The Corvette (25 page)

‘Thou dids't right, Friend. Happen the Lord was about to punish our pride. We must make sail without delay and take this fair wind to the south-west. We have no need to linger. I pray thee do not delay, thy ship is not fit to withstand a single fastening in the ice. Go, go!'

The watches were swiftly alerted on the other whalers and within a few minutes the hands were being tumbled up on all the ships.
Diana
, the leewardmost would have to leave first, for the wind pinned them slightly onto the ice, but her sturdy sides withstood a scrape or two before her rudder bit and her head came off.
Truelove
's bow nudged the remnants of
Narwhal
that had rested, half sunk, upon a ledge of ice, and she to stood out into the lead, her hands dropping the forecourse as well as setting the topsails.
Melusine
followed, her spirketting grinding on
Narwhal
as her bow was thrust out into open water. As the hands dropped the forecourse in its buntlines it occurred to Drinkwater, as one of those savage ironies truth thrust before him, that had not
Narwhal
's burnt timbers lain like a fender ahead of them, the onshore wind might have pinned
Melusine
's hull against the ice forever.

He looked astern as
Diana, Earl Percy
and
Provident
, bumped off the wreck and out into the safety of open sea. Then the six ships stood south-west, aware that the lead, once so wide and inviting, so apparently permanent and alive with whales, was already narrowing on either beam.

There was no longer any sign of a single whale.

‘(Men) live like wild beasts in a deep solitude of spirit and will, scarcely any two being able to agree since each follows his own pleasure or caprice.'

Giambattista Vico (1668–1744)

Drinkwater kept the deck for three days. By the end of this time he was reduced to a stupor of fatigue, suffering from a quinsy and incipient toothache. But
Melusine
and the whalers had broken out of the lead to the south-west and, but for the presence of a thousand ice floes, were in what passed for ‘open' water. Their escape from being set fast and crushed had been remarkable, as much for the danger to the ship as to the frequency of its occurrence. Perhaps twenty or thirty times, Drinkwater had lost count, they tacked, wore, or threw all aback to make a stern-board clear of impending doom. Many more times than this the hands bore lighter floes off with the spare spars. There were several minor injuries, one rupture and a case of crushed ribs amongst the men. The days of hunting parties were long forgotten, the yachting atmosphere paid for ten times over. Despite their best endeavours
Melusine
was several times jarred by collision with floes and the increasing number of growlers that bore witness to the high summer of the region.

There was little conviviality in gunroom or cockpit. On the berth deck the men rolled in or out of their hammocks as the watches changed, dog-tired, cold and miserable. Amid this atmosphere Macpherson ceased his ravings and quietly gave up the ghost, while Harvey now awash with opiates, continued to breathe with increasing difficulty. The internal routines of the ship went on, hammocks were piped up, the decks scrubbed, spirits served and the hands piped to their dinners. The mess kids were scoured and the hammocks piped down. The cook and his mates swore and blasphemed at the coppers, the bosun's mates cursed at the hatchways, the loblolly boys in the cockpit as they cleared night soil from the sick.

On the quarterdeck Hill and Bourne bore the brunt of the activity, for Drinkwater had doubled the watches, and Rispin and Gorton were stationed in the waist, or forward, supervising the staving off of the ice.

And through it all Drinkwater kept the deck, his mind numbed with weariness, yet continually aware of every influence upon the movement of his ship. At moments of greatest peril he was the first to be aware of a sudden set towards a berg, the swirl of undertow suggesting the submerged presence of a growler or the catspaw of a squall from the turbulent lee of a large ice hummock. And it was Drinkwater who first suspected there might be something wrong with the rudder. It was nothing serious, a suspicious creaking when he listened from the privacy of the quarter-gallery latrine, a certain sluggishness as
Melusine
came to starboard. In fact it was at first only a suspicion, a figment, he thought, of an over-anxious mind. In the face of more pressing problems he tended to dismiss it. When he came below at the end of his three-day vigil as they drifted into the ‘open' water and the wind, perversely, fell to a dead calm, he flung himself across his cot in grateful oblivion.

But when he woke, with
Melusine
rolling gently on a long, low swell, he heard again the creak from the rudder stock below.

Wearily he came on deck to find Hill on watch.

‘What time is it, Mr Hill?'

‘Six bells in the afternoon watch, sir.'

‘I have slept the clock round . . . tell me, do the quartermasters complain of the steering?'

‘No, sir.' Drinkwater looked at the two men at the wheel.

‘How does she steer?'

‘She seems to drag a little, sir, a-coming to 'midships.'

‘When you've had helm which way?'

‘Larboard, I think, sir.'

‘Why didn't you report it?'

The man shrugged. ‘Only noticed it today, sir, while we've bin tryin' to catch this fluky wind, sir.'

‘Very well.' He turned to Hill. ‘I'm mystified, Mr Hill, but we'll keep an eye on it. Damned if I don't think there's something amiss, but what, I'm at a loss to know.'

‘Aye, aye, sir, I'll take a look in the steerage if you wish.' Drinkwater nodded and Hill slipped below to return a few minutes later shaking his head.

‘Nothing wrong, sir. Not that I can see.'

‘Very well.'

‘That whale hit the rudder, sir, and we've had a fair number of these damned ice floes . . .'

‘Deck there!' They both looked aloft. ‘Deck there! Think I can see gun-fire three points to starboard!'

