The Flying Squadron (28 page)

‘No,' he replied levelly, pleased he had at least anticipated
this
question. ‘I merely wish to know if the
Stingray
is at sea under your brother's command. Such a question may easily be discovered from other sources; it is rumoured that a Yankee comes cheaper than Judas Iscariot.'

She opened her mouth to protest and then a curiously reticent look crossed her face. Her eyes searched his for some clue, as though he had said something implicit and she was gauging the extent of his knowledge. Then, as soon as the expression appeared it had faded and he was mystified, almost uncertain whether or not he had read it aright, merely left staring at her singular beauty.

‘Why should you wish to know this? And why come all the way from England and up the Chesapeake if it may be bought from some fisherman for a few dollars?'

‘Because I wished for an excuse to see you,' he replied, voicing a gallant half-truth, ‘and because it might stop your brother and I from trying to kill each other,' he lied. He watched the words sink in, hoping she might recall the respective attitudes he and Stewart had professed when
the possibility of war between their two countries had been discussed. He hoped, too, she might not begin to guess how large was the ocean and how unlikely they were to meet. Unless . . .

‘The
Stingray
, Captain Drinkwater, is undergoing repairs at the Washington Navy Yard,' she said with a cool and dismissive air. ‘My brother is unemployed by the Navy Department . . . out of your reach . . .'

He admired her quick intelligence, her guessing of his dissimulation, and was now only mildly offended at her assumption of motive.

‘Madam,' he said with a wry smile that savaged her with its attractiveness, ‘I do not meditate any revenge, I assure you.'

The formality had evaporated the passion between them. He was no longer a slave to their concupiscence; his imagination ran in a contrary direction.

‘He is at sea, though, ma'am, is he not?'

She inclined her head. ‘Perhaps.'

‘In a Baltimore clipper schooner . . .' He flattened his tone, kept the interrogative out of his voice, made of the question a statement of fact and watched like a falcon the tiny reactive muscles about her lovely eyes.

‘You knew,' she said before perceiving his trap and clenching her fist in her anger. ‘You . . . you . . .' She stammered her outrage and he stepped forward and put a hand upon her shoulder. The white silk was warmed by the soft flesh beneath.

‘Arabella . . .' She looked up, her eyes bright with fury. ‘I truly mean no harm to either of you, but I have my obligations as you have yours. Please do not be angry with me. The web we find ourselves caught in is not of our making.'

She put her hand on his and it felt like a talon as it clawed at him. ‘Why do you help weave it, then? You men are all the same! Why, you knew all along,' she whispered. Her fingers dug into the back of his hand, bearing it down upon her own shoulder as though she wanted to mutilate herself for her treachery. As he bent to kiss her hair the door was flung open with a crash of the handle upon the plaster.

Drinkwater looked round. Zebulon Shaw stood in the doorway with a scatter gun levelled at Drinkwater's belly. Behind him, the dull gleam of a musket barrel in his hands, was the dark presence of the negro groom and the pale face of the maid.

‘Take your hands off!' Shaw roared.

Shaw's misreading of the situation in thinking the moment of anguished intimacy one of imminent violence, moved Drinkwater to fury. Arabella, too, reacted.

‘Father . . .' she expostulated, but Drinkwater seized her shoulders, drew her to her feet, jerked her round and pulled her to him. Whipping the knife from his belt he held it to her neck, hissing a reassurance in her ear.

He had no idea to what extent and in what detail the French maid had betrayed her mistress; he hoped she had acted protectively with some discretion, concerned only for Arabella's safety in the presence of a man who, once her lover, was now at the very least an enemy. Whatever the niceties, he could, he realized, avoid compromising Arabella further while at the same time facilitating his escape. Zebulon Shaw's next remark gave him grounds for thinking he had guessed right.

‘Drinkwater? Is it you? What in hell's name d'you mean by . . . ?'

‘I wished to know the whereabouts of the USS
Stingray
, Mr Shaw, and if you'll stand aside, I'll trouble your home no further. I have armed men outside and I have no need to remind you we are at war.'

Shaw's tongue flicked out over dry lips and his face lost its resolute expression. Drinkwater pressed his advantage.

‘I apologize for my method,' he went on, sensing Shaw's indecision, ‘and it would distress me even more if I had to add mutilation or murder to a trifling burglary.' As he spoke he moved the knife menacingly across Arabella's white throat.

‘Damn you!' Shaw growled, drawing back.

‘Very well, Mrs Shaw,' Drinkwater said with a calm insolence, ‘precede me and no harm will come to you.' He pressed her gently forward, passed into the passage and ran the gauntlet of Shaw and the negro, glaring at the maid as she held up a wildly flickering candelabra in a
shaking hand. ‘No tricks, sir . . .'

They were convinced by his show of bravado in which Arabella played her part submissively.

‘Go, sir,' Shaw called after them, ‘go and be damned to you if this is how you treat our hospitality . . .'

‘Needs must, sir, when the devil drives,' Drinkwater flung over his shoulder as they reached the head of the staircase. ‘Careful, m'dear,' he muttered to Arabella as they descended to the darkened hall.

Shaw and the negro covered their descent and Drinkwater was aware of open doors closing on their approach as inquisitive servants, roused by noises on the floor above, retreated before the sight of the cloaked intruder with their mistress a hostage. He paused at the main door and turned.

‘Remain here, Shaw. I shall take your daughter-in-law a pistol shot from the house and release her. I trust you to wait here.'

‘Be damned, Captain . . .'

‘Do you agree?'

Shaw grunted. ‘Under protest, yes, I agree.'

‘I bid you farewell, Mr Shaw, and I repeat my apologies that the harsh necessities of war compel me to this action. Perhaps in happier times . . .'

