The Flying Squadron (16 page)

‘Ah, but nothing,' Vansittart said smoothly and with a hint of patronizing, ‘is quite as simple as that.'

Drinkwater looked at the urbane young man. He had been right about the proximity of the land. It had had its effect upon Vansittart, even though he had yet to step ashore. He was no longer a bewildered ignoramus, lost among the technical mysteries of a man-of-war, but a member of an élite upon whose deliberations the fates of more ordinary mortals depended. Already Vansittart's imagination inhabited the drawing-rooms of the American capital and the success his intervention would achieve.

‘We are none of us exempt from our personal entanglements,' said Drinkwater pointedly, a small worm of uneasiness uncoiling itself in his belly, ‘and now if you'll excuse me . . .' He wiped his razor clean.

Mullender was pouring the last of the hot water from the galley range into the tin bath and the cabin was filling with steam. Drinkwater began pulling his shirt over his head. Mixed with the smell of his own sweat a sweet fragrance lingered.

Vansittart watched for a moment, saw the scarred lacerations and mutilation of Drinkwater's right shoulder and hurriedly rose, tossing off his glass. ‘Well, I shall have the opportunity of judging this Shaw for myself,' he said. ‘In any event my bags are packed, so I will leave you to your ablutions.'

‘I shall be half an hour at the most.'

Drinkwater sank back into the delicious warmth of the bath. ‘Well, Mullender,' he said, ‘what news have you?'

‘Mr Moncrieff has presented you with a brace of ducks, sir.'

‘That's very kind of Mr Moncrieff.' He entertained a brief image of Arabella sitting down to a dinner of roast duck with him in the intimacy of the cabin, then dismissed the notion as dangerously foolish.

‘Do you want the boots again today, sir? As they're muddy I'll have to clean them.'

‘No, no, full dress . . .'

‘ 'Tis already laid out, sir, and I've the sponging of your old coat in hand, sir.'

They had lain upon the old, shabby undress coat he had worn for the expedition. The reminder made him move restlessly, slopping water in his sudden search for the soap.

He stood before the mirror with comb and brush, an uncharacteristic defensive vanity possessing him. He suppressed his conscience by convincing himself it was to make an impression on Stewart that he dressed with such care. Mullender moved one of the lanterns and the silk stockings and silver buckled shoes, the white breeches, waistcoat and stock seemed to glow in the reflected lamp-light. He handed the comb and brush to Mullender who, with a few deft and practised strokes, quickly finished the captain's hair off in a queue.

‘I suppose I should have it cut,' Drinkwater said.

‘Wouldn't be you, sir,' Mullender said with finality, drawing the black ribbon tight and levelling its twin tails. Drinkwater held his arms out and Mullender helped him on with the coat. He felt the weight of the heavy bullion epaulettes, one on each shoulder as befitted a senior post-captain, and his gold cuff lace rasped that on his lapels as he adjusted the set of the garment. Mullender pulled the long queue clear of the collar and flicked at Drinkwater's shoulders before stepping back and picking up sword and belt.

‘No sword tonight, Mullender, thank you.'

‘Aye, sir,' grunted Mullender, clearly disapproving of Drinkwater's tact.

‘Call away my barge, if you please.'

Mullender opened the cabin door and spoke to the marine sentry. Drinkwater took one final look at himself in the mirror and picked up his hat.

‘Barge crew called, sir,' Mullender reported, ‘and Mr Metcalfe said to tell you what looks like a Yankee schooner has just anchored on the far side o' that Yankee sloop.'

‘Very well,' Drinkwater said absently and swung round.

‘We must get that bulkhead painted,' he remarked suddenly. Mullender looked up.

‘Sir?'

‘That bulkhead, get it painted!' snapped Drinkwater, abruptly leaving the cabin.

‘What now?' Mullender muttered, and sighed, scratching his head uncomprehendingly. He did not see, as Drinkwater saw, the faint discolourations where once the twin portraits of Elizabeth and his children had hung.

‘Sir, the Yankee has just gone over the side, if you hurry . . .'

They could hear the squealing of the pipes floating over the still water from the dark shape of the
Stingray
, her tall masts and yards black against the dark velvet of the night sky with its myriad stars. He could see nothing of the schooner beyond her. Metcalfe's almost childish urgency irritated Drinkwater.

