Free 1805 by Richard Woodman Page A

ditch at Vincennes. Drinkwater's reaction to the
execution of D'Enghien combined with the orders he had received from
Wright to extend
Antigone
's cruising ground
further east towards Pointe d'Ailly.
    'Standing close inshore like this,' Drinkwater overheard
Rogers
grumbling to Hill as he sat reading with his skylight open, 'we're not
going to capture a damn thing. We're more like a bloody whore trailing
her skirt up and down the street than a damned frigate. I wish we were
in the West Indies. Even a fool of a Frenchman isn't going to put to
sea with us sitting here for all to see.'
    'No,' said Hill reflectively, and Drinkwater put down his book
to hear what he had to say in reply. 'But it could be that that is just
what the Old Man wants.'
    'What? To be seen?'
    'Yes. When I was in the
Kestrel
, cutter,
back in ninety-two we used to do just this waiting to pick up a spy.'
    'Wasn't our Nathaniel aboard
Kestrel
then?'
    'Yes,' said Hill, 'and that cove Wright has been doing
something similar more recently.'
    'Good God! Why didn't you mention it before?'
    Drinkwater heard Hill laugh. 'I never thought of it.'
     
    In the end it was the fishing boat
that found them as Drinkwater intended. She came swooping over the
waves, a brown lugsail reefed down and hauled taut against the fresh
westerly that set white wave-caps sparkling in the low sunshine of
early morning. Drinkwater answered the summons to the quarterdeck to
find Quilhampton backing the main-topsail and heaving the ship to. He
levelled his glass on the approaching boat but could make nothing of
her beyond the curve of her dark sail, apart from an occasional face
that peered ahead and shouted at the helmsman. A minute or two later
the boat was alongside and a man in riding clothes was bawling in
imperious English for a chair at a yardarm whip. The men at the rail
looked aft at Drinkwater.
    He nodded: 'Do as he asks, Mr Q.'
    As soon as the stranger's feet touched the deck he dextrously
extricated himself from the bosun's chair, moved swiftly to the rail
and whipped a pistol from his belt.
    'What the devil are you about, sir?' shouted Drinkwater seeing
the barrel levelled at the men in the boat.
    'Shootin' the damned Frogs, Captain, and saving you your
duty!' The hammer clicked impotently on a misfire and the stranger
turned angrily. 'Has anyone a pistol handy?'
    Drinkwater strode across the deck. 'Put up that gun, sir,
d'you hear me!' He was outraged. That the stranger should escape from
an enemy country and then shoot the men who had risked everything to
bring him off to
Antigone
seemed a piece of quite
unnecessary brutality.
    'Here, take this.' Drinkwater turned to see Walmsley offering
the stranger a loaded pistol.
    'Good God! What,
you
here, Walmsley!
Thank you…'
    'Put up that gun, sir!' Drinkwater closed the gap between him
and the spy and knocked up the weapon. The man spun round. His face was
suffused with rage.
    'A pox on you! Who the deuce d'you think you are to meddle in
my affairs?'
    'Have a care! I command here and you'll not fire into that
boat!'
    'D'you know who I am, damn you?'
    'Indeed, Lord Camelford, I do; and I received orders to expect
you some days ago.' He dropped his voice as Camelford looked round as
though to obtain some support from Walmsley. 'Your reputation with
pistols precedes you, my Lord. I must insist on your surrendering even
those waterlogged weapons you still have in your belt.' He indicated a
further two butts protruding from Camelford's waistband.
    Camelford's face twisted into a snarl and he leaned forward,
thrusting himself close to Drinkwater. 'You'll pay for your insolence,
Captain. I do not think you know what influence I command, nor how
necessary it was that I despatched those fishermen…'
    'After promising them immunity to capture if they brought you
offshore I don't doubt,' Drinkwater said, matching Camelford's anger.
'No fisherman would have risked bringing you off and under my guns
without such assurance. It's common knowledge