It was the question Drinkwater had been dreading but he was too far in now to retreat and he took encouragement from Griffiths's interest. 'I'm not sure, sir. It is a feeling I have had for some time… I mean, well as you know my French is poor, sir, limited to a few stock phrases, but at the back of my mind is the impression that she didn't want to come with us that night… that she was there on sufference. I remember her standing up in the boat as we came off the beach and the French opened fire. She shouted something, something like "don't shoot, I'm your friend, I'm your friend!"' He tried to recall the events of the night. 'It ain't much to go on, sir, we were all very tired after Beaubigny.' He paused, searching Griffiths's face for some sign of contemptuous disbelief. The old man seemed sunk in reflection. 'As for the "obstacle",' Drinkwater plunged on, 'I just had this conviction that it was De Tocqueville…' He cleared his throat and in a firmer voice said, 'To be honest, sir, it's all very circumstantial and I apologise about the letter.' Drinkwater found his palms were damp but he felt the relief of the confessional.
Griffiths held his hand up. 'Don't apologise, bach, there may be something in what you say. When we mentioned the Montholons and Beaubigny to Major Brown something significant occurred to him. I don't know what it was but I am aware that this Captain Santhonax is not only an audacious officer but is highly placed enough to exert influence on French politics.' He paused. 'And I have often wondered why no action was ever taken after our broadside at Beaubigny. One can only assume that the matter was hushed up.' Griffiths lifted an eyebrow. 'Yet the French were damned touchy with Barlow and Childers a few weeks later…'
'That thought had occurred to me, sir.'
'Then we are of one mind, Mr Drinkwater,' said Griffiths closing the subject with a smile. Drinkwater relaxed, remembering Dungarth's words all those months ago. He began to see why Griffiths was regarded as a remarkable man. He doubted he could have told anyone else but the Welshman. The old lieutenant sat for a moment in silence, staring at the wine rings on the table cloth. Then he looked up. 'Do you return the letter to me, Mr Drinkwater. I'll inform his lordship of this. It may bear investigation.'
Relieved, Drinkwater rose and went to his cabin, returning to pass the letter to Griffiths.
'Thank you,' said the lieutenant, looking curiously at the thin plait of auburn hair. 'Well, Mr Drinkwater, out of your prize money I think you should purchase a new coat, your starboard shoulder tingle is well enough for sea service but won't do otherwise,' Griffiths indicated the repair he had effected to his coat. Elizabeth had already chid him for it. 'Take yourself to Morgan's, opposite the Fountain at number 85. You'll get yourself anything there, even another Dollond glass to replace that precious bauble you lost off Ushant…' They both laughed and Griffiths shouted at the mess-man, Merrick, to come and clear the table.
Lieutenant Griffiths's expectations of stratagems from Sir Sydney's fertile brain were to have a drastic effect upon the fortunes of Kestrel though not in the manner the old man had had in mind. Sir Sydney had conceived the idea that a French-built lugger attached to the squadron would prove a great asset in deceiving the enemy, plundering coastal trade and gathering intelligence. Her commander would be his own nomination in the person of Lieutenant Richard White, and Kestrel, with her unmistakably English rig, would be free for other duties.
Auguste Barrallier, now employed in the Royal Dockyard, arrived to authenticate the lugger's repairs and was affable to Drinkwater, watching progress from the adjacent cutter. Nathaniel did his best to disguise his pique when White arrived from Falmouth with a crew of volunteers from Warren's frigates. White, to his credit, made no attempts to lord over his old friend. He brought letters from Appleby and an air of breezy confidence that only a frigate cruising under an enterprising officer could engender. Appleby, it appeared, did not see eye to eye with this captain and White dismissed the surgeon with something like contempt. But Drinkwater was pleased when the lugger dropped out of sight behind Fort Blockhouse.
Her replacement as Warren's despatch vessel left Kestrel languishing between the greenheart piles in Haslar Creek through the still, chill grey days of January when news came of war with the Dutch. February passed and then, almost immediately it seemed, the windy equinoctials of March were over. A start had been made on removing the scars of her late action. But it was half-hearted, desultory work, badly done and Griffiths despaired, falling sick and passing to the naval hospital. Jessup took to the bottle and even Drinkwater felt listless and dispirited, sympathising with the bosun and affecting to ignore his frequent lapses.
Drinkwater's lassitude was due in part to a spiritual exhaustion after the action off the Île Vierge which combined with a helplessness consequent upon his conviction that a link existed between the mysterious Santhonax and Hortense Montholon. In sharing this suspicion with Griffiths, Drinkwater had sought to unravel it, imagining the old sea-officer might have some alchemical formula for divining such things. But this had proved foolish, and now, with Griffiths sick ashore and the authorities lacking interest in the cutter, Drinkwater felt oppressed by his helplessness, aground in a backwater of naval affairs that seemed to have no incoming tide to refloat his enthusiasm.
To some extent Elizabeth was to blame. Their proximity to Drinkwater's home meant that he took what leave he could. With Griffiths ashore his presence aboard Kestrel two or three times a week was sufficient. And the seduction of almost uninterrupted domestic life was sweet indeed. To pay for this lack of vigilance Kestrel lost six men to desertion and Drinkwater longed for orders, torn between Elizabeth and the call of duty.
Then, one sharp, bright April morning when the sun cracked over the roofs of Portsea with an expectant brilliance, a post captain came aboard, clambering over the rail from a dockyard boat unannounced, anonymous in plain clothes. He had with him a fashionably dressed and eccentric looking man who seemed familiar with the cutter.
It was Tregembo who warned Drinkwater and he had only learned from the grinning crew of the dockyard skiff that the gentlemen were of some importance. Some considerable importance in fact. Suddenly guilty, and thanking providence that this morning he had happened to be on board, Drinkwater hurried on deck, but the strangers were nowhere to be seen. Then a seaman popped out of the hold.
'Hey, sir, some bleeders down 'ere are poking about the bottom of the ship. One of 'em's a bleeding Frog unless I'm a Sumatran strumpet, sir…'
Bursting with apologies Drinkwater flung himself below to make his introductions. The intruders were dimly visible peering into Kestrel's bilge having prised up a section of the ceiling.
'Good morning, gentlemen, please accept my… good lord! M'sieur Barrallier is it not?'
'Ah! My young friend, 'ullo. I have not come to build you your frigate, alas, but this is Captain Schank, and we have come to, how you say — modify — your fine cutter.'
Drinkwater turned to the gentleman rising from his knees and brushing his breeches. Captain Schank waved aside his apologetic protestations and in five minutes repaired his morale and reinspired him.
Later that day in Haslar Hospital Drinkwater explained to Griffiths.
'What he does is this, sir. He reinforces the keel with cheeks, then he cuts slots like long mortices through which he drops these plates, centre plates he calls 'em. The idea's been used in America for some time, on a small scale, d'you see. Captain Schank saw them when he was master's mate but,' Drinkwater smiled ruefully, 'master's mates don't carry much weight in these matters.'