'Gentlemen,' he said coolly, 'we are here to see Mr Vansittart lands safely and with every prospect of success in his task. He is to board the schooner which arrived here at sunset and will do so at six bells in the morning watch. That is seven o'clock by your hunter, Vansittart, if you made the last correction for longitude. My barge is to be used for the transfer, Mr Belchambers in command. Do you understand?'
There was a mumbled chorus of comprehension.
'Very well, then I suggest those of us not on duty should get some sleep.' He stepped forward and they drew apart.
'Sir, what about...' Metcalfe began.
'Let's deal with that in the morning, shall we? Goodnight, gentlemen, I trust you will sleep well.'
'They will be laughing at us over there this morning,' Drinkwater said and Moncrieff, Gordon, Metcalfe and Frey all looked at the Stingray, visible in part through the stern windows. 'More coffee ...?'
If the officers assumed their invitation to breakfast was an invitation to a council of war, they were disappointed. Their commander's detached and almost negligent approach was reminiscent of the night before.
Indeed, Metcalfe, going below to turn in, had expressed the opinion that Drinkwater seemed about to let the matter slide and to bid good riddance to the eight who had run. Such pusillanimity was, he concluded, quite within the captain's erratic character and would have a bad effect on the men. They could, he asserted with an almost cheerful conviction, look forward to more desertions if he proved correct in his assumption. In the prevailing gloom no one had seen fit to contradict him. He was, in any case, given to extreme expressions of opinion and no one took much notice of him. It was only over the coffee and burgoo that they recalled the matter and thought Metcalfe might, after all, have a point. Close to the land as she was, the ship might well become ungovernable and the thought made them all uneasy.
There was no doubt the Yankees would find the event most amusing.
'What are your intentions, sir,' Moncrieff ventured boldly, anxiety plain on his open face, 'now Mr Vansittart has gone?'
Drinkwater sat back and regarded the company. Metcalfe looked his usual indecisive, critical self, an air of mock gravity wrapping his moon face in a cocoon of self-importance. Gordon and Frey looked concerned, ready to act upon orders but too junior to have any influence upon events. Only Moncrieff, the ever-resourceful marine lieutenant, had physical difficulty in holding his eager initiative in check.
Drinkwater smiled. 'What do you suggest, Mr Frey?'
Frey's Adam's apple bobbed. 'Well, sir, I should, er, send out a search party ...'
'Mr Gordon?'
'I agree, sir, perhaps to scour the countryside, check the buildings on the estate here ...'
'Run downstream, they'd have used the current to put as great a distance between us and them and they know there are towns and villages for miles along the banks of the bay ...'
'Very good, Mr Moncrieff. Mr Metcalfe?'
'I agree with Moncrieff, sir, and they already have a head start of, he pulled out his watch, 'almost ten and a half hours.'
'Do we know exactly what time they got away?'
'Well no, not exactly, sir, but
'Very well. The launch, with a corporal's guard and provisions for three days, is to leave for a search along the shore. Mr Frey, you are to command. Mr Gordon, you may run along the Potomac shore in the remaining cutter. Take a file of marines, but contrive to look like a watering party, not a war party. I don't want trouble with the local population. Be certain of that. Under the circumstances I would rather lose the men than have a hornets' nest stirred up to undermine Vansittart's mission. That is an imperative, do you understand?'
'Aye, sir.'
Aye, sir.'
'Very well, you may carry on.'
Frey and Gordon scraped back their chairs. Metcalfe and Moncrieff made to rise too, but Drinkwater motioned them to remain seated. After the junior lieutenants had gone Drinkwater rose, lifted the decanter of Madeira from its fiddle and, with three glasses, returned to the table.
'I was surprised no one mentioned the Stingray,' he said as the rich, dark wine gurgled into the crystal glasses.
'The Stingray, sir?' Moncrieff said with quickening interest, 'They wouldn't dare ... I mean how the deuce... ?'
