The flying squadron

The Admiralty

Lord Dungarth set down the stained paper he had been reading and rose from the desk, heaving himself on to the crutch which bent under his weight. The reflection of his gross figure in the uncurtained window disgusted him momentarily, until he was close enough to the glass to peer through.

Below, the carriage lights in Whitehall threw their glimmering illumination on streaks of sleeting rain that threatened to turn to snow before the night had ended. He raised his eyes above the roof-tops and gazed at the night sky. Dark clouds streaked across, permitting the occasional glimpse of a pair of stars.

The vision of his long-dead wife's face formed itself around the distant stars, then cloud obscured her image and he saw only the pale hemisphere of his own bald and reflected head. The onset of the pain overwhelmed him; the attacks were more frequent now, more intense, like the pains of labour as the moment of crisis approached. He seemed to shrink on his crutch, diminished in size as death sapped at his very being.

The pain ebbed and ceased to be an overwhelming preoccupation; he was aware of the stink of his own fearful sweat. Slowly he turned and began the long haul back to his desk. He slumped into his creaking chair and, with a shaking hand, reached for the decanter. He had given up hiding the laudanum and, with a carelessly shaking hand, added half a dozen drops to the oporto.

Sipping the concoction, he half-closed his eyes, trying to recapture the vision of his countess, but instead there came before his mind's eye a picture of gunfire and dismasted ships: the Guerrière, the Macedonian, with more to follow, he felt certain, the imminence of death and the opiate lending him prescience, an awareness of approaching bad tidings.

And yet...

His hand reached out tremulously, seeking the travel-stained dispatch in its curious, runic cipher. He had thought, too, that disaster and defeat were inevitable from that quarter after the news of the Russians' abandonment of Moscow following the battle at Borodino.

But now ...

He frowned with the effort of focusing on the piece of paper. He was so used to the cryptography, he needed no key to decode it, but read the words as if they headlined a broadsheet: French army have abandoned Moscow. Line of retreat dictated by Russian pursuit. Attacks to be mounted at their crossing of the Beresina ...

Lord Dungarth looked up at the dark window. The sleet had turned to snow. The secret dispatch was already a month old.

'At last,' he whispered as the pain gathered itself again and he drained the glass.

CHAPTER 16 The Dogs of War

It was high summer in the southern hemisphere, day after day of blue skies dusted with fair-weather cumulus. Sunlight sparkled off the sapphire seas and the wavecaps broke into rainbows as they tumbled. For a week the squadron tacked wearily to windward. Gulls, petrels and frigate birds rode the invisible air currents disturbed by their passage, amusing the bored lookouts who saw nothing beyond the topgallants of the ships on either flank, though the visibility was as far as the eye could see. A sense of futility was borne in upon them all with their growing comprehension of the vastness of the ocean.

In the wardroom, grumbling and criticism accompanied every meal and even the inhabitants of the lower deck, whose burden was at its lightest in such prime sailing conditions, were permeated by a gloom begun by the news of the three British frigate defeats, and daily worsened with their frustration at discovering no sail upon the broad bosom of the South Atlantic.

As for Drinkwater himself, he endured the loneliness and isolation of his position by withdrawing into himself. Even Quilhampton's diligent and loyal support seemed less enthusiastic, a remnant of past friendship, rather than the whole-hearted support of the present. Quilhampton was friendly with Frey, Drinkwater noted, supposing them both to be presuming on long acquaintanceship and discussing his own descent into madness.

Perhaps he was going mad. The thought occurred to him repeatedly. Loneliness and guilt combined to make his mood vacillate so that he might, had Pym known it, be set fair to become a subject for the worthy surgeon's treatise on the pendular personality. On the one hand his metaphysical preoccupations saw the quest he had set the squadron upon as a cogent consequence of all that had occurred at Castle Point. On the other loomed the awful spectre of a mighty misjudgement, a spectre made more terrible by the ominous threat explicit in the wording of his commission: you may fail as you will answer at your peril.

He became unable to sleep properly, his cabin a prison, so that he preferred to doze on deck, wrapped in his cloak and jammed in the familiar place by the weather mizen rigging. As the watches changed, the officers merely nodded at the solitary figure whose very presence betrayed his anxiety and further amplified the depression of their own spirits.

And yet they knew, for all its interminable nature, that such a state of affairs could not go on for ever. One morning, an hour after dawn when the squadron had tacked, reversed the consequent echelon of its advance, and sent the lookouts aloft, the hail from the masthead swept aside the prevailing mood:

'Deck there! Icarus's let fly her t'garn sheets!'

'A fleet in sight!' Frey said with unnatural loudness, rounding on the figure standing by the larboard mizen pinrail. 'The India fleet?'

'Pray to God it is,' someone muttered.

'Mr Belchambers,' Frey said curtly, 'get a long glass aloft. Mr Davies, rouse the watch, stand by the main t'gallant sheets and let 'em fly, and Mr Belchambers ...'

The midshipman paused in the lower rigging. 'Sir?'

'Make sure Cymbeline has seen and acknowledged our repetition.'

'Aye, aye, sir,' Belchambers acknowledged, his reply verging on the irritated, as though weary of being told how to suck eggs. Frey ignored the insubordinate tone and approached Drinkwater, who had detached himself from support and, dopey with fatigue, his face grey, stubbled and red-eyed, stumbled before the circulation returned properly to his legs.

'Thorowgood may have trouble seeing us, sir, in this light.'

'You have a talent for stating the obvious this morning,' snapped Drinkwater testily, 'let us see what Ashby does.'

Frey bit his lip and raised his speaking trumpet. 'Mr Belchambers!' he roared at the midshipman who paused, hanging down at the main upper futtocks. 'Get a move on, boy!'

As the morning advanced ship after ship hove over the southern horizon, the unmistakable sight of laden Indiamen running before the favourable trade wind. Far ahead of them they watched as Ashby's Icarus beat up towards a small, brig-rigged sloop-of-war, which was crowding on sail to intercept and identify the first of what must have seemed to her commander to be a naval squadron of potentially overwhelming force.

From aloft Belchambers passed a running commentary to the quarterdeck. 'Eighteen sail, sir ... The escort's a brig-sloop, sir ... looks to have a jury main topmast. No other escort in sight, but I can see Sprite coming up from the south-west, sir ...'

'What of Cymbeline? Frey roared.

They saw Belchambers swivel round. 'She's coming up fast, sir, stun's'ls set alow and aloft!'

'I can see her from the deck, Mr Frey,' Drinkwater remarked.

After the private signals had been exchanged, the Icarus wore round in the brig's wake and the two men-of-war ran alongside each other. The brig then veered away from the thirty-two and the men now crowding Patrician's deck saw her run down towards them.

'Heave to, if you please, Mr Frey,' Drinkwater ordered, rubbing his chin. 'I'm going below for a shave.'

