Ричард Вудмен: The Bomb Vessel

Drinkwater feigned a laugh. 'Hardly, I was promised a gun-brig but I've something called a bomb-tender. Named Virago .'

'Your own command, eh?' Rogers snapped with a predatory eagerness, leaning forward so that Drinkwater smelt breath that betrayed an empty belly. Rogers seemed about to speak, then twisted his mouth in violent suppression. Drinkwater watched him master his temper, horrified at the sudden brightness in his eyes.

'My dear fellow… come…' Taking Rogers's elbow, Drinkwater steered him through the throng and turned him into the first coffee house in the Strand. When he had called for refreshment he watched Rogers fall on a meat pie and turned an idea over in his mind, weighing the likely consequences of what he was about to say.

'You cannot get a ship?'

Rogers shook his head, swallowing heavily and washing the last of the pie down with the small beer that Drinkwater had bought him. 'I have no interest and the story of Hellebore 's loss is too well known to recommend me.'

Drinkwater frowned. The brig's loss had been sufficiently circumstantial to have Rogers exonerated in all but a mild admonishment from the Court of Enquiry held at Mocha the previous year. Only those who knew him well realised that his intemperate nature could have contributed to the grounding on Daedalus Reef. Drinkwater himself had failed to detect the abnormal refraction that had made the reckoning in their latitude erroneous. Rogers had not been wholly to blame.

'How was it so "well known", Sam?'

Rogers shrugged, eyeing Drinkwater suspiciously. He had been a cantankerous shipmate, at odds with most of the officers including Drinkwater himself. It was clear that he still nursed grievances, although Drinkwater had felt they had patched up their differences by bringing home the Antigone .

'You know well enough. Gossip, scuttlebutt, call it what you will. One man has the ear of another, he the ears of a dozen…'

'Wait a minute Sam. Appleby was a gossip but he's in Australia. Griffiths is dead. I'll lay a sovereign to a farthing that the poison comes from Morris!' Rogers continued to look suspiciously at Drinkwater, suspecting him still, of buying the pie and beer to ease his own conscience. Drinkwater shook his head.

'It was not me, Sam.' Drinkwater held the other's gaze till it finally fell. 'Come, what d'you say to serving as my first lieutenant?'

Rogers's jaw dropped. Suddenly he averted his face and leaned forward to grasp Drinkwater's hand across the table. His mouth groped speechlessly for words and Drinkwater sought relief from his embarrassment in questions.

'Brace up, brace up. You surely cannot be that desperate. Why your prize money… whatever happened to reduce you to this indigent state?'

Rogers mastered himself at last, shrugging with something of his old arrogance. 'The tables, a wench or two…' He trailed off, shamefaced and Drinkwater had no trouble in imagining the kind of debauch Samuel Rogers had indulged in with his prize money and two years celibacy to inflame his tempestuous nature. Drinkwater gave him a smile, recollecting Rogers's strenuous efforts in times of extreme difficulty, of his personal bravery and savage courage.

'Empty bellies make desperate fellows,' he said, watching Rogers, who nodded grimly. Drinkwater called for coffee and sat back. He considered that Rogers's chastening might not be such a bad thing, just as in battle his violent nature was such an asset.

'It is not exactly a plum command, Samuel, but of one thing I am certain…'

'And that is?'

'That we both need to make something of it, eh?'

Drinkwater lent Rogers ten pounds so that he might make himself more presentable. Their ship lay above Chatham and Rogers had been instructed to join Drinkwater at his lodgings the following morning. In the meantime Drinkwater had to visit the Navy Office and he left the latter place as the evening approached, his mind a whirl of instructions, admonitions and humiliation at being one of the lowest forms of naval life, a lieutenant in command, permitted into those portals of perfidy and corruption. It was then he had the second encounter of the day.

Returning west along the Strand he came upon a small but vicious mob who had pulled a coachman from his box. It was almost dark and the shouts of disorder were mixed with the high-pitched screams of a woman. Elbowing the indifferent onlookers aside Drinkwater pressed forward, aware of a pale face at the carriage window. He heard a woman in the crowd say, 'Serve 'im bleedin' right for takin' 'is whip to 'em!'

Drinkwater broke through the cordon round the coach to where a large grinning man in working clothes held the tossing heads of the lead-horses. The whites of their eyes were vivid with terror. Rolling almost beneath the stamping hooves, the triplecaped bundle of a bald-headed coachman rolled in the gutter while three men, one with a lacerated cheek, beat him with sticks.

The offending whip lay on the road and the coachman's huge tricorne was being rescued and appropriated by a ragged youth, to the whoops of amusement of his fellows. Several hags roared their approval in shrill voices, while a couple of drabs taunted the woman in the coach.

Drinkwater took in the situation at a glance. A momentary sympathy for the man who had been whipped faded in his angry reaction to disorder. The noise of riot was anathema to him. As a naval officer his senses were finely tuned to any hint of it. London had been wearing him down all day. This final scene only triggered a supressed reaction in him.

Still in full dress he threw back his cloak and drew his hanger. His teeth were set and he felt a sudden savage joy as he shoved his heel into the buttocks of the nearer assailant. A cry of mixed anger and encouragement went up from the mob. The man fell beneath the pawing hooves and rolled away, roaring abuse. The other two men paused panting, their staves ready to rebuff their attacker. Drinkwater stepped astride the coachman, who moaned distressingly, and brought his sword point up to the throat of the man with the whipped face. With his left hand he felt in his pocket.

'Come now,' Drinkwater snapped, 'you've had your sport. Let the lady proceed.'

The man raised his stave as though about to strike. Drinkwater dropped the coin onto the back of the coachman. The glint of the half-crown caught the man's eye and he bent to pick it up, but Drinkwater's sword point caught the back of his neck.

'You will let the fellow go, eh? And set him upon his box if you please…' He could feel the man's indignation. 'I'm busy manning a King's ship, cully. Do you take the money and set the fellow up again.' Drinkwater sensed the man acquiesce, stepped back and put up his sword. Threat of the press worked better than the silver, but Drinkwater did not begrudge the money, disliking the arrogant use of corporal punishment for such trivialities.

The man rose and jerked his head at his accomplice. The coachman was hauled to his feet and bodily thrown onto the box. His hat had disappeared and he put his face into his hands as the crowd taunted him and cheered. Drinkwater turned to the window.

'Would you like me to accompany you, ma'am?' The face was pale and round in the gloom. He could not hear her whispered reply but the door swung open and he climbed in.

'Drive on!' he commanded as he closed the door. When he had pulled the blinds he sat opposite the occupant. She was little more than a child, still in her teens. The yellow carriage lights showed a plain face that seemed somehow familiar. He removed his hat.

'You are not hurt?' She shook her head and cleared her throat.

'I… I am most grateful, sir.'

'It was nothing. I think, ma'am, you should tell your coachman to be less eager to use his whip.'

She nodded.