'Well, we shall do what we can.' Parker paused to pass word to his officers to get a quantity of powder and ball across to Andromeda, a task which would take some time, and invited Drinkwater to remain aboard the Menelaus for a while. The two captains therefore sat on the stern settee reminiscing and idly chatting, while the ships' boats bobbed back and forth.
'So you were part of the squadron that saw Fat Louis back to France then?' Parker asked, and Drinkwater did his best to satisfy Sir Peter's curiosity with a description of the event.
'Seems an odd way to end it all,' he remarked.
'Yes. Somehow inappropriate, in a curious way,' added Drinkwater.
'I presume the Bourbon court will try to put the clock back, while we have to turn our attention to America.'
Drinkwater nodded. 'Though if we bring our full weight to bear upon a blockade of the American coast, we should be able to bring the matter to a swift conclusion.'
'Let us hope so, but I must confess the prospect don't please me and if Boney interferes, we may be occupied for years yet,' Parker said, a worried look on his face, but the conversation was interrupted by a knock at the cabin door and a midshipman entered at Parker's command.
'First lieutenant's compliments, sir, but the wind's freshening. He don't think we can risk sending many more boats across.' The midshipman turned to Drinkwater and added, 'He said to tell you, sir, that we've sent twenty-eight small barrels and a quantity of shot.'
Drinkwater stood up. 'Parker, I'm obliged to you...' The two men shook hands and parted with cordial good wishes.
Out of the lee of the Menelaus's, side, Drinkwater felt the keen bite of the wind; another gale was on the way, unless he was much mistaken, despite the fact that ashore the blackthorn would be blooming in the hedgerows.
The gale was upon them by nightfall. During the afternoon the sky gradually occluded and the horizon grew indistinct. The air became increasingly damp, the wind backed and a thickening mist transformed the day. The decks darkened imperceptibly with moisture and, although the temperature remained the same, the damp air seemed cooler.
'Backs the winds against the sun, trust it not, for back 'twill run.' Birkbeck recited the old couplet to Mr Midshipman Dunn. 'Remember that, cully, along with the other saws I've already taught you and they'll stand you in good stead.'
'Aye, aye, sir.' Mr Dunn bit his lip; he had failed to learn any of the 'saws' the master had tried to teach him, but dared not admit it and was terrified Birkbeck was about to ask him to recapitulate. Mercifully the cloaked figure of the captain rose up the after companionway, and Dunn took the opportunity to dodge away.
Drinkwater cast a quick glance about. Aloft the second reef was being put into the topsails. The men bent over the yard, their legs splayed on the foot-rope. Drinkwater peered into the binnacle, the boat-cloak billowing around him. From forward, the smoke coiling out of the galley funnel was flattened and drove its fumes along the deck. Above their heads there was a tremulous thundering as the weather leach of the fore-topsail lifted.
'Watch your helm there!' Birkbeck rounded upon the quartermaster, who craned forward and stared aloft, ordering the helmsmen to put the helm up a couple of spokes, allowing Andromeda to pay off the wind a little. 'You'll have another man shivered off the yard if you're not more careful,' Birkbeck snapped reprovingly, then turning to Drinkwater he put two fingers to the fore-cock of his hat.
'North of west, sir, I'm afraid,' Birkbeck reported apologetically to Drinkwater.
'It cannot be helped, Mr Birkbeck.'
They would have to endure another miserable night bouncing tiringly up and down, while the grey Atlantic responded to the onslaught of the wind and raised its undulating swells and sharper waves. It would be chilly and damp below decks; the hatches would be closed and the air below become poor and mephitic, a breeding ground for the consumption and an aggravation for the rheumatics, Drinkwater reflected gloomily. He tucked himself into the mizen rigging and sank into a state of misery. His tooth had ceased to equivocate and the infection of its root raged painfully. He had known for days that the thing would only get worse and it chose the deteriorating weather to afflict him fully. He would have to have the tooth drawn and the sooner the better; in fact a man of any sense would go at once to the surgeon and insist the offending tusk was pulled out. But Drinkwater did not feel much like a man of sense; toothache made a man peevishly self-centred; it also made him a coward. Having his lower jaw hauled about by Kennedy who, with a knee on his chest, would wrest the bulk of his pincers around until the tooth submitted, was not a prospect that attracted Drinkwater. As the sun set invisibly behind the now impenetrable barrier of cloud, the fading daylight reflected the captain's lugubrious mood.
