Singleton crossed the deck, his ear cocked to catch Meetuck's words.
'It seems, sir, that the anchorage of Nagtoralik lies at the head of this fiord.'
Drinkwater nodded. 'Let us hope that it is the providential refuge that we so desperately need, Mr Singleton.'
'And where you can land me,' answered Singleton in a low voice, staring ahead.
Daylight diminished to a luminous twilight for the six hours that the sun now dipped beneath the horizon. The brief arctic summer was fast fading and with its warmth gone the wind dropped and a dripping fog settled over the ship. Lines hung slack and the sails slatted impotently. After the warmth of the day the chill, grey midnight struck cold throughout the ship, though in fact the mercury in the thermometer had fallen far lower among the ice-bergs of the Greenland Sea.
Shivering in his cabin Drinkwater wrote up his journal, expressing his anxiety over the state of Melusine's steering gear and his inability to find and rescue Sawyers.
Assuming that we are able to effect repairs to the rudder by hauling down I am not optimistic of locating the Faithful. The lack of belligerence in Captain Sawyers made of him and his ship a gift to the marauding French and it is unlikely that we shall be of further use to him.
He paused, unwilling to admit to himself the extent of his sense of failure in carrying out Earl St Vincent's orders. At the moment the very real anxieties of a safe haven, the possibility of carrying out effective repairs and of returning to join the whalers for the homeward convoy were more immediately demanding. With a sigh he turned to a more domestic matter.
My desire to anchor will, of necessity, rob me of the services of Mr Singleton who is determined to pursue his mission among the eskimo tribes. I am torn between admiration and… He paused. He had been about to write 'contempt', but that would not be accurate, despite the fact that he considered Singleton a fool to think he could either convert the eskimos or survive himself. He did not doubt that men imbued with Singleton's religious zeal could endure incredible hardships, but his own years of seafaring had taught him never to gamble with fate, always to weigh the chances carefully before deciding upon a course of action. He had never seen himself as a dashing sea-officer of the damn-the-consequences type. Drinkwater sighed again. He admired Singleton for his fortitude and he was in awe of his faith. He scratched out his last sentence and wrote:
I admire Singleton's courage at undertaking his mission, but I do not understand the power of his faith. His presence on board as a surgeon will be sorely missed, but I fear my remonstrances fall upon deaf ears and he is determined to remain upon this coast.
Soon afterwards Drinkwater's head fell forward upon his chest and he dozed.
'Captain, sir! Captain, sir!'
'Eh? What is it?' Drinkwater woke with a start, cold and held in a rigor of stiff muscles.
'Mr Quilhampton's compliments, sir, and there's a light easterly breeze, sir.'
'Thank you, Mr Frey, I'll be up.'
The boy disappeared and Drinkwater dragged himself painfully to his feet. On deck he found the fog as dense as ever, but above his head the squared yards spread canvas before the light wind. Quilhampton touched his hat.
'Mornin' sir.'
'Mornin' Mr Q.'
'Wind's increasing sir. Course west by north. Beggin' your pardon sir, but d'you wish us to heave to, sir, or, if we stand on to sound minute guns?'
'D'you sound minute guns, Mr Q, and post a midshipman forrard to sing out the instant he hears an echo. We will put the ship on the wind and the moment that occurs on a course of east-nor'-east. '
'Aye, aye, sir.'
Drinkwater fell to pacing the quarterdeck. Before the fog closed down they had seen the fiord open to the westward. They could stand down it with a reasonable degree of safety, provided of course that they heard no echoes close ahead from the towering cliffs in answer to their minute guns. Eight bells rang, the end of the middle watch, four o'clock in the morning and already the sun had risen. He longed for its warmth to penetrate the nacreous vapour, consume the fog and ease the pain in his shoulder.
It was six hours later before the fog began to disperse. The wind had fallen light again and their progress had been slow, measured only by the anxious barking of the minute gun and the hushed silence that followed it. They saw distant mountain peaks at first and it became clear that they were reaching the head of the fiord for they lay ahead, on either bow and either beam. Snow gleamed as the sun seemed suddenly fierce and the fog changed from a pervasive cloud to dense wraiths and then drew back to reveal a little, misty circle of sea about them while the cliffs seemed to reach downwards from the sky.
It was a fantastic effect, but their vision was still obscured at sea level, and for a further hour they moved slowly westward, Drinkwater still anxiously pacing the quarterdeck while on the knightheads Meetuck waited with the expectancy of a dog.
And then, about five bells in the morning watch, the visibility suddenly cleared. Melusine was almost at the head of the fiord. To the south stretched the cliffs and mountains that culminated in the cape beneath whose fissured rocks they had tacked the previous afternoon. This wall of rock curved round to the west and north, bordering the fiord. The northern shore was comprised of mountains but these were less precipitous, the littoral formed of bays and inlets some of which were wooded with low conifers. At the head of the fiord, where once a mighty glacier had calved bergs into the sea, was a bay, backed by rising ground, an alpine meadow-land that turned to scree, then buttresses of dark rock rising to mountain peaks.
On the fo'c's'le Meetuck pointed triumphantly, capering about and clapping his hands, his lined face creased with happiness.
'My God!' exclaimed Drinkwater fishing for his glass. It was an anchorage without a doubt. Not a mile from them five ships lay tranquilly at anchor. One of them was the Requin, flying the tricolour of France.
An instant later she opened fire.
Chapter Seventeen
Nagtoralik Bay
'Beat to quarters, Mr Bourne!'
Drinkwater ignored the bedlam surrounding him while Melusine was put into a state to fight. He swept the anchorage, pausing only briefly on each ship to determine its force. But it occurred to him as he did so that there was something remarkable about three of the ships in the bay. Identification of the Recjuin was simple. She must have arrived off Cape Jervis well ahead of the Melusine and now she was swung, a spring on her cable, every gun pointing at the British ship which, by its minute guns, had warned her of its approach.
Drinkwater swore, for he realised that anchored to the south of the Requin was a large lugger, a chassé marée, and to the east of her, the unpierced topsides of the Faithful. To find Sawyers's ship in such circumstances was hardly reassuring, given that Melusine still laboured under her jury rudder.
To the west of Requin two more vessels lay at anchor and Drinkwater knew them instantly for whale ships. They were not immediately familiar and as Bourne reported the sloop cleared for action, Drinkwater ordered the course altered to starboard, risking raking fire, but anxious to close the distance a little before responding to Requin's guns. Drinkwater began to calculate the odds. The big, French privateer made no obvious move to get under way. She would sit at anchor, in the centre of her captures, relying upon her superior weight of metal to keep Melusine at a distance. When she had driven off Melusine she would come in pursuit, to administer the coup de grâce.