'When I went ashore, the blue cutter was alongside the starboard main-chains. Davies, the master's mate rowing guard, said they dropped too far downstream before they rounded the stern, but even then I suspect they were too stupefied by the monotony of their duty to notice immediately the cutter was missing in the darkness. They probably fell downstream every circuit they made. But being downstream they commanded a fair view of the larboard side of the ship and, with the light southerly breeze then blowing, the ship was canted across the current sufficient to render the starboard, not the larboard side the more obscured…'
'And the Stingray was in, as it were, the shadow of the ship, lying to starboard of us, begging your pardon, sir,' Moncrieff added hurriedly. 'God damn it, of course! They pulled directly for the Stingray!'
'What makes you so sure, sir?' asked the unconvinced Metcalfe. Drinkwater's clever assessment undermined his own carefully argued case for the captain's general incompetence.
'I've a notion, shall we say, Mr Metcalfe? Nothing more.' But it was more, much more. He did not explain that something in Captain Stewart's over-confident demeanour had laid a suspicion in his mind. He had only just realized that himself, but now it gripped his imagination with the power of conviction.
'What about the boat, though?' persisted Metcalfe, unwilling to give up his theory.
'Oh, I expect Frey will find it downstream somewhere. The current and the wind will probably have grounded it on the Maryland shore.'
'Damn it, I think you're right, sir.' Moncrieff's eyes were glowing with certainty.
'Thank you, Moncrieff,' Drinkwater said drily. 'And now I think I'd better write to Mr Shaw and explain why marines and jacks are likely to be seen trampling over his land this morning. Perhaps you'd pass word for Thurston ...'
'He was among the eight, sir,' said Metcalfe, his theory bolstered by Drinkwater's forgetfulness. 'I told you last night.'
'Oh yes, I had forgot.' Drinkwater felt a sensation of shock. He had been too self-obsessed last night to assimilate that detail. If Metcalfe's nervously delivered report had contained the information, it had simply not sunk in. It was not Arabella who had gulled him, he thought now, kinder to himself and therefore to her, she had merely let passion run away with her, as he had done himself; but Thurston had most assuredly duped him, lectured him and then pulled wool over his preoccupied eyes!
'But if you are right, sir, what do you intend to do about the Americans?' Metcalfe asked, prompting, aware that if Captain Drinkwater did not do something then he would most assuredly dishonour the flag.
'I am going to dissemble a little, Mr Metcalfe.'
'Dissemble, sir?' It was a policy Metcalfe had neither considered himself, nor thought his superior capable of.
'Yes. They are not going to sail until we do; they will sit as post-guard upon us until we depart. Let us bluster about our searches and, while we can, keep a watch upon her deck. You have a good glass, Mr Metcalfe?'
'Aye, sir, a Dollond, like yours.'
'Very well, busy yourself about the quarterdeck without making your spying too conspicuous. How many of these eight men would you recognize?'
'Well, Thurston, sir, and a man called King, foretop-man, one of our best…'
'I know Carter, sir,' put in Moncrieff, 'and the Dane Feldbek...'
'And there were the two Russians, the fellows from the Suvorov, Korolenko and Gerasimov,' Drinkwater added, remembering now how Metcalfe had stumbled over the pronunciation of their names, 'you'd recognize them, surely?'
'Yes, of course, sir,' Metcalfe hurriedly agreed, surprised at Drinkwater's access of memory.
'Well, that is six of them,' Drinkwater said, finishing his wine and rising from the table. 'They cannot keep 'em below indefinitely.'
Moncrieff and Metcalfe rose at this signal of dismissal. Drinkwater turned to stare out through the stern windows at the American ship. Sunlight picked out her masts and yards and the thin, pale lines of her immaculately stowed sails. Her ports were open and her guns run out. There were signs of men at exercise about her decks, the glint of cutlasses and boarding pikes.
'What will you do if and when we spot them, sir?' asked Metcalfe from the doorway.
'Mmmm?' Drinkwater grunted abstractedly, still gazing at the Yankee sloop.
'What will you do, sir, vis-à-vis the Yankee?'
'Ain't it a first lieutenant's privilege to lead cutting-out parties, Mr Metcalfe?' Drinkwater replied absently, turning back into the cabin.
Metcalfe had difficulty seeing the captain's expression, silhouetted as he was against the sun-dappled water in the background, but Drinkwater stepped forward and Metcalfe was shocked to see a look of implacable resolve fixed upon Drinkwater's face. 'Almost', he said to himself, 'as if he had been staring at an enemy.'
Frey's party found the missing cutter. It had grounded on a spit fifty yards from the Maryland shore.
'I don't know where they landed, sir,' he reported later that day, 'but that boat had been drifting.'
'We know where they landed, Mr Frey,' Drinkwater said, nodding at the sloop they could see through the stern windows.
'The Stingray, sir?' queried Frey in astonishment.
Drinkwater nodded. 'We've seen both the Russians using the head,' he said drily. 'I daresay if we wait long enough we'll see all eight of them bare their arses in due course.'
'So, er, what do you intend doing, sir?'
Drinkwater drew in his breath and let it out again. 'Well, I believe the Americans call it playing possum, but you've a little time before dark. I want you to go and beat up a bit of shore-line. Pull round a little, let our friends over there think we're hoodwinked.' Drinkwater rose and leaned forward, both hands spread on the table. 'I don't want to do anything to jeopardize Vansittart's mission. On the other hand, the ship's company must not be allowed to think we are taking no action, so make no mention of the fact that we know about the presence of the deserters aboard the Stingray, do you understand?'
'Perfectly, sir. In fact the men may already know.'
'Good, now be off with you and conduct yourself like a man who's just had a flea in his ear and been told not to come back empty-handed.'
'Aye, aye, sir.'
Frey turned and was about to open the cabin door when Drinkwater added: 'You can come back though, Mr Frey, and with all your boat's crew, if you please.'
'Aye, aye, sir,' Frey replied with a grin.
Half an hour before sunset Drinkwater called away his barge. The knowledge that the deserters were aboard the Stingray gave him some comfort, for Stewart would keep them closer watched than Metcalfe. Whether or not Stewart would keep his secret until after Patricians departure or make some demonstration embarrassing to Drinkwater remained to be seen. The man harboured a deep resentment against the British and, it was obvious, saw the Patrician's commander as the embodiment of all he disliked. But there was also an ungovernably passionate streak, a rash impetuosity to offset a deep intelligence; that much Drinkwater had deduced from the man's indiscreet drunkenness. Much might also be read from his sister...
However, he must dissemble, to gull as he had been gulled, to convince his people that he would not tolerate desertion.
Shaw received him in his dressing-room.
'I had your note, Captain Drinkwater.'
'I apologize for troubling you and hope that my men have not been over-intrusive upon your land, Mr Shaw.'
'Not over-intrusive, no,' Shaw replied, his resentment clearly aroused by the minor invasion of the day.