The Bomb Vessel (26 page)

‘Did that satisfy him?'

‘Well he said he'd never heard of
Virago
, sir, but Lord Nelson sounded familiar and would we be kind enough to find out how far to the south this damned bank went.'

‘Only too happy to oblige . . . sound round me then carry on to the south . . .'

‘D'you think the Danes'll attack us, sir?' asked Quilhampton.

‘To be frank I don't know; if 'twas the French doing this at Spithead I doubt we would leave 'em unmolested. On the other hand they seem to have made plenty of preparations to receive us and may wish to lull us a little. Still, it would be prudent to keep a sharp lookout, eh?'

‘Aye, sir.'

They waited what seemed an age before the three lights were shown from Easton's boat then they continued south, the men stiff with cold and eager to work up some warmth. After sounding round the master's boat they left it astern, the lead plopping overboard as the oars thudded gently against the thole pins.

As the leadsman found the five fathom line the boat was anchored to the net of round shot on its ten fathom line and Drinkwater had the oars brought inboard and stowed while they prepared the buoy. Hauling alongside the four planks and two spars the men pulled them aboard, dripping over their knees, and cast off the lashings.

‘Do you make sure the holes in the planks coincide before you nail 'em, Mr Q, or we're in trouble . . .'

They hauled the awkward and heavy planks across the boat in
the form of a cross and, holding the lantern up, aligned the holes. Nailing the planks proved more difficult than anticipated since the point at which the hammer struck was unsupported. Eventually the nails were driven home and spunyarn lashings passed to reinforce them.

The four arm bridle was soon fitted and the awkward contraption manoeuvred to take the pole up through its centre. Eventually, as Easton completed pulling round them and set off for the south, they bent their anchor line to the bridle and prepared to cast off.

‘Three lights, sir,' reported Quilhampton.

‘Yes,' said Drinkwater, holding up his hand compass, ‘and I fancy the bank is trending a little to the westward. Very well,' he snapped the compass shut, ‘cast off from the buoy!'

He looked astern as they pulled away. The thin line of the spar soon disappeared in the darkness but the weft streamed out just above the horizon against the slightly lighter sky.

They laboured on throughout the small hours of the night, celebrating their success from time to time in two-finger grog. The trend to the east did not develop although Easton laid a second buoy before the bank swung southward again.

Drinkwater's boat was on its fifth run towards the west and already the sky was lightening in the east when Drinkwater realised something was wrong.

‘Oars!' he commanded and the men ceased pulling, their oars coming up to the horizontal. He bent over the little compass and compared its findings with the steering compass in the bottom of the boat. Easton's boat was well on the starboard quarter. Ahead of them he thought he could see the low coast of Amager emerging from the darkness, but he could not be sure. The boat slewed as an ice floe nudged it.

‘I believe we've overshot the bank, Mr Q. Turn north, and keep the lead going forrard there!'

‘Aye, aye, zur!'

As the daylight grew it became clear that they had misjudged their distance from Easton and over-run the tail of the bank for some distance, but after an anxious fifteen minutes Tregembo found the bottom.

As they struggled to get their second buoy over, Easton came up to them.

‘Don't bother to sound round me, Mr Easton, this is the tail of
the bank all right.'

‘Well done, sir.'

‘And to you and your boat. You may transfer aboard here, Mr Easton with your findings. Mr Q you will take Mr Easton's boat back to the ship.'

‘Aye, aye, sir.'

‘Buoy's ready, zur.'

‘Very well, hold on to it there . . .' The boats bumped together and Easton and Quilhampton exchanged places. ‘A rum issue before we part, eh?'

The men managed a thin cheer and in the growing light Drinkwater saw the raw faces and sunken eyes of his two boats' crews. The wind was still fresh from the north west and it would be a hard pull to windward for them. A heavy ice floe bumped the side of the boat. ‘Bear it off Cottrell!'

There was no move from forward. ‘Cottrell! D'you hear man?'

