A Brig of War (17 page)

Neither had Griffiths forgotten his duty, as the slight edge of sarcasm in his voice implied.

‘
Du
, sir, 'tis a wonder you sallied so far from home with such delights to keep you at Bombay. May one enquire of your intentions?'

‘Of course, Captain,' said Rainier, a large fleshy man with an expansive manner who appeared like an Indian Buddha surrounded by blue cheroot smoke. ‘The news we had from Nelson, both from Duval and yourself, is what brings me to carry out the present reconnaissance of the Red Sea.'

‘And effecting a junction with Admiral Blankett, sir?'

The captain shrugged. He did not seem eager to combine his force with Blankett's. Yet if he did the Red Sea squadron would almost certainly be sufficient to bottle up the Straits of Bab el Mandeb, locate and destroy whatever ship Santhonax had at his command.

‘Blankett's whereabouts are somewhat unknown. My own instructions are clear. I am to determine the extent of French military action in Egypt relative to a descent upon India. That is all.' It was clear to Drinkwater that the nautch-girls of Bombay sang a sweeter song than the sirens lurking on the imperfectly known reefs of the Red Sea.

Rainier exhaled elaborately, indolently watching the three concentric smoke rings waft slowly towards the deckhead with obvious satisfaction.

‘Oh bravo, sir,' breathed Adams sycophantically, giving Drinkwater a clue to his early promotion. Rainier raised his fingers in a gesture of unconcern that seemed not to warrant a shrug of the shoulders. ‘I think the matter of little moment, 'tis but in the nature of an excursion.' He caught sight of Griffiths's frown. ‘Oh, I know, Captain Griffiths, you come panting from the battlefields of Europe, lathered with the sweat of your own efforts, your energy is not the plague, you know. It is not contagious. We have our own way of attending to the King's business out here. We are not unaware that Tippoo Sahib, the Sultan of Mysore,' he added for the benefit of the new arrivals from England, ‘is raising
rebellion against us. We even have information that Bonaparte himself has been in contact with him. But I am not of the opinion any great risk attends the matter.'

Rainier drew heavily upon the cheroot and a comfortable little ripple of self-satisfaction went round the table amongst the officers of the two ships.

‘I wish I shared your confidence, sir,' Griffiths said.

‘Oh, come, sir,' put in Adams, ‘the French are not here in force. Why, how many ships does Blankett have, eh?' Adams turned to the only non-uniformed figure at the table, strange in civilian clothing a decade out of fashion.

‘He has three sixty-fours,' said Wrinch, ‘
America, Stately
and
Ruby
. The two first named were due home, the third on a cruise. He has two frigates,
Daedalus
and
Fox
with the sloop
Echo
. She too is due home.'

‘You see, Griffiths,' said Adams, ‘that is a sizeable squadron.'

‘If it is all together,' growled Griffiths unconvinced.

Rainier seemed to want to terminate the argument.

‘Come Griffiths, it is not as though we are up against Suffren, is it?' The captain muttered through his fist as he picked at a sliver of mutton lodged irritatingly in his molars. ‘Eh?'

‘The French commander is a pupil of Suffren, sir. He is well-known to my first lieutenant and myself, sir. A true corsair, cunning as a fox, dangerous and resourceful. Not a man to underestimate.' Griffiths's voice was low and penetrating.

‘How come that you know him, sir?' enquired
Centurion
's captain of marines.

Griffiths outlined the tasks assigned to the twelve-gun cutter
Kestrel
during her special service on the coasts of France and Holland. He spoke of how they had come into conflict with the machinations of Capitaine Edouard Santhonax, how they had tracked him from the coves of France to the sandy beaches of Noord Holland and how Drinkwater had finally captured him during the bloody afternoon of Camperdown. He told them of the brutal murder of the British agent, Major Brown, taken in civilian clothing and strung up on a gibbet above the battery at Kijkduin in full view of the blockading squadron. As his voice rose and fell, assembling the sentences of his account he compelled them all to listen, straightening the supercilious mouth of Commander Charles Adams. ‘. . . And so gentlemen, Santhonax contrived to escape, devil take him, by what means I do not know, and
if this French army in Egypt is as powerful and as dangerous as Admiral Nelson seemed to think, then,
myndiawl
, you should be cautioned against this man.' A silence followed, broken at last by Rainier.

‘That was bardic, captain, truly bardic,' said Rainier dismissively, taking snuff.