He could, of course, insist Kennedy gave him a paregoric. A dose of laudanum would do the trick, at least until the morning. The idea made him think of Marlowe languishing in his bunk and his conscience stung him. Forcing himself to relinquish the clean, if damp, air of the deck, he went reluctantly below.
In the wardroom Lieutenant Hyde had discovered an equilibrium of sorts, having braced his chair so that he might lean back and read with his booted feet on the wardroom table. At the after end of the bare table Lieutenant Ashton sat in a Napoleonic pose, his expression remote, his hands playing with a steel pen, a sheet of paper before him. Neither officer realized who their visitor was until Drinkwater coughed.
'Oh! Beg pardon, sir.' Hyde's boots reached the deck at the same moment as all the legs of his chair, a sudden, noisy movement which snapped Ashton from his abstraction. He too stood up.
'Good evening, gentlemen. Pray pardon the intrusion ...'
'Lieutenant Frey has turned in, sir,' offered Ashton.
'I came to see Lieutenant Marlowe.'
Hyde indicated the door to the first lieutenant's cabin and Drinkwater nodded his thanks, knocked and ducked inside. Behind him Ashton and Hyde exchanged glances.
The quarters provided for Andromeda's officers were spartan and what embellishments an officer might bring to his hutch of a cabin conferred upon it a personality. Lieutenant Frederic Marlowe had two small portraits, a shelf of books and an elegant travelling portmanteau which, standing in the corner, held in its top a washing basin and mirror.
Of the portraits, one was a striking young woman whom Drinkwater took to be Sarah Ashton, though there was little resemblance to the officer he had just seen in the wardroom; the other was of a man dressed in the scarlet and blue of a royal regiment, the gold crescent of a gorget at his throat.
These appointments were illuminated by a small lantern, the light of which also fell upon the features of Marlowe himself. Drinkwater was shocked by the young man's appearance. Kennedy had led him to believe Marlowe's trouble to be no more than a malingering idleness, but the gaunt face appeared to be that of a man afflicted with a real illness, or at best in some deep distress. Marlowe's eyes were sunk in dark hollows and regarded Drinkwater with an obvious horror.
'Mr Marlowe,' Drinkwater began, 'how is it with you?'
Marlowe's lower lip trembled and he managed to whisper, 'Well enough, sir.'
'What is the matter?'
'Quotidian fever, sir, or so the sawbones says.'
Drinkwater had a rather different perception. He looked round the cabin. A small glass stood in the wash basin, and Drinkwater picked it up and sniffed it. The faint scent of tincture of opium was just discernible. For a moment Drinkwater stood undecided, then he turned back to the invalid, and sat himself down in the single chair that adorned the cabin.
'Mr Marlowe, I do not believe you have a quotidian fever. Pray tell me, to what extent do you owe your present indisposition to the influence of Lieutenant Ashton?' Marlowe's eyes widened as Drinkwater's barb struck home. His eyes glanced at the door to the wardroom, confirming, if confirmation were necessary, the accuracy of Drinkwater's assumption. 'I am aware of your situation vis-a-vis Ashton; perhaps, if you wished, you could confide in me. I cannot afford to have my first lieut
enant incapacitated; I need you on deck, Mr Marlowe, gaining the confidence of the people ...'
The shadow of recollection passed across Marlowe's haggard features, then he shook his head vigorously and turned his face away. Drinkwater lingered a moment, then rose, the chair scraping violently on the deck, but even this noise evoked no response from the first lieutenant. 'Damnation,' he muttered under his breath, and stepped back into the wardroom.
Hyde had resumed his reading, though his boots were no longer on the table. Ashton had bent to his writing, but looked up sharply as Drinkwater shut the door behind him and stood before the officers. Realizing their manners, both men made to rise to their feet.
'Please do not trouble yourselves, gentlemen. Good night.'
Rather than returning directly to his own cabin or the deck, Drinkwater descended a further deck in search of the surgeon. He found Kennedy playing bezique with the midshipmen. The intrusion of the captain's features in the stygian gloom of the cockpit produced a remarkable reaction: the midshipmen jumped to their feet, the cards were scattered and Kennedy, who had had his back to Drinkwater, turned slowly around.
