The Corvette (2 page)

‘Well?'

‘Three, my Lord,' said Templeton, short of breath from his haste. ‘There are three whose persistence has been most marked.'

‘Go on, sir, go on.'

‘White, my Lord, Captain Richard White . . .'

‘Too senior for a sloop, but he must have the next forty-four, pray do you note that . . .'

‘Very well, my Lord. Then there is Yelland. He did prodigious well at Copenhagen . . .'

St Vincent sniffed. Whatever Yelland had done at Copenhagen was not enough to overcome the First Lord's prejudice. Templeton, aware that his own desire to please was bordering on the effusive, contrived to temporise: ‘Though of course he is only a commander . . .'

‘Just so, Templeton.
Melusine
is a twenty, a post-ship. Who is the third?'

‘Er . . . Drinkwater, my Lord. Oh, I beg your lordship's pardon he is also only a commander.'

‘No matter,' St Vincent mused on the name, trying to recall a face. ‘Drinkwater?'

‘I shall have to return . . .' began Templeton unhappily, but the First Lord cut him off.

‘Read me his file. We may appoint him temporarily without the necessity of making him post.'

Templeton's nerve was near breaking point. In attempting to shuffle the files several papers came loose and floated down onto the rich carpet. He was beginning to regret his rapid promotion and thank his stars it was only temporary. He had forgotten all about his promises to his kinsman on the
Melusine
.

‘Er, Nathaniel Drinkwater, my Lord, commissioned lieutenant October 1797 after Camperdown. First of the brig
Hellebore
sent on special service to the Red Sea by order of Lord Nelson. Lieutenant-in-command of the bomb tender
Virago
during the Baltic Campaign, promoted Master and Commander for his services prior to and during the battle of Copenhagen on the recommendation of both Parker and Nelson. Lately wounded in Lord Nelson's bombardment of Boulogne the same year and invalided of his wound until his present persistent application, my Lord.'

St Vincent nodded. ‘I have him now. I recollect him boarding
Victory
in '98 off Cadiz before Nelson incurred their lordships' displeasure for sending that brig round Africa. Did he not bring back the
Antigone
?'

Templeton flicked the pages. ‘Yes, my Lord. The
Antigone
, French National Frigate was purchased into the Service.'

‘H'm.' St Vincent considered the matter. He remembered Mr Drinkwater was no youngster as a lieutenant in 1798. Yet St Vincent had remarked him then and had a vague recollection of a firm mouth and a pair of steady grey eyes that spoke of a quiet ability. And he had impressed both Parker
and
Nelson, no mean feat given the differences between the two men, whilst his record and his persistent applications marked him as an energetic officer. Maturity and energy were just the combination wanted for the
Melusine
if the intelligence reports were accurate. St Vincent began to cheer up. Palgrave had not been his choice, for he had commanded
Melusine
throughout the Peace, a fact that said more about Palgrave's influence than his ability.

‘There's one other thing, my Lord,' offered Templeton, eager to re-establish his own reputation in his lordship's eyes.

‘What is it?'

‘Drinkwater, sir,' said the clerk, plucking the fact from the file like a low trump from a bad hand, ‘has been employed on secret service before: the cutter
Kestrel
, my Lord, employed by Lord Dungarth's department.'

A gleam of triumph showed in St Vincent's eye. ‘That clinches it, Templeton. Have a letter of appointment drawn up for my signature before eight bells . . . noon, Templeton, noon, and instructions for Captain Drinkwater to attend here with all despatch.' He paused reflecting. ‘Desire him to wait upon me on Friday.'

‘Yes, my Lord.' Templeton bent to retrieve the papers scattered about the floor. St Vincent returned to his window.

‘Does one
smoke
a viper from his nest, Templeton?' The clerk looked up.

‘Beg pardon, my Lord, but I do not know.'

‘No matter, but let us see what Captain Drinkwater can manage, eh?'