‘Captain Griffiths is right, sir,' put in Wrinch at a moment when Drinkwater sensed Rainier wished to conclude matters. ‘Santhonax is taking native craft, perhaps to use as transports to India, perhaps to prevent the transfer of the faithful from the Hejaz across the Red Sea to Kosseir. These ‘Meccan' reinforcements have been told they have but to shake a Frenchman to dislodge the gold dust from his clothes. They are flocking to join Murad Bey by way of the caravan route to Qena. Murad,' he added with the same condescension as had been used to explain Tippoo Sahib to the uninitiated, ‘is a Circassian who commands the Mameluke forces in Upper Egypt. Now, although Desaix has beaten him and scattered his forces, Murad is, in reality, undefeated. To bring him to his knees Desaix must strangle his reinforcements from Arabia either by taking the dhows at sea, or by taking Kosseir. If this is done then additional tarrifs will be levied on trade from Arabia, as Bon is already doing at Suez on the trade from Yambo and Jeddah. Bonaparte's government in Cairo is already said to be much pressed for cash and driven to all manner of expedients to raise it.'

‘And do you think Santhonax and Desaix could concert their actions to the necessary degree?' asked Rainier at last, disquieted despite himself by the turn the conversation had taken.

‘Indeed, sir. Men have done such things. Egypt is ungovernable, of course. It may well be that the French will push on to India. That would be more prestigious for them than ultimate retreat.'

‘Do you think prestige would outweigh military sense?' sneered Adams.

‘In France,' retorted Wrinch coolly, ‘they have just undergone a revolution caused by inferiors revolting that they may be equal. Equals, like Bonaparte and Desaix, Captain Adams, revolt in order that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind that creates, and is created by, revolutions.'

‘That is sophistry, sir,' bridled the commander flushing.

‘That is Aristotle, sir,' replied Wrinch icily.

An uncomfortable silence fell on the table. Then Wrinch went on.

‘By June the wind in the Red Sea will be predominantly from the north. Often this northerly wind reaches as far south as Perim and lasts until August. A
sambuk
goes excellent well down wind, a
baghala
could carry a battery of horse artillery or three companies of infantry. In the Arabian Sea from May to September the monsoon is favourable for a fast passage, if an uncomfortable one.'

‘Ah,' interjected Adams, at last able to put a technical obstacle in front of Wrinch, ‘but you cannot land at Bombay or on the Malabar coast during the south west monsoon.'

Wrinch raised an eyebrow. ‘Even a Frenchman may round Cape Comorin, Captain. They may still have friends in Pondicherry and it is not many miles from there to Mysore.'

Rainier had had enough. He rose. ‘We sail in two days, gentlemen.'

‘Am I to join you, sir?' asked Griffiths.

‘No, Griffiths. Do you stay here and wait for Blankett. You are possessed of all the facts and can best acquaint the admiral of'em. Your orders from Nelson were explicit. You have managed to convince me that perhaps I must look a little further into the matter, damn you.'

So
Hellebore
continued to wait. Having, as Appleby put it, sped with the wings of Hermes half way round the world, they had now to acquire the patience of Job. Griffiths spent less time ashore, apparently happier now that Rainier had gone north. But it was not only this that had relaxed the man. The true reason was revealed one night over a more frugal and less formal meal than that enjoyed aboard
Centurion
. In the cabin of
Hellebore
the brig's officers dined off mutton, of which there was a good supply in Mocha, and drank their madeira with dark coffee and sweet dates, listening to the reason for Griffiths's change.

‘To be without pain, gentlemen, is like a rebirth. Mr Strangford Wrinch is a man of many parts. You have seen only one side of him; that of a gossiping coffee merchant who keeps a kind of court in Mocha. In fact he is much more than that. He has journeyed into the interior and tells of mysterious cities long deserted by their inhabitants. He is a hadji who has twice been where it is not permitted for an infidel to go. He has fought in three Arab wars, is an expert in mathematics, astronomy and
Arab literature, writes verse in Arabic and keeps a flight of sakers worthy of a prince . . .' He paused and Drinkwater heard Rogers mutter a reference to boys. If Griffiths heard it he ignored it, fixing Appleby with a stare. ‘And he has some medical knowledge.'

As if on cue Appleby snorted. ‘You are going to tell me he knows a few nostrums, sir,' the surgeon said archly.