'When I went ashore, the blue cutter was alongside the starboard main-chains. Davies, the master's mate rowing guard, said they dropped too far downstream before they rounded the stern, but even then I suspect they were too stupefied by the monotony of their duty to notice immediately the cutter was missing in the darkness. They probably fell downstream every circuit they made. But being downstream they commanded a fair view of the larboard side of the ship and, with the light southerly breeze then blowing, the ship was canted across the current sufficient to render the starboard, not the larboard side the more obscured…'
'And the Stingray was in, as it were, the shadow of the ship, lying to starboard of us, begging your pardon, sir,' Moncrieff added hurriedly. 'God damn it, of course! They pulled directly for the Stingray!'
'What makes you so sure, sir?' asked the unconvinced Metcalfe. Drinkwater's clever assessment undermined his own carefully argued case for the captain's general incompetence.
'I've a notion, shall we say, Mr Metcalfe? Nothing more.' But it was more, much more. He did not explain that something in Captain Stewart's over-confident demeanour had laid a suspicion in his mind. He had only just realized that himself, but now it gripped his imagination with the power of conviction.
'What about the boat, though?' persisted Metcalfe, unwilling to give up his theory.
'Oh, I expect Frey will find it downstream somewhere. The current and the wind will probably have grounded it on the Maryland shore.'
'Damn it, I think you're right, sir.' Moncrieff's eyes were glowing with certainty.
'Thank you, Moncrieff,' Drinkwater said drily. 'And now I think I'd better write to Mr Shaw and explain why marines and jacks are likely to be seen trampling over his land this morning. Perhaps you'd pass word for Thurston ...'
'He was among the eight, sir,' said Metcalfe, his theory bolstered by Drinkwater's forgetfulness. 'I told you last night.'
'Oh yes, I had forgot.' Drinkwater felt a sensation of shock. He had been too self-obsessed last night to assimilate that detail. If Metcalfe's nervously delivered report had contained the information, it had simply not sunk in. It was not Arabella who had gulled him, he thought now, kinder to himself and therefore to her, she had merely let passion run away with her, as he had done himself; but Thurston had most assuredly duped him, lectured him and then pulled wool over his preoccupied eyes!
'But if you are right, sir, what do you intend to do about the Americans?' Metcalfe asked, prompting, aware that if Captain Drinkwater did not do something then he would most assuredly dishonour the flag.
'I am going to dissemble a little, Mr Metcalfe.'
'Dissemble, sir?' It was a policy Metcalfe had neither considered himself, nor thought his superior capable of.
'Yes. They are not going to sail until we do; they will sit as post-guard upon us until we depart. Let us bluster about our searches and, while we can, keep a watch upon her deck. You have a good glass, Mr Metcalfe?'
'Aye, sir, a Dollond, like yours.'
'Very well, busy yourself about the quarterdeck without making your spying too conspicuous. How many of these eight men would you recognize?'
'Well, Thurston, sir, and a man called King, foretop-man, one of our best…'
'I know Carter, sir,' put in Moncrieff, 'and the Dane Feldbek...'
'And there were the two Russians, the fellows from the Suvorov, Korolenko and Gerasimov,' Drinkwater added, remembering now how Metcalfe had stumbled over the pronunciation of their names, 'you'd recognize them, surely?'
'Yes, of course, sir,' Metcalfe hurriedly agreed, surprised at Drinkwater's access of memory.
'Well, that is six of them,' Drinkwater said, finishing his wine and rising from the table.
'They cannot keep 'em below indefinitely.'
Moncrieff and Metcalfe rose at this signal of dismissal. Drinkwater turned to stare out through the stern windows at the American ship. Sunlight picked out her masts and yards and the thin, pale lines of her immaculately stowed sails. Her ports were open and her guns run out. There were signs of men at exercise about her decks, the glint of cutlasses and boarding pikes.
'What will you do if and when we spot them, sir?' asked Metcalfe from the doorway.
'Mmmm?' Drinkwater grunted abstractedly, still gazing at the Yankee sloop.
'What will you do, sir, vis-à-vis the Yankee?'
'Ain't it a first lieutenant's privilege to lead cutting-out parties, Mr Metcalfe?' Drinkwater replied absently, turning back into the cabin.
Metcalfe had difficulty seeing the captain's expression, silhouetted as he was against the sun-dappled water in the background, but Drinkwater stepped forward and Metcalfe was shocked to see a look of implacable resolve fixed upon Drinkwater's face. 'Almost', he said to himself, 'as if he had been staring at an enemy.'
