A Brig of War

Chapter Two Nelson

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

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

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

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

'Deck there! Sail dead ahead, sir!'

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

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

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

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

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

'Let go!'

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

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

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

'Convoy's anchored, sir,' he reported to Griffiths.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Griffiths eyed Lestock with something approaching distaste.

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

'A good idea, sir. And the Ragusan?'

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

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

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

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

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

'But I'm less happy about Mr Dalziell.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Eh? Oh, undoubtedly you are right, Mr Appleby. But frankly I am driven to wonder to what purpose you men of science address your speculations.'

Appleby expelled his breath in an eloquent sigh. 'Ah well, sir, 'tis no great matter… how long d'you intend to stay here?'

'Just as long as it takes Mr Rogers to assist the people of Hecuba to get up a new foremast. Under the circumstances they did a wonderful job themselves, for in that sea there was no question of them securing a tow.'

'Ah! I was thinking about that, sir. Nathaniel was talking about using a rocket to convey a line. Now, if we could but…' Appleby broke off as Mr Q popped his head round the door.

'Beg pardon sir, but the captain of the Ra… Rag…'

'Ragusan,' prompted Griffiths.

'Yes, sir… well he's here sir.'

'Then show him in, boy, show him in.'

Griffiths summoned Drinkwater from sleep at noon. The tiny cabin that accommodated the brig's commander was strewn with charts and Lestock was in fussy attendance.

'Ah, Mr Drinkwater, please help yourself to a glass.' Griffiths indicated the decanter which contained his favourite sercial. As the lieutenant poured, Griffiths outlined the events of the morning.

'This mistral that prevented our getting up to Toulon has been a blessing in disguise…' Drinkwater saw Lestock nodding in sage agreement with his captain. 'The fact that we have had to run for shelter has likely saved us from falling into the hands of the French.'

Still tired, Drinkwater frowned with incomprehension. Nelson was blockading Toulon; what the devil was Griffiths driving at?

'The French are out, somewhere it is believed in the eastern Mediterranean. That polaccra spoke with Admiral Nelson off Cape Passaro on June the twenty-second… two weeks ago. He's bound to Barcelona and was quizzed by the admiral about the whereabouts of the French armada.'

'Armada, sir? You mean an invasion force?'

Griffiths nodded. 'I do indeed, bach. Myndiawl, they've given Nelson the slip, see.'

'And did this Ragusan offer Sir Horatio any intelligence?'

'Indeed he did. The polaccra passed the entire force, heading east…'

'East? And Nelson's gone in pursuit?'

'Yes indeed. And we must follow.' Drinkwater digested the news, trying to make sense of it. East? All his professional life the Royal Navy had guarded against a combination of naval forces in the Channel. His entire service aboard Kestrel had been devoted to that end. Indeed his motives for entering the service in the first place had had their inspiration in the Franco-Spanish attempt of 1779 which, to the shame of the navy, had so nearly succeeded. East? It did not make sense unless it was an elaborate feint, the French buying time to exercise in the eastern Mediterranean. If that were the case they might draw Nelson after them — such an impetuous officer would not hold back — and then they might turn west, slip through the Straits, clear St Vincent from before Cadiz and join forces with the Spanish fleet.

'Did our informant say who commanded them, sir?' he asked.

'No less a person than Bonaparte,' said Lestock solemnly.

'Bonaparte? But we read in the newspapers that Bonaparte commanded the Army of England… I remember Appleby jesting that the English Army had long wanted a general officer of his talent.'

'Mr Appleby's joke seems to have curdled, Mr Drinkwater,' said Lestock without a smile. Drinkwater turned to Griffiths.

'You say you'll follow Nelson, sir, to what rendezvous?'

'What do you suggest, Mr Drinkwater? Mr Lestock?'

Lestock fidgetted. 'Well, sir, I er, I think that in the absence of a rendezvous with the admiral we ought to proceed to, er…'

'Malta, sir,' said Drinkwater abruptly, 'then if the French double for the Atlantic we might be placed there with advantage, on the other hand there will doubtless be some general orders for us there.'

'No, Mr Drinkwater. Your reasoning is sound but the Ragusan also told us that Malta had fallen to the French.' Griffiths put down his glass and bent over the charts, picking up the dividers to point with.

'We will proceed south and run through the Bonifacio Strait for Naples, there will likely be news there, or here at Messina, or here, at Syracuse,'

There was no news at Naples beyond that of Nelson's fleet having stopped there on 17th June, intelligence older than that from the polaccra. Griffiths would not anchor and all hands eyed the legendary port wistfully. The ochre colours of its palazzi and its tenements were lent a common and ethereal appeal by distance, and the onshore breeze enhanced a view given a haunting beauty beyond the blue waters of the bay by the backdrop of Vesuvius.

'God, but I'd dearly love a night of sport there,' mused Rogers, who had acquitted himself in re-rigging the Hecuba and now seemed of the opinion that he had earned at least one night of debauchery in the Neapolitan stews. Appleby, standing within earshot and aware of the three seamen grinning close by said, 'Then thank the lord you've a sane man to command your instincts, Mr Rogers. The Neapolitan pox is a virulent disease well-known for its intractability.'

Rogers paled at the sally and the three men coiled the falls of the royal halliards with uncommon haste.

Hellebore worked her way slowly south, past the islands of the Tyrrhenian Sea and through the narrow Straits of Messina; but there was no further news of Nelson or the French.

On 16th July the convoy stood into the Bay of Syracuse to wood and water and to find a welcome for British ships. Through the good offices of the British Ambassador to the Court of the Two Sicilies, Sir William Hamilton, facilities were available to expedite the reprovisioning of units of the Royal Navy.