'Aye, aye, sir,' Frey replied, grinning at the captain's retreating back. The sight of the East Indiamen, splendid symbols of their country's maritime might, transformed the morale of the Patrician. Idlers and men of the watch below had turned out to see the marvellous panorama; Frey could forgive the cross-patch Drinkwater, even provoke a grudging acknowledgement of his misjudgement from Mr Wyatt.

'Told you so, Wyatt,' Frey muttered, reaching for the speaking trumpet beside the master.

'You're right — for once.'

Frey grinned and raised the megaphone: 'Stand by the chess trees and catheads! Clew garnets and buntlines there! Rise tacks and sheets!'

'Three ships, you say, Lieutenant?' Drinkwater handed a glass to the young officer from the brig-of-war Sparrowhawk.

'Aye, sir, in two attacks ...'

'And the last when?'

'The day before yesterday, sir. If the wind had been lighter we would have lost more, sir. As it was the India Johnnies gave a good account of themselves. We did our best but...' The young officer gestured hopelessly.

'You were outsailed by Yankee schooners.'

'Exactly so. Beg pardon, but how did you know, sir?'

'Intuition, Lieutenant...'

'Wykeham, sir.'

'Well, Lieutenant Wykeham, return to Captain Sudbury and tell him we shall do our best to assist you. Your ship is wounded?'

'Aye, sir, we lost the main topmast. One of those confounded Americans had a long gun, barbette-mounted amidships on a traversing carriage. She shot the stick clean out of us and hulled us badly. We lost four men with that one shot alone.'

'How many of them, enemy schooners, I mean?' Drinkwater wiped a hand across his face as if to remove his weariness.

'Six, sir,'

'Any sign of a frigate?'

'An American frigate? No, sir.'

Drinkwater grunted. 'Does Captain Sudbury anticipate another attack?'

'I don't think so, sir. We gave them a bloody nose last time. One of them was definitely hulled and with her rigging knocked about.'

'It doesn't occur to you that the hiatus may be due solely to their effecting repairs to that schooner?'

It had clearly not occurred to either Lieutenant Wykeham or his young commander, Sudbury.

'Young men are too often optimists, Mr Wykeham.' Drinkwater paused, letting this piece of homespun wisdom sink in. 'I have already given my squadron written orders as to their dispositions upon meeting with you. I think you had better cover the van of the convoy. Tell Captain Sudbury to act as he sees fit in the event of another attack, to throw out his routine convoy signals as has been his practice to date. My squadron will act according to their orders. However, I shall not condemn him if he gets his ship into action with one of these fellows. Tell him to aim high, langridge and bar shot, I think, if you have it, otherwise the galley pots and the carpenter's best nails, cripple' em, clip their confounded wings, Lieutenant, for they are better flyers then we.'

'Very well, sir.'

'By-the-by, in which direction did they retire?'

'To the east, sir, that is why we were ...'

'To the east of the convoy, yes, yes, I understand. You had better return to your ship. Tell Captain Sudbury he is under my orders now and I relieve him of the chief responsibility, but I expect him to carry on as normal, entirely as normal, d'you see? Perhaps we may deceive the enemy, if he returns, into not noticing our presence until it is too late. D'you understand me?'

'Very well, sir.'

After the young man had gone, Drinkwater turned and stared astern. The sea, so lately empty of anything but his own squadron, was crowded with the black hulls and towering white sails of the Honourable East India Company's ships. Craning round, he could just see Cymbeline making her way to the windward station. Ashby should be doing the same on the other wing. Once Wykeham's boat had gone, Patrician must take up her own position.

There was no American frigate; not yet, anyway, Drinkwater mused. On the other hand, Wykeham had informed him that the last ship to be lost was the Indiaman Kenilworth Castle and she had been carrying a fortune in specie.

It cost Drinkwater no great effort to imagine Captain Sudbury's mortification at losing three such valuable ships to the enemy; he had once been in the same position himself. [See A Private Revenge.]

In the right circumstances Indiamen could, and had, given the enemy a thrashing. An unescorted convoy of them under Commodore Nathaniel Dance had manoeuvred like men-of-war and driven off a marauding squadron of French ships under Admiral Linois eight years earlier. Their batteries of cannon were effective enough, if well handled, but they could not outmanoeuvre swift gaff-schooners stuffed with men spoiling to tweak the lion's tail and seize rich prizes to boot. During the following day Drinkwater pored over his charts, trying to divine what Stewart intended, for he was convinced Stewart commanded this aggressive group of letters-of-marque.

Stewart would come back, that much was certain, like a pack of hounds baying for more meat once the smell of blood was in their nostrils, but with one of his vessels damaged and three rich prizes to shepherd to safety.

Drinkwater considered the alternatives open to the enemy. Manning the prizes would not prove a problem. The privateers would have a surplus of men, indeed they signed on extra hands for the purpose, engaging prize-masters in anticipation of a profitable cruise. In all likelihood Stewart would gamble on another attack, cut out what he could, and then return triumphantly to the Chesapeake.

Drinkwater could recapture the Kenilworth Castle off the Virginia capes, but to act on that assumption would be dangerous. Now that he had encountered the convoy he could not so easily abandon it. Yet he was prepared to wager that if another attack was mounted it would argue cogently in favour of his theory; and if events fell out in this fashion a spirited pursuit had a good chance of recovering the lost ships.

It was true Baltimore clippers could outsail a heavy frigate, but the same frigate could outsail a laden Indiaman, and even a two-day start would make little difference.

'Sentry!' The marine's head peered round the door. 'Pass word for the midshipman of the watch.'

When Porter's red face appeared, Drinkwater said, 'Make Sprite's number and have her close us.'

'Messages, sir?'

'Just so, Mr Porter.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Drawing pen, paper and ink towards him he began to draft new orders to his squadron.

Drinkwater's judgement proved uncannily accurate. Five jagged pairs of sails broke the eastern horizon two hours before sunset, an hour and a half after Sprite had delivered the last packet to Cymbeline. Thorowgood threw out the alarm signal without firing a warning gun, which proved he had digested his orders on receipt. Patrician had not yet made the acknowledgement before her marine drummer was beating to quarters and she was edging out of line, skittering laterally across the rear of the convoy, as, far ahead, Sudbury's little Sparrowhawk fired a warning gun and signalled the convoy to turn away from the threat. With luck, Drinkwater calculated, he could close the distance between himself and the point of attack as he had outlined to Wykeham. If he could trap any of the privateers within the convoy, hamper their manoeuvrability, he might...

He felt his heart thump uncomfortably in his chest. Already the sun was westering. He hoped the Americans could not see too well against the brilliant path it laid upon the sea ...

