In Distant Waters nd-8

by Richard Woodman

  Behind him came the dull thud of the 6-pounder, echoing back after a delay to mix its repetition with the sound of the next signal-gun so that the air seemed to reverberate with the concussion of hundreds of guns as the echoes chased one another into the distance in prolonged diminuendo.

  No answering salute came from the fo'c's'le of the Patrician, no answering dip of her diagonally crossed ensign. He stood up, showing off the Spanish uniform with its plethora of lace, and holding out the bundle of papers that purported to be despatches.

  He noted a flurry of activity at the entry with a sigh of mixed relief and satisfaction.

  'How far is the schooner, Potter?' he asked the man pulling stroke-oar.

  'She's just tacked, sir,' replied Potter, staring astern past Drinkwater, 'an' coming up nicely… they're tricing up the foot of the fores'l now, sir and the outer jib's just a-shivering… 'bout long pistol shot an' closing, sir.'

  'Very well.' Drinkwater could smell the rum on the man's breath as he made his oar bite the water. Off to starboard an unconcerned tern hovered briefly, then plunged into the water and emerged a second later with a glistening fish in its dagger-like beak.

  'We're closing fast, lads, be ready…' He paused, judged his moment and, in a low voice, ordered the oars tossed and stowed. Beside him Tregembo put the tiller over. Amid a clatter of oars coming inboard the bowman stood up and hooked onto Patrician's chains.

  Drinkwater looked up. A face stared down at him and then he began to climb, not daring to look around and ascertain the whereabouts of Quilhampton and the schooner. At the last moment he remembered to speak bastard-French, considering that it was not unreasonable for a Spanish officer to use that language when addressing a French-speaking ally. The fact that he spoke it barbarously was some comfort.

  Stepping onto the deck he swept off his hat and bowed.

  'Bonjour, Senores,' he managed, looking up with relief into the face of an officer he had never seen before, 'ou est votre capitaine, 's'il vous plait?'

  'Tiens! C'est le capitaine anglais!'

  Drinkwater jerked round. To his left stood one of the midshipmen he had last seen in Don José's Residence at San Francisco. Hands flew to swords and he knew that his ruse had failed utterly. He flung the paper bundle at the young man's face and drew the cavalry sabre before either of the Russian officers had reacted fully. Letting out a bull-roar of alarm he swiped the heavy, curved blade upwards in a vicious cut that sent the senior officer, a lieutenant by his epaulettes, reeling backwards, his hands to his face, his dropped sword clattering on the deck.

  'Come on, you bastards!' Drinkwater bellowed into the split second's hiatus his quick reaction had brought him. 'Board!'

  Would they come, those disloyal quondam deserters, or would they leave him to die like a dog, hacked down by the ring of steel that was forming about him? What would Quilhampton do? Carry out the plan of getting foul of the Patrician's stern in a histrionic display of incompetence which was to have cut Drinkwater's inept French explanation and turned it into a farce of invective levelled by him at Quilhampton, under whose cover the Virgen de la Bonanza was to have been run alongside the frigate. During this ludicrous performance his men were supposed to have come aboard…

  Armed seamen with pikes from the arms' racks around the masts and marines with bayonets, men with spikes and rammers and gun-worms were closing, keeping their distance until they might all rush in and kill him.

  'Board, you bastards!' he shouted again, his voice cracking with tension, his eyes moving from one to another of his enemies, seeking which was the natural leader, whose muscles would first tense for the kill and bring down Nemesis upon his reckless head…

  It seemed he waited an age and then a shuffling of the midshipman's feet told him what he wanted to know. He thrust left, pronating his wrist and driving his arm forward so that the mangled muscles cracked with the speed of his lunge. The pointe of his sabre struck the young man on the breast-bone, cracked it and sent him backwards, gasping for breath in an agony of surprise. As he half-turned he sensed reaction to his right, a movement forward to threaten his unprotected back. He cut savagely, reversing the swing of his body, the heavy weapon singing through the air and cutting with a sickening crunch into the upper arm of a bold seaman whose cannon-worm dropped from nerveless hands and who let out a howl of pain and surprise. And then he lost the initiative and was fighting a dozen assailants for his very life.

