Richard Woodman - A Brig of War

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In A Brig of War, Nathaniel Drinkwater is promoted lieutenant of the brig HELLEBORE. He finds routine convoy escort duties end abruptly when Admiral Nelson, pursuing the French fleet to Egypt, sends HELLEBORE to the Red Sea with an urgent warning to the British squadron there. However, Nelson's apprehensions over French ambitions in the East are more than justified. Edouard Santhonax, Drinkwater's old enemy, is already preparing for a French descent on India. The hunt for this elusive Frenchman and his frigate is combined with British naval operations on the flank of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign. It is during the attack on Kosseir that Drinkwater is left for dead. His escape and the subsequent desperate attack on Santhonax leads to a still more dangerous situation under Augustus Morris, former tyrant of the midshipmen's berth on HMS CYCLOPS.

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'Of course, sir!' A spark of indignant spirit was rekindled in the boy.

'Then come, Mr Q. Do not, I beg you, disobey me now.'

The muscles along Quilhampton's jaw hardened. 'Mr Dalziell, sir, struck me, sir. It was in a fair fight, sir,' he added hurriedly.

'Fights are seldom fair, Mr Q. What was this over?'

'Nothing, sir.'

'Mr Quilhampton,' Drinkwater said sharply, 'I shall not remind you again that you are in the King's service, not the schoolroom.'

'Well, sir, he was insulting you, sir… said something about you and the captain, sir… something not proper, sir.'

Drinkwater frowned. 'Go on.'

'I er, I thought it unjust, sir, and I er, demurred, sir…' The boy's powers of self-expression had improved immeasurably but the thought of what the boy was implying sickened Drinkwater.

'Did he suggest that the captain and I enjoyed a certain intimacy, Mr Q?' he asked softly. Relief was written large on the boy's face.

'Yes sir.'

'Very well, Mr Q. Thank you. Now then, for fighting and for not obeying my order promptly I require from you a dissertation on the origin of the brig-sloop, written during your watch below this afternoon and brought to me when you report on deck at eight bells.'

The boy left the cabin happier in spite of his task. But for Drinkwater a cloud had come permanently over the day and a dark suspicion was forming in his mind.

He spoke to Dalziell when he relieved Rogers at the conclusion of the afternoon watch. Quilhampton had delivered into his hand an ink-spattered paper which he folded carefully and held behind his back.

'For fighting, Mr Dalziell, I require an essay on the brig-sloop. I desire that you submit it to me when I am relieved this evening.'

Dalziell muttered his acknowledgement and turned away. Drinkwater recalled him.

'Tell me, Mr Dalziell, what is the nature of your acquaintanceship with Lord Dungarth?' Dalziell's face relaxed into a half-concealed smirk. Drinkwater hoped the midshipman thought him a trifle scared of too flagrantly punishing an earl's eleve. That feline look seemed to indicate that he was right.

'I am related to his late wife… sir.'

'I see. What was the nature of your kinship?'

'I was second cousin to the countess.' He preened himself, as if being second cousin to a dead countess absolved him from the formalities of naval courtesy. Drinkwater did not labour the point; Mr Dalziell did not need to know that Lord Dungarth had been the director of the clandestine operations of the cutter Kestrel . 'You are most fortunate in your connections, Mr Dalziell,' he said as the boy smirked again.

He was about to turn away and give his attention to the ship when Dalziell volunteered, 'I have a cousin on my mother's side who knows you, Mr Drinkwater.'

'Really?' said Drinkwater without interest, aware that Rogers had neglected to overhaul the topgallant buntlines which were taut and probably chafing. 'And who might that be?'

'Lieutenant Morris.'

Drinkwater froze. Slowly he turned and fixed Dalziell with a frigid stare.

'And what of that, Mr Dalziell?'

Suddenly it occurred to Dalziell that he might be mistaken in securing an advantage over the first lieutenant so soon after the tribunal. He realised Mr Drinkwater would not cringe from mere innuendo, nor could he employ the crudities that had upset Quilhampton. 'Oh, n… nothing sir.'

