Free A Brig of War by Richard Woodman Page A

where he, Lestock and Appleby were having a makeshift meal. Throughout the ship men moved with a quiet expectancy, both fearful of capture and hopeful of escape. To what degree they inclined to the one or to the other depended greatly upon temperament, and there were those lugubrious souls who had already given up all hope of the latter.
    Drinkwater could not allow himself to dwell over much on defeat. Both his private fears and his professional pride demanded that he appeared confident of ultimate salvation.
    â€˜I tell you, Appleby, if those blackguards had not fouled up the starboard fore t’gallant stunsail we’d have been half a mile ahead of ourselves,’ spluttered Lestock through the porridge, his nerves showing badly.
    â€˜That’s rubbish, Mr Lestock,’ Drinkwater said soothingly, unwilling to revive the matter. ‘On occasions like this small things frequently go wrong, if it had not been the stunsail it would likely have been some other matter. Perhaps something has gone wrong on the chase to delay him a minute or two. Either way ’tis no good fretting over it.’
    â€˜It could be the horseshoe nail, nevertheless, Nat, eh?’ put in Appleby, further irritating Drinkwater.
    â€˜What are you driving at?’
    â€˜On account of which the battle was lost, I paraphrase . . .’
    â€˜I’m well acquainted with the nursery rhyme . . .’
    â€˜And so you should be, my dear fellow, you are closer to ’em than I myself . . .’
    â€˜Oh, for heaven’s sake, Harry, don’t you start. There’s Mr Lestock here like Job on a dung heap, Rogers on deck with a face as long as the galley funnel . . .’
    â€˜Then what do we do, dear boy?’
    â€˜Hope we can hold on until darkness,’ said Drinkwater rising.
    â€˜Ah,’ Appleby raised his hands in a gesture of mock revelation, ‘the crepuscular hour . . .’
    â€˜And have a little faith in Madoc Griffiths, for God’s sake,’ snapped Drinkwater angrily.
    â€˜Ah, the Welsh wizard.’
    Drinkwater left the gunroom with Lestock’s jittery cackling in his ears. There were moments when Harry Appleby was infuriatingly facetious. Drinkwater knew it stemmed from Appleby’s inherent disapproval of bloodshed and the illusions of glory. But at the moment he felt no tolerance for the surgeon’s high-flown sentiments and realised that he shared with Rogers an abhorrence of abject surrender.
    He returned to the deck to find the chasing frigate perceptibly nearer. He swore under his breath and approached Griffiths.
    â€˜Have you eaten, sir?’
    â€˜I’ve no stomach for food,
bach
.’ Griffiths swivelled round, a look of pain crossing his face as the movement restored circulation to his limbs. His gouty foot struck the deck harder than he intended as he caught his balance and a torrent of Welsh invective flowed from him. Drinkwater lent him some support.
    â€˜I’m all right.
Du
, but ’tis a dreadful thing, old age. Take the deck for a while, I’ve need to clasp the neck of a little green friend.’
    He was on deck ten minutes later, smelling of sercial but with more colour in his cheeks. He cast a critical eye over the sails and nodded his satisfaction.
    â€˜It may be that the wind will drop towards sunset. That could confer a slight advantage upon us.’
    It could, thought Drinkwater, but it was by no means certain. An hour later they could feel the spray upon their faces from the ranging shots that plummetted in their wake.
    And the wind showed no sign of dropping.
    Appleby’s crepuscular hour approached at last and with it the first sign that perhaps all was not yet lost. Sunset was accompanied by rolls of cloud from the west that promised to shorten the twilight period and foretold a worsening of the weather. The brig still raced on under a press of canvas and Lestock, earlier so anxious