‘Yes, my Lord.' Templeton looked up from the carpet, aware that his lordship was no longer angry with him. He wondered if the unknown Captain Drinkwater knew that the First Lord's receiving hours were somewhat eccentric and doubted it. He reflected that there were conditions to the patronage of so punctilious a First Lord as John Jervis, Earl St Vincent.

‘Be so kind as to have my carriage sent round, Templeton.'

The clerk rose, his bundle of papers clasped against his chest. ‘At once, my Lord.' He was already formulating the letter to his kinsman aboard the
Melusine
:

My Dear Germaney
,

In my diurnal consultations with his excellency The First Lord, I have arranged for your new commander to be Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater. He is not to be made post, but appointed as Job Captain so there is hope yet for your own advancement
 . . .

‘Non, m'sieur, non
 . . . 
Pardon
,' Monsieur Bescond smote his forehead with the palm of his right hand and switched to heavily accented English. ‘The shoulder, Capitaine, it must be 'igher. More . . .'ow you say? Elevated.'

Drinkwater gritted his teeth. The pain in his shoulder was still maddening but it was an ache now, a manageable sensation after the agony of splintered bone and torn muscle. And he could not blame Bescond. He had voluntarily submitted himself to this rigorous daily exercise to stretch the butchered fibres of his shoulder whose scars now ran down into the right upper arm and joined the remains of an old wound given him by the French agent Santhonax. That had been in a dark alley in Sheerness the year of the Great Mutiny and he had endured the dull pain in wet or cold weather these past six years.

Monsieur Bescond, the emigré attorney turned fencing master, recalled him to his purpose. Drinkwater came on guard again and felt his sword arm trembling with the effort. The point of his foil seemed to waver violently and as Bescond stepped back he lunged suddenly lest his opponent notice the appalling quivering.

Mr Quilhampton's attention was elsewhere. The foible of Drinkwater's foil bent satisfyingly against the padding of Quilhampton's plastron.

‘
Bravo, M'sieur, tres bien
 . . . that was classical in its simplicity. And for you, M'sieur,' he said addressing Quilhampton and avoiding the necessity of using his name, ‘you must never let your attention wander.'

Pleased with his unlooked for success Drinkwater terminated the lesson by removing his mask before Quilhampton could avenge himself.

‘Were you distracted, James?' Whipping off his own mask Quilhampton nodded in the direction of the door. Drinkwater turned.

‘Yes, Tregembo, what is it?'

Drinkwater peeled off his plastron and gauntlet. His shirt stuck to
his lean body, still emaciated after his wounding. A few loose locks of hair had escaped the queue and were plastered down the side of his head.

‘I brought it as soon as I saw the seal, zur,' rumbled the old Cornishman as he handed the packet to Drinkwater. Quilhampton caught sight of the red wafer of the Admiralty with its fouled anchor device as Drinkwater tore it open.

Waiting with quickening pulse Quilhampton regarded his old commander with mounting impatience. He saw the colour drain from Drinkwater's face so that the thin scar on the left cheek and the blue powder burns above the eye seemed abruptly conspicuous.

‘What is it, m'sieur? Not bad news?' Bescond too watched anxiously. He had come to admire the thin sea-officer with the drooping shoulder and his even skinnier companion with the wooden left hand. To Bescond they personified the dogged resistance of his adopted country to the monsters beyond the Channel who had massacred his parents and driven a pitchfork into the belly of his pregnant wife.

‘Mr Q,' said Drinkwater with sudden formality, ignoring the Frenchman.

‘Sir?' answered Quilhampton, aware that the contents of the packet had transformed the
salle d'armes
into a quarterdeck.

‘It seems we have a ship at last! M. Bescond, my best attentions to you, I give you good day. Tregembo, my coat! God's bones, Mr Q, I have been made a “Job Captain”, appointed to a sloop of war!'

