A Brig of War

Chapter Three A Brig of War

Lieutenant Drinkwater stared astern watching the seas run up under the brig's larboard quarter, lifting her stern and impelling her forward, adding a trifle to her speed until they passed ahead of her and she dragged, slowly, into the succeeding trough. Hellebore carried sail to her topgallants as she raced south west before the trade wind, the coast of Mauretania twenty-five leagues to the east.

Drinkwater had been watching Mr Quilhampton heave the log and had acknowledged the boy's report, prompted by the quartermaster, that they were running at seven knots. Something would not let him turn forward again but kept him watching the wake as it bubbled green-white under the stern and trailed away behind them in an irregular ribbon, twisted by the yaw of the ship and the oncoming waves. Here and there a following seabird dipped into its disturbance.

He had felt wretched as they passed the Straits of Gibraltar and took their departure from Cape Espartel, for he had been unable to send letters back to Elizabeth, so swift had been Hellebore's passage from Syracuse, so explicit the admiral's orders. Now it was certain he would be separated from her until after the birth of their child, he regretted his inability to soften the blow of his apparent desertion.

He was aware of someone at his elbow and resented the intrusion upon his private thoughts.

'Beg pardon, zur.' It was Tregembo. Ten years older than Drinkwater the able seaman had long ago attached himself to him with a touching and unsolicited loyalty. He had cemented the relationship by supplying Elizabeth with a cook in the person of his wife Susan, certain that service with the Drinkwaters represented security. The personal link between them both gratified and, at that moment, annoyed Drinkwater. He snapped irritably, 'What is it?'

'Your sword, zur, 'tis now but half a glass before quarters, zur.'

Drinkwater looked guiltily at the half-hour sand-glass in the little binnacle and took his sword. Since they left the Mediterranean Griffiths had adopted the three watch system. It was kinder on the men and more suited to the long passage ahead of them. There were no dog watches now but at five hours after noon, ship's time, they went to general quarters to remind them all of the serious nature of their business.

Drinkwater turned forward and looked along the deck of the Hellebore. She was a trim ship, one of a new class of brig-sloop designed for general duties, a maid of all work, tender, dispatch vessel, convoy escort and commerce raider. He stood on a tiny raised poop which protected the head of the rudder stock and tiller. Immediately forward of the poop the tiller lines ran through blocks to the wheel with its binnacle, forward of which were the skylight and companionway to the officer's accommodation. Beneath the skylight lay the lobby which served her two lieutenants, master, surgeon, gunner and purser as a gunroom, their cabins leading off it. Griffiths messed there too, unless he dined alone in his cabin, set right aft and entered via the gunroom. Forward of the companion-way to this accommodation rose the mainmast, surrounded by its pin rails and coils of manila rigging, its pump handles and trunks. Between the main and foremast, gratings covered the waist, giving poor ventilation to the berth space below, covered by tarpaulins at the first sign of bad weather. Here too was the capstan. Just beyond the foremast the galley chimney rose from the deck next to the companionway that led below to the berth space where the hundred men of Hellebore's company swung their hammocks in an overcrowded fug. The remaining warrant officers and their stores were tucked under the triangular foredeck. A tiny raised platform served as a fo'c's'le, providing just enough foothold to handle the headsail sheets and tend the catheads.

She was pierced with twenty gunports but so cluttered did she become in the eyes that the foremost were unoccupied. The remaining eighteen each sported an iron six-pounder. These guns were still a subject of frequent debate amongst her officers. Many vessels of similar size carried the snub barrelled carronades, short-ranged but devastating weapons that gave a small sloop a weight of metal heavy enough at close quarters to rival frigates of the sixth rate. But Hellebore had been armed by a traditionalist, retaining long guns each with its little canvas covered flintlock firing device. The only carronade she carried was her twelve-pounder boat guns which lay lashed under the fo'c's'le.

