Duncan nodded. 'Those very facts have been my constant companions for the past weeks. I begin to perceive this Santhonax is something of a red hot shot.'
'What is the state of your own ships, Admiral?' asked Brown.
'That, Major, is a deuced canny question.'
Admiral Duncan's fleet deserted him piecemeal in the next few days. Off the Texel Captain Trollope in the Russell, 74, with a handful of cutters, luggers and a frigate or two, maintained the illusion of blockade. Five of his battleships left for the Nore.
On the 29th May Duncan threw out the signal to weigh. His remaining ships stood clear of Yarmouth Roads until, one by one, they turned south-west, towards the Thames. Three hours after sailing only Venerable, 74, Adamant, 50 and the smaller Trent and Circe, together with Kestrel, remained loyal to their admiral.
The passage across the North Sea was a dismal one. In a way Drinkwater was relieved they were returning to the Texel. Wearying though blockade duty was, he felt instinctively that that was where they should be, no matter to what straits they were reduced. Brown thought so too, for after sending a cipher by the telegraph to the Admiralty, he had joined the cutter with Lord Dungarth's blessing.
'I think, Mr Drinkwater,' he had said, 'that you may take the credit for having set a portfire to the train now and we must wait patiently upon events.'
And patiently they did wait, for the first days of June the wind was in the east. De Winter's fleet of fourteen sail of the line, eight frigates and seventy-three transports and storeships were kept in the Texel by the two British battleships, a few frigates and small fry who made constant signals to one another in a ruse to persuade the watching Dutch that a great fleet lay in the offing of which this was but the inshore squadron.
But would such a deception work?
Chapter Thirteen
No Glory but the Gale
The splash of a cannon shot showed briefly in the water off Kestrel's starboard bow where she lay in the yeasty waters of the Schulpen Gat, close to the beach at Kijkduin.
'They have brought horse artillery today, Mr Drinkwater,' said Major Brown from the side of his mouth as both men stared through their telescopes.
Drinkwater could see the knot of officers watching them. One was dismounted and kneeling on the ground, a huge field glass on the shoulder of an orderly grovelling in front of him. 'That one in the brown coat, d'you know who he is?' Drinkwater swung his glass. He could see a man in a brown drab coat, but it was not in the least familiar. 'No sir.'
'That,' said Brown with significant emphasis, 'is Wolfe Tone…' Drinkwater looked again. There was nothing remarkable about the man portrayed as a traitor to his country. Kestrel bucked inshore and Drinkwater turned to order her laid off a point more. 'I'll give them the usual salute then.'
'Yes — no! Wait! Look at the man next but one to Tone.' Brown was excited and Drinkwater put up his glass again to see a tall figure emerge from behind a horse. Even at that distance Drinkwater knew the man was Santhonax, a Santhonax resplendent in the blue and gold of naval uniform, and it seemed to Drinkwater that across that tumbling quarter mile of breakers and sea-washed sand that Santhonax stared back at him. He lowered the glass and looked at Brown. 'Santhonax.' Brown nodded.
'You were right, Mr Drinkwater. Now give 'em the usual.' Drinkwater waved forward and saw Traveller stand back from the gun. The four-pounder roared and the men cheered when the ball ricochetted amongst the officers. Their horses reared in fright and one fell screaming on broken legs.
'Stand by heads'l sheets there! Weather runner! Stand by to gybe! Mind your head, Major!' Drinkwater called to Brown who had hoisted himself on to Number 11 gun to witness the fall of shot. 'Up helm… mainsheet now, watch there! Watch!'
Kestrel turned away from the shore as the field-gun barked again. The shot ripped through the bulwarks on the quarter and passed between the two helmsmen. The wind of its passage sent them gasping to the deck and Drinkwater jumped for the big tiller. Then the cutter was stern to the beach and rolling over in a thunderous clatter of gybing spars and canvas. 'Larboard runner!' Men tramped aft with the fall of the big double burton and belayed it, the sheets were trimmed and Kestrel steadied on her course out of the Schulpen Gat to work her way round the Haakagronden to where Duncan awaited her report.
The admiral was on Venerable's quarterdeck when Drinkwater went up the side. He saluted and made his report to Duncan. The admiral nodded and asked, 'And how is Lieutenant Griffiths today?'
Drinkwater shook his head. 'The surgeon's been up with him all night, sir, but there appears to be no improvement. This is the worst I've known him, sir.'
Duncan nodded. 'He's still adamant he doesn't want a relief?'
'Aye sir.'
'Very well, Mr Drinkwater. Return to your station.'
The strange situation that Duncan found himself in of an admiral almost without ships, compelled him to tread circumspectly. He did not wish to transfer officers or disrupt the delicate loyalties of his pitifully small squadron. Griffiths was known to him and had indicated the professional worth of Kestrel's sailing master. The admiral, astute in the matter of personal evaluation, had formed his own favourable impression of Drinkwater's abilities.
As the week of easterly winds ended, when the period of greatest danger seemed to be over, Duncan received reinforcements. Sir Roger Curtis arrived with some units of the Channel Fleet. Glatton, the curious ex-Indiaman armed only with carronades, had mutinied, gone to the Downs and cooled her heels. There her people resolved not to desert their admiral and returned to station. Other odd ships arrived including a Russian squadron under Admiral Hanikov. Then, at the end of June, the Nore mutiny had collapsed and Duncan's ships returned to him. At full strength the North Sea squadron maintained the blockade through the next spell of easterly winds at the beginning of July.
Kestrel made her daily patrols while Griffiths lay sweating in his cot, Appleby a fretful shadow over him. They saw no more of Santhonax and still the Dutch did not come out. Major Brown became increasingly irritated by the turn of events. Santhonax had shot his bolt. The Nore mutiny had collapsed and the French captain had failed, just as he had failed on the Culloden. Now, if he was still at the Texel, Santhonax had failed to coerce De Winter.
'A man of action, Mr Drinkwater, cannot sit on his arse for long. This business of naval blockade is the very essence of tedium.'
Drinkwater smiled over his coffee. 'I doubt you would be of that opinion, sir, if the conduct of the ships were yours. For us it is a wearing occupation, requiring constant vigilance.'
'Oh I daresay,' put in Brown crossly, 'but I've a feeling that De Winter won't shift. When we next report to the admiral I shall transfer to the flagship and take the first despatch vessel to Yarmouth. No, Mr Drinkwater, that train of powder has gone out.'
'Well sir,' answered Drinkwater rising from the table and reaching for his hat, 'perhaps it was a little longer than you expected.'
Major Brown stared after the younger man, trying to decide if he had been the victim of impertinence or perception. Certainly he bridled at Drinkwater's apparent lack of respect for a major in His Majesty's Life Guards, but he knew Nathaniel was no fool, no fool at all. Brown remembered the dinner at the Fountain and Drinkwater's insistence that the presence of the uniforms, charts and money indicated the Citoyenne Janine held a secret. He also remembered that he had been less than frank about what he had discovered at Tunbridge Wells.