‘Beg pardon, sir, but Cottrell's dead sir.'

‘Dead?' Drinkwater stood and pushed his way forward, suddenly realising how chilled and cramped his muscles had become through squatting over his lantern, chart and compasses. He nearly fell overboard and only saved himself by catching hold of a man's shoulder. It was Cottrell's and he lolled sideways like a log. His face was covered by a thin sheen of ice crystals and his eyes stared accusingly out at Drinkwater.

‘Get him in the bottom.' Drinkwater stumbled aft again and sat down.

‘Can't sir, he's stiff as a board.'

Drinkwater swore beneath his breath. ‘Shall I pitch 'im overboard sir?'

He had not liked to give such an order himself. ‘Aye,' he replied, ‘Poor old Jack . . . We have no alternative, lads.'

‘He weren't a bad old sod, were 'e?'

There was a splash from forward. The body rolled over once and disappeared. A silence hung over the boat and Quilhampton asked ‘Permission to proceed sir?'

‘Carry on, Mr Q.'

‘Zur!' Tregembo's whisper was harsh and urgent.

‘What the devil is it?'

‘Thought I saw a boat over there!'

Tregembo pointed north west, in the direction of Copenhagen. Drinkwater stood unsteadily. He could see a big launch pulling to
the southward. It might be British but it might also be Danish. He thought of recalling Mr Quilhampton who was already pulling away from them but if the strange boat had not yet seen them he did not wish to risk discovery of the buoy that marked so important a point as the south end of the Middle Ground. Perhaps they could remove the weft, the bare pole would be much more difficult to see . . .

He rejected the idea, knowing the difficulty of relocating the bank and the buoy themselves, particularly in circumstances other than they had enjoyed tonight.

In the end he decided on a bold measure. ‘Let go the buoy!'

He grabbed the tiller and leaned forward to peer in the compass. ‘Give way together!' He swung the boat to the north west.

Heading directly for Copenhagen they could scarcely avoid being seen from the big launch. It was vital that observers in the approaching launch did not see the spar-buoy at the southern end of the Middle Ground.

The men were tired now and pulling into the wind after labouring at the oars all night was too much for them. Adding to their fatigue was a concentration of ice floes that made their progress more difficult still. After a few minutes it was obvious that they had been seen from the launch. Drinkwater swung the boat away to the north east, across the Middle Ground, drawing the pursuing launch away from the southernmost buoy. From time to time he looked grimly over his shoulder. He closed his mind to the ironic ignominy of capture and urged the oarsmen to greater efforts. But they could see the pursuing launch and knew they were beaten.

‘Hang on, sir, that's one of them damned flat boats!'

‘Eh?' Drinkwater turned again, numb with the cold and the efforts of the night. He could see the boat clearly now.

‘Boat 'hoy! “Spencer”!' Drinkwater cudgelled his brain for the countersign given him by Riou.

‘ “Jervis”!' he called, then, turning to the boat's crew, ‘Oars!' The men rested.

The big boat came up, pulled by forty seamen who had clearly not spent the night wrestling with leadlines and ice floes.

‘What ship?' A tall lieutenant stood in her stern.

‘Virago
, Lieutenant Drinkwater in command.'

‘Good morning, Lieutenant, my name's Davies, off to reconnoitre the guns at Dragør. There's a lot of you fellows out among
the ice. Did you take us for a Dane?'

‘Aye.'

‘Ah, well, sir, 'tis All Fool's day today . . . Good morning to you.'

The big boat turned away. ‘Well I'm damned!' said Drinkwater and, as if to further confound him the wind began to back to the westward. ‘Well I'm damned,' he repeated. ‘Give way, lads, it's time for breakfast.'

Drinkwater's tired oarsmen pulled alongside
Amazon
as the frigate got under way. Riou complied with Drinkwater's request that his boat be allowed to return to
Virago
under the master and that he remain on board to give his findings to Fothergill.

