The flying squadron

'I collect Mr Metcalfe's distempered spirit may be something to beware of, gentlemen. Well, we are expected for dinner ...'

Frey cooled off during his watch, his anger subsiding to mere annoyance. He regretted being unable to dine with Drinkwater but could not have sat at the same table as Metcalfe that afternoon. Nor could he, at the end of his watch, return to the wardroom where Metcalfe, being a creature of predictable habit, would be drinking a glass of wine. At such times, the man was at his most truculent and critical, and habitually found some small matter to complain of, a gun in one's battery untidily lashed, a rusty round-shot in the garlands, or a seaman upon whom some misdemeanour could be pinned but in which his divisional officer was implicated. It was remarkable, Frey reflected, how in so short a time Metcalfe has impressed his generally unpleasant character upon the ship.

Resolved not to return to the wardroom, Frey decided instead to visit Midshipman Belchambers in the gunroom on the pretext of giving him some instruction. Immediately upon descending to the gloom of the orlop he realized his mistake. The surprised and furtive looks of men about him, the quick evasive slinking away and the whispered warning of a commissioned presence seemed to Frey's overwrought nerves to echo into the dark recesses of the ship with a sinister significance. Off-duty marines in their berth just forward of the midshipmen's den stopped polishing boots and bayonets. The midshipmen themselves wore expressions of guilt and Frey was just in time to see a book snapped shut, a pencil hurriedly concealed and a stack of promissory notes swept out of sight. He caught Mr Midshipman Porter's eye.

'What are you running a book on, Mr Porter?'

'Er, a book, sir? Er, nothing, sir ...'

Frey looked about him. The collusion of the midshipmen argued against anything serious being wrong. He had not disturbed a mutinous assembly and would be best advised to turn a blind eye to the matter.

'Mr Belchambers?' he said, affecting a disinterested tone, 'Is he here?'

'First Lieutenant sent for him, sir.'

'Ah ...' Frey cast a final look round the dark hole. The stale air was thick with the stink of crowded humanity, stores, bilge-water, rust, rot and rat-droppings. He retreated to the ladder.

'Pass word for Sergeant Hudson, will you,' he called mildly to the marine sentry at the companionway. Frey dawdled in the berth deck, wandering forward. Hudson caught up with him as he stood surveying the surviving pigs in the extempore manger just forward of the breakwater set across the ship to stop sea sloshing aft from the plugged hawse-holes.

'Sir, Mr Frey, sir?' The marine sergeant puffed up, buttoning his tunic and jerking his head. Men in the adjacent messes, alerted to something unusual by Frey's presence so far forward, made themselves scarce.

'Hudson, what the devil's going on below?' Frey pretended interest in the pigs and spoke in a low but insistent voice.

'Below, sir? Nothing, sir ...'

'Don't take me for a fool, Hudson. Something is, or has been going on. When the officers were dining with the captain, I suspect.'

'Ah, well, er, yes, sir ...'

'Go on.'

'Well, sir, weren't nothing much, sir, only a bit o' fun, like.'

'Gaming, you mean?'

Hudson shrugged. 'Well, a few side bets, sir, you know how it is.'

'On what? Baiting? A fight, a wrestle?'

'Bit of wrestling, sir. Nothing to worry about, sir. If it were I'd be down on it like a cauldron o' coal.'

Frey looked hard at the man. 'If I get wind of an assembly, Hudson, I'll have your hide. We want no combinations aboard here.'

Hudson shook his head and Frey noticed the man had no neck, for his whole body swung, adding emphasis to his indignant refutation of the suggestion. 'No fear o' that, sir, not while Josiah Hudson is sergeant aboard this here man-o'-war.'

'I hope you're right, Hudson.'

'O' course I'm right, sir. 'Tis against regulations in the strictest sense but, well, why don't you place a bet, sir? Won't do no harm and I'll do it for you. You won't be the only officer...' Hudson paused, aware he was being indiscreet.

'Really? Who else?' Frey disguised his curiosity.

'Oh, I don't know that, sir, but one or two o' the young gennelmen seems to have enough money to be acting as agents.'

The information robbed Frey of the initiative. He turned aft. At the wardroom door he met Mr Belchambers in search of him.

'I believe you were looking for me, sir.'

'Oh, yes, but it don't matter now. Carry on.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Belchambers turned for the companionway when intuition caused Frey to call him back.

'What did the First Lieutenant want you for?'

Belchambers stammered uncertainly, his eyes on the wardroom door and the sentry posted there. 'Oh, er, er, a small ... er, private matter, sir.'

'A private matter between you and the First Lieutenant, Mr Belchambers?' Frey said archly. 'You should be careful your private affairs are not capable of misconstruction ...'

Belchambers blushed to the roots of his hair. 'I, er, I...'

Did he win?'

'Sir ... ?'

'Did the First Lieutenant win? I assume you had been summoned to tell him whether he had won or lost the bet you had placed for him.'

Belchambers swallowed unhappily. 'Sir, I was unwilling ...'

'Don't worry,' said Frey, his voice suddenly sympathetic, be a good fellow and just let Mr Porter know I am aware of the situation and I've promised a thrashing to anyone I find running a book.' Belchambers caught the twinkle in Frey's eye. He knew Mr Frey, he was a certainty in a shifting world. Mr Belchambers was learning that ships changed as their companies changed and though he respected Captain Drinkwater, the captain was too remote to know the miseries and petty tyrannies that midshipmen endured.

Whilst Captain Drinkwater was unaware of Belchambers' misery and knew nothing of the improper conduct of his first lieutenant as discovered by Mr Frey, he was troubled by the evident bad blood prevailing among his officers. There was little he could do about it, and at heart he was disinclined to make too much of it. They were bound on a specific mission, their cruise was circumscribed by the Admiralty's special instructions and with the Royal Navy pre-eminent in the North Atlantic he privately considered it most unlikely they would see action. Not that he was complacent, it was merely that in weighing up their chances of meeting an enemy, he thought the thing unlikely. Anyway, if he was wrong, Patrician was a heavy ship with a weight of metal superior to most enemy cruisers. Only a line-of-battle ship would out-gun her and she had the speed to escape should she encounter one.

Nevertheless he knew that grievances, once they had taken root, inevitably blossomed into some unpleasantness or other. He would have to wait and see what the disaffection between Mr Metcalfe and his fellow officers produced. For himself, the company of Vansittart proved a welcome diversion. The younger man was pleasant enough, and well-informed; close to Government circles he gossiped readily, though Drinkwater formed the opinion that his own connections with Lord Dungarth proved something of a passport to his confidences. Vansittart knew when to hold his tongue; his present indiscretions were harmless enough.

Mr Frey found his discovery of the secret wrestling match preoccupied his thoughts during the middle watch the following night. Metcalfe's involvement was foolish, the more so since he had implicated Belchambers, who was otherwise an honest lad. It was clear there was nothing he himself could do, though Metcalfe's unwise behaviour would, he felt sure, some time or another cause the first lieutenant to regret the impropriety of his conduct. Metcalfe was not easy-going enough to embroil himself with the dubious affairs of the lower deck. He had already had two men flogged for minor misdemeanours, and while Captain Drinkwater had been compelled to support his subordinate he had passed minimum sentences upon the men concerned.