The two officers looked at each other, then Drinkwater shouted, ‘Silence there!' They stood listening. A faint boom came rolling over the limpid water. ‘That's gun-fire, by God!' Drinkwater ran forward and swung himself up into the main rigging. As he climbed he stared about him, trying to locate the whalers, aware that they had become widely dispersed in their struggle through the ice. He could see
Diana
, about five miles away to the eastward and ahead of them eight, perhaps ten miles distant was
Truelove
. Yes, her barque rig could be plainly seen beneath the curved foot of the main topgallant.
Earl Percy
and
Provident
were also to the east. He struggled up into the crow's nest as Leek slid agilely down.

‘Where away?' gasped Drinkwater with the effort of his climb.

‘Four points now, sir. I think it's where I last saw
Faithful
, sir, lost her behind a berg.'

‘Very well.' He picked up the glass and stared to the south-west. He could see nothing. ‘Leek!'

‘Sir?'

‘Away to Mr Hill, ask him to rig out the booms and set stun's'ls aloft and alow.'

‘Stun's'ls aloft 'n' alow, aye, sir.' He watched Leek reach out like a monkey, over one hundred feet above the deck, and casually grab a backstay. The man diminished in size as he descended and Drinkwater levelled his glass once more. He felt the mast tremble as the topmen mounted the shrouds, he heard the mates and midshipmen as they supervised the rigging of the booms and the leading of outhauls and downhauls, heel-ropes and sheets. And then, as his patience was running out, he felt
Melusine
heel as she increased her speed. Five minutes later he located the
Faithful
.

She was fifteen or twenty miles away, perhaps more, for it was hard to judge. Her shape was vertically attenuated by refraction. She seemed to float slightly above the surface of the sea amid a city of the most fantastic minarets, a fairy-tale picture reminiscent of the Arabian Nights displaced to a polar latitude. But Drinkwater's interest was diverted from the extraordinary appearance of refracted icebergs by the unusual shape alongside the
Faithful
. At first he took it for a mirror image of the whaler. But then he saw the little points of yellow light between the ships. Sawyers was a Quaker and carried no guns. The second image was a hostile ship; an enemy engaging
Faithful
. Drinkwater swore; he was seven leagues away in light airs at the very moment Earl St Vincent had foreseen his presence would be required to protect the whalers.

‘An enemy sir?'

‘Yes, Mr Bourne, at a guess twenty miles distant and already with a prize crew on board the
Faithful
, damn it . . . Mr Hill, bear up, bear up! D'you not see the growler on the starboard bow . . .' Drinkwater broke off to cough painfully. His throat was rasped raw by the persistent demands made on him to shout orders, but he felt an overwhelming desire to press after the ship that had taken one of his charges from under his very nose.

‘I have a midshipman at the masthead and want a pair of young eyes kept on the enemy and prize until they're both under our lee. The midshipman that loses sight of them will marry the gunner's daughter!' He coughed again. ‘Now double the watches, Mr Bourne, this may prove a long chase.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.' Bourne hesitated, unwilling to provoke a captain whom he knew to be short-tempered if his orders were not attended to without delay. ‘Beg pardon, sir, but what about the other ships?'

‘I have made them a signal to the effect that I am chasing an enemy to the south-west. My orders to them oblige them to close together. Let us hope they do what they are told, Mr Bourne.'

Bourne took the hint, touched the fore-cock of his hat and hurried off. Drinkwater swallowed with difficulty, swore, and set himself to pace the quarterdeck, leaving the business of working the ship through the ice to Hill until he was relieved by Bourne himself at eight bells. He was beyond shouting orders, feeling a mild fever coming on and worrying over the loss of the
Faithful
and the ominous creaking that came from the rudder. But
Melusine
handled well enough and after another hour Tregembo appeared to announce Drinkwater's dinner, served late, as had become his custom in high latitudes to try and differentiate between day and night in the perpetual light.

It was while he was eating that Mr Frey came below to report they had lost the wind and the enemy.

‘What . . .?' His voice whispered and he tried to clear his throat, ‘Upon what point of sailing was the enemy and prize when last seen, Mr Frey?'

‘Both ships were close hauled on the starboard tack, sir. They had a fair breeze before the fog closed in.'

‘And their heading?'

‘South-west, sir.'

‘Very well. Tell Mr Bourne to strike the stun's'ls, and reduce to all plain sail. Double the forward lookouts and make good a course towards the south-west. A man to go to the mainmast head every hour
to see if the enemy masts are above the fog. Kindly call me in two hours time.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.' Frey hesitated in the doorway.

‘Well, what is it?'

‘If you please, sir, Mr Bourne said I was to ask you if you wanted Mr Singleton to attend you?'

‘Damn Mr Bourne's impertinence, Mr Frey, you've your orders to attend to . . .' The boy fled and, rolling himself in his cloak, Drinkwater flung himself across his cot shivering.

Two hours later Mr Frey called him. Staggering to his feet, his head spinning, Drinkwater ascended to the quarterdeck. Although the thermometer registered some 36° Fahrenheit it seemed colder. Every rope and spar dripped with moisture and the decks were dark with it. Mr Bourne touched his hat and vacated his side of the quarterdeck. It could not by any stretch of the imagination be described as the ‘windward side' for
Melusine
lay wallowing in a calm. Almost alongside her a ridge of ice, hummocked and cracked with apparent age gleamed wetly in the greyness. It was not daylight, neither was it night. The ship might have been the only living thing in an eternity of primordial mist, an atmosphere at once eerie and oppressive through which each creak of the ship's fabric, each slat of idle canvas or groan of parrel as she rolled in the low swell, seemed invested with a more than ordinary significance. The grinding creak from the rudder stock seemed deafening now. Drinkwater was too sick to attribute this heightened perception to his fever, and too unsteady on his legs to begin to pace the deck. Instead he jammed himself against the rail close to the mizen rigging and beckoned Bourne over.