An Eye of the Fleet (19 page)

‘I am sure, sir,' said Nathaniel, ‘that I shall do all in my
power to assist your daughter should she need my protection . . .'

The old man smiled into the darkness. He had known it the instant the boy told them his name . . . Nathaniel . . . in the Hebrew tongue it meant a gift from God. He sighed with contentment.

The unusual sound of birdsong woke Drinkwater next morning. Realisation that he lay under the same roof as Elizabeth woke him to full consciousness. He was quite unable to sleep so rose and dressed.

Quietly descending the stairs he moved through the kitchen and unlatched the door. The invigorating chill of early morning made him shiver as he strode out on the dew-wet grass.

Without thinking he began pacing up and down the lawn, head down, hands behind his back, plunged in thoughts of last night's conversation with the old parson.

He felt a surge of excitement and relief at Bower's approval and smiled inwardly with self-congratulation. He stopped midway between the apple trees and the house. ‘You're a lucky dog, Nathaniel,' he muttered to himself.

The creak of an opening window and the ring of laughter brought him back to reality.

From the kitchen window Elizabeth, her hair about her shoulders, was smiling at him.

‘Are you pacing your quarterdeck, sir,' she mocked.

Nathaniel was suddenly struck by the ridiculousness of his actions. With the whole of Cornwall at his feet he had paced over an area roughly equal to a frigate's quarterdeck.

‘Why . . .' he raised his hands in a shrug, ‘. . . I never gave it a thought.' Elizabeth was laughing at him, the sound of her laughter coming out of the window borne on the scent of frying eggs.

The haunting paradoxes of
Cyclops
and the malice of Morris seemed no longer important. All that mattered now was the laughter and the smiling face . . . and the sizzling freshness of fried eggs.

‘Y're a lucky dog, Nathaniel,' he muttered again as he crossed the grass to the kitchen door.

The London mail left Falmouth later that day with Nathaniel perched on its exterior bound for Plymouth. By the time it reached Truro Nathaniel, riding on the crest of growing confidence, had ascertained he possessed sufficient funds for the fare to London and back.

The weather remained fair and the experience of hurtling through towns and villages so agreeable and in harmony with his spirits that he decided the Plymouth guardship could do without him for a further three or four days. The idea had come to him while pacing the lawn that morning. Discussion of his family had filled him with a longing to return home, no matter how briefly. There had been no news of
Cyclops
when he had left Plymouth in the Trinity Yacht and Poulter, he knew, would not put into Plymouth to inform the authorities that he had landed him at Falmouth. It was, therefore probable that a few days of additional absence would go unnoticed.

He came to an arrangement for a half price fare riding on the “conveniency” and settled down to enjoy the unprecedented pleasure of a journey through the green of southern England on an uncommonly fine day.

It was late in the afternoon following when, stiff from the long journey and tired from the trudge up the Great North Road, Drinkwater reached Barnet. He pressed on to Monken Hadley reaching the small house at last.

His desire to see his mother and brother had increased with the growing love he felt for Elizabeth. The strong attraction of her home had reminded him of his own and Bower's infirmity had emphasised the effect of passing time upon his remaining parent. His stay in Falmouth was limited by propriety yet he did not wish to kick his heels aboard that festering guardship.

Nathaniel, despite his fatigue, was pleased with himself. The freedom and independence he had experienced on
Algonquin
and the Trinity Yacht had served to mature him, the responsibility of the prize had stamped its imprint upon his character. His growing relationship with Elizabeth, certain in at least its foundation, lent him both hope and stability, banishing many of the uncertainties of the past.

His altered outlook had found expression and practical reward. He had looted King's small hoard of gold from the
Algonquin
somewhat shamefacedly, aware that his morality was questionable despite the usages of war. When this had been supplemented by Calvert's respectably acquired guineas and, most important of all his certificate of examination as master's mate, he had a degree of autonomy for the first time in his life. It lent a jauntiness to the final steps to his mother's
front door.

He knocked and lifted the latch.

Afterwards, when there was time to think, he realised he was right to come. His mother's pleasure in his visit was only clouded by its brevity. To him, however, her failing health and increasingly obvious penury were distressing and oppressive. He had not stayed long. He had talked and read to his mother and, when she dozed, slipped out to ask the Rector to engage someone from Barnet to attend to some of her needs. Calvert's guineas had gone there, and from the Rector he had learned that Ned was rarely seen in Monken Hadley. Nathaniel's brother had found employment as a groom at West Lodge with his beloved horses, had taken a common-law wife from among the maids there and come near to breaking his poor mother's heart. The Rector had shaken his head and muttered ‘Like father, like son . . .', but he promised to do what he could for Mrs Drinkwater, closing his hand over the gold.

Nathaniel sat in the quiet of the room watching motes of dust in the oblique shaft of sunlight that streamed in through the little window. He would return to Plymouth on the morrow; he felt the inactivity, the strange silence, discomposing. His mother dozed and, recalling the reason for his visit, he quietly resumed his letter to Ned. It was badly phrased, awkward in admonition but it spoke with the new found authority of the young man.

‘What are you doing?' the old lady's voice startled him.

‘Oh! Mother! . . . you are awake . . . just a note to Ned, to tell him to take more care of you . . .'

He saw her smile.

‘Dear Nathaniel,' she said simply, ‘You cannot stay longer?'

‘Mother, I must return to duty, already I . . .'

‘Of course my dear . . . you are a King's officer now . . . I understand . . .'

She held out her hand and Nathaniel knelt by her chair. He felt her frail arthritic hand brush his hair. He could think of no words adequate to the moment and had lost the means to say them.

