A King's Cutter (15 page)

‘These new men are infested, sir,' complained the surgeon, referring to the draft received from the
Royal William
. Griffiths looked wearily back at the man.

‘Aye, Mr Appleby and that won't be all they've got. What d'you suggest we do, send 'em back, is it?'

‘No sir, we'll douse them in salt water, ditch their clothing and issue slops . . .' He trailed off.

‘Now Mr Appleby, do you attend to your business and I'll attend to mine. Your sense of outrage does your conscience credit but is a disservice to your professional reputation.'

Drinkwater watched Appleby sag like a pricked balloon. No, he thought, he is not yet one of us.

The keen clean Channel breeze came over the bow as they stood down past the guardship at the Warner and on through the anchored warships at St Helen's, their ensign dipping in salute and the spray playing over the weather rail and hissing merrily off to leeward. Apart from an ache in his heart at leaving Elizabeth, Drinkwater was glad to have left Portsmouth, very glad.

‘Very well, Mr Drinkwater . . .' It was Jeremiah Traveller, a mirror image of Jessup, who, as gunner took a deck watch releasing Nathaniel from the repressive regime of four hours on deck and four below which he and Jessup had hitherto endured. They called the hands aft as eight bells struck and then, the watch changed, he slid below.

In his cabin he took out his journal, turning the pages of notes and sketches made in Portsmouth, a myriad of dockyard details, all carefully noted for future reference. He stared at his drawing of the centre plates. Beating out of Portsmouth they had already felt the benefit of those. Opening his inkwell he picked up the new steel pen that he had bought at Morgan's.
Kestrel
was already a different ship. With a cabin full of officers at meal times the old intimacy was gone. And Appleby had driven a wedge between Drinkwater and Griffiths, not intentionally, but his very presence seemed to turn Griffiths in upon himself and the greater number of officers increased the isolation of the commander.

Drinkwater sighed. The halcyon days were over and he regretted their passing.

Autumn gave way to the fogs of November and the first frosts, these periods of still weather were linked by a dreary succession of westerly gales that scudded up Channel to force them to reef hard and run for cover.

They had no luck with Dungarth's commission though they stopped and searched many coastal craft and chased others. Drinkwater began to doubt his earlier convictions as ridiculous imaginings. The
wily Santhonax had disappeared, or so it seemed. From time to time Griffiths went ashore and although he shared fewer confidences with Nathaniel now, he did not omit to convey the news. A brief shake of the head was all that Drinkwater needed to know the quarry had gone to earth.

Then, during the tail of a blow from south-west, as the wind veered into the north-west and the sky cleared to patchy sunshine, as Drinkwater dozed the afternoon watch away in his cot, the cabin door flew open.

‘Zur!' It was Tregembo.

‘Eh? What is it?' he sat up blinking.

‘Zur, cap'n compliments, an' we've a lugger in sight, zur. She's a big 'un an' Lieutenant Griffiths says to tell 'ee that if your interested, zur, she's got a black swallowtail pendant at her masthead . . .'

‘The devil she has,' said Drinkwater throwing his legs over the cot and feeling for his shoes. Sleep left him instantly and he was aware of Tregembo grinning broadly.

Drinkwater rushed on deck. Griffiths was standing by the starboard rail, white hair streaming in the wind, his face a hawk-like mask of concentration on the chase, the personification of the cutter's name. Bracing himself against the scend of the vessel Drinkwater levelled his glass to starboard.

Both lugger and cutter were running free with
Kestrel
cracking on sail in hot pursuit. Drinkwater watched the altering aspect of the lugger, saw her grow just perceptibly larger as
Kestrel
slowly ate up the yards that separated them. Almost without conscious thought his brain was resolving a succession of vectors while his feet, planted wide on the planking, felt
Kestrel
's response to the straining canvas aloft.

Drinkwater could see a bustle on the stern of the lugger and was trying to make it out when Griffiths spoke from the corner of his mouth.

‘D'you still have that black pendant on board?'

‘Yes sir, it's in the flag locker.'

‘Then hoist it . . .'

Drinkwater did as he was bid, mystified as to the significance of his actions and the importance of Brown's bit of ‘Celtic nonsense'. But to Griffiths the black flag of the Breton held a challenge to his heart, it was he or Santhonax and he acknowledged the encounter in single combat.

There was a sound like tearing calico. A well-pointed ball passed close down the starboard side and Drinkwater could see the reason for the bustle aft. The lugger's people had a stern chaser pointing astern. Through his glass he could see her gun crew reloading and a tall man in a blue coat staring at them through a telescope. As he lowered the glass to address an officer next to him Drinkwater saw the face in profile. The dark, handsome features and the streaming curls, even at a distance, were unmistakably those of Santhonax.

Beside him Griffiths breathed a sigh of confirmation.

‘Now Mr Traveller,' he said to the gunner, ‘let us see whether having you on board improves our gunnery.'

Jeremiah Traveller rolled forward, his eyes agleam. The Kestrels
had been at General Quarters since they sighted the lugger and every man was as taut as a weather backstay. Although her ports were closed to prevent water entering the muzzles, the gun crews were ready, their slow matches smouldering in the linstocks and the breeches charged with their lethal mixture of fine milled powder and the most perfect balls the gun captains could find in the racks. Now they watched Traveller elbow aside the captain of Number 1 gun and lower himself to sight along the barrel.

Drinkwater cast his eyes aloft. The huge mainsail was freed off to larboard, the square top and topgallant sails bowed their yards, widened by stunsails, and the weather clew of the running course was set.
Kestrel
, with a clean bottom, had rarely sailed better, tramping the waves underfoot and scending down their breaking crests.

