The Flying Squadron (11 page)

‘Let go the cat stopper!' Wyatt called and there was a thrumming as the short rope ran out, followed by a splash
and then the vibrating rumble as the cable ran out through the hawse-holes.

The ship would take some time to bring up to her cable and Drinkwater pulled his Dollond glass from his tail pocket, levelling it momentarily at the noble house and its beautiful sweep of parkland. It made a mockery of his scrubby Suffolk acres and the homely architecture of Gantley Hall. He watched as a groom, a tall negro, brought a chestnut horse round the corner of the house from what he assumed was a stable block.

‘Castle Point, Captain.'

Drinkwater was not certain whether Vansittart, resplendent in plum-coloured velvet, meant this as a statement of fact, or a query as to whether or not they had reached their destination. He swung his glass to the ship ghosting up two cables' lengths distant from them. She too followed the same procedure, backing her sails and letting go her anchor.

‘Aloft and stow!'

‘Aloft and stow!'

The orders were piped and called simultaneously from each ship and it was clear a race was to be made of it. The topmen leapt into the rigging, setting the shrouds a-trembling in their haste to be aloft, urged on by Metcalfe's usual loud, unnecessary exhortations and the active chivvying of the bosun's mates.

Drinkwater watched the other vessel. She was no more than a sloop, a twenty-gun ship, but at her peak, lifting languidly in the light breeze, flew the stars and stripes of the United States of America. She had laid-to athwart their hawse off the Virginia capes, her guns run out, and had sent a lieutenant across by boat demanding to know the reason for their presence in American waters. By his bluster the officer had clearly been expecting a show of arrogant truculence on the part of the British commander. It transpired that within the previous two months a pair of British frigates had been cruising off the capes, stopping and searching American merchantmen for both contraband cargoes bound for Napoleonic Europe and British deserters. Hard-pressed for men, they had inevitably poached a handful of seamen which had infuriated
Yankee opinion, disturbed the peaceful prosecution of trade and insulted the sovereignty of the United States. The
Patrician
, it seemed, appeared as another such unwelcome visitor, and this time Mr Madison's administration had seen fit to have a guardship off the capes to ward off such an impertinence, if not to challenge openly any such mooted interference with American affairs upon her own doorstep.

Much of the American officer's bluster was understandable. After the unfortunate incident between the
Chesapeake
and the
Leopard
, the British government had not reacted when the USS
President
fired into the much smaller British sloop, the
Little Belt
. The British press, however, had made much of the incident, screeching for revenge, and the Ministry's restraint must have seemed to the Americans uncharacteristic, wanting only an opportunity to reverse the odds and hammer the upstart navy of the young republic. The materialization of the
Patrician
, clearly a frigate of the heaviest class possessed by the British navy, could therefore have but one interpretation to the commander of the patrolling sloop. He had sent his first lieutenant to find out.

Drinkwater received the young man with considerable courtesy, invited him below and introduced him to Mr Vansittart, whom he had ensconced in his own cabin. There was, Drinkwater observed, a regrettable air of condescension about Mr Vansittart, trifling enough in itself, but obvious enough to provoke a reaction from the American lieutenant, whose corn-pone homeliness was laid on a little for Vansittart's benefit.

Nevertheless, Lieutenant Jonas Tucker went back to his ship with a request for Vansittart's passport to be honoured. The two ships lay-to together for half an hour within sight of Cape Charles and Cape Henry awaiting the American commander's sanction before Lieutenant Tucker returned with his senior officer's compliments. Drinkwater refused his offer of pilotage as being not consonant with the dignity of the British flag, but diplomatically accepted an escort into Chesapeake Bay.

‘If you will follow our motions, sir,' Tucker had drawled, addressing Drinkwater and ignoring Vansittart,
who had accompanied him on to the quarterdeck, ‘and bring to your anchor here.' He unrolled a chart and Drinkwater bent to study it.

‘Off Castle Point?' Drinkwater had asked.

‘Just so, sir.'

Drinkwater had looked up, ‘Mr Wyatt, do we have Castle Point on our chart?'

‘You may have the loan of this one, sir,' said Tucker.

‘Thank you.' Drinkwater had accepted the American's offer. ‘We will salute the American flag, Lieutenant, immediately upon anchoring, if you will reciprocate.'

