Drury cursed as he bent over the papers on his desk. As for grand strategy, all that mattered to Lord Minto and the damned Selectmen was the China trade, the India trade, and the self-interest of the merchants of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. The scum had already written to London with their opinion of no confidence in Pellew and his measures to protect their confounded commerce! Drury wished the Honourable East India Company to the devil.
It was a damned irony, Drury mused. How could anything associated with mercantile transactions be honourable? The very notion was preposterous! He snorted indignantly and while his secretary waited with the patience of a tried and beaten man, the admiral scribbled his signature on a dozen letters and notes.
But William O'Brien Drury was a pragmatist brought up in a hard school. He had not yet inherited Pellew's command and he acknowledged the influence of India House and its Court of Directors. The Select Committeemen hung on his coat tails, eternally muttering about loss and demurrage and half a hundred other insignificant notions that were bound up with their infernal and corrupt business. It was bad enough having to coerce the Portuguese, for it was just conceivable that a French squadron from the Mauritius, or a Dutch squadron from Batavia might occupy Macao and strangle the Canton approaches with a blockade, but the idea of bullying the hapless Chinese was quite contrary to Admiral Drury's idea of duty!
At last he sighed, and put down his pen. He rubbed his hand wearily across his face.
'Bring me Captain Drinkwater's report when it is delivered,' he remarked to his secretary, reaching out for the neck of the decanter.
'Do you have any orders for him, sir, that I may be drafting in the interim?'
Drury thought for a moment. 'Yes, I'm going to send him to Penang with those few ships that are completing their lading. They will need an escort and I cannot spare young Pellew or Dawson. Besides,' the admiral added, 'with French cruisers about I'd rather have an experienced officer in command of a convoy than one of those young popinjays.'
'Not to mention the pirates,' muttered the secretary as he scooped up the signed letters for which he had been waiting.
CHAPTER 3
Whampoa
'Steady as you go, sir.'
Drinkwater lowered his glass and nodded at Lieutenant Fraser. 'Mr Ballantyne has the con ... sheets and braces to the Master's helm, if you please.'
'Aye, aye, sir.'
Drinkwater held Fraser's eyes, searching for a flicker of resentment. Had Fraser hesitated out of deference to Drinkwater's presence? Or was there a taint of bad blood in the air? Surely not, though God alone knew the undercurrents of discontent that ran beneath the decks of his precious command. Ballantyne was a newcomer, a cuckoo in the uncomfortable nest of Patrician's wardroom.
Drinkwater dismissed the morbid train of thought. The Narrows known as the Bogue were closing in, the embrasured forts clearly visible as the breeze blew the ship steadily inshore, with the Chinese Viceroy's war-junks closing in on either quarter like huge, primordial birds of prey. The little Musquito, tugging and dragging at the dripping towline, rolled in their wake.
'Very well, Mr Fraser, you may send the men to quarters. In silence, if you will.'
Ballantyne turned and, to avoid his eyes, Drinkwater raised his glass again, studying the curious rig of the closing junk to larboard. He did not want the rat-a-tat-tat of the marine drummer's snare alarming the unpredictable Chinese, despite
Admiral Drury's assurances that a bold front would secure him a safe anchorage with the Indiamen above the Second Bar.
'Sir,' implored Ballantyne, 'I most earnestly entreat you not to compromise my father.'
Hissed at by Comley's mates who were deprived of their pipes at the hatchways, the watch below were pouring up from the berth-deck to take their stations at the quarterdeck guns with the low slap-slap of their bare feet.
'And I entreat you, Mr Ballantyne, to attend to your duty. You are a King's officer now.' Drinkwater looked quickly at Fraser, but the first lieutenant appeared to derive no satisfaction from his rebuke to the newcomer. Chastened, Ballantyne turned away. There were always problems arriving off a foreign coast, Drinkwater reflected, matters of propriety, of the correct number of guns to fire in a salute; of the number to expect in return and of the action to be taken if one did not receive them. He had gathered enough from Drury and Ballantyne himself to realise the delicacy of the balance maintained by the Honourable East India Company and the satellite shipping houses of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay in their relationship with the Celestial Empire of the Son of Heaven.
'The Emperor in Peking, sir, regards King George as a vassal chieftain,' Ballantyne had explained, highly amused, 'such is his ignorance ...'
Drinkwater raised his telescope and studied the junk to the west of them. There would be no exchange of gun-salutes, Drury had said, not until he had concluded his negotiations with the Viceroy.
'Mr Ballantyne,' said Drinkwater, without lowering the glass, 'there is a gentleman aboard that junk who appears to be a man of some importance.'
'He's the hoppo, sir, the mandarin charged with the duty of collecting the customs revenue, the chop. I imagine he will board Musquito when we bring her to anchor. We should take in the fore-course now, sir ...'
'Very well.'
'Fore clew-garnets! Rise fore-tacks and sheets!'
Drinkwater turned his attention to the forts. Brilliant-hued banners fluttered over ramparts of pale stone and he could see the muzzles of heavy cannon.
'Antique guns, sir,' reassured Ballantyne.
'What are those things beside the banners?' Drinkwater pointed to coloured shapes bobbing up and down behind the parapet.
'Tiger masks, sir, intended to intimidate us.'
'I see ...' replied Drinkwater uncertainly.
But the Chinese cannon did not dispute their passage, though the war-junks hung on their flanks until they had passed beyond the Bogue and the First Bar. Under topsails, Patrician forced her ponderous way upstream against the yellow ebb of the Pearl River. To starboard the hills rolled away to the east, echoing the jagged peaks of Lin Tin Island offshore, but to larboard a flat alluvial plain stretched westwards, intersected by convoluted channels and formed from marshy and insubstantial islands that altered as the river altered. The hills to the east were bare of trees, stripped by the hand of man, terraced here and there to form fields which fell away from the walled villages on their summits.
With sharply braced yards and the jibs and spanker to assist, Patrician rounded a long bend, finding the main stream divided by low islands. Although the layered spire of a pagoda broke the skyline, it was the tall masts and yards of the East Indiamen that dominated the anchorage.
'Whampoa, sir, and that is Danes Island, and that is ...' Ballantyne aired the knowledge of a dragoman while Drinkwater studied the shipping through his Dollond glass. Most of the Indiamen seemed to be discharging, though there were smaller 'Country' ships, Indian owned, loading from the mass of junks, sampans and lorchas that crowded round them. One or two of these seemed ready for sea.