There was a perceptible easing of tension as the men pulled back to the waiting cutter. As though the shadow of the guillotine and the horrors of the Terror that lay over the darkened land had touched them all. Wearily Drinkwater clambered on board and saluted Griffiths.
The lieutenant nodded. 'You had better get some sleep now,' he said. 'And Mr Drinkwater…'
'Sir?' said Drinkwater from the companionway.
'Da iawn, Mr Drinkwater, da iawn.'
'I'm sorry sir, I don't understand.' He wrestled with fatigue.
'Well done, Mr Drinkwater, well done. I am pleased to say I do not find my confidence misplaced.'
Chapter Two
First Blood
December 1792Not all their operations went as smoothly. There were nights that seemed endless when a rendezvous was missed, when the guttering blue lights shown at the waterline spat and sizzled interminably achieving nothing. There were hours of eye strain and physical weariness as the cutter was laboriously kept on a station to no purpose, hours of barely hidden bad temper, hunger and cold. Occasionally there was brief and unexpected excitement as when, in thick weather, Kestrel disturbed a mid-Channel rendezvous of another kind. The two boats that parted in confusion did so amid shouts in French and English; slatting lugsails jerked hurriedly into the wet air and the splash of what might have been kegs was visible in the widening gap between the two vessels. Kestrel had fired her bow chasers at the retreating smugglers to maintain the illusion of being the revenue cruiser she had been taken for.
Then there had been an occasion of dubious propriety on their own part. Griffiths sent two boats to creep for barricoes off St Valery while Kestrel luffed and filled in the offing, Griffiths handling her with patient dexterity.