The Corvette

by Richard Woodman

  The stink of powder smoke, the noise and the confusion and above all the unbelievably hot sun combined with the sharp pain in his flank to exhaust Drinkwater. It crossed his mind to strike, if only to end the killing of his men and the intolerable noise.

  Something of this must have been evident in his face, for Hill was looking at him.

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’ Hill shouted.

  Drinkwater nodded grimly.

  ‘Here sir . . .’ Hill held out a flask and Drinkwater lifted it to his lips. The fiery rum stirred him as it hit the pit of his stomach.

  ‘Obliged to you, Mr Hill . . .’ He looked up at the spanker. It was too full of holes to be very effective, but an idea occurred to him.

  ‘Chapel that spanker, Mr Hill, haul it up against the wind. Let us swing the stern round and try and put Nimrod between us and that bloody bastard to windward!’

  A shower of splinters were struck from the adjacent rail and Drinkwater and Hill staggered from the wind of the passing ball, gasping for breath. But Hill recovered and bawled at the afterguard. Drinkwater turned. He must buy time to think. He saw Mount’s scarlet coat approaching after posting his sentries over the prisoners aboard Nimrod.

  ‘Mr Mount!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Mr Mount, muster your men aft here . . .’

  The katabatic squall hit them with sudden violence, screaming down from the heights to the south of them, streaking the water with spray and curling the seas into sharp, vicious waves in the time it takes to draw breath. The air at sea level in the fiord had been warmed for hours by the unclouded sun. Rising in an increasing mass, this air was replaced by cold air sliding down from its contact with the ice and snow of the mountain tops to spread out over the water as a squall, catching the ships unprepared.

  Melusine’s fore topgallant mast, already weighed down by the wreckage of the main topmast and its spars, carried away and crashed to leeward. But the chapelled spanker, hauled to windward by Hill’s men, spun the sloop and her prize, while Nimrod’s sails filled and tended to drive both ships forward so that their range increased from their tormentor.

  But it was a momentary advantage for, hove to, the Requin increased her leeway until the strain on her own tophamper proved too much. Already damaged by Melusine’s gunfire, her wounded foremast went by the board. Dragged head to wind and with her backed main yards now assisting her leeward drift, Requin presented her stern to Drinkwater and he was not slow to appreciate his change of fortune. A quick glance at Nimrod’s sails and he saw immediately that he might swiftly reverse their turning moment and bring Melusine’s battered larboard broadside to bear on that exposed stern.

  ‘Belay that Hill!’ He indicated the spanker. ‘Brail up the spanker! Forrard there! Mr Comely! Foretopmast staysail sheets to windward . . .’ His voice cracked with shouting but he hailed Nimrod.

  ‘Nimrod! Nimrod ’hoy! Back your main and mizen tops’ls, Mr Walmsley, those whalemen that help you to be pardoned . . .’ It was a crazy, desperate idea and relied for its success on a swifter reaction than the Requin’s captain could command. Drinkwater waited in anxious impatience, his temper becoming worse by the second. He raised his glass several times and studied the Requin, each time expecting to see something different but all he could distinguish with certainty was that the big privateer was drifting down on them. And then Melusine and her prize began to turn again, swinging slowly round, rolling and grinding together as the continuing wind built up the sea.

  The katabatic squall had steadied to a near gale and swept the smoke away. The sun still shone from a cloudless sky although its setting could not be far distant. The altered attitude of the ships had silenced their gunfire and the air was filled now with the scream of wind in rigging and the groaning of the locked ships.

  Drinkwater shook his head to clear it of the persistent ringing that the recent concussion of the guns had induced and raised his speaking trumpet again.

  ‘Larboard guns! Gun captains to lay their pieces at the centre window of the enemy’s stern. Load canister on ball. Fire on the command and then independently!’

  He saw Quilhampton in the waist acknowledge and wondered what had become of Gorton. He raised his glass, aware that Mount was still beside him awaiting the instructions he was in the process of giving when the squall hit them.

  ‘Any orders, sir?’ Mount prompted.

  Drinkwater did not hear him. He was watching Melusine’s swing and waiting for the raised arms that told him his cannon were ready. The last gun captain raised his hand. He waited a little longer. A quick glance along the gun breeches showed them at level elevation. They traversed with infinite slowness as Nimrod and Melusine cart-wheeled . . . Now, by God!