He had the door open and thrust Arabella through, followed her and pulled the door to behind them, then seized her hand.

‘Beyond the trees,' he ordered, walking quickly down the wide steps and across the gravel. ‘And hurry, I pray you. I do not want you to catch a fever. I am sorry for what has happened. No blame attaches to you and if your maid was at least loyal to
you
, then I think no great harm can have been done. Tell your father-in-law you confessed only that your brother no longer had command of the
Stingray
'.

They reached the trees as he finished this monologue and he let go her wrist. She turned and faced him.

‘I am sorry we must part like this,' he ran on, ‘as sorry as I was by the manner of our last parting.'

‘Sir,' she said, drawing her breath with difficulty, ‘I
should hate you for this humiliation, but I cannot pretend . . . no, it is no matter. It was guilt the last time, guilt and shame and the confusion of love, but it was better than this!' She almost spat the last word at him. ‘God,' her voice rose, exasperation and hurt charging it with a desperate vehemence, ‘had I not . . . damn you! Go, for God's sake, go quickly.'

‘God bless you, Arabella.'

‘Go!'

He turned and ran, not hearing her poor, strangled cry, wondering why on earth he had invoked the Deity. A moment later he cannoned into Caldecott.

‘Damn you, Caldecott – is the boat ready?'

‘Beg pardon. Aye, sir.'

Drinkwater looked back. There was a brief flash of pale silk and then only the trees and their shadows stood between him and Castle Point.

‘Everything all right, sir?'

In answer to Caldecott's query the wild barking of dogs, the gleam of lanterns and shouts of men filled the night. Then came the sharp crack of a musket.

‘Not exactly. Come on, let's go.'

‘What d'you make of her, Mr Sundercombe?'

‘I'm not sure, sir, beyond the fact she's a native and determined to pass close.'

Sundercombe handed Drinkwater his telescope. The American brig had trimmed her yards and laid a course to intercept the
Sprite
as the schooner ran south to pass the Virginia capes and reach the open Atlantic. It was midmorning and Drinkwater was bleary-eyed from insufficient sleep. He had trouble focusing and passed the glass back to Sundercombe.

‘Send your gun's crews quietly to their stations, load canister on ball, but don't run 'em out. Tell them when they get word, to aim high and cut up her riggin'. You handle the ship, I'll give the order to open fire.' Drinkwater looked up at the stars and bars rippling at the main peak. ‘Better pass word for my coxswain.'

‘I'm 'ere, sir, an' I've got some coffee.'

‘Obliged, Caldecott . . .' Drinkwater took the hot mug.

Sundercombe was already issuing orders, turning up the watch below and giving instructions quietly to his gunners. The
Sprite
mounted six 6-pounders a side, enough to startle the stranger if Drinkwater timed his bird-scaring broadside correctly. He sipped gratefully at the scalding coffee which tasted of acorns.

‘Caldecott,' he said, ‘I want you to stand by the ensign halliards with one of our cutter's crew. The moment I give you the word, that ensign aloft must come down and our
own be hoisted, d'you understand? 'Tis a matter of extreme punctilio.'

‘Punctilio – aye, aye, sir.'

Drinkwater grinned after the retreating seaman. He seemed suitably imbued with
gravitas
. Quilhampton had discovered him and sent him aft for approval, concerned that Drinkwater had himself found no substitute for old Tregembo. ‘You must have a cox'n, sir. I can't spare a midshipman every time you want a boat,' Quilhampton had protested.

‘Can't, or won't?' Drinkwater had enquired.

‘You
must
have a cox'n,' Quilhampton repeated doggedly, the flat assertion brooking no protest.

‘Oh, very well,' Drinkwater relented, ‘have you someone in mind?' Half an hour later the stunted form of Caldecott stood before him. ‘Have you acted in a personal capacity before, Caldecott?' Drinkwater had asked, watching the man's eyes darting about the cabin and revealing a bright and curious interest.

‘I 'ave, sir, to Captings Dawson and Peachey, sir, an' I was bargeman to Lord Collin'wood in the old
Ocean
, sir, an' 'ad lots of occasions to be 'andling 'is Lordship's personal an' diplomatic effects, sir.'

‘Matter of punctilio,' Drinkwater now heard Caldecott repeat to his oarsman and, still grinning, he watched the Yankee brig bear down upon them.

The sight combined with the coffee and the invigorating chill of the morning breeze to cheer him, making him forget his fatigue. His brief nap had laid a period of time between this forenoon and the events of the previous night. They might have occurred to a different man. He was filled with a sudden happiness such as he had not felt for many, many months, the inspiriting renewal discovered by the penitent sinner.

Was that why he had called upon God to bless Arabella last night? Did he detect the finger of the Deity or providence in that last encounter; or in the fortuitous natural abortion of the child their helpless lust had made?

It was, he realized, much, much more than that. Certainly their odd, mutual avoidance had been in some strange way a holding back in anticipation of the final
parting which had now occurred. They were, he reflected without bitterness, not young, and though their affair had not lacked heat it had not been conducted without a little wisdom. Moreover, she had loved him as he had loved her, with the self-wounding passion of hopeless intensity. Such things happened, rocked the boats of otherwise loyal lives and sent their ripples out to slap the planking of other such boats, God help them all.

But there was also the timely confirmation of his hunch. The drunk and incautious Stewart had opened his mind and had put Drinkwater in possession of a key, not to the strategic planning of Madison and his colleagues, but to the freebooting aspirations of his commercial warriors, the privateersmen and their backers. Drinkwater was as certain of this as of the breeze itself.

Sundercombe approached and stood beside him. The brig was two miles away, a merchant ship by the look of her.

‘There's a brace of sail hull down to the s'uthard,' Sundercombe volunteered.