'Steady, steady as you go,' Wyatt intoned, standing beside the men at the wheel, gauging distances as they lifted to a scending sea and threatened to overrun the plodding Indiaman, the Indus, upon whose quarter they sought to hide until the privateers singled out their quarry and struck. Two officers on the Indiaman's quarterdeck were regarding them, their attention clearly divided between the following frigate and the predatory Americans on their opposite bow. Wyatt turned to Drinkwater: 'We're overhauling, sir ...'

'Let fly a weather sheet, or two. I want to cross under this fellow's stern in a moment, not across his bow.'

'Aye, aye, sir. Ease the fore an' main tops'l sheets there!'

'And start the foresheet…'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

It took a few moments for the adjustments to take effect, then Patrician slowed appreciably.

'What's Thorowgood doing, James, can you see him?'

Quilhampton was up on the rail, telescope levelled and braced against a shroud. 'Aye, sir. He's tucked in behind the Lord Mornington ...' With his one hand Quilhampton deftly swivelled his glass at the schooners. 'They don't suspect a damned thing yet.'

'Perhaps they can't count.' Drinkwater looked at the setting sun. The privateers' strategy of attacking from the east allowed them to escape into the darkness, and silhouetted their victims against the sunset, but it made precise identification tricky. He hoped his frigates might be lost amid the convoy and thus steal a march upon the brash predators. The sooner they were occupied by the business of capture, the sooner he could attack.

From somewhere ahead a ragged broadside rumbled out.

'Deck there,' Belchambers hailed from his action station in the main-top, 'Indiaman has opened fire.'

'Can you see the Sparrowhawk?' Drinkwater called, levelling his own glass at the mass of sails ahead of them. Sudbury's little brig must be five or six miles away.

'Yes, sir, she's on the wind, starboard tack, just ahead of the eastern column.'

It was this column which was under attack and Sudbury was doing what was expected of him, attempting to cover his flank. His puny aggression was, however, being ignored by the Americans. The two leading schooners, the stars and bars streaming from their main peaks, huge pennants bearing the words Free trade and sailors' rights flying from their mastheads, were coming down fast upon the third ship in the column, the Lady Lennox.

All the Indiamen in the eastern column were firing now, filling the air with dense clouds of powder smoke which trailed along with the ships, driven, like them, by the following wind. The approaching schooners shortened the range with the rapidity of swooping falcons, leaving alongside their respective wakes an impotent colonnade of water-plumes from plunging shot.

'Down helm, Mr Wyatt, let us try to keep those fellows in sight.'

In obedience to Drinkwater's order Patricians head swung slowly to starboard. From the quarterdeck the end of her jib boom seemed to rake the taffrail of the Indus as the heavy frigate edged out from the column of Indiamen.

'Haul aft those sheets,' Wyatt was calling. 'Steady there, steady...'

'Set stuns'ls, if you please, Mr Wyatt, and bring us back to the convoy's course,' Drinkwater ordered, keeping his voice measured, fighting the rising tension within.

With all her sails drawing again, Patrician increased her speed and began to overhaul the Indus on a parallel heading. Beyond the Indiamen and taking his cue from Drinkwater, Captain Thorowgood followed suit. Cymbeline made sail past the Lord Mornington, which ceased her own fire, and both frigates, in line ahead, the Cymbeline leading, bore down upon the enemy schooners, partially hidden in the pall of smoke drifting in dense wraiths about the convoy.

This smoke, which half-concealed their approach, also masked their quarry from them. The last glimpse Drinkwater had caught of the privateers had revealed the most advanced of the pair slipping under their chosen victim's stern preparatory to ranging up on the Lady Lennox's port side, while her confederate did the same on the starboard beam.

The boom of a heavy gun floated over the water and Drinkwater recalled Wykeham's report of a traversing cannon mounted amidships in one of the schooners. The moment to press his carefully planned counter-attack had arrived.

He swung around. The remaining three corsairs were in the clear air to windward and astern of them, working round to the southward of the convoy.

'Where's Sprite?' he asked Quilhampton.

'There, sir!' Quilhampton pointed. In a gap between two Indiamen Drinkwater caught a glimpse of the British schooner beating up to place herself between three ships and the convoy. Sundercombe carried his little vessel into action with an apparent contempt for the odds against him.

'And there's Icarus!' Ashby's frigate was in silhouette. Only her foreshortening against the sunset as she swung identified her as a warship. Even as Drinkwater watched, the bulk of the Lord Mornington interposed itself as they swept past. He would have to depend upon Ashby's steadiness in support of Sundercombe to guard the convoy's rear.

'Cymbeline's coming up alongside the outboard schooner, sir!' Quilhampton reported, his voice shrill with excitement, and Drinkwater whirled round.

They had dropped the Lord Mornington astern and were almost up with the Windsor, the East India Company ship next ahead of her and directly astern of the Lady Lennox. The Windsor was hauling her yards, a row of white-shirted lascars straining at the braces clearly visible, as she pulled to port to avoid the fracas erupting under her bow. She was also still firing her guns and these presented a greater threat to the overtaking Patrician than to the low, rakish schooners grappling her sister-ship ahead.

'Cease fire, damn you!' Drinkwater roared at the offending Company officers who turned in astonishment at the apparition looming out of the smoke astern. They must have been aware of Cymbeline overtaking them, but had clearly not seen Patrician coming up hand over fist in her wake.

'God damn, we've got 'em!' shouted Quilhampton jubilantly, dancing a jig on the rail and bringing a laugh from the men at the wheel and the quarterdeck guns whose comprehension of events was as confused as that of the officers of the Windsor. Drinkwater drew himself up in the mizen rigging to get a better view. The pall of smoke rolled slowly along with them, lifting like fog, but at sea-level it was clear and he could see the hull of yet another Indiaman, her name blazoned in gold letters across her stern below the windows of the great cabin which reflected the glory of the sunset: Lady Lennox. A schooner was fast to either of her sides like hounds on a stag's flanks, except that the privateer on the Indiaman's starboard beam was crushed between Cymbeline's hull, and boarders were pouring down the frigate's tumblehome like a human torrent, the air full of their shouts and the spitfire flashes of small arms.

Even as Thorowgood's men scrambled down the side of their frigate to board the schooner, men from the second schooner to port were boarding the Indiaman.

'Mr Moncrieff!'

'Sir?'

'Your men to open fire on those boarders.'

'Aye, aye, sir!'

'What is it?' Drinkwater addressed Midshipman Porter, redder than usual from his run up from below.

'Mr Frey says the guns won't depress enough to hit the enemy, sir.'

'Boarders, Mr Porter, through the gun ports as soon as we're alongside.'

Beside him Moncrieff's marines jostled, levelling their muskets on the hammocks in the nettings, drawing back the hammers and flicking the frizzens. The air crackled with the vicious sputter of musketry and the solider boom of cannon as somewhere forward, in defiance of the laws of ballistics, several guns were fired. Amid the smoke and racket, Wyatt, Quilhampton, Moncrieff and Drinkwater bawled their orders as Patrician ranged up alongside her quarry.