  ‘Fire!’

  Noise, smoke and fire spewed from the ten six-pounders as sixty pounds of iron and ten pounds of small ball hit Requin’s stern. Drinkwater was engulfed in the huge cloud of smoke which was as quickly rent aside by the wind. Then the six-pounders began independent fire, each captain laying his gun with care. Requin’s stern began to cave in, beaten into a gaping wound, her carved gingerbread-work exploding in splinters.

  ‘Sir! Sir!’ Mr Frey was dancing up and down beside him.

  ‘What the devil is it, Mr Frey?’ Drinkwater suddenly felt anxious for the boy whose presence on the quarterdeck he had quite forgotten.

  ‘She strikes, sir! She strikes!’

  Drinkwater elevated his glance. The tricolour was descending from the gaff in hasty jerks.

  ‘Upon my soul, Mr Frey, you’re right!’

  ‘Any orders, sir,’ repeated the hopeful Mount.

  ‘Indeed, Mr Mount. You and Frey take possession!’

  Drinkwater jerked himself awake with a start. The short Arctic night was already over. His wound, pronounced superficial by an exhausted Singleton, throbbed painfully and his whole body ached in the chill of dawn. He rose and stared through the stern windows. Melusine and her assorted prizes lay at anchor in Nagtoralik Bay. The battered British sloop to seaward, a spring on her cable, covering any signs of trouble in the other ships. He had prize crews aboard the lugger Aurore, the Requin and the Nimrod, although the Nimrod had assumed the character of consort, having towed the helpless Melusine into the anchorage.

  They had been met by boats from the whalers Conqueror and Faithful as the last of the daylight faded from the sky and the wounded ships had come to their anchors. It was clear from the expression of Captain Waller of the Conqueror that he had put an entirely different interpretation on the sight of Melusine towing in astern of Nimrod than was the case. His false effusions of congratulation had been cut short by Drinkwater arresting him and having him placed in the bilboes.

  ‘Thou hast done right, Friend,’ said Sawyers, holding out his hand. But Drinkwater gently dismissed the Quaker, pleading tiredness and military expediency for his bad manners. There would be time enough for explanations later, for the while it was enough that Faithful was recaptured and Requin a prize.

  Drinkwater turned from the stern windows and slumped back in his chair. The low candle-flame in the lantern fell upon the muster book. In the two actions with the Requin he had lost a third of his ship’s company. They were terrible losses and he mourned Lieutenant Bourne who had died of head wounds shortly after the Requin surrendered.

  Hardly a man had not collected a scratch or a splinter wound. Little Frey had received a sword cut on his forearm which he had bravely bandaged until Singleton spotted the filthy linen and ordered the boy below. Tregembo had been knocked senseless and of the quarterdeck officers only Mount and Hill were unscathed.

  He blew the sand off the muster book and closed it. Amid all the tasks that awaited him this morning he must bury the dead. His eyelids dropped. On deck Mr Quilhampton paced up and down, the watch ready at the guns. Mount was aboard Requin with a strong detachment of marines; Lord Walmsley commanded Nimrod and the Honourable Alexander Glencross the Conqueror.

  He could allow himself an hour’s sleep. He
was aware that providence had chastened him but that luck had saved him. His head fell forward onto his breast and his ears ceased to ring from the concussion of guns.

  ‘Will you receive the deputation now, sir?’ Drinkwater nodded at Mr Frey’s figure standing in the cabin doorway. It was frightening how fast the maturing process could work. Frey stood aside and half a dozen whale-men came awkwardly into the cabin under the escort of Mount’s sergeant and two private marines.

  ‘Well,’ said Drinkwater coldly, ‘who is to speak for you?’

  A man was pushed forward and turned a greasy sealskin hat nervously in his hands. Addressing the deck he began to speak, prompted by shame faced shipmates.

  ‘B . . . beg pardon, yer honour . . .’

  ‘What is your name?’

  The man looked about him, as if afraid to confess to an identity that separated him from the anonymous group of whale-men.

  ‘Give an answer to the captain!’ Frey snapped with a sudden, surprising venom.

  ‘J . . . Jack Love, sir, beggin’ yer pardon. Carpenter of the Nimrod, sir . . .’

