The Corvette (9 page)

He had stationed the Hudson Bay Ships at the van and rear of the convoy where, with their unusual ensigns, they gave the impression of being additional escorts, while
Melusine
occupied a windward station, ready to cover any part of the convoy and from where all her signals could be seen by each ship. He turned forward and looked aloft. The topmen were securing the topgallants and he could see the midshipmen in the fore and main tops watching over the furling of the courses. He considered himself a fortunate man in having such a proficient crew. Convoy escort could frustrate a sloop captain beyond endurance but the whalers, used to sailing in company and manoeuvring with only a handful of men upon the deck while the remainder were out in the boats after whales, behaved with commendable discipline. They were clearly all determined to reach the fishing grounds without delay. Even Ellerby seemed to have accepted his humiliation off the Spurn in a good grace, although it was at
Nimrod
that Drinkwater first looked whenever he came on deck.

‘Beg pardon, sir.'

‘Mr Mount, what is it?'

‘I should like to try my men at a mark, sir, when it is convenient.'

‘By all means. May I suggest you retain the gunroom's empty bottles and we'll haul 'em out to the lee foreyard arm tomorrow forenoon, eh?'

‘Very good, sir.'

‘Have the live marines fire at the dead 'uns,
*
eh?' Mr Mount's laughter was unfeigned and, like Hill, he too inspired confidence.

‘Are there any fencers in the gunroom? Mr Quilhampton and I have foils and masks and I am not averse to going a bout with a worthy challenger.'

The light of interest kindled in Mount's eye. ‘Indeed, yes, sir. I should be pleased to go to the best of . . .'

A scream interrupted Mount and both men looked aloft as the flailing body of a seaman fell. He smacked into the water alongside. Drinkwater's reaction was instantaneous.

‘Helm a-lee! Main braces there! Starboard quarter-boat away! Move God damn you! Man overboard, Mr Rispin!' Mount and Drinkwater ran aft, straining to see where the hapless topman surfaced.

‘Where's your damned sentry, Mount?'

‘Here, sir.' The man appeared carrying a chicken coop. He hove it astern to the fluttering, squawking protest of its occupants.

‘Good man.' The three men peered astern.

‘I see him, sir.' The marine pointed.

‘Don't take your eyes off him and point him out to the boat.'

Melusine
was swinging up into the wind like a reined horse. Men were leaping into the quarter-boat and the knock of oars told where they prepared to pull like devils the instant the boat hit the water. Mr Quilhampton, holding his wooden hand out of the way as he vaulted nimbly over the rail, grabbed the tiller.

‘Lower away there, lower away lively!'

The davits jerked the mizen rigging and the boat hit the water with a flat splash.

‘Come up!' The falls ran slack, the boat unhooked and swung away from the ship, turning under her stern.

‘Hoist
Princess Charlotte
's number and “Man overboard”.' Drinkwater heard little Frey acknowledge the order and hoped that Captain Learmouth would see it in time to wear his ship round into
Melusine
's wake. The marine was up on the taffrail, one hand gripping a spanker vang, the other pointing in the direction of the drowning
man. He must remember to ask Mount the marine's name, his initiative had been commendable.

‘Ship's hove to, sir,' Rispin reported unnecessarily.

‘Very well. Send a midshipman to warn the surgeon that his services will be required to revive a drowning man.'

‘You think there's a chance, sir . . . Aye, aye, sir.' Rispin blushed crimson at the look in Drinkwater's eye.

Everyone on the upper deck was watching the boat. Men were aloft, anxiety plain upon their faces. They could see the boat circling, disappearing in the wave-troughs.

‘Can you still see him, soldier?'

‘No sir, but the boat is near where I last saw 'im, sir.'

‘God's bones.' Drinkwater swore softly to himself.

‘Have faith, sir.' The even features of Obadiah Singleton glowed in the sunset as he stopped alongside the captain. The pious sentiment annoyed Drinkwater but he ignored it.

‘Do you see the coop, soldier?'

‘Aye, sir, 'tis about a pistol shot short of the boat . . . there, sir!'

Drinkwater caught sight of a hard edged object on a wave crest before it disappeared again.

‘What's your name?'

‘Polesworth, sir.'

