The Corvette (11 page)

‘Mysticetus?' broke in Drinkwater frowning.

‘
Baleana Mysticetus
, the Greenland Right Whale . . .' Drinkwater nodded as Sawyers continued, ‘has become wary of the approach of man in recent years. There are those who advocate his pursuit upon the coast of Spitzbergen, those who are more disposed to favour a more westerly longitude, along the extremity of the ice.'

‘I gather you favour this latter option?' Sawyers nodded while a silent shake of the head indicated that Waller did not. ‘I see, please go on.'

‘I do not think this late arrival on the grounds will inconvenience us greatly. It was our practice to spend the first month in the Greenland Sea in sealing, waiting for the ice to open up and spending the first days of continuous daylight in the hunting of seal, walrus and bear. However, those of us that have, of late, pursued mysticetus into the drift ice, have been rewarded by a haul as high as ten or even a dozen fish in a season, which amply satisfies us.'

It was clear that Harvey and Sawyers were of one mind in the matter. But if the whale-fleet dispersed his own task became impossible.

‘Would you be kind enough to indicate the degree to which these options are supported by the other masters?' The three men consulted together while Drinkwater rose and pulled out a chart of the Greenland Sea. Seven hundred miles to the north-north-west of Bressay Sound lay the island of Jan Mayen. His present company, he knew, still referred to it as Trinity Island, after their own corporation.

‘I think, sir,' said Harvey in his broad accent, ‘that a few favour the Spitzbergen grounds while the majority will try the ice-edge.'

‘Very well.' Drinkwater paused to think. He could not cover both areas so which was the better post to take up with the
Melusine
? During the last war Danish privateers had operated out of the fiords of Norway. Would these hardy men attempt to entrap British whale-ships on the coast of Spitzbergen? The battle of Copenhagen and Britain's new alliance with Russia must surely persuade Denmark that she had nothing to gain by provoking Britain from her Norwegian territories. Drinkwater cleared his mind of these diplomatic preoccupations. His own responsibilities were to the whalers and he conceived the greater threat, as indicated at the Admiralty, to come from French privateers. Long experience of French corsairs had led Drinkwater to admire their energy. He did not share the contempt of
many of his contemporaries for French abilities. The Republican Navy had given the Royal Navy a bloody nose from time to time, he recalled, thinking that even the great Sir Edward Berry, one of Nelson's Band of Brothers, had nearly caught a tartar in the
Guillaume Tell
off Malta in 1800. And the corsairs were of greater resource than the Republican Navy. What of those Breton ships that had sailed north? Where were they now?

He looked at the chart. The huge area of the Greenland Sea was imperfectly surveyed. Hill had added every scrap of detail he could glean but it was little enough. Drinkwater concentrated on the problem from the French point of view. If the intention of the privateers was to harass British whalers then they would probably hide in the fiords of Iceland or around Cape Farewell. The former, ice free on its southern and eastern coasts would threaten the Greenland fishery whilst the less hospitable coast of Greenland would permit a descent upon the trade in the Davis Strait. Either station would give the ships a favourable cast well to the windward of British cruisers in the Western Approaches and a clear passage back to the French coast where they had only to run the British blockade to reach safety. And given the fact that they were unlikely to be making for the great French naval arsenals this would be relatively simple. It was clear that if the Hull ships were determined to fish in the Greenland Sea he must conceive the greater threat, if it existed at all, would come from Iceland and that he should support the whalers on the ice-edge.

‘I shall make known to you that I shall cruise upon the ice-edge in company with the majority of ships. I would ask you therefore that you appoint one of your number to consult and advise me as to your intentions, that we may not be at cross-purposes.'

‘That matter has already been settled, Captain. Abel Sawyers, here, has been elected to be our commodore.' Harvey's ugly face smiled.

‘Then that is most satisfactory . . .'

‘There is one thing, Captain.' Waller's apparent insignificance was enhanced by a thin voice with an insinuating quality.

‘What is that, Captain Waller?'

‘I do not think you understand the diversity of individual method employed by masters in the whale-fishery. We do not expect to be constrained by you in
any
way. We wish to be free to chase fish wherever we think it to our advantage.'

Drinkwater shrugged, irritated by the man's pedantic manner.
Alone among the whale-ship masters Waller seemed the least appropriate to his calling.

