'By all means.'
'Would you be prepared to host a dinner here, this afternoon? I shall send off a porker and some fresh vegetables, together with some tolerable wine. If you invited, say, three French officers, Rakov and two of his own men together with some of your own, we might stop any further unpleasantness and thereby offer all the other poor devils an explanation.'
'Would you act as interpreter of the newspaper?'
'Yes, why? Oh, you are thinking the French or the Russians might not trust us?'
"Tis a possibility'
'You are quite right; I will bring one of the Portuguese customs officers.'
Drinkwater nodded and Gilbert, pulling out a gold hunter, said, 'At three of the clock?'
'What time have you now ... ?' Drinkwater confirmed Gilbert's Azorean time coincided with Andromeda's own ship's time and nodded. 'We shall expect you then. I will arrange to have invitations delivered.'
Gilbert rose, his manner suddenly brisk. 'We both have work to do, Captain, so I shall take my leave for the nonce and look forward to seeing you later.' He smiled. 'An event like this certainly livens up a dull, if pleasant place.'
'I should have thought', replied Drinkwater, walking with Gilbert to the cabin door, 'that this was almost lotus-eating.'
'Almost,' Gilbert said with a laugh, 'but a man can choke, even on lotuses.'
When he had seen Gilbert's boat off, Drinkwater returned to the cabin and stood for a moment looking out through the stern windows. The atmosphere aboard the two French ships must be wretched in the extreme with half of Hyde's marines doing duty as guards, just as disarmed French grognards did duty as donkeys aboard Andromeda, assisting with the business of re-rigging and labouring under duress. Matters can have been no happier aboard the Gremyashchi. Rakov had studiously avoided personal contact with Drinkwater and conducted all intercourse through the medium of his son, a lieutenant who spoke better English than his father. Drinkwater turned and his eye was caught by Gilbert's abandoned, half-full glass. He recalled the consul's offer of some 'tolerable wine'.
His own was obviously intolerable. Well, so be it; lotus-eating clearly had its drawbacks. Drinkwater eased himself into his chair, reached for pen, ink and paper and called his servant.
'Frampton, pass word for a midshipman to report in a quarter of an hour. I shall be entertaining at six bells in the afternoon watch. Dinner for,' he paused and made a quick calculation, 'for seventeen. Yes, I know, we shall have to borrow some of the wardroom silver and their table. A pig and some vegetables will be sent off this morning from the shore.'
'Aye, aye, sir.' Frampton's tone bore the dull acquiescent tone of the hopeless servitor. He began his shuffling retreat to his pantry with a sigh when Drinkwater, who had already bent to his writing, looked up.
'Oh and, Frampton, the consul will also be sending off a quantity of tolerable wine.' 'Very good, sir.'
The unusual nature of the gathering aboard HMS Andromeda that sunlit afternoon precluded any real sociability. Two thirds of those present had recently been, as the colloquialism had it, at hammer and tongs with each other, while the motives of the other third were highly suspect. A jolly, convivial dinner being out of the question, Drinkwater had decided that the proceedings would be formal and the serving of the meal incidental to the real business in hand. To this end, Drinkwater instructed Hyde to parade those of his marines left aboard Andromeda, and two files lined the quarterdeck as a guard of honour, commanded by Hyde, resplendent in scarlet, with his gorget glittering at his throat and a drawn sword in his white-gloved hand. The turnout of the marines owed much to the assiduous training of the late and lamented Sergeant McCann who lay, with over a score of his ship-mates, buried off the western cape of the island of Graciosa.
Drinkwater had also turned out in full dress, as had his three lieutenants, the master and the surgeon, though Drinkwater suspected the latter resented the flummery of the occasion. All the British officers wore their hangers and, in accordance with Drinkwater's instructions, each had his assigned group of foreign officers to look after. In his written invitations, Drinkwater had stated Andromeda's boats would pick up the French officers, and his midshipmen had been given explicit orders to allow the barge from the Gremyashchi to arrive alongside ahead of them. Gilbert and the Portuguese customs officer, however, came off first.
'Captain Drinkwater, may I introduce Senhor Bensaude,' Gilbert said, smiling.
'Welcome aboard, sir, I understand you have a good command of English and will translate the news for us.'
'It will be my pleasure, Captain.'
'I have acquainted Senhor Bensaude with the delicacies of the situation,' Gilbert added.
'Indeed, I understand quite perfectly,' Bensaude added, his accent curiously muted.
'Your English is flawless, Senhor,' Drinkwater replied, impressed.
'I formerly worked in a Lisbon house exporting wine to England. It was run by an English family by the name of Co'burn.'
'Ah, that explains matters.' Drinkwater turned to Gilbert. 'And thank you for your pigs; as you can smell, they will be ready shortly.'
Marlowe approached with the news that the Gremyashchi's boat was coming alongside, and a few moments later Captain Count Vladimir Ivanovich Rakov and his son were engaged in conversation with Gilbert and Lieutenants Ashton and Frey, while Drinkwater welcomed the party from the French ships.
He recognized their leader immediately. The thin, ascetic, sunburnt features with the dependent moustaches, the pigtails and queue were that of the hussar officer Drinkwater had cut down and he had last seen slumped against a carronade slide. Beneath the burnished complexion, the hussar's skin bore a ghastly pallor. Like Drinkwater, he wore a sling, but he concealed this beneath his brown, silver-frogged pelisse which he wore, contrary to common practice, over his sword-arm. A large sabretache dangled from his hip, vying for the attention of any onlookers with his sky-blue overalls, but he wore no sword.
The hussar officer carried an extravagantly plumed busby under his left arm. His hessian boots were of scarlet leather and bore gold tassels. Apart from regimental differences, he reminded Drinkwater, in his dress, of Lieutenant Dieudonne, whom he had fought on the ice at the edge of the Elbe.[11]
'I am Colonel Marbet,' the hussar officer said in halting English, inclining his head in a curt bow. Then, having established his precedence, he stood back and a naval officer came forward.
'I am Capitaine de Fregate Duhesme.' Drinkwater had a vague recollection of seeing this man before, after he had suffered the ministrations of debridement and bone-setting by Kennedy, when he accepted the formal surrender of L'Aigle and relinquished the details to Marlowe and Frey, with the sole instruction to return her commander's sword to him.
'Welcome aboard, Capitaine. I understand Capitaine Friant of the Arbeille is too indisposed to join us.'
'He is badly wounded,' answered Duhesme in good English. 'Colonel Marbet of the Second Hussars is the senior of us, but this is Capitaine Duroc of the Imperial Horse Grenadiers ...'
The big man in the blue and white coat held a huge bearskin under the crook of his left arm and wore ungainly jack-boots and spurs.
These had been buffed for the occasion, and judging by the gleam in his eyes, there was fight still left in Duroc.
Drinkwater coughed to gain their collective attention. 'Gentlemen, there is much to discuss and it would be the better done over dinner. Please be so kind as to follow me into the cabin.' And without further preamble he led the way below.