'Aye sir.'
'Don't forget the sun's ahead of you, neglect the lookout at your peril…' He fell back from this vehement warning. Drinkwater left the cabin and went to find Johnson and his party in the forehold.
Griffiths's warning was timely. The central part of the Red Sea ran deep but the approach to Mocha was made dangerous by many coral reefs. Sailing north they had always had the sun behind them, facilitating the spotting of reefs from the foremasthead. Now the reverse was true and the force of a favourable wind lent a southerly course the quality of impetuosity. Drinkwater remembered his order to hoist the studding sails with a pang of cautionary misgivings, then allayed his fears with the reflection that this portion of the Red Sea was free of reefs except for the low islet of Daedalus Shoal some sixty leagues south-east of them.
He found Johnson busy crouched in the darkness between two timbers, the gleam of incoming water lit by lanterns held by ship's boys, burning weakly in the bad air. Johnson had a pad of picked oakum pressed against the leak to batten over with timber and tarred canvas. Drinkwater looked round him in the gloom.
'The devil's task moving the casks, eh, Mr Johnson?'
'Aye, sir. I reckon Josh Kirby's ruptured himself, like, beggin' your pardon.'
Drinkwater sighed. Another customer for one of Appleby's trusses. The hard physical labour of working His Majesty's ships of war resulted in frequent hernias, a debilitating condition for any man, let alone a seaman. Drinkwater knew of many officers who suffered from them too, and next to addiction to alcohol it was the commonest form of affliction suffered by seamen of all stations.
Returning aft he called on Mr Quilhampton. Opening the flimsy cabin door he found the boy sitting in a chair, reading aloud from Falconer's Marine Dictionary. Drinkwater was aware of a sudden thrusting movement as Gaston Bruilhac shoved past him in apparent panic.
'Good mornin', Mr Q. What the deuce has that puppy been up to to look so damned guilty?'
'Morning sir.' Quilhampton frowned. 'Damned if I know, sir. It's rather queer, but despite my assurances to the contrary he's still terrified of all the officers sir, especially the captain, you and your friend Mr Morris.'
Drinkwater snorted. 'Mr Morris, Mr Q, is an old "Admiralty acquaintance" with whom I never saw eye to eye. You may disabuse yourself of ideas of intimacy.'
Quilhampton appeared pleased.
'What are you reading?' asked Drinkwater, aware that he should not discuss even Morris with a midshipman. 'Are you communicating with the French boy?'
'Yes, sir,' said Quilhampton enthusiastically, 'Falconer has a French lexicon appended to his dictionary, as you know, sir, and we're making some progress. If only he wasn't so damned nervous.'
'Well I'm glad to see you so cheerful, Mr Q.' He forebore mentioning the ligatures. If Appleby was premature in drawing them Quilhampton would suffer agony. That was the surgeon's province.
At noon Drinkwater and Lestock observed their latitude. Both expressed their surprise that the brig was not more to the south but their ponderings were interrupted by a strange cry from the masthead.
'Deck there! Red Sea ahead!'
Such an unusual hail brought all on deck to the rail. The sea had lost its brilliant blue and white appearance and at first seemed the colour of mud, then suddenly Hellebore was ploughing her way through vermillion waves. This strange novelty caused expressions of naive wonder to cross the faces of the men and Drinkwater remembered Griffiths's muttered 'Y Môr Coch'. They dropped a bucket over and brought up a sample. It was, in detail, a disappointing phenomena, a reddish dust lay upon the water, the corpses of millions of tiny organisms which, in dying, turned a brilliant hue. In less than an hour they had passed out of the area and the men went laughing to their dinners.
The sight, the subject of a long entry in Drinkwater's journal, drove all thoughts of the suspect latitude from their minds.
When he came on deck again at eight bells in the afternoon he based his longitude observation on the latitude observed at noon. He was not to know that refraction of the horizon made nonsense of the day's calculations. They were well to the south and east of their assumed position and for some it was to be a fatal error.
But it was Lieutenant Rogers whose greater mistake spelled disaster for the brig. They had experienced the magically disturbing phenomena of a 'milk sea' many times since that first eruption of phosphorescence in the southern Indian Ocean. Conversations with officers at Mocha, experienced in the navigation of the eastern seas, had led them to remit their instinctive fear of shoaling which was often occasioned by this circumstance. They had heard from Blankett's men how captains and all hands had been called and precious anchors lost on several occasions when an officer apprehended the immediate loss of the ship on a shoal in the middle of the night. Subsequent soundings had shown a depth greater than the leadline could determine and the 'foaming breakers' were discovered to be no more than the phosphorescent tumbling of the open sea.
But such arcane knowledge bestowed on a man of Rogers's temperament was apt to blunt his natural fears and he disallowed the report from the masthead with a contemptuous sneer.
And so, at ten minutes after three on the morning of the 19th August 1799 His Britannic Majesty's Brig of War Hellebore ran hard ashore on the outlying spurs of Abu al Kizan, ironically known to the Royal Navy as Daedalus Reef.
Chapter Fourteen
The Will of Allah
Drinkwater was flung from his cot by the impact. In the darkness he was aware of shouts, curses and screams. The entire hull seemed to flex once as a loud crack was followed by the crash of falling spars and blocks, the muffling slump of canvas and the peculiar whirring slap of ropes falling slack across the deck. In his drawers he pushed his way through the confused press of men making for the upper deck. As he emerged he was aware that the lofty spread of the brig's masts, rigging and sails were gone, that the mighty arch of the heavens spread overhead uninterrupted. Lieutenant Rogers stood open-mouthed in shock, refusing to believe the evidence of his eyes.
Drinkwater leapt for the rail and in an instant saw the fringe of white water breaking round the low islet to larboard, lifeless patches of blackness in the night marked the presence of rock outcrops. All around Hellebore the surge and welter of water breaking over shallows confirmed what his nerves were already telling him. Beneath his feet the brig's hull was dead.
He turned to Rogers. It was pointless remonstrating with the man. Rogers would be needed in the coming hours and in any case Drinkwater's acute sense of responsibility was already aware that he himself was not without blame. The reef was undoubtedly Daedalus Reef; their assumed position had been woefully in error and, although he did not yet know why, his conscience nagged him.
'Well sir,' he said to Rogers in as steady a voice as he could muster, 'it seems that we have wrecked the ship… and for God's sake close your mouth.'
Drinkwater was suddenly aware of many faces in the night, all clamouring for attention. There was fear too, revealed by panicky movements to and from the rails. He saw Catherine Best, her face white, a shawl made of sennit-work round her shoulders. Undercurrents of disorder swept the deck.
'Silence there!' bawled Drinkwater, leaping on to a gun breech forgetful of his near-nakedness. 'We ain't going to sink, damn it, come away from those boats. Mr Rogers! A roll call if you please. Mr Lestock! Sound round the hull; Mr Johnson the well. Mr Trussel examine the extent of damage to the hull… take parties with you…' His voice trailed away. Rising from the companionway like an apparition, a tall nightcap falling to one side of his face, the wind whipping a voluminous nightshirt about him, came Commander Griffiths. Men fell silent and drew aside from his path.