The Corvette nd-5

by Ричард Вудмен

  On the quarterdeck Hill and Bourne bore the brunt of the activity, for Drinkwater had doubled the watches, and Rispin and Gorton were stationed in the waist, or forward, supervising the staving off of the ice.

  And through it all Drinkwater kept the deck, his mind numbed with weariness, yet continually aware of every influence upon the movement of his ship. At moments of greatest peril he was the first to be aware of a sudden set towards a berg, the swirl of undertow suggesting the submerged presence of a growler or the catspaw of a squall from the turbulent lee of a large ice hummock. And it was Drinkwater who first suspected there might be something wrong with the rudder. It was nothing serious, a suspicious creaking when he listened from the privacy of the quarter-gallery latrine, a certain sluggishness as Melusine came to starboard. In fact it was at first only a suspicion, a figment, he thought, of an over-anxious mind. In the face of more pressing problems he tended to dismiss it. When he came below at the end of his three-day vigil as they drifted into the 'open' water and the wind, perversely, fell to a dead calm, he flung himself across his cot in grateful oblivion.

  But when he woke, with Melusine rolling gently on a long, low swell, he heard again the creak from the rudder stock below.

  Wearily he came on deck to find Hill on watch.

  'What time is it, Mr Hill?'

  'Six bells in the afternoon watch, sir.'

  'I have slept the clock round… tell me, do the quartermasters complain of the steering?'

  'No, sir.' Drinkwater looked at the two men at the wheel.

  'How does she steer?'

  'She seems to drag a little, sir, a coming to 'midships.'

  'When you've had helm which way?'

  'Larboard, I think, sir.'

  'Why didn't you report it?'

  The man shrugged. 'Only noticed it today, sir, while we've bin tryin' to catch this fluky wind, sir.'

  'Very well.' He turned to Hill. 'I'm mystified, Mr Hill, but we'll keep an eye on it. Damned if I don't think there's something amiss, but what, I'm at a loss to know.'

  'Aye, aye, sir, I'll take a look in the steerage if you wish.' Drinkwater nodded and Hill slipped below to return a few minutes later shaking his head.

  'Nothing wrong, sir. Not that I can see.'

  'Very well.'

  'That whale hit the rudder, sir, and we've had a fair number of these damned ice floes…'

  'Deck there!' They both looked aloft. 'Deck there! Think I can see gun-fire three points to starboard!'

  The two officers looked at each other, then Drinkwater shouted, 'silence there!' They stood listening. A faint boom came rolling over the limpid water. 'That's gun-fire, by God!' Drinkwater ran forward and swung himself up into the main rigging. As he climbed he stared about him, trying to locate the whalers, aware that they had become widely dispersed in their struggle through the ice. He could see Diana, about five miles away to the eastward and ahead of them eight, perhaps ten miles distant was Truelove. Yes, her barque rig could be plainly seen beneath the curved foot of the main topgallant. Earl Percy and Provident were also to the east. He struggled up into the crow's nest as Leek slid agilely down.

  'Where away?' gasped Drinkwater with the effort of his climb.

  'Four points now, sir. I think it's where I last saw Faithful, sir, lost her behind a berg.'

  'Very well.' He picked up the glass and stared to the south-west. He could see nothing. 'Leek!'

  'Sir?'

  'Away to Mr Hill, ask him to rig out the booms and set stun's'ls aloft and alow.'

  'Stun's'ls aloft 'n' alow, aye, sir.' He watched Leek reach out like a monkey, over one hundred feet above the deck, and casually grab a backstay. The man diminished in size as he descended and Drinkwater levelled his glass once more. He felt the mast tremble as the topmen mounted the shrouds, he heard the mates and midshipmen as they supervised the rigging of the booms and the leading of outhauls and downhauls, heel-ropes and sheets. And then, as his patience was running out, he felt Melusine heel as she increased her speed. Five minutes later he located the Faithful.