'Oh, sir, I er ... Did you want me?'
'Indeed, Mr Kennedy. I would be obliged if you would pull a tooth for me. At your convenience.'
'There's no time like the present, sir. These young devils have a decided advantage.'
Drinkwater, followed by the surgeon, retired to the half-suppressed sound of sniggering midshipmen.
A few moments later Kennedy joined him in the cabin, producing a small bag from the dark and sinister interior of which gleamed the dull metal of instruments. Drinkwater sat down and braced himself, as much against the motion of the ship as in preparation for Kennedy's ministrations. There was a brief exchange between them, then Drinkwater opened his mouth and allowed Kennedy to probe his lower mandible. It took the surgeon only a few seconds to locate the source of the trouble. He withdrew his probe and searched his bag for another implement. His hand emerged with a pair of steel pincers.
'Humour me and rinse those things in some wine, if you please.'
'It is quite unnecessary ...'
'Oblige me, if you please ...'
'Very well.'
Kennedy poured a glass of wine from the stoppered decanter lodged in the fiddles and dipped the closed pincers in it. Andromeda groaned mournfully about them as he turned and approached his patient. Drinkwater's knuckles were white on the arms of his chair. Kennedy opened the grim steel tool and bent over Drinkwater, who felt the uncompromising bite of the serrated steel clamp over his own, less robust tooth. There was an excruciating pain which shot like a white hot wire through Drinkwater's brain and he felt the tooth wrenched this way and that as Kennedy bore down on him, twisting his powerful wrist. A faint grinding sound transmitted itself through Drinkwater's skull as Kennedy wrestled with the resisting fang; then it gave way, Andromeda lurched and Kennedy almost fell backwards. The pincers struck the teeth in Drinkwater's upper jaw, jarring his whole head. The wine glass fell to the deck and smashed.
A stink filled Drinkwater's nostrils as Kennedy waved the rotting tooth under his wrinkling nose. The surgeon dropped the tooth and pincers, took another glass, filled it and handed it to his spluttering patient.
'God damn and blast it!' Drinkwater bellowed, clapping his hand to his mouth.
'I wouldn't recommend you to swallow, sir. Perhaps the quarter-gallery ...'
Drinkwater did as he was bid, rinsed his mouth with wine and spat it down the closet. His tongue explored the gaping hole in his teeth as he clambered back into the cabin, a little dizzy and in some pain from the blow to his upper jaw.
Kennedy was clearing away and Drinkwater refilled his glass and filled another for the surgeon.
'Damn me, Kennedy, but you're a confounded brute, and no mistake.'
'I'm sorry,' Kennedy said, smiling, accepting the glass. 'The confounded ship ...'
'Quite so, but a moment...'
'There is something else, sir?'
'Yes. I wish you to cease giving Marlowe laudanum. I am not certain it is having anything other than a deleterious effect.'
'It generally does,' Kennedy observed with that clinical detachment that sounded so cold, 'though Marlowe will not see it that way'
'I don't much care what way Marlowe sees it. I just want that young man back on the quarterdeck, preferably tomorrow'
'Tomorrow, d'you say?' Kennedy blew his cheeks out and shook his head. 'I don't believe the man is really ill...'
'Well there I disagree with you. I think he is ill, but I don't think his lying in his cot is improving him. I also don't believe his disease is fatal.'
'Well, sir,' responded Kennedy in his touchiest tone, tossing off the contents of his glass with an air of affront, 'what d'you believe his disease is, then? I should be fascinated by your diagnosis.'
Kennedy's irritation amused Drinkwater. 'Oh, his disease is of the heart, Mr Kennedy,' Drinkwater said smiling.
'You mean the man is in love?'
'I mean the man is affected by love, or perhaps I should say infected by love, or at least what passes for love in all its complications.'
'Well, sir,' said Kennedy, putting his glass back in the fiddles, 'I have to confess I hadn't noticed the pox, so I suppose you refer to the disease in its emotional form and there, I think, I must confess to having a somewhat limited expertise in the matter.'
'But you will stop the laudanum?'
