Clearing his throat, Drinkwater raised the crackling paper and began to read.
'To Nathaniel Drinkwater, Esquire, Captain in the Royal Navy, commanding His Britannic Majesty's frigate Patrician at the Great Nore…
Whereas, Thomas Stanham, Able Seaman, late of His Majesty's Ship Antigone, hath been examined by a Court-Martial on charges of desertion…'
Stanham had drawn himself up, perhaps, in his extremity, feeling some cold comfort from the tacit sympathies of his old messmates around him. Drinkwater knew enough of the man's history not to feel grave misgivings as to the natural justice of the present proceedings together with a profound sense of regret that Stanham had been tried and sentenced with no one to plead for him. His crime was that of having deserted Drinkwater's last command, HMS Antigone, just prior to her departure to the Baltic in the spring. A topman of no more than twenty-one or twenty-two years of age, Stanham had been driven to this desperate course of action by lack of shore-leave and a well-meant letter from a neighbour living near his home in Norwich. According to this informant, Stanham's wife had been 'carrying-on' in her husband's prolonged absence. In company with another Norfolk man Stanham had deserted, slipping ashore from a bum-boat when a marine sentry was distracted. Had he shortly thereafter returned to his duty, Drinkwater would have taken a lenient view of the matter and treated Stanham as a mere 'straggler'. Such things were best dealt with within the ship and the cat-o'-nine tails was a swift justiciar and powerful deterrent. But the enforced and hurried transfer of his entire company from the shattered Antigone to the Patrician had necessitated the submission of all her books to the Admiralty and the Navy Office.