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 side-boys 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 formality, an eager confidence which was at once infectious. There was a delicacy about the little man. He looked far older than his thirty-nine years, his skin fine drawn, almost transparent over the bones. His large nose and wide, mobile mouth were at odd variance with his body size. But the one good blue eye was sharply attentive, a window on some inner motivation, and the empty sleeve bore witness to his reckless courage.
'Do you know the whereabouts of my frigates, Captain?' he asked Griffiths, 'I am driven desperate for want of frigates. The French have escaped me, sir, and I have one brig at my disposal to reconnoitre for a fleet.'
Drinkwater sensed the consuming frustration felt by this most diligent of flag officers, sensed his mortification at being deprived of his eyes in the gale that had dismasted Vanguard. Yet Vanguard had been refitted without delay and the battle line was impressive enough to strike terror in the French if only this one-armed dynamo could catch them.
'There is Hellebore, Sir Horatio,' volunteered Griffiths.
'Yes, Captain. Would that the whereabouts of the French squadron was my only consideration. But I know that their fleet, besides sail of the line, frigates, bomb vessels and so forth, also comprises three hundred troop transports; an armada that left Sicily with a fair wind from the west. It is clear their destination is to the eastward. I think their object is to possess themselves of some port in Egypt, to fix themselves at the head of the Red Sea in order to get a formidable army into India, to act in concert with Tipoo Sahib. No, Captain, I may not permit myself the luxury of retaining Hellebore…' The admiral paused and Drinkwater felt apprehensive. Nelson made up his mind. 'I must sacrifice perhaps my reputation but that must always subordinate itself to my zeal for the King's service which demands I acquaint the officer on the station of the danger he may be in. I have already written to Mr Baldwin, our consul at Alexandria, to determine whether the French have any vessels prepared in the Red Sea. As yet I have had no reply. Therefore, my dear Griffiths, I desire that you wood and water without delay and send a boat for your written orders the instant you are ready to proceed to the Red Sea.'
Drinkwater felt his mouth go dry. The Red Sea meant a year's voyage at the least. And Elizabeth had given him expectation of a child in the summer.
Chapter Three
A Brig of War
Lieutenant Drinkwater stared astern watching the seas run up under the brig's larboard quarter, lifting her stern and impelling her forward, adding a trifle to her speed until they passed ahead of her and she dragged, slowly, into the succeeding trough. Hellebore carried sail to her topgallants as she raced south west before the trade wind, the coast of Mauretania twenty-five leagues to the east.
Drinkwater had been watching Mr Quilhampton heave the log and had 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.