'We have enough gear salvaged to jury rig her and run before it. With luck we might reach to the norrard.'
Littlewood's torn finger moved north, away from its resting place on the flat island of Neuwerk lying athwart the entrance to the Elbe.
'It offers us our best chance if we avoid the Horn's Reef and Danish letters-of-marque. Of course it's a risk ...' the master drowned his incomplete sentence in a mouthful of rum.
Beyond the island of Sylt lay the port of Esbjerg from which Danish privateers would swoop on the Galliwasp with alacrity. The Danes had not forgiven Great Britain the abduction of their fleet two years earlier, nor the bombardment of their capital, Copenhagen. A British ship falling into their hands could expect little mercy: a British naval officer none whatsoever. One caught in disguise would almost certainly be hanged or shot; Drinkwater had seen such a man, strung up by the Dutch above a battery at Kirkduin.
'D'you have a larger scale chart?' Drinkwater asked, shying away from the hideous image.
'Aye.' Littlewood turned and pulled a chart tube from a locker. From it he drew a roll of charts. Drinkwater waited, feeling the rum warm his belly. 'You are thinking of Helgoland?'
'Yes.'
They spread out the second chart and Drinkwater noted it was an English copy of a survey commissioned by the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce.
'Too risky,' Littlewood said, shaking his head. 'If we are out in our reckoning, or if we miscalculate and are swept past, then our fate is sealed.'
'We could anchor and make a signal of distress. There is often a cutter or a sloop stationed near the island.'
'There is as often as not a damned French custom-house lugger, or worse, a Dutch coastguard cutter; that damned island attracts them like a candle does moths. The fact is, Helgoland is too much of a hazard. I'd rather take my chance to the norrard and hope for the sight of a British cruiser than poke my head into that noose!'
Littlewood's voice rang with the conviction of a man who had made up his mind and would brook no interference. His eyes met those of the still uncommitted Drinkwater and he summoned a final argument to ram home his conviction.
'What would the French garrison in Hamburg say when they seized our cargo, Captain, eh? Mercy bow-coup, damn them, and all I'll get in receipt is board and lodging in a cell! You know well enough I have to think of my ship. We'll take our chance to the norrard.'
Littlewood let go his end of the chart and it rolled up like a coiled spring against Drinkwater's hand which held down the opposite margin. The sensation of a tiny wounding, a reminder of Littlewood's ultimate responsibility struck him. Drinkwater was not a naval officer in Littlewood's mind but an encumbrance, and Drinkwater faced a situation over which he had no real control. Matters had gone too far for him to contemplate casting aside his disguise in order to usurp Littlewood's command of the Galliwasp. Besides, his authority to do even that was difficult to prove and impossible to enforce. The first intimation of naval command would reek so strongly of the press in the nostrils of Galliwasp's people that he would very likely be in fear of his life.
Littlewood's assessment was the truth and his solution the only practical one. Clawing their way to the north bought them sea room, time, and the chance of an encounter with a British man-of-war; running to leeward, for all that the British-occupied island lay downwind, was too much like clutching at a straw.
'Very well. I agree.' Drinkwater nodded.
'Pity about that gun-brig ...'
Drinkwater lingered in the cabin after Littlewood returned to the deck. He could be heard exhorting his crew to further exertions as Galliwasp rolled and pitched sluggishly — what remained of the dead burden of her wrecked top-hamper lying over her bow — holding her head to wind. Her buffeted hull creaked in protest and Drinkwater heard the monotonous thump-thump of her pumps starting again as Littlewood sought to prevent his precious cargo being spoiled by bilge water.
'God's bones!' Drinkwater blasphemed venomously and struck his clenched fist on Littlewood's table. What in hell's name was he doing here, presiding ineffectually over the shambles of Dungarth's grand design?
The thing was a failure, a fiasco ...
The matter was finished and Quilhampton was lost, for it was inconceivable that his little brig could have withstood the onslaught of the night's tempest. The mission — if that was what Dungarth's insane idea to force the war to a climax could be called — had foundered with the Tracker. Littlewood was right and there was nothing more they could do except preserve themselves and their cargo. Perhaps, if they regained the English coast, the ruse might be attempted again after the spring thaw. It was something to hope for.
But the loss of Quilhampton, Frey and their people brought an inconsolable grief and Drinkwater felt it weigh upon him, adding to the depression of his spirits. It was then that the idle and selfish thought insinuated itself: with the loss of Tracker had gone his sea-chest and all his personal effects.
CHAPTER 6
Coals to Newcastle
Drinkwater woke with a start, his heart hammering with a nameless fear. For a moment he lay still, thinking his anxiety and grief had dragged him from sleep, but the next moment he was struggling upright. Shouts came from other parts of the ship, shouts of alarm as other men were woken from the sleep of utter fatigue. Galliwasp struck for a third time, her hull shuddering, a living thing in her death throes.
He reached the deck as the cry was raised of a light to leeward.
'Where away?' roared Littlewood, struggling into a coat, his face a pale, anxious blur in the gloom.
'To loo'ard, Cap'n! There!'
Both Drinkwater and Littlewood stared into the darkness as Galliwasp pounded upon the reef for the fourth time and the hiss and seething of the sea welled up about her and then fell away in the unmistakable rhythm of breakers.
Then they saw the light, a steady red glow which might have been taken for a glimpse of the rising moon seen through a rent in the overcast except that it suddenly flared into yellow flames and they were close enough to see clouds of sparks leap upwards.
"Tis a lighthouse ... Helgoland lighthouse!' Littlewood called, then bellowed, 'In the waist there! A sounding!'
Drinkwater felt Littlewood's hand grip his arm. 'Cap'n Waters,' he said, his voice strained and urgent. 'They must have been asleep,' — referring to the watch of exhausted men who had laboured throughout the preceding day to prepare Galliwasp's jury rig — 'and we've drifted ...'
'By the mark seven, sir!'
'She's come off!' snapped Drinkwater, watching the bearing of the light and feeling the change in the motion of the Galliwasp.
'By the deep nine!' confirmed the cry from forward.
'They may not have been asleep,' Drinkwater said consolingly, as Littlewood, in his agitation, still clung to Drinkwater's sleeve. 'That light was badly tended.' Both men stared at the now flaming chauffer which seemed to loom above them.
'Do you anchor, upon the instant, sir!'
At Drinkwater's imperative tone Littlewood shook off his catalepsy.
'Yes, yes, of course. Stand by the shank painter and cat stopper!'