'Nothing to be done. Move him over.'
Templeton was incapable, in that awful moment, of understanding that Greer's multiple wounds were mortal, his loss of blood excessive, and that no skill on earth could staunch the haemorrhage or close those dreadful wounds.
'But he's alive!' he protested, staring in outrage at the indifferent Kennedy.
'His wound is mortal.' Kennedy's tone was brutally honest. 'I don't possess the cunning to prevent death.'
And Templeton looked again and saw the blue tint to the lips and the pallor of the formerly weathered features.
'Here.' Kennedy picked up a bottle he kept at his feet and held it out across the body. The loblolly boys dragged Greer from beneath Kennedy's outstretched arm. 'Come, bear up,' Kennedy growled, 'pull yourself together, or men will say you were fond of him!'
Templeton grabbed the bottle and averted his eyes from Kennedy. The accusation implicit in Kennedy's remark did not strike Templeton until later when, he realized, lying awake while the exhausted ship slept around him, none would make any distinction in the nature of his 'crime' as proscribed by the Articles of War. The thought added immeasurably to his burden of guilt.
'What is the time?'
Full daylight glowed through the nacreous fog as Drinkwater woke suddenly from a deep sleep. He was sat against a quarterdeck carronade, sodden from the fog, agonized by a spasm of cramp as he tried to move.
'Eight bells, sir, morning watch just turning out, I took the liberty of mustering all hands and telling them off in two watches.'
'Well done, Mr Birkbeck, I had the same thing in mind. Now, give me your arm ...' Birkbeck assisted him to his feet.
'Galley range is alight and burgoo, molasses and cheese are to be issued. Mess-cooks have just been piped. Purser kicked up a fuss about the cheese, but I told him to go to the devil.'
Drinkwater nodded his agreement while the blood trickled painfully back into his legs. He sought to invigorate himself by rubbing his face, but his palms rasped at the encrusted scab, which he had momentarily forgotten, and he swiftly desisted.
'You can issue spirits before you turn all hands to, and what about the officers' livestock?' he added as the idea struck him. 'With so few of them left, can I not purchase what remains so that we can get a decent meal into the men at midday? I'll add my own pullets and capons.'
'That'll put heart into the men, sir, and God knows they need it. The wardroom bullock took a cannon-shot, but he's edible. Beef and chicken stew sounds like the elixir of life.'
'Yes, it does. As for the ship herself...'
'We can begin to clear this lot, and the carpenter and I reckon we can step topmasts again.'
'By tonight?'
'By tonight.'
'Excellent!'
'And we've a spare tops'l just finished at Leith. Oh, I reckon she'll show enough canvas to handle.'
'Mr Birkbeck, if you achieve that I don't know what I can do for you.'
'Get me home in one piece, sir, and I'll not complain.' The master paused and looked at Drinkwater. He was unshaven and still besmirched with powder grime, the abraded scab bleeding again from one disturbed corner, the undress coat with its missing epaulette emphasizing the cock-eyed set of the captain's shoulders. With his loose hair, strands of which had escaped from the queue, Drinkwater looked like some raffish and outcast beggar.
You'd feel better after a wash, sir,' Birkbeck offered.
Yes, yes, I would,' Drinkwater replied, finally stirring.
'I'll pass word to Frampton.'
'I thought I might have lost him too,' Drinkwater said in a low voice, and Birkbeck, taking advantage of this moment of confidentiality, asked:
'What d'you intend to do, sir, when this fog clears?'
'How long d'you think it will hang about? There's no sign of the sou' westerly ...'
'Glass is rising. I reckon we can guarantee today, that's why I want to crack on with the masts. Can I use Kestrel's men? I've been aboard her this morning and she's very badly hulled. I doubt she can make a passage and we could use her lieutenant...'
Drinkwater walked awkwardly to the frigate's side above which he could just discern the cutter's truncated mast, and peered over the rail. Birkbeck drew alongside him.
They could just make out the shattered and splintered state of Kestrel's upperworks.
'I don't think she's fit for much. We could burn her,' Birkbeck suggested.
Yes, perhaps,' Drinkwater agreed thoughtfully. 'Anyway, you may have as many men as you like after I have two dozen volunteers. Call for them after they have broken their fast and do you see that you feed Kestrel's crew along with our own.'
Birkbeck looked mystified at first and then horror struck. 'You don't mean to attempt something against the enemy, sir?'
'Yes, I do, and if I have not returned by tomorrow morning, Lieutenant Jameson will be in command.'
'But with respect, sir, I think we have done as much...'
'Give me half an hour to wash and shave, Mr Birkbeck, then ask Jameson to wait on me. Muster my volunteers at two bells. Come now, there ain't much time.'
Drinkwater left Birkbeck staring after him open-mouthed.
CHAPTER 14
A Measure of Success
In the event, Drinkwater found his plan to use Kestrel quite impracticable. She had been badly hulled and even the plugs put in by her carpenter failed to stem the leaks which proved too copious for the pumps to handle without almost continual manning.
'We can't risk being betrayed by their noise,' Drinkwater remarked to Frey, who had had his wound dressed and insisted he was fit for duty.
'We could fother a sail, sir,' suggested the cutter's boatswain.
T'would take too long, and there is much else to be done,' replied Drinkwater.
Instead they put the volunteers to emptying the cutter of her powder, and her gunner to preparing some mines, small barricoes filled with tamped powder and fitted with fuses made from slow-match.
It was not so much her waterlogged state that made Drinkwater abandon using Kestrel as the difficulty of approaching the enemy anchorage undetected. Although fitted with sweeps, she would be awkward and sluggish to row and difficult to keep on a precise course. The ship's boats were a different matter, but they could not carry the quantities of inflammable material that Kestrel could, and Drinkwater had, therefore, to modify his intentions.
When he had exchanged with Quilhampton the previous day, James had departed in Drinkwater's own gig, and had left it towing astern throughout the action. Though it had received damage in the way of splintered gunwhales and a few holes in the planking, these were soon repaired with tingles, lead rectangles lined with grease-soaked canvas patches that were nailed over holes or splits.
Kestrel herself bore two boats, one slung in stern davits which had been rendered useless, but another on deck amidships which, though damaged about the transom, and with one large chunk out of her larboard gunwhale, remained seaworthy. These, with an additional serviceable pulling cutter from Andromeda, provided Drinkwater with what he needed.
'We can't man an armada, Mr Frey,' he explained as he oudined his plan, 'but if we take advantage of this fog and do our work coolly, there is a chance, just a chance, that we may yet achieve a measure of success.'
Frey had nodded.
'Are you fit enough for this enterprise, Mr Frey? I would not have you risk your life unnecessarily ...' Drinkwater broke off, remembering the blood on his own hand and attributing the unnatural glitter in Frey's eyes to grief and pain. He was, after all, of a sensitive, artistic bent.