The Bomb Vessel by Richard Woodman Read Free Book Online Page A

what is that?’
    â€˜Are we to embark a detachment of artillerymen?’
    Drinkwater nodded. ‘I have received notice to that effect. It is customary to do so when ordnance stores are loaded.’
    â€˜Then we are for the Baltic, sir?’
    Drinkwater smiled. ‘You may conjecture as you see fit. I have no orders beyond those to load powder at Blackstakes.’ Trussel grinned comprehendingly back.
    â€˜I hear Lord Nelson is to be employed upon a secret expedition. The papers had it as I came through London.’ He smiled again, aware that the news had come as a surprise to the lieutenant.
    â€˜Lord Nelson . . .’ mused Drinkwater, and it was some moments before he bent again to his work.
    â€˜I congratulate you, Mr Willerton.’ Drinkwater regarded the brilliantly painted figurehead that perched on
Virago’s
tiny fo’c’s’le. The product of Willerton’s skill with mallet and gouge was the usual mixture of crude suggestion and mild obscenity. The half-bust showed a ferociously staring woman with her head thrown back. A far too beautiful mouth gaped violently revealing a protruding scarlet tongue, like the tongue of flame that must once have issued from
Virago’s
mortars.
    To the face of this harpy Mr Willerton’s artistry had added the pert, up-tilted breasts of a virgin, too large for nature but erotic enough to satisfy the prurience of his shipmates. But it was the right arm that attested to Mr Willerton’s true genius. While the left trailed astern the right crooked under an exaggerated breast, its nagging forefinger erect in the universally recognisable position of the scold. The ‘leddy’ was both termagant wanton and nagging wife, a spitfire virago eminently suitable to a bomb vessel. It was a pity, thought Drinkwater as he nodded his approval, that they were not so commissioned.
    The handful of men detailed by Lieutenant Rogers to assistWillerton in fitting the figurehead grinned appreciatively, while Willerton sucked his teeth with a peculiar whistling noise.
    â€˜Worthy of a first rate, Mr Willerton. A true virago. I am glad you heeded my advice,’ he added in a lower voice.
    Willerton grinned, showing a blackened row of caried teeth. ‘The right hand, sir, mind the right hand.’ His blue eyes twinkled wickedly.
    Drinkwater regarded the nagging finger. Perhaps there was some suggestion of Mrs Jex there, but it was not readily recognisable to him. He gave Willerton formal permission to fit the figurehead and turned aft.
    A keen easterly wind canted
Virago
’s tub-like hull across the river as she lay to her anchor clear of the sheer hulk. The three lower masts had been stepped and their rigging, already made up ashore and ‘lumped’ for hoisting aboard, had been fitted over the caps and hove tight to the channels by deadeyes and lanyards. The double hemp lines of fore, main and mizzen stays had been swigged forward and tightened. Rogers and Matchett were at that moment hoisting up the maintopmast, its heel-rope leading down to the barrel windlass at the break of the fo’c’s’le, the pawls clicking satisfactorily as the topmast inched aloft.
    Drinkwater began to walk aft, past the sweating gangs of sea and landsmen being bullied and sworn at by the bosun’s mates, round the heaps and casks being counted by Mr Jex, and ascended the three steps to the low poop. He cast a glance across the river where Mr Quilhampton brought the cutter out from the dockyard, towing the mainyard from the mast pond. Over the poop with its huge tiller, a mark of
Virago’s
age, fluttered the ensign. In its upper hoist canton it bore the new Union flag with St Patrick’s saltire added after the recent Act of Union with Ireland. For a second he regarded it curiously, seeing a fundamental change in something he had come to regard as almost holy, something to fight and perhaps to die under. Of the Act and its