A Brig of War

'I think, sir,' intervened Drinkwater, 'that you are mistaken in supposing Mr Quilhampton intended any disrespect. The loss of his hand necessitates that he…'

'Be silent, Mr Drinkwater,' slurred Morris, 'and have this scum at the foremasthead at once.'

Drinkwater took one look at the swaying figure of Morris. 'Up you go, Mr Q,' he said quietly, lowering the quadrant into its case. Quilhampton's eyes were filling with tears. Drinkwater jerked his head imperceptibly and the boy turned forward. Drinkwater bent over the chronometer case.

'Mr Drinkwater! I am addressing you!' Drinkwater picked up the case.

'Sir?' he was looking down at the bent gimbals. The second hand no longer moved. 'I don't expect that sort of disrespect on my quarterdeck…' Morris was very drunk. It was clear that he had not yet realised what it was he had kicked across the deck.

'I doubt that it will occur again, sir,' said Drinkwater looking down at the ruined chronometer.

'It had better bloody not.' Suddenly Morris heaved, swallowed and staggered below. Darkness stole over the ship. The time to take stellar observations had passed. Drinkwater did not know precisely where they were and, in truth, he did not greatly care.

'Don't worry, Mr Drinkwater,' said Lestock, apparently pleased at the destruction of the timepiece. 'Your theoretical navigation lost us a brig and the captain has had the sense to deprive you of your toy before you cause more damage.'

'Go to the devil, you addle-brained old fool!' snapped Drinkwater.

They got Quilhampton down at dawn, calling the surgeon to roll him in warmed blankets and chafe him with spirits. The inside of his left elbow was raw from where the laborious climb had caused him to use it as a hook. At the conclusion of his watch Drinkwater sought out the surgeon and found him still attending the boy in the company of Catherine Best.

'How is he?'

'He'll live, but he's chilled to the marrow and cramped.'

'Aye the damned wind got up during the middle watch and it's already half a gale. This is the monsoon all right.'

'Damn your monsoon, Nat, have we to put up with that vicious bastard aft all the way home? Oh, don't worry about Catherine,' he added seeing Drinkwater's covert glance at the woman, 'she well knows all my sentiments on Mister festering Morris.'

'You know the answer to your own question, Harry.'

'So it's shorten canvas and ride out the gale even if it lasts another three or four months, eh?'

'Your metaphor is good enough.'

'Pity he can't be ill like poor old Griffiths, then he could let you run the blasted ship.'

'I doubt he would allow that,' smiled Drinkwater resignedly.

'Well if he goes on swilling rum at the present rate he'll either destroy his intestines or drink us out of the damned stuff and be raving from delirium tremens!' Appleby stood up as Quilhampton opened his eyes. 'Then you would have to take over, eh?'

'That talk from another I would take as sedition, Harry,' said Drinkwater seriously. 'I beg you do not be so free with your opinions.'

'Bah!' said Appleby contemptuously while Catherine Best gave both the men an odd look.

Chapter Nineteen A Woman's Touch

 October-November 1799

Appleby regarded his new patient with distaste. Commander Morris lay exhausted in his cot, the sweat pouring from him, the seat lid of his cabin commode lifted and a bucket swilling with vomit by his side. Appleby moved nearer the open stern window for some fresh air. Antigone slipped south, her clean hull slicing the blue waters of the Indian Ocean, her towering pyramids of canvas expanding laterally as studding sails increased her speed. Beneath her elegant bowsprit and white figurehead the bottle-nosed dolphins leapt and cavorted, effortlessly outstripping the ship as she threw up scores of flying fish on either hand. October was passing to November and the high summer of the southern hemisphere .

The hiss of the sea, upwelling green and white from under the frigate's plunging stern, the creak of the rudder chains and tiller ropes a deck below and the chasing seas seemed a cleansing antidote to the stink of the cabin. Appleby turned back into it.

'The diaphoresis is very severe, sir, and the flux abnormal. How many times did you purge yourself during the night?'

'Don't bandy your medical quackery here Appleby, I was up shitting most of the night and when I was not doing that I was puking my guts into that bucket. I tell you someone is poisoning me !'

'Come, come, sir. Don't be ridiculous. These are not the symptoms of poison. Where would one obtain poison on a ship? My chest is locked and I wear the keys, here,' he jingled the bunch on his fob.

'Appleby, you damned fool, you can poison a man…'

'Sir,' cut in Appleby sharply, 'I assure you that you are not being poisoned. Such a notion is preposterous. You are exhibiting symptoms of chronic gastritis. Your dependence upon alcohol has ulcerated the mucous membrane of the stomach as a result of which you are unable to retain nourishment in your belly. The natural reaction of the body is to void itself. If you do not trust my diagnosis sir, I would be only too happy to transfer to another ship at the Cape. In the meantime I shall send Tyson in to attend you and clean up some of this mess. Good morning.'

Appleby left the commander to attend to Santhonax. His wound was healing badly, a continuing process of exfoliation preventing the tissues from knitting properly. An easy familiarity had developed between the Frenchman and the surgeon as commonly exists between a man and his physician.

'Where did you learn to speak English, sir?' asked Appleby removing the dressing.

'I was the son of a half-English mother, Mr Appleby, the daughter of a wild-goose Englishman who supported King James III.'

'Ah, the Old Pretender, eh?' said Appleby wryly, 'but you are not so partial to kings since the Revolution?'

'They are not noted for their gratitude to even their most loyal adherents.'

'We notice that in King George's navy.'

'Treason, Mr Appleby?'

'Truth, Captain Santhonax.'

'You would make a most excellent revolutionary.'

'Perhaps, if the material was worth the saving, but I doubt even your brand will materially alter this tired old world. Were you not yourself about to enslave the Hindoos?'

Santhonax smiled, a bleak, wolfish smile. 'Had that damned combination of Drinkwater and Griffiths not been at my tail I might have succeeded.'

'You forget, captain, I too was on Kestrel…'

'Diable, I had forgot… yes it was you sutured my face. It is a strange coincidence is it not, that we should find ourselves fighting a private war?'

Appleby finished binding the new dressing over a clean pledget. 'Griffiths called it proof of Providence, Captain. What would your new religion of Reason call it?'

'Much the same, Mr Appleby… thank you.'

'You will be well enough soon. I think the exfoliation almost complete. It will be a whole man we return to the hulks at Portsmouth.'

'You have yet to get your stolen vessel past lie de France, Appleby. Perhaps it may yet be me who will be visiting you.'

'Well what is the matter with him?' asked Drinkwater, straightening up from the chart spread on the gunroom table, 'he tells me he is of the opinion that he is being poisoned. Damn it, I think he half thought I might have instigated it! What Morris surmises he believes, God help us all, and if there is a shred of truth behind such an apparently monstrous allegation…'