‘Oh! May God be praised!' Singleton clasped his hands on his breast as a cheer went up from the Melusines. A man, presumably the bowman, had dived from the boat and could be seen dragging the body of his shipmate back to the boat. The boat rocked dangerously as willing hands dragged rescued and rescuer inboard over the transom. Then there was a mad scramble for oars and the boat darted forward. Drinkwater could see Quilhampton urging the oarsmen and beating the time on the gunwhale with his wooden hand.

The boat surged under the falls and hooked on. Drinkwater looked at the inert body in the bottom of the boat.

‘Now is the time for piety, Mr Singleton,' he snapped at the missionary as the latter stared downwards.

‘Heave up!' The two lines of men ranged along the deck ran away with the falls and held the boat at the davit heads while the body was lifted inboard. The blue pallor of death was visible to all.

‘Where's Macpherson?'

‘Below, sir,' squeaked Mr Frey.

‘God damn the man. Get him to the surgeon and lively there!' Men hurried to carry the dripping body below. Drinkwater felt the sudden
anger of exasperation fill him yet again. He was damned if he wanted to lose a man like this!

‘Mr Rispin! Don't stand there with your mouth open. Clap stoppers on those falls and secure that boat, then put the ship on the wind.' The boat's bowman slopped past, his ducks flapping wetly about his legs, his knuckle respectfully at his forehead as he crossed the hallowed planking of the quarterdeck.

‘What's your name?'

‘Mullack, sir.'

‘That was well done, Mullack, I'll not forget it. Who was the victim?'

‘Jim Leek, sir, foretopman.'

‘A messmate of yours?' Mullack nodded. ‘Did you see what happened?' The seaman met Drinkwater's eyes then studied the deck again. ‘No, sir.' He was lying, Drinkwater knew, but that was nothing to hold against him in the circumstances.

‘Very well, Mullack, cut along now.' Drinkwater watched for a second as
Melusine
paid off to steady on her course again.

‘Begging your pardon, sir,' offered Lord Walmsley, stepping forward, ‘but the man was only skylarking, sir. Leek was dancing on the yardarm when he missed his footing.'

‘Thank you, Mr Walmsley. He is in your division ain't he?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Kindly inform the midshipmen that they will be put over a gun-breech every time they permit a man in their division to fool about aloft . . . and Mr Rispin! Set the main t'gallant again, we are three miles astern of our station.'

The smell of tobacco smoke filled the dimly lit cockpit which housed the midshipmen. For a second Drinkwater was a ‘young gentleman' again, transported back to an afternoon in Gibraltar Bay when he had caught a messmate in the throes of sodomy. As he paused to allow his eyes to adjust he took in the scene before him.

Leek's body was thrown over a chest, his buttocks bared while a loblolly boy held his abdomen face downwards. Behind him Surgeon Macpherson stood with a bellows inserted into Leek's anus. The clack-hole was connected to a small box in which tobacco was burning and, in addition to the aroma of the plug and the stink of bilge, the smell of rum was heavy in the foetid air.

‘He's ejecting water,' said the loblolly boy. Drinkwater felt himself
pushed aside in the darkness and looked round sharply as Singleton elbowed his way into the cockpit.

‘What diabolical nonsense is this?' he snapped with uncommon force, opening a black bag. Macpherson looked up and his eyes narrowed, gleaming wetly in the flickering light of the two lanterns.

‘The Cullenian cure,' he sneered, ‘by the acrimony of the tobacco the intestines will be stimulated and the action of the moving fibres thus restored . . .'

‘Get that thing out of his arse!' Macpherson and the loblolly boys stared at Singleton in astonishment as the missionary completed his preparations and pushed the drunken surgeon to one side.

Drinkwater had recovered from his shock. He was remembering something in Singleton's letter of introduction; the two letters ‘M.D.'.

‘Do as he says, Macpherson!' The voice of the captain cut through the gloom and Macpherson stepped back, his rum-sodden brain uncomprehending.

‘By my oath . . . here, on his back and quickly now or we'll have lost him . . .'

Singleton waved two onlookers, Midshipmen Glencross and Gorton, to assist. Leek was laid face up on the deck and Singleton knelt at his head and shoved a short brass tube into his mouth. Pinching Leek's nose Singleton began to blow into the tube. After a while he looked at Gorton.

