Chapter Eight A John Company Man

November–December 1798

Drinkwater was bent over his books, alarmed at the high expenditure of cordage due to the loss of the foreyard, when he heard the cry from the masthead.

‘Deck there! Sail Ho! A point of starboard!’ He gratefully accepted the excuse to rush on deck, feeling the welcome breeze ruffling his open shirt. They had sighted the high land of Ras Hafun three days earlier and doubled Cape Guardafui under the strong katabatic winds that blew down from the Somali plateau. Now they romped westward into the Gulf of Aden carrying sail to the mastheads. It was the forenoon and the watches below were preparing for dinner so that at the cry most of her hands crowded Hellebore’s waist. They were eagerly awaiting a sight of the stranger from the deck. Drinkwater saw Quilhampton at the rail.

‘Up you go, Mr Q, and see what you make of her.’ The boy grabbed a glass and leapt into the rigging. The sight of anything would be welcome. They had seen several dhows inshore of them as they closed the coast but the stranger might be a square-rigged ship, a friend or, just possibly, an enemy.

Hellebore had had her fill of the wonders of the Indian Ocean. Flying fish, whales and dolphins had been seen in abundance, turtles and birds of many descriptions, petrels, long-tailed tropic birds and the brown boobies that reminded them of the immature gannets of Europe. Little sketches filled the margins of Drinkwater’s journal together with a description of a milk sea, an eruption of foaming phosphorescence of ethereal beauty. This phenomenon had prompted Quilhampton to essay his hand at poetry. The scorn of Mr Dalziell ended the endeavour, though Mr Quilhampton was quick to refute the assertion that poets were milksops by pointing out they were not the only persons to be sent into a swoon at the sight of the world’s natural wonders. But none of these observations thrilled them as much as the two white topgallants that were soon visible from the deck.

‘She’s a brig sir, like us . . . or she might be a snow, sir,’ reported Quilhampton with uncertain precision.

‘Colours?’

‘Not showing ’em, sir,’ he answered, unconsciously aping Mr Drinkwater’s abbreviated style.

‘No colours, eh?’ said Griffiths hobbling up on his swollen foot.

‘No, sir.’

‘Waiting for us to declare ourselves, eh? Clear for action Mr Drinkwater, Mr Lestock! Take the t’gallants off her, square away to intercept this fellow.’

The pipes squealed at the hatchways and the men lost their dinner as the cook doused his stove. All was hurrying urgency. They had improved their gunnery coming up from the south, shot at casks with the ‘great guns’ and shattered bottles at the yard arms from the tops. Their grog had long ago been reinstated and Catherine Best had assumed the demeanour of a nun. Never was a meal more cheerfully forgotten. This was no lurking French cruiser of overwhelming force. The sun was shining, the breeze was blowing and the shadows of the sails and rigging were sharp across the deck as it was sprinkled with sand.

‘Cleared for action, sir.’

The two ships were three miles apart when the chase freed off, altering to the north so that she presented her broadside to them. ‘She’s a snow,’ muttered Quilhampton pacing up and down the starboard battery in the wake of Lieutenant Rogers.

‘She’s an odd looking craft,’ said Drinkwater. She was like a small sloop but with a long poop, painted green with enormous gun ports in it.

‘Hoist the colours!’

‘Or the god-damned topgallants, you bloody old goat,’ muttered Rogers who thought the chase would escape his eager gunners.

Hellebore’s ensign snapped out and jerked to the spanker peak, streaming out on the starboard beam. Griffiths watched the snow respond, heaving to with her main topsail against the mast. At her peak flew the horizontally striped ensign of the Honourable East India Company.

‘A John Company ship,’ said Griffiths relaxing. Hellebore foamed up to the stranger and came to the wind as the snow lowered a boat.

‘He’s all for co-operation,’ said Griffiths to Drinkwater.

‘Well I’m damned . . . those ain’t gunports, they’re slatted blinds.’

‘Jalousies, Mr Drinkwater, she’s a dispatch vessel for the Company, a country ship they use for conveying their officials about and carrying dispatches. I’ll wager it’s that he wishes to see us about.’

