A Brig of War

by Richard Woodman

  ‘Are you married sir?’ St Vincent asked sharply.

  ‘Er, yes, my lord,’ replied Drinkwater, taken aback.

  ‘A pity, sir, a pity. A married officer is frequently lost to the service. Come let us descend to my cabin and arrange for the disposition of your convoy. Sir Robert, a moment of your time . . .’

  When the business of the fleet had been attended to Drinkwater had a few minutes for an exchange of news with White while Victory backed her maintopsail and summoned Hellebore’s boat.

  ‘How is Elizabeth, my dear fellow?’

  ‘She goes along famously, Richard, and would have asked to be remembered to you had she known we might meet.’

  ‘When were you gazetted, Nat?’

  ‘After Camperdown.’

  ‘Ah, so you were there. Damn! That still gives you the advantage of one fleet action to boast of ahead of me,’ he grinned. ‘D’you have many other old Kestrels besides Griffiths on your brig?’

  ‘Aye, Tregembo you remember, and old Appleby . . .’

  ‘What? That old windbag Harry Appleby? Well I’m damned. She looks a long-legged little ship, Nat,’ he nodded at the brig.

  ‘She’s well enough, but you still have the important advantages,’ replied Drinkwater, a sweep of his hand including Victory, the puissant personages upon her deck and alluding to White’s rapid rise by comparison with his own. ‘Convoy work ain’t quite the way to be made post.’

  ‘No, Nat, but my bet is you’re ordered up the Mediterranean, eh?’ Drinkwater nodded and White went on, ‘that’s where Nelson is, before Toulon, Nat, and wherever Nelson is there’s action and glory.’ White’s eyes gleamed. ‘D’you know St Vincent sent him back into the Med after we evacuated it last year and a month ago he reinforced Nelson with Troubridge’s inshore squadron. Sent the whole lot of ’em off from the harbour mouth before Curtis’s reinforcements had come up with the fleet. And the blasted Dons didn’t even know the inshore squadron had been changed! What d’you think of that, eh? No,’ he patted Drinkwater’s arm condescendingly, ‘the Med’s the place, Nat, there’s bound to be action with Nelson.’

  ‘I’m only escorting a convoy in a brig, Richard,’ said Drinkwater deprecatingly.

  White laughed again and held out his hand. ‘Good fortune then Nat, for we’re all hostage to it, d’you know.’

  They shook hands and Drinkwater descended to the boat where Mr Quilhampton, two years older than Mr Lee, but with a fraction of the latter’s experience, overawed by the mass of Victory lumbering alongside his cockleshell cutter, made a hash of getting off the battleship’s side.

  ‘Steady now, Mr Q. Bear off forward, put the helm over and then lower your oars. ’Tis the only way, d’you see,’ Drinkwater said patiently, looking back at Victory. Already her main topsail was filled and White’s grin was clearly visible. Drinkwater looked ahead towards the tiny, fragile Hellebore. The cutter rose over the long, low Atlantic swells, the sea danced blue and gold in the sunshine where the light westerly wind rippled its surface. He felt the warmth in the muscles of his right arm.

  ‘Hecuba and Molly to accompany us into the Med, sir, to Nelson, off Toulon. We’re to proceed as soon as possible.’ Drinkwater looked at Griffiths who lent heavily against the rail, gazing at the stately line of the British fleet to the eastward. ‘Prydferth, bach, beautiful,’ he muttered. Drinkwater stared astern at the convoy, their topsails aback in an untidy gaggle as they waited to hear their fate. Boats were bobbing towards the brig. ‘I’ve sent for their masters,’ Griffiths explained.

  ‘How’s the leg today, sir?’ Drinkwater asked while they waited for the boats to arrive. The old, white-haired Welshman looked with disgust at the twisted and puffy limb stretched stiffly out on the gun carriage before him.

