Pym sat back very pleased with himself and at that moment the quarter sentry called out that the schooner aboard which Vansittart had left for Baltimore was in sight.
'It is good news,' Vansittart said, sitting back in the offered chair and taking the glass Drinkwater held out. 'I think we shall simply rescind the Orders-in-Council where the United States are concerned, provided they do not press the matter of sailors' rights. There seems little pressure to do so in Washington, whatever may be said elsewhere.'
'I daresay seamen are as cheaply had here as elsewhere,' Drinkwater observed, marvelling at this change of diplomatic tack. 'Did you meet Mr Madison?'
'Alas, no, Augustus Foster handled all formal negotiations, but I learned something of interest to you.'
'To me? What the devil was that?'
'Captain Stewart is shortly to be relieved of his command.'
'Why? Surely not because of his indiscreet... ?'
'No, no, nothing to do with that,' Vansittart affirmed, swallowing a draught of Madeira. 'It seems to be Navy Department policy to rotate the commanders of their, how d'you say, ships and vessels? Is that it? Anyway, he won't be allowed the opportunity of quenching his fire-eating ardour one way or another now.'
'Well, there is my consolation for eating humble pie and holdin' my hand.' Drinkwater explained about the location of his deserters. 'And it don't taste so bad either. So we may weigh at first light?'
'No. Stewart left word that we should drop downstream at, how d'you say? Four bells?'
Drinkwater grunted noncommittally. It would be unwise to seek a meeting with Arabella. He had existed for eight days without her and he had no right to any expectations there. They both had their bitter-sweet memories. It was enough.
Besides, he was meditating something which would hardly endear him to any American.
An hour before dawn Drinkwater turned all hands from their cots and hammocks. The bosun's mates moved with silent purpose through the berth deck, their pipes quiescent, their starters flicking at the bulging canvas forms, stifling the abusive protests.
'Turn out, show a leg, you buggers, no noise, Cap'n's orders. Turn out, show a leg, no noise ...'
'What's happening?'
'Man the capstan, afterguard aft to rouse out a spring, gun crews stand to.' Mr Comley, the boatswain, passed the word among the men tumbling out of their hammocks.
'Come on, my bullies, lash up and stow. Look lively.'
'We're gonna fuck the Yankees,' someone said and the echo of the statement ran about the berth deck as the men rolled their hammocks. Whatever their individual resentments, the abrupt and rude awakening shattered the boredom of the routine of a ship at anchor. An expectant excitement infected officers and men alike as they poured up through the hatchways, their bare feet slap-slapping on the decks as they ran to their stations like ghosts.
Wrapped in his cloak against the dawn chill Captain Drinkwater stood by the starboard hance and watched them emerge. Any evolution after a period of comparative idleness was a testing time. Men quickly became slack, lacked that crispness of reaction every commander relied upon. Eight days of riding to an anchor could, Drinkwater knew, have a bad effect.
In the waist Metcalfe leaned over the side as a spring was carried up the larboard side. Drinkwater waited patiently, trying to ignore the hissed instructions and advice offered to the toiling party dragging the heavy hemp over and round the multiplicity of obstructions along the Patrician's side. Finally they worked it forward and dangled it down until it was fished from the hawse-hole and dragged inboard to be wracked to the cable. He knew, from the sudden relaxation of the men involved, when they had finished, even before Midshipman Belchambers ran aft with the news.
'Mr Wyatt requests permission to commence veering cable, sir.'
'Very well.'
Aft on the gun deck the spring would have been hove taught and belayed; now the slacking of the anchor cable would cause the ship's head to fall off, some of the weight being taken by the spring.
Drinkwater turned and spoke to the nearest gun-captain. 'Campbell, watch your gun, now, tell me when she bears.'
'Aye, sir,' the man growled, bending his head in concentration.
'Mr Metcalfe, be ready to hold the cable.'
Metcalfe waited to pass the word down the forward companionway.
'Gun's bearing, sir.'
'Hold on,' Drinkwater called in a low voice and bent beside Campbell's 18-pounder. He could see the grey shape of the USS Stingray against the darker shore, her tracery of masts, yards and the geometric perfection of her rigging etched against the grey dawn. Patrician adjusted her own alignment and settled to her cable.
'She's a mite off now she's brung up, sir,' Campbell said and Drinkwater could smell the sweat on the man.
'Veer two fathoms,' Drinkwater called, straightening up. It would be enough. He turned to Frey. 'Your boat ready, Mr Frey?'
'Aye, sir.'
Drinkwater looked at the growing glow in the east, an ochreous backlighting of the overcast which seeped through it to suffuse the sky with a pale, bilious light.
'We'll give it a minute longer,' Drinkwater said, raising his glass and staring at the American ship upon which details were emerging from the obscurity of the night.
'We'll not want a wind outside,' someone muttered.
'What's happening?' a voice said and a score of shadowy figures shushed the coatless Vansittart to silence. 'For God's sake ...'
'Quiet, sir!' Metcalfe snapped, fidgeting as usual.
'I forbid ...' Vansittart began, but Frey took his elbow.
'It's a piece of bluff, sir. The Captain wants his men back before he goes.'
'But...'
'Shhhh . ..' Drinkwater's figure loomed alongside him and Vansittart subsided into silence.
'Very well.' Drinkwater shut his telescope with an audible snap. 'Off you go, Frey.'
With a flash of white stockings, a whirl of coat-tails and a dull gleam of gilt scabbard mountings, Frey went over the rail into the waiting boat.
Drinkwater returned to the hance and again levelled his Dollond glass. He could see a figure on the Stingray's quarterdeck stretch lazily. 'Any moment now,' he said, for the benefit of the others. The cutter cleared the Patrician's stern and rapidly closed the gap between the two ships.
In the stillness the plash of her oars sounded unnaturally loud to the watching and waiting British. Then the challenge sounded in the strengthening daylight.
'Boat, ahoy!'
'Hey, what the hell... ?'
'They've noticed our changed aspect,' Drinkwater observed, again peering through his glass. An officer was leaning over the side of the American sloop as the cutter swung to come alongside. Frey was standing up in her stern and they could hear an indistinct exchange. The cutter's oars were tossed, her bow nudged the Stingray's tumblehome and Frey nimbly ran along the thwarts between the oarsmen. A second later he was leaping up the sloop's side.
'It's a master's mate ... no, there's a lieutenant on deck without his coat ... looks like Tucker, aye, 'tis, and there are men turning up.' The squeal of pipes came to them, floating across the smooth water.
'What's Frey saying, sir?' Metcalfe asked in an agony of suspense, frustration and resentment, because Drinkwater had briefed the third lieutenant without mentioning anything to his second-in-command, though everyone grasped the gist of Frey's purpose. For Metcalfe it was one more incident in a long series of similar slights.