An elated James Quilhampton accompanied Drinkwater to his house in Petersfield High Street. Since his widowed mother had obtained him a midshipman's berth on the brig
Hellebore
, thanks to the good offices of Lieutenant Drinkwater, Quilhampton had considered himself personally bound to his senior. Slight though Drinkwater's influence was, Quilhampton recognised the fact that he had no other patron. He therefore accorded Drinkwater an absolute loyalty that was the product of his generous nature. His own mother's close ties with Elizabeth Drinkwater, had made him an intimate of the house in the High Street and it had been Quilhampton who, with Mr Lettsom, late surgeon of the bomb vessel
Virago
, had brought Drinkwater home after his terrible wounding off Boulogne.

To Quilhampton the Drinkwater household represented ‘home' more than the mean lodgings his mother maintained. Louise Quilhampton, a pretty, talkative widow assisted Elizabeth Drinkwater in a school run for the poor children of the town and surrounding
villages. Her superficial qualities were a foil to Mistress Drinkwater's and she was more often to be found in the house of her friend where her frivolous chatter amused five-year-old Charlotte Amelia and the tiny and newest arrival in the Drinkwater ménage, Richard Madoc.

James Quilhampton was as much part of the family as his mother had become. He had restrained Charlotte Amelia from interfering while her father sat for his portrait to the French prisoner of war, Gaston Bruilhac. And he had rescued her from a beating by Susan Tregembo, the cook, who had caught the child climbing over a fire to touch the cleverly applied worms of yellow and brown paint with which Bruilhac had painted the epaulette to mark Drinkwater's promotion to Master and Commander. That had been in the fall of the year one, when Drinkwater had returned from the Baltic and before he rejoined Lord Nelson for the fateful attack on Boulogne.

Quilhampton smiled at the recollection now as he looked at Bruilhac's creditable portrait and waited for Drinkwater to return from informing Elizabeth of their imminent departure.

That single epaulette which had so fascinated little Charlotte Amelia ought properly to have been transferred to Drinkwater's right shoulder, Quilhampton thought. Apart from concealing the drooping shoulder it was scandalous that Drinkwater had not been made post-captain for his part in extricating the boats after Nelson's daring night attack had failed. Their Lordships did not like failure and Quilhampton considered his patron had suffered because there were those in high places who were not sorry to see another of Nelson's enterprises fail.

Quilhampton shook his head, angry that even now their Lordships had stopped short of giving Drinkwater the post-rank he deserved. Allowed the title ‘captain' only by courtesy, Commander Drinkwater had been made a ‘Job Captain', given an acting appointment while the real commander of His Britannic Majesty's Sloop
Melusine
was absent. It was damned unfair, particularly after the wounding Drinkwater had suffered off Boulogne.

The young master's mate had spent hours reading to the feverish Drinkwater as he lay an invalid. And then, ironically, peace had replaced war by an uneasy truce that few thought would last but which made those who had suffered loss acutely conscious of their sacrifices. The inactivity eroded the difference in rank between the two men and replaced it with friendship. Strangers who encountered Drinkwater convalescing with energetic ascents of Butser Hill in Quilhampton's company, were apt to think them brothers. From the
summit of the hill they watched the distant Channel for hours, Drinkwater constantly requesting reports on any sails sighted by Quilhampton through the telescope. And boylike they dodged the moralising rector on his lugubrious visits.

Gaston Bruilhac had been repatriated after executing delightful portraits of Drinkwater's two children and, Quilhampton recalled, he himself had been instrumental in persuading Elizabeth to sit for hers. He turned to look at the painting. The soft brown eyes and wide mouth stared back at him. It was a good likeness, he thought. The parlour door opened and Elizabeth entered the room. She wore a high-waisted grey dress and it was clear from her breathing and her colour that the news of their departure had caught her unawares.

‘So, James,' she said, ‘you are party of this conspiracy that ditches us the moment war breaks out again.' She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and Quilhampton mumbled ineffectual protests. He looked from Elizabeth to Drinkwater who came in behind her. His face was immobile.