Ричард Вудмен - A private revenge

'The silver is safe, sir. I recovered it. And a little more besides.'

'Ahhh, that is good news ...' And Pellew's well-known cupidity was interrupted by the arrival of his secretary. 'Have the goodness to find the Admiralty's instructions regarding Captain Drinkwater, if you please.'

'And so, sir, after consultations with Sir Edward's physician I am persuaded they offer no threat and that my regime of salt-bathing has been efficacious. I apprehend that there will be no further outbreaks of button-scurvy, sir.'

Drinkwater nodded at the surgeon indulgently. 'Ah, Mr Lallo, I am delighted to hear it. Your remedy', he said, with a touch of irony, 'does you credit.'

'Thank you, sir. I also learned from Sir Edward's man that Captain Rakitin lately succumbed to a quotidian fever induced by a carcinoma.'

'I am sorry to hear that, Mr Lallo, indeed I am. I do not believe the Russians will long bear arms against us.'

'Let us hope you are right, sir. We have few friends in the world.' Lallo rose to take his leave, then seemed to hesitate.

'There is something else, Mr Lallo?'

'Sir ... there is wild talk of a duel, sir.'

'A duel?' snapped Drinkwater incredulously. 'By God, is the appetite for blood insatiable? Between whom pray?'

'Between young Midshipman Chirkov who is still here in Penang and ...'

'Go on, sir, go on, I demand to know!'

'Frey, sir.'

'God's bones, has the young jackanapes lost his reason, send for him upon the instant.'

Drinkwater sat immobilised while he waited for Frey. What the deuce was the matter with the lad?

'You sent for me, sir?'

'Indeed, Mr Frey, I did. I hear you are engaged to meet Midshipman Chirkov upon a matter of ... of ...'

'Honour, sir.'

'Have you any explanation to offer me? You know the practice to be forbidden, a rule I most strictly enforce.'

'You forbid me to meet Midshipman Chirkov, sir, even in our capacities as private gentlemen?' Frey's manner was prickly.

'I most certainly do, Mr Frey.'

'But my honour, sir?'

'Damn your honour, sir! You will oblige me by your obedience.'

'Sir, I protest!'

'Hold your tongue, sir! I have just obtained for you ratification of your commission as lieutenant from the Commander-in-Chief! I have just persuaded Admiral Pellew that it is unnecessary for you to take the formal examination. I have just descanted upon your abilities, praised your steadiness, recommended your proficiency as a watercolourist, as being an officer ideally fitted for surveying. I have, in short, Mr Frey, enlarged on every segment of your character that I might adduce in your favour to procure this preferment. You will therefore attend to my own orders in preference to your foolish notion to demand satisfaction.'

'Sir,' said Frey unhappily, 'I had no idea of your high opinion.'

'Mr Frey,' said Drinkwater grimly, 'I have lost too many friends to allow you to put your life to the hazard for a trifling notion of honour.'

'But, sir ...'

'I forbid it!'

Drinkwater's voice cracked with anger. He paused, then added in a quieter tone, 'Your talk of honour and the compulsive need for satisfaction are foolish principles ...' The captain lapsed into an introspective silence. An awkwardness hung in the air, broken in the end by Frey.

'Very well, sir, I submit. And thank you for your efforts on my behalf.'

'Eh? Oh, yes ... yes, very well.' Drinkwater recovered himself, coughing to clear his throat. 'You will be glad to know', he seated himself, 'that we are ordered home. The rigours of your duty will demand more courage than facing Mr Chirkov's pistols, a thing quickly done, but it's courage of a different sort, Mr Frey.'

Frey left the cabin. For a moment Drinkwater stared after the young man, then he buried his head in his hands.

The British occupation of Macao and Admiral Drury's extraordinary demonstration before Canton are a sideshow of the Napoleonic War largely ignored by standard histories. Drury, the first of several British naval officers to appear in the Pearl River during the nineteenth century, was unique for his sympathetic attitude to the Chinese. I have largely used his own words to express his sentiments. The Chinese regarded his 'humane treatment' as a victory of their own. Pellew too, though a shameless nepotist, was no imperialist, and Drinkwater's view of British policy in India was also expressed by Sir Edward. Both Pellew and Drury were harassed by Company and Country mercantile interests who considered the convoy arrangements of the former inadequate, and said so publicly. To some extent their criticisms of the Navy's preference for seeking prizes were justified.

Few, if any, merchant ships got out of the Pearl River during the 1808 season, but Drury did send a frigate up to Whampoa to secure a quantity of specie owed by the Chinese merchants. Rumours of a French overland expedition via Persia were current at the time (and considered by Napoleon), while the depredations of French corsairs continued in the Indian Ocean. I am chiefly indebted to Captain Eastwick's memoirs for a contemporary picture of the Canton trading scene and in particular the Country ships.

Piracy in the South China Sea continues to be a problem in the present century. Raffles's acquisition of the island of Tumasek broke much of the power of the pirates when he founded Singapore in 1819, but at that time, as his own Malay tutor, Abdullah bin Abdul Kadir, wrote: 'no mortal dared to pass through the Straits ... Jinns and satans even were afraid, for that was the place the pirates made use of ... There also they put to death their captives ... All along the beach there were hundreds of human skulls, some of them old, some fresh ... in various stages of decay.' Shortly after the end of the Napoleonic War the British Admiralty sent Captain Henry Keppel to extirpate these nests of pirates. Doubtless they were influenced by Drinkwater's report on the subject. Nor were naval vessels immune from what Raffles called 'an evil of ancient date', for in 1807 the Dutch warship De Vrede was captured and her officers and crew treated with characteristic barbarism.

Although unseasonal, typhoons are not unknown as late in the year as November. Finally, the origin of the enmity between Drinkwater and Morris may be found detailed in An Eye of the Fleet and A Brig of War ; the presence of the Russian prisoners in In Distant Waters .