The Corvette (16 page)

‘Well a man does not stop taking a little wine in case he becomes roaring drunk and commits some felonious act, does he?'

‘Perhaps he should, Mr Mount,' said Singleton icily, raising a glass of water to his lips.

‘I don't understand you, Mr Singleton,' said Hill at last. ‘I can see you may argue that if Cain had never slain Abel the world might have been a better place but given that it is not paradise, do you advocate that we simply lie down and invite our enemies to trample over us?'

‘To turn the other cheek and beat our swords into ploughshares?' added Mount incredulously.

‘Why not?' asked Singleton with impressive simplicity. There was a stunned silence while they assimilated the preposterous nature of this suggestion. Then the table erupted as the officers leaned forward with their own reasons for the impossibility of such a course of action. The candle flames guttered under the discharge of air from several mouths. In the ensuing babel Drinkwater heard such expressions as ‘march unchecked on London . . . dishonour our women . . . destroy our institutions . . . rape . . . loot . . . national honour . . .'

He allowed the reaction to continue for some seconds before banging sharply on the table.

‘Gentlemen, please!' They subsided into silence. ‘Gentlemen, you must have some regard for Mr Singleton's cloth. Preposterous as his idea sounds to you, your own conversations have disturbed him these past weeks. He doubtless finds equally odd your own assertions that you will “thrash Johnny Crapaud”, “cut the throats of every damned frog” you encounter not to mention “flog any man that transgresses the Articles of War or the common usages of the service”. Yet you appear devout enough when Divine Service is read, an act which Mr Singleton may regard as something close to hypocrisy . . . eh?' He looked round at them, his eyes twinkling as he encountered mystification or downright astonishment.

‘Now, if you ignore abstract considerations and deal with the pragmatic you will see that we have all chosen professions which require zeal. In Mr Singleton's case religious zeal and in your case, gentlemen, the professional zeal of strict adherence to duty. Zeal is not something that admits of much prevarication or equivocation and since argument and debate might be said to be synonyms for quibbling, your two positions are quite irreconcilable. And if two opposing propositions are irreconcilable I would suggest the arguing of them a fatuous waste of time.'

Drinkwater finished his speech with his eyes on Singleton. The man appeared disappointed, as though expecting unreserved support from Drinkwater. He felt slightly guilty towards Singleton, as though owing him some explanation.

‘I believe in providence, Mr Singleton, which you might interpret
as God's will. To me it incorporates all the forces that you theologists claim as evoked by “God” whilst satisfactorily explaining those you do not. It is a creed much favoured by sea-officers.'

‘Then you do not believe in God, Captain Drinkwater,' pronounced Singleton dolefully, ‘and the power of your intellect prevents you from spiritual conversion.'

Drinkwater inclined his head. ‘Perhaps.'

‘Then I find that a matter of the profoundest sadness, sir,' Singleton replied quietly. The silence in the cabin was touching; even Walmsley and Glencross had ceased to wriggle, though their condition was more attributable to the brandy they had consumed than interest in polemics.

‘So do I, Mr Singleton, so do I. But the moment when a man has to say whether God, as you theologists conceive him, exists or not is a profound one, not to be taken lightly. We cannot conceive of any form of existence that does not entail physical entity, witness your own archangels. Indeed even a devout man may imagine eternal life as some sort of transmigration of our corporeal selves during which all disabilities, uglinesses, warts and ill-disposed temperaments disappear. This is surely understandable, though not much above the primitive, something which our eskimo friend would comprehend.

‘Now I ask you, as rational beings living in an age of scientific discovery and more particularly being seamen observing the varied phenomena of atmosphereology can you convince me of the whereabouts of these masses of corporeal souls? Of course not . . .'

‘You deny the Resurrection, sir!'

Drinkwater shrugged. ‘I have seen too much of death and too little of resurrection to place much faith in it applying it to common seamen like ourselves.'

‘But you are without faith!' Singleton cried.

‘Not at all, sir!' Drinkwater refilled his glass. ‘Belief in atheism surrenders everything too much to hazard. I cannot believe that. I see only purpose in all things, a purpose that is made evident by science and manifests itself in the divine working of providence. As for the corporeal self why Quilhampton, Hill and I hold together like a trio of doubled frigates. If the enemy gets a further shot at our carcases there will likely be little left to refurbish for the life hereafter.'

The facetious jest raised a little laughter round the table and revealed that all three midshipmen were asleep.

‘I agree with the Captain,' said Germaney suddenly. ‘I recollect something Herrick wrote. Er,' he thought for a moment and then sat
up and quoted: ‘ “Putrefaction is the end, of all that nature doth intend.” There is great truth in that remark, great truth . . .'

Drinkwater looked sharply at his first lieutenant. Germaney's silence had seemed as uncharacteristic as his sobriety and now this sudden quotation seemed to be significant. It appeared that Singleton considered it so, for he seemed disinclined to pursue the discussion and Drinkwater himself fell silent. Mount rose and thanked him for his hospitality and the hint was taken up by the others. As the chairs scraped back the midshipmen awoke and guiltily made their apologies. Drinkwater waved them indulgently aside.

As he watched them leave the cabin he called Singleton back. ‘A moment, Mr Singleton, if you please.'

Drinkwater blew out the candles that had illuminated the table. The cabin was thrown into penumbral gloom from the midnight daylight of the Arctic summer.

‘You must not think that I wish to ridicule your calling. In my convalescence I met a priest of your persuasion possessed of the most enormous spiritual arrogance. I found it most distasteful. It is not that I disbelieve, it is simply that I
cannot
believe as you do. After the birth of my children I had the curious
natural
feeling that I had outlived my usefulness. My liberal ideals were in conflict with this, but I could not deny the emotion. It seemed that all thereafter was merely vanity.'