  She was fifteen or twenty miles away, perhaps more, for it was hard to judge. Her shape was vertically attenuated by refraction. She seemed to float slightly above the surface of the sea amid a city of the most fantastic minarets, a fairy-tale picture reminiscent of the Arabian Nights displaced to a polar latitude. But Drinkwater's interest was diverted from the extraordinary appearance of refracted icebergs by the unusual shape alongside the Faithful. At first he took it for a mirror image of the whaler. But then he saw the little points of yellow light between the ships. Sawyers was a Quaker and carried no guns. The second image was a hostile ship; an enemy engaging Faithful. Drinkwater swore; he was seven leagues away in light airs at the very moment Earl St Vincent had foreseen his presence would be required to protect the whalers.

  'An enemy sir?'

  'Yes, Mr Bourne, at a guess twenty miles distant and already with a prize crew on board the Faithful, damn it… Mr Hill, bear up, bear up! D'you not see the growler on the starboard bow…' Drinkwater broke off to cough painfully. His throat was rasped raw by the persistent demands made on him to shout orders, but he felt an overwhelming desire to press after the ship that had taken one of his charges from under his very nose.

  'I have a midshipman at the masthead and want a pair of young eyes kept on the enemy and prize until they're both under our lee. The midshipman that loses sight of them will marry the gunner's daughter!' He coughed again. 'Now double the watches, Mr Bourne, this may prove a long chase.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.' Bourne hesitated, unwilling to provoke a captain whom he knew to be short-tempered if his orders were not attended to without delay. 'Beg pardon, sir, but what about the other ships?'

  'I have made them a signal to the effect that I am chasing an enemy to the south-west. My orders to them oblige them to close together. Let us hope they do what they are told, Mr Bourne.'

  Bourne took the hint, touched the fore-cock of his hat and hurried off. Drinkwater swallowed with difficulty, swore, and set himself to pace the quarterdeck, leaving the business of working the ship through the ice to Hill until he was relieved by Bourne himself at eight bells. He was beyond shouting orders, feeling a mild fever coming on and worrying over the loss of the Faithful and the ominous creaking that came from the rudder. But Melusine handled well enough and after another hour Tregembo appeared to announce Drinkwater's dinner, served late, as had become his custom in high latitudes to try and differentiate between day and night in the perpetual light.

  It was while he was eating that Mr Frey came below to report they had lost the wind and the enemy.

  'What…?' His voice whispered and he tried to clear his throat. 'Upon what point of sailing was the enemy and prize when last seen, Mr Frey?'

  'Both ships were close hauled on the starboard tack, sir. They had a fair breeze before the fog closed in.'

  'And their heading?'

  'South-west, sir.'

  'Very well. Tell Mr Bourne to strike the stun's'ls, and reduce to all plain sail. Double the forward lookouts and make a good course towards the south-west. A man to go to the mainmast head every hour to see if the enemy masts are above the fog. Kindly call me in two hours time.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.' Frey hesitated in the doorway.

  'Well, what is it?'

  'If you please, sir, Mr Bourne said I was to ask you if you wanted Mr Singleton to attend you?'

  'Damn Mr Bourne's impertinence, Mr Frey, you've your orders to attend to…' The boy fled and, rolling himself in his cloak, Drinkwater flung himself across his cot shivering.

  Two hours later Mr Frey called him. Staggering to his feet, his head spinning, Drinkwater ascended to the quarterdeck. Although the thermometer registered some 36° Fahrenheit it seemed colder. Every rope and spar dripped with moisture and the decks were dark with it. Mr Bourne touched his hat and vacated his side of the quarterdeck. It could not by any stretch of the imagination be described as the 'windward side' for Melusine lay w
allowing in a calm. Almost alongside her a ridge of ice, hummocked and cracked with apparent age gleamed wetly in the greyness. It was not daylight, neither was it night. The ship might have been the only living thing in an eternity of primordial mist, an atmosphere at once eerie and oppressive through which each creak of the ship's fabric, each slat of idle canvas or groan of parrel as she rolled in the low swell, seemed invested with a more than ordinary significance. The grinding creak from the rudder stock seemed deafening now. Drinkwater was too sick to attribute this heightened perception to his fever, and too unsteady on his legs to begin to pace the deck. Instead he jammed himself against the rail close to the mizen rigging and beckoned Bourne over.

  'Sir?'

  'Mr Bourne, my apologies. I was short with Frey when he offered the services of the doctor.'