'If that is what you wish, Captain Drinkwater.'
'It is, Mr Kennedy, thank you. Oh, and my thanks also for pulling my tooth.'
'Had I not done so you would have been suffering from a quinsy at best and a poisoned gut else, sir.'
'I'm obliged to you.'
'Thank you for the wine.'
"Tis a pleasure,' lisped Drinkwater, withdrawing his tongue from the gap it compulsively sought to explore. And his sibilant farewell seemed echoed as Andromeda's stern sank into the bosom of a wave, then rose as she drove through the swell which seethed, hissing away into the darkness astern.
CHAPTER 8
A Patch of Blue Sky
April 1814
Captain Drinkwater was not the only visitor received by Lieutenant Marlowe that evening, for once word of the captain's interest had reached the wardroom, Lieutenant Ashton determined on showing similar concern for a brother officer.
'Well Frederic, this is a pretty pass, ain't it?' Ashton began, sitting in the chair beside the first lieutenant's cot. 'I do believe Our Father thinks you unwell, which doesn't say much for his intelligence, does it?'
At the last remark Marlowe, who had turned his face away from his visitor, swung back. 'Why in heaven's name d'you have to torment me? Do you not have what you want that you must treat me like this?'
Ashton put a restraining hand upon Marlowe's shoulder and shook his head. 'Fred, Fred, you misunderstand me, damn it,' he said, reassuringly. 'I don't wish you ill; quite the contrary, no man would be happier than to see you up and about again.'
'Damn you, Ashton. You're in league with the captain ...'
'What?' Ashton's incredulity was unfeigned. 'Why in God's name should I have anything in common with the captain?'
'Because,' said Marlowe, twisting round and propping himself on one elbow, 'he has just been here, not an hour ago, maybe less, telling me he wants me on the quarterdeck tomorrow!'
'Well then, that's fine, Fred, fine,' Ashton said soothingly, 'we all want you back at your duty, why should we not? Aye, and the sooner the better as far as Frey and I are concerned.'
Marlowe peered at his visitor suspiciously. The single lantern threw Ashton's face into shadow. 'What d'you mean as far as Frey and you are concerned?'
'Why, because we are doing duty for you ...'
'Yes, of course ...'
'What the devil did you think I meant?'
'Oh, nothing
'Come on Fred, what?'
'Nothing...'
''Come on ... Was it something
the captain said?' Ashton asked shrewdly.
'He thinks you have some influence over me,' Marlowe said in a low, shamed voice.
'What damnable poppycock!'
'It could be said to be true, could it not?'
Ashton lost some of his aplomb, recalling his indiscreet remarks to Drinkwater regarding Marlowe's intended marriage: surely it could derive from nothing more? 'Perhaps he knows of you and Sarah,' he said dismissively.
'Have you said anything?'
'Come to think of it I recall mentioning it when we dined together, but it was nothing.'
'So you told him?' The hint of a smile played about Marlowe's mouth. 'And at dinner.'
'Well, yes, I believe I did,' Ashton confessed, flushing, 'but where's the harm in that?'
'Did you tell him of your sister's condition?'
'No, of course not.'
'Damn you, Ashton, I may be a fool, but I can at least keep my mouth shut!'
'There's no harm in it being known you intend to marry her.' Ashton's temper was fraying, but Marlowe had swung his legs over the edge of his cot and lowered himself unsteadily to his feet. He stood in his night-shirt staring down at his persecutor.
'Oh yes,' he said, holding on to the deck-beams overhead and leaning over Ashton. 'Of course. Now get out, and remember when I appear on deck tomorrow which of us is the senior.'
Thoroughly discomfited, Ashton stood slowly and forced a smile at the first lieutenant. 'Of course, Mr Marlowe,' he said mockingly, 'of course.'
Outside the wardroom Ashton almost bumped into the surgeon. The berth-deck was already settled, the air heavy with the stink and snuffles of over five score of men swaying together in their hammocks. The occasional glims threw fitful shadows, but for the most part it was dark as death. The ship creaked and groaned as she worked in the seaway and both men were cursing as they struggled on the companionway. The area was lit by a lantern and the marine sentry outside the wardroom door was a silent witness to their encounter.
'Ah, Kennedy, a damnable night.'
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