The Flying Squadron (31 page)

‘What Yankee frigate?' Drinkwater asked sharply.

‘You ain't chasing a Yankee frigate?'

‘Not specifically, but if you've news of one at large . . .'

‘News, Cap'n? Bloody hell, I've news for you, aye, all of you,' he nodded at the semi-circle of gold epaulettes that caught the sunshine as they drew closer.

‘I heard yesterday, from a Portuguese brig, that a big Yankee frigate has taken the
Java
, British frigate . . .'

‘Stap me . . .' An explosion of incredulity behind him caused Drinkwater to turn and glare at his subordinates.

‘The
Java
, you say . . . ?' He could not place the ship.

‘A former Frenchman, sir,' Ashby said smoothly, ‘formerly the
Renommée
, taken off Madagascar in May, the year before last, by Captain Schomberg's squadron. I believe Lambert to have been in command.'

‘Thank you, Captain Ashby.' Drinkwater returned to Orwig. ‘D'you know the name of the American frigate?'

‘No, sir, but I don't think she was the same as took the
Macedonian
.'

‘What's that you say? The
Macedonian's
been taken too?'

‘Aye, Cap'n, didn't you know? I fell in with another Milford ship, the
Martha
, Cap'n Raynes; cruising for Sperm we were, off Martin Vaz, and he told me the
Macedonian
had been knocked to pieces by the
United States
, said the alarm had gone out there was a Yankee squadron at large . . .'

‘God's bones!'

The sense of having been caught out laid its cold fingers round Drinkwater's heart. The American ships must have left from New York or Boston; they could have slipped past within a few miles of his own vessels! It was quite possible the Americans would attempt to combine their
heavy frigates with a swarm of privateers, privateers with trained but surplus naval officers like Stewart and, perhaps, Lieutenant Tucker, to command them. It struck him that if such a thing occurred, the United States navy might quadruple itself at a stroke, greatly reducing the assumed superiority of the Royal Navy! The thought made his blood run cold and about him it had precipitated a buzz of angry reaction.

‘When did this happen?' he heard Ashby asking Orwig.

‘Sometime in October, I think. Off the Canaries, Raynes said,' Orwig replied, adding in a surprised tone, ‘I thought you gennelmen would have knowed.'

‘No, sir, we did not know.' Ashby's tone was icily accusatory, levelled at Drinkwater as though, in condemning his superior officer for glaring into one crystal ball, he had failed to divine the truth in another, and taking Drinkwater's silence for bewilderment.

‘Well, we know now,' Drinkwater said, rounding on them, ‘and the India fleet is all the more in need of our protection.' Quilhampton caught his attention; the first lieutenant's face was twisted with anxiety and apprehension.

‘You'll be seekin' convoy, Captain Orwig?' Drinkwater enquired.

Orwig nodded, then shook his head. ‘You'll not be able to spare it, Cap'n, not if the Yankees are as good as they seem and you've the India fleet to consider. Leadenhall Street will not forgive you if you lose them their annual profit.'

Drinkwater had no need to contemplate the consequences of the displeasure of the Court of Directors of the Honourable East India Company. ‘And you, Captain,' he said, warming to the elderly man's consideration, ‘how long did it take
you
to fill your barrels?'

‘Three years, sir, an' in all three oceans.'

‘Then you shall have convoy, sir, and my hand upon it. I would not have you or your company end a three-year voyage in American hands. Captain Tyrell . . .'

‘Sir?' Tyrell stepped forward.

‘I will write you out orders in a few moments, the sense of which will be to take Captain Orwig, and such other
British merchantmen as you may sight, under your protection and convoy them to Milford Haven and then Plymouth. You will take also my dispatches and there await the instructions of their Lordships. Please take this opportunity to discuss details with Captain Orwig.' Drink-water ignored the astonished look on Tyrell's face and addressed Ashby, Thorowgood and Sundercombe. ‘Return to your ships, if you please, gentlemen. We will proceed as we agreed the moment I have written Captain Tyrell's orders. Your servant, gentlemen; Captain Orwig, a safe passage; Captain Tyrell, I'd be obliged if you'd wait upon me when you have concluded your business with Orwig.'

In his cabin Drinkwater drew pen, ink and paper towards him and wrote furiously for twenty minutes. He first addressed a brief report of proceedings to the Admiralty, stating he had reason to believe a force of privateers was loose in the South Atlantic. That much, insubstantial as it was in fact, yet justified the detachment of
Hasty
. Next he wrote to his wife, enclosing the missive with his private letter to Lord Dungarth to whom he gave vent to his concern over an American frigate squadron supported by private auxiliaries operating on the British trade routes. He was completing this last when Tyrell knocked and came in.

‘Sit down, Tyrell, help yourself to another glass, I shall be with you directly.'

‘Captain Drinkwater, I don't wish to appear importunate . . .'

‘Then don't, my dear fellow,' said Drinkwater, looking up as he sanded the last sheet and stifling Tyrell's protest. ‘Now listen, I want you to deliver this letter to Lord Dungarth when you call on the Admiralty. It is for his hand only, and if you fail to find his Lordship at the Admiralty, you are to wait upon him at his residence in Lord North Street; d'you understand?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good.' Drinkwater rose, handed over the papers and extended his right hand. ‘Good luck, and don't get yourself taken if you can help it.'

