'Well, Vansittart, it's up to you now.' He paused to stare through his glass again at the American ship, continuing to speak. 'I imagine our friend will provide a boat escort, but you can take my barge up to Washington. 'Tis a goodish pull, but unless we can obtain some horses ...' A solitary figure was staring back at them. Drinkwater lowered his glass and raised his hat by the fore-cock. The American commander ignored the courtesy, but continued to stare through his own telescope.
'Perhaps he didn't see you,' Vansittart consoled.
'Oh, he saw me all right,' Drinkwater replied. The thought of horses made him swivel round and refocus his glass. The Negro was walking away from the mounting block and Drinkwater was just in time to see the big chestnut break into a canter and disappear into the trees to the right of the house. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a woman in grey with a feathered bonnet riding side-saddle. 'I wonder', he remarked, 'why we have been brought to an anchor here ... ?'
'Even I, in my ignorance, know "goodish pull" to be something of a euphemism, Captain,' said Vansittart, grinning. 'It must be forty miles to Washington.'
'I'm glad to see our somewhat land-locked surroundings have persuaded you to recover your good humour,' Drinkwater riposted, but both men were interrupted by Midshipman Belchambers reporting the approach of a boat. Ten minutes later Lieutenant Tucker once again stood on the quarterdeck.
'Captain Stewart presents his compliments, gentlemen. He intends to let the Administration know of the arrival of Mr Vansittart himself without delay. He hopes to return shortly with the Administration's response.'
'Would he be kind enough, Lieutenant Tucker, to convey a letter from myself to Mr Foster?'
'Mr Foster, sir?'
'His Britannic Majesty's ambassador to your government,' Vansittart explained.
Tucker shrugged. 'I guess so, sir.'
'If you would give me five minutes.' Vansittart withdrew below.
'Well, sir,' Drinkwater said, attempting to fill the five minutes with polite if meaningless small-talk, 'it is beautiful country hereabouts.'
'It sure is,' said Tucker bluntly, awkwardly adding, lest he seem too abrupt, 'real beautiful...'
'Plenty of wildfowl,' said Metcalfe, coming up and joining in with the cool effrontery he often displayed. Drinkwater, irritated at the intrusion but equally relieved to have his burden halved, recalled Metcalfe's expertise with the Ferguson rifle. They were standing staring ashore at the parkland surrounding the Palladian mansion when from the trees whence she had disappeared earlier, Drinkwater saw the lone horsewoman reappear. Her horse was stretched at a gallop and the plumed hat, which he had noticed earlier, was missing. She brought the horse to a rearing halt a pistol-shot short of the river-bank and Drinkwater thought she was waving at them. Beside him Lieutenant Tucker chuckled.
'Reckon Belle Stewart's just had a scare,' he remarked. 'That goddam gelding of hers must've had a rare fright from the salutin' cannon.'
'She's shaking her fist and not waving, then,' Drinkwater said.
'She could be doin' either, Cap'n, she could be doin' either. She might be shakin' her fist, 'n' she might not. She might be wavin' at her brother, Cap'n Stewart, Master Commandant of the United States Sloop o' War Stingray, but then again, she might be a-shakin' it at you for a-firing all those guns.'
'I'd say we were both equally guilty,' Metcalfe said, matching Tucker's condescending drawl.
Drinkwater ignored the implied slight. 'Ah, I see. Captain Stewart resides hereabouts, then,' he said, indicating the house.
'Well, not exactly resides ... his sister does the residin', but I guess it was in his mind to get a horse here.'
'I understand. And will that facility be extended to Mr Vansittart, d'you think?'
'I don't know, Cap'n. Matter of fact, I don't know exactly what's in Cap'n Stewart's mind, sir.'
Vansittart reappeared with his letter and Lieutenant Tucker took his departure. Drinkwater, Metcalfe and Vansittart lingered, watching the return of the American boat and then, sweeping round the sloop's stern, the departure of a second boat from the Stingray. She was a smart gig with white stars picked out along her blue sheerstrake. Red oars with white blades swung and dipped in the dark waters of the Potomac river. Upright in her stern stood a midshipman, hand on tiller, beside whom sat a sea-officer. He was, Drinkwater guessed, the same man who had scrutinized them from the quarterdeck of the Stingray. Drinkwater walked aft to the taffrail and stared down as the gig pulled close under Patrician's stern. Vansittart and Metcalfe joined him. Again he lifted his hat.
The midshipman, curious about the heavy British frigate, was looking up at the three men and could not have missed the private salutation. They saw him turn and address a remark to the officer sitting next to him. No flicker of movement came from the immobile figure; he continued to stare straight ahead, just as his oarsmen, bending to their task, stared astern, over the shoulders of their officers, as if the British ship did not exist. The officer must have made some remark to the midshipman, for the boy solemnly raised his own hat.
'That's a gesture of the most sterile courtesy,' Vansittart objected.
'That, I fear, is Master Commandant Stewart,' Drinkwater concluded, 'and I hope he don't exemplify the kind of response you're going to get in Washington, Vansittart.'
Vansittart grunted.
'I collect that we should blow the insolent ass's piddling sloop out of the water while it lies so conveniently under our guns,' Metcalfe interjected, with such pomposity that Drinkwater understood the motive for his earlier intrusion. Metcalfe was eager to ingratiate himself with Vansittart. Drinkwater wondered how much of this insinuating process had already been accomplished during their crossing of the Atlantic. The idiocy of the remark was so at variance with the first lieutenant's earlier caution that Drinkwater was compelled to remark upon it. 'I thought, Mr Metcalfe, you were opposed to provokin' hostilities with the United States.'
'Well, I consider ...' Metcalfe blustered uncomfortably, clearly having abandoned reason in favour of making an impression, but could find nothing further to say.
'I think we may forgive a little rudeness from so young a Service, mayn't we, Mr Vansittart?' Drinkwater said archly, catching the diplomat's eye.
'I think so, Captain Drinkwater. Particularly from the commander of a ship whose company had their sails furled half a minute before our own.'
Metcalfe opened his mouth, thought better of saying anything further and stumped away with a mumbled, 'By y're leave, gentlemen ...'
'Touché Vansittart,' Drinkwater murmured.
Vansittart and Drinkwater idly watched the Stingray's gig ground on a bright patch of sand lying in a shallow bay. The horsewoman in grey walked her now quietened mount towards the boat and they watched the mysterious Captain Stewart address her, saw her turn her horse and, with Stewart walking beside her, return to the house. She looked back once at the two anchored ships, then both disappeared inside. Shortly afterwards a man rode off on horseback.
'So there goes Captain Stewart, bound for Washington.'
'Is it unusual for a, what d'you call him ...?'
'Master Commandant,' Drinkwater explained, 'their equivalent of Master and Commander; a sloop-captain, in fact.'
'I see; is it usual then for such a curious beast to be absent from his ship under the circumstances?'
'The circumstances being your arrival, I should say it was essential,' Drinkwater said.
'Might he not be suspicious of your taking men out of his ship?'
'To be truthful, Vansittart, I am more concerned to stop my men deserting to his.'