One afternoon, inspecting the decayed grate of the lighthouse, he caught sight of a sail to the westward. The Harwich packet doubled the buoy marking the Steen Rock and fetched an anchorage in the road. Too agitated to rush down to the barracks, Drinkwater maintained a stoic isolation on the western bluff, where Dowling, thundering up on Hamilton's charger, found him.
Hope leapt into Drinkwater's heart as he watched Dowling coax the beautiful dun hunter over the tussocked grass. The charger was the only horse on the island and the news must have been important for Hamilton to have allowed Dowling the use of it.
'The Governor summons your presence upon the instant, sir,' Dowling called, reining in his mount twenty yards short of Drinkwater. 'Upon the instant, d'you hear?' he added, then wheeling the horse, cantered away.
Drinkwater watched him go; there had been too much of a smirk on Dowling's chops to augur well. He made his way to the barracks as near instantly as his legs would allow and was ushered in to Hamilton's presence. Nicholas was already there.
'Sit down, Captain,' Nicholas said smoothly. Hamilton rose and stood staring out of the window on to the parade ground. It was clear that he was leaving matters to the younger man.
'I'll stand, if you've no objection,' said Drinkwater coldly.
'None whatsoever.' Nicholas picked up a letter which lay before him on Hamilton's desk. 'I'm afraid, Captain, that it appears your situation is more confused than ever. Lord Dungarth has not favoured us with a reply.'
'Not replied?' Drinkwater was taken aback. 'I don't understand ...'
'It seems,' Nicholas went on, 'that there has been a duel in the Government. Lord Castlereagh and Mr Canning have been at pistol-point on Putney Heath.'
'Go on, sir,' said Drinkwater incredulously.
'Mr Canning has, we understand, been wounded, though not mortally. The incident has brought down the Government ...'
'But Lord Dungarth,' Drinkwater began, only to be interrupted by Hamilton turning from the window.
'Has not written, Mr Whatever-your-name-is.'
Drinkwater met the Governor's triumphant gaze with an expression of continuing disbelief.
'I have already spoken with Captain Littlewood,' Hamilton continued, 'he reports his ship will be ready to reload in a day or two. He will return to England as soon as he is able. As for yourself, you will embark in the King George and are free to leave aboard her. She will depart in a couple of days. Was I not waiting for a courier from Hamburg, I should order her master to leave at once.'
The implication in Hamilton's words was clear: his disdain, surely unmerited no matter what the misunderstanding that had arisen on their first acquaintance, had developed into a passion. The shock of realization struck Drinkwater with sudden force. It dislodged him angrily from his long wallow in despair. Hamilton's overt prejudice goaded him to a reaction from which all his subsequent actions sprang.
'Sir,' he said, 'I hope fervently to meet you again in circumstances which accord me greater satisfaction.' Then, not trusting himself further, he stalked from the room.
He did not stop walking until he had regained the lonely bluff on the western extremity of Helgoland. Hamilton's perverse attitude, rooted in God-knew-what pettiness, had sent his mind into a spin. There was undoubtedly a good reason why Dungarth had not written. Whatever it was — and it most certainly had nothing to do with the duel fought between Castlereagh and Canning — it was inconceivable that it should result in Dungarth abandoning Drinkwater or his own position at the head of the Admiralty's Secret Department.
Drinkwater wished now he had been more explicit in his letter, at least intimated that Governor Hamilton did not believe he was a naval officer. If Dungarth knew he was at Helgoland, he doubtless assumed Drinkwater would make the best of a bad job. But if he did not ...
Drinkwater recalled Dungarth's own warning that trouble was brewing between Canning and Castlereagh. The consequent ructions, he had guessed, would affect British foreign policy.
Drinkwater paused and stared at the grey sea below him. The swell broke against the rampart of the island, a filigree of white foam rolled back from the rocks, harmless-looking from this height. In the west, behind rolls of dark cumulus, the sunset was pallid. Drinkwater sniffed the air and stared about him. There were fewer birds about than earlier, most were already roosting on the cliff. He looked again at the swell and barked a short laugh.
There would be a westerly gale by morning. He would go when the packet sailed, but that would be when God decided, not Colonel Bloody Hamilton! He turned, intending to walk back by way of the lighthouse. He would achieve something following his visit to Helgoland, send a letter of censure to the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House for allowing so archaic a system as the chauffer to continue in service, when a parabolic reflector and Argand lights would provide a reliable light on the island!
With such consoling and indignant thoughts he began the return journey. He had not gone a hundred yards before he almost fell over the seaman.
The man was asleep, but woke with a start as Drinkwater stumbled and swore.
'God damn it, man, what the devil are you doing here?'
'I beg pardon, Cap'n Waters. Guess I must have fallen asleep. I came up here more or less like yourself, fixing to get some peace and quiet.'
Drinkwater recognized the American seaman he had last spoken to at the Galliwasp's pumps.
'Sullivan, ain't it?'
'That's correct, sir,' Sullivan replied, brushing himself down.
'You're an American, aren't you?'
'A Loyalist American, Cap'n. I hail from New Brunswick now, though I was born in Georgia. My paw was with Colonel Kruger at Fort Ninety-Six.'
'Ah yes, the American War. You're a long way from home, Sullivan.'
'Aye, Cap'n, and a damned fool for it, and if I wanna get home I have to keep clear o' Lootenant Smithies. He's made threats to press some o' the boys from the Galliwasp. That's why I spends my liberty hours up here, away from the grog shops.'
'I see. Well, good luck to you. The sooner you get that barque refitted, the sooner you'll see New Brunswick again.'
He walked on, unaware that the encounter with Sullivan was the second event of consequence that day.
Drinkwater avoided the company of the garrison officers that night. He went, without dinner, directly to his room. There seemed little point in disobliging Hamilton. He would happily leave on the King George, when the packet sailed. He had begun making up an account to settle with Littlewood when a knock came at his door. It was Nicholas.
'May I speak with you, Captain Drinkwater?'
'Why the change of tack, sir?' said Drinkwater coolly. 'I thought all that was necessary had already been said.'
'Not quite, sir. May I ...?'
Drinkwater lit a second candle and motioned Nicholas to sit on the bed. He sat himself on the single rickety upright chair that served all other offices in the bare room. 'I shall not be sorry to leave this place,' he said, looking round him.
'Sir,' said Nicholas urgently, 'I must apologize for Colonel Hamilton's attitude as well as my own. He is a harassed man, sir, under pressure from many quarters and, if you will forgive the metaphor, you were a timely whipping-boy. The fact is, sir, that if you are who you say you are — damn it, this is difficult — but put bluntly, sir, as a post-captain you were seen as a threat ...'
'Damn it, Mr Nicholas, I only wanted a degree of cooperation.'
'I think, sir, that you are a man of more decisiveness than the Governor. He is a trifle jealous of those whose, er, energy threatens to compromise his authority.'
'Which is why you yourself so assiduously toe his line,' said Drinkwater wryly.