‘I don't want to make a damned undignified race of it,' he said curtly. ‘Let the bugger go ahead . . .' Metcalfe opened his mouth to say something, but Drinkwater was in no mood now to bandy words with his first lieutenant. ‘Do you make sure the sentries present arms as he goes past. We are not at war with the United States, Mr Metcalfe, and I'll see the courtesies extended while we are within American waters.'

Metcalfe's mouth shut like a trap and he spun on his heel, but Moncrieff had already dealt with the matter. The American gig, a chuckle of phosphorescence at her cutwater, the faint flash of her oar blades rising and dipping, approached them in a curve to pass under the
Patrician's
stern. The dim light of a lantern in her stern-sheets reflected upon the face of Captain Stewart and his attendant midshipman.

Moncrieff called the deck sentinels to attention. ‘Present arms!' The American boat swept past, Stewart and the midshipman unmoving.

‘Insolent devil,' said Moncrieff in a voice that must have been heard in the still darkness. ‘Shoulder arms!'

‘Are you ready, Vansittart?' Drinkwater enquired as a grey shape joined them.

‘I am indeed, Captain Drinkwater.'

‘After you, then.' Drinkwater gestured and Vansittart
peered uncertainly over the side. Midshipman Belchambers looked up from the barge.

‘Just hold on to the man-ropes, sir, and lean back . . .'

He saw her first, in a full-skirted dress of watered green silk the origin of which was not Parisian. Her raven hair was up and a rope of Bahamian pearls wound round her slender neck. She looked remote, proper, Shaw's daughter-in-law-cum-hostess and not the creature who . . .

‘Captain Drinkwater, good of you to come.'

‘Your servant, sir. May I present Mr Henry Vansittart . . . Mr Shaw.'

‘Mr Vansittart, you are very welcome. Captain Drinkwater, you have met my daughter-in-law. Mr Vansittart, may I present Mrs Arabella Shaw . . .'

Bows and curtsies were exchanged, Vansittart bent solicitously over Arabella's hand and Drinkwater turned away. He found himself face to face with Master Commandant Stewart.

He had his sister's features and the likeness shocked him. Yet there was nothing effeminate in the American officer's handsome face, on the contrary, his dark features conveyed the immediate impression of a boldness and resolution which, as he confronted the Englishman, were unequivocally hostile. Drinkwater had the unnerving sensation that, despite his own superiority in years and rank, the American held himself in all respects the better man. A cooler head than Drinkwater possessed at that instant might have considered this impression as a consequence of underlying guilt on his own part and an overweening pride and youthful contempt on the American's. At that moment, however, the impact was uncanny and overwhelming, and Drinkwater endeavoured to conceal his inner confusion with an over-elaborate greeting that the American attributed to condescension.

‘Captain Stewart, I presume. I am your servant, sir, and delighted to make your acquaintance.'

The younger man's face split in a lupine grin. From the moment his topman reported the approach of the British frigate, Stewart had been both affronted by the British man-o'-war's presence in American waters, and hoping
for some means by which he, the most junior commander on the American Navy List, might personally tweak the tail of the arrogant British lion. Captain Drinkwater, a greying tarpaulin officer of no particular pretension, offered him a perfect target. Stewart would not have admitted fear of any British naval officer, but he nursed an awkwardness in the presence of those urbane and languid sprigs of good families he had once met in New York. Vansittart was so clearly an example of the class, if not the type. In needling Drinkwater he felt he opened a mine under British conceit, laid under so easy and foolish a target as Captain Drinkwater, the more readily to wound Vansittart. The prospect of this revenge for past humiliations, real or imagined, amused and stimulated him.

‘You presume a great deal, Captain. As for being my servant that's fair enough, but your delight concerns me not at all . . .' It was a gauche, clumsy and foolish speech, but made to Drinkwater in his present mood and made loud enough for all the company to hear, it had its desired effect, bolstering Stewart's pride and leaving the witnesses nonplussed as they, in full expectation of a sharp-tongued response, left Captain Drinkwater to defend himself.

But Drinkwater blushed to his hair-roots, dropping his foolishly extended hand. Vansittart's inward hiss of breath, of apprehension rather than outrage, broke the silence.