Drinkwater saw, from the sudden widening of Tyrell's
eyes, that he had not, until that moment, considered the possibility.

‘Well, Wyatt, what d'you make of the news?' Frey asked as the officers sat over their wine and the
Patrician
heeled to the gathering south-easterly breeze which promised to be the long-sought trade wind.

‘The American ships were lucky. I expect their gunners were British deserters. It wouldn't have happened ten years ago . . .'

‘I don't mean the American victories, Wyatt, I mean the effect their being at sea has on the safety of the East Indiamen, something you were prepared to regard as . . .'

‘Don't resurrect old arguments, Mr Frey,' Simpson cautioned. ‘Let sleeping dogs lie.'

‘Oh ye of little faith,' Frey said, throwing the remark at the master, who buried his nose in his slopping tankard.

On the deck above Drinkwater dozed in his cot. Orwig's news was worrying. He had felt as though someone had punched him in the belly earlier, such was its impact. The latitude allowed in discretionary orders could hang an officer if he made the wrong decision more certainly than it could bring him success. There were so many options open, but only one which could be taken up. He dulled his anxiety with half a bottle of blackstrap and then settled to think the matter over. Yet the more he worried at the problem, the more convinced he was of the rightness of his decision, despite its unorthodox roots.

The logic of the thing was inescapable; as he had said to Quilhampton and repeated in substance to Dungarth, it was not only what he would have done himself had he been in Stewart's shoes, but what he would do if given President Madison's choices. Over and over he turned the thing until he dozed off in his chair. After some fifteen minutes the empty wine glass slipped from his fingers and the crash of its breaking woke him with a start.

The sudden shock made his heart pound, the wine made his head ache and his mouth felt foul. He rubbed his face, grinding his knuckles into his eyes. Bright scarlet and yellow flashes danced before him.

‘God's bones!' he exlaimed, leaping to his feet and striking his head a numbing blow on the deck beams above. He sank back into his chair, his hands over his skull, feeling the bruise rising. ‘God damn and blast it,' he muttered through clenched teeth, ‘was I dreaming, or not?'

Mullender looked in from the pantry and smartly withdrew. Captain Drinkwater's antics seemed scarcely normal, but Mullender knew personal survival for men in his station largely depended on feigned indifference.

‘I
was
dreaming,' Drinkwater continued to himself, ‘but it wasn't a phantasm.' He sat up, dropping his hands from his head and staring straight before him, seeing not the bulkhead, but a glimpse of a room through a gap in heavy brocaded curtains and a litter of papers spread about an escritoire.

Had Mullender chosen this moment to enquire after the well-being of his master, he would have thought him stark, staring mad; but Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater had never been saner in his life.

‘O miserable advocates! In the name of God, what was done with this immense superiority of force?'

‘Oh, what a charm is hereby dissolved! What hopes, will be excited in the breasts of our enemies!'

The Times
,
London,
27 and 29 December 1812

Lord Dungarth set down the stained paper he had been reading and rose from the desk, heaving himself on to the crutch which bent under his weight. The reflection of his gross figure in the uncurtained window disgusted him momentarily, until he was close enough to the glass to peer through.

Below, the carriage lights in Whitehall threw their glimmering illumination on streaks of sleeting rain that threatened to turn to snow before the night had ended. He raised his eyes above the roof-tops and gazed at the night sky. Dark clouds streaked across, permitting the occasional glimpse of a pair of stars.

The vision of his long-dead wife's face formed itself around the distant stars, then cloud obscured her image and he saw only the pale hemisphere of his own bald and reflected head. The onset of the pain overwhelmed him; the attacks were more frequent now, more intense, like the pains of labour as the moment of crisis approached. He seemed to shrink on his crutch, diminished in size as death sapped at his very being.

The pain ebbed and ceased to be an overwhelming preoccupation; he was aware of the stink of his own fearful sweat. Slowly he turned and began the long haul back to his desk. He slumped into his creaking chair and, with a shaking hand, reached for the decanter. He had given up hiding the laudanum and, with a carelessly shaking hand, added half a dozen drops to the
oporto
.

Sipping the concoction, he half-closed his eyes, trying to recapture the vision of his countess, but instead there came before his mind's eye a picture of gunfire and dismasted ships: the
Guerrière
, the
Macedonian
, with more to follow, he felt certain, the imminence of death and the opiate lending him prescience, an awareness of approaching bad tidings.

And yet . . .

His hand reached out tremulously, seeking the travel-stained dispatch in its curious, runic cipher. He had thought, too, that disaster and defeat were inevitable from that quarter after the news of the Russians' abandonment of Moscow following the battle at Borodino.

But now . . .

He frowned with the effort of focusing on the piece of paper. He was so used to the cryptography, he needed no key to decode it, but read the words as if they headlined a broadsheet:
French army have abandoned Moscow. Line of retreat dictated by Russian pursuit. Attacks to be mounted at their crossing of the Beresina
 . . .

Lord Dungarth looked up at the dark window. The sleet had turned to snow. The secret dispatch was already a month old.

‘At last,' he whispered as the pain gathered itself again and he drained the glass.