The Corvette

by Richard Woodman

  Explanation came slowly, as though the revelation of horror should not be sudden. They were military ghosts, two companies of Invalides, a euphemism for the broken remnants of Bonaparte’s vaunted Egyptian and Syrian campaigns. A handful of men who had regained France after the desertion of Bonaparte and the assassination of his successor Kleber; men who had returned home from annexed Egypt where their accounts of what had happened and the decay of their bodies were a double embarrassment to the authorities.

  Drinkwater remembered the purulent eyes of the men he had fought hand to hand off Kosseir on the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea. Perhaps some of these poor devils had been in the garrison that had so gallantly resisted the British squadron under Captain Lidgbird Ball. He surveyed the diseased remnants of French ambition who had been trepanned to Greenland in an attempt to form a trading post to acquire furs for the French army. Here they could supply the voracious wants of the First Consul’s armies at the expense of degrading the eskimos, exchanging liquor for furs, liquor that came through the agency of British whalers.

  Under Drinkwater’s scrutiny several of the Frenchmen drew themselves up, still soldiers, such was the power of military influence. The rags fell away from their faces. The ravages of bilharzia, trachoma-induced blindness, skin diseases, frostbite and God alone knew what other contagions burned in them.

  Drinkwater turned aside, sickened. He met the eyes of Singleton. ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori,’ said the missionary softly.

  ‘Where is this man Vrolicq?’ Drinkwater muttered through clenched teeth.

  Mount had the privateer’s commander and officers quartered in a wretched stone and willow-roofed hovel. They stood blinking in the pale sunshine that filtered through a thin overcast and stared at the British officers.

  Jean Vrolicq, corsair, republican opportunist and war-profiteer regarded Drinkwater through dark, suspicious eyes. He was a small man whose hardiness and energy seemed somehow refined, as though reduced to its essence in these latitudes, and disdaining a larger body. His face was bearded, seamed and tanned, his eyes chips of coal. Drinkwater recognised the man who had wounded him during their first action with the Requin.

  ‘So, Captain, today you remember you have prisoners, eh?’ Vrolicq’s English was good, his accent suggesting a familiarity with Cornwall that was doubtless allied to the practice of ‘free trade’.

  ‘Tell me, M’sieur, was this trade you had with Captain Ellerby profitable to yourself?’

  Perhaps Vrolicq thought Drinkwater was corruptible instead of merely curious, angling for a speculative cargo aside from his duty.

  ‘But yes, Captain, and also for the carrier.’ The man grinned rapaciously. ‘You British are expert at making laws from which profits can be made with ease. You are equally good at breaking your own laws, which is perhaps why you make them, yes? Ellerby, he traded furs for cognac, his friends traded gold for cognac. We French now have gold in France and cognac in Greenland. Ellerby has furs which he also trades. To us French. So we have gold, cognac and furs. Ellerby has a little profit. It is clever, yes? And because your King George has a wise Parliament who all like a little French cognac.’ The disdain was clear in Vrolicq’s voice. But it was equally clear why Ellerby had not wanted Drinkwater’s presence in the Greenland Sea, yet needed his protection in soundings off the British coast where an unscrupulous naval officer might board him in search of men and discover he had tiers of furs over his barrels of whale blubber. If Ellerby’s plan had not been disrupted he and Waller would have been at the rendezvous off Shetland at the end of September and allowed Drinkwater to escort them safely into the Humber. And how assiduously Drinkwater had striven to afford Ellerby the very protection he needed for his nefarious trade!

  ‘It is quite possible,’ said Vrolicq, breaking into Drinkwater’s thoughts, ‘that you might yourself profit a little . . .’

  ‘Go to the devil!’ snapped Drinkwater, turning away and striding down the beach towards the waiting boat.

  Drinkwater stood on the quarterdeck wrapped in the bear-skin given him by the officers. It was piercingly cold, the damp tendrils of a fog reaching down into the bay from the heights surrounding them. The daylight was dreary with mist; the Arctic summer was coming to its end.

