'This is an improvement, Mr Drinkwater.'
'Indeed, Mr Trussel,' said Drinkwater gravely. 'We have paid a heavy price for it by losing the captain.'
'I beg your pardon, sir, I had no idea…'
'No matter, Mr Trussel. What about your guns?'
The cloud on the wrinkled face further deepened. 'All gone sir, all of my beauties gone, but surely we have some replacements here?'
'No, we are only armed en flûte, Mr Trussel, these carronades and half a dozen main deck guns below. The Frogs had 'em all ashore. But yours, what happened to Hellebore's sixes?'
'Those damned Arab carts fell apart after half a dozen discharges, though we moved 'em up like regular flying artillery.' He checked his flight of fancy, remembering the circumstances of his report. 'Left my black beauties in the desert, sir, and damned sorry I am for it.'
'Very well, Mr Trussel,' Drinkwater lowered his voice, 'you will find a bottle of claret in the great cabin. Use it sparingly.'
Trussel's eyes gleamed with anticipation. Drinkwater turned his attention to Wrinch. 'A moment, Mr Wrinch, if you please. Forrard there! Hands to the braces! Hard a-starboard, steer nor'west by west!'
'Nor'west by west, aye, aye, sir.'
They braced the yards and set more sail, hoisting the topgallants and lowering the forecourse. The frigate slipped through the water with increasing speed. It ought to have given Drinkwater the feeling of keenest triumph. He turned to Wrinch.
'I went to report to Griffiths… I'm sorry. What happened?'
'He took a pistol ball in the lungs. He was trying to save me from Santhonax.'
'You took this Frenchman then?'
Drinkwater nodded. 'Yes, Griffiths shot him and shattered his shoulder. He's very weak but still alive. He chased us in a boat. Boarded us after we had taken the ship. Ben Ibrahim was killed in the scuffle.'
'I know, his men told me.'
'But what of your part? The plan worked to perfection.'
Wrinch managed a wry little laugh. 'Well almost, the guns were more terrifying to us than to the enemy in fact, though their reports in the dark confused then. The two sheiks whose horsemen I led had a blood feud with the very man whom Santhonax had brought to protect his immunity at Al Mukhra. When I offered gold, guns and the distraction of yourselves it was more tempting than a pair of thoroughbreds. Although those damned guns cost us a deal of labour, we had them in position without the French knowing. The ride had strained the carts and they flew to pieces, but I doubt, despite Mr Trussel's excellently contrived lashings, they would have managed much more. My cavalry, however, were superb. You have never seen Arab horsemen, eh? They are fluid, restless as sand itself. The enemy rushed from their miserable tents and the hovels in which they were quartered and we chased them through the thorn scrub…' he paused, apparently forgetful of their dead friend, reliving the moment of pure excitement as a man reflecting on a passionate memory. Drinkwater remembered the feeling of panic that had engulfed the men of Cyclops when caught on land by enemy cavalry.
'We lost four men, Nathaniel, four men that walk now with Allah in paradise. We killed God knows how many. There will not be a Frenchman alive in the Wadi Al Mukhra.'
There was an alien, pitiless gleam in Wrinch's eye as he described the murder of a defeated enemy as a scouring of the sacred earth of the Hejaz after the defiling of the infidel. It occurred to Drinkwater that Wrinch was a believer in the one true faith. It was Islam and patriotism that kept this curious man in self-imposed exile among the wild horsemen and their strangely civilised brand of barbarity. And as he listened, it occurred to him that his own life was beset by paradoxes and anomalies; brutality and honour, death and duty. As if to emphasise these disturbing contradictions Wrinch ended on a note of compassion: 'Do you wish me to attend this Santhonax?'
Drinkwater nodded. 'If you please. Would that your skills had arrived early enough to have been of use to Griffiths.'
'Death, my dear Nathaniel,' said Wrinch, putting his hand familiarly upon Drinkwater's shoulder, 'is the price of Admiralty.'
Chapter Seventeen
A Conspiracy of Circumstances
Drinkwater stared astern to where Daedalus Reef formed a small blemish on the horizon. He felt empty and emotionless over the loss of Griffiths, aware that the impact would be felt later. They had buried him among the roots of the scrubby grass on the islet, a few yards from the burnt out shell of his brig. During the brief interment several of the hands had wept openly. An odd circumstance that, Drinkwater thought, considering that he himself, who of all the brig's company had been closest to the commander, could feel nothing. Catherine Best had cried too, and it had been Harry Appleby's shoulder that supported her.
Drinkwater sighed. The blemish on the horizon had gone. Griffiths and Hellebore had slipped from the present into the past. Such change, abrupt and cruel as it was, nevertheless formed a part of the sea-life. The Lord gave and took away as surely as day followed night, mused Drinkwater as he turned forward and paced the frigate's spacious deck. The wind shifted and you hauled your braces; that was the way of it and now, in the wake of Griffiths came Morris.
It had taken two days to get the stores off Daedalus Reef, two days of hard labour and relentless driving of the hands, of standing the big unfamiliar frigate on and offshore while they rowed the boats, splashed out with casks and bundles and hauled them aboard. The paucity of numbers had been acutely felt and officers had doffed coats and turned-to with the hands.
Morris had taken command by virtue of his seniority. It was an incontravertible fact. Drinkwater did not resent it, though he cursed his ill-luck. It happened to sea-officers daily, but he dearly hoped that at Mocha Morris would return to his own ship.
Drinkwater took consolation in his profession, for there was much to do. As he paced up and down, the sinking sun lit the frigate's starboard side, setting the bright-work gleaming. She was a beautiful ship whose name they had at last discovered to be Antigone. She was identical to the Pomone, taken by Sir John Warren's frigate squadron in the St George's Day action of 1794. Although she had only six of her big maindeck guns mounted, her fo'c's'le and quarterdeck carronades were in place, as were a number of swivels mounted along her gangways. With the remnants of the brig's crew it would be as much as they could manage.
Drinkwater clasped his hands behind his back, stretched his shoulders and looked aloft at the pyramids of sail reddening in the sunset. She would undoubtedly be purchased into the service. All they had to do was get her home in one piece. Inevitably his mind slid sideways to the subject of prize money. He should do well from the sale of such a splendid ship. Griffiths would… he caught himself. Griffiths was dead. As the sun disappeared and the green flash showed briefly upon the horizon Drinkwater suddenly missed Madoc Griffiths.
That passage to Mocha in the strange ship, so large after the Hellebore, had a curious flavour to it. As though the tight-knit community that had so perfectly fitted and worked the brig now rattled in too large a space, subject too suddenly to new influences. The change of command, with the nature of Morris's character common knowledge, served to undermine discipline. Men obeyed their new commander's orders with a perceptible lack of alacrity, displaying for Drinkwater a partiality that was obvious. The presence on board of Santhonax and Bruilhac was also unsettling, although the one was still weak from his wound and the other too terrified to pose a threat. But it was Morris who exerted the most sinister influence upon them, as was his new prerogative. Two days after leaving the reef the wind had freshened and Rogers had the topgallants taken off. Morris had gone on deck. During the evolution a clew line had snagged in a block, the result of carelessness, of few men doing a heavy job in a hurry. Rogers had roared abuse at the master's mate in the top while the sail flogged, whipping the yard and setting the mainmast a-trembling.