  'Frey, I think you are an infatuated fool. That must be the twentieth portrait of La Belladonna you have done,' quipped Wickham, looking down at the watercolour, 'and they do not improve. Besides they are a waste of the dip…' He reached out with dampened fingers to pinch out the miserable flame that lit the thick air of the cold gunroom and received a sharp tap on the knuckles from Frey's brush.

  'Go to the devil, Wickham! I purchased that dip out of my own funds…'

  Wickham sat and put his head in his hands, staring across the grubby table at Frey. 'What d'you suppose they intend to do with us?'

  'I don't know,' replied Frey without looking up, 'that's why I paint, so that I do not have to think about such things…' He put the brush in the pot of water and stared down at the face of Doña Ana Maria. Then, in a sudden savage movement, his hand screwed up the piece of paper and crumpled it up.

  Wickham sat back with a start. 'Shame! It wasn't that bad!'

  'No, perhaps not, but…'

  'Was she really handsome?'

  'Quite the most beautiful woman I have ever seen,' Frey waxed suddenly lyrical.

  'How many women have you seen, Frey? You've been aboard here since…'

  'What was that?' asked Frey sharply, sitting upright.

  'One of the men cursing those bastard Russians for being too free with their knouts, I expect,' said Wickham in a bored tone.

  'No! Listen!'

  It came again, an agonised bellow of command and there was something vaguely familiar about the voice. Frey's eyes opened wide.

  'It can't be…'

  'Can't be what… ?'

  The shout came again and then there were the screams and bellows of a fight somewhere above them. Both midshipmen stood. Their sentry, a slovenly Russian marine, stirred uneasily, hefting his neglected musket, his thumb poised on its hammer.

  There was a sudden buzz throughout the ship as other men, confined in irons or about their imposed duties realised something momentous was happening on deck. For too many days now they had rotted in a regime of inactivity, required only occasionally to turn out and pump the bilges, or tend the cable. For the most part they had languished in almost total darkness, separated from their officers, uncertain of their future, toying with rumours that, when the Suvorov returned, many of them would be drafted into her, or into other Russian ships or settlements. For Prince Rakitin such a draft of healthy labour seemed like a blessing from heaven, sufficient to restore the fortunes of the Russian-American Company after the loss of Rezanov.

  Frey stood cautiously, not wishing to alarm the sentry. He had learned enough about their gaolers to realise that the man would display no initiative, did not dare to, and would remain at his post until someone came down and relieved or shot him.

  'What the devil is going on?' Frey asked in an agony of uncertainty.

  'Damned if I know…'

  Then there was an outburst of the most horrible noise, a howling ululation that reminded the two youths of stories of Iroquois massacres they had heard old men tell from the Seven Years War. It was much closer than the upper deck, and provoking responses even nearer as the captive British seamen joined in with whoops and shouts of their own. The two midshipmen could hear shouts of joyful recognition, the clank of chains and the thud-thud of axes, the sharp clink as they struck iron links, more shouts and then, to compound the confusion, Patrician lurched as something large and heavy struck her.

  'Come on, Wickham!' Frey's hand scooped the water-pot from the table and hurled it in the face of their sentry. Momentarily blind the man sque
ezed the trigger of his musket and the confined space reverberated with the crack of the shot. The ball buried itself in the deck-head and the Russian stabbed out with his bayonet but the thing was unwieldy in the small space, and the two midshipmen dodged nimbly past him.

  Out on the gun-deck the scene was like a painting of the Last Judgement. Russians lay dead or writhing in agony, like the damned on their way to hell-fire. A handful of piratical British seamen led by Captain Drinkwater's coxswain Tregembo were turning up the hatchways like avenging angels and out of the hold poured a starveling rabble of pale and ragged bodies, corpses new-released from their tombs, some dragging irons, some half-free of them so that they held the loose links and went howling after their captors, swinging the deadly knuckle-dusters in a whirlwind of vengeful pursuit.

