'Beg pardon, sir, but 'tis almost eight bells
'Very well,' snapped Drinkwater, 'have the men relieved in the normal way.' He turned to the marine. 'What's your name?'
'Private Leslie, sir.'
'Well, Leslie, what happened? Tell us in your own words. You went into the hold to arrest Malaburn. By which hatchway?'
'The after one, sir, in the cockpit...'
'Go on.'
'Well, sir, we was in two parties, I was wiv Mr Huke, like, and Sar'nt Danks led the other up the larboard chippy's walk. We 'ad lanterns, like, an' bayonets and a brace of pistols. Orders was to apprehend, but to shoot if the bugger — beg pardon, sir — if 'e tried anything clever ...'
'You were going up the starboard carpenter's walk, is that right?' Drinkwater tried to visualize the scene. The carpenter's walks were two passages inside the fabric of the ship's side enabling the carpenter and his party to get at the frigate's timbers quickly and plug shot holes. The multifarious stores stowed in the hold were inboard of these narrow walkways. The men would have started outboard of and abaft the cable tiers, then edged forward past barrels of water, beef and pork, and sacks of dried peas and lentils.
They would have been walking on gratings. Below their feet the lower hold contained barrels of water stowed on shingle ballast, and the shot rooms. It was a hellish hole, inhabited by rats and awash with bilge water, the air thick and mephitic, the lanterns barely burning.
'I was the last man in my file, sir. I could jus' see Lieutenant 'uke, sir, wiv 'is lantern, like, when 'e gives this God Almighty screech and the light goes out. Then the bloke in front of me shouts out, turns round an' says, "Christ, Hughie, the bastard's got me, get out!" He bumps into me an' I ain't got no way out but the way I come in, and Sarn't Danks is shoutin' out from the uvver side, "What's wrong?" an' I don't know, 'cept Lieutenant 'uke's copped it, and my mate wot's pushing me shouts out "Get back in the orlop, Sar'nt!" So out we comes.'
'And Lieutenant Huke is still down there?'
'Well, yes, sir ...'
'Damn and blast the man!' Drinkwater muttered, inveighing against the idiocy of the first lieutenant, but now doubting the wisdom of his own passive policy. Private Leslie thought he himself was the object of this damnation.
'I'll go back, sir, jus' give us another lantern, an' I'll go right back.'
'Yes,' snapped Drinkwater, 'you will. Give me a moment to dress. Wait outside my cabin, pass word for Danks to report to me.'
He dressed quickly, thinking while Danks stood in the darkness of the day cabin and repeated, in less detail, for he had been on the far side of the ship, what Leslie had already related.
'You didn't think of going to Mr Huke's assistance?'
A short silence followed, then Danks said, 'I wasn't sure what to do, sir. I didn't really know what had happened, except that Lieutenant Huke's dead, sir.'
'Dead? Who said he's dead?'
'Well, sir, I ... I don't know.' The puzzlement was clear in Danks's voice. It was not fair to imply Danks was a coward. Huke's ill-conceived stratagem was too prone to confusion to blame poor humiliated Danks.
'Very well, Sergeant. Have your men remustered, all of them. In the orlop. I'll be with you direcdy. Send in a light.'
When Danks had gone Drinkwater finished dressing. He could do this in the dark, but he wanted light to complete his preparations. Frampton, attired in a long night-shirt, appeared with a lantern.
'Will you be wanting anything else, sir?'
'Not at the moment, Frampton, thank you,' Drinkwater said. The steady normality of Captain Pardoe's steward stilled the racing of his own heart. He could never think of Frampton as his own man.
He went to the stern settee, lifted the seat and drew out the case of pistols. Then he sat down and, placing the case beside him, opened it, lifted out the weapons and checked their flints. Having done that he carefully loaded both weapons. He had had a double-barrelled pistol aboard Patrician, but these were a new pair and he thrust them through his belt. Then he stood for a moment in the centre of the cabin and retied his hair. When he had finished he drew his hanger and passed the door on to the gun deck.
A garrulous crowd had gathered in the orlop and the appearance of the captain silenced them. 'This is a damned Dover-court, be off with you! Marines, stand fast. You there, Mr Fisher! Pass word to have the surgeon standing by. Oh, and please to lend me your dirk, young man. Here,' Drinkwater turned aside to Beavis, 'be so kind as to look after this for me. He handed his hanger to the master's mate.
Before scuttling off on his mission, Fisher had darted to his mess and taken his dirk from its nail in the deck-beam above his sleeping place. It was a small, straight and handy weapon.
'Here, sir.' He held the toy weapon out; its short blade gleamed dully in the lantern light. Drinkwater's fist more than encompassed the hilt.
'Right, Danks,' Drinkwater dropped his voice, beckoning the marines to draw closer. 'This is what I intend to do.'
CHAPTER 11
The Enemy Within
Drinkwater led them below. At the bottom of the ladder he moved aside and let the marines file silently down into the hold. Then he directed Sergeant Danks and his senior corporal, Wilson, to lift the after gratings and descend into the lower hold, and as they did so the foul stench of bilge rose up to assail them. Both Wilson and Danks were armed with muskets. Behind them went two other marines, each with a lantern, followed by two men armed with bayonets. When Danks had moved out to the larboard wing, and Wilson to the starboard, Drinkwater gestured to the remaining men to fan out. Then he called:
'Malaburn! This is the captain. We know you are down here and you have until I have counted to ten to give yourself up. If you hail at that time you will be given a fair trial. If not I regard you as beyond the law, and the safety of my ship demands that I exert myself to take you at any cost. That may well be your own life.' He paused, then began to count.
'One. Two. Three…'
In the silence between each number he heard nothing beyond the laboured breathing of the marines still behind him.
'Five. Six. Seven…'
He turned. Holding a third lantern, Private Leslie was ready behind him with another marine in support, and Corporal Smyth made to take his two men up the larboard carpenter's walk to flush Malaburn from his hiding place. Drinkwater now had four groups of marines ready to move forward, two at the level of the carpenter's walk, two below, floundering their way over the shingle ballast and the casks of water in the lower hold, for Drinkwater was convinced Malaburn had taken refuge in that most evil and remote part of the ship.
'Eight. Nine. Ten. Proceed!'
Drinkwater had enjoined Smyth, advancing on the higher larboard level, not to move faster than Danks's party below him who would have far more trouble moving over the shingle ballast than those above walking on the level gratings of the carpenter's walk. Both upper and lower parties had to search each stow of stores inboard of them as they edged forward and it was five long minutes before those with Drinkwater, creeping up the starboard side, discovered the bloodstains marking the place whose Huke had been wounded. The absence of Huke was both a hopeful and a desperately worrying sign. Malaburn had done exactly what Drinkwater would have done in his place: he had dragged the first lieutenant off as a hostage.
'Smyth, Danks! Mr Huke's been taken hostage!' he called, to let those on the far side of the ship know what had happened.