'Well it's no secret that the Baltic is the likely destination, gentlemen,' he looked round at their faces, expectant in the gently swinging light from the lamp. From the notebooks he had inherited from old Blackmore, sailing master of the frigate Cyclops, he had learned a great deal about the Baltic. Blackmore had commanded a snow engaged in the timber trade. 'If the Tsar leagues the navies of the north, we'll have the Danes and Swedes to deal with, as well as the Russians. If he doesn't, we've still the Russians left. They're based at Revel and Cronstadt; iced up now, but Revel unfreezes in April. As to the Swedes at Carlscrona, I confess I know little of them. Of the Danes at Copenhagen,' he shrugged, 'I do not think we want to leave 'em in our rear.'
'It's nearly the end of February now,' said Trussel, 'if we are to fight the Danes before the Russkies get out of the ice, we shall have to move soon.'
'Aye, and with that dilatory old bastard Hyde Parker to command us, we may yet be too late,' added Rogers.
'Yes, I'm after thinking it's the Russkies.' Tumilty nodded, tugging at the hairs on his cheeks.
'Well, they say Hyde Parker's marrying some young doxy, so I still say we'll be too late.' Rogers scratched the side of his nose gloomily.
'They say she's young enough to be his daughter,' grinned Trussel.
'Dirty old devil.'
'Lucky old sod.'
'Tis what comes of commanding in the West Indies and taking your admiral's eighth from the richest station in the service,' added the hitherto silent Easton.
'Well well, gentlemen, 'tis of no importance to us whom Admiral Parker marries,' said Drinkwater, 'I understand it is likely that Nelson will second him and he will brook no delay.'
'Perhaps, perhaps, sir, but I'd be willing to lay money on it,' concluded Rogers standing up, taking his cue from Drinkwater and terminating the meeting.
'Let us hope we have orders to proceed to the rendezvous at Yarmouth very soon, gentlemen. And now I wish you all a good night.'
Chapter Seven
Action off the Sunk
Lieutenant Drinkwater hunched himself lower into his boat cloak, shivering from the effects of the low fever that made his head and eyes ache intolerably. The westerly wind had thrown a lowering overcast across the sky and then whipped itself into a gale, driving rain squalls across the track of the squadron as it struggled out of the Thames Estuary into the North Sea.
Their visible horizon was circumscribed by one such squall which hissed across the wave-caps and made Virago lean further to leeward as she leapt forward under its impetus. A roil of water foamed along the lee scuppers, squirting inboard through the closed gunports and Drinkwater could hear the grunts of the helmsmen as they leaned against the cant of the deck and the kicking resistance of the big tiller. A clicking of blocks told where the quartermaster took up the slack on the relieving tackles. Drinkwater shivered again, marvelling at the chill in his spine which was at odds with the burning of his head.
He knew it could be typhus, the ship-fever, brought aboard by the lousy draft of pressed men, but he was fastidious in the matter of bodily cleanliness and had not recently discovered lice or fleas upon his person. He had already endured the symptoms for five days without the appearance of the dreaded 'eruption'. Lettsom had fussed over him, forcing him to drink infusions of bark without committing himself to a diagnosis. The non-appearance of a sore had led Drinkwater to conclude he might have contracted the marsh-ague from the mists of the Medway. God knew he had exposed himself to chills and exhaustion as he had striven to prepare his ship, and his cabin stove had been removed with Mrs Jex, prior to the loading of powder.
He thought of the admonition he had received from Martin and the recollection made him search ahead, under the curved foot of the forecourse to where Explosion led the bomb vessels and three tenders to the north eastward. What he saw only served to unsettle him further.
'Mr Easton!' he shouted with sudden asperity, 'do you not see the commodore's signalling?' Martin, the epitome of prudence tending to timidity, was reducing sail, brailing up his courses and snugging down to double reefed topsails and a staysail forward. Drinkwater left Easton to similarly reduce Virago's canvas and repeat the signal to the vessels astern. He fulminated silently to himself, having already decided that Martin was a cross they were all going to have to bear. As senior officer he had been most insistent upon being addressed as 'commodore' for the short passage from Sheerness to Yarmouth. Drinkwater found that sort of pedantry a cause for contempt and irritation. He was aware, too, that Martin was not simply a fussy senior officer. It was clear that whatever advancement Drinkwater expected to wring out of his present appointment was going to have to be despite Captain Martin, who seemed to wish to thwart the lieutenant. Drinkwater threw off his gloomy thoughts, the professional melancholy known as 'the blue devils', and watched a herring gull glide alongside Virago, riding the turbulent air disturbed by the passage of the ship. With an almost imperceptible closing of its wings it suddenly sideslipped and curved away into the low trough of a wave lifting on Virago's larboard quarter.
'Sail reduced sir.'
'Very well, Mr Easton. Be so good as to keep a sharp watch on the commodore, particularly in this visibility.'
Easton bit his lip. 'Aye, aye, sir.'
'When will we be abeam the Gunfleet beacon?'
'Bout an hour, sir.'
'Thank you.'
Easton turned away and Drinkwater looked over the ship. His earlier premonition had been correct. She had an immensely solid feel about her, despite her lack of overall size. Her massive scantlings gave her this, but she was also positive to handle and gave him a feeling of confident satisfaction as his first true command.
He looked astern at the remainder of the squadron. Terror, Sulphur, Zebra and Hecla could just be made out. Discovery and the other two tenders, both Geordie colliers, were lost in the rain to the south westward. The remaining bomb, Volcano, was somewhere ahead of Explosion.
He saw one of the tenders emerge from the rain astern of Hecla. She was a barque rigged collier called the Anne Reed, requisitioned by the Ordnance Board and fitted up as an accommodation vessel for the Royal Artillery detachment, some eight officers and eighty men who, in addition to half a dozen ordnance carpenters from the Tower of London, would work the mortars when the time came. Lieutenant Tumilty was somewhere aboard her, no doubt engaged in furious and bucolic debate with his fellow 'pyroballogists' over the more abstruse aspects of fire-throwing.
Drinkwater smiled to himself, missing the man's company. Doubtless there would be time for that later, when they reached Yarmouth and again when they entered the Baltic.
A stronger gust of wind dashed the spray of a breaking wave and whipped it over Virago's quarter. A cold trickle wormed its way down Drinkwater's neck, reminding him that he need not stand on deck all day. Already the Swin had opened to become the King's Channel, now that too merged with the Barrow Deep. Easton lifted his glass and stared to the north. The rain would prevent them seeing the Naze and its tower. Drinkwater fumbled in his tail pocket and brought out his own glass. He scanned the same arc of the horizon, seeing it become indistinct, grey and blurred as yet another rain squall obscured it. He waited patiently for it to pass, then looked again. This time Easton beat him to it.