. If you discharge your duty to my satisfaction I shall see that it is confirmed without further ado… now sit down a moment.' Duncan rang a bell and his servant entered the cabin. 'Sir?'

  'My secretary, Knapton, and my compliments to Captain Fairfax and will he bring in his lordship,' he turned to Drinkwater. 'It'll not hurt you to know what's in the wind, Mr Drinkwater, as you are to occupy an advanced station. Were you not part of the prize crew that brought in Santa Teresa to Gibraltar in '80?'

  'Yes sir. She was commanded by Lieutenant Devaux, Lord Dungarth as is now, sir.'

  'Aye, I remember your name now, and here is his lordship,' Duncan rose stooping under the deckhead to motion Lord Dungarth and Captain Fairfax to chairs.

  Drinkwater covered his astonishment at the earl's sudden appearance with a bow. He remained standing until the admiral motioned him to sit again.

  'Now gentlemen, Mr Drinkwater is to remain. Under the circumstances he ought properly to be informed of our d
eliberations and can convey their substance to Trollope. I have given him an acting commission. Now, my Lord, what have you to tell us?'

  'You could not have made a better choice, Admiral,' put in Dungarth, smiling at Drinkwater. 'Now when are you able to sail?'

  The old admiral passed a hand over his face. 'I must have a few more days to recruit the fleet. Yes what is it?' Duncan paused at the knock on the door. A large man with a saturnine face entered. He was in admiral's uniform. 'Ah, Richard, come in, you know Fairfax of course, this is Lord Dungarth, from the Admiralty…' Onslow's eyebrows lifted, '…and this is Lieutenant Drinkwater of Kestrel.'

  Drinkwater rose and bowed. 'Your servant, sir.'

  'What happened to Griffiths?'

  Duncan said, 'Broke his leg and I've promoted Drinkwater, he kens the crew and I'm not one to be fussing about with officers on other ships with the situation as delicate as it is now…' He looked significantly at Onslow who nodded his agreement. Drinkwater realised there were doubtless a score of passed midshipmen who might regard their claim on the first available commission as better than his own.

  'Congratulations, Mr Drinkwater,' said Onslow. 'Are you familiar with Psalm 75? No? "Promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south, but God is the judge; he pulleth down one and setteth up another.'"

  The little group chuckled. Onslow was well-known for his Biblical references so that signals midshipmen had to keep a copy of the Bible alongside Kempenfelt's code.

  'Most apposite. But to business. My Lord?'

  'Well, gentlemen, since the regretted loss of Major Brown,' Dungarth paused and there was a deferential murmur as death passed his grim shadow across their council, 'I have learned from our people in Paris that Capitaine Santhonax has been seen there. However, his stay was not long and he was seen in The Hague last month. It is confidently expected that he is now back at the Texel breathing down De Winter's neck. We were under the impression that enthusiasm for another attempt upon Ireland has dwindled since the death of General Hoche. But Austria has reached an accommodation with this new General Bonaparte at Leoben and it seems likely that troops will be available for other enterprises.' He paused and accepted a glass of wine from Knapton who appeared with silent ease, bearing tall glasses on a silver salver.