Richard Woodman - A Brig of War

'That will do, Mr Rogers,' snapped Griffiths, colour mounting to his cheeks and his bushy white eyebrows coming together in imperious menace across the bridge of his big nose.

'Secure from general quarters, Mr Drinkwater.' The commander turned angrily below and Rogers looked ruefully at Drinkwater for consolation.

'Stupid old bastard,' he said.

Drinkwater regarded the young lieutenant and for the first time realised he did not like him. 'Carry on Mr Rogers,' he said coldly, 'I have the deck.' Drinkwater walked forward and Rogers turned aft to where Midshipman Dalziell was gathering up his signal book and slate. 'I have the deck,' mimicked Rogers and found Dalziell smiling conspiratorially at him.

The sun went down in a blaze of glory. As it set Drinkwater had the deck watch check the two boats that hung in the new-fangled davits on either quarter in case they were needed during the night. They also checked the lashings on the four long pine trunks that were secured outboard between the channels, as there was no stowage elsewhere. Briefly he recalled the depression he had suffered earlier and found its weight had lightened. He tried to divine the source of the relief. Guiltily he concluded that the injured man and Rogers' lack of compassion had awoken him to his duty. He recalled the words of Earl St Vincent: 'A married officer is frequently lost to the service…'

That must not be the case with himself. He had a duty to the ship, to Griffiths and the men, and especially to Elizabeth and the child growing within her. That duty would best be served by anticipation and diligence. They had a long way to go, and even further to come back.

At eight bells Drinkwater went below to where Appleby, fresh washed but still smelling of gore, ate his biscuit and sipped his wine.

'How is the patient?' asked Drinkwater hanging his coat and hat in his cabin and joining the surgeon in the gunroom. 'It was Tyson, wasn't it?'

'Yes. He's well enough,' spluttered Appleby, crumbs exploding from his lips, 'as we were not in action I was able to take my time.' He paused, emptied his glass and dabbed at his mouth with a stained napkin. 'I saved the heel, if it does not rot he will walk on his own leg though he'll limp and find balance a trouble.'

'The devil you did! Well done, Harry, well done.' Appleby looked pleased at his friend's approval and his puffy cheeks flushed.

'I must amend my books,' said Drinkwater reaching to the shelf that contained the half-dozen manuscript ledgers without which the conduct of no King's ship, irrespective of size, could be regulated.

He opened the appropriate volume and turned up his carefully worked muster list. 'Damn it, the man's a boarder… when will he be fit again?'

Appleby shrugged. 'Given that he avoids gangrene, say a month, but the sooner he has something to occupy his mind the better.'

'I wonder if he can write?'

'I doubt it but I'll ask.'

Mr Trussel came in for his glass of madeira. 'I hear the captain is not stopping at the Canaries, is that so, sir?'

'We stop only of necessity for water, Mr Trussel, otherwise Admiral Nelson's orders were explicit,' explained Drinkwater, 'and we are to limit ourselves to one glass each of wine per evening to conserve stocks.'

Trussel made a face. 'Did you not know that powder draws the moisture from a man, Mr Drinkwater?'

'I don't doubt it, Mr Trussel, but needs must when the devil drives, eh?'

'I shall savour the single glass the more then,' answered the old gunner wryly.

Drinkwater bent over his ledger and re-wrote the watch and quarter bills, pulling his chair sideways as Lestock joined them from the deck to stow his quadrant and books.

'I can't make it out, can't make it out,' he was muttering. Drinkwater snapped the inkwell closed. 'What can't you make out, Mr Lestock?'

'Our longitude, Mr Drinkwater, it seems that if our departure from Espartel was truly three leagues west…' Drinkwater listened to Lestock's long exposition on the longitude problem. Hellebore carried no chronometer, did not need to for the coastal convoy work to which she had been assigned. Recent events however, revealed the need for them to know their longitude as they traversed the vast wastes of the Atlantic. Lestock had been dallying with lunar observations, a long and complicated matter involving several sets of near simultaneous sights and upon which the navigational abilities of many officers, including not a few sailing masters, foundered. The method was theoretically simple. But on the plunging deck of the brig, with the horizon frequently interrupted by a wave crest and the sky by rigging and sails, the matter assumed a complexity which was clearly beyond the abilities of Lestock.

As he listened Drinkwater appreciated the fussy man's problems. He knew he could do little better but he kicked himself for not having thought of the problem in Syracuse. With a chronometer the matter would have been different and Nelson had offered them whatever they wanted from the fleet. He had had to. In the matter of charts alone Hellebore was deficient south of the Canaries. They had scraped together the bare minimum, but the chart of the Red Sea was so sparse of detail that its very appearance sent a shudder of apprehension down Lestock's none too confident spine.

'… And if the captain does not intend to stop we'll have further difficulties,' he concluded.

'We will be able to observe the longitude of known capes and islands,' said Drinkwater, 'we should manage. Ah, and that reminds me, during the morning watch tomorrow I'll have a jackstay rigged over the waist and spread and furl a spare topsail on it to use as an awning and catchwater… keep two casks on deck during your watch, Mr Lestock, and fill 'em if you get the opportunity. Captain Griffiths intends only to stop if it becomes necessary, otherwise we'll by-pass the Cape of Good Hope to avoid the Agulhas current and take wood and water somewhere on the Madagascan coast. In the meantime direct your attention to the catchwater if you please.' Lestock returned to the deck, the worried look still on his face.

'It would seem that an excess of salt spray also draws the moisture from a man,' observed Appleby archly.

'Aye, Mr Appleby, and over-early pickles the brain,' retorted Trussel.

Day succeeded day as the trades blew and the internal life of the brig followed its routine as well as its daily variations. Daily, after quarters, the hands skylarked for an hour before the hammocks were piped down. The flying fish leapt from their track and fanned out on either bow. Breakfasts were often spiced by their flesh, fried trout-like and delicious. During the day dolphins played under the bowsprit defying efforts to catch them. The sea at night was phosphorescent and mysterious, the dolphins' tracks sub-aqueous rocket trails of pale fire, the brig's wake a magical bubbling of light. They reeled off the knots, hoisting royals and studding sails when the wind fell light. Even as they reached the latitude of the Cape Verdes and the trades left them, the fluky wind kept a chuckle of water under the forefoot.

It was utterly delightful. Drinkwater threw off the last of his depression and wallowed in the satisfying comfort of naval routine. There was always enough to occupy a sea-officer, yet there was time to read and write his journal, and the problems that came inevitably to a first lieutenant were all sweetly soluble. But he knew it could not last, it never did. The very fact of their passage through the trade-wind belt was an indication of that. At last the winds died away and the rain fell. They filled their water casks while Griffiths had the sweeps out for two hours a daylight watch and Hellebore was hauled manually across the ocean in search of wind.

' Duw , I cannot abide a calm hereabouts,' Griffiths growled at Drinkwater, staring eastward to where, unseen below the horizon, the Gambia coast lay.