'Cap'n's china, sir,' said the marine unnecessarily.
'Oh dear…'
Templeton retreated into the cabin and stood irresolute above the slopping mess, then Frampton, the captain's servant, with much clucking of his tongue, appeared with a cloth.
'I don't know what Cap'n Pardoe'll say. We've only the pewter pot left,' he grumbled.
'Get out!' Templeton swung round to find Drinkwater in the doorway. The captain's face was strangely set. He shut the door and strode aft, putting his right hand on the aftermost beam, resting his head on his arm and staring astern. The servant swiftly vanished and Templeton himself hesitated; but it was clear the captain did not mean him. Templeton averted his eyes from the heave and suck of the wake and turned his gaze inboard. He admired again the rather fine painting of Mrs Drinkwater which the captain had hung the previous afternoon. He felt a return of his nausea and fought to occupy his mind with something else.
'Is ... is something the matter, sir? I, um, thought the taming of the gun accomplished most expertly, sir.'
Drinkwater remained unmoving, braced against the ship's motion. 'Did you now; how very condescending of you.' Templeton considered the captain might have been speaking through clenched teeth. Was this another sea-mystery? Was the captain himself suffering from mal de mer?
Templeton had reached this fascinating conclusion when the door opened once more and Huke strode in. He was carrying a short length of thick brown rope.
'Well?' Drinkwater turned. 'What d'you think?'
Huke held the rope out. 'There's no doubt, sir. Cut two-thirds through and the rest left to nature. Thank God it didn't part six hours earlier.'
And it slowly dawned upon Mr Templeton that the breaking adrift of the cannon had been no accident, but a deliberate act of sabotage.
'That is', he said, intruding into the exchange of looks of his two superiors, 'a most prejudicial circumstance, is it not?'
CHAPTER 6
Typhus
'We must not make our concern too obvious,' Drinkwater said, after a pause during which Templeton blushed in acknowledgement that he had spoken out of turn. 'If the sabotage was merely malicious, a detestation at having been sent so abruptly on foreign service, or some such, vigilance may be all that is necessary. Do you, Mr Huke, have a discreet word with all of the other officers on those lines.'
'Aye, aye, sir. You want any other construction played down, I assume.' Huke looked significantly at the captain's secretary.
'Templeton is party to everything, Mr Huke. He was lately a cipher clerk at the Admiralty.'
'I see,' said Huke, who did nothing of the kind.
'But yes, play it down, just the same,' Drinkwater said, and Huke nodded. 'And I think I will let the marine officer know exactly what is going on. Is he a sound man, Mr Huke?'
'Mr Walsh is reliable enough, but unimaginative and not given to using his initiative. He is somewhat talkative but steady under fire.' Huke paused. 'If I might presume to advise you, sir . . .'
'Yes, of course. You think him liable to be indiscreet?'
Huke nodded again. 'I should tell him only that we are bound upon a special service. It is not necessary to say more. He will be as vigilant as Old Harry if he thinks there's the merest whiff of mutiny attached to this business.'
'So be it.' Drinkwater looked from one to the other. 'Are there any questions?'
'Do you think it is possible to identify the culprits?'
Drinkwater and Huke stared incredulously at the clerk who, for the third time that morning, wished he had kept his mouth shut.
'These things are managed by men who take every precaution to ensure no officer ever gets to hear how they happen,' Drinkwater explained. 'These men are not stupid, Mr Templeton, even when they lack the advantages of knowledge or education.'
'And one or two', added Huke with heavy emphasis, 'are not wanting in either.'
Drinkwater spoke to Lieutenant Walsh shortly afterwards. 'The gun that broke loose was partially cut adrift, Mr Walsh. Have you had much of this sort of thing in the ship before?'
Walsh whistled through his teeth at the intelligence, then shook his head. He was a thick-set, middle-aged man whose prospects looked exceedingly dim. He should have reached the rank of major long before, and have been commanding the marine detachment aboard a flagship. He had a high colour, and Drinkwater suspected his loquacity might be proportional to his intake of black-strap.
'Nothing, sir, of much significance. The odd outbreak of thievery and so forth, but nothing organized.'
'Well, I want you to keep your eyes open — and your mouth shut if you find anything out. I want to be the first to know anything, any scuttlebutt, any evidence of combinations, any mutterings in odd corners. D'you understand?'
'Yes, sir.'
'But I don't want a hornet's nest stirred up. I don't want your men ferreting and fossicking through the ship so that even a blind fiddler can see we're concerned.' Walsh frowned. 'The point is, Mr Walsh, and this is strictly confidential, we are engaged upon a special service and delay of any kind would be most unfortunate. Do I make myself clear?'
'You want me to keep my eyes and ears open, sir, but not to let on too much, and to let you know immediately if I get wind of anything.'
'You have it in a nutshell.'
Drinkwater went on deck after terminating his interview with the red-coated marine. The topgallant masts were already aloft again, the order to refid them having just been given. Drinkwater paced the quarterdeck, watching the men as they set up the rigging. From time to time he fished in his tail pocket and levelled his glass at the horizon, sweeping it in arcs, hoping to see the angular peak of Kestrels mainsail breaking its uniformity.
The wind was down to a stiff breeze from the south-east and Andromeda bowled along, her topsail yards braced round to catch it, the deep-cut sails straining in their bolt-ropes.
As they went about their tasks under the supervision of Mr Birkbeck, the boatswain and his mates, the men frequently cast their eyes in Drinkwater's direction. If he caught their glance they swiftly looked away. This was no admission of guilt, or even caginess. Their curiosity would have been natural enough in any circumstances, given his recent arrival on board, for the captain of a man-of-war held autocratic powers over his unfortunate crew. Indeed, Drinkwater recalled incidents of flogging for 'dumb insolence' if a man so much as stared fixedly at his commander, so he attached no importance to this phenomenon. There would be no one on the frigate who did not know by now of the incident of the cannon, for it remained where it had been lashed. How their new captain reacted was of general interest. If his restless scourings of the horizon with his glass conveyed the impression of a greater anxiety for Quilhampton's Kestrel, it would not have been far from the truth.
At one point he thought he saw her. A blurred image swam past the telescope's lenses. Unaccountably the cutter had somehow worked ahead of them. He moved smartly forward, along the gangway on to the forecastle. Here, the boatswain, Mr Hardy, was about to sway up the fore topgallant yard.
'Carry on, Mr Hardy,' he said as the petty officer touched his hat.
'Aye, aye, sir.'
Reaching the foremast shrouds, Drinkwater levelled his glass. He carefully traversed the horizon. It was blank. He worked carefully backwards from right to left. Again, nothing.
'T'garn yardmen to the top!' Hardy bawled almost in his ear as he conned the horizon yet again, convinced that he had seen something and waiting for the ship to lift to a wave on each small sector again.