'In the meantime I shall be delighted to allow you to retain your wife on board. Perhaps she will dine with all of the officers. It will give us the opportunity to discuss the progress of commissioning the ship, and the presence of a lady is always stimulating.' Jex's eyes narrowed abruptly to slits. Drinkwater had laid no special emphasis on the word 'lady' but there was about Mrs Jex's behaviour something suspicious.
'That will be all, Mr Jex. And be so kind as to pass word for Mr Willerton.'
Several days passed and Drinkwater kept Jex in a state of uncertainty over his future. The men appeared in guernseys and greygoes so that it was clear Jex had some influence over the dockyard suppliers. Drinkwater was pleased by his first victory.
He listened in silence as Rogers told of the usual dockyard delays, the unkept promises, the lack of energy, the bribery, the venality. He listened while Rogers hinted tactfully that he lacked the funds to expedite matters, that there were few seamen available for such an unimportant vessel and those drafted to them were the cast-offs from elsewhere. Drinkwater was dominated by the two problems of want of cash and men. He had already spent more of his precious capital than he intended and as yet obtained little more than a smartened first lieutenant, a few documents necessary to commission his ship, only obtained by bribing the issuing clerks, and victuals enough for the cabin for a week. Apart from the imposition of further bribing dockyard officials for the common necessities needed by a man of war, he had yet to purchase proper slops for his men, just a little paint that his command might not entirely disgrace him, a quantity of powder for practice, and a few comforts for his own consumption: a dozen live pullets, a laying hen, a case or two of blackstrap. He sighed, listening again to Rogers and his catalogue of a first lieutenant's woes. As he finished Drinkwater poured him a glass of the cheap port sold in Chatham as blackstrap.
'Press on Samuel, we do make progress.' He indicated the litter of papers on the table. Rogers nodded then, in a low voice and leaning forward confidentially he said, 'I, er, have found a little out about our friend Jex.'
'Oh?'
'More of his wife actually. It seems that after the last war Jex went off slaving. As purser he made a deal of money and accustomed himself to a fine time.' There was a touch of malice in Rogers as he sipped the wine, he was contemplating the fate of another brought low by excess. 'I gather he invested a good bit of it unwisely and lost heavily. Now, after some time in straightened circumstances, he is attempting to recoup his finances from the perquisites of a purser's berth and marriage to his lady wife.' Rogers managed a sneer. 'Though not precisely a trollop she did run a discreet little house off Dock Road. Quite a remunerative place, I am led to believe.'
'And a berth in a King's ship purchases Madame Jex a measure of respectability. Yes, I had noticed an assumption of airs by her ladyship,' concluded Drinkwater, grinning as an idea occurred to him. Making up his mind he slapped his hand on the table. 'Yes, I have it, it will do very nicely. Be so good as to ask Mr Jex to step this way.'
Jex arrived and was asked to sit. His air of confidence had sagged a little and was replaced by pugnacity. The purser's arms were crossed over his belly and he peered at his commander through narrowed eyes.
'I have come to a decision regarding you and your future.' Drinkwater spoke clearly, aware of the silence from the adjoining cabin. Mrs Jex would hear with ease through the thin bulkhead.
'Your influence with the dockyard does you credit, Mr Jex. I would be foolish not to take advantage of your skill and interest in that direction…' Drinkwater noted with satisfaction that Jex was relaxing. 'I require that you do not sleep out of the ship until you have completed victualling for eighty souls for three months. Your wife may live on board with you. You will be allowed the customary eighth on your stores, but a personal profit exceeding twelve and one half per cent will not be tolerated. You will put up the usual bond with the Navy Board and receive seven pounds per month whilst on the ship's books. Until the ship is fully manned you may claim a man's pay for your wife but she shall keep the cabin clean until my servant arrives. You will ensure that the stores from the Victualling Yard are good, not old, nor in split casks. You may at your own expense purchase tobacco and slops for the men. You will, as part of this charge, purchase one hundred new grey-goes, one hundred pairs of mittens, a quantity of woollen stockings and woollen caps, together with some cured sheepskins from any source known to you. You will in short, supply the ship with warm clothes for her entire company. Do you understand?'
Jex's jaw hung. In the preceeding minutes his expression had undergone several dramatic changes but the post of purser in even the meanest of His Britannic Majesty's ships was sought after as a source of steady wealth and steadier opportunity. Drinkwater had not yet finished with the unfortunate man.
'We have not, of course, mentioned the fee customarily paid to the captain of a warship for your post. Shall we say one hundred? Come now, what do you say to my terms?'
'Ninety.'
'Guineas, my last offer, Mr Jex.'
Drinkwater watched the purser's face twist slowly as he calculated. He knew he could never stop the corruption in the dockyards, nor in the matter of the purser's eighth, but he might put the system to some advantage. There was a kind of rough justice in Drinkwater's plan. Mrs Jex's wealth came from the brief sexual excesses of a multitude of unfortunate seamen. It was time a little was returned in kind.
Virago presented something of a more ordered state a day or two later. Both Matchett and Mason, despite their unprepossessing introduction a few days earlier, turned out to be diligent workers. With a third of Jex's ninety guineas Drinkwater was able to 'acquire' a supply of paint, tar, turpentine, oakum, rosin and pitch to put the hull in good shape. He also acquired some gilt paint and had Rogers rig staging over the stern to revive the cracked-acanthus leaves that roved over the transom.
While Drinkwater sat in his cloak in the cabin, the table littered with lists, orders, requisitions and indents, driving his pen and dispatching Mason daily to the dockyard or post-office on ship's business, Rogers stormed about the upper deck or terrorised the dockyard foremen with torrents of foul-mouthed invective that forced reaction from even their stone-walling tactics. Storemen and clerks who complained about his bullying abuse usually obliged Drinkwater to make apologies for him. So he developed an ingratiating politeness that disguised his contempt for these jobbers. With a little greasing of palms he could often reverse the offended clerk's mind and thus obtain whatever the ship required.
Drinkwater made daily rounds of the ship. Forward of the officers' accommodation under the low poop stretched one huge space. It was at once hold and berthing place for the hammocks of her crew. Gratings decked over the lower section into which the casks of pork, peas, flour, oatmeal, fish and water were stowed. Here too, like huge black snakes, lay the vessel's four cables. Extending down from deck to keelson in the spaces between the two masts were two massive mortar beds. These vast structures were of heavy crossed timbers, bolted and squeezed together with shock-absorbent hemp poked between each beam. Drinkwater suspected he was supposed to dismantle them, but no one had given him a specific order to do so and he knew that the empty shells, or carcases, stowed in the gaps between the timbers. He would retain those shell rooms, and therefore the mortar beds, for without them, opportunity or not, Virago would be useless as anything but a cargo vessel. Store rooms, a carpenter's workshop and cabin each for Matchett and Willerton were fitted under the fo'c's'le whilst beneath the officers' accommodation aft were the shot rooms, spirit room, fuse room and bread room. Beneath Drinkwater's own cabin lay the magazine space, reached through a hatchway for which he had the only key.