'Sit down you damned Hibernian!' shouted Rogers.
'Take your damned fingers off me! An' I'm standing to make a pretty speech, so I am…' There were boos and shouts of 'Sit down!'
'I'll sit down upon a single condition… that Mr Lettsom makes a bit o' his versifying to mark the occasion.'
'Aye! Make us an ode, Lettsom!'
'Come, a verse!'
Lettsom held up his hand for silence. He was forced to wait before he could make himself heard.
At last he drew a paper from his pocket and struck a pose:
'The town of Copenhagen lies
Upon the Baltic shore
And here were deeds of daring done
'Twere never seen before.
'Bold Nelson led 'em, glass in hand
Upon the Danes to spy,
When Parker said "that's quite enough"
He quoth, "No, by my eye!"
'The dead and dying lay in heaps
The Danes they would not yield
Until the bold Virago came
Onto the bloody field.'
Lettsom paused, drank off his glass while holding his hand up to still the embryonic cheer. Then he resumed:
'Lord Nelson got the credit,
And Parker got the blame,
But 'twas the bold Virago
That clinched old England's fame.'
He sat down amid a storm of cheering and stamping. Mr Quilhampton's enthusiasm threatened to split his new hand until someone restrained him, at which point he gave up the struggle to retain consciousness and slid beneath the grubby tablecloth.
Drinkwater sat clapping Lettsom's dreadful muse.
'Your verse is like Polonius's advice, Mr Lettsom, the sweeter for its brevity,' Drinkwater grinned at the surgeon as Tregembo put another bottle before each officer. 'Mr Tumilty's contribution, sir,' he whispered in Drinkwater's ear.
'Ah, Tom, I salute you…'
Tumilty stood up. 'Captain Drinkwater…' he began, enunciating the words carefully, then he slowly bent over and buried his head in the remains of the figgy duff.
'What a very elegant bow,' said Martin rising unsteadily to take his leave. Drinkwater saw him to his boat.
'Good night Drinkwater.'
Returning to the cabin Drinkwater found Rogers dragging Tumilty to Easton's empty cot while Tregembo was carrying Quilhampton to bed. Martin had left and only Lettsom and Rogers sat down to finish a last bottle with Drinkwater.
Tregembo cleared the table. 'Take a couple of bottles, Tregembo, share 'em with the cook and the messman.'
'Thank 'ee, zur. I told 'ee you'd be made this commission, zur.' He grinned and left the cabin.
Lettsom blew through his flute. 'You, er, don't seem too pleased about it all, if I might say so,' said Lettsom.
'Is it that man Waters that's bothering you, sir?' asked Rogers.
Drinkwater looked from one to the other. There was a faint ringing in his ears and he was aware of a need to be careful of what he said.
'And why should Waters bother me, gentlemen?'
He saw Rogers shrug. 'It seemed an odd business to be mixed up in,' he said. Drinkwater fixed Rogers with a cold eye. Reluctantly he told the last lie.
'What d'you think I got my swab for, Samuel, eh?'
Lettsom drowned any reaction from Rogers in a shower of notes from his flute and launched into a lively air. He played for several minutes, until Rogers rose to go.
When the first lieutenant had left them Lettsom lowered his flute, blew the spittle out of it and dismantled it, slipping it into his pocket.
'I see you believe in providence, Mr Drinkwater…'
'What makes you say that?'
'Only a man with some kind of faith would have done what you did…'
'You speak in riddles, Mr Lettsom…'
'Mr Jex confided in me, I've known all along about your brother.'
'God's bones,' Drinkwater muttered as he felt a cold sensation sweep over him. He went deathly pale.
'I'm an atheist, Mr Drinkwater. But you are protected by my Hippocratic oath.' Lettsom smiled reassuringly.
A week later Admiral Pole took command of the fleet. The Baltic States were quiescent and, like Lord Nelson, the bomb vessels were ordered to England.
Chapter Twenty-One
A Child of Fortune
Commander Nathaniel Drinkwater knocked on the door of the elegant house in Lord North Street. Under his new full-dress coat with its single gleaming epaulette he was perspiring heavily. It was not the heat of the July evening that caused his discomfort but apprehension over the outcome of the forthcoming interview with Lord Dungarth.
The door opened and a footman showed him into an anteroom off the hall. Turning his new cocked hat nervously in his hands he felt awkward and a little frightened as he stood in the centre of the waiting room. After a few minutes he heard voices in the hall following which the same footman led him through to a book-lined study and he was again left alone. He looked around him, reminded poignantly of the portrait of Hortense Santhonax for, above the Adam fireplace, the arresting likeness of an elegant blonde beauty gazed down at him. He stared at the painting for some time. He had never met Dungarth's countess but the Romney portrait was said not to have done justice to her loveliness.
'You never met my wife, Nathaniel?' Drinkwater had not heard the door open and spun to face the earl. Dungarth was in court dress, his pumps noiseless upon the rich Indian carpet. Dungarth crossed the room and stood beside Drinkwater, looking up at the painting.
'Do you know why I detest the French, Nathaniel?'
'No my lord?' Drinkwater recollected Dungarth had conceived a passionate hatred for Jacobinism which was at variance with his former Whiggish sympathies with the American rebels.
'My wife died in Florence. I was bringing her body back through France in the summer of '92. At Lyons the mob learnt I was an aristocrat and broke open the coffin…' he turned to a side table. 'A glass of oporto?'
Drinkwater took the wine and sat down at Dungarth's invitation. 'We sometimes do uncharacteristic things for those close to us, and the consequences can last a lifetime.'
Drinkwater's mouth was very dry and he longed to swallow the wine at a gulp but he could not trust his hand to convey the glass to his lips without slopping it. He sat rigid, his coat stiff as a board and the silence that followed Dungarth's speech seemed interminable. Drinkwater was no longer on his own quarterdeck. After the heady excitement of battle and promotion the remorseless process of English law was about to engulf him. The colour was draining from his face and he was feeling light-headed. An image of Elizabeth swam before his eyes, together with that of Charlotte Amelia and the yet unseen baby, little Richard Madoc.
'Do you remember Etienne Montholon, Nathaniel?' Dungarth suddenly said in a conversational tone. 'The apparently wastrel brother of that bitch Hortense Santhonax?'
Drinkwater swallowed and recovered himself. 'Yes, my lord.' His voice was a croak and he managed to swallow some of the port, grateful for its uncoiling warmth in the pit of his stomach.
'Well, it seems that he became so short of funds that he threw in his lot with his sister and that fox of a husband of hers. The emergence of the consulate in France is attracting the notice of many of the younger émigrés who thirst for a share in la gloire of the new France.' Dungarth's expression was cynical. 'The rising star of Napoleon Bonaparte will recruit support from men like Montholon who seek a paymaster, and couples like the Santhonaxes who seek a vehicle for their ambition.'
'So Etienne Montholon returned to France, my lord?'
'Not at all. He remained in this country, leading his old life of gambling and squabbling, like all the emigre population. He served Bonaparte by acting as a clearing agent for information of fleet movements, mainly at Yarmouth in connection with the blockage of the Texel, but latterly watching Parker's squadron. The intransigence of the Danish Government was largely due to knowledge of Parker's dilatory prevarications and delays…' Dungarth rose and refilled their glasses. 'Etienne Montholon is dead now, he called himself Le Marquis De La Roche-Jagu and was killed by a jealous lover when in bed with his mistress at Newmarket…'