A Brig of War

by Richard Woodman

  ‘Very good, Mr Drinkwater. Tomorrow we will purchase what fresh vegetables we may and water ship. If any citrus fruits are available we will take them too. Do you let the purser know. As for our guests we will land them all except the seamen. They will stay. I wish the gig to be ready for me tomorrow at eight of the clock. I will call upon the Governor then; in the meantime do you direct Rogers to salute the fort.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ He turned away.

  ‘Mr Drinkwater.’

  ‘Sir?’ Griffiths was lowering himself onto his chair, his leg stiffly extended before him. An ominous perspiration stood out on his forehead and his flesh had a greyish pallor.

  ‘There are Indiamen inshore there, three of them. I am sure one of them will carry our mails to England.’

  ‘Yes sir. Thank you.’

  As he sat to finish the long letter to Elizabeth the first report of the salute boomed out overhead.

  Chapter Six

  The Cape of Storms

  October–November 1798

  Drinkwater woke with a start, instantly alert. He stared into the inky blackness while his ears strained to hear the sound that had woken him. The ship creaked and groaned as the following sea rolled up astern and passed under her. It had been blowing a near gale from the south west when he had come below two hours earlier and now something had woken him from the deepest sleep. Whatever the cause of his disturbance it had not alerted those on deck, for there were no shouts of alarm, no strident bellows of ‘All Hands!’ He thought of the ten cannon they had struck down into the hold before leaving the Cape a week ago. There had been barely room for them and they were too well lashed and tommed to move. It might have been the boats. They had both been taken out of the davits and turned keels up either side of the capstan, partially sheltering the canvas covered gratings amidships, in the room made by the absent six-pounders. He doubted they would have sent such a tremble through the hull as he was now persuading himself he had felt.

  Then it came again, a slight jar that nevertheless seemed to pass through the entire hull. It had a remorseless quality that fully alarmed Drinkwater. He swung his legs over his cot and reached for his breeches and boots. The source of that judder was not below decks but above. Something had carried away aloft. In the howling blackness of the night with the roar and hiss of the sea and the wind piping in the rigging, those on deck would not be aware of it. He pulled on his tarpaulin and turned the lengths of spunyarn round his wrists. The bump came again, more insistent now but Drinkwater was almost ready. Jamming his hat on his head he left the cabin.

  He was doubly anxious, for effective command of the brig was his. Griffiths had been afflicted with malarial fever, contracted long ago in the Gambia, which returned to incapacitate him from time to time. He had been free of it for over a year but as Hellebore reached into the great Southern Ocean, down to forty south to avoid the Agulhas current, and made to double the Cape before the favourable westerlies, it had laid him delirious in his cot.

  The wind hit Drinkwater as he emerged on deck and pulled the companionway cover over after him. Holding his hat on he cast his eyes aloft, staggered over to the foot of the mainmast and placed his hand upon it. He could feel the natural tremble of the mast but nothing more.

  A figure loomed alongside. ‘Is that you, Mr Drinkwater?’

  ‘Yes Mr Lestock,’ he shouted back, ‘there’s something loose somewhere, but I’m damned if I know where.’ He turned forward as a sea foamed up alongside and sluiced over the rail. The first dousing after a dry spell was always the worst. Drinkwater shuddered under the sudden chilling deluge. He was cursing foully as he reached the foremast and looked up. The topgallant masts had been sent down and he saw the topmast sway against the sky. The racing scud made it impossible to determine details but the pale rectangle of the triple-reefed topsail was plain. The instant he put his hand upon the mast he felt the impact, a mighty tremble that shook the spar silently, transmitting a quiver to the keelson below. He looked up again, spray stinging his eyes. It crossed his mind that Lestock had furled the forecourse since the change of watch. Drinkwater would have doused the topsail to keep the centre of effort low. Lestock seemed to do things by some kind of rote, an old-fashioned, ill-schooled officer. He felt the shudder again and then he saw its cause.