  ‘Ah, devil take it, it’s a damned nuisance. And now Appleby tells me it’s gouty. And before you raise the matter of my bottle,’ he hurried on with mock severity, ‘I’ll have you know that without it I’d be intolerable, see.’ They grinned at each other, their relationship a stark contrast with the formality of Victory’s quarterdeck. They had sailed together for six years, first in the twelve-gun cutter Kestrel, and their intimacy was established upon a mutually understood basis of friendship and professional distance. For Griffiths was an infirm man, subject to recurring malarial fevers, whose command had been bestowed for services rendered to British intelligence. Without Hellebore Griffiths would have rotted ashore, a lonely and embittered bachelor in anonymous lodgings. He had requested Drinkwater as his first lieutenant partly out of gratitude, partly out of friendship. And if Griffiths sought to protect his own career by delegating with perfect confidence to Drinkwater, he could console himself with the thought that he did the younger man a service.

  ‘You forget, Mr Drinkwater, that if I had not broke my leg last year you’d not have been in command of Kestrel at Camperdown.’

  Drinkwater agreed, but any further rejoinder was cut short by the arrival of the storeship commanders.

  To starboard the dun-coloured foothills of the Atlas Mountains shone rose-red in the sunset. To larboard the hills of southern Spain fell to the low promontory of Tarifa. Far ahead of her elongated shadow the Mediterranean opened before the bowsprit of the brig. From her deck the horizontal light threw into sharp relief every detail of her fabric: the taut lines of her rigging, the beads of her blocks, her reddened canvas and an unnatural brilliance in her paintwork. Astern on either quarter, in dark silhouette, Hecuba and Molly followed them. Drinkwater ceased pacing as the skinny midshipman barred his way.

  ‘Yes, Mr Q?’ The gunroom officers of H.M. Brig Hellebore had long since ceased to wrap their tongues round Quilhampton. It was far too grand a name for an animal as insignificant as a volunteer. Once again Drinkwater experienced that curious reminder of Elizabeth that the boy engendered, for Drinkwater had obtained a place for him on the supplication of his wife. Mrs Quilhampton was a pretty widow who occasionally assisted Elizabeth with her school, and Drinkwater had been both flattered and amused that anyone should consider him a person of sufficient influence from whom to solicit ‘interest’. And there was sufficient resemblance to his own introduction to naval life to arouse his natural sympathy. He had acquiesced with only a show of misgivings and been rewarded by a quite shameless embrace from the boy’s mother. Now the son’s eager-to-please expression irritated him with its power to awaken memories.

  ‘Well,’ he snapped, ‘come, come, what the devil d’you want?’

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but Mr Appleby’s compliments and where are we bound, sir?’

  ‘Don’t you know, Mr Q?’ said Drinkwater mellowing.

  ‘N . . . no, sir.’

  ‘Come now, what d’you see to starboard?’

  ‘To starboard, sir? Why that’s land, sir.’

  ‘And to larboard?’

  ‘That’s land too, sir.’

  ‘Aye, Mr Q. To starboard is Africa, to larboard is Europe. Now what d’you suppose lies between eh? What did Mrs Drinkwater instruct you in the matter, eh?’

  ‘Be it the M . . . Mediterranean, sir?’

  ‘It be indeed, Mr Q,’ replied Drinkwater with a smile, ‘and d’you know who commands in the Mediterranean?’

  ‘Why sir, I know that. Sir Horatio Nelson, K.B., sir,’ said the boy eagerly.

  ‘Very well, Mr Q. Now do you repair directly to the surgeon and acquaint him with those facts and tell him that we are directed by Earl St Vincent to deliver the contents of those two hoys astern to Rear Admiral Nelson off Toulon.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  ‘And Mr Q . . .’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Do you also direct Mr Appleby to have a tankard of blackstrap ready for me when I come below at eight bells.’

  Drinkwater watched the excited Quilhampton race below. Like the midshipman he was curious about Nelson, a man whose name was known to every schoolboy in England since his daring manoeuvre at the battle of Cape St Vincent. Not that his conduct had been put at
risk by the enemy so much as by those in high places at the Admiralty. Drinkwater knew there were those who considered he would be shot for disobedience before long, just as there were those who complained he was no seaman. Certainly he did not possess the abilities of a Pellew or a Keats, and although he enjoyed the confidence of St Vincent he had been involved in the fiasco at Santa Cruz. Perhaps, thought Drinkwater, he was a man like the restless Smith, with whom he had served briefly in the Channel, a man of dynamic force whose deficiencies could be forgiven in a kind of emulative love. But, he concluded, pacing the deck in the gathering darkness, whatever White said on the subject, it did not alter the fact that Hellebore was but a brig and fitted for little more than her present duties.