Griffiths proved right. While the Hellebores, relaxing from action stations and eagerly salving what remained of their lukewarm dinner, chaffed incomprehensibly with the grinning lascars in the boat, a handsome sun-bronzed officer in the crisp well-laundered uniform of the Company’s Bombay Marine told them the news.

‘Lieutenant Lawrence, gentlemen, at your service.’ They exchanged formal greetings and withdrew to Griffiths’s cabin.

‘Lieutenant Thomas Duval of His Majesty’s ship Zealous arrived at Bombay on 21st October, sir, with the news from Admiral Nelson.’ Griffiths and Drinkwater exchanged glances. Hellebore had been at the Cape then. ‘Please go on, Lieutenant.’

‘It seems that on 1st August last the British fleet under Rear-Admiral Nelson annihilated the French at Aboukir Bay. The attack was made at sunset while the French fleet lay at anchor. I understand that, despite the shoaling of the bay and the grounding of Culloden, the British engaged the French on both sides and the victory was a most complete one. The flagship, L’Orient, blew up.’ He finished with a smile as though the disintegration of a thousand humans was a matter for personal satisfaction.

‘Do you have sercial in Bombay, Lieutenant?’ asked Griffiths ironically, motioning Drinkwater to open a bottle. He called through into the pantry for Meyrick to bring in some glasses.

‘We do not want for much in Bombay,’ said Lawrence, ‘but I have not tasted such excellent Madeira for a good while.’ From his appearance Lawrence wanted for absolutely nothing. They toasted the victory.

‘And where are you from now, Lieutenant, what is your purpose?’

‘I am from Mocha, sir, where we left dispatches for Commodore Blankett. Captain Ball of Daedalus was daily expected. The Red Sea Squadron uses Mocha as a watering place, sir. Mr Wrinch is the agent there,’ he paused, then added, ‘a man of considerable parts, sir, you would find calling upon him most profitable.’ Lawrence’s eyes fell to Griffiths’s gouty foot, then he rattled on, ‘unfortunately we could not delay as the north-east monsoon in the Arabian Sea makes a lengthy passage for us back to Bombay.’

‘And your dispatches conveyed the news of the victory at Aboukir to Blankett I assume?’

Lawrence nodded over the rim of his glass.

‘And was there mention of a French army in those dispatches? Of a force landed in Egypt?’

‘Oh that! Yes sir, there are indications of such a thing. Duval suggested that they might attempt a descent on India but the idea is quite preposterous: their force in the Red Sea is totally inadequate. It gave us a nasty shock, though,’ he laughed gaily, ‘quite unexpected!’

‘What?’ snapped Griffiths, ‘d’you mean there are already French ships in the Red Sea?’

‘Oh yes, one of them, a smart little sloop, call ’em corvettes I recollect, attempted to chase us off Perim two days ago. We led him a merry dance through the reefs and soon shook him off.’

‘Myndiawl,’ growled Griffiths while Drinkwater asked, ‘How many ships have the French got out there, sir?’

‘I’ve really no idea, sir, two or three. The Arabs don’t view their arrival with much enthusiasm since they seem to be taking dhows. God knows what for. It might be the will of Allah but the faithful don’t take too kindly to it.’

‘A true corsair by the sound of him,’ said Griffiths pondering.

‘Tell me sir, could you oblige us with a modern chart of the Red Sea? Ours is most fearfully wanting in detail.’ Drinkwater pulled the appropriate chart from the drawer beneath the settee. He showed Lawrence. The lieutenant laughed. ‘Good God, gentlemen, I believe Noah had a better. Yes, I am sure I can furnish your wants there, send a midshipman back with me.’

‘There’s a further thing,’ said Griffiths, ‘we’ve a woman on board and I want her given passage to Bombay.’

Lawrence’s face clouded. ‘Who is she?’

‘Oh, some convict scum we found floating in a ship’s boat in the South Atlantic. She got amongst the men with her damned fornicating.’

Lawrence was indignant: ‘I’m sorry sir, but I cannot help you with convicts.’

‘Damn it man, I order you to, I hold a commission in the King’s Service . . .’

