Richard Woodman - In Distant Waters

'It was for my country that I remove your ship. You too-much disturb trade. Now we are at peace and allies, you have your ship back.' Don Alejo spoke in a lower key. 'Perhaps, Capitán Drinkwater, you should be a little obliged to me…'

'Upon my soul, why?' asked Drinkwater aback.

'When you first take me prisoner, Capitán , Don Jorge Rubalcava, he want to tell you to go to Monterey. There you not escape. There you lose your ship. Here in San Francisco…' He shrugged, a gesture full of implications, and Drinkwater understood that Don Alejo was beyond his comprehension in cunning. Whatever the venal sins of his brother, Don Alejo would emerge on the winning side, if he knew of the presence of gold in California, as that shrewd observation of Quilhampton's suggested, Don Alejo was not the man to make the knowledge public. Had he in some subtle way suggested to Doña Ana Maria that honour was at stake and so ensured Drinkwater's escape through her action? Looking at him, Drinkwater thought the thing at least a possibility. And Don Alejo had nothing to lose by it, for Drinkwater might have failed, lost in some obscure and savage fracas on the coast. He shuddered at the mere recollection of the night raid on the Columbia River.

'Now, Capitán , as to the matter of your men…' said the Spaniard smoothly.

Drinkwater frowned. 'I shall expect them returned instantly.'

'As soon as Don Jorge takes possession of the aviso, Capitán .' Don Alejo smiled victoriously. Drinkwater opened his mouth to protest the injustice of losing their prize. Then he remembered the gold and felt the weight of those nuggets dragging down the tails of his full-dress coat. When the time came, he thought, he could purchase comforts enough to compensate his men for the loss of their paltry share in the schooner. Perhaps they were better off, for the matter might lie before a prize-court for years, and only the attorneys would benefit. Besides, he had other matters to attend to. There were despatches, brought weeks earlier, carried overland to Panama with the news of the rising against the French, then up the coast in La Virgen de la Bonanza . Don Alejo swore he had intended to pass them to Drinkwater on his release, the very day Drinkwater had succeeded in escaping. And there was still the Russian power to destroy.

Don Alejo was holding out a glass.

'A toast to our new alliance, Capitán … to Dos de Mayo … the second day of May, the day Madrid rose against the French. It is a pity good news travels so slow, eh?'

He knew he was not supposed to see her, that she broke some imposition of her father's or her uncle's to contrive this clumsy meeting on the path. She was as lovely as ever and yet there was something infinitely sad about the cast of her features, despite her smile. She held two books out to him. They were his log and journal and he took them, thanking her and tucking them under his arm with the bundle of despatches Don Alejo had at last given him. He smiled back at her.

' Señorita , I am indebted to you for ever for my freedom, even,' he added, the smile passing from his face, 'for my very life.' He paused, recalling how close he had come to the ultimate act of despair and her face reflected her own grief. Then he brightened. 'And thank you for your kindness in retrieving my books.'

'It was nothing…'

'You knew about the changes in your country's circumstances?'

She nodded. ' Sí .'

'And disobeyed your father?'

'My father is sometimes deceived by Don Alejo.' Drinkwater remembered her obvious dislike of Don Alejo.

'He was engaged in some illegal traffic with the Russians?'

She shrugged. 'All would have been well had Nicolai lived.'

'It was fated otherwise, Señorita .'

' Si. Que sera sera ,' she murmured.

'Why did you release me?'

She looked him full in the face then. 'Because you told the truth about Nicolai.'

'It was a small thing.'

'For me it was not. It has changed my life. I am to go into a convent.'

He remembered the Franciscan. 'It is the world's loss, Señorita .'

'I prayed for your wife and family… Adios, Capitán .'

' Adios, Señorita .' He bowed as she turned away.

Drinkwater watched through his glass as Hill brought La Virgen de la Bonanza to her anchor under Point Lobos that evening. He watched Don Jorge Rubalcava board her and wished he could shoot the treacherous dog with Mack's long rifle that now lay below in his cabin. Then he swung his glass to see if the rest of the bargain was being kept. He watched the boat approach, returning the ragged remnants of his men from the chain gang of servitude. By the time Hill and Frey came back from the schooner, Patrician's anchor was a-trip.

'I would not stay in this pestilential spot another moment,' he remarked to Hill as the sailing master made his report. The knot of officers within hearing nodded in general agreement. Only Mr Frey stood pensively staring astern.

'She intends to become a nun, Mr Frey,' he snapped, an unwonted harshness in his voice.

Drinkwater stared at the empty bulkhead. The paint was faintly discoloured where the portraits of Elizabeth and the children used to hang. Before him, on the table, were scattered the contents of the despatch brought weeks ago by the aviso . It had been a day of explanations, not least that of the most perplexing of his worries, one that had concerned him months earlier at the time of their departure from the Nore.

Some departmental inefficiency had delayed it and now it had been sent out after him to the West Indies, overland to Panama by mule and shipped up the Isthmus, to be opened and scrutinised by Don Alejo Arguello, no doubt, before finding its way to him. It was months old, so old, in fact, that its contents were rendered meaningless by the train of events, except that they heartened him, gave him some insight into his apparent abandonment by the head of the Admiralty's Secret Department Lord Dungarth. He read the relevant passage through again.

I write these notes for your better guidance, my dear Drinkwater, for I find upon my return from Government business elsewhere, that Barrow has sent you out insufficiently prepared. Seniavin declined to serve against us after his Imperial master succumbed to the seductions of Bonaparte, having seen service with us at an earlier period in his career. Rakitin is a less honourable man, untroubled by such scruples and well-known to some of your fellow officers. I would have you know these things before you reach the Pacific, for it reaches me that he is to command a ship of some force, perhaps a seventy-four, and capitalise upon the work done by Rezanov…

Drinkwater folded the letter. So, Dungarth had been absent on Government business elsewhere. Drinkwater was intrigued as to where that business might have been. Had his Lordship been back to France? He had made some vague allusions to Hortense Santhonax having become the mistress of Talleyrand. She had turned her coat before, might she not do so again?

He thrust the ridiculous assumption aside. That was altogether too fanciful. What advantage could either Hortense Santhonax or the French Foreign Minister derive from betraying such an unassailably powerful man as the Emperor Napoleon? It was a preposterous daydream. He picked up another letter. The superscription was familiar, but he could not place it. Then he recollected the hand of his friend, Richard White. Drinkwater slit the seal, anticipating his old shipmate must be writing to inform him he had hoisted a rear-admiral's flag.