Ричард Вудмен - Ebb tide

Keen both to justify Hope's faith in him and to oblige Devaux in the hope that in due course the first lieutenant would indulge his request for leave, Drinkwater penned a cautious note of acceptance hedged about by riders explaining his predicament, then threw himself into his duties. Occasionally these took him out of the ship, as when he acted for Hope on some business with the captain's prize agent, carrying papers ashore to the lawyer's chambers at Southsea. On this occasion, and in confident anticipation of his request being granted, Drinkwater spent two guineas of his prize money on a present for Elizabeth and was in high good humour as he returned from his expedition.

At the Sally Port he hired a wherry to take him back to the ship. It was a fine, cold winter's afternoon, with a brisk wind out of the northeast. A low sun laid a sparkling path upon the sea and threw long, complex shadows from the spars of the fleet. The wherryman set a scrap of lugsail as the boat cleared Southsea beach and they swooped and ducked over the choppy water in the lively but remarkably dry little craft as it fought the contrary tide. The panoply of naval might lay all about them in the brilliant sunshine. Curiously Drinkwater regarded each of the great ships as they lay with their heads to the westward, stemming the flood tide but canted slightly athwart its stream by the brisk wind. As they passed each of the ships-of-the-line, though his passenger could perfectly well read them, the boatman volunteered their names as if this additional service would ensure a large gratuity.

'Edgar, sir, seventy-four guns ... Monarch, seventy-four ... Glenelg, transport... Bedford ...'

Drinkwater stared up at each as they struggled past; occasionally someone stared back and once a midshipman in a bucking cutter alongside a frigate waved cheerfully. With their yard and stay tackles manned, the ships were taking in stores from hoys and ketches bouncing and ranging alongside them. One vessel was landing a defective gun — Drinkwater could see a trunnion missing from it — and several ships were working on their top-hamper, sending down their upper spars. And above every stern the squadronal ensigns of red, white or blue snapped in the breeze.

'Royal George, sir, first-rate. Tallest masts in the navy an' 'er main yard's the longest.'

Drinkwater stared at the great ship with her ascending tiers of stern galleries and her lofty rig. Above the ornate decoration of her taffrail, a huge blue ensign bowed the staff as it strained at its halliards.

'Dick Kempenfelt's flag, sir ...'

'Yes,' Drinkwater replied, glancing up at the blue rectangle at the mizen truck, wondering if, at that moment, Kempenfelt was sitting at his desk mulling over the wisdom of recommending confirmation of the acting commission of the young man whose hired wherry even then bounced over a wave under his flagship's transom.

'Bin the flagship of Anson, 'Awke, Rodney an' Boscawen,' obliged the loquacious and informative wherryman. Then he leaned forward and gave Drinkwater a nudge with the air of a conspirator. Drinkwater turned, caught sight of a quid of tobacco as it rolled between caried teeth, and received a waft of foul breath.

'But she'm rotten, sir, fair rotten, they tell me.' He nodded, adding with malicious relish, 'They were to dock her way back, but it got put off.' He grinned again. 'Bit of luck you're on Cyclops, eh?' and the boatman laughed.

'I thought she was well built,' Drinkwater said, looking up at the great ship, for anything else seemed inconceivable. Upon her quarterdeck high above him, an officer was studying him through a telescope and Drinkwater thought him bored with his anchor watch. 'Didn't I hear she took ten years to build?'

'That's right, sir,' the boatman agreed enthusiastically, 'an' what 'appens to timber what's left out ten year?'

'Well, it weathers.'

'That's bollocks, sir, if you'll pardon me lingo,' and the man spat to leeward as if adding to the contempt of his dismissal. 'Beggin' your pardon, sir, but if that's what they teaches you young officers nowadays, then 'tis no wonder the fleet's rotten. Look sir, what happens wiv a fence when you puts it up, eh?'

Drinkwater had never in his life put up a fence, but he supposed the task might not be beyond him. 'Well you tar it, I imagine,' he ventured.

'You're a bright 'un, sir,' the boatman said. 'Of course you does. You tars it. You don't leave it out for ten year for the rain to soak it and the sun to split it, do you? No. But that's what they done wiv the Royal George!'

A week before Christmas, young Dicky White informed Drinkwater that his father had written and asked that his son be allowed to come home for Christmas. Drinkwater and White had become close friends and though Drinkwater's acting commission had distanced them, it had not destroyed their friendship. Even so, he knew that White possessed family interest and that his father's request would receive a favourable reply. The knowledge irked Drinkwater for he had no equivalent clout and, whatever his position vis-à-vis the midshipmen, he was the most junior officer in the gunroom. He felt a sudden certainty that the duty of Christmas would fall upon him. He stared for a moment out across Spithead to the grey shore of the Isle of Wight.

'I should like you to come with me and I have asked the first lieutenant,' White confided with a smile. 'You'll be glad to know he has no objection. Wallace has volunteered to remain on board.' White dropped his voice and added, 'There's a skeleton in the third lieutenant's locker, Nat. I've heard 'tis a gambling debt. I think he dare not set foot ashore. Either that, or an angry husband has a pair of pistols ready primed!'

The expression on White's face made Drinkwater laugh. 'I've heard nothing of the kind, Chalky. You have too much time in that mess of yours to let your imaginations run wild.' He grew serious, 'Look, my dear fellow, I'm vastly obliged to you for securing my release,' he paused, 'but... oh dear, this is deuced awkward...'

'You do not wish to accompany me to Norfolk?'

'I would dearly like to do so, but I have ... Damn it, Chalky, I have an invitation from ...'

'A lady!' White slapped his thigh in a highly precocious manner, his face broadening to a smile. 'Let me not stand in the way of love, Nat! I shall not say a word. I am so glad that I was the means of your furthering your suit! We shall leave together and we shall return to tell the first luff what a jolly time we had bagging pheasants!'

'Do you think we should go that far?' Drinkwater asked, laughing.

'Do you think we should not?' White retorted.

'Well, stap me, Chalky, if you aren't a veritable Cupid!'

Christmas of 1781 saw the streets of Portsmouth under snow. Even the warren of brothels and grog-shops that they passed through were lent an ethereal beauty by the dazzling whiteness of the snow. Set against an even tone of pearl-grey sky, the tumbled roofs, crooked chimneys and black windows seemed a haven of humanity rather than a nursery of vice and disease. The thin coils of smoke rising from fires of wood and sea-coal lent an air of happy domesticity to this illusion.

Soon they had left Portsmouth behind and found the road passable as it ascended the downs on the way towards Petersfield. White, with the air of a conspirator, had insisted he and Drinkwater leave the ship together. The conveyance Sir Robert White had provided for his son now departed from the post road sufficiently to put Drinkwater down within sight of the church tower of Farehurst. It was with a beating heart that he lugged his small portmanteau towards the vicarage, but anti-climax met him in the person of a small, careworn woman who opened the door and motioned him inside. She ushered him into what he took to be Mr Bower's study, for an ancient writing-table and a battered chair from which the majority of the stuffing had long since escaped, stood in the middle of the room. A litter of papers covered the table and two bookcases flanked the fireplace. An unlit fire was laid in the grate. Three odd upright chairs were set about the room, the pine boards of which were bare, and the windows were half-shuttered.