‘Sit astride him and push down hard on his chest when I take my mouth away.'

They continued thus for some ten minutes, alternately blowing and punching down while the watchers waited in silence. About them
Melusine
creaked and groaned, her bilge slopping beneath them, but in the cockpit a diminishing hiatus of hope suspended them. Even Macpherson watched, befuddled and bewildered by what he was seeing.

Suddenly there was a contraction in Leek's throat. Singleton leapt up and pushed Gorton to one side, rolling Leek roughly over and slapping him hard between the shoulder blades. There was a massive eructation and Leek's chest heaved and continued to heave of its own accord. A quantity of viscid fluid ran from his mouth.

Singleton stood up and fixed Macpherson with a glare. ‘I suggest you forget about Cullen, sir. The Royal Humane Society has advocated resuscitation since seventy-four.' He bumped into Drinkwater. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, sir.'

‘That is quite all right, Mr Singleton. Thank you. Have that man
conveyed to his hammock and excused watches until noon tomorrow, Mr Gorton.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.'

Lieutenant Germaney leant on the rail and endeavoured to distract his preoccupied mind by concentrating upon the wine bottle at the yard arm. The pain was constant now and he thought his bowels were on fire and melting away.

The snap of a musket called his attention momentarily. The bottle swung intact, a green pinpoint at the extremity of the yard, catching the morning sun and twinkling defiantly.

A second musket spat and the bottle shattered. The marines were forbidden to cheer but there were congratulatory grins and one or two sullen faces. Mount was not under the same constraint.

‘Ho! Good shooting, Polesworth. Next man, fire!' Mount's voice was bright with exhilaration and Germaney cursed him for his cheerfulness, seeing in the merriment of others a barometer of his own despair. Since the ship was witness to the remarkable medical talents of the Reverend Obadiah Singleton, Germaney had seen an opportunity to end his suffering. But fate had dealt him a mean trick, providing him with the means of a cure but entailing him in the awkward business of a confession before a gentleman of the cloth. Germaney writhed with indecision, an indecision made worse by the sudden popularity of Mr Singleton and the fact that he was seldom alone, was universally courted by all sections of the ship's company and encouraged in it by the captain, having seen the disgusting state of
Melusine
's own surgeon.

The revival of Leek had also stimulated a sudden religious fervour, for the topman claimed he had died and seen God. While Singleton's attitude to his own medical abilities was purely professional, the theologian in him was intrigued. This circumstance seemed to make Germaney's distress the more acute.

A second bottle shattered and, a few minutes later, Mount dismissed his men. The Marine officer crossed the deck and removed his sword belt, sash, gorget and scarlet coat, laying them over the breech of the quarterdeck carronade next to Germaney. He doffed his hat and held it out.

‘Be a good fellow, Germaney . . .' Germaney took the hat.

‘What the deuce are you up to?'

Mount smiled and bent down to rummage in a canvas bag. He pulled a padded plastron over his shirt, produced a gauntlet, foil and
mask and made mock obeisance.

‘I go, fair one, to joust with the captain. Wilt thou not grant me a favour?'

‘Good God.' Germaney was in no mood for Mount's humour but Mount was not to be so easily suppressed.

‘See where he comes,' he whispered.

Commander Drinkwater had emerged on deck in his shirt sleeves and plastron. Germaney could see the extent of the rumoured wound. The right shoulder sagged appreciably and the reason for the cock of his head, that Germaney had dismissed as a peculiarity of the man, now became clear.

Drinkwater ignored the frank curiosity of the idlers amidships, whipped his foil experimentally, donned his mask and strode across the deck. He flicked a salute at his opponent.

‘Best of seven, sir?' asked Mount, hooking the mask over his head.

‘Very well, Mr Mount, best of seven.' Drinkwater lowered his mask and saluted.

Mount dropped his mask and came on guard. Both men called ‘Ready' to Quilhampton, who was presiding, and the bout commenced.

The two men advanced and retreated cautiously, feeling their opponent by an occasional change of line, the click of the blades inaudible above the hiss of the sea and the thrum of the wind in the rigging.

There was a sudden movement. Mount's lunge was parried but the marine was too quick for Drinkwater, springing backwards then extending as the captain came forward to riposte.