A Brig of War

Chapter Twenty-One A Matter of Luck

Drinkwater snatched the ensign from Dalziell's grasp. The red bunting spilled onto the deck. He turned to Morris, the question unasked on his lips. Morris inclined his head, implying his authority lay behind the surrender.

The belief that he was dying had taken so sharp a hold upon his mind that he was sure surrender offered him survival. The enemy cruiser was from lie de France. As commander of such a well-fought prize he would be treated with respect, and removed from the source of his poisoning he would recover. Into Morris's mind came another reason, adding its own weight in favour of surrender. While he enjoyed an easy house arrest at Port Louis his officers would be incarcerated. Drinkwater would be mewed up for the duration of the war. It would finish the work he had failed to do at Kosseir.

In the electric atmosphere that charged the quarterdeck all this was plain to them both. Their mutual antipathy had reached its crisis.

'The French are sending a boat, sir,' said Dalziell, eyes darting from one to the other. Drinkwater turned and shoved the ensign back at Dalziell.

'That is Hellebore's ensign, by God! I'll not see it struck yet!'

Rogers arrived on the quarterdeck. He saw the ensign. 'Surely we haven't…?'

'No, by Christ, we have not!' Dalziell was pushed towards the halliards as Drinkwater snapped to Rogers. 'Get Santhonax up here, and Bruilhac! Quick!'

Drinkwater looked at the approaching boat, a launch packed with men, a cable from them.

'I command, damn you!' Morris hissed furiously. Drinkwater turned and looked down the barrel of the pistol.

He crossed the deck in two strides and wrenched the gun from his grasp. 'You may rot, Morris, but I am not through yet… get that ensign up, Dalziell, you lubber…'

Drinkwater was aware that he was holding the pistol at the young man. Dalziell threw a final, failing glance at Morris then did as he was bid. He belayed the halliards as Santhonax came on deck. The Frenchman looked curiously about him, took in the fallen spars, the broken bodies and blood spattered across the deck. He saw too the ensign being belayed and his quick mind understood. A glance to windward showed him his countrymen, the gunports of Romaine, and the boat, almost alongside.

'Get 'em up on the rail, Rogers, that Frog won't fire on his own boat.'

But a gun did fire, the ball whistling overhead, a single discharge to recall the British to the etiquette of war.

Drinkwater pointed the pistol at Santhonax. 'Captain, tell that boat to pull off. This ship has not surrendered. The ensign halliards were shot through. If the officer in the boat pulls off I will not open fire until he has regained his ship, otherwise I shall destroy him,' he paused, 'and you also, Captain.'

The French boat was ten yards off, the officer standing in the stern, looking up in astonishment at the apparition of a Republican naval officer standing beneath the British ensign like Hector on the walls of Troy.

Santhonax looked at Drinkwater. 'No,' he said simply. 'I leave it to the desperation of your plight and your conscience to shoot me.'

Drinkwater's heart was thumping painfully and he could feel the sweat pouring out of him. He sensed Morris awaiting events. He swore beneath his breath.

'Get up, Bruilhac!' The terrified boy climbed trembling on the rail as Drinkwater jerked his head at Rogers to pull Santhonax off the rail. Rogers leapt forward, together with Tregembo. But they were too late.

Drinkwater was about to threaten Bruilhac with instant death if he did not do his bidding but he was spared this cruel necessity. A sudden eruption of cannon fire to the east of them swung the focus of attention abruptly away from the wretched little drama on Antigone's rails. At first is seemed Romaine had fired a final shattering broadside to compel Antigone to strike. In their boat the French thought the same. There was a simultaneous ducking of heads. Bruilhac fainted through sheer terror while a similar reflex caused Santhonax to dive outboard.

Even as Drinkwater registered Santhonax's escape and heard the howl of rage from Morris he had noticed there was no flame from Romaine's larboard broadside. The sun beat down through the clearing smoke of their earlier discharges as the wind shredded the last of it to leeward and there, in the bright path laid by the sun upon the sea, they saw the newcomer.

'A British frigate, by all that's wonderful!' shouted Rogers, suddenly releasing them all from their suspended animation. Tregembo picked up two round-shot from the carronade garlands and tried to lob them into the French boat. The Frenchmen suddenly laid on their oars and spun her round just as Captain Santhonax's hand reached up for help. Drinkwater had a brief glimpse of his face, disfigured and distorted by the pain in his shoulder, his left arm trailing, his long legs kicking powerfully.

Another thundering broadside, this time from Romaine, caused a second's pause. There was no fall of shot near Antigone; Romaine was bracing her yards round to fill her sails with wind.

Drinkwater leapt to the deck. 'Rogers! Tregembo!'

He picked up a cartridge and rammed it into the nearest carronade. Tregembo rolled a shot into the muzzle and joined Rogers on the tackles. Drinkwater spun the screw and watched the blunt barrel depress. He leant against the slide and felt it slew on its heavy caster. 'Secure!'