  Above him the bunt of the fore topsail lifted curiously, the foot forming a sharp hyperbola rather than an elliptical arc. The foreyard below it looked odd, not straight but bending upwards.

  ‘Mr Lestock!’ Drinkwater turned aft. Somewhere in the vicinity of the jeers the big yard had broken, only the forecourse furled along it was preventing it from breaking loose. ‘Mr Lestock!’ Drinkwater struggled aft again, tripping over the watch huddling abaft the boats.

  ‘I think the foreyard has carried away near the slings. One end seems to be fast under the jeers but t’other is loose and butting the mast. You can feel it below. We must get the fore topsail off her. Don’t for God’s sake start the braces; the whole thing will be down round our ears. Let the ship run off dead before the wind under the fore topmast staysail and rouse up all hands.’ He was shouting in Lestock’s ear but someone heard the cry for all hands and in a second the duty bosun’s mate was bellowing down the companionway. Drinkwater grabbed one of the seamen.

  ‘Ah, Stokeley, get everybody mustered abaft the boats, if that lot comes down it’ll likely take someone with it. Who’s on the fo’c’s’le?’

  ‘Davies, sir.’

  ‘Right. Mr Lestock, Mr Lestock!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Pass me the speaking trumpet.’ He took the trumpet and held it up. ‘Fo’c’s’le there! Davies! Come aft here at once!’ The wind carried his voice and the man came aft. Drinkwater left the explanations to Stokeley and joined the men assembling at the mainmast.

  ‘Listen carefully, my lads. The foreyard has broken. We must start the sheets and clew up the topsail as quickly as possible. Then I want four volunteers to come aloft with me and pass a rope round the broken end of the yard, to lash it against the top until daylight.’

  The men moved forward. Rogers emerged from the after companionway, he could see the two midshipmen. ‘Be ready to tail on as required.’ He gave his orders to have the men stationed to take in the topsail but as soon as they eased the sheets he could see it would not work. The eagerness with which the men sought to quell the flogging topsail by heaving on the clew and buntlines only added to the weight of wind in the sail, forcing it upwards like washing on a clothesline. The topsail sheets tugged the fore-yardarms upwards, twisting the furled course below. Perhaps the broken wood severed the first gasket that restrained the huge sail but suddenly three or four gaskets parted and the forecourse blew out in a vast pale billow. There was a crack like a gun and it disintegrated into a thousand streaming ribbons fluttering along the broken yard. The sail had blown clean out of the bolt ropes and the extent of the wounded yard could now be seen. It was a view that all hands contemplated for a split second. Then with a juddering crash the whole starboard half of the yard came down, the topsail stretched flat before splitting and tearing loose then blew off to leeward in an instant. The larboard half of the yard trailed its outboard extremity in the water, crashing downwards parting lifts, halliards and buntlines which fell in entangling coils, snaking across the deck to be torn overside by the wind then dragged aft past Hellebore’s onrushing hull. What Drinkwater had intended to be the ordered application of manpower turned into a confused bedlam of shouts, curses and orders.

  Drinkwater swore deeply and began to shout. At all costs those spars should be saved, not for their own sake but for the iron fittings that they would be unable to replace. ‘Mr Lestock! Keep the ship off before the wind! Mr Rogers! A party to secure that starboard yardarm before we lose it!’

  Rogers gathered men about him. He was not argumentative thought Nathaniel, terrible circumstances and the assertion of discipline drove the men in their common necessity. Drinkwater turned forward with his volunteers.


  Gathering up a long length of manila hemp that had previously been part of the yard lifts he dragged it into the rigging, the men assisting. The inner broken end of the larboard half of the yard had come up under the forward edge of the top, the wooden platform round the join of the lower and topmasts. Beneath the top the jeers, a big tackle that held the yard aloft by its slings, was chafed as the whole thing twisted and turned, its splintered end grinding and splitting the top so that the structure bucked under the forces playing on it.