Frey's party found the missing cutter. It had grounded on a spit fifty yards from the Maryland shore.
'I don't know where they landed, sir,' he reported later that day, 'but that boat had been drifting.'
'We know where they landed, Mr Frey,' Drinkwater said, nodding at the sloop they could see through the stern windows.
'The Stingray, sir?' queried Frey in astonishment.
Drinkwater nodded. 'We've seen both the Russians using the head,' he said drily. 'I daresay if we wait long enough we'll see all eight of them bare their arses in due course.'
'So, er, what do you intend doing, sir?'
Drinkwater drew in his breath and let it out again. 'Well, I believe the Americans call it playing possum, but you've a little time before dark. I want you to go and beat up a bit of shore-line. Pull round a little, let our friends over there think we're hoodwinked.' Drinkwater rose and leaned forward, both hands spread on the table. 'I don't want to do anything to jeopardize Vansittart's mission. On the other hand, the ship's company must not be allowed to think we are taking no action, so make no mention of the fact that we know about the presence of the deserters aboard the Stingray, do you understand?'
'Perfectly, sir. In fact the men may already know.'
'Good, now be off with you and conduct yourself like a man who's just had a flea in his ear and been told not to come back empty-handed.'
'Aye, aye, sir.'
Frey turned and was about to open the cabin door when Drinkwater added: 'You can come back though, Mr Frey, and with all your boat's crew, if you please.'
'Aye, aye, sir,' Frey replied with a grin.
Half an hour before sunset Drinkwater called away his barge. The knowledge that the deserters were aboard the Stingray gave him some comfort, for Stewart would keep them closer watched than Metcalfe. Whether or not Stewart would keep his secret until after Patricians departure or make some demonstration embarrassing to Drinkwater remained to be seen. The man harboured a deep resentment against the British and, it was obvious, saw the Patrician's commander as the embodiment of all he disliked. But there was also an ungovernably passionate streak, a rash impetuosity to offset a deep intelligence; that much Drinkwater had deduced from the man's indiscreet drunkenness. Much might also be read from his sister...
However, he must dissemble, to gull as he had been gulled, to convince his people that he would not tolerate desertion.
Shaw received him in his dressing-room.
'I had your note, Captain Drinkwater.'
'I apologize for troubling you and hope that my men have not been over-intrusive upon your land, Mr Shaw.'
'Not over-intrusive, no,' Shaw replied, his resentment clearly aroused by the minor invasion of the day.
'I apologise unreservedly, sir, if any damage has been caused…'
'No, no,' Shaw waved aside the suggestion that anything more than his sense of propriety had sustained injury.
'And I apologize at the inconvenience of the hour, it is intolerable of me…'
'Please sit down, Captain. Will you join us for dinner? Arabella will be delighted to see you; she sure enjoyed your company yesterday.'
'Thank you, no, sir,' Drinkwater said, remaining standing. He longed to see Arabella again, for all the pain and remorse it would cause him. 'My official affairs are, alas, more pressing. Perhaps I may wait upon Mistress Shaw at a later date, but for the nonce I must perforce ask you to convey my felicitations to her. My presence is, er, a matter of some delicacy ...' Drinkwater shot a glance at Shaw's negro valet.
Shaw dismissed the man. 'Come, sir, you have time to sit and take a glass.'
'Obliged, sir.' Drinkwater was not loathe to comply. Shaw poured from a handy bottle on a side-table. They mutually toasted each other's health. 'The point is', Drinkwater went on, leaning forward in his chair to give his words both urgency and confidentiality, 'this affair of deserters is a damnable nuisance. I must make every effort to regain 'em, for my Service, my reputation and general appearances, not to mention pour discourager les autres,' he said in his poor French, 'but I wish to do nothin' which might provoke a suspension of negotiations, Vansittart was most tellin' upon this point. It seems, from your discussions with him last night, there are men in Washington seekin' some new impropriety on our part, like Humphries' cavalier behaviour towards the Chesapeake, to make a casus belium…'
'That is surely true, Captain. They are mostly from New England, hawks we have styled them, perhaps foolishly, for a hawk has a greater appeal than a dove, I allow. But I don't follow why…'
'I know where the men are, Mr Shaw…'
'You do?' Shaw's eyebrows rose with astonishment. 'Where?'