  ‘Boat approaching, sir.’ Drinkwater acknowledged Frey’s report and watched one of the Nimrod’s boats, commandeered to replace Melusine’s losses, as it was pulled out from the curve of dark sand and shingle that marked the beach at Nagtoralik. He waited patiently while Obadiah Singleton clambered over the rail, nodded him a greeting, then ushered him below to the sanctuary of the cabin.

  ‘Well Obadiah, you received my note. I am about to sail. All the ships are ready and the wind, what there is of it, will take us clear of the bay as soon as this fog lifts. This is the last chance to change your mind.’

  ‘That is out of the question, Nathaniel.’ Singleton smiled his rare smile. All pretence at rank had long since vanished between the two men. Singleton’s determination to stay and minister to the human flotsam on the shores of the bay ran contrary to all of Drinkwater’s instincts. He could not quite believe that Singleton would remain. ‘Oh, I know what you intend to say. “Remember whom you are to cope withal; a sort of vagabonds, rascals and runaways, a scum of Bretagnes, and base lackey peasants whom their o’er cloyéd country vomits forth to desperate ventures, and assured destruction . . .” King Richard the Third, Nathaniel. That last clause is most appropriate. Scarcely any will survive the coming winter. There is evidence of typhus . . .’

  ‘Typhus!’

  ‘Yes, what you call the ship or gaol fever . . .’

  ‘I know damned well what typhus is . . .’

  ‘Well then you know that as a divine I should urge you to take mercy upon them, to have compassion even at the risk of infecting your ship’s company. As a physician I warn you against further contact with them. There is not only typhus, there is . . .’

  ‘I know, I know. I do not wish to reflect upon the whole catalogue of ills that infests this morbid place. So you advise me to take no action. To leave them here to rot.’

  ‘This is the first time, Nathaniel, that I have seen you indecisive.’ Singleton smiled again.

  ‘There is no need to enjoy the experience, damn it!’

  ‘Forgive me. Perhaps one thing I have learned during our acquaintance is that true decisions are seldom made upon philosophical lines. Sometimes the burdens of your position are too great for one man to bear. It is God’s will that I surrogate for your conscience.’

  ‘And what will happen to you, Obadiah? Eh?’

  ‘I do not know. Let us leave that to God. You were bidden to land me upon the coast of Greenland. You have done your duty.’

  ‘And Vrolicq?’

  ‘Vrolicq is an agent of the devil. Leave him to me and to God.’

  ‘I have already offered you whatever you wish for out of the ships. Surely you will take my pistols . . .’

  ‘Thank you, no. I have taken such necessaries as I thought desirable put of the Requin before you fired her yesterday. I have everything I need.’ He paused. ‘I am at peace, Nathaniel. Do not worry on my account. It is you who work for implacable masters. It was Christ’s essential gospel that we should love our enemies.’

  ‘I do not understand you, damned if I do.’

  ‘John, fifteen, verse thirteen,’ he held out his hand. ‘Farewell, Nathaniel.’

  ‘Have you any questions, gentlemen?’

  The assembled officers shook their heads. Sawyers of Faithful had loaned his speksioneer, Elijah Pucill, to assist Mr Quilhampton in bringing home Nimrod. Gorton was sufficiently recovered to command Conqueror, seconded by Lord Walmsley. Sawyers’s son was assisting Glencross in the Aurore. The crews of the two whalers had been tempered by prize crews from Melusine while those elements whose loyalty might still be in doubt were quartered aboard the sloop herself. Drinkwater dismissed them, each with a copy of his orders. They filed out of the cabin. Captain Sawye
rs hung back.

  ‘You wished to speak to me, Captain Sawyers?’

  ‘Aye, Friend. We have both been busy men during the past five days. I wished for a proper opportunity to express to thee my gratitude. I have thanked God, for the force of thine arm was like unto David’s when he slew Goliath, yet I know that to be an instrument of God’s will can torture a man severely.’

  Drinkwater managed a wry smile at Sawyer’s odd reasoning. ‘I am considering it less hazardous to be surrounded by ice than by theologians. But thank you.’

  ‘I have left thy servant, the Cornishman, a quantity of furs. Perhaps thou might find some use for them better than draped over the horses of the un-Godly.’

