Drinkwater's last days at Gantley Hall were spent writing letters which Richard, his son, took into Woodbridge for the post. Drinkwater dismissed Richard's pleas to be rated captain's servant aboard the Patrician. Instead he roused Lieutenant Quilhampton from his connubial bliss, thundering upon his cottage door on a wet evening when the sun set behind yellow cloud.
'My dear sir,' said Quilhampton, stepping backwards and beckoning Drinkwater indoors. 'We heard you had gone up to town ...'
'You've heard of the outbreak of war with America?' Drinkwater snapped, cutting short his host's pleasantries.
'Well, yes, yesterday. I meant to try for a ship ...'
'My dear James, I have no time, forgive me... ma'am,' he bowed curtly to Catriona who had come into the room from the kitchen beyond, with an offer of tea, 'can you spare your husband?'
'You have a ship for me?' broke in Quilhampton, nodding to his wife and ignoring her silent protest.
'Not exactly, James. As a lieutenant I can get you a cutter or a gun-brig, but nothing more. I am, however, desperate for a first luff in Patrician.' He paused, watching the disappointment clear in Quilhampton's expression. 'It ain't what you want, I know, but nor is it as bad as you think, James. I am to be the senior captain of a flying squadron ...'
'A commodore, sir?'
'Aye, but only of the second class. They will not let me have a post-captain under me, but I can promise you advancement at the first opportunity, to Master and Commander at the very least…'
'I'll come, sir, of course I will.' Quilhampton held out his remaining hand.
'That's handsome of you, James, damned handsome,' Drinkwater grinned, seizing the outstretched paw. 'God bless you, my friend.'
'He was mortified you sailed for America without him last autumn, Captain Drinkwater,' Catriona said quietly in her Scots accent, pouring the bohea. Drinkwater noticed her thickening waist and recalled Elizabeth telling him the Quilhamptons were expecting.
'My dear, I am an insensitive dullard, forgive me, my congratulations to you both
Catriona handed him a cup. The delicate scent of the tea filled the room, but cup and saucer chattered slightly from the shaking of her hand. She caught his eye, her own fierce and tearful beneath the mop of tawny hair. 'My child needs a father, Captain. Even a one-armed one is better than none.'
'Ma'am ...' Drinkwater stammered, 'I am, I mean, I, er...'
'Take him,' she said and withdrew, retiring to her kitchen.
Drinkwater looked at Quilhampton who shrugged.
'When can you be ready?'
'Tomorrow?'
'We'll post. Time is of the essence.'
'Talking of which, I have something ...' Quilhampton turned aside and opened the door of a long-case clock that ticked majestically in a corner. He lifted a dark, dusty bottle from its base.
'Cognac, James?' Drinkwater asked, raising an eyebrow, 'How reprehensible.' Quilhampton smiled at Drinkwater's ill-disguised expression of appreciation.
'It is usually Hollands on this coast, but I can't stand the stuff. This', he held up the bottle after lacing both their cups of tea, 'the rector of Waldringfield mysteriously acquires.'
'Here's to the confinement, James. Tell her to stay with Elizabeth when her time comes.'
'I will, and thank you. Here's to the ship.'
CHAPTER 12
David and Goliath
What is it, Mr Gordon?' Drinkwater emerged on to the quarterdeck and clapped his hand to his hat as a gust of wind tore at his cloak.
'Hasty, sir; she's just fired a gun and thrown out the signal for a sail in sight.'
'Very well. Make Hasty's number and tell him to investigate.'
'Aye, aye, sir.'
Fishing for his Dollond glass Drinkwater levelled it at the small twenty-eight gun frigate bobbing on the rim of the horizon as they exchanged signals with her over the five miles of heaving grey Atlantic. Then he cast a quick look round the circumscribed circle of their visible horizon at the other ships of the squadron.