Drinkwater descended from the poop as Griffiths came on deck. The glass was turned and the people piped to general quarters. The hands tumbled up willingly enough, the bosun's mates flicking the occasional backside with their starters more for form than necessity. But Drinkwater was not watching that; he was seeing his laboriously drawn up quarter-bill come to life. The gun crews ran to their pieces to slip the breechings and lower the muzzles off the lintels of the gunports. The port lids were lifted as the coloured tompions were knocked out and the men threw their weight on the train tackles. Irregularly, but not unpleasantly discordant, the trucks rumbled over the deck. One by one the gun captains raised their right arms as their crews knelt at the ready position. It was not quite like a frigate. There were no bulkheads to come down since Hellebore carried her artillery on her upper deck, there was no marine drummer to beat the rafale; not many officers to go round once the gunner had disappeared into his magazine and Lestock and Drinkwater had come aft to the quarterdeck. There was a quarter gunner to each section and a master's mate at either battery. Second Lieutenant Rogers was in overall command of the engaged side with Mr Quilhampton (nominally a 'servant' on the ship's books, but fulfilling the function of a midshipman) as his messenger. Dalziell, the only midshipman officially allowed the brig, commanded the firemen, two men from each gun who assisted each other to extinguish any fires started by an enemy. Drinkwater himself commanded the boarders while Lestock attended to the sails. Under the first lieutenant's command were the men in the tops, sail trimming topmen and a detail of sharpshooters, seamen picked from a competition held weeks earlier in the Downs, and mostly landsmen whose past included either service in the sea fencibles, the volunteers or in a longer feud with their local gamekeepers.

Drinkwater glanced aloft to where Tregembo as captain of the maintop touched his forehead and a man named Kellet acknowledged his section alert in the foretop. He uncovered to Griffiths. 'Main battery made ready, sir. I'll check below.'

'Very good.'

It was only a formality. Below her upper deck Hellebore's accommodation, stores and hold consisted of 'platforms' set at various levels according to the breadth of the hull available at each given point. Her berth space, above the main hold, was no more than five feet deep. In the gloom of the hammock space he found the carpenter with his two mates, their tools and a bag of shot plus. 'All correct Mr Johnson?' The man grinned. His creased features and his Liverpool accent reminded Drinkwater of Kestrel and the same Johnson hacking the anchor warp as they beat off the French coast one desperate night two years earlier. 'All correct, Mr Drinkwater.'

He passed on, descending a further ladder to where, whistling quietly to himself Mr Appleby presided over his opened case of gruesome instruments, the lantern light gleaming dully on his crowbills, saws, daviers and demi-lunes. His two mates sat on the upturned tubs provided for the amputated limbs honing surgical knives. A casual air prevailed that annoyed Drinkwater when compared to the deck above. He raised an eyebrow at Appleby who nodded curtly back conveying all his professional hostility to the rival profession of arms that made his presence in the septic stink of the hold necessary. Drinkwater proceeded aft, beneath the officers' quarters where, in less than four feet of headroom, lay the magazine. Trussel's face peered at him through the slit in the felt curtain.

'Ready Mr Trussel?'

'Aye, sir, ready when you are.' His ugly face was illuminated by fiercely gleaming yellow eyes that caught the light from the protected lanterns and Drinkwater was reminded of a remark of Appleby's when he was dissecting the physiognomy of his messmates. 'Yon's arse spends so much time six inches from powdered eternity that it's bound to have an effect on the features.' The gunner's bizarre head, disembodied by the felt, was reflected in the awesome apprehension of the quartet of powder monkeys, boys of eight or nine who crouched ready to bear the cartridges, hot-potato like, to the guns above.

Drinkwater returned to the hammock space, passing the cook and his assistant in the galley standing amid the steam generated by the extinguishing of the fire and the purser at his post by the washdeck pump. He blinked at the brightness of the daylight after the gloom of the brig's nether regions.

'Ship cleared for action, sir,' he reported.

'Very well. Mr Rogers, larboard broadside, run in and load. Three rounds rapid fire, single ball.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Drinkwater watched Rogers draw his sword with a flourish watched little Quilhampton run to the after grating and call for powder. In a small ship on such a long passage Griffiths refused to keep his guns loaded, considering the morning discharge practised on so many ships to rid the guns of damp powder as a quite unnecessary extravagance. The two powder monkeys serving the larboard battery emerged to scamper across to the nine six-pounders trundled inboard. The charges, wads and balls were rammed home and the gun captains inserted their priming quills as Rogers barked out the ordered steps. 'Cock your locks!' The crews moved back from the guns as the captains stretched their lanyards. Each raised his free hand.

'Larboard battery made ready, sir!' reported Rogers.

'You may open fire,' ordered Griffiths.

'Fire!'

The rolling roar that erupted in a line of flame and smoke along the brig's side was matched inboard by the recoil of the squealing trucks. Daily practice had made of the broadside a thing of near unanimity.

'Fire as you will!'

For the next two minutes the larbowlines, watched critically by the idlers on the starboard side, sponged and rammed and hauled up their pieces in a frenzy of activity.

'Numbers two and eight are good, sir,' shouted Drinkwater above the din.

'Let's wait until we are becalmed and try them at a target Mr Drinkwater, then I'll be looking for accuracy not speed.'