  Chapter Two

  Nelson

  July 1798

  ‘She hasn’t acknowledged, sir. Shall I fire a gun to loo’ard?’

  Griffiths stared astern to where Hecuba, her jury rigged foremast a mute testimony to the violence of the weather, was struggling into the bay.

  ‘No, Mr Drinkwater. Don’t forget she’s a merchantman with a quarter of our complement and right now, bach, every man-jack aboard her will be busy.’

  Drinkwater felt irritated by the mild rebuke, but he held his tongue. The week of anxiety must surely soon be over. South of Minorca, beating up for Toulon the northerly mistral had hit the little convoy with unusual violence. Hecuba’s foremast had gone by the board and they had been obliged to run off to the eastward and the shelter of Corsica. Drinkwater stared ahead at the looming coastline of the island, the sharp peaked mountains reaching up dark against the glow of dawn. To larboard Cape Morsetta slowly extended its shelter as they limped eastward into Crovani Bay.

  ‘Deck there! Sail dead ahead, sir!’

  The cry from the masthead brought the glasses of the two men up simultaneously. In the shadows of the shoreline lay a three-masted vessel, her spars bare of canvas as she lay wind-rode at anchor.

  ‘A polaccra,’ muttered Griffiths. ‘We’ll investigate her when we’ve brought this lame duck to her anchor,’ he jerked his head over his shoulder.

  The convoy stood on into the bay. Soon they were able to discern the individual pine trees that grew straight and tall enough to furnish fine masts.

  ‘Bring the ship to the wind Mr Lestock,’ Griffiths addressed the master, a small, fussy little man with a permanent air of being put upon. ‘You may fire your gun when we let the bower go, Mr Drinkwater.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Lestock was shouting through the speaking trumpet as men ran to the braces, thankful to be in the lee of land where Hellebore’s deck approximated the horizontal. The main topsail slapped back against the mast and redistributed its thrust through the standing rigging to the hull below. Hellebore lost forward motion and began to gather sternway.

  ‘Let go!’

  The carpenter’s topmaul swung once, then the brig’s bow kicked slightly as the bower anchor’s weight was released. The splash was lost in the bark of the six pounder. While Lestock and his mates had the canvas taken off the ship, Drinkwater swung his glass round the bay. Molly was making sternway and he saw the splash under her bluff, north-country bow where her anchor was let go. But Hecuba still stood inshore while her hands struggled to clew up her forecourse. Unable to manoeuvre under her topsails due to her damaged foremast, her master had been obliged to hold onto the big sail until the last moment, now something had fouled.

  ‘Why don’t he back the damned thing,’ Drinkwater muttered to himself while beside him Lestock roared ‘Aloft and stow!’ through the speaking trumpet. The Hellebores eagerly leapt into the rigging to pummel the brig’s topsails into the gaskets, anxious to get secured, the galley stove relit and some steaming skillygolee and molasses into their empty, contracted bellies.

  Then he saw Hecuba begin her turn into the wind, saw the big course gather itself into folds like a washerwoman tucking up her skirts, the main topsail flatten itself against the top and the splash from her bow where the anchor was let go.

  ‘Convoy’s anchored, sir,’ he reported to Griffiths.

  The commander nodded. ‘Looks like your gun had another effect.’ Griffiths pointed his glass at the polaccra anchored inshore of them. Drinkwater studied the unfamiliar colours that had been hoisted to her masthead.

  ‘Ragusan ensign, Mr Drinkwater, and I’ll warrant you didn’t know ’em from the Grand Turk’s.’

  Drinkwater felt the tension ebbing from him. ‘You’d be right, sir.’

  Lestock touched his hat to Griffiths. ‘She’s brought up, sir, and secured.’

  ‘Very well, Mr Lestock, pipe the hands to breakfast after which I want a working party under Mr Rogers ready to assist the re-rigging of Hecuba. Send both your mates over. Oh, and Mr Dalziell can go too, I’d very much like to know if that young man is to be of any service to us.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir. What about Mr Quilhampton, sir? He is also inexperienced.’