‘Do not be too hard on Edward,' she said quietly. ‘He has his own life to lead and is very like his father . . .'

Nathaniel rose and bent over his mother, kissing her forehead, turning away to hide the tears in his eyes.

When he left next morning it was still dark. He did not know it but his mother heard him leave. It was only then she wept.

Drinkwater joined
Cyclops
again on the last day of October 1780. She had been in Plymouth Sound some days recruiting her prize crews and taking in fresh water and the tale of the retaking of
Algonquin
had preceeded him, borne on board by Hagan and the others. Drinkwater therefore found himself something of a hero to the lower deck with whom he was already popular after his beating of Morris.

The latter, however, had re-established something of his former ascendancy in the cockpit. Drinkwater's absence had helped, but a few new appointees to the frigate in the form of very young midshipmen had given Augustus Morris more victims. There was, though, one new member of the mess whom Drinkwater was quick to realise was a potential ally. Midshipman Cranston, a silent man of about thirty, had little liking for Morris's bombast or bullying. A former seaman, Cranston had fought his way up from the lower deck by sheer ability. He was clever and tough, and utterly unscrupulous. Drinkwater liked him instantly. He also liked another, though much younger addition to the mess. Mr White was a pale, diminutive boy of thirteen. White was the obvious choice for victimisation by Morris.

In the course of the succeeding weeks the now over-populated cockpit, whose members varied in age and pursuits was to become a bedlam of noise and quarrels.

Towards the end of November Captain Hope expressed himself ready once more to cruise against the enemy and the frigate left Plymouth beating west and south to resume her station. The weather was now uniformly foul. Depression succeeded depression and a cycle was established of misery below decks and unremitted labour above. The outbreaks of petty thieving, fighting, insubordination and drunkenness that were the natural consequences of the environment broke out again. When a man was flogged for petty theft Drinkwater wondered if it was the same man who had been instrumental in the retaking of the
Algonquin
. At all events he no longer
baulked at such a spectacle, inured now to it, though he knew other methods existed to keep men at unpleasant labour. But they had no part here, in the overcrowded decks of
Cyclops
and he felt no anger with Captain Hope for maintaining discipline with the iron hand that enabled the Royal Navy to sustain its ceaseless vigilance.

To the ship's company of
Cyclops
it was the dull, monotonous routine of normality. A fight with the enemy would have come as a blessed relief to both officers and men.

Captain Hope appeared on deck as little as possible, nursing a grievance that he had not yet received his share of the prize money for the capture of the
Santa Teresa
. Lieutenant Devaux showed signs of strain from similar motives, his usual bantering tones giving way to an uncharacteristic harassment of his subordinate lieutenants, especially Mr Skelton, a young and inexperienced substitute for the late Lieutenant Price.

Old Blackmore, the sailing master, observed all and said little. He found these peevish King's Officers, deprived of their two-pence prize money and behaving like old maids, distasteful ship-mates. Bred in a hard school he expected to be uncomfortable at sea and was rarely disappointed.

Mr Surgeon Appleby, ever the philosopher, shook his head sadly over his blackstrap. He ruminated on the condition of the ship to anyone who cared to listen.

‘You see, gentlemen, about you the natural fruits of man's own particular genius: Corruption.' He enunciated the word with a professional relish as if sniffing an amputated stump, seeking gangrene. ‘Corruption is a process arrived at after a period of growing and maturation. Medically speaking it occurs after death, whether in the case of an apple which had fallen from the bough and no longer receives sustenance from the tree, or, in the case of the human body which corrupts irrevocably after the heart has ceased to function. In both cases the span of time may be seen as a complete cycle.

‘But in the case of spiritual corruption, I assure you, the process is faster and independent of the heart. Observe our noble ship's company. A pride of lions in battle . . .' Appleby paused to fortify his monologue with blackstrap. ‘. . . They are corrupted by the foetid atmosphere of a frigate.

‘Sit down, Mr Drinkwater, sit down and remember this when you are an Admiral. As a consequence all manner of evils
appear; drunkenness, quarrelling, insubordination, sodomy, theft, and worst of all, for it is a crime against God and not merely man, discontent. And what nurtures that discontent?'

‘Why prize money!'

‘
What
damned prize money, Bones?' interrupted Lieutenant Keene.

‘
Exactly
my friend.
What
prize money?
You
won it.
You
were awarded it, but
where
the deuce is it? Why lining the pockets of Milor' Sandwich and his Tory toadies.
Someone
is growing fat on merely the interest. God's blood they too are as corrupted as this stinking ship. I tell you, gentlemen, this will rebound upon them one day. One day it will not only be the damned Yankees that defy their Lordships but Tom Bowline and Jack Rattlin . . .'

‘Aye and Harry Appleby!' shouted a voice.

A bored laugh drifted round the gloom of the gunroom.
Cyclops
plunged into a sea and expletives exploded in short, exasperated grunts from several voices.

‘Who'd be a god-damned sailor?'

To Drinkwater these weeks were less painful than to most. It is true he dreamed of Elizabeth but his love did not oppress him. Rather it sustained him. Blackmore was delighted that he had acquired his certificate from Calvert and tutored him in some of the more abstruse mysteries of celestial navigation. He also struck up a firm friendship with Lieutenant Wheeler of the Marines. Whenever the weather moderated sufficiently to allow it Wheeler and Drinkwater engaged in fencing practice. The frequent sight of his “enemy” thus engaged was a painful reminder of his humiliation to Morris; and the longer Drinkwater seemed immune from Morris the more the latter wished to revenge himself upon the younger man. Morris began to form his earlier alliances with like-minded men amongst the least desirable elements of
Cyclops
's company.