  Drinkwater grinned. Some explanation of Sawyers’s activities in the last few days suggested itself to Drinkwater. It occurred to him that Sawyers knew all along of Ellerby’s treachery but his religious abhorrence of war enabled him to overlook it. Besides, now the shrewd Quaker had most of Nimrod’s cargo of furs safely stowed aboard the Faithful.

  ‘What have you entered in your log book concerning your capture?’

  ‘That I was taken by a French privateer, conducted to an anchorage and liberated by thyself. I have no part in thy war beyond suffering its aggravations.’

  ‘Good. It was not my intention to advertise this treachery. Much distress will be caused thereby to the families of weak and defenceless men.’

  Sawyers raised an eyebrow. ‘Canst thou afford such magnanimity? Seamen gossip, Friend.’

  ‘Captain Sawyers, if you were to come upon two unmanned whalers anchored inside the Spurn Head, would you ensure they came safely home to their owners?’

  A gleam of comprehension kindled in Sawyers’s eyes. ‘You mean to press the crews when you have anchored the ships?’

  ‘There are a few of your men already on board to claim salvage. I am not asking you to falsify your log, merely amend it.’

  Sawyers chuckled. ‘A man who cannot write a log book to his own advantage is not fit to command a ship, Captain Drinkwater.’ He paused. ‘But what advantage is there to thee?’

  Drinkwater shrugged. ‘I have a crew again.’

  ‘Patriotism is an unprofitable business and thy acumen recommends thee for other ventures. But have you considered the matter of their press exemptions?’

  ‘I had them collected from the two ships. They burned with Requin.’

  ‘And Waller?’ asked Sawyers, raising an eyebrow in admiration.

  Drinkwater smiled grimly. ‘Ellerby may take the burden of treachery dead. Waller can expiate his greed if not his treason by serving the King along with the rest of the whale-men. It is better for them to dance at the end of the bosun’s starter rather than a noose. Besides, as Lord St Vincent was at pains to point out to me, loss of whale-men means loss of prime seamen. It seems a pity to deprive His Majesty of seamen to provide employment for the hangman.’

  Sawyers laughed. ‘I do not think that it is expiation, Friend. It seems to be immolation.’

  Drinkwater lingered a while after the Quaker had departed, giving him time to return to Faithful, then he reached for his hat and went on deck to give the order to weigh anchor.

  Drinkwater stared astern. Gulls dipped in Melusine’s wake and beside him the jury rudder creaked. As if veiling itself the coast of Greenland was disappearing in a low fog. Already Cape Jervis had vanished.

  Far to the west, above the fog bank, disembodied by distance and elevation, the nunataks of the permanent ice-cap gleamed faintly, remote and undefiled by man.

  Drinkwater turned from his contemplation and began to pace the deck. He thought of Meetuck who had disappeared for several days, terrified of the guns that rumbled and thundered over his head. He had reappeared at last, driven into the open by hunger and finally landed a hero among his own people. He remembered the thirty odd Melusines that would not return, Bourne among them. And the survivors; Mr Midshipman Frey, Gorton, Hill, Mount and James Quilhampton. And little Billie Cue about whose future he must write to Elizabeth.

  He looked astern once more and thought of Singleton, ministering to the sick veterans of an atheist government who were corrupting the eskimos. Singleton would die attempting to alleviate their agonies and save their souls whilst proclaiming the existence of a God of universal love.

  There was no sense in it. And yet what was it Singleton had said?

  ‘Mr Frey!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Be so kind as to fetch me a Bible.’

  ‘A Bible, sir?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Frey. A Bible.’

  Frey returned and handed Drinkwater a small, leatherbound Bible. Drinkwater opened it at St John’s Gospel, Chapter Fifteen, verse thirteen. He read:

  Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

  Then he remembered Singleton’s muttered quotation as they had stared at the French veterans: ‘Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.’

  ‘It’s all a question of philosophy, Mr Frey,’ he said suddenly, looking up from the Bible and handing it back to the midshipman.

  ‘Is it, sir?’ said the astonished Frey.

  ‘And the way you look at life.’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  November 1803

  The Nore

  ‘Square the yards, Mr Hill, and set t’gallants.’

