The Corvette by Richard Woodman Read Free Book Online Page B

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 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.
    â€˜I give you good day, gentlemen.’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜I am aware, gentlemen, that there has been some disruption of your intentions . . .’
    â€˜Some disruption!’ The big, black bearded man spoke after spitting into the straw for emphasis. ‘Some disruption! We are nearly two months late, too late to qualify for the bounty, God damn it! I do not expect you to give a toss for our dependents,
Captain
, but by God do not
you
try to prevent us sailing by trading our clearances against men out of our ships.’
    A chorus of agreement greeted this remark. Drinkwater knew the
Melusine
was short of a dozen hands but the idea of pressing men out of his charges had not occurred to him. Indeed he considered the deficiency too small to worry over. It seemed that Sir James Palgrave’s iniquities extended to the venal.
    â€˜Aye, Cap’n,
my
guns are loaded and if you sends a boat to take a single man out of my ship I swear I’ll not answer for the consequences,’ another cried.
    A further chorus of assent was accompanied by the shaking of fists and more shouts.
    â€˜First they reduce the bounty, then they take half our press exemptions and then they order us not to sail until there is a man