The Corvette by Richard Woodman Read Free Book Online Page A

arrogance and offensiveness. He knew from his own orders that the Customs officers would issue the whaleships their clearances at a nod from Melusine’s captain, and he had no more desire than the whalers to wait longer. Delay increased the risk of getting fast in the ice. If that happened Melusine would crack like an eggshell.
    ‘But there is now no alternative. We will sail without delay. Now I desire that you send a midshipman to visit each of the whaleships, Greenlanders they call ‘emselves, don’t they? He is to invite them to repair on board tomorrow forenoon and we can settle the order of sailing and our private signals. And tell the young gentleman that I would have the invitation made civilly with my cordial compliments.’
    ‘Yes, sir,’ said Germaney unhappily, ‘and the surgeon?’
    ‘Tell the surgeon,’ said Drinkwater with sudden ferocity, ‘that if I find him drunk I shall have him at the gratings like any common seaman.’
    Two hours later Drinkwater received a round-robin signed by a dozen names stating that the whaleship commanders ‘Would rather their meeting took place ashore at the Trinity House of Kingston-upon-Hull
    ‘
    Drinkwater cursed Sir James Palgrave, annoyed that he must first set out to woo a set of cantankerous merchant masters who set the King’s commission so lightly aside. Then he calmed himself and reflected they had little cause to love the Royal Navy. It plundered their ships of prime seamen, usually when they were entering the Humber and after the hardships of an Arctic voyage. There was already a Regulating Captain set up in the city with all the formal machinery of the Impress Service at his finger tips. Drinkwater remembered the story of a whaler abandoned by her entire crew off the Spurn Head as the cruising frigate hove in sight to press her crew.
    No, they had no cause to love the Navy hereabouts and suddenly the vague, universal preoccupation of the justice of the present war came back to him. And as quickly was dismissed as irrelevant to the task in hand.

Chapter Three May 1803
The Greenlanders
    The tie-wigged usher conducted Drinkwater through the splendid corridors of the Trinity House of Kingston-upon-Hull. His previous connections with the corporation had been with the Baltic pilots it had supplied for the Copenhagen campaign two years earlier. Their performance had been disappointing and had clouded his opinions, so that he had forgotten the Arctic connection of the brotherhood.
    The usher paused for a second before a heavy door from beyond which came the noise of heated argument. Drinkwater caught the phrase ‘two months late’ and the angrier, ‘what guarantee have we of a bounty
    ?’ Then the usher opened the door and announced him.
    Drinkwater advanced into the room. He was in full dress with cocked hat and sword. The room was lit by tall windows and rushes were strewn across the plain boarded floor. Sitting and standing round a long mahogany table about two dozen men in all shades of civilian clothing turned towards him. Their complexions varied from the effects of their diet, the privations of their calling and the present heat of their passions. He was acutely aware of a wall of prejudice and remained observantly circumspect. He inclined his head.
    ‘I give you good day, gentlemen.’
    ‘Huh!’ A huge black bearded man who sat cross-armed and truculent upon the nearer edge of the table turned his face away. Drinkwater kept his temper.
    ‘Thou woulds’t do better to keep thyself civil, Friend Jemmett.’ A man in the dark green and broad-brimmed hat of a Quaker rose from a seat behind the table. He came forward and indicated an upright chair.
    ‘Pray seat thyself, sir. I am Abel Sawyers, master of the Faithful.’ The Quaker’s voice was low and vibrant.
    Drinkwater sat. ‘I am indebted to you, Captain Sawyers.’ He looked round the circle of faces. They remained overwhelmingly hostile, clearly awaiting his first move.
    ‘I am aware,