  Tregembo, by all that's holy!' Frey stood for an instant, taking in the scene, then ran to a still-writhing Russian, tore the cutlass from his dying grasp and hurried on deck.

  Lieutenant Quilhampton lost his cheerfulness the instant Captain Drinkwater left in the schooner's boat. All his attention had to be paid to split-second timing, to bring the Virgen de la Bonanza up under Patrician's stern, to fail in an attempt to tack and fall alongside the frigate in a display of Hispanic incompetence that, if he was a yard or two short, would condemn Captain Drinkwater to an untimely death.

  His throat was dry and his heart thudded painfully as he sought to concentrate, gauging the relative angle of approach, his speed, and the set of a tide that was already flooding in through the narrows behind him.

  'A point to larboard, if you please,' he forced himself to say, feigning complete mastery of himself and seeing Drinkwater ascend the Patrician's side by the man-ropes.

  What would happen if Quilhampton failed and Drinkwater died? For himself he knew that he could never return and press his suit for the hand of Catriona MacEwan. Somehow such a course of action would be altogether dishonourable, knowing that he had failed the one man who had ever shown him kindness. And what of Drinkwater? Quilhampton knew of his distant devotion to his family, for all the estrangement imposed by the naval service, and this particular commission. Did Drinkwater expect him to fail? Would Drinkwater rather die in this remote and staggeringly beautiful corner of the world, attempting to recapture his own ship, rather than live with the knowledge of having lost her? If so the responsibility he bore was even heavier, the bonds of true friendship imposing a greater burden than he felt he had skill to meet.

  And then he felt the tide, flooding in with increasing strength. Patrician was already lying head to it, his own course crabbed across; another point to larboard perhaps…

  'Larboard a point.'

  'Larboard a point more, sir.' There was warning in the helmsman's voice. Quilhampton looked up; the luff of the mainsail was just lifting.

  'She's a-shiver, sir,' Marsden said from amidships.

  Quilhampton did not answer, he was watching the schooner's bowsprit, watching it cross the empty sky until…

  'Down helm!'

  The Virgen de la Bonanza turned slowly into the wind.

  'Midships!'

  He stole a quick look along the deck. Apart from the half-a-dozen men at the sheets, the remainder, armed to the teeth, lay in the shadow of the starboard rail or crouched under the carelessly thrown down tarpaulin amidships.

  The Virgen de la Bonanza lost way. The quarter of the Patrician loomed over them. They could see marks of neglect about the frigate, odds and ends of rope, scuffed paintwork…

  A terrible bellow of range came from the deck above. With mounting anxiety Quilhampton suddenly knew he had now to concentrate more than ever before. Such a howl had not been planned, something was wrong, very wrong. He could abandon all pretence.

  'Up helm! Shift the heads'l sheets!'

  He checked the swing. 'Steady there, lads, not yet, not yet…'

  The schooner began to swing backwards. He looked over the side. The boat, bobbing under the main chains of the Patrician, was already empty. He saw the last pair of heels disappear in through an open gun-port with relief. Drinkwater had at least the support of Tregembo and his boat's crew. A moment later the boat was crushed between the schooner and the frigate as the two hulls jarred together.

  'Now!'

  There was an ear-splitting roar from amidships. The big carronade, trained forward at maximum elevation and stuffed with langridge, ripped through the rigging of the forechains and, in the wake of that iron storm, Quilhampton loosed his boarders.

  Drinkwater parried the first wave of the attack. There was a curious life in the cavalry sabre; centrifugal force kept it swinging in a wide and dangerous swathe though it tore mercilessly at the wrecked muscles of his wounded right shoulder. How long he could keep such a defence going he did not know, but he knew that he would have been a dead man already had he been armed only with his old hanger. He had fired two of the three pistols he had carried and foolishly thrown them down, intending to draw the third, but he could not free it from his belt, and it ground into his belly as he twisted and dodged his assailants.

  He did not escape unscathed. He was cut twice about the face and received a deep wound upon his extended forearm. A ball galled his left shoulder and a pike thrust from the rear took him ignominiously in the fleshy part of the right buttock. He began to feel his strength ebb, aware that one last rally from his opponents would result in his death-wound, for he could fight no more.

