The Corvette (18 page)

Bourne looked aloft.
Melusine
lay under her spanker and fore-topmast staysail, her reefed maintopsail aback. Hove-to she drifted slowly to leeward, ready to fill her topsail and work to windward. Bourne looked to starboard. The nearest ice lay a league under the sloop's lee.

‘D'you know the bearing of the nearest whaler, Mr Hill?'

‘
Faithful
's west-sou'-west with the
Narwhal
and
Truelove
further to the west among heavier ice.'

‘Very well. Fill the main tops'l, we'll work the ship towards the ice
to windward. That will be . . .' he looked at the compass.

‘West-sou'-west,' offered Hill.

‘Very well.' Bourne clasped his hands behind his back and walked to the windward rail. Standing at the larboard hance by Captain Palgrave's fussy brass carronade now covered in oiled canvas, Lieutenant Bourne felt terribly lonely. He began to worry over the rising wind while Hill had the watch brace the mainyards round. The last few days had demonstrated the dangers of the ice floes to a ship of
Melusine
's light build. The speed with which the ice moved had amazed them and all their skill had been needed to manoeuvre the ship clear of the danger. Captain Drinkwater's written orders to his watch-keeping officers had been specific:
At all costs close proximity with the ice is to be avoided and offing is to be made even at the prospect of losing contact with the whalers
. To move
Melusine
to safety now meant that the captain might be unable to relocate them and with fog coming on there was no longer the refuge contained in Captain Drinkwater's order book:
If in any doubt whatsoever, do not hesitate to inform me
.

In a moment of angry uncertainty Bourne damned Germaney for his insanity. Then worry reasserted itself, worming in the pit of his stomach like some huge parasite. He looked again and looked in vain for the ice edge. Already a white fog was swirling towards them. He ran forward and lifted the speaking trumpet.

‘Masthead there!'

‘Sir?' Gorton leaned from the crow's nest.

‘D'you see anything of the gig?'

‘Nothing, sir.'

‘God damn and blast it!' He thought for a moment longer and then made up his mind, hoping that Captain Drinkwater had remained safe aboard one of the whalers.

‘Mr Hill! Put the ship about, course south, clear of this damned ice.'

Like the good sailing master he was, Hill obeyed the order of the young commissioned officer and brought
Melusine
onto the starboard tack. Then he crossed the deck and addressed Bourne.

‘Mr Bourne, if the captain's adrift in this fog he'll lose the ship. My advice is to give him minute guns and heave to again after you've run a league to the southward.'

Bourne looked at the older man and Hill saw the relief plain in his eyes.

‘Very well, Mr Hill, will you see to it.'

Already the white wraiths curled across the deck and the next
instant every rope began to drip moisture and the damp chill of a dense fog isolated the ship.

*
To work Tom Cox's traverse meant to idle.

It was intuition that told Drinkwater a change in the weather was imminent, intuition and a nervous awareness of altering circumstances. He was slowly awakened to a growing ache in his neck and a dimming of the brilliance of the ice which combined with a softening of its shadows. The day lost its colour and the atmosphere began to feel oddly hostile. The birds were landing on the sea and were airborne in fewer numbers.

He touched Quilhampton's arm as the boat ran between two ice floes some seven or eight feet tall. The lead through which they were running was some hundred yards across, with a patch of open sea visible ahead of them from which, when they reached it, they hoped to catch sight of
Melusine
. Quilhampton turned. ‘Sir?'

‘Fog, Mr Q, fog and wind,' he said in a low voice.

Their eyes met and Quilhampton replied, ‘Pray God we make the ship, sir.'

‘Amen to that, Mr Q.'

Quilhampton, who had been dreaming again of Catriona, pulled himself together and concentrated on working the gig even faster through the lead to reach the open water before the fog closed over them.

Drinkwater ordered Frey to pass another issue of rum to the men who sat shivering in the bottom of the boat. The warmth had gone out of the sun and the approaching fog made the air damp. He heard Quilhampton swear and looked up. The lead between the floes was narrowing as they spun slowly in the wind. He was conscious of a strong and unpleasant smell from the algae on the closing ice.

‘Get the oars to work, Tregembo!' Drinkwater snapped and the men, looking round and grasping the situation at a glance, were quick to obey. Already the lead had diminished by half.

‘Pull, damn you!'

The boat headed for the narrowing gap with perhaps a cable to run
before reaching the open water. The men grunted with effort as they tugged the gig forwards while in the stern Drinkwater and Quilhampton watched anxiously. The gap ahead was down to twenty yards. The sail flapped uselessly as the wind died in the lee of the converging ice. Drinkwater looked anxiously on either side of them, seeking some ledge on the ice upon which they could scramble when the floes ground together and crushed the boat like an eggshell. But both floes were in an advanced state of melting, their waterlines eroded, their surfaces overhanging in an exagerrated fashion. In a minute or two the oars would be useless as there would be insufficient room to extend them either side of the boat. He wished he had a steering oar with which to give the boat a little more chance.

‘Keep pulling, men, then trail oars as soon as you feel the blades touch the ice. Mr Frey, get that damned mast down.' He tried to keep his voice level but apprehension and a sudden bitter chill from the proximity of the ice made it shake. The floes had almost met overhead so that they pulled in a partial tunnel. Then there was a crash astern. Drinkwater looked round. The lead had closed behind them and a wave of water was rushing towards the gig's transom.

‘Pull!' he shouted, turning forward to urge the men, but as he did so he saw them leaning backwards, the looms of their oars sweeping over their heads as they allowed them to trail. They tensed for the impact of the ice when the wave hit them. The boat was thrust abruptly forward as the ice met overhead. Lumps of it dropped into the boat and there were muttered curses as the midshipman, helped now by idle oarsmen got the mast into the boat not an instant too soon.

