Drinkwater tried to convince himself all parties awaited the outcome of negotiations before re-establishing amicable relations, but he knew the matter of the deserters had come between them all. As for Arabella herself, he thought she wished to distance herself from him and respected her wishes. Besides, he had no desire to make a fool of himself.
'Why did Vansittart have to go via Baltimore, sir?' Frey asked on his return. He had made his report and he and Drinkwater had been consulting a chart, Frey tracing his aimless track along the shores of Chesapeake Bay. 'The Potomac leads directly up to Washington.'
'A matter of formalities, I suppose,' replied Drinkwater absently, filling two glasses. 'Perhaps they did not wish him to see the defences of Washington, or reconnoitre so obvious an approach.'
'He'll come back the same way, then?'
'I imagine so. I've really no idea.'
'I wish we were back, sir,' Frey said suddenly.
'Back? Where?'
'In home waters, off Ushant, in the Mediterranean, the Baltic, anywhere but here. God, we're not liked hereabouts.'
'We're an old enemy, Mr Frey ... Tell me have you executed any watercolours lately? I believe you were working on a folio…'
'Oh, those, no, I have abandoned the project.' Something wistfully regretful in Frey's tone prompted Drinkwater to probe.
'Not like you to abandon anything.'
'No, maybe not, sir, but this occasion proved the rule.'
'The wardroom's not the most conducive place, eh? Do 'em in here, I could do with a little society.'
'Begging your pardon, sir, but I don't think that a good idea...'
'Oh, why not... ? Ah, I see, presuming on our previous acquaintance, eh?'
'Something of the sort, sir.'
'Who? Not Moncrieff...' He knew already, but wanted lo see if Frey's admission would back his hunch.
'No, no, not Moncrieff, sir, he's a good fellow ...'
'Well, Wyatt then, he's no aesthete, though I'd have baulked at calling him a Philistine.'
'No, old Wyatt's a marline-spike officer, not well-versed, but experienced. I find the first lieutenant...'
'A difficult man, eh?'
'An inconsistent man, sir,' Frey admitted tactfully, the wine having its effect.
'Ah, diplomatic, Mr Frey, I must remember your talents in that direction. Perhaps you should have gone to Washington in place of Vansittart. He is certainly a curious fellow.'
'Vansittart, sir?' Frey frowned.
'No,' Drinkwater grinned, 'Metcalfe ...'
It was good to see Captain Drinkwater smiling, Frey thought as he finished his glass, it reminded him of happier times. There was something sinister about this interminable wait, knowing the deserters were within easy reach of them and that they possessed superior force and could scarcely be condemned for insisting their own be returned to them. Frey had, moreover, heard it expressed in a deliberate lower deck stage whisper meant for his ears, that was it not for Captain Drinkwater himself being in command, there would have been more than a handful of deserters.
Drinkwater, regarding his young protégé, wondered what sort of impositions Frey suffered in the wardroom. He had written Metcalfe off as an adequate but fossicking officer whose chief vice was irritation. It had not occurred to him that he was a contrary influence.
'Well, well, I had no idea.'
'There is something else, sir, something you should know about.'
'What is it?'
'The men are very restless, sir. I am concerned about it if we are forced to wait much longer.'
'Be patient, Mr Frey. I like this state of affairs no better than you or the hands, but we are tied to Vansittart's apron strings.'
And with that Frey took his dismissal. So downcast was his mood, he thought Drinkwater merely temporizing and failed to catch the faint intimation of a purpose in the captain's words.
Mr Pym was as new to Patrician and her commander as most of the other officers. However, he was not new to the Royal Navy, having been an assistant surgeon at Haslar Naval Hospital when Mr Lallo, the ship's former surgeon, was found dead in his cot. Pym had accepted the vacancy in a frigate ordered on special service with alacrity. He was an indolent, easy-going man who found his wife and seven children as heavy a burden upon his tolerance as his purse. He had subdued his wife's protests with the consolation that he could at last drop the 'assistant' from his title and would receive a small increase in his emolument. Having thus satisfied her social pretensions, he had packed his instruments with his beloved books and contentedly joined Patrician.
Mr Pym was a quiet, private man. He possessed a kind heart, though he saw this as a vice since it had trapped him into a late marriage and ensured his broody and doting wife fell pregnant with dismal regularity, a circumstance which surprised and flattered his ageing self. He guarded this soft-heartedness, having learned early in his career not to display it aboard ship. Furthermore, like most easy-going and indolent men he was basically of a selfish disposition. The charm he possessed was used to ward off invasion of his privacy, and this latter he employed chiefly in reading. Books were Pym's secret delight.
He played cards with Wyatt, partly because they were of an age, but also by way of a break, a form, he told himself, of exercise between his voracious bouts of reading. As for his duties, he attended to these easily, holding a morning surgery, after which he spent the day as he pleased. Once a week, for the purpose of presenting the sick-book and discussing the state of the ship's company's health, he waited upon the captain.
Professionally he was not over-taxed. There were the usual crop of diseases: mostly skin complaints and an asthmatic or two, a few rheumatic cases, men with the usual minor venereal infections, coupled with a baker's dozen of the inevitable hernias found aboard any man-of-war. There was nothing, it seemed, of a surgical, nor indeed of a general medical nature to interest Pym, and this rather disappointed him.
He had, as a young man, studied at St Bartholomew's under the lame, scrofulous, supercilious and misanthropic physician Mark Akenside. Under Akenside's influence, he had aspired to greatness at an age when all things seem possible to the young and they have yet to discover the limitations of their energies, gifts and circumstances.
Early in life he had fallen into bad company, a mildly dissolute life and debt. The Royal Navy put distance between himself and his creditors, gave him back his character and kept him out of harm's way; but ambition continued to nag, and believing success came from change rather than effort, he accepted a post at Haslar. Here he found himself relegated to the second class and sought consolation in marriage with its consequent burdensome family. The appointment to Patrician presented him, therefore, with a new opportunity.
As with many unimaginative and idly ambitious men, Pym failed to see any opportunity fate cast in his way. Obsessed with the end itself, he missed anything which might, with a little application, have provided him with the means. His books were too good a diversion, too absorbing a hobby. They tied up his mind, leaving it only room to brood upon his failure.
Until, in the hiatus of lying at anchor in the Potomac, he finished them.
To this disaster was now added a trail of men with imagined complaints. The artificial nature of exercises designed to keep them busy fostered a resentment only fuelled by the desertions. It was common knowledge on the lower deck that Thurston and his companions were aboard the Stingray. This, and the continuing useless search parties when each man was tempted from his duty by both the abuse offered when they came into contact with Americans and the healthy prosperity of the local population, combined to keep the pot of discontent simmering. Nor did the weather help. Warm and largely windless, the poorly ventilated berth deck became stifling, despite the burning of gunpowder and sloppings of vinegar solution.