Through the gunport he could see the boat, see the officer and a man hauling Santhonax over the transom. Rogers drove the priming quill into the touch-hole and blew powder into the groove. Still sighting along the barrel Drinkwater's right hand cocked the lock and his long fingers wound round the lanyard. The boat traversed the back-sight.

It occurred to him that it was easier to kill at a distance, removed from the confrontation from which Santhonax had just escaped. He had only to jerk the lanyard and Santhonax would die. He thought of the grey eyes staring from the portrait below, and of how he and Dungarth had let her go. From Hortense he thought of Elizabeth. The boat's transom crossed the end of the barrel. He jerked the lanyard.

The carronade roared back on its slide. Drinkwater leapt up to mark the fall of shot. He saw the spout of water a foot off the boat's quarter. He was surprised at the relief he felt.

'Let's try for a frigate,' Drinkwater spun the elevating screw again, bringing the retreating Romaine into his sights as, with crippled masts she moved sluggishly away. The wind was falling light, the concussion of their guns having killed it. They fired six shots before giving up. Romaine was out of range.

They craned their necks to see what was happening. They saw their rescuer begin to turn, trying to work across Romaine's stern to rake. The French captain put his helm over and followed the British ship so they circled one another like dogs, nose to tail. A shattering broadside crashed from Romaine, a slighter response from the other. Another came from the Britisher. The Romaine began to draw off to the south-east. The stranger wore in pursuit, her mizen topmast going by the board as she did so.

'Telemachus,' Drinkwater spelled out, peering through his glass. The two ships moved slowly away, leaving Antigone rolling easily. The boat had vanished.

Drinkwater turned inboard. He and Morris exchanged a glance. Beneath his hooded lids Morris bore a whipped look. He went below.

Without any feeling of triumph Drinkwater's eyes fell upon the body of Quilhampton. Tregembo joined him.

'There's not a mark on him. Hold, he's not gone… Mr Q! Mr Q! D'you hear me?' Drinkwater began to chafe the boy's wrists. His eyes fluttered and opened. Rogers bent over them. 'Winded by a passing shot. He'll live,' said Rogers.

It took three days to re-rig the frigate, three days of strenuous labour during which the much depleted crew struggled and cursed, ate and slept between the guns. But although they swore they laboured willingly. They were not Antigones but Hellebores and the big frigate was their prize, the concrete proof of their corporate endeavours. She was also the source of prize money, and their shrinking numbers increased each individual's share.

By dint of their efforts they sent up new or improvised topmasts and could cross courses and topsails on all three masts. Later, Drinkwater thought, after they had carried out some additional modifications to the salvaged broken spars they might manage a main topgallant.

For Drinkwater the need to bring the frigate under command over-rode everything else. Morris retired to his cabin from whence came the news that he was keeping food down at last. From the cockpit came the hammock-shrouded corpses that failed to survive Appleby's surgery, the bravely smiling wounded and the empty rum bottles that sustained Appleby during the long hours he spent attending his grim profession.

Johnson reported they had been struck in the hull by twenty-one shot, but only two low enough to cause serious leakage.

The pumps clanked regularly even as the remaining men toiled to slew those half-dozen eighteen-pounders back into their larboard ports. They had lost sixteen men killed and twenty wounded in the action. Rank had almost ceased to exist as Drinkwater urged them on, officers tailing on to ropes and leading by example. Mr Lestock shook his head disapprovingly and Drinkwater left the deck watch to him and his precious sense of honour, deriving great comfort from the loyal support of Tregembo and even poor, handless, Mr Quilhampton who did what he could. Samuel Rogers emerged as a man who, given a task to do, performed it with that intemperate energy that so characterised him.

Late in the afternoon of the third day after the action with Romaine a sail was seen to leeward. Nervously glasses were trained on her, lest she proved the re-rigged Romaine come to finish off her late adversary. The last anyone aboard Antigone had seen of the two ships had been the Telemachus in pursuit of the Romaine. There had been no sign of Santhonax and the French boat and it was supposed that she had made the shelter of Romaine.

Drinkwater put Antigone on the wind and informed Morris. He was favoured with a grunt of acknowledgement.

'I think she's the Telemachus, sir,' Quilhampton informed Drinkwater when he returned to the deck.

'Hoist the interrogative, Mr Q. Mr Rogers! General quarters if you please!'

The pipes squealed at the hatchways and the pitifully small crew tumbled up, augmenting the watch on deck. The stranger was coming up fast, pointing much higher than the wounded frigate. The recognition signal streamed from her foremasthead. 'She's British, then,' said Lestock unnecessarily.

Drinkwater kept the men at their stations as the ship closed them. At a mile distance she fired a gun to leeward and hoisted the signal to heave to.

