Ричард Вудмен: Under false colours

'A single cargo, Nathaniel,' he began, then threw himself back in his creaking chair, 'but Isaac, you elucidate the matter.'

'I have no need to extol the effects of the blockade of the European coastline by our naval forces, Captain,' Solomon said in a low, cultured voice, 'it is our chief weapon. But to oppose it the Emperor Napoleon has proclaimed a "Continental System", an economic interdiction of any British imports upon the mainland of Europe and Russia. Such a declaration was first thought to have been the phantasm of a disordered mind; alas it has proved remarkably successful.'

Drinkwater watched the eloquent gestures of the Jew's hands, accurately guessing the man belonged to that international mercantile confraternity that overcame political boundaries and evaded belligerent obstacles whenever possible.

'Two years ago we took Helgoland, both as a listening post with its ear close to the old independent Hanse city of Hamburg, and as an entrepot for our trade ...'

'But a wider breach must be cut in Napoleon's wall of douaniers , Nathaniel,' Dungarth broke in suddenly, 'something that does more than merely discredit his policy but destroys it! A cargo to Russia, a cargo to Russia as one of many cargoes! Such a cargo, widely advertised in Paris, could not fail to sow seeds of mistrust between Napoleon and his vacillating ally, Tsar Alexander.'

'You seek, if I understand aright,' Drinkwater said, 'to detach the Russian Tsar from his present alliance and reunite him with Great Britain?'

'Exactly! And it is our only chance, Nathaniel, before we are ruined, our last chance.'

'And this cargo, my Lord, has something to do with me, and Lieutenant Quilhampton?'

'It does.'

'Well, what is this cargo?'

'A quantity of Northampton boots, Nathaniel.'

' Boots ?' Drinkwater's astonishment was unfeigned.

Dungarth nodded, his face a mask of serious intent, adding, 'and yourself, of course, to be employed upon a most secret service.'

Below him the jangle of the chandler's door bell recalled Drinkwater to the present. The stranger emerged, settling his tricorne hat on his head and holding it there against the wind. The man turned away with his coat tails flapping, leaving the alley to the sleet and a solitary mongrel, which urinated purposefully against the wall of the pie shop opposite. The grey overcast was drawing the day to a premature close, but still Drinkwater sat on, recalling the twilight of that dawn, eight days earlier, when at the end of a night of planning he had sat at Lord Dungarth's escritoire. Apart from the servants, Drinkwater had been alone in the house, Isaac Solomon having departed an hour earlier, his lordship following, bound in his coach for the Admiralty.

'Do you write to your proteges, Nathaniel,' he ordered, 'and I will have orders drawn up for the expeditious preparation of a gun-brig for your escort. Deliver your letters by seven and I will have them carried by Admiralty messenger.' He had been about to depart then added, as an afterthought, 'If you wish to leave word for your wife, I will have it sent after your departure. It would be best if few people know your whereabouts.'

Few people, Drinkwater ruminated savagely, would think of looking for him here, even if they knew him to be in London; and the fact that his Lordship's proposal fell in with his private desires did nothing to assuage his sense of guilt. To this was added an extreme distaste for his task. It was perfectly logical when expounded in Lord Dungarth's withdrawing room, but it was a far cry from his proper occupation, commanding one of His Britannic Majesty's ships of war.

'You will assume the character of a shipmaster of the merchant marine,' Dungarth had instructed. 'Here are a coat and surtout ,' he had said as his servant brought the garments in, 'and a pair of hessian boots.'

Drinkwater regarded them now; they had once been elegant boots, a tassel adorning the scalloped tops of their dark green leather.

'I don't need more than one at a time, these days,' he recalled Dungarth joking with bitter irony. 'I'll have your sea kit shipped aboard Quilhampton's brig ...'

Drinkwater had slipped into Wapping feeling like a spy.

And he felt worse now, worn by the tedious days of idle waiting, trying to sustain his spirits with the assurances of Dungarth and Solomon that his part in lying low in Wapping was crucial to the success of the mission, but unable to stop worrying whether or not Elizabeth knew of Patrician 's arrival home, or how Quilhampton, the matter of his marriage pressing, had viewed his secret orders.

But over and over again, as he waited interminably, it seemed, his thoughts came round to the secret service to which he was now irrevocably committed.

'Isaac has provided the capital and made arrangements for a large consignment of boots and greatcoats to be loaded aboard a barque lying in the Pool of London. To all outward appearances the whole transaction is a commercial one, a speculative venture that contents the manufacturers,' Dungarth had explained.

That much Drinkwater had guessed. Mr Solomon was clearly a cut above the Jewish usurers, slop-sellers and hawkers who supplied credit, cash and personal necessities to His Majesty's fleet. Solomon had alluded to a considerable illicit trade run through Helgoland and Hamburg, actively encouraged by Bourrienne, once Napoleon's private secretary, but then the Governor of Hamburg.

'M'sieur Bourrienne,' Solomon had explained, 'suffered from a sense of grievance at the loss of his influential position with the Emperor; his cooperation was not difficult to secure.' Solomon had smiled. 'And, of course, Captain, every cargo sold to Hamburg or Russia is of benefit to England ...'

Staring down into the rain-lashed ginnel, Drinkwater thought of the snatches of rumour and news he had gleaned in his brief period back on English soil. There were scandals in both the army and the navy, in addition to the fiasco that seemed inevitable at Walcheren. More disturbing were the riots in the north and the increasingly desperate need for markets for manufactured goods. Doubtless Solomon would profit privately from this venture, for Dungarth's remarks concerning Canning suggested his alliance with the Jew was a bold stroke, but if a trade could be opened with Russia, it might ameliorate the sufferings of the labouring poor as well as achieve the object Dungarth had in view.

But would a consignment of boots succeed in disrupting a solemn alliance between the two most powerful individuals on earth? True, there were a few other titbits. 'A few hundred stand of arms,' Dungarth had enthused, 'and a brace or two of horse pistols in the consignment, sufficient to equip a squadron or two of cavalry. Given the usual cupidity of the tier-rangers and the other waterside thieves, word of the nature of the consignment will become common knowledge along the Wapping waterfront.'

And that was the crux of the affair, that was why he, Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater of the Royal Navy, was detached upon a secret service, why he occupied this squalid, rented room and played the character of a merchant shipmaster, perpetually drunk, cantankerous and misanthropic. Sadly, it was all too easy in his present state of mind.

'Among that waterside riff-raff, you have only to find Fagan,' Lord Dungarth had finally said, 'and spread this tittle-tattle to him. He's a man known to us, d'you see, Nathaniel, a courier who passes regularly between London and Paris carrying gossip and the odd, planted message. You have merely to indicate the value, content and destination of your cargo, for its departure to be reported to Paris. We are expecting Fagan daily; he keeps rooms above a pie shop in Wapping ...'