Perhaps he was going mad. The thought occurred to him repeatedly. Loneliness and guilt combined to make his mood vacillate so that he might, had Pym known it, be set fair to become a subject for the worthy surgeon's treatise on the pendular personality. On the one hand his metaphysical preoccupations saw the quest he had set the squadron upon as a cogent consequence of all that had occurred at Castle Point. On the other loomed the awful spectre of a mighty misjudgement, a spectre made more terrible by the ominous threat explicit in the wording of his commission: you may fail as you will answer at your peril.
He became unable to sleep properly, his cabin a prison, so that he preferred to doze on deck, wrapped in his cloak and jammed in the familiar place by the weather mizen rigging. As the watches changed, the officers merely nodded at the solitary figure whose very presence betrayed his anxiety and further amplified the depression of their own spirits.
And yet they knew, for all its interminable nature, that such a state of affairs could not go on for ever. One morning, an hour after dawn when the squadron had tacked, reversed the consequent echelon of its advance, and sent the lookouts aloft, the hail from the masthead swept aside the prevailing mood:
'Deck there! Icarus's let fly her t'garn sheets!'
'A fleet in sight!' Frey said with unnatural loudness, rounding on the figure standing by the larboard mizen pinrail. 'The India fleet?'
'Pray to God it is,' someone muttered.
'Mr Belchambers,' Frey said curtly, 'get a long glass aloft. Mr Davies, rouse the watch, stand by the main t'gallant sheets and let 'em fly, and Mr Belchambers ...'
The midshipman paused in the lower rigging. 'Sir?'
'Make sure Cymbeline has seen and acknowledged our repetition.'
'Aye, aye, sir,' Belchambers acknowledged, his reply verging on the irritated, as though weary of being told how to suck eggs. Frey ignored the insubordinate tone and approached Drinkwater, who had detached himself from support and, dopey with fatigue, his face grey, stubbled and red-eyed, stumbled before the circulation returned properly to his legs.
'Thorowgood may have trouble seeing us, sir, in this light.'
'You have a talent for stating the obvious this morning,' snapped Drinkwater testily, 'let us see what Ashby does.'
Frey bit his lip and raised his speaking trumpet. 'Mr Belchambers!' he roared at the midshipman who paused, hanging down at the main upper futtocks. 'Get a move on, boy!'
As the morning advanced ship after ship hove over the southern horizon, the unmistakable sight of laden Indiamen running before the favourable trade wind. Far ahead of them they watched as Ashby's Icarus beat up towards a small, brig-rigged sloop-of-war, which was crowding on sail to intercept and identify the first of what must have seemed to her commander to be a naval squadron of potentially overwhelming force.
From aloft Belchambers passed a running commentary to the quarterdeck. 'Eighteen sail, sir ... The escort's a brig-sloop, sir ... looks to have a jury main topmast. No other escort in sight, but I can see Sprite coming up from the south-west, sir ...'
'What of Cymbeline? Frey roared.
They saw Belchambers swivel round. 'She's coming up fast, sir, stun's'ls set alow and aloft!'
'I can see her from the deck, Mr Frey,' Drinkwater remarked.
After the private signals had been exchanged, the Icarus wore round in the brig's wake and the two men-of-war ran alongside each other. The brig then veered away from the thirty-two and the men now crowding Patrician's deck saw her run down towards them.
'Heave to, if you please, Mr Frey,' Drinkwater ordered, rubbing his chin. 'I'm going below for a shave.'
'Aye, aye, sir,' Frey replied, grinning at the captain's retreating back. The sight of the East Indiamen, splendid symbols of their country's maritime might, transformed the morale of the Patrician. Idlers and men of the watch below had turned out to see the marvellous panorama; Frey could forgive the cross-patch Drinkwater, even provoke a grudging acknowledgement of his misjudgement from Mr Wyatt.
'Told you so, Wyatt,' Frey muttered, reaching for the speaking trumpet beside the master.
'You're right — for once.'
Frey grinned and raised the megaphone: 'Stand by the chess trees and catheads! Clew garnets and buntlines there! Rise tacks and sheets!'
'Three ships, you say, Lieutenant?' Drinkwater handed a glass to the young officer from the brig-of-war Sparrowhawk.
'Aye, sir, in two attacks ...'
'And the last when?'
'The day before yesterday, sir. If the wind had been lighter we would have lost more, sir. As it was the India Johnnies gave a good account of themselves. We did our best but...' The young officer gestured hopelessly.
'You were outsailed by Yankee schooners.'
'Exactly so. Beg pardon, but how did you know, sir?'
'Intuition, Lieutenant...'
'Wykeham, sir.'
'Well, Lieutenant Wykeham, return to Captain Sudbury and tell him we shall do our best to assist you. Your ship is wounded?'
'Aye, sir, we lost the main topmast. One of those confounded Americans had a long gun, barbette-mounted amidships on a traversing carriage. She shot the stick clean out of us and hulled us badly. We lost four men with that one shot alone.'
'How many of them, enemy schooners, I mean?' Drinkwater wiped a hand across his face as if to remove his weariness.
'Six, sir,'
'Any sign of a frigate?'
'An American frigate? No, sir.'
Drinkwater grunted. 'Does Captain Sudbury anticipate another attack?'
'I don't think so, sir. We gave them a bloody nose last time. One of them was definitely hulled and with her rigging knocked about.'
'It doesn't occur to you that the hiatus may be due solely to their effecting repairs to that schooner?'
It had clearly not occurred to either Lieutenant Wykeham or his young commander, Sudbury.
'Young men are too often optimists, Mr Wykeham.' Drinkwater paused, letting this piece of homespun wisdom sink in. 'I have already given my squadron written orders as to their dispositions upon meeting with you. I think you had better cover the van of the convoy. Tell Captain Sudbury to act as he sees fit in the event of another attack, to throw out his routine convoy signals as has been his practice to date. My squadron will act according to their orders. However, I shall not condemn him if he gets his ship into action with one of these fellows. Tell him to aim high, langridge and bar shot, I think, if you have it, otherwise the galley pots and the carpenter's best nails, cripple' em, clip their confounded wings, Lieutenant, for they are better flyers then we.'
'Very well, sir.'
'By-the-by, in which direction did they retire?'
'To the east, sir, that is why we were ...'
'To the east of the convoy, yes, yes, I understand. You had better return to your ship. Tell Captain Sudbury he is under my orders now and I relieve him of the chief responsibility, but I expect him to carry on as normal, entirely as normal, d'you see? Perhaps we may deceive the enemy, if he returns, into not noticing our presence until it is too late. D'you understand me?'
'Very well, sir.'
After the young man had gone, Drinkwater turned and stared astern. The sea, so lately empty of anything but his own squadron, was crowded with the black hulls and towering white sails of the Honourable East India Company's ships. Craning round, he could just see Cymbeline making her way to the windward station. Ashby should be doing the same on the other wing. Once Wykeham's boat had gone, Patrician must take up her own position.