‘Captain Waller, I have my orders and they are to
extend to you
the protection of a ship of war. I cannot prevent you from hunting the whale wherever you desire, but I can and have arranged a rendezvous and a distress signal to use if you are attacked.'

‘And what do you propose?'

‘My gunner is preparing Blue Lights for you. A Blue Light shot into the sky and accompanied by two guns may transmit your distress over a large distance and if this signal is used whenever strange sails are sighted I am sanguine that
Melusine
may be deployed to cover you.'

‘And if we are attacked from two directions simultaneously?' asked Waller.

‘I shall deal with hypothetical situations when they become real, sir, you ain't the only people used to active operations with boats, Captain.'

‘And you are not the only people fitted with cannon. There have been instances where whale-ships have driven off an enemy . . .'

‘Chiefly, I believe,' snapped Drinkwater, ‘when the enemy was one of their own kind disputing the possession of a fish. Frankly, Captain Waller, since you have made it clear that you intend to fish off Spitzbergen I cannot see why you wish to enquire into the methods I intend to employ to protect the trade.'

Waller did not retort but lolled back into his chair. ‘Aye, Captain, you will perfectly satisfy me if you do not interfere.'

Angrily Drinkwater looked at Harvey and Sawyers. They were clearly out of sympathy with Waller but said nothing as he equally obviously represented a body of opinion among this curious Arctic democracy. Drinkwater swallowed pride and anger. ‘Another glass, gentlemen,' he conciliated. ‘I suggest that we remain in company until the seventy-second parallel in eight degrees easterly longitude.' He laid a finger on the chart and the three men bent over the table. ‘From here the Spitzbergen ships can detach.'

‘I think that would be most agreeable,' said Sawyers.

‘Agreed,' added Harvey.

Waller on the left, smoothed the chart out and nodded. ‘Aye, 'twill do,' he said thoughtfully. Drinkwater saw his three visitors to their boats. The sun had disappeared behind a bank of cloud as they came on deck.

‘I shall hoist the signal to weigh at noon tomorrow then, gentlemen.' They all agreed. Drinkwater looked across the Sound at the whalers.
Odd shapes had appeared at their mastheads.

‘Crow's nests,' explained Sawyers in answer to Drinkwater's question. ‘It is necessary to provide an elevated lookout post both for sighting the fish and for navigating through the ice. I myself have spent many hours aloft there and have a nest of my own devising.'

‘I see . . . Good night, Captain Waller.'

‘They are also indispensable for shooting unicorns, Captain,' added Harvey.

‘Unicorns? Come sir you haze me . . .'

‘A name given to the Narwhal or Tusked Dolphin, Captain Drinkwater, after which my own ship is named. He may be hit from the masthead where a shot from the deck will be deceived by the refraction of the sea.'

‘Ahhh . . . Your boat, Captain Harvey.'

Harvey's ugly face cracked into a grin and he held out his hand. ‘If a King's Officer won't take offence from an old man, may I suggest that excessive concern will have a bad effect on you. Whatever heated air may have been blown about back in Hull, no-one expects the impossible. While we don't want to be attacked by plaguey Frenchmen we are more anxious to hunt fish.'

‘I fear I cut a poor figure.'

‘Not at all, man, not at all. You are unfamiliar with our ways and your zeal does you credit.'

‘Thank you.'

‘And I'll go further and say, speaking plainly as a Yorkshireman, you'm a damned sight better than that bloody Palgrave.' Harvey went over the side still smiling. Drinkwater turned to say farewell to Sawyers. The Quaker was staring aloft.

‘Thou woulds't oblige thyself, Captain, by constructing a similar contrivance aloft.'

‘A crow's nest? But it would incommode the striking of my t'gallant masts in a gale, Captain Sawyers.'

Sawyers nodded. ‘Thou hast a dilemma, Friend; to keep thy lofty spars in order to have the advantage in a chase, or to snug thy rig down and render it practical.'

Drinkwater looked aloft and Sawyers added, ‘Come, Friend, visit the
Faithful
tomorrow forenoon and familiarise yourself with the workings of a whale-ship.'

‘I am obliged to you, Captain.' They shook hands and Sawyers clambered down into his boat. Drinkwater watched him pulled away, across the steel-grey waters of the Sound.

