A Brig of War Read Online Free PDF Page A

afternoon the fourteen ships of the line under the command of Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson had anchored. Within an hour their boats swarmed over the blue waters of the bay, their crews carrying off wood and water, their pursers haggling in the market place for vegetables and beef.
    Hellebore’s boat pulled steadily through the throng of craft, augmented by local bumboats which traded hopefully with the fleet. Officers’ servants were buying chickens for their masters’ tables while a surreptitious trade in rot-gut liquor was being conducted through lower deck ports. The apparent confusion and bustle had an air of charged purpose about it and Drinkwater suppressed a feeling of almost childish excitement. Beside him Griffiths wore a stony expression, his leathery old face hanging in sad folds, the wisps of white hair escaping untidily from below the new, glazed cocked hat. Drinkwater felt a wave of sympathy for the old man with his one glittering epaulette. Griffiths had been at sea half a century; he had served in slavers as a mate before being pressed as a naval seaman. He was old enough, experienced enough and able enough to have commanded this entire fleet, reflected Nathaniel, but the man who did so was only a few years older than Drinkwater himself.
    ‘You had better attend on me,’ Griffiths had said, giving his first lieutenant permission to accompany him aboard Vanguard, ‘seeing that you are so damned eager to clap eyes on this Admiral Nelson.’
    Drinkwater looked at Quilhampton who shared his curiosity. Mr Q’s hand rested nervously on the boat’s tiller. The boy was concentrating, not daring to look round at the splendours of British naval might surrounding him. Drinkwater approved of his single-mindedness; Mr Q was developing into an asset.
    ‘Boat ahoy!’ The hail came from the flagship looming ahead of them, her spars and rigging black against the brilliant sky, the blue rear-admiral’s flag at her mizen masthead. Drinkwater was about to prompt Quilhampton but the boy rose, cleared his throat and in a resonant treble called out ‘Hellebore!’ The indication of his commander’s presence thus conveyed to Vanguard, Quilhampton felt with pleasure the half smile bestowed on him by Mr Drinkwater.
    At the entry port four white gloved sideboys and a bosun’s mate greeted Hellebore’s captain and his lieutenant. The officer of the watch left them briefly on the quarterdeck while he reported their arrival to the demi-god who resided beneath the poop. Curiously Drinkwater looked round. Vanguard was smaller than Victory, a mere 74-gun two decker, but there was that same neatness about her, mixed with something else. He sensed it intuitively from the way her people went about their business. From the seamen amidships, rolling empty water casks to the gangway and from a quarter gunner changing the flints in the after carronades emanated a sense of single-minded purpose. He was always to remember this drive that superimposed their efforts as the ‘Nelson touch’, far more than the much publicised manoeuvre at Trafalgar that brought Nelson his apotheosis seven years later.
    ‘Sir Horatio will see you now sir,’ said the lieutenant re-emerging. Drinkwater followed Griffiths, ignoring the gesture of restraint from the duty officer. They passed under the row of ciphered leather fire-buckets into the shade of the poop, passing the master’s cabin and the rigid marine sentry. Uncovering, Drinkwater followed his commander into the admiral’s cabin.
    Sir Horatio Nelson rose from his desk as Griffiths presented Drinkwater and the latter bowed. Nelson’s smallness of stature was at first a disappointment to Nathaniel who expected something altogether different. Disappointing too were the worn uniform coat and the untidy mop of greying hair, but Drinkwater began to lose his sense of anti-climax as the admiral quizzed Griffiths about the stores contained in Hecuba and Molly. There was in his address an absence of