  ‘Go on, Love. Tell me what you have to say.’

  ‘Well sir, we went along of Cap’n Ellerby, sir . . .’

  ‘An’ of Cap’n Waller, sir . . .’ another piped up to a shuffling chorus of agreement.

  ‘Pray go on.’

  ‘Well sir, there was a fair profit to be made, sir, during the peace like . . .’ He trailed off, implying that trade with the French under those circumstances was not illegal.

  ‘In what did you trade, Love? Be so good as to tell me.’

  ‘We brought out necessaries, sir . . . comestibles and took home furs . . .’

  ‘Furs?’

  ‘Aye, sir,’ an impatient voice said and a small man shoved forward. ‘Furs, sir, furs for the Frog army what Ellerby could sell at a profit . . .’

  Drinkwater digested the news and a thought occurred to him.

  ‘Do you know anything about two Hull whale ships that went missing last winter?’ He looked round the half-circle of faces. Love’s hand rubbed anxiously across his mouth and he shook his head, avoiding Drinkwater’s eyes.

  ‘We don’t want no traitorous doin’s, sir. We was coerced, like . . .’ He fell silent. The word had been rehearsed, fed him by some sea-lawyer and he was lying, although Drinkwater knew there was not a shred of evidence to prove it. They would have profited under Ellerby, war or peace, so long as no supercilious naval officer stuck his interfering nose into their business.

  Love seemed to have mustered his defences, prodded on by some murmuring behind him.

  ‘When we realised what Ellerby was doing, sir, we wasn’t ’aving none of it. We didn’t obey ’im sir . . .’ Drinkwater remembered Nimrod’s failure to take full advantage of her position during the action.

  ‘And Conqueror’s people. How are they circumstanced?’

  ‘We were coerced too, sir. Cap’n Waller threatened to withhold our proper pay unless we co-operated . . .’

  Drinkwater stared at them. He felt a mixture of contempt and pity. He could imagine them under the malign influence of Ellerby and he remembered the ice-cold fanaticism in his eyes. The men began to shuffle awkwardly under his silent scrutiny. They were victims of their own weakness and yet they had caused the death of his men by their treachery.

  ‘Would you wish to prove your loyalty to King and Country, then?’ he asked, rising to his feet, the picture of a patriotic naval officer. Their eagerness to please, to fall in with his suggestion, verged on the disgusting.

  ‘Very well. You will find work enough refitting the ships under the direction of my officers. You may go now. Return to your ships; but I warn you, the first man that fails to show absolute loyalty will swing.’ Their delight was manifest. It was the kind of thing they had hardly dared hope for. They nodded their thanks and shambled out.

  ‘You may discharge the guard, sergeant.’ Drinkwater addressed Mr Frey. ‘Do you go to the two whale ships, Mr Frey, and ransack the cabins of Captain Ellerby and Captain Waller. I want the press-exemptions of every man-jack of those whale-men.’

  Drinkwater regarded Waller with distaste. Without Ellerby he was pathetic and Drinkwater was conscious that, as a King’s officer, he represented the noose to Waller. Somehow hanging was too just an end for the man. He had tried a brief, unconvincing and abject attempt at blustered justification which Drinkwater had speedily ended.

  ‘It is useless to prevaricate, Captain Waller. Ellerby fired into a British man-o’-war wearing British colours and I am well aware, from information laid before me by men from Nimrod and Conqueror, that you and he were in traitorous intercourse with the enemy for the purposes of profit. That fact alone put you in breach of your oath not to engage in any other practice other than the pursuance of whale-fishing. What I wish to know, is to what precise purpose did you trade here and with whom?’

  Waller’s face had drained. Drinkwater slammed his fist on the cabin table. ‘And I want to know now!’

  Waller’s jaw hung slackly. He seemed incapable of speech. Drinkwater sighed and rose. ‘You may,’ he said casually, ‘consider the wisdom of turning King’s Evidence. I do have enough testimony against you to see you swing, Waller . . .’

  Drinkwater’s certainty was overwhelmingly persuasive. Waller swallowed.

  ‘If I turn King’s Evidence . . .’

  ‘Tell me the bloody truth, Waller, or by God I’ll see you at the main yardarm before another hour is out!’