Number eight gun was already secured, its crew kneeling smartly rigid but for the panting of their bare torsos.

There was a scream from forward. In their haste not to be last Number Four gun had been fired too early. The recoiling truck had run over the foot of the after train tackle man. He lay whimpering on the deck, blood running from his bitten tongue his right foot a bloody mess. Drinkwater ran forward.

'Mr Q, warn the surgeon to make ready, you there, Stokeley bear a hand there.' They dragged the injured man clear of the gun and Drinkwater whipped his headband off, twisting it swiftly round his ankle. He had fainted by the time the stretcher bearers came up.

'Secure all guns! Secure there!' Rogers was bawling, turning the men back to their task. As Drinkwater saw the casualty carried below, the guns were fully elevated and run up with their muzzles hard against the port lintels. The lids were shut and the breechings passed.

'Both batteries secured, sir,' reported Rogers, 'bloody fool had his damned foot in the way…'

'That will do, Mr Rogers,' snapped Griffiths, colour mounting to his cheeks and his bushy white eyebrows coming together in imperious menace across the bridge of his big nose.

'Secure from general quarters, Mr Drinkwater.' The commander turned angrily below and Rogers looked ruefully at Drinkwater for consolation.

'Stupid old bastard,' he said.

Drinkwater regarded the young lieutenant and for the first time realised he did not like him. 'Carry on Mr Rogers,' he said coldly, 'I have the deck.' Drinkwater walked forward and Rogers turned aft to where Midshipman Dalziell was gathering up his signal book and slate. 'I have the deck,' mimicked Rogers and found Dalziell smiling conspiratorially at him.

The sun went down in a blaze of glory. As it set Drinkwater had the deck watch check the two boats that hung in the new-fangled davits on either quarter in case they were needed during the night. They also checked the lashings on the four long pine trunks that were secured outboard between the channels, as there was no stowage elsewhere. Briefly he recalled the depression he had suffered earlier and found its weight had lightened. He tried to divine the source of the relief. Guiltily he concluded that the injured man and Rogers' lack of compassion had awoken him to his duty. He recalled the words of Earl St Vincent: 'A married officer is frequently lost to the service…'

That must not be the case with himself. He had a duty to the ship, to Griffiths and the men, and especially to Elizabeth and the child growing within her. That duty would best be served by anticipation and diligence. They had a long way to go, and even further to come back.

At eight bells Drinkwater went below to where Appleby, fresh washed but still smelling of gore, ate his biscuit and sipped his wine.

'How is the patient?' asked Drinkwater hanging his coat and hat in his cabin and joining the surgeon in the gunroom. 'It was Tyson, wasn't it?'

'Yes. He's well enough,' spluttered Appleby, crumbs exploding from his lips, 'as we were not in action I was able to take my time.' He paused, emptied his glass and dabbed at his mouth with a stained napkin. 'I saved the heel, if it does not rot he will walk on his own leg though he'll limp and find balance a trouble.'

'The devil you did! Well done, Harry, well done.' Appleby looked pleased at his friend's approval and his puffy cheeks flushed.

'I must amend my books,' said Drinkwater reaching to the shelf that contained the half-dozen manuscript ledgers without which the conduct of no King's ship, irrespective of size, could be regulated.

He opened the appropriate volume and turned up his carefully worked muster list. 'Damn it, the man's a boarder… when will he be fit again?'

Appleby shrugged. 'Given that he avoids gangrene, say a month, but the sooner he has something to occupy his mind the better.'

'I wonder if he can write?'

'I doubt it but I'll ask.'

Mr Trussel came in for his glass of madeira. 'I hear the captain is not stopping at the Canaries, is that so, sir?'

'We stop only of necessity for water, Mr Trussel, otherwise Admiral Nelson's orders were explicit,' explained Drinkwater, 'and we are to limit ourselves to one glass each of wine per evening to conserve stocks.'

Trussel made a face. 'Did you not know that powder draws the moisture from a man, Mr Drinkwater?'

'I don't doubt it, Mr Trussel, but needs must when the devil drives, eh?'

'I shall savour the single glass the more then,' answered the old gunner wryly.

Drinkwater bent over his ledger and re-wrote the watch and quarter bills, pulling his chair sideways as Lestock joined them from the deck to stow his quadrant and books.

'I can't make it out, can't make it out,' he was muttering. Drinkwater snapped the inkwell closed. 'What can't you make out, Mr Lestock?'