  The outboard edges of the top supported the shrouds of the topmast. If it was weakened the whole topmast was in jeopardy and at present the only thing that kept Hellebore manageable was the foretopmast staysail below them, its stay secured round the mast just above the damaged jeers. That too was in imminent danger of parting under the relentless grinding of the broken yard.

  Drinkwater leant over the forward edge of the top, his tarpaulin blowing up over his head. The men crouched close by awaiting his orders. Beneath his belly he could feel the heavy timbers of the platform bucking and straining. The kick of the butt end of the yard was enormous close to. Even in the dark he could see the chafe in the jeers and his extended fingers confirmed his worst fears.

  He wriggled round and looked at the men. Tregembo was there, and Stokeley and Kellet. Mr Quilhampton too, his small face a blur with two dark patches where his eyes were wide with the wild excitement of the night. It crossed Drinkwater’s mind inconsequentially to wonder if the boy knew the danger they were in: that to broach in such a sea meant death for them all. Mr Quilhampton had a very pretty mother, Drinkwater remembered, she would weep for the loss of her son. He shook his head clear of such irrelevant thoughts, aware that they were a symptom of his indecision.

  ‘Mr Q!’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Descend to the deck and have Mr Lestock get a turn of something strong round the yard in the vicinity of the rail, get one of the loose gun tackles on it and bowse it tight. Then lash it to the chess tree. Tell him to let me know when he’s done it and that the yard must come down to the deck but the jeers are enfeebled. Do you understand?’

  Quilhampton repeated the instruction. ‘Good. Off you go.’

  ‘D’you wish me to return to the top, sir?’

  ‘No.’ He could do that much for a pretty widow. The midshipman’s acknowledgement was crestfallen. ‘Oh damn it, yes. But hurry; and find out how Mr Rogers is doing.’ Quilhampton disappeared over the futtocks and Drinkwater turned his attention to the yard.

  ‘We will have to pass the bight of this rope,’ he indicated the manila, ‘round the yard so that it will render. Tregembo, get that lead block up there,’ he pointed to one of the blocks, vacated by the broken lift, banging against the upper ironwork of the doubling. Pulling his spike out Tregembo scrambled up to loosen the shackle.

  ‘Stokeley, cut off a couple of fathoms and make up a strop.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Drinkwater looked over the forward edge of the top as he waited for the men to finish their tasks. The chafing was worse. They had very little time before the heavy yard crashed below. He looked down. Rogers’s party was a confused huddle of men pulling, cutting and struggling but he could see the dull line of the starboard yard arm. He wondered what damage it had done in its descent, at least it was the smaller section and devoid of the heavy gear attached to the slings.

  ‘Here, sir,’ Stokeley had the strop and Tregembo the block. Drinkwater began to ease himself over the rim of the platform. ‘Here zur, I’ll do that,’ said Tregembo indignantly. Drinkwater ignored him. It was his job. Maybe if he had joined the ship weeks before she sailed, as a good first lieutenant should, he would have spotted the defect in the spar. It had not been fair to suppose that Griffiths could do the work as efficiently as himself. Tonight he would pay Providence the debt he owned for that extra time with Elizabeth.

  He lowered his weight gently onto the moving spar, gradually transferring his grip. He had hold of the lower jeers block and the movement of the whole thing was alarming now that his life depended on it. Reaching up he took the end of the strop and began to crouch, easing himself down until he was astride the yard, his legs wrapped round it. He let go of the jeers block to have both hands for the strop. His whole body was now transferred to the yard at its alarmingly cockbilled angle. Now the movement was exaggerated, swinging him from side to side with a twitch at the end of each oscillation that threatened to throw him off.

  It gave a sudden violent jerk. Drinkwater flung his arms about the spar, retaining sufficient presence of mind not to let go of the strop. For a second the absence of further movement convinced him he was in wild descent.

