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euphoria. It was time he turned the intelligence to real account.
    â€˜I believe he already has,’ he said. ‘Those decrees he issued from Berlin last year establishing his Continental System will have little effect on us. Preventing the European mainland from trading with Great Britain will starve the European markets, while leaving us free to trade with the Indies or wherever else we wish. Providing the Royal Navy does its part in maintaining a close blockade of the coast, which is what the King’s Orders in Council are designed to achieve. I daresay we shall make ourselves unpopular with the Americans, but that cannot be helped. Napoleon will get most of the blame and, the larger his empire becomes, the more people his policies will inconvenience.’ He hoped he carried his point, aware that a note of pomposity had unwittingly crept into his voice.
    â€˜So, gentlemen,’ Drinkwater continued, after refilling his glass, ‘if the Royal Navy in general, and you in particular, do your duty, and the Russians stand firm, we may yet see the threat to our homes diminish. Let us hope this battle of Eylau is the high-water mark of Napoleon’s ambition . . .’
    â€˜Bravo, sir!’
    â€˜Death to the French!’
    â€˜I’ll drink to that!’ They were all eagerly holding their glasses aloft.
    â€˜No, gentlemen,’ Drinkwater said smiling, relieved that his lecturing tone had been overlooked, ‘I do not like xenophobic toasts, they tempt providence. Let us drink to our gallant allies the Russians.’
    â€˜To the Russians!’
    Drinkwater sat alone after the officers had gone. Smoke from Lallo’s pipe still hung over the table from which the cloth had been drawn and replaced by Mount’s atlas an hour before. He found the lingering aroma of the tobacco pleasant, and Tregembo had produced a remaining half-bottle of port for him.
    He had watched the departure of his old coxswain with affection. They had been together for so long that the demarcations between master and servant had long since been eroded and they were capable of anticipating each other’s wishes in the manner of man and wife. This uncomfortable thought made Drinkwater raise his eyes to the portraits of his wife and children on the forward bulkhead. The pale images of their faces were lit by the wasting candles on the table. He pledged them a silent toast and diverted his thoughts. It did not do to dwell on such things for he did not want a visitation of the blue devils, that misanthropic preoccupation of seamen. It was far better to consider the task in hand, though there was precious little comfort in that. Locked away beneath him lay one of the subsidies bound for the coffers of the Tsar with which the British Government propped up the war against Napoleon’s French Empire. Eighty thousand pounds sterling was a prodigious sum for which to be held accountable.
    He drew little comfort from the thought that the carriage of the specie would earn him a handsome sum, for he nursed private misgivings as to the inequity of the privilege. The worries over the elaborate precautions in which he was ordered to liaise with officials of the diplomatic corps, and the missing shipment of arms in the storm-separated brigs, only compounded his anxiety over the accuracy of the news from Varberg. There seemed no end to the war, and time was wearing away zeal. Many of his own people had been at sea for four years; his original draft of volunteers had been reduced by disease, injury and action, and augmented by those sweepings of the press, the quota-men, Lord Mayor’s men and any unfortunate misfit the magistrates had decided would benefit from a spell in His Majesty’s service.
    Drinkwater emptied the bottle and swore to himself. He had lost six men by desertion at Sheerness and he knew his crew were unsettled. In all justice he could not blame them, but he could do little else beyond