The Bomb Vessel

Nathaniel

I beg you come ashore at eight of the clock tonight. I must see you on a matter of the utmost urgency.

I beg you not to ignore this plea and I will await you on the west side of the Yare ferry.

Ned

The word must was underlined heavily. Drinkwater looked up at the longshoreman who had brought the note and had refused to relinquish it to Mr Quilhampton who now stood protectively suspicious behind the ragged boatman.

'The man was insistent I give it to you personal, sir,' he said in the lilting Norfolk accent.

'What manner of man was it gave you this note?'

'Why, I'd say he were a serving man, sir. Not a gentleman like you sir, though he was gen'rous with his master's money…' The implication was plain enough without looking at the man's face. Drinkwater drew a coin from his pocket.

'Here,' he passed it to the boatman, frowning down at the note. He dismissed the man. 'Mr Q.'

'Sir?'

'A boat, please, in an hour's time.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

'And Mr Q, not a word of this to anyone if you please.' He fixed Quilhampton with a baleful glance. If Edward was reduced to penury in a matter of weeks he did not want the world to know of it.

A bitter easterly wind blew across the low land south of the town. The village of Gorleston exhibited a few lights on the opposite bank as he descended into the ferry. Darkness had come early and the fresh wind had led him to order his boat off until the following morning. To the half guinea the note had cost him it now looked as though he would have to add the charge of a night's lodging ashore. Brotherly love was becoming an expensive luxury which he could ill afford. And now, he mused as the ferryman held out a fist, there was an added penny for the damned ferry.

Clambering up the far bank he allowed the other passengers to pass ahead of him. He could see no one waiting, then a shadow detached itself from a large bush growing on the river bank.

'God damn it, Ned. Is that you?'

'Ssh, for the love of Christ…'

'What the devil are you playing at?'

'I must talk to you…' Edward loomed out of the shadows, standing up suddenly in front of Drinkwater. Beneath a dark cloak Drinkwater could see the pale gleam of a shirt. Edward's hair was undressed and loosely blowing round his face. Even in the gloom Drinkwater could see he was in a dishevelled state. He was the longshoreman's 'serving man'.

'What in God's name…?'

'Walk slowly, Nat, and for heaven's sake spare me further comment. I'm deep in trouble. Terrible trouble…' Edward shivered, though whether from cold or terror his brother could not be sure.

'Well come on, man, what's amiss? I have not got all night…' But of course he had. 'Is it about the money, Edward?'

He heard the faint chink of gold in a purse. 'No, I have the remains of that here. It is not a great deal… Nat, I am ruined…'

Drinkwater was appalled: 'D'you mean you have lost that two hundred and fifty…? My God, you'll have no more!'

'God, Nat, it isn't money that I want.'

'Well what the devil is it?'

'Can you take me on your ship? Hide me? Land me wherever you are going. I speak French. Like a German they say. For God's sake, Nat you are my only hope, I beg you.'

Drinkwater stopped and turned to his brother. 'What the hell is this all about, Ned?'

'I am a fugitive from the law. From the extremity of the law, Nat. If I am taken I…' he broke off. 'Nat, when I heard your ships were assembling at Yarmouth and arrived to find Virago anchored off the shore I… I hoped…'

'What are you guilty of?' asked Drinkwater, a cold certainty settling round his heart.

'Murder.'

There was a long silence between the brothers. At last Drinkwater said, 'Tell me what happened.'

'I told you of the girl? Pascale?'

'Aye, you did.'

'I found her abed with her God damned marquis.'

'And whom did you murder?'

'Both of them.'

'God's bones!' Drinkwater took a few paces away from his brother, his brain a turmoil. Like at that moment in the Strand, his instinct for order reeled at the prospect of consigning his brother to the gallows. He remembered his mother, then his wife and child in a bewildering succession of images that drove from his mind the necessity of making a decision and only further confused him. Edward was guilty of Edward's crimes and should suffer the penalty of the law; yet Edward was his brother. But protecting Edward would make him an accessory, while Edward's execution would ensure his own professional oblivion.

He swore beneath his breath. In his passion Edward had murdered a worthless French aristocrat and his whore. How many Frenchmen had Nathaniel murdered as part of his duty? Lettsom's words about duty came back to him and he swore again.

But those were moral judgements of an unrecognised morality, a morality that might appeal to Lettsom and his Paine-like religion of humanity. In the harsher light of English justice he had no choice: Edward was a criminal.

The vain pontifications of the other night, as he and Lettsom had exchanged sallies over the dying body of Mason, came back to confront him now like some monstrous ironic joke. He felt like a drowning man. What would Elizabeth think of him if he assisted his brother up the steps of the scaffold? Would she understand his quixoticism if he helped Edward escape? Was his duty to Edward of greater significance than that he owed his wife?

'Nat, I beg you…'

'I do not condone what you have done. You confront me with an unlawful obligation.'

A thought occurred to him. At first it was no more than a half-considered plan and owed its inception to a sudden vicious consideration that it might cost this wastrel brother his life. Edward would have to submit to the harsh judgement of fate.

'How much money have you left?'

'Forty-four pounds.'

'You must return it to me. You have no need of money.' He heard the sigh of relief. 'You will accompany me back to the ship and will be entered on the books as Edward Waters, a landsman volunteer. Tell your messmates you are a bigamist, that you have seduced a young girl while being married yourself, any such story will suffice and guarantee they understand your morose silences. You will make no approach to me, nor speak to me unless I speak to you. If you transgress the regulations that obtain on board you will not be immune from the cat. As far as I am concerned you importuned me whilst ashore and asked to volunteer. Being short of men I accepted your offer. Do you understand?'

'Yes, Nat. And thank you, thank you…'

'I think you will have little to thank me for, Ned. God knows I do not do this entirely for you.'

Chapter Nine Batter Pudding

 Tuesday, 10 March 1801

Drinkwater woke in the pre-dawn chill. By an inexplicable reflex of the human brain he had fallen instantly asleep the night before, but now he awoke, his mind restlessly active, his body in a lather of sweat, not of fever, but of fear.

His first reaction was that something was terribly wrong. It took him a minute to separate fact from fancied dreaming, but when he realised the extent of reality he was appalled at his own conduct. He got out of his cot, dragged his blankets across the deck and slumped in the battered carver he had inherited as cabin furniture in the Virago.

Staring unseeing into the darkness it was some time before he had stopped cursing himself for a fool and accepted the events of the previous evening as accomplished facts. The residual effects of his fever sharpened his imagination so that, for a while, his isolation threatened to prevent him thinking logically. After a little he steadied himself and began to examine his actions in returning to the ship.