  Then from the deck came a hail: ‘End’s secure, sir!’ The jerk had been Lestock’s men bowsing the lower end down, unable to see their first lieutenant clinging to its upper extremity. Drink-water passed the strop round the spar, pulled it tight through its own part and held it up. Stokeley grabbed it and, as Drinkwater scrambled back into the top, secured the block to it. Tregembo had rove the rope through the block and secured one end round the topmast. All that remained to do was to reeve the hauling part through another vacant block. Tregembo had brought a buntline block and shackled it to give a clear lead to the deck and it was the work of only a few minutes to prepare their extempore double whip.

  Mr Quilhampton reappeared. ‘Mr Rogers has secured the starboard piece, sir.’

  ‘Right. All go below. I’ll remain here. Have Mr Lestock man the jeers and be to lower handsomely on them. Desire him also to take the weight on this manila inch. Make sure he has caught a turn with it.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’

  Drinkwater watched them go, leaning back against the topmast doubling, feeling hot and mad as the gale howled about him. His mouth was dry and he knew he would start shaking from the reaction from his exertions. Thank God they had a good man at the helm, the ship had not slewed from her course once. He must remember to find out who it was; the fellow was deserving of praise.

  ‘Ready masthead there!’ came the shout from below.

  ‘Set tight the whip!’ he bawled back, lowering himself onto his belly to watch progress. The strop drew tight.

  ‘Ee-ease the jeers!’

  The platform beneath him trembled. As Hellebore pitched forward and scended the yard moved down a foot, forward six inches. As the wave passed under her the bowsprit stabbed at the sky and the spar swung aft, hitting the mast with a judder. Damn! He should have thought of that! They needed a downhaul.

  ‘Belay there! ‘Vast lowering!’ He peered down while the yard swung forward and back. Again the jarring thump shot through his body. Then he had it. He reached down. One of the clew garnet lead blocks had a trailing rope through it. If he could just reach it . . .

  His fingers missed it by an inch. He thought of getting the hands to haul upon the whip but that might put too great a load on it. He wriggled over the top, turning so that his legs dangled over the edge. With one leg he hooked a trailing end of the line over his foot, bent his leg and, reaching down with one hand grabbed it, heaving himself back into the top. Quickly he fashioned a figure of eight knot in its end and let it go.

  ‘Mr Lestock! Get the starboard clew garnet, it’s trailing round the fiferail, pull it tight and lead it forward to the cathead. Use it as a downhaul to keep the yard off the mast!’

  ‘Aye, aye!’

  There was an interminable pause while Lestock sorted out the tangle of ropes. Then a shout that all was ready. Drinkwater peered once more over the edge of the top. His knot had drawn tight against the block and the rope led downwards.

  ‘Lower away handsomely and keep the downhaul tight!’

  The yard began its descent. The jeers parted, whirling to leeward in a cloud of dust causing confusion as the men on deck, suddenly relieved of the weight, fell over. The oscillations of the yard grew greater as it was lowered but the clew garnet, stretched like a thread, prevented its contact with the mast. As the yard’
s angle lessened the men at the chess tree slackened their lashings and there was a dull thud as the broken yard’s second part finally lay across the deck. As if angry with a wild beast the men leapt upon it and threw lashings round it. Drinkwater climbed wearily down. Scrambling aft he joined the master. ‘Well done Mr Lestock. Whom did you have on the wheel?’

  ‘Gregory, sir.’

  ‘Give him my compliments for keeping the ship so steady. When all the gear is secure you may send the watches below. What time is it?’

  ‘Two bells in the middle watch.’

  ‘Good God, I’d no idea . . .’

  Their exertions had taken three hours. If he had been asked Drinkwater would have imagined no more than an hour had elapsed. Wearily he went below to find Appleby sitting in the gunroom, a baleful look upon his face and a jug of blackstrap before him.

  ‘Couldn’t you sleep, Harry? Did we poor jacks make too much noise banging about aloft?’ His tone was ironic for he was too tired for sarcasm. ‘If that’s blackstrap for God’s sake give me some. Harry? What’s the matter?’

  Appleby looked up at Drinkwater as though seeing him for the first time.