‘Gennelmen, a glass,' Shaw drawled, motioning to a negro servant in a powdered wig and a ludicrous canary-yellow livery. He bore a salver upon which the touching rims of the glasses tinkled delicately.

‘I thought rum appropriate to the occasion,' said Shaw, clearly practising a joke he had rehearsed earlier and which was now quite inappropriate to the occasion.

‘Indeed, ' Vansittart waded in, ‘almost the
vin du pays
, what? Your health, ma'am, and yours, sir, and yours, Captain Stewart. That's a fine ship you command, by the by.'

‘Indeed it is,' replied Stewart, clearly enjoying himself and never taking his eyes off Drinkwater, ‘the match of any ship, even one of reputedly superior force.'

The sarcasm brought Drinkwater to himself. He mastered
his discomfiture and met the younger man's eyes. ‘Let us hope, Captain Stewart, the matter is not put to the test.'

‘It wouldn't concern me one damn jot, Captain, were it to be put to the test tomorrow morning.'

‘Come, come, gennelmen,' said Shaw, stepping between the two sea-officers and smiling nervously at Vansittart, ‘damn me, Vansittart, we will have our work cut out to keep such hotheads from tearing each other to pieces. 'Tis as well they put these fellows under orders, or what would become of the peace of the world?'

Drinkwater caught Arabella's eye. Was it pity he saw there, or some understanding of his humiliation?

‘I think it you, Charles, who is the greater hothead,' she scolded, half in jest. ‘I don't believe Captain Drinkwater to be a man to underestimate his enemy.'

Was the remark taken as one of mere politeness, or an indiscretion of the most lamentably revealing nature? Drinkwater could not be sure how each of them perceived it, for his prime concern was to seize the lifeline she had flung him, to put the company at their ease, to detach himself from Stewart's sarcastic goading.

‘I have held that as a guiding principle throughout my career, ma'am.'

‘You have seen a good deal of action, have you not, Captain?' Vansittart rallied to him, equally eager to defuse the atmosphere, but painfully aware of Drinkwater's lack of finesse in such circumstances.

‘I believe so,' Drinkwater answered.

‘What – Frenchmen?' put in Stewart, unwisely.

‘Some Frenchmen, yes, but Dutchmen, Russians – and Americans.' He paused, feeling he had regained some credibility. ‘War is not a matter to be entered into lightly, no matter how excellent one's ship, nor the fighting temper of one's people.'

Stewart had swallowed his rum at a gulp and it emboldened him. ‘Oh, ship for ship, we'd lick you, Cap'n . . .'

Drinkwater experienced that sudden cool detachment he usually associated with the heat of action, after the period of fear before engagement and the manic rage with which a man worked up his courage and in which
most men conquered or perished in hand-to-hand slaughter. For him this remote and singular feeling lent him strength and an acuity of eye and nervous response which had carried him through a dozen fierce actions. He suddenly saw this boorish boy as being unworthy of his temper, and smiled.

‘Perhaps, ship for ship, you are quite right, Mr Master Commandant, but I beg you to consider how few ships you have and the inevitable outcome of a concentration of force upon this coast. A blockade, for instance; do you comprehend a blockade, Mister Stewart? No, I think not. Say twelve of the line cruising constantly off Sandy Hook, another dozen off the Delaware, another off the Virginia capes, with frigates patrolling in between, cutters and schooners maintaining communications between the squadrons, ships being relieved regularly, and water and wood being obtained with impunity from your empty and unguarded coastline . . . come, sir, that is not a happy prospect, you'll allow?'

Drinkwater observed with a degree of pleasure how Stewart resented the use of his proper rank and Drinkwater's pointed abandonment of his courtesy title. The added irony of begging his listener's consideration was lost on Stewart in his inflamed state, for while Drinkwater spoke, he snapped his fingers and took another glass of rum.

‘You couldn't do it,' he said thickly when Drinkwater finished speaking, ‘your men wouldn't stand for it . . .'

‘We'd still be damned foolish to put it to the test, Charles,' temporized Shaw, ‘hell's bells, you professional gennelmen are a pair of gamecocks to be sure. Arabella, my dear, we'd better fill their bellies with something less inflammatory than firewater . . .'

Vansittart laughed loudly and Mistress Shaw caught the manservant's eye and addressed a few words to him.