The Corvette

'It is blowing exceedingly hard, sir.' Singleton looked to windward as a wave top reared above the horizon. Melusine dropped into the trough and it seemed to Singleton that the wave crest, rolling over in an avalanche of foam, would descend onto Melusine's exposed side. Singleton's mouth opened as Melusine felt the sudden lift of the advancing sea imparted to her quarter. The horizon disappeared and Singleton's stomach seemed far beneath the soles of his feet. He gasped with surprise as the breaking crest crashed with a judder against Melusine's spirketting and shot a column of spray into the air. As Melusine felt the full force of the wind on the wave-crest she leaned to leeward and dropped into the next trough. Singleton's stomach seemed to pass his eyes as the wind whipped the spray horizontally over the rail with a spiteful patter. Beside him an apparently heartless Captain Drinkwater raised his speaking trumpet.

'Mr Rispin, you must clear that raffle away properly before starting the fid or you will lose gear.' He turned to the missionary, 'It is an article of faith to a seaman, Mr Singleton,' he grinned, 'but it is, I agree, both superstitious and preposterous. As for the wind I must disagree, if only to prepare you for what may yet come. It blows hard, but not exceedingly hard. This is what we term a whole gale. It is quite distinct from a storm. The wind-note in the rigging will rise another octave in a storm.'

'Mr Bourne sent below to the cockpit to turn the young gentlemen out to strike the topgallant masts,' Singleton said, the colour creeping back into his cheeks and checking the corpse-like blue of his jaw. 'I had supposed the term to apply to some form of capitulation to the elements.'

Drinkwater smiled and shook his head. 'Not at all. The ship will ride easier from a reduction in her top hamper. It will lower her centre of gravity and reduce windage, thus rendering her both more comfortable and more manageable.' He pointed to leeward. 'Besides we do not want to outrun our charges.' Singleton stared into the murk to starboard and caught the pale glimpse of sails above the harder solidity of wallowing hulls that first showed a dull gleam of copper and then seemed to disappear altogether.

'And this,' Singleton said, feeling better and aware that any distraction, even that of watching the sailors, was better than the eternal preoccupation with his guts, 'is what Rispin is presently engaged upon?'

'Aye, Mr Singleton, that was my intention,' the speaking trumpet came up again. 'Have a care there, sir! Watch the roll of the ship, God damn it!' The trumpet was lowered. 'Saving your cloth, Mr Singleton.'

'I begin to see a certain necessity for strong expressions, sir.'

Drinkwater grinned again. 'A harsh environment engenders a vocabulary to match, Mr Singleton. This ain't a drawing-room at Tunbridge nor, for that matter, rooms at… at, er at whatever college you were at.'

'Jesus.'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Jesus College, Oxford University.' There was a second's pause and both men laughed.

'Ah. I'm afraid I graduated from the cockpit of a man o'war.'

'Not an alma mater to be recommended, sir, if my own experiences…'

'A cesspit, sir,' said Drinkwater with sudden asperity,'but I do assure you that England has been saved by its products more than by all the professors in history…'

'I did not mean to…'

'No matter, no matter.' Drinkwater instantly regretted his intemperance. But the moment had passed and it was not what he had summoned Singleton for. Such levity ill became the captain of a man o'war. 'We were talking of the wind, Mr Singleton, and the noise made by a storm, beside which this present gale is nothing. I believe, Mr Singleton, that the wind in Greenland is commonly at storm force, that the particles of ice carried in it can wound the flesh like buckshot and that a man cannot exist for more than a few minutes in such conditions.'

'Sir, the eskimos manage…'

'Mr Singleton,' Drinkwater hurried on, 'what I am trying to say is that I need your services here. On this ship, God damn it. If the eskimos manage so well without you, Mr Singleton, cannot you leave them in their primitive state of savagery? What benefits can you confer…?'

'Captain Drinkwater! You amaze me! What are you saying? Surely you do not deny the unfortunate natives the benefits of Christianity?'

'There are those who consider your religion to be as superstitious in its tenets as the people's belief that you can raise a gale, Mr Singleton.'

'Only a Jacobin Frenchman, sir! Not a British naval captain!' Singleton's outrage was so fervent that Drinkwater could not resist laughing at him any more than he could resist baiting him.

'Sir, I, I protest…' Drinkwater mastered his amusement.

'Mr Singleton, you may rest easy. The solitude of command compels me to take the occasional advantage… But I am in desperate need of a surgeon. Macpherson has, as you know, been in a straitjacket for three days…'

'The balance of his mind is quite upset, sir, and the delirium tremens will take some time to subside. Peripheral neuritis, the symptom of chronic alcoholic poisoning…'

'I am aware that he is a rum-sodden wreck, devil-take it! That is why I need your knowledge as a physician.'

Melusine's motion eased as Rispin came across the deck and knuckled his hatbrim to report the topgallant masts struck. 'Very well, Mr Rispin. You may pipe the watch below.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

'And send Mr Quilhampton to me.' He dismissed Rispin and turned to Singleton. 'Very well, Mr Singleton. I admire your sense of vocation. It would be an unwarranted abuse of my powers to compel you to do anything.' He paused and fixed Singleton with his grey eyes. 'But I shall expect you to volunteer to stand in for Macpherson until such time as we land you upon the coast of Greenland. Ah, Mr Q, will you attend the quarterdeck with your quadrant and bring up my sextant. Have Frey bring up the chronometer…'

Singleton turned to windward as the captain left him. The wind and sea struck him full in the face and he gasped with the shock.

Mr Midshipman the Lord Walmsley nodded at the messman. The grubby cloth was drawn from the makeshift table and the messman placed the rosewood box in front of his lordship. Drawing a key from his pocket Lord Walmsley unlocked and lifted the lid. He took out the two glasses from their baize-lined sockets and placed one in front of himself and one in front of Mr Midshipman the Honourable Alexander Glencross whose hands shot out to preserve both glasses from rolling off the table.

'Cognac, Glencross?'

'If you please, my Lord.'

Walmsley filled both glasses to capacity, replaced the decanter and locking the box placed it for safety between his feet. He then took hold of his glass and raised it.

'The fork, Mr Dutfield.'

'Aye, aye, my Lord.' Dutfield picked up the remaining fork that lay on the table for the purpose and stuck it vigorously into the deck beam. The dim lighting of the cockpit struck dully off it and Walmsley and Glencross swigged their brandy.

'Damn fine brandy, Walmsley.'

'Ah,' said his lordship from the ascendancy of his position and his seventeen years, 'the advantages of peace, don't you know.' He frowned and stared at the two midshipmen at the forward end of the table then, catching Dutfield's eye raised his own to the fork above their heads. 'The fork, Mr Dutfield.'

Mr Frey looked hurriedly up from his book and then snapped it shut, hurrying away while Dutfield's face wrinkled with an expression of resentment and pleading. 'But mayn't I…?'

'You know damn well you mayn't. You are a youngster and when the fork is in the deck beam your business is to make yourself scarce. Now turn in!'

Mumbling, Dutfield turned away.