'Have you heard Jameson's joke, sir?' drawled Mosse.
'No, pray share it, Mr Jameson.'
The third lieutenant blushed, made a face at Mosse and shook his head.
'Come, Roger, or I shall steal it...'
'Do as you please, damn you, Stephen.'
Mosse turned insouciantly to Drinkwater and Huke. 'Jameson has some crack-pot notion that we were ridding ourselves of fleas, sir, and, having due regard to the naked disorder so recently upon our decks, likened it to an event of history, sir.'
'And what was that, Mr Mosse? As I am sure you about to tell us.'
'Why, the Boston flea party, sir!'
Despite the misgivings of his officers, Drinkwater had known very well what he was doing. By following the mass drenching with a gunnery exercise he achieved that unity in a crew which, with a less active commander, might otherwise have taken months. He had been lucky in Huke, capitalizing on that diligent officer's hard work, but he was pleased that afternoon, notwithstanding the ridiculous washing that still blew about above their heads, they had loosed three broadsides from each battery, and shot at a dahn-buoy until their ears rang with the concussions of the guns.
To crown the events of the day Drinkwater cleared the lower deck and summoned the ship's company aft.
'Well, my lads, it has been an eventful day,' he said, pausing long enough to hear a groundswell of good-natured agreement, 'and it is likely to be succeeded by a number of such eventful days. We are not far from the coast of Norway, and we are here to flush out a few privateers who have been reported lurking hereabouts. In a moment or two I am ordering the hoisting of Danish colours and we shall enter Danish waters. Next time you hear the drum beat to quarters the only surprise will be the one we will give to the enemy! Now, Mr Huke, we have disrupted the ship's routine sufficiently for one day and delayed long enough. Be so kind as to pipe up spirits!'
Drinkwater went below to a cheer; if there was opportunism, even sycophancy in it, he was undeceived. He had other matters to concern him. Quilhampton was still missing, and the men who had half-severed the gun-breech were among the mob happily awaiting their daily ration of rum.
'Sir!'
Drinkwater stirred and saw Midshipman Fisher's head peering round the door. 'What is it?'
'Mr Birkbeck's compliments, sir, and we've sighted Utsira.'
'What time is it?'
'Almost six bells, sir.'
'Very well.' The boy vanished. Drinkwater roused himself, swivelled in his chair and stared through the stern windows. It was three o'clock in the afternoon and he must have dozed for over an hour.
'I am growing old,' he muttered to himself. There were not many hours of daylight left and the horizon was depressingly empty. He remembered James Quilhampton's Kestrel with a pang of conscience. 'Old and forgetful.' The thought, too, was depressing.
Rising stiffly, he went into his night-cabin, opened the top of his chest and poured some water into the bowl recessed there. He threw water into his face, ran the new-fangled toothbrush round his mouth and stared at himself in the mirror. He was sure there was more of his forehead visible than when he had last looked, then chid himself for a fool, for he had done his hair immediately after the morning's dousing.
On deck he became brisk and eager for a sight of the island. 'Where away, Mr Birkbeck?'
Birkbeck was standing with one of his mates, a man named Ashley. Both men lowered their glasses. 'Two points to starboard, sir.'
'Here, sir.' Ashley offered his telescope.
'Thank you, Mr Ashley.'
Drinkwater focused the lenses upon the low island that appeared blue and insubstantial, then swept the sea around it in the vain hope that the grey-white peak of Kestrels mainsail would break the bleakness of the scene.
'Not a landfall to stumble across in the dark, or the kind of weather we laboured in the other night,' remarked Birkbeck.
'No, indeed ...' Drinkwater lowered the telescope and handed it back to the master's mate. 'Obliged, Mr Ashley.' He looked up at the spanker gaff, where the unfamiliar red swallowtail ensign with its white cross flapped bravely in the breeze.
'Handsome flag, ain't it? Last time I saw it fly in anger was at Copenhagen,' Birkbeck said.
'Which ship were you in?' Drinkwater asked attentively.
'I was with Captain Puget in Goliath.''
'I don't recall...'
'In Gambier's attack, sir, not Nelson's.'
'Ah, yes ...'
'You were in the earlier action then?'
'Yes. I had the bomb Virago.'
They reminisced happily, staring at the distant island as, almost imperceptibly, it took form. Drinkwater forbore from telling Birkbeck the clandestine part he had himself played in the events that led up to the appearance of Dismal Jimmy Gambier's fleet before the spires of the Danish capital in 1807. Instead, Birkbeck wanted to know of his brief meetings with Lord Nelson, which led to the inevitable revelation that Captain Drinkwater had not only been a witness to the battle of Copenhagen in 1801, but had also, 'somewhat ignominiously', been a prisoner aboard the enemy flagship Bucentaure at Trafalgar. [See The Bomb Vessel and 1805.]
'I had no idea, sir,' said Birkbeck admiringly.
'It was not a post to which much glory accrued,' Drinkwater replied ruefully. 'Fate plays some odd tricks ... I cannot begin to describe the carnage...'
The blue smudge hardened, grew darker and sharper, its outline more defined. Presently Huke joined them as Utsira revealed itself as a rocky, steep-sided, low island, with the surge and suck of a heavy groundswell washing its grim shoreline. Then, as the sun westered, it threw the rough and weathered surface into hostile relief.
'Nasty place,' said Huke with the true instinct of the pelagic seaman.
And then, as they watched, far beyond the island, beyond the horizon itself, the sun gleamed briefly on distant mountain peaks floating above cloud. The sight was over in a numinous moment and left them staring with wonder.
'"To Noroway, to Noroway, to Noroway, o'er the foam,"' quoted Huke in a rare and revealing aside.
'Must be thirty leagues distant,' Birkbeck said.
Drinkwater said nothing. He was reminded of the nunataks of Greenland which he had last seen from afar off, remembering the enchantment distance lent them, and the harshness of the landscape in reality. On that occasion he had felt relief, for it had been a moment of departure. This was the opposite, and as the mountain summits faded, he wondered whether they had been revealed as portents and what it was that lay in wait amid their inhospitable fastnesses.
He turned his attention again to Utsira. Gone was any picturesque aspect. It was a rampart of rock, to be avoided at all costs, about which the tide ripped past.
'Put the ship about, Mr Birkbeck, and shorten down for the night. We will see whether daylight brings us the Kestrel.'
'Aye, aye, sir.'
Birkbeck tucked his glass away and picked up the speaking trumpet from its hook on the binnacle. He began bawling orders to the watch on deck.
'I wonder how many islands we have passed, Tom, in all our combined travels,' Drinkwater remarked idly as the helm went down and Andromeda swung slowly to the west, her high jib-boom raking the sky.
'The Lord knows. I'm afraid I never kept count.'
'Nor me ...' Drinkwater was thinking of the island of Juan Fernandez, with its curious rock formation, a great hole eroded through a small cape. Then he recalled the deserters, and the manhunt, and the fight in a cave below the thunder of a waterfall which had ended in the death of the runaways. One had been a gigantic Irishman, the other his lover, the girl they had all known for months as a young seaman named ... He had forgotten. Witheredge? Witherspoon? Yes, that was it, Witherspoon. [See In Distant Waters.]