'Morris, as God is my witness ...'
'Oh, silence! And stop that prating cant before you start! What use would I have for you now, eh?' The sly, archly languid tone was shed in an instant. It had come upon Morris lately, like his fat. Remembered was the sharp trading of insult for insult, of venom flecking the very spittle round his mouth in the malignant outbursts that had first alerted Midshipman Drinkwater to the presence of an envious and inept rival. Later, the horrified young Drinkwater discovered the bully was a sodomite who dominated a faction among the weaker members of the lower deck of the frigate Cyclops. *(* See An Eye of the Fleet.)
Morris's forbidden passion had awakened sympathetic lusts elsewhere on board, to become not a secret cabal which might have existed undetected by authority, but a hell's kitchen that dealt in intimidation and murder. It was whispered that sodomy was as old as the Bible; that some men deprived of any outlet for physical passion would inevitably be seduced by its specious attractions to relieve the misery of their lives aboard a man-of-war. Some such men might be forgiven the aberration if it impinged on no one unwillingly, whatever the raillings of the Articles of War. But Morris had made of his vice a weapon with which to terrorise, a means by which to indulge and fulfil a cruel megalomania. At the end of the affair, when he had been tactfully dismissed from the ship to avoid scandal, Morris had laid the blame on unrequited love. The thought still appalled Drinkwater.
'You sired siblings on your Elizabeth then.' Morris nodded at the portraits on the forward bulkhead. The indelicate remark presumed the familiarity of old friendship.
'You presume too much. Hold your tongue here!'
'Ah, I forgot. Captain Drinkwater commands here.' The sarcasm was as smooth as the yellow silk robe Morris wore. 'But I am beyond your orders, muy Capitán. I am no longer in your navy. I resigned my commission from His Britannic Majesty's illustrious service. I am passed far beyond you and your lash.'
'Two boxes of specie do not purchase you immunity from authority,' Drinkwater cautioned, a horrible thought occurring to him of Morris and Rakitin in some unholy confederacy, combining with the disaffected elements of his tired and impatient crew. Morris smiled, unconcerned at Drinkwater's attitude.
'I have taken some insurance. More specie went aboard Guilford. Odious though it may seem to you, my arrival at Calcutta will be expected. You will have to attend to your duty most assiduously in respect of the Guilford, my dear fellow. As for me, I will not insist that you pander to my every whim; I doubt, candidly, that you would be able to ...'
Drinkwater stood stock-still, half listening to Morris's baiting sarcasm. He could see, beyond the rim of the table, the lip of the half-opened drawer where, prior to his arrival, it was clear Morris had been inspecting the contents of his journal. He opened his mouth to inveigh further, but thought better of it. A knock sounded on the cabin door. Midshipman Dutfield announced Lieutenant Fraser's compliments and the intelligence that they were approaching the Bogue.
'Very well, Mr Dutfield, I will be up directly.'
'A handsome young man, Captain.' Morris's laughter followed Drinkwater in his retreat to the quarterdeck.
Lieutenant Quilhampton flung his hat on his cot and wrenched at the stock about his thin neck. He turned to find Tregembo at the door of his tiny cabin. 'May I speak with 'ee, zur?'
'What the devil is it, Tregembo?'
'Do 'ee know who's come aboard, zur?'
'You mean that fat mandarin is, or was, Commander Morris? Aye, I know, and I doubt the captain is much pleased about the matter ... why?'
Quilhampton stared at the old Cornishman. He had never seen the weather-beaten face seamed with so much anxiety.
'Zur, forgive me for saying so, 'tis more than a fancy, but you only remember that bugger from the Hellebore ...'
'I mind enough that he was an evil sod with one of the midshipmen there ...'
'No,' interrupted Tregembo urgently and lowering his voice, 'I mean more'n that, zur; I mind him from way back on the old Cyclops, zur. 'E swore then as how he'd spavin the Cap'n, zur, and I know, zur, I feels it now as he's come to do just that.'
Quilhampton frowned. 'Spavin? You mean ruin Captain Drinkwater? How can he do that? You ain't suggesting this counterfeit mandarin fellow knew who commanded this ship? Come, come, Tregembo, I understand your dislike of matters as they stand, but he's clearly been engaged in trade and wants to leave Canton ... anything else is sheer foolish conjecture.'
Tregembo opened his mouth, shut it and stared at the lieutenant.
'Beg pardon for troubling you, zur.' And he left Quilhampton staring at the closed door.
Morris had been put in command of the brig Hellebore at Mocha, at the end of 1799, or beginning of 1800, he could not quite recall. He had superseded Commander Griffiths, killed in action, and had relieved Lieutenant Drinkwater of his temporary command. Quilhampton remembered Morris getting the step in rank that properly belonged to Drinkwater. Surely that fact would atone for any earlier disagreement between the two men? Doubtless so partisan a champion of Drinkwater as Tregembo would see such a miscarriage of justice in an unfavourable light as far as Morris was concerned. But he remembered other things too; those rumours about Morris that concerned allusions of sodomy with one of the midshipmen, and the scuttlebutt that the surgeon and his woman, a convict they had rescued from an open boat, had been poisoning Morris.*(See A Brig of War.) He had dismissed it at the time; young Midshipman Quilhampton had not then learnt the extent of the perfidy of ordinary mortals.
Was there something in Tregembo's alarum? Or was the old man a victim of senility, of over-anxiety on behalf of his master?
Of course, that was it! He was known to be jealous of his assumed influence over the captain. So what if he remembered the petty squabbles between a pair of midshipmen in an ancient and long-rotten frigate? Lieutenant Quilhampton shrugged off the matter and bellowed at the wardroom messman to fetch him a basin of warm water from the galley. While he waited he fell to calculating how long it would be before he might present himself in the Edinburgh drawing-room of Mistress Catriona MacEwan and whether, after so long a commission, he had accrued sufficient funds to take a wife.
Drinkwater's thoughts were hardly on the convoy he was marshalling off the Bogue. Patrician lay with her sails clewed up, only her mizen topsail still sheeted home and backed against its mast. Above his head a flutter of bunting tested his signalling system and already, in conformity with his orders, boats from the various ships were converging on the frigate. First to arrive was Phaeton's, to collect his final despatch to Admiral Drury. Her midshipman was of the same age as her commanding officer.
'Tell Captain Pellew that I'd be obliged if he would stand to the southward in company until sunset tomorrow.'