'A great deal might happen if, Mr Hill,' broke in Drinkwater. 'There is too much hazard in the sea-life to worry about what did not happen. Now bend your best endeavours to checking the compass. We have an error there too, or I suspect you would have tumbled yesterday's inaccuracy yourself.'
The thought seemed to brighten Hill, to shift some of the blame and lighten the burden of his culpability. Drinkwater smiled and turned away, fastening his grey eyes on the senior midshipman.
'Mr Walmsley,' he snapped, 'I wish to address a few words to you, sir!'
Chapter Two
The Antigone
Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater turned his chair and stared astern to where patches of sunlight danced upon the sea, alternating with the shadows of clouds. The surface of the sea heaved with the regularity of the Atlantic swells that rolled eastwards in the train of the storm. In the wake of the Antigone herself half a dozen gulls and fulmars quartered the disturbed water in search of prey. Further off a gannet turned its gliding flight into an abrupt and predatory dive; but Drinkwater barely noticed these things, his mind was still full of the interview with Lord Walmsley.
Drinkwater had inherited Lord Walmsley together with most of the other midshipmen from his previous command. They had already been on board when he had hurriedly joined the Melusine for her voyage escorting the Hull whaling fleet into the Arctic Ocean the previous summer. The officer responsible for selecting and patronising this coterie of 'young gentlemen', Captain Sir James Palgrave, had been severely wounded in a duel and prevented from sailing in command of the Melusine. Now Drinkwater rather wished Walmsley to the devil along with Sir James whose wound had mortified and who had paid with his life for the consequences of a foolish quarrel. Walmsley was an indolent youngster, spoiled, vastly over-confident and of a character strong enough to dominate the cockpit. Occasionally charming, there was no actual evil in him, though Drinkwater would have instinctively written bad against his character had he been asked, if only because Lord Walmsley did not measure up to Drinkwater's exacting standards as an embryonic sea-officer. The fact was that his lordship did not give a twopenny damn about the naval service or, Drinkwater suspected, Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater himself. The captain was, after all, only in command of one of the many cruisers attached to the hastily raked-up collection of ships that made up the Downs Squadron. Lord Walmsley knew as well as Captain Drinkwater that, whatever hysteria was raised in the House of Commons about the menace of invasion across the Strait of Dover, it would not be Admiral Lord Keith's motley collection of vessels that stopped it but the might of the Channel Fleet under Admiral Cornwallis. Since Cornwallis's squadrons were bottling up the French in Brest it seemed unlikely that Keith's ships would be achieving anything more glorious than commerce harrying and a general intimidation of the north coast of France. It was well known that Keith himself did not want his job and that he considered his own post to be that usurped by the upstart Nelson: holding the key to the Mediterranean outside Toulon.
Drinkwater sighed; when the Commander-in-Chief of the station made common knowledge of his dissatisfaction, was it any wonder that a young kill-buck like Walmsley should adopt an attitude of indifference? What was more, Walmsley had influence in high places. This depressing reflection irritated Drinkwater. He turned, rose from his chair and, taking a key from his waistcoat pocket, unlocked his wine case. He took out one of the two cut-glass goblets and lifted the decanter. The port glowed richly as he held the glass against the light from the stern windows. Resuming his seat he hitched both feet up on the settee that ran from quarter to quarter across the stern and narrowed his eyes. Damn Lord Walmsley! The young man was a souring influence among a group of reefers who, if they were not exactly brilliant, were not without merit. Midshipman Frey, for instance, just twelve years old, had already seen action off the coast of Greenland, was proving a great asset as a seaman and had also demonstrated his talents as an artist. Drinkwater was not averse to advancing the able, and had already seen both Mr Quilhampton and Mr Gorton get their commissions and placed them on his own quarterdeck as a mark of confidence in them, young though they were. Messrs Wickham and Dutfield were run-of-the-mill youngsters, willing and of a similar age. The Honourable Alexander Glencross was led by Lord Walmsley. The sixth midshipman was even younger than Frey, a freckled Scot named Gillespy forced upon him as a favour to James Quilhampton. In his pursuit of Mistress Catriona MacEwan, poor Quilhampton had sought to press his suit by promising the girl's aunt to find a place for the child of another sister. Little Gillespy was therefore being turned into a King's sea-officer to enhance
Quilhampton's prospects as a suitable husband for the lovely Catriona. Drinkwater had had a berth for a midshipman and James had pleaded his own case so well that Drinkwater found himself unable to refuse his request.
'I believe Miss MacEwan is kindly disposed towards me, sir,' Quilhampton had said, 'but her festering aunt regards me as a poor catch…' Drinkwater had seen poor Quilhampton's eyes fall to his iron hook which he wore in place of a left hand. So, from friendship and pity, Drinkwater had agreed to the boy joining the ship. As for Gillespy, he had so far borne his part well despite being constantly sea-sick since Antigone left the Thames, and had spent the first half-dozen of his watches on deck lashed to a carronade slide. Drinkwater wondered what effect Walmsley and Glencross might have on such malleable clay.
'Damn 'em both!' he muttered; he had more important things to think about and could ill-afford his midshipmen such solicitude. They must take their chance like he had had to. Whatever his misgivings over the reefers, he was well served by his officers, Hill's error notwithstanding. That had been an unfortunate mistake and principally due to the badly fitted compass that was, in turn, a result of the chaotic state of the dockyards. They had found the error in the lubber's line small in itself, but enough to confuse their dead-reckoning as they steered down the Channel with a favourable easterly wind. That was an irony in itself after two months of the foulest weather for over a year; gales that had driven the Channel Fleet off station at Brest and into the lee of Torbay.
'Disaster,' he muttered as he sipped the port, 'is always a combination of small things going wrong simultaneously…' And, by God, how close they had come to it in Mount's Bay! He consoled himself with the thought that no great harm had been done. Although he had lost an anchor and cable, the club-haul had not only welded his ship's company together but shown them what they were themselves capable of. 'It's an ill wind,' he murmured, then stopped, aware that he was talking to himself a great deal too much these days.
'Now I want a good, steady stroke.' Tregembo, captain's coxswain regarded his barge crew with a critical eye. He had hand-picked them himself but since Drinkwater had read himself in at Antigone's entry the captain had not been out of the ship and this was to be the first time they took the big barge away. He knew most of them, the majority had formed the crew of Melusine's gig, but they had never performed before under the eyes of an admiral or the entire Channel Fleet.
He grunted his satisfaction. 'Don't 'ee let me down. No. Nor the cap'n, neither. Don't forget we owe him a lot, my lads,' he glowered round them as if to quell contradiction. There was a wry sucking of teeth and winking of eyes that signified recognition of Tregembo's partiality for the captain. 'No one but Cap'n Drinkwater d've got us out o' Mount's Bay an' all three masts still standing… just you buggers think on that. Now up on deck with 'ee all.' Tregembo followed the boat's crew up out of the gloom of the gun-deck.