The Corvette

In the still air he heard an occasional pop through the open window of his stern lights as he recorded the air temperature and dipped a thermometer into the sea. Closing the sash frame he sat, blew on his hands and wrote:

Sawyers sends to me that he is confident this will be a good season. The sea is of a rich, greenish hue which he says indicates a plentitude of plankton and krill, tiny forms of life upon which Mysticetus feeds. He states that his men took a Razorback, an inferior species offish which contains little oil and sinks on dying. There is a strange remote beauty about these regions and they seem far from the realities of war. I begin to think my Lord St Vincent too sanguine in his expectations.

Drinkwater snapped the inkwell shut and leaned back in his chair. Five minutes later he was asleep. He was woken by a confused bedlam of shouts that persuaded him they were attacked. He had slept for several hours and was stiff and uncomfortable. The sudden awakening alarmed him to the extent of reaching the door before he heard the halloos and the laughter. Muttering about the confounded hunting party he slumped back into his chair, rubbing his shoulder.

'Pass word for my coxswain!' he bawled at the sentry, listening to the order reverberate forward. Tregembo knocked and entered with the familiarity of a favoured servant. 'Coffee, zur?'

'Aye, and a bath.'

'A bath, zur?'

'Yes, God damn it! A bath, a cold bath of sea-water! You've seen three boats of whale-fishers upset in it and it'll not kill me.'

'Aye, aye, zur.' Tregembo's tone was disapproving.

'And find out what happened to Mr Mount's huntin' party.'

Despite his desire for invigoration the bath was unbelievably cold. But in the flush of blood as he towelled himself and put on the clean under-drawers laid out by Tregembo, he felt a renewal of spirits. What he had not written in his journal but which had taken root in his mind and filled it upon waking in such discomfort, was the growing conviction that Melusine's services in the Arctic were going to be purely formal. The strange beauty of the ice and sea did not blind him to the dangers that a fog or storm could summon up, but the necessity of endangering his ship for such a needless cause, for working his crew hard to maintain their martial valour to no purpose, set a problematical task for their captain.

He drew the clean shirt over his head as his steward brought in the coffee.

'Thank you, Cawkwell, on the table if you please, and pass word to Mr Mount to come and see me.'

'Sir,' whispered Cawkwell, a shadow of a man who seemed in constant awe of everybody. Drinkwater suspected Tregembo of specially selecting Cawkwell as his servant so that his own ascendant position was not undermined.

'I told Mr Mount to wait until you'd had your bath, zur,' he waited until Cawkwell had left the cabin, 'when you was less megrimish.'

Drinkwater looked up. 'Damn you for your insolence, Tregembo,' Tregembo grinned, 'you should try a bath, yourself.' Tregembo sniffed with disapproval and the knock of Mr Mount put an end to the familiarities.

'Enter!'

Mount, wrapped in his great-coat, stepped into the cabin. 'Ah, Mr Mount, what success did you have, eh?'

'A magnificent haul, sir, eleven seals and,' Mount's eyes were gleaming with triumph, 'a polar bear, sir!'

'A polar bear?'

'Yes, sir. Mr Frey discovered him asleep alongside a seal that he had partly eaten. He got the scent of us and made off into the water but, I suppose conceiving himself safe after putting a distance between us, clambered up onto another floe. Quilhampton and I both hit him and he made off, but we called up the boat and I got a second ball into his brain at about sixty paces.'

Drinkwater raised his eyebrows. 'A triumph indeed, Mr Mount, my congratulations.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Now we will butcher the seals but have a party skin them and scrape the inside of the skins. I asked Mr Germaney to determine whether any of the people were conversant with tanning.'

'Yes, sir. Er, there's one thing, sir.'

'Yes? What is it?'

'We brought back an eskimo, sir.'

'You did what?'

'Brought back an eskimo.'

'God bless my soul!'

After this revelation Drinkwater could no longer resist inspecting the trophies. The eskimo proved to be a young male, who appeared to have broken his arm. He was dressed in skins and had a wind-tanned face. His dark almond eyes were clouded with fear and pain and he held his left arm with his right hand. Mr Singleton was examining him with professional interest.

'A fine specimen of an innuit, Captain, about twenty years of age but with a compound fracture of the left ulna and considerable bruising. I understand he resisted the help of Mount and his party.'

'I see. What do you propose to do with him Mr Singleton? We can hardly turn him loose with his arm in such a state, yet to detain him seems equally unjust. Perhaps his family or huntin' party are not far away.' Drinkwater turned to Mount. 'Did you see any evidence of other eskimos?'

'No, sir. Mr Frey ascended an eminence and searched the horizon but nothing could be seen. He is very lucky, sir, we were some way from the ship and returning when we happened to see him. If he had not moved we would have passed him by'

'And left him to the polar bears, eh?'

'Exactly so, sir.'

Singleton had reached under the man's jerkin and was palpating the stomach. Curiously the eskimo did not seem to mind but began to point to his mouth.

'He's had little to eat, sir, for some time,' Singleton stood back, 'and I doubt whether soap has ever touched him.' Several noses wrinkled in disgust.

'Very well. Take him below and get that arm dressed. Give the poor devil some laudanum, Mr Singleton. As for the rest of you, you may give me a full account of your adventure at dinner.' He turned aft and nearly bumped into little Frey. 'Ah, Mr Frey…'

'Sir?'

'Do you think you could execute a small sketch of our friend?'

'Of course sir.'

'Very good, I thank you.'

The meal itself proved a great success. The trestle table borrowed from the wardroom groaned under the weight of fresh meat, an unusual circumstance of a man-of-war. In an ill-disguised attempt to placate his commander Lord Walmsley had offered Drinkwater two bottles of brandy which the latter did not refuse. The conversation was naturally about the afternoon's adventure and Drinkwater learnt of little Frey's sudden, frightening discovery of the sleeping polar bear which the boy re-told, his eyes alight with wine and the excitement of recollected fear. He heard again how Quilhampton, his musket resting in his wooden hand, had struck the animal in the shoulder and how Mount had established his military superiority by lodging a ball in the bear's skull.

'By comparison Bourne's triumph over the seals was of no account, sir, ain't that so, Bourne?' Mount said teasing his young colleague.

'That is an impertinence, Mount, if I had not had to secure the boat while you all raced in pursuit of quarry I should have downed the beast with a single shot.'

'Pah!' said Mount grinning, 'you should have left the boat to Walmsley or Glencross. I conceive it that you were hanging back from the ferocity of those somnolent seals.'

'Come, sir,' said Bourne with mock affront, 'd'you insinuate that I was frightened of an old bear who ran away at the approach of Mr Frey…'