A movement forward caught his attention and he watched Traveller straighten up, the linstock in his hand, waiting for the moment to fire. Swiftly Drinkwater clapped his glass to his eye. The stern of the lugger swung across the lens, her name gold on blue scrollwork:
Êtoile du Diable
.

The report of the bow chaser rolled aft and Drinkwater saw a hole appear in the chase's mizen. Then her stern chaser fired and through his feet he felt the impact strike the hull.

‘
Myndiawl
!' growled Griffiths beside him.

‘We're overhauling him fast, sir,' said Drinkwater by way of reassurance. He felt a sense of unease emanating from the commander and began to divine the reason. Santhonax could haul his wind in a moment.
Kestrel
, with her squaresails set, would take much longer.

Traveller fired again and a cheer from forward told of success. The mizen yard sagged in two pieces, the sail collapsing and flogging. The triumph was illusory and Griffiths swore again. That loss of sail would the sooner compel Santhonax to turn to windward.

‘Get the course and kites in Mr Drinkwater,' snapped Griffiths.

‘In t'gallant stuns'ls . . .' Drinkwater began bawling orders. Men left each gun and swarmed aloft to handle the sails and rig in the booms. Short chivvied them up. A cluster gathered round the mast, tallying onto the ropes under Jessup's direction, a group on the downhauls and sheets, a couple to ease the tacks and halliards. Drinkwater saw Jessup's nod.

‘Shorten sail!' Forward Traveller fired again but Drinkwater was watching the stunsails belly forward, lifting their booms.

‘Steady there,' said Griffiths quietly to the helmsman. A broach now would be disastrous. The men on deck tramped away with the
downhauls and sheets and the stunsails came down, flapping onto the deck like wounded gulls.

Vaguely aware of a second thump into the hull and a patch of blue sky through the topsail Drinkwater ordered in the topgallant.

‘There she goes,' shouted Griffiths as
Êtoile du Diable
swung to starboard, briefly exposing her stern. ‘Fire as you bear!' he called to the gun captains, left by their charges as their crews shortened sail.

But as he turned Santhonax's stern chaser roared, double shotted. The ball skipped once on a wave top, smashed through
Kestrel
's starboard rail and clove both helmsmen in two.

Griffiths leapt to the tiller and leant his weight against it.

‘Leggo weather braces! Haul taut the lee! Man the sheets there!' He pushed down on the big tiller and brought
Kestrel
round in the wake of the lugger.

It was as well he did so for as he passed Santhonax fired his starboard broadside. Most of the shot plunged into the smooth, green with the upwellings from her rudder, that trailed astern of
Kestrel
's turning hull. But two balls struck the cutter, one demolishing four feet of cap and ruff tree rail, the other opened the muzzle of Number 11 gun like a grotesque iron flower.

Drinkwater had the topgallant in its buntlines and until he doused the topsail
Kestrel
would not point as close to the wind as the lugger. Already the alteration of course had increased the apparent wind speed over the deck. Spray was coming aboard now as
Kestrel
began to drop back from the chase, the angle between them widening.

It seemed an age before the squaresails were secured. Forward Traveller and the headmost gun captains were banging away. Johnson, the carpenter, was hovering at Griffiths's elbow. ‘He's hulled us, sir, I'll get a man on the pump . . .' Griffiths nodded.

‘Sail shortened, sir.'

‘Harden right in, Mr Drinkwater, and lower those bloody centre plates.'

‘Aye, aye, sir!'

Kestrel
hauled her wind as close as possible, narrowing the angle with the lugger. The chase ran on for an hour in a westerly direction and pointing their pieces carefully the gunners of both ships continued their duel. The Kestrels cheered several times as splinters were struck from the rail of the lugger but their hearts were no longer in the fight.

Drinkwater had a sight of the deck of the
Étoile du Diable
as she heeled over to larboard, exposing the view. Even with all the quoins
out they were having trouble pointing their guns while the Kestrels had all theirs rammed in to level their own cannon and the labour of hauling their carriages uphill against the list. Three men had gone below to Appleby nursing splinter wounds when a shot from the
Étoile du Diable
, fired below the horizontal, ricochetted off the face of a wave and hit
Kestrel
's starboard chain-whale from below. The lignum vitae deadeye of the after mainmast stay was shattered and the lanyard parted. A second ball carried away the topmast stay and a sudden crack from aloft showed the topmast tottering slowly to larboard.

‘Goddamn . . . cut that away!' But Drinkwater was already rushing forward, leaping into the weather rigging with an axe. The passage of a final ball winded him and left him clinging trembling to the lower shrouds, gasping for breath like a fly in a web. He felt the shrouds shudder as the topmast tore down the lee side, shaking the mast and carrying the yards with it. A stunsail boom end caught the mainsail and opened a small split which slowly enlarged itself. The wreckage fell half in the water, half on the larboard waist.
Kestrel
lost way.

She was beaten.

On the starboard bow
Étoile du Diable
drew ahead. Upon her quarter stood Santhonax with his plumed hat in his hand.

He waved it over his head. Then he jumped down amongst the gunners who had served the still smoking stern chaser.

‘
Cythral
,' muttered Griffiths, his eyes glittering after the enemy. ‘Let fly the sheets!' he shouted.

Drinkwater climbed down to the deck.

‘Mr Drinkwater!'

‘Sir?'

‘Secure what you can of that gear overside.' Their eyes met in disappointment.

‘ “Pride cometh before a fall”, Mr Drinkwater. See what you can do.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.'

Drinkwater went forward again. Leaning over the side he surveyed the raffle of spars, canvas and cordage, of blocks and ironwork. And something else.

At the trailing masthead, one end of its halliard broken and dragging along the cutter's side, was the black swallowtail pendant, mocking them.