Richard Woodman - A King's Cutter

'Deck there!' It was Tregembo, still aloft at his post. 'Rock dead ahead and close zur!' Griffiths's reaction was instinctive: 'Up helm!'

Drinkwater was halfway up the starboard shrouds when he saw it. Kestrel had eased off the wind a point but was far too close. Although her bowsprit swung away from the rock the run of the tide pushed her stern round so that a brief vision of rending timber and a rudderless hulk flashed across Drinkwater's imagination. He faced aft and screamed 'Down helm!'

For a split second he thought Griffiths was going to ignore him, that his insubordination was too great. Then, shaking with relief he saw the lieutenant lunge across the deck, pushing the tiller to larboard.

Kestrel began to turn as the half-submerged rock rushed at her. It was too late. Drinkwater was trembling uncontrollably now, a fly in a web of rigging. He watched fascinated, aware that in ten, fifteen seconds perhaps, the shrouds to which he clung would hang in slack festoons as the cutter's starboard side was stove, the mast snapped like celery and she rolled over, a broken wreck. Below him men rushed to the side to watch: then the tide took her. Kestrel trembled, her quarter lifting on the wave made against the up-tide side of the rock, then swooped into the down-tide trough as the sea cast her aside like a piece of driftwood. They could see bladder wrack and smell bird droppings and then they were past, spewed out to the northward. A few moments later the Basse Pengloch, northern post of the lie de Bannec, was behind them.

Shaking still, Drinkwater regained the deck. 'We're through sir.' Relief translated itself into a grin made foolish by blood trickling from a hard-bitten lip.

'Aye, Mr Drinkwater we're through, and I desire you to pass word to issue grog to all hands.'

'Deck there!' For a second they froze, apprehension on their faces, fearing another outcrop ahead of them; but Tregembo was pointing astern.

When he descended again to return the borrowed telescope to Griffiths, Drinkwater said, 'The two frigates and the corvette are still hull up, sir, but beyond them are a number of tops'ls. It looks as if we have just escaped from a fleet.'

Griffiths raised a white eyebrow. 'Indeed… in that case let us forget Flora , Mr Drinkwater, and take our intelligence home. Lay me a course for Plymouth.'

'Aye, aye, sir,' Drinkwater turned away. Already the excitement of the past two hours was fading, giving way to a peevish vexation at the loss of his Dollond glass.

What neither Griffiths nor Drinkwater knew was that the frigates from which they had escaped off Ushant had been part of Admiral Vanstabel's fleet. The admiral was on passage to America to reinforce the French squadron sent thither to escort the grain convoy safely back to France. The importance of this convoy to the ruined economy of the Republic and the continued existence of its government had been brought to British notice by Major Brown.

Vanstabel eluded pursuit but as spring of 1794 approached the British Admiralty sent out the long awaited flying squadrons. That to which Kestrel was attached was under the command of Sir John Borlase Warren whose broad pendant flew in the 42-gun frigate Flora . Warren's frigates hunted in the approaches to the Channel, sometimes in a pack, sometimes detached. Kestrel 's duties were unimaginatively recorded in her log as 'vessel variously employed'. She might run orders from Flora to another frigate, returning with intelligence. She might be sent home to Falmouth with despatches, rejoining the squadron with mail, orders, a new officer, her boats full of cabbages and bags of potatoes, sacks of onions stowed between her guns.

It was a busy time for her company. Their constant visits to Falmouth reminded Drinkwater of Elizabeth whom he had first met there in 1780 and the view from Carrick Road was redolent of nostalgia. But he enjoyed no respite for the chills of January precipitated Griffiths's malaria and while his commander lay uncomplaining in his cot, sweating and half-delirious, Drinkwater, by express instruction, managed the cutter without informing his superiors.

Griffiths's recovery was slow, interspersed with relapses. Drinkwater assumed the virtual command of the cutter unopposed.

Jessup, like all her hands, had been impressed by the acting lieutenant's resource in the escape from Vanstabel's frigates. 'He'll do all right, will Mr Drinkwater,' was his report to Johnson, the carpenter. And Tregembo further enhanced Drinkwater's reputation with the story of the retaking of the Algonquin in the American War. The Cornishman's loyalty was as touching as it was infectious.

Unbeknown to Warren, Drinkwater had commanded Kestrel during the action of St George's Day. Fifteen miles west of the Roches Douvres Warren's squadron had engaged a similar French force under Commodore Desgareaux. At the time Warren had with him the yacht-like Arethusa commanded by Sir Edward Pellew, Concorde and Melampus , with the unspritely Nymphe in the offing and unable to come up in time.

During the battle Kestrel acted as Warren's repeating vessel, a duty requiring strict attention both to the handling of the cutter and the accuracy of her signals. That Drinkwater accomplished it short-handed was not known to Warren. Indeed no mention was even made of Kestrel 's presence in the account published in the Gazette . But Warren did not diminish his own triumph. Commodore Desgareaux's Engageante had been taken, shattered beyond redemption, while the corvette Babet and the beautiful frigate Pomone were both purchased into the Royal Navy. Only the Resolue had escaped into Morlaix, outsailing a pursuit in which Kestrel had played a small part.

'No mention of us sir,' said Drinkwater dejectedly as he finished reading Warren's despatch from the Gazette .

'No way to earn a commission is it, eh?' Griffiths commiserated, reading Drinkwater's mind as they shared a bottle over the newspaper. He looked ruefully at his subordinate's set face.

'Never mind Mr Drinkwater. Your moment will yet come. I met Sir Sydney Smith in the dockyard. He at least had heard we tried to cut off the Resolue .' Griffiths sipped from his glass and added conversationally, ' Diamond is at last joining the squadron, so we will have an eccentric brain to set beside the commodore's square one. What d'you think of that then?'

Drinkwater shrugged, miserable with the knowledge that Elizabeth was not far from their mooring at Haslar creek and that the addition of Diamond to the squadron opened opportunities for Richard White. 'I don't know, sir. What do you predict?'

'Stratagems,' said Griffiths in a richly imitated English that made Drinkwater smile, cracking the preoccupation with his own misfortune, 'stratagems, Sir Sydney is the very devil for audacity…'

'Well gentlemen?' Warren's strong features, thrown into bold relief by the lamplight, looked up from the chart. He was flanked by Pellew, Nagle of the Artois and the irrepressibly dominating Smith whose bright eyes darted restlessly over the lesser officers: Flora 's first lieutenant and sailing master, her lieutenant of marines and his own second lieutenant who was winking at a slightly older man, a man in the shadows, among his superiors on sufferance.

'Any questions?' Warren pursued the forms relentlessly. The three post captains shook their heads.

'Very well. Sir Ed'd, then, leads the attack… Captain Nagle joins me offshore: the only problem is Kestrel …' They all looked at the man in the shadows. He was not so young, thought Sir Sydney, the face was experienced. He felt an arm on his sleeve and bent his ear. Lieutenant Richard White whispered something and Sir Sydney again scrutinised the acting lieutenant in the plain blue coat. Warren went on: 'I think one of my own lieutenants should relieve Griffiths…' Smith watched the mouth of the man clamp in a hard line. He was reminded of a live shell.