In Distant Waters by Richard Woodman Read Free Book Online

drive
us
 . . .’
    â€˜Stuff your gape with that pudding, Johnnie, there’s a good fellow,’ said Mount, with a note of asperity in his voice. ‘Ah, Fraser, here, sit down . . . Steward! Bring the first lieutenant a bottle!’
    â€˜Thank you Mount.’
    â€˜Well, there’s one consolation . . .’
    â€˜And what might that be?’ enquired the chastened Mylchrist.
    â€˜We’ll all sleep like logs tonight.’
    â€˜Except those of us with a watch to keep,’ muttered Mylchrist.
    â€˜You make sure you keep it, cully, not like that episode in Leith Road where you neglected the basic . . .’
    â€˜All right, all right, there’s no need to go over that again . . .’
    â€˜Maybe not, you see yourself as a victim today, but the plain facts are that you’ll be a worse victim if you don’t take the captain’s point.’
    Mount stared round the table. He was, with the exception of Hill, the oldest officer in
Patrician
’s wardroom, something of a Dutch-uncle to the lieutenants.
    â€˜Well what exactly is the captain’s point?’ asked Mylchrist sourly.
    â€˜That this ship is a bloody shambles and has no right to be.’
    â€˜She’s no different from the other ships I’ve served aboard . . .’
    â€˜Bloody Channel Fleet two days from home and a couple of cruises in the Med. For God’s sake Johnnie don’t show how wet you are. Goddamn it man, Midshipman Wickham was in the Arctic freezing his balls off before you’d heard a shot in anger . . .’
    â€˜Now look here, Mount, don’t you dare patronise me . . .’
    â€˜Gentlemen, gentlemen, be silent!’ Fraser snapped, and an uneasy truce settled on the table. ‘Mount’s right . . . so is the captain . . . it’s no your place to strut so branky, Johnnie . . . the men say she’s a donsie ship . . .’
    â€˜Poppycock, Fraser . . . the ship’s not unlucky, for that I take to be your meaning. The trouble is we’re out of sorts, frayed like worn ropes . . .’ Mount smiled reassuringly at Fraser, ‘and that business off the Orkney upset us all.’
    â€˜Captain Drinkwater most of all,’ said Quilhampton, speaking for the first time. ‘I think he feels the shame of that more keenly than the rest of us.’
    Quilhampton rose and reached for his hat and greygoe. ‘I must relieve Hill . . .’ He left the wardroom and a contemplative silence in which they each relived the shame of the action with the Danish privateer. They had chased her for four hours, sighting her at dawn, hull down to leeward ten miles to the east of the Pentland Skerries. The Dane had run, but once it was clear the heavy frigate could outsail her in the strong westerly wind, shehad tacked and stood boldly towards the
Patrician
. Unbeknown to the captain on the quarterdeck above, the two lieutenants on the gun-deck had relaxed, assuming the capture to be a mere formality once the intelligence of the privateer’s turn had been passed to them. Despite the shot from a bow-chaser the Dane had not slackened her pace, but run to leeward of the
Patrician
and the sudden broadside that Lieutenant Mylchrist’s battery had been ordered to fire had been ragged and ineffectual, only succeeding in puncturing the privateer’s sails.
    Once to windward the Danish commander sailed his nimble vessel like a wizard. Though Drinkwater turned in his wake, the Dane beat upwind with an impressive agility. Whenever the
Patrician
closed the range to cannon shot, the Dane tacked, keeping a press of canvas aloft so that the momentary disadvantage he suffered while he gathered way on the new tack was compensated for by the attention the
Patrician
had to pay to going about.
    With two hours to sunset the