'Our longitude, Mr Drinkwater, it seems that if our departure from Espartel was truly three leagues west…' Drinkwater listened to Lestock's long exposition on the longitude problem. Hellebore carried no chronometer, did not need to for the coastal convoy work to which she had been assigned. Recent events however, revealed the need for them to know their longitude as they traversed the vast wastes of the Atlantic. Lestock had been dallying with lunar observations, a long and complicated matter involving several sets of near simultaneous sights and upon which the navigational abilities of many officers, including not a few sailing masters, foundered. The method was theoretically simple. But on the plunging deck of the brig, with the horizon frequently interrupted by a wave crest and the sky by rigging and sails, the matter assumed a complexity which was clearly beyond the abilities of Lestock.

As he listened Drinkwater appreciated the fussy man's problems. He knew he could do little better but he kicked himself for not having thought of the problem in Syracuse. With a chronometer the matter would have been different and Nelson had offered them whatever they wanted from the fleet. He had had to. In the matter of charts alone Hellebore was deficient south of the Canaries. They had scraped together the bare minimum, but the chart of the Red Sea was so sparse of detail that its very appearance sent a shudder of apprehension down Lestock's none too confident spine.

'… And if the captain does not intend to stop we'll have further difficulties,' he concluded.

'We will be able to observe the longitude of known capes and islands,' said Drinkwater, 'we should manage. Ah, and that reminds me, during the morning watch tomorrow I'll have a jackstay rigged over the waist and spread and furl a spare topsail on it to use as an awning and catchwater… keep two casks on deck during your watch, Mr Lestock, and fill 'em if you get the opportunity. Captain Griffiths intends only to stop if it becomes necessary, otherwise we'll by-pass the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the Agulhas current and take wood and water somewhere on the Madagascan coast. In the meantime direct your attention to the catchwater if you please.' Lestock returned to the deck, the worried look still on his face.

'It would seem that an excess of salt spray also draws the moisture from a man,' observed Appleby archly.

'Aye, Mr Appleby, and over-early pickles the brain,' retorted Trussel.

Day succeeded day as the trades blew and the internal life of the brig followed its routine as well as its daily variations. Daily, after quarters, the hands skylarked for an hour before the hammocks were piped down. The flying fish leapt from their track and fanned out on either bow. Breakfasts were often spiced by their flesh, fried trout-like and delicious. During the day dolphins played under the bowsprit defying efforts to catch them. The sea at night was phosphorescent and mysterious, the dolphins' tracks sub-aqueous rocket trails of pale fire, the brig's wake a magical bubbling of light. They reeled off the knots, hoisting royals and studding sails when the wind fell light. Even as they reached the latitude of the Cape Verdes and the trades left them, the fluky wind kept a chuckle of water under the forefoot.

It was utterly delightful. Drinkwater threw off the last of his depression and wallowed in the satisfying comfort of naval routine. There was always enough to occupy a sea-officer, yet there was time to read and write his journal, and the problems that came inevitably to a first lieutenant were all sweetly soluble. But he knew it could not last, it never did. The very fact of their passage through the trade-wind belt was an indication of that. At last the winds died away and the rain fell. They filled their water casks while Griffiths had the sweeps out for two hours a daylight watch and Hellebore was hauled manually across the ocean in search of wind.

'Duw, I cannot abide a calm hereabouts,' Griffiths growled at Drinkwater, staring eastward to where, unseen below the horizon, the Gambia coast lay.

'I remember the smell, bach. Terrible, terrible.' For a second Drinkwater could not understand, then he remembered Griffiths's slaving past. 'The Gambia, sir?' he asked quietly.

'Indeed yes… the rivers, green and slow, and the stockades full of them; the chiefs and half-breed traders and the Arabs… and us,' he ended on a lower note. 'Christ, but it was terrible…' It was the first time he had ever disclosed more than the slightest detail of that time of his life. They had often discussed the technicalities of slaving ships, their speed and their distant loveliness, but though there was a growing revulsion to the trade in Britain neither he nor Griffiths had ever voiced the matter as a moral problem. He was tempted to wonder why Griffiths had remained to become chief mate of a slaver when the old man answered his unasked question.

'And yet I stayed to become mate. You are asking yourself that now, aren't you?' He did not wait for a reply but plunged on, like a man in the confessional, too far to regret his repentance. 'But I was young, duw, I was young. There was money there, money and private trading and women, bach, such women the like of which you'd never dream of, coal black and lissom, pliant and young, opening like green leaves in spring,' he sighed, 'they would do anything to get out of that stinking 'tween deck… anything.'

Drinkwater left the old man to his silence and his memories. He was still at the rail when Lestock came on deck at eight bells.

In the morning a breeze had sprung up.