The little schooner Sprite clung to Patrician like a child to a parent, while two miles to leeward he could make out the thirty-eight gun, 18-pounder frigate Cymbeline, and beyond her the topsails of Icarus, a thirty-two, mounting 12-pounders on her gun deck.
'Hasty acknowledges, sir.'
Drinkwater swung back to Gordon and nodded. 'Very well. And now I think 'tis time we hoisted French colours with a gun to loo'ard, if you please, Mr Gordon.'
Midshipman Belchambers had anticipated the order, for it had long been known that they would close the American coast under an equivocal disguise. The red, white and blue bunting spilled from his arms as the assisting yeoman tugged at the halliards. Clear of the wind eddies about the deck, the tricolour snapped out clear of the bunt of the spanker and rose, stiff as a board, to the peak. The trio of officers watched the curiosity for a moment, then Drinkwater held his pocket-glass out to the midshipman.
'Up you go, Mr Belchambers. Keep me informed. We should sight land before sunset.' He hoped he sounded confident, instead of merely optimistic, for they had not obtained a single sight during the week the gale had prevailed.
The boom of the signal gun drowned Belchambers' reply, but he scampered away, tucking the precious spy-glass in his trousers and reaching for the main shrouds. Drinkwater stared at Hasty again as she shook out her topgallants. Captain Tyrell was very young, younger than poor Quilhampton, and he was inordinately proud of his command which, by contrast, was grown old, though of a class universally acknowledged as pretty. Drinkwater suspected a multitude of defects lurked beneath the paint, whitewash and gilded brightwork of her dandified appearance. Yet the young man in command seemed efficient enough, had understood the signals thrown out on their tedious passage across the Atlantic and handled his ship with every sign of competence. Perhaps he had a good sailing-master, Drinkwater thought, again turning his attention to the Sprite: they must be damnably uncomfortable aboard the schooner.
Sprite's commander was a different kettle of fish, a man of middle age whose commission as lieutenant was but two years old. Lieutenant Sundercombe had come up the hard way, pressed into the Royal Navy from a Guinea slaver whose mate he had been. He had languished on the lower deck for five years before winning recognition and being rated master's mate. There was both a resentment and a burning passion in the man, Drinkwater had concluded, which was doubtless due to his enforced service as a seaman. Maybe contact with the helpless human cargo carried on the middle passage had made him philosophical about the whims and vagaries of fate, maybe not. His most significant attribute as far as Drinkwater was concerned was his skill as a fore-and-aft sailor. His Majesty's armed schooner Sprite had been built in the Bahamas to an American design and attached to the squadron as a dispatch vessel.
As for the other frigates and their captains, the bluff and hearty Thorowgood of the Cymbeline and the stooped and consumptive Ashby of the Icarus, though as different as chalk from cheese in appearance, were typical of their generation. With the exception of Sundercombe and his schooner, in whose selection Drinkwater had enlisted Dungarth's influence, the histories of the younger men were unremarkable, their appointment to join his so-called 'flying squadron' uninfluenced by anything other than the Admiratlty's sudden fright at the depredations of Yankee privateers. None of them had seen action of any real kind, rising quickly through patronage or influence, and had been either cruising uneventfully in home waters or employed on convoy duties. Tyrell on the Irish coast where, in the Cove of Cork, he had been able to titivate his ship to his heart's content; and Thorowgood in the West Indies, where rum and women of colour seemed to have made a deep impression upon him. Ashby looked too frail to remain long in this world, though he possessed an admirable doggedness if his conduct in the recent gale was anything to go by, for Icarus had carried away her fore topmast shortly before sunset a few days earlier and had been separated from the rest of the squadron. The last that had been seen of her as she disappeared behind a grey curtain of rain was not encouraging. The violent line squall had dragged waterspouts from the surface of the sea and the wild sweep of lowering cloud had compelled them all to look to their own ships and shorten sail with alacrity. Patrician's raw crew, once more decimated by idleness and filled from every available and unsuitable source, had been hard-pressed for an hour.