'Douse the stuns'ls ... rig in the booms and look lively there!'

'Steady, steady as you go ...'

'Another point to starboard, Mr Wyatt, if you please. Crush 'em, damn it, and don't overrun her!' 'Aye, aye, sir!'

Drinkwater looked up, gauging the diminishing distance, before Patricians bulk sandwiched the Yankee schooner against the Lady Lennox. At the Indiaman's stern an American officer was hacking at the ensign halliards, the last rays of the sun flashing on the sword blade. He looked up, suddenly aware the ship bearing down on them from astern was not another Indiaman, as he had supposed, but a second British frigate. Drinkwater could clearly see him turn and bellow something, he even thought he caught the noise of his order above the shouts and screams and clash of steel. Moncrieff had seen the man too.

'Marine!' he bellowed, his face distorted by excitement, 'Hit that bastard beside the ensign halliards!'

'Yessir!'

There was a crash which sent a tremor through the Patrician as the big frigate's starboard bow drove into the larboard quarter of the American schooner and she ground her way past. The ebb and flow of men upon the Lady Lennox where American, Briton, lascar and Chinaman contended for the deck in a dozen desperate fights, seemed to freeze for a brief moment as the impact of the Patrician's arrival made them stagger.

Into this melee Moncrieff's marines poured a withering fire. Drinkwater saw the man at the Indiaman's ensign halliards drop his sword, spin round and fall from sight. Men began sliding down the Lady Lennox's side, Americans, Drinkwater guessed, trying to regain their own ship. Beyond the Lady Lennox's farther rail, the bulk of the Cymbeline dominated the second schooner, invisible to Drinkwater's summary gaze. He looked down. The deck of the crushed schooner lay exposed, the caulking worming from her sprung deck planking, the long gun on its traversing mounting jammed as its crew fought to swing it round at the Patrician. With a thunderous crash the main and fore chain-whales gave way under the compression of the Patricians hull and the schooner's masts came down, a mass of spars, sails and cordage which obscured the marines' targets and hid the unfortunate Americans from their vengeful enemies.

From the gun ports below, like imps of hell intent on some terrible harvest, dark shapes in the gathering shadows, the gun-crews squeezed through, dropping on to the schooner's decks. They rooted under the canvas with their pikes, savagely pitch forking at every movement in a wild catharsis of relief after weeks of fruitless cruising, venting pent-up emotions and repressed urges in an orgy of licensed butchery so that the schooner's deck assumed the bloody aspect of an ampitheatre of death.

The sight revolted Drinkwater and he picked up a speaking trumpet.

'D'you strike, there?' he shouted, 'Strike, sir, and put an end to this madness!'

A man, an officer by his torn blue coat and brass buttons that gleamed dully in the fading light, fought his way clear of the encumbering bunt of the huge mainsail and waved his hand. It was covered with blood which fell upon the canvas beside him. Drinkwater recognized him as the man who had, a few moments earlier, been on the point of hauling down the Lady Lennox's ensign. Somehow he had regained his own deck under Moncrieff's murderous fire.

'Hold your fire, Moncrieff. Cease fire there, cease fire!'

The officer on the deck below him staggered and Drinkwater realized the schooner was sinking beneath his feet.

'Mr Q,' he called, 'have a boat lowered. Mr Davies is to take the survivors off, and pass word to the surgeon to expect some badly wounded. Mr Porter, recall your gunners before they lose their heads completely.' He raised the speaking trumpet again. 'Lady Lennox 'hoy!'

An officer in the panoply of the Honourable East India Company appeared at the rail. 'Have you suffered much?' Drinkwater enquired.

'A score or so killed and twice as many wounded, mostly lascars and coolies, sir,' the officer said dismissively. 'We took round shot through the hull, but we can plug the holes.' Drinkwater recalled the heavy traversing cannon now hidden under the wrecked top-hamper of the schooner.

'What's the news from the starboard side?' Drinkwater called.

'Much the same. Your frigate's hauling off with the enemy secured alongside. My commander, Captain Barnard, presents his compliments and his deepest sense of obligation to you, sir, and desires to know your name.'

'My respects to Captain Barnard, sir,' Drinkwater replied. 'My name is Drinkwater, Nathaniel Drinkwater, and I am glad to be of service.'

'You have saved the Company a fortune, Captain Drinkwater.'

'I am glad to hear it...'

'I know that man,' Moncrieff's voice suddenly announced, cutting through the calm that followed the surrender and the exchange between Drinkwater and the Lady Lennox's officer. 'That fellow staring up at us; he was in the Potomac'

Distracted, Drinkwater looked down again. The officer with the shattered hand was swaying, the stain of blood on the canvas beside him spreading darkly.

'God's bones,' Drinkwater blasphemed, 'get him aboard at once. It's Tucker!'

CHAPTER 17 The Flying Squadron

'Who commands you?' Drinkwater asked. Ashen-faced, Lieutenant Tucker lolled in the chair, eyes closed, panting with pain. His roughly bandaged hand with a tourniquet above the wrist lay across his breast. Quilhampton stood anxiously at his shoulder.

It was growing dark in the cabin and other matters clamoured for attention as night fell. 'Come, sir, answer. You may see the surgeon the moment you have told me what I want to know. Who commands you?'

Eyes closed, Tucker shook his head. Drinkwater and Quilhampton exchanged glances. 'It's Stewart, isn't it, eh? Captain Stewart?' Drinkwater raised his voice, cutting through the fog of agony clouding Tucker's consciousness, 'late of the Stingray.'

Tucker's eyes flickered open; the small affirmative was enough for Drinkwater. 'Is there a frigate with you?'

There was no doubt, even in his befuddled state, of Tucker's surprise. 'Frigate...' he murmured, adding a second word that Drinkwater failed to catch.

'What did he say?'

'Didn't hear, sir, answered Quilhampton, bending over the prisoner.

'Come, sir, you're a damned pirate. You ain't a naval officer and can't expect exchange in a cartel. Answer me and I'll do my best to see you aren't thrown into Dartmoor Gaol. In the meantime you need the services of my surgeon. Is there a frigate in the offing? An American frigate?'

Something like comprehension passed a shadow over Tucker's face, he moved on the chair, tried to draw himself upright, shook his head and muttered, 'Not an American…'

'He said, "Not an American ..."'

'I heard him, James ... A French frigate, then? Is that it? There's a French frigate to the eastward?'

Tucker's face crumpled, he closed his eyes tightly, and sank into the chair. The bandages wrapped around his stump were sodden with blood.

'Good God!' Drinkwater ran a hand through his hair, "Tis worse than I thought...' He looked up at Quilhampton. 'James, I'll stake my hat the lost Indiamen and a French frigate are to the eastward ... I'll have to explain later. Be a good fellow and see to Tucker here.'

'I'll get him below, sir ...'

