'Good day, and thank you. I suppose you know no more of the French force?'
Lawrence shrugged. 'A frigate and one or two corvettes… commodore's name was unusual,' he paused with one elegant calf over the rail. 'I remember Tom Duval sounded more Frog than this villain. Something like Santon… Santa…'
'Santhonax?'
'You have it exactly sir, Santhonax. Good day, sir.'
'God's bones!' Nathaniel turned swiftly away and scrambled below while Lawrence returned to his ship. Drinkwater burst in upon Griffiths. 'I just asked that popinjay who commanded the French squadron, sir!'
Griffiths looked up: 'Well?'
'Santhonax!'
For a second Griffiths sat silent, then a torrent of Welsh oaths rolled from him in a spate of invective that terminated in the pouring of two further glasses of sercial. Both men sat staring before them. Both thought of the long duel they had fought with Santhonax in the Channel and the North Sea. They had put an end to his depredations by capture at Camperdown. Now, by some twist of fate, Santhonax had beaten them, arrived ahead of them in the Red Sea.
'It is not coincidence, Nathaniel, if that is what you are thinking. Duw, it is Providence… myndiawl, it is more than that, it is proof of Providence!'
'There is one thing, sir.'
'Eh? And what is that?' asked Griffiths pouring a third glass of the wine.
'He does not know it is us that are in pursuit.'
'Huh! That is something like cold comfort, indeed it is.'
The bump of a boat alongside told where Quilhampton had been returned. A minute later the boy knocked and came in. He handed Drinkwater the rolled chart. 'Beg pardon, sir, but it was a snow, sir, name of Dart, sir and…'
'Mr Quilhampton!' snapped Griffiths.
'Sir?' said the boy blushing.
'Do you tell the master that I desire him to brace up and lay a course for the Straits of Bab el Mandeb.'
'B… Bab el…'
'Mandeb.'
'Aye aye, sir.'
Chapter Nine
Mocha Road
Lieutenant Drinkwater slowly paced Hellebore's tiny quarterdeck. The almost constant southerly wind that blew hot from the Horn of Africa tended to ease at nightfall and Drinkwater, in breeches and shirt, had come to regard his sunset walks as an indispensible highlight to the tedium of these weeks. Now, as the sun sank blood-red and huge, its reflection glowing on the sea, he felt a bitter-sweet sadness familiar to seamen at the close of the day when far from home. He turned aft and strode evenly, measuring the deck. His eyes were caught by the rose-coloured walls and towers of Mocha to the east, a mile distant. The mud brick of the town's buildings also reflected the setting glory of the sun. The slender minaret pointed skywards like a sliver of gold and beside it the dome of the mosque blazed. Behind the town the Tihamah plain stretched eastward, already shadowing and cooling until, like a fantastic backcloth it merged with the crags and fissures of the Yemeni mountains that rose into a sky velvet with approaching night. It was not the first time that the beauty of a tropical night had moved him, provoking thoughts of home and Elizabeth and the worry of her accouchement. Then he chid himself for a fool, reminding himself that although he knew a good deal about the ship beneath his feet he knew precious little about the fundamentals of human life. Elizabeth would have been long since brought to bed. He wondered whether the child had lived and tore his mind from the prospect of having lost Elizabeth.
Mr Brundell approached him and reported the sighting of the captain's boat. Drinkwater hurried below for his coat and hat, then met Griffiths at the entry.
After the exchange of routine remarks Griffiths beckoned Drinkwater into the cabin; throwing his hat on to the settee he indicated the first lieutenant should pour them both a glass of wine. Flinging himself on to his chair the commander covered his face with his hands.
'No news, sir?' enquired Drinkwater pushing the wine across the table.
'Aye, bach, but of a negative kind, damn it. It is Santhonax. Wrinch is certain of it,' Griffiths's frequent visits ashore to the delightful residence of Mr Strangford Wrinch had almost assumed the character of a holiday, so regular a thing had they become in the last month. But it was not pleasure that drove Griffiths to the table of the British 'resident'.
Wrinch was a coffee merchant with consular powers, an 'agent' for British interests, not all of them commercial. Drinkwater had dined with him several times and formed the impression that he was one of those strange expatriate Britons who inhabit remote parts of the world, exercising almost imperial powers and writing the pages of history anonymously. It had become apparent to Griffiths and Drinkwater that the man sat spider-like at the centre of a web that strung its invisible threads beside the old caravan routes of Arabia, extended to the ancient Yemeni dependencies in the Sudan and the uncharted tracks of the dhows that traded and plundered upon the Red Sea.
Griffiths had long been involved with the gleaning of intelligence, had spent the latter part of his life working for greater men whose names history would record as the conductors of foreign policy. Yet it was a war within war that occupied Griffiths and Wrinch, a personal involvement which gave them both their motivation. And for Griffiths the personal element had reached an apogee of urgency. Santhonax had been their old adversary in the Channel and the North Sea in the anxious months before Camperdown. Santhonax had been responsible for the barbaric execution of Major Brown, a fact that stirred all Griffiths's latent Celtic hatred. Griffiths was an old, infirm man. Santhonax's presence in the Red Sea mocked him as a task unfinished.
So Griffiths sat patiently in the cool, whitewashed courtyard, brushing off the flies that plagued the town, and waited for news of Santhonax. What Drinkwater did not share with his commander was the latter's patience.
In the weeks they had swung at anchor Drinkwater had concluded that Admiral Nelson had sent them on a wild goose chase; that Lieutenant Duval's overland journey to Bombay was sufficient. They had strained every sinew to reach the Red Sea only to find Admiral Blankett was not at Mocha, that he had gone in search of the French squadron and might have by now destroyed Santhonax. The admiral had been told by Wrinch that a French force was loose in the area. Wrinch affirmed the accuracy of his intelligence without moving from his rug where he would sit in his galahiya and fadhl with his fellow merchants, with the Emirs el Hadj that led the caravans, with commanders of dhows who swapped news for gold, pearls or hashish, or fondled the pretty boys Wrinch was said to prefer to women.
Whatever the truth about himself Wrinch was shrewd enough to know when an Arab invoked the one true God to verify his lies, and when he reported facts. And Griffiths was not interested in the moral qualities of his sources; for him the world was as it was.
Blankett too, had taken alarm. Red-faced and damning Wrinch roundly he had set off north while the season of southerly winds lasted. After his departure Lawrence had arrived, only to be chased by one of Santhonax's ships, appearing mysteriously in Blankett's rear. Despite this intelligence Wrinch urged Griffiths not to cruise in search of either party. He should simply wait. For Wrinch, waiting and 'fadhling' were part of the charm of Arab life. For Griffiths they were a tolerable way of passing the time, enduring the heat and sharpening his appetite for revenge. For Drinkwater the delay was intolerable.