Barrallier discarded the soaked clothing. Drinkwater swabbed the wound clean and watched uncertainly as more blood oozed from the bruised, raw flesh.
'The Arabs use a method of washing with the wine m'sieur,' offered Barrallier gently, 'perhaps a little of the cognac might be spared, yes?' Drinkwater reached for the bottle.
'He was shot…' The young man, standing now next to Barrallier, spoke for the first time. He stated the obvious in that nervous way the uncertain have. Drinkwater looked up into a handsome face perhaps twenty years old.
Drinkwater slipped his hand beneath the count's shoulder. He could feel the ball under the skin. Roughly he scraped the wound to remove any pieces of clothing and poured a last measure of cognac over the mess. He searched among the apothecary's liniments and selected a pot of bluish ointment, smearing the contents over the wound, covering it with a pledget and then a pad made from the count's shirt.
'Hold that over the wound while we turn him over.' Drinkwater nodded to Barrallier who put out his bloody hands, then he looked at Montholon. 'Hold his legs, m'sieur, if you would. Cross them over, good. Now, together!'
Bracing themselves against Kestrel's windward pitch they rolled De Tocqueville roughly over. Drinkwater was feeling more confident, the brandy was doing its work well. An over-active part of his brain was emerging from reaction to the events of the last hours, already curious about their passengers.
'Your escape was none too soon.' He said it absently, preoccupied as he rolled the tip of his forefinger over the blue lump that lay alongside the count's scapula. He did not expect the gasp to come with such vehemence from the woman, cutting through the thick air of the cabin with an incongruous venom that distracted him into looking up.
She had thrown back the hood of her cloak and the swinging lantern caught copper gleams from the mass of auburn hair that fell about her shoulders. She appeared older than her brother with strong, even features heightened by the stress she was under. She stared at Drinkwater from level grey eyes and again he felt her hostility. Her lack of gratitude piqued him and he thought of the two dead and three wounded of Kestrel's crew that had been the price of her escape.
Angry, he bent again over the count's shoulder, picking up the scalpel and feeling its blade rasp the scapula. A light-headed feeling swept over him as he encountered the ball.
'Hold the lantern closer,' he said through clenched teeth. And she obeyed.
The musket ball rolled bloodily on to the table.
Drinkwater grunted with satisfaction as he bound a second pledget and passed a linen strip round the count's shoulder. They strapped his arm to his side and heaved him on to the settee. Then they turned to the seamen with the splinter wounds.
Daylight was visible when Drinkwater staggered on deck soaked in perspiration. The chill hit him as he lurched to the rail and, shuddering, vomited the cognac out of his stomach. He laid his head on the rail. Hortense Montholon lay in his cot and he sank down beside the breeching of a four-pounder and fell asleep. Tregembo brought blankets and covered him.
Standing by the tiller Lieutenant Griffiths looked at the inert form. Although no expression passed over his face he was warm with approval. He had not misjudged the qualities of Nathaniel Drinkwater.
Chapter Three
A Curtain Rising
The incident at Beaubigny had ended Kestrel's clandestine operations. Temporarily unemployed the cutter rolled in the swell that reached round Penlee Point to rock her at her anchor in Cawsand Bay.
Perspiring in his airless cabin Drinkwater sat twirling the cheap goosequill in his long fingers. Condensation hung from the deck-head, generated by the over-stoked stove in Griffiths's cabin next door. Drinkwater was fighting a losing battle against drowsiness. With an effort he forced himself to read over what he had written in his journal.
It was a matter of amazement to me that M. De Tocqueville survived my butchery. His debility was occasioned by loss of blood due to a severe grazing of the axillary artery which fortunately did not rupture entirely. The pectoral muscle was badly torn by the angle of entry of the ball but it seems we had the only chip of bone out of him. If it does not yet putrefy he will live.
He had been mildly interested in the medical details for it had been an old friend who had looked over his rudimentary surgery. Mr Appleby, appointed surgeon to the frigate Diamond then fitting in the Hamoaze, had been ordered aboard Kestrel to check the wounded. He had been complimentary about Nathaniel's unschooled suturing but had not let him escape without a lecture on the count's injuries.
Drinkwater smiled at the recollection. It had been an odd passage home. Of all the refugees Kestrel had brought out of France that last quartet had left an indelible impression. The feverish nobleman muttering incoherently in his delirium and the attentively ineffectual young Etienne Montholon were a contrast to their fellow travellers. The garrulous and enthusiastic Barrallier was a lively and amusing companion who let no detail of Kestrel escape his criticism or admiration. He seemed to cut himself off from the others, turning his back on France, as if desperate to be seen as anglophile in all things. Markedly different from the men, Hortense remained aloof; cold and contemptuous in the isolation of her sex. Her beauty caused a whispering, wondering admiration among the hands and a vague disquiet among the officers with whom she was briefly accommodated.
Drinkwater was not alone in his relief at their disembarkation at Plymouth with their specie and the folio of plans, but they left in their wake a sense of unease. Like many of his contemporaries who had served in the American War, Drinkwater found a wry amusement in the visitation of republican revolution on the French. Many of those who had served under Rochambeau and La Fayette, men who had drawn the iron ring around Cornwallis at Yorktown and professed admiration for liberty, now ran like rats before the Jacobin terriers.
But there was also a strand of sympathy for the revolution in Nathaniel's heart, born of a sympathy for the oppressed awakened years earlier on the stinking orlop of Cyclops. He could not entirely condemn the principles of revolution, though he baulked at the method. Despite the sanctuary given the emigres, Englishmen of liberal principles and many naval officers of independent mind saw with eyes uncluttered by party interest. Drinkwater was no pocketed Whig nor heedless Tory adherent and he had precious little 'interest' to tie him to principles of dubious propriety.
He lay down his pen and snapped the cap on his inkwell, transferring himself to the cot. He picked up the creased newspaper that Griffiths had left him. The print danced in front of his eyes. In the light of recent events Mr Pitt's promises of peace and prosperity rang false. The letters marched like a thousand tiny black men: an army. He closed his eyes. War and the possibility of war were all that people talked of, paying scant attention to Mr Pitt's protestations.