'Then get below and compose your essay.' Drinkwater turned away and fell to pacing the deck, forgetting about the topgallant buntlines. He hated the precocity of Dalziell and his ilk. The day was ruined for him, the whole voyage of the Hellebore poisoned by Dalziell, a living reminder of the horrors of the frigate Cyclops and Morris, the sodomite tyrant of the midshipman's mess. Many years before, during the American war, Drinkwater had been instrumental in having Morris turned out of the frigate. Morris was lucky to have escaped with his life: an Article of War punished his crime with the noose. Now a drunken threat, uttered by Morris before he left the frigate, was recalled to mind. It seemed Morris had kept in touch with his career, might have been behind Dungarth's request that Dalziell be found a place, though it was certain the earl knew nothing of it. Something about Dalziell's demeanour seemed to confirm this suspicion. For half an hour Drinkwater paced furiously from the poop ladder to the mainmast and back. His mind was filled with dark and irrational fears, fears for Elizabeth and her unborn child far behind in England, for long ago Morris had discovered his love for her and had threatened her. Gradually he calmed himself, forced his mind into a more logical track. Despite the influence he once appeared to wield at the Admiralty through the carnal talents of his sister, he had risen no further than lieutenant and many years had passed since that encounter in New York. Perhaps, whatever Dalziell knew of the events aboard Cyclops , it would be no more than that he and Morris were enemies. Surely Morris would have concealed the reason for their enmity. Strange that he had planted in the midshipman's mind the notion that Drinkwater indulged in the practices that had come close to breaking Morris himself. Or perhaps it was not so strange. Evil was rightly represented as a serpent and the twists of the human mind to justify its most outrageous conduct were, when viewed objectively, almost past belief.

Nevertheless, two hours passed before Drinkwater remembered the topgallant buntlines. He found Mr Quilhampton had already attended to them.

Chapter Five

The Mistress Shore

September-October 1798

The following morning Drinkwater found a moment to study the literary efforts of the two midshipmen. It was clear that Mr Dalziell's essay had suffered from being written after that by Mr Quilhampton. True the penmanship was neater and better formed than the awkward, blotchy script of Mr Q, but the information contained in the composition was a crib from Falconer's Marine Dictionary with a few embellishments in what Mr Dalziell clearly considered was literary style.

And so the Brig-Sloop, so named to indicate that she was commanded by a Commander or Sloop-Captain, as opposed to a Gun-Brig, merely the command of a Lieutenant, arrived to take its place in the lists of the Fleet and perform the duties of a small Cruiser to the no small satisfaction of Admiralty … Was there a sneer within the lengthy sentence? Or was Drinkwater unduly prejudiced? Certainly there was little information.

By contrast Mr Quilhampton's erratic, speckled contribution, untidy though it was, demonstrated his enthusiasm.

The naval Brig was developed from the merchant Snow and Brig, both two-masted vessels. In the former the mainmast carried both a square course and a fore and aft spanker which was usually loose footed. Its luff was secured to a small mast, or horse, set close abaft the lower mainmast. The merchant Brig did not carry the maincourse, the maintopsail sheeting to a lower yard of smaller dimensions, not unlike the cross-jack yard. The mainsail was usually designated to be the fore and aft spanker which was larger than that of the snow and furnished with a boom, extending its parts well aft and making it an effective driver for a vessel on the ivind

Drinkwater nodded, well satisfied with the clarity of Mr Quilhampton's drift, but the boy was in full flood now and did not baulk at attempting to untangle that other piece of etymological and naval confusion.

The naval brig is divided into two classes, the gun-vessel, usually of shallow draft and commanded by a Lieutenant, and the brig-sloop, under a Commander. The term 'sloop' in this context (as with the ship-sloop, or corvette) indicates its status as the command of Captain or Commander, the ship-sloop of twenty guns being the smallest vessel commanded by a Post-Captain. The Captain of a brig-sloop, (sometimes known, more particularly in foreign navies, as a brig-corvette) is always addressed as 'Captain' by courtesy but is in reality called Master and Commander since at one time no master was carried to attend to the vessel's navigation. The term 'sloop' used in these contexts, should not be confused with the one-masted vessel that has the superficial [there were several attempts to spell this word] appearance of a cutter. These type of sloops are rarely used now in naval service, having been replaced by the faster cutter. They differ from the cutter in having less sail area, a standing bowsprit and a beakhead

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