‘Indeed not. I am going to tell you he knows a great deal. That he can cauterize a wound with hot oil, or sear the back with hot irons to cure rheumatism. Furthermore for open wounds an application of rancid butter or cow dung . . .'

‘Cow dung?' Appleby's head shot up in disbelief, his chins quivering. Rogers was laughing silently as if this revelation proved his private theory that Griffiths was mad. Griffiths ignored him, obviously enjoying Appleby's scepticism.

‘Just so, Mr Appleby. An application of cow dung, see, possesses certain properties which enable a wound to heal cleanly.'

Behind his hand Rogers muttered, ‘No wonder there are so many flies . . god-damned cow shit, for Christ's sake.' Mr Dalziell began to giggle and even the loyal Quilhampton found it impossible to resist. The sniggers spread to uncontrollable open laughter to which Appleby succumbed.

Drinkwater coughed loudly, mindful of a first lieutenant's duty. ‘And this cure for your pain, sir, was that one of these, h'hm extreme and, er . . . h'hm unusual remedies?'

Griffiths turned towards Drinkwater, a mildly benevolent smile on his face. He shook his head, his eyes twinkling beneath their bushy eyebrows. ‘For the gout, Mr Drinkwater, an affliction long considered by the best
English
brains as incurable, Mr Wrinch prescribed crocus bulbs and seeds . . .'

‘Crocus bulbs . . .!' guffawed Rogers whose mirth was past rational control. The tears streamed down the faces of the midshipmen and even Appleby was too stunned to offer resistance to this challenge to
English
medicine.

‘And you are quite without pain?' asked Drinkwater, controlling himself with difficulty.

‘Quite, my dear Nathaniel. Fit enough to finish the task that brought us here.'

At the beginning of May Blankett arrived at Mocha having exchanged his flag into the
Leopard
, newly arrived from England.
He had with him
Daedalus
and
Fox
. They had swept the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden without discovering Santhonax. Off Guardafui Blankett had transferred into
Leopard
and sent the fourth-rates home. He was disinclined to listen to the dire warnings of Griffiths, not admitting the argument that he had not only failed to find the French but had missed Rainier. Annoyed, Griffiths returned to
Hellebore
and fumed like Achilles in his tent. Then, a week later Rainier returned. He had penetrated as far as Suez and bombarded the place. Although the French army was there no ships were to be seen and it was said that
Centurion
was the first ship of force seen before the town.

‘That,' said Appleby, ‘is a piece of conceit I mislike. I daresay Egyptian ships of force were off Suez while Rainier's ancestors were farting in caves.'

‘Ah, but not with eighteen-pounders in their batteries,' said Drinkwater laughing, ‘cannon are a powerful argument to revise history.'

‘Pah! A matter of mere comparisons.'

‘Like the ingredients of medicines, eh?' grinned Drinkwater at the surgeon.

Convinced that the French threat was illusory Rainier departed for India, leaving
Hellebore
to the mercies of Blankett. After his exertions the rear-admiral was not inclined to cruise further. He took himself to Wrinch's house to
keyf
and dally with a seraglio of houris while his squadron settled down to wait. Though for what, no-one seemed quite certain.

‘Boat approaching, sir. Looks like that fellow Sinbad.' Quilhampton interrupted the first lieutenant who had had the carpenter make a small portable desk for him on deck where, beneath the quarterdeck awning, the breeze ruffled his shirt and made the intolerable paperwork that was part of his duty a trifle more bearable.

‘Sinbad?'

‘That damned Arab Yusuf ben Ibrahim, sir!' Drinkwater looked up. It was a great pity this idleness was affecting Mr Quilhampton. The contempt the meanest of
Hellebore
's people felt for the local population struck Drinkwater as quite incomprehensible. Perhaps it was a result of their being cooped up on board, but there was little contemptible about Yusuf ben Ibrahim. A striking figure with the hawk-like good looks of his race who
could handle his rakish
sambuk
with a skill that compelled admiration.

‘Go and inform the captain, Mr Q.' Ben Ibrahim had assumed the duty of chief messenger between Wrinch and Griffiths now that Blankett's residence precluded Griffiths's presence. The Arab clambered over the rail. He salaamed at Drinkwater and handed over a sealed letter. Drinkwater bowed as he took it, straightening up to see three men turning sheepishly back to their work while Mr Dalziell insolently essayed a bow himself.