Immediately after Lieutenant Germaney had seen the captain over the side the following morning he returned to the gunroom and kicked out those of its occupants who lingered over their breakfasts. He took four glasses of blackstrap in quick succession and sent for the Reverend Obadiah Singleton.

‘Take a seat, Mr Singleton. A glass of blackstrap?'

‘I do not touch liquor, Mr Germaney. What is it you wish to see me about?'

‘You are a physician are you not?'

Singleton nodded. ‘Can you cure clap?'

Singleton's astonishment was exceeded by Germaney's sense of relief. The wine now induced a sense of euphoria but he deemed it prudent to restrain Singleton from any moralising. ‘I don't want your offices as a damned parson, d'you hear? Well, what d'you say, God damn it?'

‘Kindly refrain from blasphemy, Mr Germaney. I had thought of you as a gentleman.'

Germaney looked sharply at Singleton. ‘A gentleman may be unfortunate in the matter of his bedfellows, Singleton.'

‘I was referring to the intemperance of your language, but no matter. You contracted this in Hull, eh?'

Germaney nodded. ‘A God da . . . a bawdy house.'

‘Were you alone?'

‘No. I was in company.'

‘With whom, Mr Germaney? Please do not trifle with me, I beg you.'

‘Captain Sir James Palgrave, the Lord Walmsley and the Honourable Alexander Glencross.'

‘All gentlemen,' observed Singleton drily. ‘May I ask you whether you have advertised your affliction to these other young men?'

‘Good God no!'

‘And why have you not consulted Mr Macpherson?'

‘Because the man is a drunken gossip in whom I have not the slightest faith.'

‘He will have greater experience of this sort of disease than myself, Mr Germaney, that I can assure you.'

Germaney shook his head, the euphoria wearing off and being again replaced by the dread that had been his constant companion since his first intimation of the disease. ‘Can you cure me Singleton? I'll endow your mission . . .'

‘Let us leave it to God and your constitution, Germaney. Now what
are your symptoms?'

‘I have a gleet that stings like the very devil . . .'

Germaney described his agony and Singleton nodded. ‘You appear to be a good diagnostician, Mr Germaney. You are not a married man?'

‘Affianced, Singleton, affianced, God damn and blast it!'

The deck of the
Faithful
presented a curious appearance to the uninitiated. Accompanied by Quilhampton, Gorton and Frey, Drinkwater was welcomed by Sawyers who introduced his son and chief mate. He directed his son to show the younger men the ship and tactfully took Drinkwater on a private tour.

The
Faithful
gave an immediate impression of strength and utility, carrying five boats in high davits with three more stowed in her hold. Her decks were a mass of lines and breakers as her crew attended the final preparations for fishing and the filling of her water casks. The men worked steadily, with little noise and no attention paid to their commander and his guest as they picked their way round the cluttered deck.

Sawyers pointed aloft. ‘First, Captain, the rig; it must be weatherly but easily handled. Barque rig with courses, top and t'gallant sails. Thou doubtless noticed the curious narrow-footed cut to our courses, well this clears the davits and allows me to rig the foot to a 'thwartships boom. The boom is secured amidships to those eyebolts on the deck and thus tacks and sheets are done away with. As thou see'st with course and topsail braces led thus, through that system of euphroes I can handle this ship, of three hundred and fifty tons burthen, with five men.'

‘Ingenious.'

‘Aye, 'tis indeed, and indispensable when working after my boats in pursuit of fish running into the ice. Now come . . .' Sawyers clambered up onto the rail and leaned his elbows on the gunwhale of one of the carvel-built whale-boats. Drinkwater admired the lovely sheer and sharp ends of the boat and at his remark a man straightened up from the work of coiling a thin, white hemp line into a series of tubs beneath the thwarts.

‘Whale line,' explained Sawyers, ‘six tubs per boat, totalling seven hundred and twenty fathoms. The inner end accessible to the boat steerer, so that the lines of another boat may be secured and thus extend the line. This is done in the event of a fish sounding deep or running under ice. The outer end at the bow is secured to the fore-ganger,
a short line attaching it to the harpoon which is kept to hand here, on this rest.' The instrument itself was not in place and Sawyers added, ‘This is Elijah Pucill, Captain, speksioneer and chief harpooner; a mighty hunter of mysticetus.' The man grinned and Sawyers pointed to various items in the boat.