  His vision was blurring, though his mind retained that coolness that had saved him before and fought off the weakness of his reactions for as long as possible. A man loomed in front of him, he swung the sabre… and missed. Tensing his exposed stomach he waited for the searing pain of the pike thrust.

  'Fuck me! It's the Cap'n!'

  The pike-head whistled past his face as the wielder put it up. Suddenly all opposition melted away, there were friendly faces round him, men he had known once, long ago, long ago when he had commanded the Patrician…

  But it was not Valhalla he woke to, nor had it been the faces of the dead he had seen. Some intelligence beyond mere consciousness had allowed him to faint at last, recognising his part in the fight need no longer be sustained. His men had followed him, wiping out the stain of their desertion.

  Somewhere far above him voices were discussing him. Impertinent voices that spoke as though he was nothing more than a blood-horse whose health was uncertain.

  'Will he pull through, Mr Lallo?'

  'Of course, Mr Q, 'tis only a drop of blood he's lost. He'll save me the trouble of prescribing a remedy. There's nothing serious, though that cut in his glutens maximus will embarrass him…'

  'His what?'

  'Arse, Mr Q. He'll not sit for a week without it reminding him of its presence.'

  Quilhampton laughed. 'I'll go and see about some food…'

  'Go and find him a bottle of port. Nothing reconstitutes the blood better than a fortified wine.'

  'There's some excellent oloroso aboard the Virgen…'

  'What a damnably blasphemous name… go and get some then…'

  'You're a pair of impertinent dogs,' Drinkwater muttered, fully conscious.

  'There, Mr Q, I told you recovery would be complete… welcome aboard, sir.'

  'Thank you, Mr Lallo, how many men do we muster?'

  Chapter Twenty

  Dos de Mayo

  August 1808

  'I believe they call you "Captain Mack",' Drinkwater said. His wounded buttock still troubled him and he preferred to stand, his back to the stern-windows, a grim imperturbable silhouette regarding his prisoner. Mack's eyes were defiant, truculent. He nodded, but held his tongue.

  'I understood you did your hunting further south, amid the barrens of California.'

  'They ain't barrens,' said Mack shortly, with a half-smile that was at once menacing and secretive.

  'Perhaps not,' replied Drinkwater dismissively; he had learned the term in the American War and its precise meaning was unimportant now.

&nbs
p; 'You are a citizen of the United States of America, are you not?'

  'I suppose I am…'

  'You suppose?'

  'In so far as I'm under any man's jurisdiction. I reckon to be born free, Mister, I respect it in others, I expect it from them.'

  'Meaning you could have shot to kill me when we disturbed you at your office?'

  'Sure. I can hit a running moose…'

  'You didn't respect the freedom of my men, you turned them over to the Russians.'

  'Hell, Cap'n, that's bullshit. You didn't respect their freedom either, an' that's supposing they was free in the first place, instead of run from this here ship.'

  Drinkwater smiled. 'But you didn't turn 'em over to the Russkies for love of Old England…'

  'Sure as hell I didn't.'

  Then why?'

  'They was trespassin', Cap'n.'

  'So were you, on Spanish territory. Did you sell 'em?'

  'What the hell would I want with roubles, Cap'n?' the mountain-man answered contemptuously.

  'I presume you require powder and shot,' Drinkwater replied coolly, 'and gold is always gold…'

  A spark of something flared in the mountain-man's eyes, hostility, malice perhaps, Drinkwater could not be sure beyond knowing he had touched a nerve.

  'You are a solitary, Captain Mack. A man apart. I do not pretend to understand your motives and my men would have you hang for your treachery.'

  'I promised them nothing!'

  'Maybe not. Would you have me hand you over to the Spanish authorities at San Francisco… ?'

  Patrician lifted to the swell and leaned gently over to the increasing breeze as, on deck, Lieutenant Fraser crowded on sail. Drinkwater smiled with grim satisfaction, for a wave of nausea passed visibly over Mack's features.