Ричард Вудмен - 1805

'Obliged, Captain,' said Pitt, inclining his head slightly and studying the naval officer. 'I wish to thank you for your forbearance. I think you know to what I allude.'

'It is most considerate of you, sir, to take the trouble. The service was a small one.' Drinkwater felt relief that the incident was to be made no more of.

Pitt smiled over the rim of his glass and Drinkwater saw how tired and sick his boyish face really was, prematurely aged by the enormous responsibilities of high office.

'He was the only midshipman that remained loyal to Riou when the Guardian struck an iceberg in the Southern Ocean,' said Pitt obliquely, as though this extenuated Camelford's behaviour. Drinkwater recalled Riou's epic struggle to keep the damaged Guardian afloat for nine weeks until she fetched Table Bay. The thought seemed to speak more of Riou's character than of Camelford's. 'Lord Dungarth assures me', Pitt went on, 'that I can rely upon your absolute discretion.'

So, Drinkwater mused as he bowed again and muttered, 'Of course, sir', it seemed that he had guessed correctly and that Pitt himself had sent his cousin into France to end Bonaparte's career.

But he was suddenly forced to consider more important matters.

'Good,' said Pitt, refilling his glass. 'And now, Captain, I wish to ask you something more. How seriously do you rate the prospects of invasion?'

The enormity of the question took Drinkwater aback. Even allowing for Pitt's recent resumption of office it seemed an extraordinary one. He shot a glance at Dungarth who nodded encouragingly.

'Well, sir, I do not know that I am a competent person to answer, but I believe their invasion craft capable of transporting a large body of troops. That they are encamped in sufficient force is well known. Their principal difficulty is in getting a great enough number of ships in the Strait here to overwhelm our own squadrons. If they could achieve that… but I am sure, sir, that their Lordships are better placed to advise you than I…'

'No, Captain. I ask you because you have just come in from a Channel cruise and your opinions are not entirely theoretical. I am told that the French cannot build barges capable of carrying troops. I do not believe that, so it is your observations that I wished for.'

'Very well, sir. I think the French might be capable of combining their fleet effectively. Their ships are not entirely despicable. If fortune gave them a lucky start and Nelson…' he broke off, flushing.

'Go on, Captain. "If Nelson…"'

'It is nothing, sir.'

'You were about to say: "if Nelson maintains his blockade loosely enough to entice Latouche-Tréville out of Toulon for a battle, only to lose contact with him, matters might result in that combination of their fleets that you are apprehensive of." Is that it?'

'It is a possibility talked of in the fleet, sir.'

'It is a possibility talked of elsewhere, sir,' observed Pitt with some asperity and looking at Dungarth. 'Nelson will be the death or the glory of us all. He let a French fleet escape him before Abukir. If he wasn't so damned keen on a battle, but kept close up on Toulon like Cornwallis at Brest…' Pitt broke off to refill his glass. 'So you think there is a chance of a French fleet entering the Channel?'

Drinkwater nodded. 'It is a remote one, sir. But the Combined Fleets of France and Spain did so in seventy-nine. They would have more chance of success if they went north about.'

'Round Scotland, d'you mean?'

'Yes, sir. There'd be less chance of detection,' said Drinkwater, warming to his subject and egged on by the appreciative expression on Dungarth's face. 'A descent upon the Strait of Dover from the North Sea would be quite possible and they could release the Dutch fleet en route. You could circumvent Cornwallis by…'

'A rendezvous in the West Indies, by God!' interrupted Pitt. 'Combine all your squadrons then lose yourself in the Atlantic for a month and reappear at our back door… Dungarth, d'you think it's possible?'

'Very possible, William, very possible, and also highly likely. The Emperor Napoleon has one hundred and seventy thousand men encamped just across the water there. I'd say that was just what he was intending.'

Pitt crossed the rich carpet to stare out of the window at the pale line of France on the distant horizon. The waters of the Strait lay between, blue and lovely in the sunshine beyond the bastions of the castle, dotted with the white sails of Keith's cruisers. Without turning round, Pitt dismissed Drinkwater.

'Thank you, Captain Drinkwater. I shall take note of your opinion.'

Dungarth saw him to the door. 'Thank you, Nathaniel,' the earl muttered confidentially, 'I believe your deductions to be absolutely correct.'

Drinkwater returned to his boat flattered by the veiled compliment from Dungarth and vaguely disturbed that his lordship, as head of the navy's intelligence service, needed a junior captain to make his case before the new Prime Minister.

'Six minutes, Mr Rogers,' said Drinkwater pocketing his watch, 'very creditable. Now you may pipe the hands to dinner.'

The shifting of the three topsails had been accomplished in good time and the tide was just turning against them. They could bring to their anchor and dine in comfort, for there was insufficient wind to hold them against a spring ebb. It was a great consolation, he had remarked to Rogers earlier, that they could eat like civilised men ashore at a steady table, while secure in the knowledge that their very presence at anchor in the Dover Strait was sufficient to keep the French army from invading.

For almost seven weeks now, Antigone had formed part of Lord Keith's advance division, cruising ceaselessly between the Varne Bank and Cap Gris Nez, one of several frigates and sixty-fours that Keith kept in support of the small fry in the shallower water to the east. Cutters, luggers, sloops and gun-brigs, with a few bomb-vessels, kept up a constant pressure on the attempts by the French army to practise embarkation. Drinkwater knew the little clashes between the advance forces of the two protagonists were short, sharp and murderous. His disfigured shoulder was proof of that.

Having frequently stood close inshore at high water, Drinkwater had seen that the invasion flotilla consisted of craft other than the chaloupes and péniches with which he was already familiar. There were some large prames , great barges, one hundred feet long and capable of carrying over a hundred and fifty men. A simple elevation of the telescope to the green hills surrounding Boulogne was enough to convince Drinkwater that he had been right in expressing his fears to Pitt. Line after line of tents spread across the rolling countryside. Everywhere the bright colours of soldiers in formation, little squares, lozenges, lines and rectangles, all tipped with the brilliant reflections of sunlight from bayonets, moved under the direction of their drill-masters. Occasionally squadrons of cavalry were to be seen moving; wheeling and changing from line to column and back to line again. Drinkwater was touched by the fascination of it all. Beside him Frey would sit with his box of water-colours, annoyed and impatient with himself that he could not do justice to the magnificence of the scene.

At night they could see the lines of camp-fires, the glow of lanterns, and occasionally hear the bark of cannon from the batteries covering the beaches which opened fire on an insolent British cutter working too close inshore.

Now Drinkwater waited for the cable to cease rumbling through the hawse and for Hill to straighten up from the vanes of the pelorus as Antigone settled to her anchor.