'Aboard the United States sloop-of-war Stingray.'
'The hell they are!'
'I feel sure thay have been given asylum by Captain Stewart…'
'Have you sent word to Charles? Asked for them back?'
'Mr Shaw, you saw Captain Stewart's attitude to British interests last night. I am not insensible to the fact that he may be personally justified in all his resentments, but I am convinced he would refuse me the return of my men as a matter of principle. Why, I think he would delight in it.'
'He certainly has a thirst for glory.'
And took against me personally, I believe.'
Shaw nodded. 'I fear so, Captain. Then you want me to approach him, to persuade him to relinquish your deserters?'
'Yes, if you would. It would be the simplest answer.'
Shaw sighed and rubbed his chin. 'What would you do with them? You would have to punish them, would you not?'
'Aye, sir, but I am not an inhumane man. Whatever I decided I would not carry out in American waters and properly I can do nothing until they have been court-martialed.'
'I don't follow ... would you act improperly?'
'I could deem them guilty of a lesser crime and hence a lesser punishment...'
'And simply flog 'em? Pardon me, but the forces of Great Britain have a certain reputation for brutality. I too lived before the Revolution, Captain.'
'I believe General Washington ordered corporal punishment for breaking ranks and deserting, Mr Shaw. It is a not uncommon, if regrettable thing in war.'
'But my country is not at war and I want no part in precipitating any such misery on another...'
'I admire your sensibilities, Mr Shaw, but my country is at war.' Drinkwater mastered his exasperation. Shaw, it seemed, wanted to be all things to all men. He thought of Thurston, the idealist without responsibility. Now this wealthy man could keep his conscience clean by stepping round the problem. I am of the middling sort, he thought ironically, the sort that thrust the affairs of the world along day by day. 'I can only give you my word of honour that I will be lenient…'
'Be more specific, sir. To what extent will your leniency diminish your sentence of retribution?'
'I will order them no more than a dozen lashes.'
&
nbsp; 'Good God, sir, a dozen?'
'How many do you give your slaves, Mr Shaw?' Drinkwater was stung to riposte, regretting the turn the conversation had taken.
'That is an entirely different matter,' Shaw snapped. Then, struck by a thought and measuring the English officer, he added, 'Hell! Don't get any ideas about making up your crew from my plantation.'
Drinkwater attempted to defuse the atmosphere with a grin. 'I could promise them a nominal freedom aboard a man-o'-war,' he remarked drily, 'but I would not, you have my word,' he added hurriedly, seeing the colour rising in Shaw's face.
Shaw blew out his cheeks. 'Damn me, sir, this is a pretty kettle o'fish.'
Drinkwater seized this moment of weakness. 'I want only to avoid a collision, Mr Shaw. If you cannot be advocate perhaps you could merely ask; let Stewart know I am aware he is harbouring my men. The burden of conscience will then be upon him, will it not?'
'That is true ...'
Drinkwater rose, 'I have kept you from your table, sir, and I am sorry for it. Perhaps you might consider consulting Mistress Shaw, in any event please present my compliments; she struck me as a woman of good sense. It is my experience that most women know their own minds, and what is best for their menfolk too.'
Shaw rose and held out his hand. Both men smiled the complicit understanding of male confraternity.
'Perhaps I will, Captain, perhaps I will,' Shaw said smiling.
And partially satisfied, Drinkwater walked down towards the boat upon the lush, shadowed and terraced lawn. There existed stronger and more instantaneous bonds than those of chauvinism, bonds whose strength and extent were mysteries but whose existence was undeniable.
CHAPTER 10
The Parthian Shot
September 1811
They lay in this limbo of uncertainty for eight days, one, it seemed to those disposed to seek signs amid the random circumstances of life, for every deserter. The fall of the year came slowly, barely yet touching these low latitudes, so the very air enervated them and the pastoral beauty of the scene was slowly soured by idleness and a lack of communication with the shore.
The flying squadron nd-11 Page 13