'It seems,' Griffiths said to his assembled officers, 'that Sir Horatio has considered the possibility of using Syracuse as a base. We must simply wait.'

They waited three days. Shortly before noon on the 19th the British fleet was in the offing and with the Leander in the van, came into Syracuse Harbour. By three minutes past three in the afternoon the fourteen ships of the line under the command of Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson had anchored. Within an hour their boats swarmed over the blue waters of the bay, their crews carrying off wood and water, their pursers haggling in the market place for vegetables and beef.

Hellebore's boat pulled steadily through the throng of craft, augmented by local bumboats which traded hopefully with the fleet. Officers' servants were buying chickens for their masters' tables while a surreptitious trade in rot-gut liquor was being conducted through lower deck ports. The apparent confusion and bustle had an air of charged purpose about it and Drinkwater suppressed a feeling of almost childish excitement. Beside him Griffiths wore a stony expression, his leathery old face hanging in sad folds, the wisps of white hair escaping untidily from below the new, glazed cocked hat. Drinkwater felt a wave of sympathy for the old man with his one glittering epaulette. Griffiths had been at sea half a century; he had served in slavers as a mate before being pressed as a naval seaman. He was old enough, experienced enough and able enough to have commanded this entire fleet, reflected Nathaniel, but the man who did so was only a few years older than Drinkwater himself.

'You had better attend on me,' Griffiths had said, giving his first lieutenant permission to accompany him aboard Vanguard, 'seeing that you are so damned eager to clap eyes on this Admiral Nelson.'

Drinkwater looked at Quilhampton who shared his curiosity. Mr Q's hand rested nervously on the boat's tiller. The boy was concentrating, not daring to look round at the splendours of British naval might surrounding him. Drinkwater approved of his single-mindedness; Mr Q was developing into an asset.

'Boat ahoy!' The hail came from the flagship looming ahead of them, her spars and rigging black against the brilliant sky, the blue rear-admiral's flag at her mizen masthead. Drinkwater was about to prompt Quilhampton but the boy rose, cleared his throat and in a resonant treble called out 'Hellebore!' The indication of his commander's presence thus conveyed to Vanguard, Quilhampton felt with pleasure the half smile bestowed on him by Mr Drinkwater.

At the entry port four white gloved side-boys and a bosun's mate greeted Hellebore's captain and his lieutenant. The officer of the watch left them briefly on the quarterdeck while he reported their arrival to the demi-god who resided beneath the poop. Curiously Drinkwater looked round. Vanguard was smaller than Victory, a mere 74-gun two decker, but there was that same neatness about her, mixed with something else. He sensed it intuitively from the way her people went about their business. From the seamen amidships, rolling empty water casks to the gangway and from a quarter gunner changing the flints in the after carronades emanated a sense of single-minded purpose. He was always to remember this drive that superimposed their efforts as the 'Nelson touch', far more than the much publicised manoeuvre at Trafalgar that brought Nelson his apotheosis seven years later.

'Sir Horatio will see you now sir,' said the lieutenant re-emerging. Drinkwater followed Griffiths, ignoring the gesture of restraint from the duty officer. They passed under the row of ciphered leather fire-buckets into the shade of the poop, passing the master's cabin and the rigid marine sentry. Uncovering, Drinkwater followed his commander into the admiral's cabin.

Sir Horatio Nelson rose from his desk as Griffiths presented Drinkwater and the latter bowed. Nelson's smallness of stature was at first a disappointment to Nathaniel who expected something altogether different. Disappointing too were the worn uniform coat and the untidy mop of greying hair, but Drinkwater began to lose his sense of anti-climax as the admiral quizzed Griffiths about the stores contained in Hecuba and Molly. There was in his address an absence of formality, an eager confidence which was at once infectious. There was a delicacy about the little man. He looked far older than his thirty-nine years, his skin fine drawn, almost transparent over the bones. His large nose and wide, mobile mouth were at odd variance with his body size. But the one good blue eye was sharply attentive, a window on some inner motivation, and the empty sleeve bore witness to his reckless courage.

'Do you know the whereabouts of my frigates, Captain?' he asked Griffiths, 'I am driven desperate for want of frigates. The French have escaped me, sir, and I have one brig at my disposal to reconnoitre for a fleet.'

Drinkwater sensed the consuming frustration felt by this most diligent of flag officers, sensed his mortification at being deprived of his eyes in the gale that had dismasted Vanguard. Yet Vanguard had been refitted without delay and the battle line was impressive enough to strike terror in the French if only this one-armed dynamo could catch them.

'There is Hellebore, Sir Horatio,' volunteered Griffiths.

'Yes, Captain. Would that the whereabouts of the French squadron was my only consideration. But I know that their fleet, besides sail of the line, frigates, bomb vessels and so forth, also comprises three hundred troop transports; an armada that left Sicily with a fair wind from the west. It is clear their destination is to the eastward. I think their object is to possess themselves of some port in Egypt, to fix themselves at the head of the Red Sea in order to get a formidable army into India, to act in concert with Tipoo Sahib. No, Captain, I may not permit myself the luxury of retaining Hellebore…' The admiral paused and Drinkwater felt apprehensive. Nelson made up his mind. 'I must sacrifice perhaps my reputation but that must always subordinate itself to my zeal for the King's service which demands I acquaint the officer on the station of the danger he may be in. I have already written to Mr Baldwin, our consul at Alexandria, to determine whether the French have any vessels prepared in the Red Sea. As yet I have had no reply. Therefore, my dear Griffiths, I desire that you wood and water without delay and send a boat for your written orders the instant you are ready to proceed to the Red Sea.'

Drinkwater felt his mouth go dry. The Red Sea meant a year's voyage at the least. And Elizabeth had given him expectation of a child in the summer.