‘I guess that will be an honour, sir,' Tucker had replied with insincere formality, and had taken his departure.

They had doubled Cape Charles, standing south towards Cape Henry to avoid the Middle Ground before hauling the yards and swinging north-west into the bay. Ahead the American sloop led them in. They cleared the Horse Shoe shoal and The Spit, between which the York river debouched into the bay and where thirty years earlier Cornwallis had surrendered to Washington and Rochambeau, effectively ending the American War and ensuring independence from Great Britain. They steadied on a northward course, forming in line ahead, finally entering the mouth of the Potomac and anchoring two miles below Falmouth township, off Castle Point.

The rumble of the veering cable ceased with the application of the compressor bars.
Patrician
brought up to her anchor and immediately from her forecastle the first boom of the salute reverberated around the anchorage. Clouds of pigeons rose in a clattering of wings from the adjacent woods and a flock of quacking duck and wildfowl flew up from the reedbeds fringing the river. The concussion of the gunfire echoed back and forth, returned by the classical façade of the mansion. The exact, five-second intervals between each explosion were timed by Mr Gordon, so that the twenty-one discharges sounded like a cannonade, only to be repeated and amplified by the gunners of the Yankee sloop they now knew to be the USS
Stingray
.

As the last echoes faded away, Drinkwater turned to Vansittart.

‘Well, Vansittart, it's up to you now.' He paused to stare through his glass again at the American ship, continuing to speak. ‘I imagine our friend will provide a boat escort, but you can take my barge up to Washington. 'Tis a goodish pull, but unless we can obtain some horses . . .' A solitary figure was staring back at them. Drinkwater lowered his glass and raised his hat by the fore-cock. The American commander ignored the courtesy, but continued to stare through his own telescope.

‘Perhaps he didn't see you,' Vansittart consoled.

‘Oh, he saw me all right,' Drinkwater replied. The thought of horses made him swivel round and refocus his glass. The Negro was walking away from the mounting block and Drinkwater was just in time to see the big chestnut break into a canter and disappear into the trees to the right of the house. He caught a fleeting glimpse of a woman in grey with a feathered bonnet riding side-saddle. ‘I wonder', he remarked, ‘why we have been brought to an anchor here . . . ?'

‘Even I, in my ignorance, know “goodish pull” to be something of a euphemism, Captain,' said Vansittart, grinning. ‘It must be forty miles to Washington.'

‘I'm glad to see our somewhat land-locked surroundings have persuaded you to recover your good humour,' Drinkwater riposted, but both men were interrupted by Midshipman Belchambers reporting the approach of a boat. Ten minutes later Lieutenant Tucker once again stood on the quarterdeck.

‘Captain Stewart presents his compliments, gentlemen. He intends to let the Administration know of the arrival of Mr Vansittart himself without delay. He hopes to return shortly with the Administration's response.'

‘Would he be kind enough, Lieutenant Tucker, to convey a letter from myself to Mr Foster?'

‘Mr Foster, sir?'

‘His Britannic Majesty's ambassador to your government,' Vansittart explained.

Tucker shrugged. ‘I guess so, sir.'

‘If you would give me five minutes.' Vansittart withdrew below.

‘Well, sir,' Drinkwater said, attempting to fill the five
minutes with polite if meaningless small-talk, ‘it is beautiful country hereabouts.'

‘It sure is,' said Tucker bluntly, awkwardly adding, lest he seem too abrupt, ‘real beautiful . . .'

‘Plenty of wildfowl,' said Metcalfe, coming up and joining in with the cool effrontery he often displayed. Drinkwater, irritated at the intrusion but equally relieved to have his burden halved, recalled Metcalfe's expertise with the Ferguson rifle. They were standing staring ashore at the parkland surrounding the Palladian mansion when from the trees whence she had disappeared earlier, Drinkwater saw the lone horsewoman reappear. Her horse was stretched at a gallop and the plumed hat, which he had noticed earlier, was missing. She brought the horse to a rearing halt a pistol-shot short of the river-bank and Drinkwater thought she was waving at them. Beside him Lieutenant Tucker chuckled.