  Drinkwater watched the departing whalers beat up into the Humber, carried west by the inrush of the flood tide. He had at least the satisfaction of having obeyed his orders, collecting the other ships, the Earl Percy, Provident, Truelove and the rest, at the Shetland rendezvous. He had now completed their escort to the estuary of the River Humber and most of them were taking advantage of the favourable tide to carry them up the river against the prevailing wind. Only Nimrod, Conqueror and Faithful remained at anchor in Hawke Road while Sawyers shipped his prize crews on board to sail the remaining few miles to the mouth of the River Hull.

  Amidships Drinkwater watched Mr Comely’s rattan flick the backsides of reluctant whalemen into Melusine’s rigging. Their rueful glances astern at their former ships tugged at Drinkwater’s conscience. It had been a savage and cruel decision to press the crews of the Nimrod and Conqueror, but at least his action would appear to have the sanction of common practice and no-one would now hang for the treachery of Jemmett Ellerby. The irony of his situation did not escape him. A few months earlier he had given his word that no-one would be pressed from his convoy by a marauding cruiser captain intent on recruiting for the Royal Navy here off the Spurn. Now he had done the very thing he deplored. He did not think that waterfront gossip in Hull would examine his motives deeply enough to appreciate the rough justification of his action. But it was not local opinion that he was worried about.

  He had collected all his scattered parties now, after the weary voyage home from Greenland. Aboard Melusine the watches had been reduced to the drudgery of regular pumping and Drinkwater himself had slept little, his senses tuned to the creaks and groans of the jury steering gear, every moment expecting it to fly to pieces under the strain. But it had held as far as Shetland where they had again overhauled it as the rest of the whalers prepared to sail south, and it would hold, God-willing, until they reached the Nore.

  They passed Faithful as they stood out of the anchorage. She was already getting under way and Drinkwater raised his hat in farewell to Sawyers on his poop. The Quaker stood to make a small fortune from the voyage now that the ‘salvage’ of Nimrod and Conqueror could be added to his tally of profits on baleen, whale oil and furs. Drinkwater wished him well. He had given an undertaking to drop a few judicious words to any of the Hull ship-owners who sought to press the Government for reparation for the excessive zeal of a certain Captain Drinkwater in pressing their crews. Drinkwater was aware of the benefit of a precedent in the matter.

  But there were other matters to worry Drinkwater. Sawyer’s reassurances now seemed less certain as Melusine stood out to sea again. It was true Drinkwater had spent nearly tw
o days in composing his confidential despatch to the Secretary of the Admiralty. In addition he had sent Mr Quilhampton to Hull on board the Earl Percy to catch the first London mail, a Mr Quilhampton who had been carefully briefed in case he was required to answer any question by any of their Lordships. Drinkwater doubted there would be trouble about the pressing of the whalemen. The Admiralty were not fussy about where they acquired their seamen. But what of Waller? Supposing Drinkwater’s decision was misinterpreted? What of his leaving to their fate those pitiful French ‘invalides’? The Admiralty had not seen their condition. To the authorities they might appear more dangerous than Drinkwater knew them to be. As for Singleton, what had appeared on his part of an act of tragic courage, might now seem oddly fatuous. Drinkwater had carried a letter from Singleton to the secretary of his missionary society and had himself also written, but God alone knew what would become of the man.

  ‘She’s clear of the Spit, sir.’

  ‘Very well, Mr Hill, a course for The Would, if you please.’

  Drinkwater turned from contemplating the play of light upon the shipping anchored at the Nore. He had been thinking of the strange events of the voyage and the clanking of Melusine’s pumps had reminded him of his old dream and the strange experience when he had been lost in the fog. He came out of his reverie when Mr Frey reported the approach of a boat from Sheerness. Instinctively Drinkwater knew it carried Quilhampton, returning from conveying Drinkwater’s report to Whitehall. He sat down and settled a stern self-control over the fluttering apprehension in his belly.

  The expected knock came at the door. ‘Enter!’

  Mr Quilhampton came in, producing a sealed packet from beneath his boat cloak.

  ‘Orders, sir,’ he said with indecent cheerfulness. Drinkwater took the packet. To his horror his hand shook.