Singleton coughed awkwardly. ‘Sir, I . . .'

‘Do not trouble yourself on my account, Mr Singleton, I beg you. I hear that Leek is a faithful convert and protests not only the existence of God but can vouch for his very appearance.'

‘Leek was very close to death by drowning, sir, perhaps a little of the great mystery was unfolded to him.' Singleton was deadly serious.

‘But the intervention of science prevented it;
your
knowledge, Mr Singleton.'

‘Now you do ridicule me.'

Drinkwater laughed. ‘Not at all. Perhaps we are, as you said earlier, too well-informed for our own good, as it says in the Bible, “unless ye be as little children . . .” '

‘That is perhaps the wisest thing you have said, sir,' Singleton at last smiled back.

‘Touché. And good night to you.'

‘Good night, sir.'

Drinkwater went on deck. Mr Rispin had the watch and pointed out the closer drift ice and identified the whalers in sight. There was scarcely a breath of wind and
Melusine
lay upon a sea that only moved
slightly from the ground swell. Rispin's unconfident, fussy manner irritated Drinkwater until he reflected that he had been particularly lugubrious this evening and dominated the conversation. Well, damn it, it was a captain's privilege to talk nonsense.

Lieutenant Germaney sat in his hutch of a cabin contemplating the bundle of scented paper tied with a blue ribbon. After a while he opened the lantern and removed the candle tray. He began to burn the letters, a little pile of ash mounting up and spilling onto the deck.

When he had completed his task he turned to his cot and lifted the lid of the walnut case that lay upon it. Taking out one of the pair of pistols it contained, he checked its priming. Turning again to the candle he carefully replaced the tray inside the lantern and closed it, returning the thing to its hook in the deck-head.

Reseating himself he lifted the pistol, placed its muzzle in his mouth. For a moment he sat quite still then, with the cold steel barrel knocking his teeth he said, ‘Putrefaction!'

And pulled the trigger.

‘Why in God's name was I not told of this?'

‘The confidentiality which exists between a patient and his physician . . .'

‘God's bones, Singleton, I will not bandy words with you. The man should have been on the sick book, along with the others that have lues and clap.' Drinkwater swore again in self reproach and added, ‘I remarked some morbid humour in him.'

‘I am not the ship's surgeon, Captain Drinkwater, a fact which you seem to have lost sight of . . .'

‘Have a care, sir, have a care!' Both men glared angrily at each other across the cabin table. At last Singleton said, ‘It seems we have adopted irreconcilable positions which, by your own account are a waste of time trying to harmonise.' The ghost of a smile crossed Singleton's dark features. Drinkwater sighed as the tension ebbed. He gestured to a chair and both men sat, thinking of the broken body of Lieutenant Francis Germaney lying in its cot.
Melusine
lay becalmed, rolling easily in a growing swell among the loose drift ice. On deck the watch fended off the larger floes while the sun shone brilliantly, dancing in coruscating glory from several fantastically shaped bergs to the north. Within the cabin the gloom of death hung like a stink.

‘How long will he live?'

‘Not very long. The condylar process of the left mandible is shattered, the squamous part of the temporal bone is severely damaged and there is extensive haemorrhaging from the ascending pharyngeal artery. How the internal carotid and the associated veins were not ruptured I do not know but a portion of the left lower lobe of the cortex is penetrated by pieces of bone.'

Drinkwater sighed. ‘I marked some preoccupation in him from our first acquaintance, but I never guessed its origin,' he said at last. ‘Might you have achieved a cure?'

Singleton shrugged. ‘I believed that I might have achieved a clinical
cure, he was receiving intra-urethral injections of caustic alkali and a solution of ammoniated mercury with opium. His progress was encouraging but I fear that his humour was morbid and the balance of his mind affected. He confided in me that he was affianced; I think it was this that drove him to such an extremity as to attempt his own life.'

Drinkwater shuddered, feeling a sudden guilt for his unsympathetic attitude to Germaney. ‘Poor devil,' he said, adding ‘you have him under sedation?'

Singleton nodded, ‘Laudanum, sir.'

‘Very well. And what of our other lost cause, Macpherson?'

‘He will not last the week either.'

After Singleton had left the cabin Drinkwater sat for some minutes recollecting the numbers of men he had seen die. Of those to whom he had been close he remembered Madoc Griffiths, Master and Commander of the brig
Hellebore
who had died on the quarterdeck of a French frigate in the Red Sea; Blackmore, the elderly sailing master of the frigate
Cyclops
worn out by the cares and ill usage of the service. Major Brown of the Lifeguards had been executed as a spy and hung on a gibbet above the battery at Kijkduin as a warning to the British cutters blockading the Texel. More recently he thought of Mason, master's mate of the bomb vessel
Virago
who had died after the surgeon had failed to extract a splinter, of Easton,
Virago
's sailing master, who had fallen at Copenhagen during a supposed ‘truce'. And Matchett who had died in his arms. Now Germaney, a colleague who might, in time, have been a friend.

A sudden world-weariness overcame him and he was filled with a poignant longing to return home. To lie with Elizabeth would be bliss, to angle for minnows in the Tilbrook with his children charming beyond all reason.

But it was impossible. All about him
Melusine
, with her manifold responsibilities, creaked and groaned as the swell rolled her easily and the rudder bumped gently. He suddenly needed the refreshment of occupation and stood up. Flinging on his greygoe he went on deck.

A light breeze had sprung up from the westward and he received Bourne's report with sudden interest. Most of the whalers were flensing their catches, rolling the great carcases over as the masthead tackles lifted strips of pale blubber from the dead whales whose corpses were further despoiled by scores of Greenland sharks. Flocks of screaming and hungry gulls filled the air alongside each of the whalers and only one had her boats out in search of further prey.