'Orders, sir?' Mr Mount the lieutenant of marines saluted him.
'Mornin', Mr Mount. Divide your men up 'twixt quarter-boats and launch. Mr Rogers is in command. I want those invasion craft destroyed!'
'Very well, sir.' Mount saluted and spun round: 'Sergeant, your platoon in the starboard quarter-boat. Corporal Williams, your men the larboard. Corporal Allen, with me in the launch!'
The neat files broke up and the white-breeched, black-gaitered marines scrambled over the rails and descended into the now waiting boats. Drinkwater looked at the enemy. The invasion craft had already vanished but the brig still showed, ghostly against the insubstantial mass of the closing fog.
'Mr Hill! A bearing of the brig, upon the instant!'
'Sou'-east-a-half-south, sir!'
'Mr Rogers!' Drinkwater leaned over the rail and bawled down at the first lieutenant in the launch. 'Steer sou'-east-a-half-south. We'll fire guns for you but give you fifteen minutes to make your approach.'
He saw Rogers shove a seaman to one side so that he could see the boat compass and then the tossed oars were being lowered, levelled and swung back.
'Give way together!'
The looms bent with sudden strain and the heavy launch began to move, followed by the two quarter-boats. In the stern of each boat sat the officers in their blue coats with a splash of red from the marines over which the dull gleam of steel hung until engulfed by the fog.
'Now we shall have to wait, Mr Hill, since all the lieutenants have left us behind.'
'Indeed, sir, we will.'
Drinkwater turned inboard. There was little he could do. Already the decks were darkening from condensing water vapour. Soon it would be dripping from every rope on the ship.
'I had hoped the sun would rise and burn up this mist,' he said.
'Aye, sir. But 'tis always an unpredictable business. The wind dropped very suddenly.'
'Yes.'
The two men stood in silence for a few minutes, frustrated by being unable to see the progress of the boats. After a little Hill pulled out his watch.
'Start firing in five minutes, sir?'
'Mmmm? Oh, yes. If you please, Mr Hill.' They must give Rogers every chance of surprise but not allow him to get lost. Drinkwater would not put it past a clever commander to launch a counter-attack by boat, anticipating the very action he had just taken in sending a large number of his crew off.
'Send the men to quarters, Mr Hill, all guns to load canister on ball, midshipmen to report the batteries they are commanding when ready.' He raised his voice. 'Fo'c's'le there! Keep a sharp look-out!'
'Aye, aye, sir!'
'Report anything you see!'
'Aye, aye, sir!'
He turned aft to where the two marine sentries stood, one on either quarter, the traditional protection for the officer of the watch. It was also their duty to throw overboard the lifebuoy for any man unfortunate enough to fall over the side. 'You men, too. Do you keep a sharp look-out for any approaching boats!'
He fell to restless pacing, aware that the fog had caught him napping, a fact which led him into a furious self-castigation so that the report of the bow chaser took him by complete surprise.
The boom of the bow chaser every five minutes was the only sound to be heard apart from the creaks and groans from Antigone's fabric that constituted silence on board ship. Even that part of the ship's company left on board seemed to share some of their captain's anxiety. They too had friends out there in the damp grey fog. The haste with which the boats had been hoisted out had allowed certain madcap elements among the frigate's young gentlemen to take advantage of circumstances. In manning the guns, Drinkwater had learned, most of the midshipmen had clambered into boats, and those who had not done so were now regretting their constraint.
Lord Walmsley had gone, followed by the Honourable Alexander Glencross, both under Rogers in the launch. Being well acquainted with his temperament, Drinkwater knew that Rogers would have—what was the new expression?—turned a blind eye, that was it, to such a lack of discipline. Wickham had also gone in the boats, carting off little Gillespy. Dutfield had not been on deck and Frey had too keen a sense of obligation to his post as signal midshipman to desert it without the captain's permission, even though the lack of visibility rendered it totally superfluous. As a consequence Drinkwater had posted Hill's two mates, Caldecott and Tyrrell, in the waist and in charge of the batteries.
'Gunfire to starboard, sir!'
The hail came from the fo'c's'le where someone had his arm stretched out. Drinkwater went to the ship's side and cocked his head outboard, attempting to pick up the sound over the water and clear of the muffled ship-noises on the deck. There was the bang of cannon and the crackle of small-arms fire followed by the sound of men shouting and cursing. It did nothing to lessen Drinkwater's anxiety but it provoked a burst of chatter amidships.
'Silence there, God damn you!' The noise subsided. Side by side with Hill, Drinkwater strained to hear the distant fight and to interpret the sounds. The cannon fire had been brief. Had Rogers attacked the brig successfully? Or had the brig driven Antigone's boats off? If so was Rogers pressing his attack against the invasion craft? And what had happened to little Gillespy and Mr Q? Anxiety overflowed into anger.
'God damn this bloody fog!'
As though moved by this invective there was a sudden lightening in the atmosphere. The sun ceased to be a pale disc, began to glow, to burn off the fog, and abruptly the wraiths of vapour were torn aside revealing Antigone becalmed upon a blue sea as smooth as a millpond. Half a mile away the brig lay similarly inert and without the aid of a glass Drinkwater could see her tricolour lay over her taffrail.
A cheer broke out amidships and beside him Hill exclaimed, 'She's ours, by God!' But uncertainty turned to anger as Drinkwater realised what Rogers had allowed to happen. He swept the clearing horizon with his Dolland glass.
'God's bones! What the hell does Rogers think he's about… Mr Hill!'
'Sir?'
'Hoist out my barge… and hurry man, hurry!'
Drinkwater swept the glass right round the horizon. There were no other ships in sight. But beyond the brig the convoy of chaloupes and péniches was escaping, quite unscathed as far as he could tell. In a lather of impatience Drinkwater sent Frey below for his sword and pistols.
'You will remain here, Mr Frey, to assist Mr Hill… Hill, you are to take command until Mr Rogers returns. I will take Tyrrell with me.' Frey opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again as he caught sight of the baleful look in his captain's eyes.
As he hurried into the waist, Drinkwater heard Hill acknowledge his instructions and then he was down in the barge and Tregembo was ordering the oars out and they were away, the oar looms bending under Tregembo's urging. He looked back once.
Antigone sat upon the water, her sails slack and only adding to the impression of confusion that the morning seemed composed of. He forced himself to be calm. Perhaps Rogers had had no alternative but to attack the brig. Drinkwater knew enough of Rogers's character to guess that the fog would have given him a fair excuse to ignore the invasion craft.
They were approaching the brig now. They pulled past three or four floating corpses. Someone saw their approach and then Rogers was leaning over the rail waving triumphantly.
'Pass under the stern,' Drinkwater said curtly to Tregembo, and the coxswain moved the tiller. Drinkwater stood up in the stern of the boat.