'No, he's a brave fellow, we'll spare him the indignity of Pym's cockpit. Have Pym operate on him here.'

Drinkwater stood for a moment beside the wounded American and put a hand on his shoulder. 'You've betrayed nothing, Mr Tucker, I assure you, merely confirmed my suspicions. Mr Quilhampton will attend to you, he knows what it's like to lose a hand. Give him some laudanum, James, I fear I've used him barbarously.'

Running on deck Drinkwater cast a quick look about him. Night was upon them. The convoy was to the north-north-west, etched black against the last gleam of twilight. Both Patrician and Cymbeline had detached themselves from the convoy and lay hove-to in its wake. All that remained of the schooner Patrician had crushed was some wreckage, dark debris on the grey surface of the ocean. Thorowgood was busy putting a prize-crew aboard the other which, a master's mate in one of Cymbeline's boats was just then reporting to Lieutenant Gordon, had proved to be the Shark of Baltimore.

'Tell Captain Thorowgood to rejoin the convoy with Sprite and his prize,' Drinkwater called down to the boat, 'I'm going in pursuit.'

Ashby and Sundercombe had ably covered the convoy's rear. Discovering the force against them, the remaining privateers had not pressed their attack. They were making off in the darkness to windward as fast as they could with Icarus in lagging pursuit and Sprite hard on their heels, white blurs in the gathering night. Drinkwater waved the boat off and rounded on Wyatt.

'Set the stuns'ls, Mr Wyatt, and lay me a course to the eastward.'

'The eastward, sir?' Wyatt stared at the dull gleam of Icarus's battle lantern to the southward.

'Yes, damn you, the eastward. Mr Gordon, make to Icarus and Sprite: discontinue the chase. The night signal, if you please.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Quilhampton hauled himself wearily up the quarterdeck ladder. He was aware he had misjudged Drinkwater.

'Well, James,' Drinkwater said briskly, 'I'm setting the kites.'

'You're going in pursuit, sir?' Quilhampton threw a bewildered look at the disparate heading of the schooners and Patrician. Wyatt gave a mighty shrug. Drinkwater laughed. His spirits were soaring. 'I'm after bigger fish than those minnows, James ...'

'Tucker's frigate?'

'Tucker's frigate.'

'You're certain of her being there?'

'As certain of anything in this perilous life, James.'

'Sometime, sir, you might oblige me with an explanation.'

Drinkwater laughed again. 'The moment I'm proved right.' Tiredness and then the exhilaration of the last hours had raised Drinkwater's morale to a pitch of almost unbearable anticipation. 'Is Tucker being attended to?' he asked, in an attempt to recapture the dignity consonant with his rank.

'He's under Pym's knife at the moment, sir.'

'Pym's a good surgeon and Tucker looked to have the constitution of an ox.'

'Very well.'

The formal, non-commital response might have described them all. They had done very well. He was ridiculously pleased he had harangued his captains. It was perhaps fortunate that their gunnery had not been tested, that they had confronted nothing more than privateers, but they had manoeuvred like veterans and he must remember to say so in his report to their Lordships. The escaping schooners were unlikely to return to harry the convoy; they had been thoroughly frightened. Guile and skilful ship-handling had brought the British a local ascendancy. Now, Drinkwater mused, they must hold the advantage surprise had conferred.

'Mr Wyatt!' Drinkwater beckoned to the master and he crossed the deck, expecting a rebuke. 'You did very well, Mr Wyatt. The ship was handled with perfect precision.'

'Thank you, sir,' Wyatt said smugly.

'I may need your skill again before dawn, Mr Wyatt. I am in quest of a frigate

'A frigate ... ?' Wyatt's tone was incredulous in the dark.

'Not an American frigate, you'll be pleased to hear,' Drinkwater said ironically, 'at least, I hope not...' He was interrupted by a hail from the maintop:

'Deck there! I can see fire, fire on the larboard bow!'

'Ah,' sighed Drinkwater, 'ease the helm a half-point, Mr Wyatt. James, pipe up spirits, and then send the men back to their stations.'

An hour later they were approaching the source of the fire with every man at his station, and under fighting sails.

'Ease the helm another point, Mr Wyatt. Let us drop a little to loo'ard and cut off their retreat.' The dull glow of the fire opened on the starboard bow, allowing a better view from the quarterdeck. Their approach, concealed by darkness, was slow enough for Drinkwater, studying the dispositions of a number of vessels clustered about and illuminated by the burning Indiaman, to deduce the gist of what was happening.

'They have very likely spent the day transhipping what they wanted out of the Indiaman they have fired,' he explained to Quilhampton, as both men stood side by side, their telescopes braced against the mizen rigging. 'You can see the schooner which was mauled by Sparrowhawk ...'

'She's lying alongside another East India Company ship,' observed Quilhampton.

'It looks as though they used her mainyard as mast-sheers, they've got what looks like two handy spars back in that schooner already,' he said admiringly.

'There's another ship, looks like an Indiaman, though she could be your frigate, just to the left; d'you see?'

Drinkwater shifted his glass. 'Yes. They're waiting for the schooners to come back with another prize, I think. One of those two will be the Kenilworth Castle. She's carrying specie.'

'Didn't that Company Johnnie indicate the Lennox was similarly loaded?' Quilhampton asked, catching something of his commander's excitement.

'Indeed he did,' Drinkwater said with a sudden, tense deliberation which made Quilhampton lower his glass, look at Drinkwater and then smartly raise it again.

There was no mistaking the ship that now came into view. Hidden from them at first by the glow of the burning Indiaman, her lower hull was concealed, her tall masts indistinguishable behind the mass of the Indiaman's top-hamper up which the flames were now racing as the fire took a hold. The sudden flaring of the gigantic torch lit up all within its illuminating circle.

Quilhampton gave a low whistle. 'There's your French frigate, sir.'

Patrician was directly downwind of the group now, and a wave of warm air drifted towards them. A dull crackling roar could be heard, borne on the trade wind. The French frigate was hove to, like the Indiamen, under a backed main topsail, drifting slowly past the burning ship from which a cloud of sparks suddenly shot upwards. Concealed from the American and French allies busy at their mid-ocean rendezvous by the utter darkness beyond the range of their bonfire, Patrician slipped past unobserved, a mile to the north of them.

'I'm going about in a moment or two, gentlemen,' Drinkwater announced to the officers assembled on the quarterdeck. 'When I have done so we will engage the Frenchman from windward. Starboard battery to open fire. We shall have to watch that burning Indiaman, but his windage is being fast consumed and the others are making greater leeway, increasing the distance between them. I will then attempt to rake ...'

'Sir!' Gordon was pointing; a moment later the concussion of cannon-fire rolled over the water.

'They've seen us ...' someone said.

'No they haven't,' shouted Moncrieff, 'they're firing away from us ...'

'What the devil... ?'

'It isn't them firing, it's Icarus!

