A Brig of War Read Online Free PDF Page B

acknowledged the boy’s report, prompted by the quartermaster, that they were running at seven knots. Something would not let him turn forward again but kept him watching the wake as it bubbled green-white under the stern and trailed away behind them in an irregular ribbon, twisted by the yaw of the ship and the oncoming waves. Here and there a following seabird dipped into its disturbance.
    He had felt wretched as they passed the Straits of Gibraltar and took their departure from Cape Espartel, for he had been unable to send letters back to Elizabeth, so swift had been
Hellebore
’s passage from Syracuse, so explicit the admiral’s orders. Now it was certain he would be separated from her until after the birth of their child, he regretted his inability to soften the blow of his apparent desertion.
    He was aware of someone at his elbow and resented the intrusion upon his private thoughts.
    â€˜Beg pardon, zur.’ It was Tregembo. Ten years older than Drinkwater the able seaman had long ago attached himself to him with a touching and unsolicited loyalty. He had cemented the relationship by supplying Elizabeth with a cook in the person of his wife Susan, certain that service with the Drinkwaters represented security. The personal link between them both gratified and, at that moment, annoyed Drinkwater. He snapped irritably, ‘What is it?’
    â€˜Your sword, zur, ’tis now but half a glass before quarters, zur.’
    Drinkwater looked guiltily at the half-hour sand-glass in thelittle binnacle and took his sword. Since they left the Mediterranean Griffiths had adopted the three watch system. It was kinder on the men and more suited to the long passage ahead of them. There were no dog watches now but at five hours after noon, ship’s time, they went to general quarters to remind them all of the serious nature of their business.
    Drinkwater turned forward and looked along the deck of the
Hellebore
. She was a trim ship, one of a new class of brig-sloop designed for general duties, a maid of all work, tender, dispatch vessel, convoy escort and commerce raider. He stood on a tiny raised poop which protected the head of the rudder stock and tiller. Immediately forward of the poop the tiller lines ran through blocks to the wheel with its binnacle, forward of which were the skylight and companionway to the officers’ accommodation. Beneath the skylight lay the lobby which served her two lieutenants, master, surgeon, gunner and purser as a gunroom, their cabins leading off it. Griffiths messed there too, unless he dined alone in his cabin, set right aft and entered via the gunroom. Forward of the companionway to this accommodation rose the mainmast, surrounded by its pin rails and coils of manila rigging, its pump handles and trunks. Between the main and foremast, gratings covered the waist, giving poor ventilation to the berth space below, covered by tarpaulins at the first sign of bad weather. Here too was the capstan. Just beyond the foremast the galley chimney rose from the deck next to the companionway that led below to the berth space where the hundred men of
Hellebore
’s company swung their hammocks in an overcrowded fug. The remaining warrant officers and their stores were tucked under the triangular foredeck. A tiny raised platform served as a fo’c’s’le, providing just enough foothold to handle the headsail sheets and tend the catheads.
    She was pierced with twenty gunports but so cluttered did she become in the eyes that the foremost were unoccupied. The remaining eighteen each sported an iron six-pounder. These guns were still a subject of frequent debate amongst her officers. Many vessels of similar size carried the snub barrelled carronades, short-ranged but devastating weapons that gave a small sloop a weight of metal heavy enough at close quarters to rival frigates of the sixth rate. But
Hellebore
had been armed by a traditionalist, retaining long guns each with its