‘You say you picked her up in the South Atlantic?’ temporised Lawrence.

‘Yes.’

‘But you come from the Cape. Could you not have landed her there?’ Lawrence frowned. He supposed these naval officers had tired of the jade and now wished to be rid of her. ‘You must understand, sir, that I have a crew of lascars, their notion of Englishwomen is not such that they would readily comprehend the nature of a whore and a convict.’ He picked up his hat and bowed. ‘But the chart you shall have with pleasure. Good morning gentlemen, my thanks for your hospitality . . .’

‘Wait, Mr Lawrence,’ snapped Griffiths. The man’s refusal to take Mistress Best had not surprised him. Other things were crowding the mind of Madoc Griffiths. ‘A moment more. I desire you to inform the Governor at Bombay and the General Officer commanding the Company’s troops that there is substantial risk of the French descending upon India. It is most important that you carry Admiral Nelson’s apprehensions upon this matter with more conviction than did Lieutenant Duval. To this end I shall have the matter in writing . . .’ The commander turned to his desk. Lawrence’s face was a picture of scepticism; he seemed unable to take such a threat seriously. Drinkwater was not surprised; he had heard that prolonged service in India induced a euphoria in Europeans that was a consequence of their exalted position. Lawrence’s lofty dismissal of Catherine Best amply demonstrated this attitude.

‘See Mr Lawrence over the side, Mr Drinkwater,’ Griffiths handed the Company officer a letter. Lawrence bowed, took the packet and left the cabin. As the two men climbed into the brilliant sunshine of the deck Drinkwater called Quilhampton to accompany the officer to his ship.

‘I’ll send my boat back with him, sir,’ smiled Lawrence, ‘lest it be said that I refused a woman but took a boy, eh?’

Drinkwater found the jest distasteful and dismissed Lawrence as a sybarite. But he managed a thin smile out of courtesy.

‘You be careful of those Frogs,’ Lawrence said lightly, ‘you don’t have the local knowledge that we do and even my chart is not a great deal of use above Jabal Zuqar, but it’ll get you to Mocha. Good day, sir.’

‘Good day, and thank you. I suppose you know no more of the French force?’

Lawrence shrugged. ‘A frigate and one or two corvettes . . . commodore’s name was unusual,’ he paused with one elegant calf over the rail. ‘I remember Tom Duval sounded more Frog than this villain. Something like Santon . . . Santa . . .’

‘Santhonax?’

‘You have it exactly sir, Santhonax. Good day, sir.’

‘God’s bones!’ Nathaniel turned swiftly away and scrambled below while Lawrence returned to his ship. Drinkwater burst in upon Griffiths. ‘I just asked that popinjay who commanded the French squadron, sir!’

Griffiths looked up: ‘Well?’

‘Santhonax!’

For a second Griffiths sat silent, then a torrent of Welsh oaths rolled from him in a spate of invective that terminated in the pouring of two further glasses of sercial. Both men sat staring before them. Both thought of the long duel they had fought with Santhonax in the Channel and the North Sea. They had put an end to his depredations by capture at Camperdown. Now, by some twist of fate, Santhonax had beaten them, arrived ahead of them in the Red Sea.

‘It is not coincidence, Nathaniel, if that is what you are thinking. Du, it is Providence . . . myndiawl, it is more than that, it is proof of Providence!’

‘There is one thing, sir.’

‘Eh? And what is that?’ asked Griffiths pouring a third glass of the wine.

‘He does not know it is us that are in pursuit.’

‘Huh! That is something like cold comfort, indeed it is.’

The bump of a boat alongside told where Quilhampton had been returned. A minute later the boy knocked and came in. He handed Drinkwater the rolled chart. ‘Beg pardon sir, but it was a snow, sir, name of Dart, sir and . . .’

‘Mr Quilhampton!’ snapped Griffiths.

‘Sir?’ said the boy blushing.

‘Do you tell the master that I desire him to brace up and lay a course for the Straits of Bab el Mandeb.’

‘B . . . Bab el . . .’

‘Mandeb.’

‘Aye aye, sir.’