'Hands to tack ship!' Drinkwater roared, 'By God we've got 'em! Take post, gentlemen, upon the instant if you please!'

There was a bustling aboard the Patrician, as the officers dispersed to their stations. The men, watching the conflagration in ordered silence, suddenly tensed. They were no longer observers, now they were to participate.

'Mainsail haul!' Wyatt shouted, 'Leggo and haul.. . haul aft the lee sheets, stretch those bowlines forrard now! Keep your eyes inboard and attend to your business!'

'Icarus must have mistaken your signal, sir.'

'Aye, we never thought to look astern in our conceit, did we?'

'I doubt we'd have seen her ... there she is ... she's got Sprite under her lee bow. Ashby must have assumed he was to follow us.'

'Perhaps it was no bad assumption and, damn it, I bet it fooled the buggers — the two of 'em look like a Yankee clipper and a captured Indiaman!'

Icarus could be seen clearly now looming on the edge of the firelit circle, hauling up her fore and mainsail, shortening down to fighting sail as she came up with less caution than Drinkwater's Patrician. A broadside rippled along her side, the brilliance of the gun's discharges bright points in the night, though they could see nothing of the fall of the shot.

'Bring her round a little more to starboard, Mr Wyatt. Let us see if we can add to the confusion.'

Slowly Patrician swung and gathered way as she came off the wind. With the burning Indiaman, now almost reduced to a hulk, the other ships were drifting away fast.

At any moment Patrician herself would come between them and the blaze, revealing her presence.

Midshipman Porter bobbed close to Drinkwater, his red face ruddier in the glow. 'Mr Gordon's compliments and the starboard chase guns will bear.'

'Very well, Mr Porter, you may tell Mr Gordon to fire at will, but to have every gun-captain lay his piece carefully. I want no noisy, ineffectual broadsides.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

'The frog's making sail, sir.' They were too late for complete surprise. Someone aboard the French frigate had seen Patrician and she was hauling her backed main yards and letting fall her lower canvas. Just then the first of Gordon's 24-pounders roared, followed by a second and a third. A cheer went up from the waist and Quilhampton bellowed for silence.

'He's going to rake Ashby, by God!' Moncrieff called, but Drinkwater had already seen Ashby's dilemma and watched as he threw his helm over, attempting to swing round on to a parallel course to the Frenchman and trade broadside for broadside.

'He's no fool,' Drinkwater muttered admiringly of the French commander. The broadside itself was hidden from them, but they saw the impact clearly on the Icarus, even in the dark, for she rolled in the swell as she turned and the pale rectangle of her fore topsail became first a triangle, then ceased to exist as her foremast crashed to the deck.

'Firing high, by God, he's goin' to run!'

Bright pin-points, like two blinking cat's eyes, sparked from the Frenchman's stern. A column of water rose up close to Patrician's starboard bow and a crash from forward, followed by the murderous whirr of flying splinters, told where a shot had struck home.

'He's firing his stern chasers, sir.'

'I can see that, Mr Q. Mr Wyatt, lay me a course to pass close to Icarus, I wish to speak to Ashby and it will at least give us a chance to get a broadside in at that fellow.'

The blazing Indiaman was broad on their larboard beam and dropping astern. The French frigate was making off to the north, leaving the remaining Indiaman and the schooner to their fate. Sprite had worn round under Icarus's stern and was engaging the jury-rigged schooner.

'Good man, Sundercombe,' Drinkwater muttered, seizing the speaking trumpet as they bore down on the Icarus. Men were swarming on her forecastle and he could see the glimmer of lanterns as they sought to clear away the tangle of fallen gear. Drinkwater leapt up on the rail, clasping the mizen rigging with one hand and the speaking trumpet with the other.

'Icarus ahoy Captain Ashby…'

'Sir?'

'Secure what you can here. Those are two captured Indiamen, by the way, with prize-crews aboard. Then rejoin the convoy. Keep Sprite under your orders. I'm going in pursuit of that frigate.'

'He's a Frenchman, Captain Drinkwater, did you know?'

'Yes. Are you manageable?'

'Aye, I've a forecourse, I think ...'

'Good luck.'

'And you.'

They waved, their ships rolling in the swell, and Wyatt brought Patrician on to a course parallel with the retiring French frigate. She was ahead and to starboard of the British ship and both had the fresh trade wind blowing on their starboard quarters.

'It's going to be a long night, James,' Drinkwater remarked.

'It's already nearly ten,' Quilhampton said after consulting his watch.

'Moonrise in three hours.'

They set every stitch of canvas the spars could stand, started the mast wedges and ran preventer stays up to the topmast caps, setting them up with luff tackles. Never had the Patrician's crew been so hard driven since, those who remembered it afterwards claimed, they had been in the Pacific. There was, Drinkwater knew, little doubt of the outcome if the masts and spars and canvas and cordage stood the strain. The French frigate was a fast ship, but slightly smaller than the British, of a lighter build and, though well handled, unable to match the hardiness of her pursuer. Patrician was a razee, a cut-down sixty-four gun line-of-battle ship, heavy, but able to stand punishment and, in a strengthening wind, in her element with a quartering sea. Moonrise found the distance between the two ships significantly lessened. Patches of cloud came and went across the face of the full moon, adding to the drama and excitement of the night, and periodically Lieutenant Gordon, pointing the guns himself, tried a shot at the enemy's top-hamper, seeking to cripple him as he fled.

And periodically too, the enemy fired back, though both commanders knew the issue would not be so easily settled, that their scudding ships, heeling and scending under their press of sail, were uncertain gun-platforms, that the angle between them was too fine for more than a lucky shot to tell, and that either luck on the part of one, or disaster for the other, would bring the matter to a conclusion before daylight.

Luck, it seemed, first favoured the French. A shot from a quarter gun struck Patrician's waist, felling an entire gun's crew with a burst of lacerating splinters, sending men screaming like lunatics in antic dances of pain and killing three men outright. A second shot struck Patrician just below the starboard fore chains, carrying away a stay-rod. But for the preventer rigged an hour earlier, the shroud above might have parted and the entire foremast gone by the board. As it was the carpenter was able to effect repairs of a kind. Half an hour later a third shot hulled the pursuing British frigate and she began taking water. Once again the carpenter and his mates were summoned. They plugged the shot hole and the pumps were manned, but it shook the Patricians' confidence and the men murmured at their inability to hit back.

'I wonder if Metcalfe would have managed anything?' Moncrieff superciliously asked no one in particular. 'He was a damned good shot...'

The remark provoked in Drinkwater's mind's eye an image of Thurston falling from the rigging, which was so vivid he started and became aware he had been half-asleep on his feet. 'Metcalfe...?' he said, stupidly and shaken, 'Oh, yes, he was, wasn't he ...'