  Griffiths eyed Lestock with something approaching distaste.

  ‘Mr Quilhampton can take a working party ashore with the carpenter. I think a couple of those pines would come in useful, eh? What d’you think Mr Drinkwater?’

  ‘A good idea, sir. And the Ragusan?’

  ‘Mr Q’s first task will be to desire her master to wait upon me. Now, Mr Drinkwater, you have been up all night, will you take breakfast with me before you turn in?’

  Half an hour later, his belly full, Drinkwater stretched luxuriously, too comfortable to make his way to his cabin. Griffiths dabbed his mouth with a stained napkin.

  ‘I think Rogers can take care of that business aboard Hecuba.’

  ‘I hope so sir,’ yawned Drinkwater, ‘he’s not backward in forwarding opinions as to his own merit.’

  ‘Or of criticising others, Nathaniel,’ said Griffiths solemnly. Drinkwater nodded. The second lieutenant was a trifle overconfident and it was impossible to pull the wool over the eyes of an officer as experienced and shrewd as Griffiths. ‘That’s no bad thing,’ continued the commander in his deep, mellifluous Welsh voice, ‘if there’s substance beneath the facade.’ Drinkwater agreed sleepily, his lids closing of their own accord.

  ‘But I’m less happy about Mr Dalziell.’

  Drinkwater forced himself awake. ‘No sir, it’s nothing one can lay one’s finger upon but . . .’ he trailed off, his brain refusing to work any further.

  ‘Pass word for my servant,’ Griffiths called, and Meyrick came into the tiny cubby hole that served the brig’s officers for a common mess. ‘Assist Mr Drinkwater to his cot, Meyrick.’

  ‘I’m all right, sir.’ Drinkwater rose slowly to his feet and made for the door of his own cabin, cannoning into the portly figure of the surgeon.

  Griffiths smiled to himself as he watched the two manoeuvre round one another, the one sleepily indignant, the other wakefully apologetic. Appleby seated himself at the table. ‘Morning sir, dreadful night . . .’ The surgeon fell to a dissertation about the movement of brigs as opposed to ships of the line, to whether or not their respective motions had an adverse effect on the human frame, and to what degree in each case. Griffiths had long since learned to disregard the surgeon’s ramblings which increased with age. Griffiths remembered the mutual animosity that had characterised their early relationship. But that had all changed. After Griffiths had been left ashore at Great Yarmouth in the autumn of the previous year it had been Appleby who had come in search of him when the Kestrel decommissioned. It had been Appleby too who had not merely sworn at the incompetence of the physicians there, but who had nearly fought a duel with a certain Dr Spriggs over the manner in which the latter had set Griffiths’s femur. Appleby had wished to break and reset it, but was prevailed upon to desist by Griffiths himself, who had felt that matters were passing a little out of his own control.

  Still raging inwardly Appleby had written off to Lord Dungarth to remind the earl of the invaluable services performed by Griffiths during his tenure of command of the cutter Kestrel. Thus the half-
pay commander with the game leg had found himself commissioning the new brig-sloop Hellebore. Appleby’s appointment to surgeon of the ship was the least Griffiths could do in return and they had become close in the succeeding weeks.

  Lord Dungarth had pleaded his own cause and requested that a Mr Dalziell be found a place as midshipman. It was soon apparent why the earl had not sent the youth to a crack frigate, whatever the obligation he owed the Dalziell family. Griffiths sighed; Mr Dalziell was fortunately small beer and unlikely to cause him great loss of sleep, but he could not escape a sense of exasperation at having been saddled with such a make-weight. He poured more coffee as Appleby drew to his conclusion.

  ‘And so you see, sir, I am persuaded that the lively motion of such a vessel as this, though the buffetting one receives below decks is apt to give one a greater number of minor contusions than enough, is, however, likely to exercise more muscles in the body and invigorate the humours more than the leisurely motion of, say, a first rate. In the latter case the somnolent rhythms may induce a langour, and when coupled to the likelihood of the vessel being employed on blockade, hove to and so forth, actually contribute to that malaise and boredom that are the inevitable concomitants of that unenviable employment. Do you not agree sir?’