Free The Bomb Vessel by Richard Woodman Page B

threw off his gloomy thoughts, the professional melancholy known as ‘the blue devils’, and watched a herring gull glide alongside Virago, riding the turbulent air disturbed by the passage of the ship. With an almost imperceptible closing of its wings it suddenly sideslipped and curved away into the low trough of a wave lifting on Virago’s larboard quarter.
    ‘Sail reduced sir.’
    ‘Very well, Mr Easton. Be so good as to keep a sharp watch on the commodore, particularly in this visibility.’
    Easton bit his lip. ‘Aye, aye, sir.’
    ‘When will we be abeam the Gunfleet beacon?’
    ‘Bout an hour, sir.’
    ‘Thank you.’
    Easton turned away and Drinkwater looked over the ship. His earlier premonition had been correct. She had an immensely solid feel about her, despite her lack of overall size. Her massive scantlings gave her this, but she was also positive to handle and gave him a feeling of confident satisfaction as his first true command.
    He looked astern at the remainder of the squadron. Terror, Sulphur, Zebra and Hecla could just be made out. Discovery and the other two tenders, both Geordie colliers, were lost in the rain to the south westward. The remaining bomb, Volcano, was somewhere ahead of Explosion.
    He saw one of the tenders emerge from the rain astern of Hecla. She was a barque rigged collier called the Anne Reed, requisitioned by the Ordnance Board and fitted up as an accommodation vessel for the Royal Artillery detachment, some eight officers and eighty men who, in addition to half a dozen ordnance carpenters from the Tower of London, would work the mortars when the time came. Lieutenant Tumilty was somewhere aboard her, no doubt engaged in furious and bucolic debate with his fellow ‘pyroballogists’ over the more abstruse aspects of fire-throwing.
    Drinkwater smiled to himself, missing the man’s company. Doubtless there would be time for that later, when they reached Yarmouth and again when they entered the Baltic.
    A stronger gust of wind dashed the spray of a breaking wave and whipped it over Virago’s quarter. A cold trickle wormed its way down Drinkwater’s neck, reminding him that he need not stand on deck all day. Already the Swin had opened to become the King’s Channel, now that too merged with the Barrow Deep. Easton lifted his glass and stared to the north. The rain would prevent them seeing the Naze and its tower. Drinkwater fumbled in his tail pocket and brought out his own glass. He scanned the same arc of the horizon, seeing it become indistinct, grey and blurred as yet another rain squall obscured it. He waited patiently for it to pass, then looked again. This time Easton beat him to it.
    ‘A point forrard of the beam, sir.’
    Drinkwater hesitated. Then he saw it, a pole surmounted by a wooden cage over which he could just make out a faint, horizontal blur. The blur was, he knew, a huge wooden fish.
    ‘Very well, Mr Easton, a bearing if you please and note in your log.’
    A quarter of an hour later the Gunfleet beacon was obliterated astern by more rain and as night came on the wind increased.
    By midnight the gale was at its height and the squadron scattered. Drinkwater had brought Virago to an anchor, veering away two full cables secured end to end. For although they were clear of the longshoals that run into the mouth of the Thames they had yet to negotiate the Gabbards and the Galloper and the Shipwash banks, out in the howling blackness to leeward.
    The fatigue and anxiety of the night seemed heightened by his fever and he seemed possessed of a remarkable energy that he knew he would pay dearly for later, but he hounded his officers and took frequent casts of the lead to see whether their anchor was dragging. At six bells in the middle watch the atmosphere cleared and they were rewarded by a glimpse of the lights of the floating alarm vessel* at the Sunk. With relief he went below, collapsing across his cot in his wet boat cloak, his feet stuck out behind him still