'He's done it!' Quilhampton's cry was echoed round the ship. Gordon had fired his foremost gun, loaded with bar shot, as the Patricians stern had fallen into a trough. The rising bow had thrown the shot high, almost too high. But the crazy, eccentric hemispheres had, with the aid of centrifugal force, extended the sliding bars and the spinning projectile had struck the enemy's fore topgallant mast. For a moment the pallid oblongs of its two sails leaned, suspended in a web of rigging, flogging as the wind caught their underbellies, and then they sagged slowly downwards.

Patrician closed on her quarry; after hours of seeming inactivity her quarterdeck was again seething with officers bawling orders.

'Lay her alongside, Mr Wyatt, and shorten sail. Don't overshoot.'

They were too late for such precise niceties of manoeuvring, the night had grown too wild and they were too tired for fine judgement. Patrician overran the French ship, loosing off a rolling broadside and receiving fire in return. The British gunners, so long inactive, with news of the fallen topgallant to cheer them, poured more fire into the enemy. On board the Frenchman, the gunners served their cannon gallantly, but the chaos of fallen spars which just then broke free of the restraints of the upper rigging and crashed down through the boat booms, caused their rate of response to slacken as they confronted blazing gun-muzzles forty yards from their ports.

'Let fly sheets! Let her head fall to starboard! Stand by, boarders!'

The two ships closed, the Patrician slightly ahead. Between them the water ran black and silver where the moonlight caught it. The slop and hiss as the outward curling bow waves met and intermingled threw spray upwards to reflect the stabbing glare of the gunfire. The night was full of noise, of wind in rigging, of rushing water, of the cheers and shrieks and shouts of four hundred men, the concussions of their brutal cannon and the stutter of Moncrieff's marines as their muskets cleared the way for the mustering boarders.

'He shows no inclination to edge away,' Quilhampton called, drawing his sword, and then the night was split by a man's voice, a bull-roar of defiance:

'What ship is that?'

'That's no frog...' Quilhampton began.

'No, I know,' Drinkwater moved to the rail and leaned over the hammock netting.

'His Britannic Majesty's frigate Patrician, Nathaniel Drinkwater commanding. Is that you, Captain Stewart?'

'Aye ... how in hell's name ... ?'

Stewart's voice was drowned in the discharge of Gordon's starboard battery. 'Fate,' Drinkwater muttered as he turned. 'Pass word to Frey to have his larbowlines ready to board. Now, Mr Wyatt, lay us alongside.'

'Aye, aye, sir!'

'Come, James, death or glory, eh?' Drinkwater said, sensing the puzzlement in Quilhampton by the odd stance of the one-armed officer. He drew his sword. The gap between the two ships closed and then they collided. Drinkwater clambered up on the rail, fighting to get his legs over the hammock nettings and gauge when to leap. He dropped into the mizen chains. Below him the bulging topsides of the ships ground together, their rails separated only by the extent of the rounded tumblehome. A quarterdeck 18-pounder went off beside him. He was deafened and the heat seared his stockings. He remembered he had forgotten to change his clothes before going into action, as was customary. If he was wounded, his dirty linen might infect him.

The two ships rolled inwards, the gap narrowed and he flung himself across. A hemp shroud struck him, he grabbed it with his left hand, felt his right foot land on something solid and he steadied. Momentarily he paused, balancing, then gathered himself and leapt down on to the enemy's deck. Off balance he stumbled, a lunging pike missed him and he recovered his footing in time to parry a cutlass slash. He seemed surrounded by figures menacing him in a terrible surreal silence. The moonlight gleamed on naked steel, a pistol flashed noiselessly, then another and he was surrounded by struggling men. Slowly his hearing returned as he hacked and slithered, hardly knowing friend from foe. A sword blade struck his right epaulette and sent half a dozen heavy gold threads past his ear. He cut savagely at his assailant and felt his sword blade bite. A cry, distinct now, struck his ears. He heard again shouts and whoops, the bitter supplications of the dying and the raving of men engaged in murder. He felt the weight of his anonymous attacker roll against his legs. In a split-second of detachment he thought: 'Christ, this is a sin mightier than lying with Mistress Shaw,' and then he heard the bull-roar again.

'Captain Drinkwater. Where in the devil's name are you?'

'Here, damn you! Here!'

Why had he not held his tongue? Why had he identified himself so that, it seemed to him, even in the confusion the contending parties drew apart, exposing him to Stewart?

But Stewart had seen Drinkwater jump aboard and had kicked or thrust aside those of his friends obstructing his passage. He bore a cavalry sabre and whirled it down in a slashing cut. Drinkwater drew back and lunged over the top of Stewart's extended arm. The tip of his hanger caught the American's right bicep, though it failed to penetrate. Stewart recovered and sought to riposte, but the darkness and the confusion helped neither man. Drinkwater was jostled aside. A small, wiry man advanced on Stewart. He was inside the American officer's guard in a second, his tomahawk raised. The weapon caught the moonlight as it fell.

'No!' Drinkwater roared, but he was too late. The sabre fell to the deck and Stewart stood swaying, the dark blood gushing from his neck. 'Caldecott,' Drinkwater cried in recognition, and his coxswain turned. Just then the moon came clear of the clouds and illuminated the baleful scene. Caldecott's face was a mask of hatred. His teeth were drawn back in a snarl, his eyes glittered with a feral madness as he sought another victim. Appalled, Drinkwater stepped aside, let him pass, and then with a groan Stewart fell against him. Drinkwater let go his hanger and it dangled from its martingale. He grabbed the falling Stewart, felt the dead weight of him as his head lolled back, the mouth agape.

Drinkwater stood in the moonlight and held Stewart in his arms as the American died. His mind was filled with the thoughts of the likeness Stewart bore to his sister, and he was sickened to his soul. Mercifully a cloud obscured the moon and the noise of fighting drowned the howl of his anguish.

'How are you, sir?'

'Oh, well enough, James. It was only a scratch or two, you know.'

'Pym said you were lucky ...'

'Pym talks a lot of nonsense. How's Tucker?'

'The fever broke last night. He's weak, but will mend.'

'For God's sake, tell Pym not to bleed the poor devil.'

'I doubt he'll take my advice ...'

'Pour yourself a glass and sit down. I'll have one too, if you please.'

Drinkwater swung round and stared astern. The con­voy was in good order, the recaptured Indiamen in their places, the prizes secure in the centre of the mass of ships. He had left a brace of Yankee schooners at large in the South Atlantic, but, under the circumstances, he did not think they would pose a great threat now the East India convoy was safe. He took the glass Quilhampton handed him. 'I believe I owe you an explanation ...' Drinkwater smiled over the rim of his glass.

'I confess to still being a little mystified, particularly about Sybille and this fellow Stewart you mentioned…'

'I didn't know about Sybille, James, I guessed. Oh, I had some clues, some evidence to suppose, were I in the same position, I would do the same thing…'

'I understand about the privateers seeking to waylay the East India fleet. The French have done it before, it is an obvious move, but there was something else, wasn't there?'

