1- An Eye of the Fleet by Woodman Richard

Author:Woodman, Richard [Woodman, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: _rt_yes, Adventure, blt, DO NOT CONVERT, Fiction, Historical, Naval, Naval Battles - History - 18th Century, __Fixed
ISBN: 9781574091236
Google: nIn5_IyVUUcC
Amazon: B000P1IJJS
Barnesnoble: B000P1IJJS
Goodreads: 1384017
Publisher: Sheridan House
Published: 1981-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

August–October 1780

Interlude

It was autumn before Drinkwater rejoined Cyclops. News had arrived in England of the defection of Benedict Arnold to the King’s cause and the consequent shameful hanging of Major John André. To Drinkwater, however, languishing at Plymouth, it scarcely seemed possible that a ferocious war was taking place at all.

Arriving in that port with Algonquin he had been swiftly dispossessed of the schooner which passed to the port admiral’s hands. He found himself with Stewart, Sharples and the rest, kicking his heels on the guardship. This vessel, an obsolete 64-gun battleship, was overcrowded and stinking, filled with newly-pressed seamen awaiting ships and young officers like himself daily expecting the return of their own vessels or the arrival of new posting. The prevailing conditions on board necessitated the vessel being run like a prison and the consequent corruption found in those institutions therefore prevailed. Gambling, rat-baiting and cockfighting were clandestinely practised. Drunken and sexual orgies took place almost nightly and the enforced idleness of twelve hundred and seventy men gave the devil’s agents excessive scope for improvisation.

From command of his own ship Drinkwater became less than nothing, one of many midshipmen and master’s mates with sufficient time to reflect on the paradoxes of a sea officer’s career.

It was a dismal time for him. The thought of Elizabeth Bower plagued him. Falmouth was not too far away. He panicked at the thought of her father’s interregnum ending and the pair being sent God knew where. He had never been in love before and submitted to the self-centred lassitude of the besotted in an atmosphere utterly conducive to the nurturing of such unsociable emotions.

Week succeeded week and the period was one of utter misery. Yet in its way the amorous depression that accompanied the congested privation served to keep him away from other more immediate amusements. His romantic preoccupations encouraged him to read, or at least to daydream over, such books as the guardship possessed.

As time passed the memory of Elizabeth faded a little and he read more diligently. He spent some of his small stock of gold on books purchased from messmates needing ready cash for betting. In this way he acquired a copy of Robertson’s “Elements of Navigation” and one of Falconer, reflecting that the money, some loose Spanish coin he had found on Algonquin and rightly the property of the crown, was being correctly spent on the training of a King’s officer and not lining the pockets of an Admiralty lackey.

After ten weeks of ennui Drinkwater had a stroke of luck. One morning an elaborately decorated cutter anchored in Jennycliff Bay. A boat pulled over to the guardship with a request to the commanding officer for the loan of one master’s mate or midshipman. It so happened that the second mate of the cutter had been taken ill and her master required a replacement for a few days.

By chance Drinkwater happened to be on deck and the first person the lieutenant dispatched to find a “volunteer” clapped eyes on.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.