  ‘It was Ellerby . . . he said it couldn’t fail. We did well out of it during the peace. There seemed no reason not to go on. When the war started again, I tried to stop it. Aye, I said it weren’t worth the risk like. But Ellerby said it were worth it. Happen I should have know’d better. Anyroad I went along wi’ it . . .’

  The dialect was thick now. Waller in the confessional was a man turned in upon himself, contemplating his weaknesses. Again Drinkwater felt that surge of pity for a fool caught up in the ambitions of a strong personality.

  ‘Went along with what?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Furs. French have this settlement. Just before Peace of Amiens Ellerby had run into a French privateersman, Jean Vrolicq. This Vrolicq offered us a handsome profit if we carried furs to England, like, and smuggled them across t’Channel. Easier, nay, safer than Vrolicq trying to run blockade. Furs for the French army taken to France in English smuggling boats . . .’

  ‘Furs?’ It was the second time Drinkwater queried the word, only this time he was more curious about the precise nature of the traffic and less preoccupied by the fate of the man before him.

  ‘Aye, Cap’n. Furs for French army. They have bearskins on every cavalry horse, fur on them hussars . . .’

  Drinkwater recollected the cartoons of the French army, the barefoot scarecrows motivated by Republican zeal . . . and yet he did not doubt Waller now.

  ‘We ran cargoes of fox, ermine, bear and hares . . . four hundred pounds clear profit on top o’ what the fish brought in . . .’

  ‘Very well, Captain Waller. You may put this in writing. I shall supply you with the necessaries.’

  Drinkwater called the sentry and Waller was taken out.

  It was a strange tale, yet, thinking back to his interviews with Earl St Vincent and Lord Dungarth he perceived the first strands of the mystery had been evident even then. That he had stumbled on the core of it was a mixture of good and bad luck that was compounded, for those who liked to think of such matters in a philosophical light, as the fortune of war.

  He poured a glass of wine and listened to the noise around him. Melusine’s jury rudder was being lifted and the blacksmith from Faithful was fashioning a yoke iron so that tiller lines might be fitted to its damaged head and so rigged for the passage home. Spars were being plundered from the Requin to refit the sloop and the Aurore was being put in condition to sail to Britain.

  Mindful of the political strictures St Vincent had mentioned in respect of the whale fishery, Drink
water was anxious that both Nimrod and Conqueror returned to the Humber. But his own desperate shortage of men prevented him from taking Requin home as a prize. He intended burning her before they left Nagtoralik Bay.

  A knock at the cabin door preceded the entry of Obadiah Singleton. His blue jaw seemed more prominent as his face was haggard with exhaustion.

  ‘Ah, Mr Singleton. What may I do to serve you?’

  ‘I consider that I have completed my obligations to the sick, Captain Drinkwater. I shall leave them in the hands of Skeete . . .’

  ‘God help them . . .’

  ‘Amen to that. But there is work enough for me ashore . . .’

  ‘You cannot be landed here, Mr Singleton, there is a French settlement . . .’

  ‘Your orders were to land me, Captain Drinkwater. There are eskimos here. As for the French, I cannot think that you would invite them on board your ship . . .’

  ‘My orders, Mr Singleton,’ Drinkwater replied sharply, ‘are to extirpate any French presence I find in Arctic waters. To that end I must root out and take prisoner any military presence ashore.’

  ‘I think your concern for your own ship will not permit that,’ Singleton said with a final certainty.

  ‘What the devil d’you mean by that?’

  ‘I mean that Mr Frey, whom you sent ashore for water, has returned with information that leads me to suppose the poor devils ashore here are afflicted with all the plagues of Egypt, Captain Drinkwater.’

  Chapter Twenty

  August–September 1803

  Greater Love Hath no Man

  They had assembled all the French prisoners ashore prior to burning the Requin. Flanked by Mount and Singleton and escorted by a file of marines, Drinkwater inspected the hovels that made up the French settlement. Drawn apart from the privateersmen and regarded with a curious hostility by a crowd of eskimos, an untidy, starveling huddle of men watched their approach cautiously. They wore the remnants of military greatcoats, their feet bound in rags and their shoulders covered in skins. Most hid their faces. They were Bonaparte’s Arctic ‘colonists’.