‘Reckon Belle Stewart's just had a scare,' he remarked. ‘That goddam gelding of hers must've had a rare fright from the salutin' cannon.'

‘She's shaking her fist and not waving, then,' Drinkwater said.

‘She could be doin' either, Cap'n, she could be doin' either. She might be shakin' her fist, 'n' she might not. She might be wavin' at her brother, Cap'n Stewart, Master Commandant of the United States Sloop o' War
Stingray
, but then again, she might be a-shakin' it at you for a-firing all those guns.'

‘I'd say we were both equally guilty,' Metcalfe said, matching Tucker's condescending drawl.

Drinkwater ignored the implied slight. ‘Ah, I see. Captain Stewart resides hereabouts, then,' he said, indicating the house.

‘Well, not exactly resides . . . his sister does the residin', but I guess it was in his mind to get a horse here.'

‘I understand. And will that facility be extended to Mr Vansittart, d'you think?'

‘I don't know, Cap'n. Matter of fact, I don't know exactly what's in Cap'n Stewart's mind, sir.'

Vansittart reappeared with his letter and Lieutenant Tucker took his departure. Drinkwater, Metcalfe and
Vansittart lingered, watching the return of the American boat and then, sweeping round the sloop's stern, the departure of a second boat from the
Stingray
. She was a smart gig with white stars picked out along her blue sheerstrake. Red oars with white blades swung and dipped in the dark waters of the Potomac river. Upright in her stern stood a midshipman, hand on tiller, beside whom sat a sea-officer. He was, Drinkwater guessed, the same man who had scrutinized them from the quarterdeck of the
Stingray
. Drinkwater walked aft to the taffrail and stared down as the gig pulled close under
Patrician
's stern. Vansittart and Metcalfe joined him. Again he lifted his hat.

The midshipman, curious about the heavy British frigate, was looking up at the three men and could not have missed the private salutation. They saw him turn and address a remark to the officer sitting next to him. No flicker of movement came from the immobile figure; he continued to stare straight ahead, just as his oarsmen, bending to their task, stared astern, over the shoulders of their officers, as if the British ship did not exist. The officer must have made some remark to the midshipman, for the boy solemnly raised his own hat.

‘That's a gesture of the most sterile courtesy,' Vansittart objected.

‘That, I fear, is Master Commandant Stewart,' Drinkwater concluded, ‘and I hope he don't exemplify the kind of response you're going to get in Washington, Vansittart.'

Vansittart grunted.

‘I collect that we should blow the insolent ass's piddling sloop out of the water while it lies so conveniently under our guns,' Metcalfe interjected, with such pomposity that Drinkwater understood the motive for his earlier intrusion. Metcalfe was eager to ingratiate himself with Vansittart. Drinkwater wondered how much of this insinuating process had already been accomplished during their crossing of the Atlantic. The idiocy of the remark was so at variance with the first lieutenant's earlier caution that Drinkwater was compelled to remark upon it. ‘I thought, Mr Metcalfe, you were opposed to provokin' hostilities with the United States.'

‘Well, I consider . . .' Metcalfe blustered uncomfortably, clearly having abandoned reason in favour of making an impression, but could find nothing further to say.

‘I think we may forgive a little rudeness from so young a Service, mayn't we, Mr Vansittart?' Drinkwater said archly, catching the diplomat's eye.

‘I think so, Captain Drinkwater. Particularly from the commander of a ship whose company had their sails furled half a minute before our own.'

Metcalfe opened his mouth, thought better of saying anything further and stumped away with a mumbled, ‘By y're leave, gentlemen . . .'

‘
Touché
Vansittart,' Drinkwater murmured.

Vansittart and Drinkwater idly watched the
Stingray
's gig ground on a bright patch of sand lying in a shallow bay. The horsewoman in grey walked her now quietened mount towards the boat and they watched the mysterious Captain Stewart address her, saw her turn her horse and, with Stewart walking beside her, return to the house. She looked back once at the two anchored ships, then both disappeared inside. Shortly afterwards a man rode off on horseback.

‘So there goes Captain Stewart, bound for Washington.'

‘Is it unusual for a, what d'you call him . . . ?'

‘Master Commandant,' Drinkwater explained, ‘their equivalent of Master and Commander; a sloop-captain, in fact.'