Before passing off the quarterdeck into the cabin where Fothergill and other weary officers were collating information, Riou asked, ‘How far south did you get, Mr Drinkwater?'

‘I found the southern end of the bank, sir, and marked it with a spar buoy.'

‘Excellent. I have recalled
Cruizer
as you see. Lord Nelson joins us and we are taking
Harpy, Lark
and
Fox
through the Holland Deep . . .'

‘Sir . . .' A midshipman interrupted them. ‘Begging your pardon, sir, but Lord Nelson's barge is close, sir . . .'

‘Excuse me . . .' Drinkwater went aft as Riou stepped to meet the vice-admiral at the entry. He was soon lost in a mass of plotting and checking, working alongside Fothergill as the findings of the night were carefully laid on the master chart. For an hour they worked in total concentration as
Amazon
made her way southwards. When they emerged on the quarterdeck to take a breath of air they both looked astern. A master's mate came up to Fothergill to brief him as to what had been going on.

‘Cruizer's
reanchored off the north end of the Middle Ground with
Harpy
a mile south and
Lark
a further mile to the south of her.'

‘The admiral don't trust our buoys, eh?' smiled Fothergill, exhausted beyond protest.

‘Don't trust the fleet not to see 'em or run 'em down, more likely.'

‘The mark vessels are to hoist signals to indicate they are to be passed to starboard,' offered the master's mate helpfully.

Drinkwater heard his name called by Captain Riou. ‘Sir?'

The admiral smiled. ‘Morning, Drinkwater. I understand you found the end of the Middle Ground.' Nelson crossed the deck just as it canted wildly. The vice-admiral fell against Drinkwater
who caught him, surprised at the frail lightness of his body.

Amazon
had approached too closely to the Saltholm shore to avoid the occasional ranging shot ricochetting from the Danish batteries two miles away, and while Riou resolutely set more canvas and pressed the frigate over the mud, Nelson turned to a group of unhappy looking men in plain coats who Drinkwater realised were the pilots from the Trinity House at Hull. He remembered Nelson's poor opinion of their enthusiasm.

‘There gentlemen,' he quipped, ‘a practical demonstration of the necessity of holding to the channel.' The admiral turned again to Drinkwater, calmly ignoring Riou's predicament of getting
Amazon
into deeper water.

‘The southern end of the shoal Mr Drinkwater . . .?'

‘Marked, my lord, with a spar buoy.'

‘Good.' The admiral paused then turned to a group of officers all heavily bedecked with epaulettes. ‘Admiral Graves, Captains Dommett and Otway, may I present Mr Drinkwater, gentlemen, Lieutenant commanding the bomb
Virago
.'

Drinkwater managed a stiff bow.

‘Mr Drinkwater has laid a spar buoy on the south Middle Ground . . .' There was a murmur of appreciation that was without condescension.

‘Will a spar buoy be sufficient, my lord? If the division is to use it as a mark for anchoring may I suggest a more substantial mark.' It was Rear Admiral Graves and Dommett nodded.

‘I concur with Admiral Graves, my lord.'

Nelson turned to the remaining captain. ‘Otway?'

‘Yes, my lord, I agree.'

‘By your leave, my lord . . .'

‘Yes, Drinkwater, what is it?'

‘There is great movement of ice coming down from the south east, I observed the spar buoys were merely spun by the floes whereas I fear a larger object like a boat . . .'

‘Oh, I doubt that, Drinkwater,' put in Captain Otway, ‘a boat is a more substantial body with a stem to deflect the floes, no a boat, my lord, with a mast and flag . . .'

‘And a lantern,' added Graves.

Drinkwater flushed as Nelson confirmed the opinion. ‘Very well then, a boat it shall be. Don't be discouraged Mr Drinkwater, your exertions have justified you in my opinion, and Captain
Dommett will write you orders to have your bomb vessel in the line when we attack the Danes.'