Chapter Sixteen The Price of Admiralty

September 1799

It was supremely ironic that it should have been Santhonax’s astute intelligence that saved Drinkwater’s life. For that brilliant officer, so swift in resource and quick in perception, instantly recognised Nathaniel Drinkwater, even in the dark. And that second of distraction from the purpose of discharging his pistol made him miss his aim. Even as the priming sparked, Drinkwater threw up his left arm to cover his face and the ball passed his ribs with an inch to spare.

‘Vous!’ howled the Frenchman in exasperated fury, flinging the pistol from him and leaping to the deck to draw his sword. Drinkwater’s epée rasped from its scabbard. Other figures came over the rail behind Santhonax. Forward there was an ugly movement as the huddle of Frenchmen recognised their commander. Drinkwater heard Griffiths’s voice steady the men on the tiller ropes as he and Santhonax circled each other warily.

Suddenly the carronade roared as the captured French seamen surged aft. Barnes had applied his match and as several of them fell screaming to the deck Drinkwater felt the jar of steel on steel. Yusuf ben Ibrahim was alongside him, advancing on the three officers and half dozen armed seamen that had boarded with Santhonax. He was aware of a white-haired figure on his other flank, a pistol extended towards Santhonax. Then Drinkwater was savagely parrying Santhonax’s cut, lunging and riposting as Yusuf’s whirring scimitar swung pitilessly to his right. He did not know what happened, but suddenly Santhonax was falling back against the rail, his sword hanging uselessly by its martingale, his left arm clutching his shoulder. Drinkwater turned in time to see Griffiths too falling, a dark stain on his breast. Six feet from him a French officer stood with the pistol still smoking in his hand. Cheated of Santhonax and in the full fury of his cold battle lust, Drinkwater swung half left, the French sword singing in his hand. The blade bit down on the officer’s shoulder, bumping over clavicle and ribs, opening a huge bloody wound across the chest. Drinkwater pressed the blade savagely, all around him men were closing on Santhonax’s party: battle was to become massacre for already in his heart he knew Griffiths was dying. But in that moment this knowledge was refined into a mere lunge, an increase of pressure on the sword-blade that reached the lower limits of the officer’s ribs and, slashing through the muscles of his stomach, eviscerated him.

Drinkwater turned from his act of vengeance to see Yusuf ben Ibrahim stretched on the planking, his head and chest laid open by the blades of three Frenchmen, men who had soon succumbed to the overwhelming numbers of Ben Ibrahim’s supporters. The whole incident had taken perhaps five minutes, five minutes in which the slashed tiller lines had been temporarily repaired and the frigate drew offshore, steered from her wheel.

‘Attendez votre capitaine!’ snapped Drinkwater to one of the cowering Frenchmen and turned away to discover the extent of Griffiths’s injuries.

Tregembo had already loosened the commander’s shirt and they found the hole above the heart. Blood issued darkly from the old man’s mouth and breathing was accomplished only with an immense effort. Struggling, they propped him up against the breech of a carronade. Rogers came up.

‘Is he bad?’ Drinkwater nodded. ‘What course d’you want, Nathaniel?’

‘West, steer due west. Get the main topsail on her and then the foretopmast staysail . . . and for God’s sake get those bloody Frogs mewed up below.’

‘There aren’t many left after Barnes blew them to hell.’ Rogers hurried off and checked the course then bellowed for the hands to gather at the foot of the mainmast. Drinkwater turned back to Griffiths. The old man’s eyes were wide open and his lips formed the name ‘Santhonax?’

Drinkwater flicked a glance in the direction of the French captain. He was still slumped in a faint against the bulwarks. Drinkwater jerked his head in the wounded man’s direction. ‘Tregembo, make arrangements to secure yonder fellow when he comes round.’

‘Does I recognise him as that cap’n we took before, zur?’

Drinkwater nodded wearily. ‘You do, Tregembo.’ He called for water but Griffiths only choked on it, feebly waving it aside.

‘No good, annwyl,’ he whispered with an effort, ‘too late for all that . . . done my duty . . .’ One of the seamen approached him with a boat cloak found below and they made Griffiths comfortable, but as they moved him he choked on more blood. His eyes were closed again now and the sweat poured from him like water wrung from a sponge.

Nathaniel put an arm round him, hauling him upright to ease the strain on his chest muscles. He felt the final paroxysm as Griffiths choked, drowning on his own blood, felt the will to live finally wither. Griffiths opened his eyes once more. In the darkness they were black holes in the pallor of his face, black holes that gradually lost their intensity and at the end were no more than marks in the gloom.