  ''Tis no matter, sir, but I thought you looked unwell…'

  'Yes, yes, Mr Bourne, thank you for your kindness. I will see Singleton in due course. But I am more concerned with the rudder. Had you noticed the noise?'

  'Mr Hill drew it to my attention. The ship has long lost steerage way, sir. But I had no reason to doubt much was wrong, sir. She answered the helm well enough when last the wind blew.'

  Drinkwater nodded, then spoke with great difficulty. 'Yes, yes, but I fear the matter is a progressive disintegration of some sort. No matter, there is nothing to be done at the moment. You have no sign of those ships?'

  'None, sir.'

  'Very well. That is all, Mr Bourne.'

  Bourne turned away and Drinkwater hunched his shoulders into his cloak. His right shoulder ached with the onset of the damp weather, his throat was sore and his toothache seemed to batter his whole skull.

  The fog lasted for four days and was followed by a southwesterly gale during which the visibility never lifted above a half a mile. The air was filled with particles of frozen rain so that Drinkwater was obliged to secure the Melusine to a large ice floe. At the height of the gale he submitted to the ministrations of Mr Singleton and suffered a brief agony which ended his toothache by the extraction of a rotten molar. But the removal of the tooth also signalled the end of his quinsy. On the advice of Singleton he kept to his cabin and his cot while the Melusine was alongside the ice. There was, in any case, little he could do on deck and, as Singleton pointed out, his recovery would be the quicker and he would be fitter to attend his duties, the instant the gale abated and the visibility lifted.

  He did not protest. His general debility was, he realised himself, his own fault. In circumstances of such peril as Melusine had so often been, it was physically impossible to keep the deck permanently. His confidence in his lieutenants had not initially been high and he had found it very difficult to go below in circumstances of broad daylight. However, the days of working the ship through the ice had improved the proficiency of Bourne and Gorton. Even Rispin showed more firmness and self-confidence, while Hill and the other warrant officers appeared to carry out their duties efficiently. In addition to the worry and sense of failure at the capture of Faithful, his shoulder plagued him, reducing his morale and subjecting him to fits of the 'blue devils' while the fever lasted. All the while the rudder ground remorselessly below him, like a long-fused petard waiting to explode. Despite its comparative idleness while they were secured to the floe, it continued to grind and groan as Melusine ranged and bumped the ice, rolling and sawing at her moorings as the gale moaned in the rigging. Meanwhile the watch stumbled about the deck, wound in furs, greygoes, even blankets, to combat the stinging particles in the air.

  Ten days after the onset of the fog there came a change in the weather that was as abrupt as it was unexpected and delightful. A sense of renewed hope coincided with this change, sending Drinkwater on deck a fit man, all traces of quinsy and fever gone. He was burning to resume the pursuit of the unknown enemy ship that had taken the Faithful from under his nose. The situation of the Melusine had been transformed. The sun shone through a fine veil of cloud producing a prismatic halo upon the horizontal diameter of which appeared two parhelia, faint false suns, the results of atmospheric refraction. This phenomena was exciting some comment from the watch on deck and had so far absorbed Mr Rispin's interest that he had neglected to inform Drinkwater of the dramatic change in the weather. It was bitterly cold. On every rope and along the furled sails the moisture had frozen into tiny crystals which were glinting in the sunshine. Drinkwater sniffed the air and felt its chill tingle the membranes of his nasal passages. The resultant sneeze recalled Rispin belatedly to his duty.

  'Oh, good morning, sir. As you see, sir, the wind has dropped and the visibility is lifting…'

  'Yes, yes, Mr Rispin, I can see that for myself…' Drinkwater replied testily. The appearance of the twin sun dogs alarmed him, not on any superstitious account, but because he recollected something Harvey had said about their appearance indicating a change of weather. That much was obvious, but there had been something said about wind. He looked at the weft on the windward dog-vane, It hung down motionless. Casting his eyes aloft he saw that the masthead pendant was already lifting to a light air from the north. He also saw the crow's nest was empty.

  'Mr Rispin!'

  'Sir?'

  'Direct a midshipman aloft upon the instant to look out for any sails, then have the topsails hard reefed and loosed in their bunt-lines, the foretopmast stays'l and spanker ready for setting and the longboat hoisted out and manned ready to pull the ship's head off.'

