Ebb tide

Author's Note

In this, the fourteenth and last in a series of novels which form the 'biography' of Nathaniel Drinkwater, I have taken some liberties with the patience of my readers. For this I must crave an indulgence. For twenty years I have accompanied Drinkwater and, from time to time, our lives have enjoyed curious parallels. His capture of the Santa Teresa and heady anticipation of prize money coincided with my own part in the salvage of a cargo ship in the North Sea which, at first sight, seemed to hold the promise of a small fortune; his incarceration in an attic office at the Admiralty happened when I myself relinquished sea-going command in exchange for an office desk. It was no accident that he assisted me in escaping my confinement, just as I engineered his own. There have been other, more technical comparisons, but they would be tedious to enumerate and, in this last novel, he has, at least at the time of writing, preceded me over the final threshold.

In the invention of Drinkwater and his adventures, I have worked through an obsessive fascination with the period in which he lived. Beyond the basic concept and a handful of historical facts, I started each story with no particular idea of what exactly would happen to the main protagonist. For me the process of writing was to find out, and to that extent Drinkwater's life was not entirely my own conscious creation. I have consequently derived much fun from the stimulation which this form of exploration produces, but one thing I resolved upon, that where what appeared to be expedient invention threw up a train of events, I must follow the train of cause and effect to its conclusion. To this end, this fourteenth book concludes several yarns, bringing together storylines begun in the earlier novels. It is for this that I ask my readers' indulgence, in the hope that they, like me, wanted to know what happened to Hortense, or Edward or Mr Frey, or why for years poor Nathaniel endured the recurring and horrible nightmare of the white lady.

As to the manner of Drinkwater's death, it is expected nowadays that a novelist must most assiduously research his subject. Some years ago, I came across an account by an eighteenth-century seaman who had only narrowly escaped drowning. It was powerfully written and made an impression on me, thus sowing the seed of an idea. Furthermore, by a series of personal misadventures, I have myself been three times helpless in the sea. On one of these rather desperate occasions, I did not expect to live.

For those who wish to know upon what historical hook the substance of this last tale is hung, the Trinity House Steamer Vestal did indeed run her own boat down on 14 July 1843 after abandoning an attempt to land at the foot of the cliffs at Hartland Point. Also drawn from life are Captain McCullough and the Sentinel Service, a little known part of the Royal Navy's rich history. As for the two troopers aboard Cyclops in 1780, it is matter of fact that in that year two men were dismissed from the 7th Queen's Own Light Dragoons and sent to serve in the Royal Navy as a punishment. Moreover, cheese issued by the royal dockyards was often of such age and consistency that sailors fashioned it into boxes and worked it like wood, and there is a record of a cheese being fashioned into a mast-truck, fitted with flag halliard sheaves and shipped atop a warship's mast where it remained for the duration of her commission. Such are the happy gleanings of assiduous research!

As for more seminal inspiration, whilst still a teenager I came across six battered volumes of William James's monumental Naval History of Great Britain, which records in meticulous and largely accurate detail every action fought by the Royal Navy during the wars of the French Revolution and Empire. I parted with my pocket money of half-a-crown, a sum which now sounds as archaic as the age of the books themselves, though they had been published a century before my own birth. Astonishingly, most of the pages were uncut.This purchase was to create a lifelong interest in maritime history and to result ultimately in the 'biography' of Nathaniel Drinkwater.

I am aware that when coming to the end of a much-enjoyed book, the reader is often assailed by a sense of regret. Something of the same tristesse hangs over me now as I tap out the last words of the saga.

I have immensely enjoyed writing the series, but every voyage has its ending and Drinkwater exceeded his allotted three score years and ten to die not ignobly. To those of my readers who have shared something of this enjoyment, may I simply express my gratitude. Your support meant the whole tale could be told, and while your precise image of Nathaniel Drinkwater may differ slightly from my own, the substance of his invention is common to us both.