They recovered Mr Trussel and his party off Al Wejh that afternoon. By the time Wrinch rejoined them the frigate was well in hand. The Frenchmen had been turned-to securing the gun deck and stowing the loose gear, while the slashed rigging was made good aloft. Trussel cast his eyes about the frigate with gnomish amusement.

‘This is an improvement, Mr Drinkwater.’

‘Indeed, Mr Trussel,’ said Drinkwater gravely. ‘We have paid a heavy price for it by losing the captain.’

‘I beg your pardon, sir, I had no idea . . .’

‘No matter, Mr Trussel. What about your guns?’

The cloud on the wrinkled face further deepened. ‘All gone sir, all of my beauties gone, but surely we have some replacements here?’

‘No, we are only armed en flûte, Mr Trussel, these carronades and half a dozen main deck guns below. The Frogs had ’em all ashore. But yours, what happened to Hellebore’s sixes?’

‘Those damned Arab carts fell apart after half a dozen discharges, though we moved ’em up like regular flying artillery.’ He checked his flight of fancy, remembering the circumstances of his report. ‘Left my black beauties in the desert, sir, and damned sorry I am for it.’

‘Very well, Mr Trussel,’ Drinkwater lowered his voice, ‘you will find a bottle of claret in the great cabin. Use it sparingly.’

Trussel’s eyes gleamed with anticipation. Drinkwater turned his attention to Wrinch. ‘A moment, Mr Wrinch, if you please. Forrard there! Hands to the braces! Hard a-starboard, steer nor’west by west!’

‘Nor’west by west, aye, aye, sir.’

They braced the yards and set more sail, hoisting the topgallants and lowering the forecourse. The frigate slipped through the water with increasing speed. It ought to have given Drinkwater the feeling of keenest triumph. He turned to Wrinch.

‘I went to report to Griffiths . . . I’m sorry. What happened?’

‘He took a pistol ball in the lungs. He was trying to save me from Santhonax.’

‘You took this Frenchman then?’

Drinkwater nodded. ‘Yes, Griffiths shot him and shattered his shoulder. He’s very weak but still alive. He chased us in a boat. Boarded us after we had taken the ship. Ben Ibrahim was killed in the scuffle.’

‘I know, his men told me.’

‘But what of your part? The plan worked to perfection.’

Wrinch managed a wry little laugh. ‘Well almost, the guns were more terrifying to us than to the enemy in fact, though their reports in the dark confused them. The two sheiks whose horsemen I led had a blood feud with the very man whom Santhonax had brought to protect his immunity at Al Mukhra. When I offered gold, guns and the distraction of yourselves it was more tempting than a pair of thoroughbreds. Although those damned guns cost us a deal of labour, we had them in position without the French knowing. The ride had strained the carts and they flew to pieces, but I doubt, despite Mr Trussel’s excellently contrived lashings, they would have managed much more. My cavalry, however, were superb. You have never seen Arab horsemen, eh? They are fluid, restless as sand itself. The enemy rushed from their miserable tents and the hovels in which they were quartered and we chased them through the thorn scrub . . .’ he paused, apparently forgetful of their dead friend, reliving the moment of pure excitement as a man reflecting on a passionate memory. Drinkwater remembered the feeling of panic that had engulfed the men of Cyclops when caught on land by enemy cavalry.

‘We lost four men, Nathaniel, four men that walk now with Allah in paradise. We killed God knows how many. There will not now be a Frenchman alive in the Wadi Al Mukhra.’

There was an alien, pitiless gleam in Wrinch’s eye as he described the murder of a defeated enemy as a scouring of the sacred earth of the Hejaz after the defiling of the infidel. It occurred to Drinkwater that Wrinch was a believer in the one true faith. It was Islam and patriotism that kept this curious man in self-imposed exile among the wild horsemen and their strangely civilised brand of barbarity. And as he listened, it occurred to him that his own life was beset by paradoxes and anomalies; brutality and honour, death and duty. As if to emphasise these disturbing contradictions Wrinch ended on a note of compassion: ‘Do you wish me to attend this Santhonax?’

Drinkwater nodded. ‘If you please. Would that your skills had arrived early enough to have been of use to Griffiths.’

‘Death, my dear Nathaniel,’ said Wrinch, putting his hand familiarly upon Drinkwater’s shoulder, ‘is the price of Admiralty.’