Drinkwater gave the order to back the main topsail. In her present state Antigone could neither outsail nor outfight the ship to leeward.

'Sending a boat, sir,' Quilhampton reported.

Drinkwater went below to inform Morris. He found the commander watching the newcomer from the larboard quarter gallery.

'A twenty-eight, eh? A post ship. D'you know who commands her?'

'No, sir.'

'I'll come up.'

The boat bobbed over the wave-crests between them. 'There's a midshipman in her, sir,' reported Mr Quilhampton, his eyes bright with excitement. It occurred to Drinkwater that Mr Q was suddenly proud of his lost hand. It was little enough compensation, he thought. 'Do you meet the young gentleman, Mr Q.'

The men were peering curiously at the approaching boat, those at the guns through the ports. 'Let 'em,' said Drinkwater to himself. They had earned a little tolerance.

His uniform awry Morris came on deck, holding out his hand for a glass. Lestock beat Dalziell in the matter. The midshipman swung himself over the side. There were catcalls from the lower gunports and Rogers's voice snapped 'Silence there!' The boat's crew were tricked out in blue and white striped shirts and trousers of white jean. They wore glazed hats with ribbons of blue and white and their oars were picked out in the same colours. Such a display amused the Hellebores and led Drinkwater to the conclusion that her captain was a wealthy man. An officer with interest of the 'Parliamentary' kind, probably young and probably half his own age. He was almost right.

Quilhampton approached the quarterdeck, saw Morris and diverted his approach from Drinkwater to the commander. 'Mr Mole, sir.'

The midshipman bowed. His tall gangling fair haired appearance was in marked contrast with his name. His accent was rural Norfolk, though mannered.

'My respect, sir, Commander Morris, I believe.' Morris stiffened.

'Captain to you, you damned brat. Who commands your vessel, eh?'

The lad was not abashed. 'Captain White, sir, Captain Richard White, he desires me to offer whatever services you require, though I perceive,' he swept his hand aloft, 'that you have little need of them. My congratulations.'

Drinkwater smiled grimly. The young gentleman's affront could only be but admired, particularly as he appeared impervious to Morris's forbidding aspect.

Morris's mouth fell open. He closed it and turned contemptuously away, crossing the deck towards the companionway. 'Mr Drinkwater, I expect the nob who commands yonder will want us to obey his orders. Tell this dog's turd what we want, then kick his perfumed arse off my ship.' He disappeared below.

'Aye, aye, sir.' Drinkwater regarded the midshipman. 'Well, Mr Mole, are you commonly addressing senior officers in that vein?'

The boy blinked and Drinkwater went on, 'Your captain; is that Richard White from Norfolk, a small man with fair hair?'

'Captain White is of small stature, sir,' Mole said primly.

'Very well, Mr Mole, I desire you to inform Captain White that we are short of men but able to make the Cape. We carry dispatches from Admiral Blankett and are armed en flute. We are the prize of a brig and most damnably grateful for your arrival the other day.'

Mole smirked as though he had been personally responsible for the timely arrival of Telemachus.

'Oh, and Mr Mole, I desire that you inform him that the captain's name is Augustus Morris and my name is Drinkwater. I urge that you give him those particulars.'

Mole repeated the names. 'By the way, Mr Mole, what became of the Frenchman?'

'He slipped us in the night, sir.'

'Tut tut,' said Drinkwater catching Quilhampton's eye. 'That would never have happened to us, eh, Mr Q?'

'No, sir,' grinned Quilhampton.

'See what happened to Mr Quilhampton the last time we had an engagement…'

Quilhampton held up his stump. 'Mr Quilhampton stopped the enemy from running by taking hold of her bowsprit…' Laughter echoed round Antigone's scarred quarterdeck and Mole, aware that the joke was on him, touched his forehead and fled.

'Boat ahoy!' Lestock hailed the returning boat.

'Telemachus!' That hail confirmed that she bore the frigate's captain.

'How d'you propose we man the side, Mr Drinkwater?' Lestock asked sarcastically. Drinkwater lowered his glass, having recognised the little figure in the stern.

'Oh, I'd say that you and Mr Dalziell will do for decoration, Mr Grey with his mates for sideboys. This ain't the time for punctiliousness. Mr Q!'

'Sir?'

'Inform the captain that Captain White is coming aboard.'

'Aye, aye, sir.' Drinkwater went forward to join the side party. Lestock was furious.

Grey's pipe twittered and Drinkwater swept his battered hat from his head.

'Strap me, but it is you!' Richard White, gold lace about his sleeve and upon his shoulder, held out his hand in informal greeting, 'Deuced glad to see you, Nat…' he looked round the deck expectantly. 'What's it that imp of Satan Mole said about…?' he paused and Drinkwater turned to see Morris emerging on deck.

'Well damn my eyes, if it isn't that bugger Morris!'