'You may have heard stories, James, about my excursion in Sprite to the Potomac. I went to contact a woman, a potential source of intelligence. Ah, I see by your face you have heard…'

'Well, there were some rumours, sir.'

'There are always rumours aboard ship,' Drinkwater went on, unaware of Quilhampton's relief at learning his friend's liaison with the American lady had so rational an explanation after the innuendoes he had heard. 'She was able to give me certain information about Captain Stewart which confirmed what I had already guessed and deduced from information I had gleaned from Stewart and what I had been told in London.

'There was something about Stewart, whom I had met earlier, when Patrician was in the Potomac, before you joined us. I had a feeling about him; he practically challenged me, an odd notion unless one nursed a secret in which one had a great deal of confidence. Then luck threw something my way, quite by chance and so circumstantial that I did not know what it was until I recalled the matter much later. The woman dwelt in her father-in-law's house. His name was Shaw. When I first met him, Shaw was a veritable cooing dove, opposed to war. A day later, when we met in different circumstances and I needed his help, he seemed to have cooled. When I left you and shipped in the Sprite, I returned as you now know to contact the woman, Captain Stewart's sister and Shaw's daughter-in-law. I saw old Shaw working on some papers. I was at the time apprehensive at the prospect of shinning up a drain pipe at my time of life and chiefly concerned with avoiding detection. I think, having been rebuffed by Shaw, I was instinctively suspicious of him. I didn't take much notice at the time and it was only weeks afterwards that I remembered what I had seen through a crack in the curtains

'Well, sir?'

'One draught of a sheer-plan, one chart and three or four sheets of paper that looked like accounts. I was quite unaware that Shaw had an intimate knowledge of nautical matters and it suddenly struck me the chart was of Brest.'

Quilhampton was frowning, then he shrugged and waited for Drinkwater to supply the explanation.

'You see, James, the Americans have plenty of men, trained naval officers like Stewart and Tucker plus their own considerable mercantile marine to draw from. Their problem is insufficient naval vessels. I stumbled on the first part of their strategy after we encountered the whaler, Altair. The news her master, Orwig, brought of an

American frigate at large made me realize the Americans could increase the size of their fleet at a stroke by operating their own flying squadrons of a heavy frigate and a swarm of Baltimore schooners, d'you see?'

'Aye, by heaven, I do ...'

'Then, when we interrogated Tucker, he mentioned a French frigate in the offing and I began to consider the implications of a revival of the old alliance, a combination of American seamen manning French-built ships. You may not be aware, James, but the French and their allies, in every suitable port between the Baltic and the Mediterranean, have been building men-o'-war of every class, including ships-of-the-line. If such ships ever got to sea and combined with additional flying squadrons of these damnable frigates and schooners ...'

'They would have had us by the throat,' Quilhampton said in a tone of appalled wonder and growing comprehension. 'And was this all to be paid for by John Company's profits from India and China?'

Drinkwater nodded, 'I believe so ...'

'It's a diabolically clever notion,' Quilhampton said appreciatively, then frowned. 'What was Shaw's part in all this?'

'No more than a hook upon which my suspicions were obstinately pegged. Like Stewart, I couldn't get rid of the notion of the fellow. Shaw was obviously tied up with American diplomacy and foreign policy by his very solicitude for Vansittart and the fact that Stewart had us anchor in the Potomac. Then there were those papers and so forth. Finally ...' Drinkwater tapped a sheaf of documents lying on the table behind him, 'there was Stewart aboard a French frigate in the South Atlantic after a mid-ocean rendezvous, with this bundle weighted about his waist. No wonder the poor fellow succumbed to Caldecott's tomahawk.'

'The papers implicate Shaw?'

'Yes, he was, as it were, the broker between the French and the Americans. In concert with the French invasion of Russia the consequences of the success of this joint venture are not to be contemplated.'

'It would have compelled us to raise the blockade of Europe and let the French fleet out...'

'It really doesn't do to think of such an eventuality,' said Drinkwater, suppressing a shudder. 'Come, fill your glass again.'

He had not told Quilhampton the whole story, but enough of it to make sense. Besides, how could he tell his friend of what he had learned from Arabella in her boudoir, another Parisian dress discarded on her bed, that curious moment of reticence followed by her wholesale condemnation of men and their scheming? Was that why providence had made them lovers, so he might divine these things? He threw aside the thought, discarded it with the sense of relief flooding through him. He smiled at Quilhampton.

'I make you a toast, James: to the ladies.'

'God bless 'em!'

The Puppet-master

'Johnnie? Can you hear me?'

Lord Moira bent over the man in the sick-bed. The grossness had fallen away, leaving a face that seemed twenty years younger but for the yellow pallor of approaching death.

'Frank, is that you?' Lord Dungarth opened his eyes.

'Yes. How are you today?'

'As you see, failing fast. . .'

'Come, you mustn't give up hope.'

'Damn it, Frank, don't cozen me. The quacks will kill me with their nostrums and leeches quicker than this damned distemper. I'm as good as dead.' Dungarth paused, catching his breath. 'Listen, there's something I want you to do for me.' He raised a trembling hand to his throat. The skin was translucent, the blood vessels below, ribbed and dark, writhing over the stretched tendons. Parting his nightshirt, Lord Dungarth withdrew a key, suspended from his neck by a thin black ribbon. 'Help ... me.' He gasped with the effort.

Moira assisted Dungarth to raise his head and eased the ribbon over the bald skull.

'It is the key to my desk at the Admiralty. You are to make sure Captain Drinkwater receives it. Upon your word of honour, d'you understand?'

'Upon my word, Johnnie, I promise.'

Dungarth sighed and sank back on to his pillow. 'What news of the French?'

'The Russians are approaching the Rhine and Wellington the Pyrenees.'

'And from America?'

'Not so good ...'

'Is there news of Drinkwater yet?' Dungarth broke in feebly.

'We shall learn something in a few days,' Moira disembled.

'I shan't last a few days, but he's the man, Frank. He has the ability ... the nous.''

Despite himself, Moira smiled at the use of the Greek word, then wondered if the man Drinkwater, in whom Dungarth had such faith, really had the intuition his friend thought. A diseased man was, in Moira's experience, no very reliable judge.

'Tell him about the bookseller in the Rue de'laaah ...' Pain distorted Dungarth's face. Moira reached for the bottle beside the bed and poured the neat laudanum drops into a tumbler of water.

'Here, old fellow,' he said, putting an arm about Dungarth and lifting his shoulders. With his other hand he held the glass to his friend's lips.

'You still pull strings, then?' Moira said admiringly.

'To the end, mon ami, to the end the puppet-master. Don't forget Drinkwater...' Dungarth whispered as his eyes closed. 'Your word upon it, Frank, your word ...'