Suddenly they were in open water and, a moment later in a dense fog.

‘Did anyone see the ship?' Drinkwater asked sharply.

There was a negative muttering.

‘We have exchanged the frying pan for the fire, Mr Q.'

‘Aye, sir.' Quilhampton sat glumly. The heart-thumping excitement of the race against the closure of the ice had had at least the advantage of swift resolution. Catriona might one day learn he had died crushed in Arctic ice and it seemed to him a preferable death to freezing and starving in an open boat. He was about to ask how long Captain Drinkwater thought they could survive when he saw the men exchange glances and Midshipman Frey looked aft, his face pale with anxiety. He pulled himself together. He was in command of the boat, damn it, despite the fact that
Melusine
's captain sat beside him.

‘Permission to re-ship the mast, sir.'

Drinkwater nodded. He looked astern. They were well clear of the ice and already feeling the effect of the wind. ‘Aye, but do not hoist the sail.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.' Quilhampton nodded at the junior midshipman. ‘Step that mast forrard!'

There was a scrambling and a knocking as the stumpy spar with its iron traveller and single halliard was relocated in the hole in the thwart. The men assisted willingly, glad of something to do. When it was done they subsided onto the thwarts and again looked aft.

‘Have all the oars secured inboard and two watches told off. You will take one and I the other. Tregembo pick the hands in Mr Quilhampton's watch and Mr Frey you will pick those in mine. I will take the tiller, Mr Q, whilst you make an issue of grog and biscuit. We will then set the watches and heave the gig to. At regular intervals the bowman will holloa and listen for the echo of his voice. If he hears it we may reasonably expect that ice is close but from what we saw there is little ice to leeward, though some may drift that way at a greater speed than ourselves. In this case we have only to put up the helm and run away from it while its protection to windward will reduce the violence of the sea. The watch below will huddle together to get what warmth it can. Captain Sawyers was only just relating many whale-boat crews have survived such circumstances so there is little to be alarmed about.'

The last sentence was a bare-faced lie, but it had its effect in cheering the men and they went about their tasks with a show of willingness.

With greater misgivings and the pain in his shoulder nagging at him appallingly, Drinkwater sat hunched in the stern-sheets.

Singleton looked at the blade of the catling as the loblolly boy held the lantern close. There was no trace of mist upon it. Francis Germaney had breathed his last.

‘One for the sail-maker, eh sir?' The loblolly boy's grin was wolfish. It was always good to bury an officer, especially one who had the sense to blow his brains out. Or make a mess of it, the man thought, thereby casting doubts on whether he had them in the first place.

Singleton looked coldly at Skeete who stared back.

‘I'll plug his arse and lay him out for the sail-maker, sir.'

‘Be silent, Skeete, you blackguard!' snapped Singleton impatiently, rising and for the hundredth time cracking his head on the deckbeam above. He left the first lieutenant's cabin hurriedly to the accompaniment
of Skeete's diabolical laughter. A loblolly ‘boy' of some twenty years experience and some fifty years of age, Skeete was enjoying himself. To the added pleasure of witnessing the demise of an officer, a circumstance which in Skeete's opinion was all too rare an occurrence, he derived a degree of satisfaction from the office he was about to perform upon such an august corpse as that of Lieutenant Francis Germaney, Royal Navy. Further, since ridding themselves of the drunken oppression of Macpherson, Skeete and his mate had enjoyed an autonomy previously unknown to them. Mr Singleton's remarkable ability in reviving Leek had impressed the surgeon's assistants less than the rest of the crew. To Skeete and his mate, Singleton was not a proper ship's officer and, being a damned parson with pronounced views upon flogging and the Articles of War, could be insulted with a fair degree of impunity. Skeete could not remember enjoying himself so much since he last visited Diamond Lil's at Portsmouth Point.

In search of Drinkwater Singleton arrived on deck to be knocked to his knees by a seaman jumping clear as Number Nine gun fired and recoiled.

‘Mind you f . . . Oh, beg pardon, sir,' the man grinned sheepishly and helped the surgeon to his feet. Somewhat shaken and uncertain as to the cause of the noise and apparent confusion as the gun crew reloaded and hauled up the piece, Singleton made his way aft.

‘Is something the matter, Mr Hill?' he asked the master.

‘Bosun's mate, take that man's name and tell him I'll give him a check shirt at the gangway the next time he forgets to swab his gun . . . matter, Mr Singleton? merely that there is a fog and the captain has yet to return.'

‘Fog?' Singleton turned and noticed the shroud that covered the ship for the first time. He looked sharply at Hill. ‘You mean that the captain's lost in this fog? In that little boat?'

‘So it would seem, Mr Singleton. And the little boat is his gig . . . now if you will excuse me . . . Mackman, you Godforsaken whoreson, coil that fall the other way, God damn you bloody landsmen!'

Singleton pressed aft aware that not only was the
Melusine
shrouded in dense fog but that the wind was piping in the rigging and that the ship was beginning to lift to an increasingly rough sea as she came clear of the ice.

Mr Bourne, now in command, stood miserably at the windward rail with a worried looking Rispin, promoted abruptly and unwillingly to first lieutenant. It was clear, even to Singleton's untutored
eye, that Stephen Hill was in real command. Although he realised with a pang that he felt very uneasy without Drinkwater's cock-headed presence on the quarterdeck, he felt a measure of reassurance in Hill's competence. Knowing something of the promotion-hungry desires of lieutenants and midshipmen Singleton wondered to what extent efforts were being made to recover the captain, then he recollected his duty and struggled across the deck towards Bourne.

A patter of spray flew aft and drove the breath from his body as he reached the anxious lieutenant. ‘Mr Bourne!'