In ten minutes the ship was retaken.
Half an hour later she was put about, the sheets eased and, on a broad reach, steadied on course for England.
Chapter Ten
Elizabeth
Drinkwater leaned over the chart. Beside him a quartermaster named Stewart was pointing out the navigational dangers. Stewart had served as mate of a merchant ship and Drinkwater was thankful for his advice.
'I think Falmouth, Mr Drinkwater,' the man said. 'You'll find the distance less and you'll not need to fear the Eddystone. The lighthouse is fine but the light feeble. Nay I'd say the twin cressets of the Lizard will be a better mark.'
Drinkwater heeded Stewart. The former mate was a tough and experienced mariner which the incongruous paradoxes of human social order placed under his orders.
'Very well. Falmouth it is. But I fear them retaking the ship. We have at least twenty leagues to run before sighting the Lizard…'
'I do not think they will attempt it. Hagan's guard won't let them trick us again. The boys'll spit them with their baynits before asking any questions. Just you refuse them all requests and favours, Mr Drinkwater.'
Rolling the charts up they went on deck.
Algonquin raced along, her canvas straining under the force of the wind. On either side of her the white water hissed urgently as her keel tramped down the waters of the Channel underfoot.
The breeze was fresh but steady, allowing them to keep sail on the schooner and reel off a steady seven knots. At eight bells the next morning the sun caught the twin white towers of the Lizard and at noon Algonquin ran into Falmouth Harbour, under the guns of St Mawes and Pendennis castles. At her peak she flew British over American colours. Drinkwater brought her to an anchor under the guns of a frigate lying in Carrick Roads.
Drinkwater was reluctant to leave Algonquin and report to the frigate, but the warship sent her own boat. Amidst a crowd of unfamiliar faces he was rowed across to her. She proved to be the Galatea.
Reporting to the third lieutenant he was informed the Captain was in lodgings ashore but that the first lieutenant would receive his report.
Drinkwater was conducted aft to where a tall, thin officer was bent almost double under the deck beams. He was coughing violently.
'Beg pardon, sir, this is Midshipman Drinkwater of the Cyclops. Prizemaster of the schooner yonder…' Drinkwater was suddenly a boy again, the responsibility of command lifted from him in the presence of this intimidating stranger. He felt very tired, tired and dirty.
The tall man looked at him and smiled. Then in an unmistakably Northumbrian accent he said, 'Watched you anchor mister. Well done. You'll have prisoners, no doubt?'
'Aye, sir, about twenty.'
The lieutenant frowned. 'About?' He fell to coughing again.
'I haven't allowed them on deck, sir. I'm not sure how many were killed last night.'
The officer's frown deepened. 'You say you're from Cyclops, lad?'
'Aye, sir, that's correct.'
'She's off Ireland or thereaboots, so how were you fighting last night?'
Drinkwater explained how the Americans had retaken the ship, how Lieutenant Price had been killed and briefly related the prize crew's desperate attempt to retrieve the situation. The first lieutenant's frown was replaced by a wry grin.
'You'll be wantin' to be rid of such troublesome fellars then.'
'Yes, sir.'
'I'll send some men and our longboat over. You'll have to take them to Pendennis. After that report to Captain Edgecumbe at the Crown.' The tall man indicated first the squat tower of Pendennis on its headland above the harbour and then the huddle of houses and cottages that constituted the market town of Falmouth. He broke into another fit of coughing.
Thank you, sir.'
'My pleasure, lad,' said the tall man moving away.
'Beg pardon, sir?' The man turned, a bloody handkerchief to his mouth.
'May I ask your name?'
'Collingwood,' coughed the tall lieutenant.
Lieutenant Wilfred Collingwood was as good as his word. Half an hour later Galatea's longboat was alongside and a file of marines came aboard. Hagan had done his best to smarten the crew up but they did not compare with Galatea's men.
The Americans were herded into the boat. Drinkwater ordered Algonquin's boat into the water and was rowed ashore with Stewart. On the stone pier of Falmouth's inner harbour the marines were lining the American prisoners up. Josiah King was paraded scowling at the head of his men and the scarlet coats were lined along either side of the downcast little column. Drinkwater, his trousers still damp and smelling of bilge, swaggered at their head while Stewart and six seamen followed with cutlasses.
Hagan, also stinking of bilge, marched beside Drinkwater. The column moved off. It was market day and Falmouth was crowded. The people cheered the little procession as it tramped through the narrow streets. Drinkwater was conscious of the eyes of girls and women, and found the sensation thus produced arousing. But such is the vanity of humanity that Sergeant Hagan threw out his chest and received the same glances with the same assurance that they were for him. Whereas in truth they were intended for the handsome, sulking American commander who, in the romantic hour of his defeat appealed to the perverse preference of the women.
Josiah King burned with a furious rage that seemed to roar in his skull like a fire. He burned with shame at losing his ship a second time. He burned with impotent anger that fate had wrested the laurels of victory from him, Josiah King of Newport, Rhode Island, and conferred them on the skinny young midshipman whose wet and smelly ducks stuck to his legs with every swaggering stride he took. He burned too with the knowledge that he had been outwitted at the very moment he had been congratulating himself on his forethought. That was perhaps the bitterest, most private, part of the affair. Behind him his men trooped disconsolately as the column moved out of the town and began to climb the headland.
The road passed the end of the hornworks ascending through low undergrowth. It was hot and the sun beat down upon them. Suddenly the ramparts rose on their left and they swung over the fosse, under the Italianate guard-house inside which the huge expanse of the castle enclosure revealed itself.
The guard had called the sergeant and the sergeant called his captain. The captain despatched an ensign to attend to the matter and continued his post-prandial doze. The ensign was insufferably pompous, having discovered that the escort was commanded by a none too clean midshipman. His condescending manner annoyed the exhausted Drinkwater who was compelled to endure the tedium of the unfamiliar and bewildering paperwork without which even the business of war could not be expedited. Each individual American had to be identified and signed for both by the ensign and the midshipman. All the while the sun beat down and Drinkwater felt the fatigue of a sleepless night merge with the euphoric relief from responsibility. At last the disdainful officer was satisfied.