A King's Cutter by Richard Woodman Read Free Book Online Page A

not be foolhardy, Bess, I promise.’
    â€˜No, of course not,’ she said taking the coffee cup from him. And as he withdrew his hand the mark of the splinter was still visible on his palm.
    â€˜
Hannibal
, sir, Captain Colpoys, just in from a cruise. Missed Christmas, poor devils.’ Both men regarded the battleship anchoring across the Sound.
    Griffiths nodded. ‘The big boy-o’s have all shaken the cobwebs from their topsails and are back to ground on their own chicken bones again. It’s time we put to sea again Mr Drinkwater. This is a time for little birds with keen eyes; the elephants can wait a while longer. D’you have my gig ready in ten minutes.’
    Waiting for Griffiths to return from the port admiral’s Drinkwater paced the deck. The hands were making preparation to sail, skylarking until sent below by a fine drizzle, while he was oblivious of the grey pall that rolled up the Hamoaze.
    Farewells, he concluded, were damnable.
    Tregembo came aft and stood uncertainly next to him.
    â€˜What is it Tregembo?’
    The seaman looked unhappily at his feet. ‘I was wondering, zur . . .’
    â€˜Don’t tell me you want leave of absence to see your doxy?’
    Tregembo hung his head in assent. ‘Damn it Tregembo, you’ll get her with child or catch pox. I’m damned if I’ll physic you!’ Drinkwater instantly regretted the unkindness caused by his own misery.
    â€˜She ain’t like that, zur . . . and I only want a quarter hour, zur.’
    Drinkwater thought of Elizabeth. ‘Damn it Tregembo, not a moment more then.’
    â€˜Thank ’ee, zur, thank ’ee.’ Drinkwater watched him hurry off. Idly he wondered what the future held. The shots at Beaubigny might have formed a pretext for war, for
Kestrel
’s broadside had been an aggressive act. It was odd that the French had not made more of it, at least one of their men had been killed. But the advantages of peace were being protested by Pitt and such an insignificant cruiser as
Kestrel
could not be allowed to provide a
casus belli
. That, at least, had been the British position, and she had been kept refitting at Plymouth until the air cleared. All the same it was deuced odd that the French had failed to capitalise on the violation of their littoral.
    He dismissed the thought. Now the cutter was ordered to join the growing number of brigs and sloops of war keeping the French coast under observation. Since Lord Hood had cruised with home-based frigates and guardships in the summer, the dockyard had been busy. Thanks to the Spanish and Russian crises of the preceding three years the fleet was in a reasonable state of preparedness. Across theChannel the Paris mob had massacred the Swiss guard and in September the French had invaded Savoy. It was known that Rear-Admiral Truguet had been ordered to sea with nine sail of the line. In November the Austrian Netherlands were overrun and the French seized control of the Scheldt. This made the whereabouts of all French naval squadrons crucial to the defence of Great Britain. There were thirty-nine battleships at Brest, ten at L’Orient and thirteen at Rochefort. As 1793 approached the Admiralty was taking a close look at them.
    The grey overcast of Saturday 29th December 1792 seemed leaden, but the wind had backed into the north-west, the showers had ceased and the cloud was beginning to disperse. Griffiths and Drinkwater stood watching a brig-sloop running down the Sound for the open sea.
    â€˜
Childers
, Commander Robert Barlow,’ muttered Drinkwater half to himself.
    Griffiths nodded. ‘Off to reconnoitre Brest Road,’ he added confidentially.
    On the last day of the old year, the wind veered northerly and blew from a clear sky. At noon a guard boat brought Griffiths the orders he had been expecting. By sunset
Kestrel
had left Smeaton’s Eddystone lighthouse astern and was scudding south to the