If he had hoped to bring them from their tongue-tied awkwardness by the question, he was sadly disappointed. He sensed an invisible restraint upon them, a disquieting influence, and looked from one to another for some evidence of its source.
'Come, surely someone has an opinion? I never knew a wardroom where criticism of one sort or another was not lavished upon someone.' His false attempt at levity provoked no wry grins. He tried again. 'Mr Gordon, how did the men at your battery respond?'
'Well, sir,' Gordon faltered, shot a glance at the other end of the table and coloured, coughing. The blond lick of his hair fell forward and he threw it back. 'Well, sir, they were well enough, I believe.' He was oddly nervous. 'Their timing improved. According to the first lieutenant...'
'They did well enough, sir, for our first exercise,' broke in Metcalfe stridently. 'The starbowlines were faster than those on the port side and loosed both their broadsides in seventy-nine seconds…'
Drinkwater was fascinated. The riddle, if he judged aright, was solved by the presence of Metcalfe. Yet these younger men were not intimidated by the first luff, merely silent in his company, as if to speak invited some response. Belittlement perhaps? A mild but persistent humiliation? Did they simply choose not to speak in Metcalfe's presence? Was the man a tyrant in the wardroom? He was clearly a fussy and fossicking individual. It was interesting, too, to hear Metcalfe trot out the word 'port' instead of larboard. True, its usage was gaining ground in the Service, but something in Metcalfe's tone endowed the word with fashionable éclat, and more than a little bombast.
'But did you mark any change in their mood, Mr Gordon?'
'You mean after the exercise as compared with before, sir?'
'Yes, exactly.' Drinkwater was aware of a faint air of frustration in his tone.
'They were…'
'A damned sight smarter at the conclusion.' Metcalfe finished the sentence and Drinkwater detected the corporate affront passing through the officers like a gust of wind through dry grass. Moncrieff, resplendent in the scarlet of the marines, threw himself back in his chair. It might have been for the benefit of Mullender, just then serving them all with thick slices of roast pork, but conveyed a different significance to the vigilant Drinkwater.
'I thought them to be much more cheerful, don't you know. As though they enjoyed loosin' off the cannon.'
Drinkwater turned to the speaker, Henry Vansittart, sitting on his right-hand side and whose presence Drinkwater had ignored in his preoccupation. He might, he thought with sudden guilt, have prompted a conversation with poor Vansittart whom, he knew, felt gauche among these tarpaulin jacks. Vansittart's assessment was exactly what he had hoped Gordon would say, and judging from the mute nods of concurrence, was at least sensed by most of them.
'Oh, they like their bangs, all right, sir.' Wyatt's contribution fell like a brick into a still pool and Drinkwater was glad of it, inapproriate though it was. 'They'll give the Yankees something to remember, never you fear.'
'I do hope it doesn't come to that, Mr..., oh dear, forgive me ...' Vansittart floundered and Drinkwater hoped his diplomatic skills were not demonstrated by his inability to remember the master's name.
'Wyatt, Mr Vansittart, Wyatt.'
'Of course, of course, how foolish ...'
Wyatt pronounced the name like 'fancy-tart' and thereby brought a smile to the faces of the diners. Drinkwater was sorry for Vansittart, but glad of the joke. 'I agree with Mr Vansittart,' he said, trying not to make the pronounciation of the name too obviously correct. 'As for their fighting ability, we shall see, depending upon our luck. However, we may try them at a mark if we are becalmed, which reminds me, Mr Moncrieff, your marines must be put to some target practice. Tomorrow do you let 'em loose on the bottles we empty today.'
Moncreiff opened his mouth to reply but was prevented.
'Capital idea, sir.'
'I'm glad you approve, Mr Metcalfe,' Drinkwater replied, and was delighted at catching the exchange of hastily suppressed grins between Gordon and Moncrieff. He had certainly learnt more about them than they about him.
'Perhaps, Mr Vansittart, you could enlighten us all as to the current state of relations between ourselves and the United States of America. Do I take it from your reaction to Mr Wyatt's bellicose assertion that we are anxious to avoid a conflict with our quondam cousins?'
'Damme yes, sir. Most emphatically. Whilst I don't doubt for a moment the temper of your men, it would place an insupportable burden on the Ministry to engage in hostilities with them.'
'I think it might place an insupportable burden on His Majesty's Navy,' Drinkwater added, thinking of the difficulties they had experienced manning Patrician.
'Aye,' put in Metcalfe, 'we have squadrons in almost every corner of the world in addition to the Channel Fleet. To raise another, or reinforce the ships at Halifax ...'
'Plans are afoot to send Rear-Admiral York out with four seventy-fours and a brace of frigates, I believe,' Drinkwater said, 'though I agree that this would be insufficient for a blockade, and if we contemplate war then we must enforce a blockade.'
'What force is the American navy?' Moncrieff derided.
'Small, lad,' said Wyatt, helping himself to more wine, 'but they will issue letters-of-marque and have privateers shoaling like herrings.'
'Oh, come Wyatt, privateers ...'
'Enough of 'em and they'll pick our bones clean, snap up our trade. Don't despise the Yankees. Remember the Little Belt …'
'That was a damned outrage,' protested Metcalfe vehemently, alluding to the unprovoked attack made by the American frigate President upon the smaller British sloop, 'a deliberate provocation ...'
'What tommy-rot and nonsense, it was a case of mistaken identity...'
'The principal aim of British policy', Vansittart broke in, aware that his lecture, hitherto the only means of ascendancy he had gained over the frigate's officers, had been seized by his audience, 'is to avoid provocation. That is why the offence committed by the President was allowed to pass ...'
'To our eternal shame,' interrupted Metcalfe.
'Sometimes it is necessary to swallow a little pride, Mr Metcalfe,' Vansittart said, 'in order to guide the conduct of affairs. Some sea-officers consider themselves so far in the vanguard of matters that they rashly compromise our endeavours. Take Humphries of the Leopard, for instance, when he engaged the Chesapeake; he scarcely endeared us to the Americans.'
'Oh, damn the Jonathans,' snapped Wyatt, out of patience with the pettifoggings of diplomacy. 'They poach our seamen and must be made to spit 'em out again, given a ... what the deuce d'ye call it, Bones?' Wyatt turned to the surgeon.
'An expectorant, I think you mean,' Pym answered drily, adding, "tis all very well to take men out of Yankee merchant ships, God knows we do it enough to our own, but to attempt to do so out of a foreign man-o'-war and then fire into her when she won't comply ...'
The allusion to Captain Humphries' action provoked Wyatt further: 'That's what the buggers deserved! You call 'em foreign, by God! They were no more than damned rebels!' Wyatt protested, dividing the camp. There was a rising tide of argument into which Vansittart plunged.
'They are most certainly not, Mr Wyatt! You'll please to recall they are a legitimately established sovereign state, what ever memories you older gentlemen have of the American War.'
Drinkwater's grin was still-born; he was one of those 'older men'.
'The whole business was a shameful affair,' Vansittart went on, 'the Chesapeake was not in fighting trim, half her guns were not mounted and she had no cause to expect an attack…'