The Corvette by Richard Woodman Page A

trade.’
    Waller did not retort but lolled back into his chair. ‘Aye, Captain, you will perfectly satisfy me if you do not interfere.’
    Angrily Drinkwater looked at Harvey and Sawyers. They were clearly out of sympathy with Waller but said nothing as he equally obviously represented a body of opinion among this curious Arctic democracy. Drinkwater swallowed pride and anger. ‘Another glass, gentlemen,’ he conciliated. ‘I suggest that we remain in company until the seventy-second parallel in eight degrees easterly longitude.’ He laid a finger on the chart and the three men bent over the table. ‘From here the Spitzbergen ships can detach.’
    â€˜I think that would be most agreeable,’ said Sawyers.
    â€˜Agreed,’ added Harvey.
    Waller on the left, smoothed the chart out and nodded. ‘Aye, ’twill do,’ he said thoughtfully. Drinkwater saw his three visitors to their boats. The sun had disappeared behind a bank of cloud as they came on deck.
    â€˜I shall hoist the signal to weigh at noon tomorrow then, gentlemen.’ They all agreed. Drinkwater looked across the Sound at the whalers.Odd shapes had appeared at their mastheads.
    â€˜Crow’s nests,’ explained Sawyers in answer to Drinkwater’s question. ‘It is necessary to provide an elevated lookout post both for sighting the fish and for navigating through the ice. I myself have spent many hours aloft there and have a nest of my own devising.’
    â€˜I see . . . Good night, Captain Waller.’
    â€˜They are also indispensable for shooting unicorns, Captain,’ added Harvey.
    â€˜Unicorns? Come sir you haze me . . .’
    â€˜A name given to the Narwhal or Tusked Dolphin, Captain Drinkwater, after which my own ship is named. He may be hit from the masthead where a shot from the deck will be deceived by the refraction of the sea.’
    â€˜Ahhh . . . Your boat, Captain Harvey.’
    Harvey’s ugly face cracked into a grin and he held out his hand. ‘If a King’s Officer won’t take offence from an old man, may I suggest that excessive concern will have a bad effect on you. Whatever heated air may have been blown about back in Hull, no-one expects the impossible. While we don’t want to be attacked by plaguey Frenchmen we are more anxious to hunt fish.’
    â€˜I fear I cut a poor figure.’
    â€˜Not at all, man, not at all. You are unfamiliar with our ways and your zeal does you credit.’
    â€˜Thank you.’
    â€˜And I’ll go further and say, speaking plainly as a Yorkshireman, you’m a damned sight better than that bloody Palgrave.’ Harvey went over the side still smiling. Drinkwater turned to say farewell to Sawyers. The Quaker was staring aloft.
    â€˜Thou woulds’t oblige thyself, Captain, by constructing a similar contrivance aloft.’
    â€˜A crow’s nest? But it would incommode the striking of my t’gallant masts in a gale, Captain Sawyers.’
    Sawyers nodded. ‘Thou hast a dilemma, Friend; to keep thy lofty spars in order to have the advantage in a chase, or to snug thy rig down and render it practical.’
    Drinkwater looked aloft and Sawyers added, ‘Come, Friend, visit the
Faithful
tomorrow forenoon and familiarise yourself with the workings of a whale-ship.’
    â€˜I am obliged to you, Captain.’ They shook hands and Sawyers clambered down into his boat. Drinkwater watched him pulled away, across the steel-grey waters of the Sound.
    Immediately after Lieutenant Germaney had seen the captain over the side the following morning he returned to the gunroom and kicked out those of its occupants who lingered over their breakfasts. He took four glasses of blackstrap in quick succession and sent for the Reverend Obadiah Singleton.
    â€˜Take a seat, Mr Singleton. A glass of blackstrap?’
    â€˜I do not touch liquor, Mr Germaney. What is it