  Rispin's mouth opened, then closed as his eyes filled with comprehension. He might be slow on the uptake, thought Drinkwater as he forced himself to a patience he was far from feeling, but Mr Rispin certainly made up for what he lacked in intelligence by a veritable out-pouring:

  'Mr Glencross, aloft at once with a glass and cast about for sails. Bosun's mate! Pipe the watch aloft to loose topsails, topmen to remain at the yard arms and the bunts and await the order "let fall". Corporal of marines! Turn up the marines and send 'em aft to man the yard tackles. Master at Arms! Turn up the idlers below to man the stay tackles. Look lively there!' Rispin turned frantically, waving the speaking trumpet. 'Mr Walmsley! Have the afterguard cast loose the stops on the spanker. Fo'c's'le there! Cast loose the fore topmast stays'l!' Rispin's brow wrinkled in thought as he mentally ticked off the tasks Drinkwater had set him.

  Already the dog-vanes pointed north and the wefts were lifting. Drinkwater watched a catspaw of wind ripple the surface of the clear water to starboard. A low raft of ice a cable to windward seemed to be perceptibly nearer.

  'You may cut the moorings, Mr Rispin!'

  'Cut the moorings, aye, aye, sir.' Rispin's relief was noticeable. He had clearly forgotten the necessity of putting a party onto the ice and the difficult business of recovering them by boat once the ship had got clear.

  Hill and Bourne had come on deck, alarmed by the bellowing at the hatchways. Drinkwater nodded to them. 'We are about to get a blow from the north, gentlemen, I want the ship off this ice floe before we are trapped. The boat is about to be launched to pull her head off.'

  Both Hill and Bourne acknowledged the immediacy of Drinkwater's alarm. There was already a perceptible breeze from the north, icy and dry after the southwesterly gale. 'Turn up the watch below, Mr Bourne!'

  The longboat was already swaying up from the waist, the marines stamping aft as they leant their weight to the yard tackles that hoisted the boat out over the side. Mr Quilhampton was standing on the rail in charge of the launching party.

  'Walk back all!' The boat descended below the rail as the last of her crew tumbled in. A second or two later she hit the water. 'Cone up all!' Marines and idlers relaxed as the tackles went slack and on the fo'c's'le Walmsley's party, having prepared the staysail, made a line ready for the boat. A carpenter's party was hacking through the moorings and in the tops Frey, Wickham and Dutfield held up their hands to indicate the topsails were ready.

  A glance at the dog-vanes showed the wefts horizontal. It was not a moment too soon. There wer
e pronounced white caps on the water to windward and Melusine was rubbing against the ice with some violence.

  Drinkwater could feel the sensation of physical discomfort churning the pit of his stomach as his body adjusted to the state of acute worry. Ten minutes neglect by Rispin and they might remain pinned on the floe. He thought of setting sail in an attempt to spin the floe, but he had only the vaguest idea of its size. He was grasping at straws. Officers were reporting his preparations complete and he ordered the yards braced sharp up on the larboard catharpings. The boat was attempting to pull Melusine's head round towards the wind and, although the bow came some six feet off the ice they seemed to be unable to increase that distance. Forward a resourceful Mr Gorton was getting out a spare topgallant yard and lashing it to prevent losing what the longboat had gained. Meanwhile Mr Quilhampton was urging his boat's crew to further efforts, but Melusine seemed unwilling to move. On the last occasion this had occurred they had bounced off the remains of Narwhal. This time they did not have such help.

  'Mr Bourne!' The lieutenant's face turned anxiously towards him.

  'Sir?'

  'Man the larboard guns, two divisions to fire unshotted cartridges alternately. The breechings to be set up tight. We'll use the recoil to throw the ship off.'

  'Aye, aye, sir! Larbowlines! Larboard battery make ready…!'

  It took several minutes, much longer than if the men had been at their stations for action. But there was no-one on deck, except perhaps Meetuck, who was not seaman enough to appreciate the nature of their situation. Hill was dragging a pudding fender aft to heave over the larboard quarter.

  'Well done, Mr Hill…'

  Drinkwater watched the dog-vanes, his stomach churning. He felt his isolation from the comforting expertise of the whale-ship masters acutely. It prompted him to hail the mainmasthead.