Ричард Вудмен - Baltic Mission

'Ah, Lariboissiere, His Imperial Majesty requires you to start immediately to throw a pontoon bridge across the river. He is desirous of impressing our late enemies with the superiority of our engineering. You may withdraw the rafts when you have finished.'

'Merde!' Lariboissiere and his men were tired out, but an order was an order. 'Was His Imperial Majesty satisfied with today's arrangements, General Santhonax?'

Santhonax remounted and settled himself in the saddle. 'Perfectly, my friend,' he said urbanely, tugging his charger's head round. 'It went better than I anticipated.'

Edward had had enough. His head still buzzed with the news he had gleaned and he was eager to escape confinement. He had heard the town clock strike six and could wait no longer. Twisting round he got his shoulders against the plank-ends that Drinkwater had nailed down and pushed hard. He felt something give, and kicked. The plank-end sprang and light entered the chamber. He forced the other end free. The plank dropped into the water and he repeated the performance with the next. More water began to lap into the chamber. He took a deep breath and forced his body through the gap, rolled into the water and submerged. When he came up he was clear of the raft. Over his head arched the blue of the evening sky. He felt a supreme elation fill him and kicked luxuriously downstream.

General Santhonax pulled up his horse at the end of the Westkai and stared down at the slip where the pont volant had spent the previous night. The trampled gravel was covered with sawdust, wood offcuts and a few pieces of cloth where the drapery had been trimmed. One of the men had left a tool behind. The polished steel gleamed dully in the muck where it lay half-buried by a careless foot. It looked like a cavalry farrier's axe.

The professional curiosity of a former secret agent made Santhonax dismount and jump down onto the hard. He pulled the axe out of the mire and looked at its head. A feeling of disquieting curiosity filled him. He returned to his horse, tapping the grubby object thoughtfully with one gloved hand. Lithuanian workmen had been employed in raising the pavilion, but they had been civilians. What then was a Russian farrier's axe doing there? He looked down again. The thing had stained his white gloves with mud. But there was something else too: the spike on the vicious weapon was sticky with blood and hair.

A sudden alarm gripped General Santhonax. He recalled the post of one of the missing sentries and his eyes flew to the gaudy and deserted raft in midstream. A sudden flash came from just below the raft, a plank upflung and yellow with new wood reflected the low evening sunlight that had replaced the day's rain. And was that a head that bobbed and was gone behind the barge? He kicked his horse into motion, leaving the quay and riding along the raised bank that was topped by a narrow path. He fished in one holster for his glass.

Then he was sure. Downstream on the far bank he saw a man crawl out of the river. His blood ran cold. That man had to die, die secretly without the Emperor ever knowing that Santhonax had failed in his duty.

Tilsit was en fete, celebrating the peace. Candles lit every window again, the streets were thronged and cheers greeted every person of consequence who appeared. The Tsar was wildly applauded as he prepared to cross the river and dine with Napoleon. Edward made his way through the crowd to the rear of the Jew's house unnoticed, for it was abandoned by Bennigsen and his suite, and the orderlies had taken themselves off to celebrate in their own manner, leaving only the sentries at the main entrance. Edward reached the attic and was helped out of his stinking rags while both Mackenzie and Drinkwater waited eagerly for his report. In the excitement no one was concerned by Walmsley's absence.

'Well,' said Mackenzie as Edward devoured a sausage and a quantity of vodka, 'our luck cannot last for ever, we are in hostile territory now by all accounts.'

'You are indeed,' said Edward swallowing the vodka, standing naked in a tin bath. 'But another thousand ...'

'Damn you, Ned!'

'Five hundred,' said Mackenzie coolly, picking up the pistol from the bed, 'and not a penny more.' Mackenzie brought the pistol barrel up and pointed it at Edward's groin.

Edward realised he had chosen a bad moment to bargain; a man rarely impresses when naked. 'Very well, gentlemen,' he said grinning sheepishly and attempting to pass off the matter lightly.

'The truth, mind,' warned Mackenzie, the pistol unwavering.

'Yes, yes, of course,' agreed Edward testily, reaching for his breeches as if insulted that he was suspected of real perfidy.

'Well?'

'There are to be long negotiations, but Napoleon is a master of deceit; he played Alexander like a woman. I have never heard flattery like it. He sold his ally Turkey to the Tsar, promised him a free hand against the Porte, guaranteed him the same in Swedish Finland, told him that he was a true child of the liberating ideals of the French Revolution and that the two of them would release the new renaissance of a resuscitated Europe! I could scarcely believe my ears. Why such a tirade of flattery and promises should be made in such secrecy is for you to judge.'

'One always seduces in private,' observed Mackenzie, ironically, "but go on. What of Great Britain?'

'That came last, though I distinctly heard Alexander declare his hatred of the English at the start, but he was much less easy to hear...'

'Go on, we have little time...'

'Britain is to be excluded from all trade with Europe or Russia. The Tsar agrees to chastise anyone who trades with a nation so perfidious as yours.' Edward paused, his choice of words significant. 'Your navy is to be destroyed by sheer weight of numbers. Napoleon said your navy is exhausted, your sources of manpower drying up, and that you cannot maintain a blockade for ever. He told the Tsar, who made some remark at this point, that your victory at Trafalgar was a narrow one and that this is proved by the death of Lord Nelson. He claimed the tide would have gone the other way but for the Spaniards deserting the French. Had the French had the Russian fleet with them that day the trident of Neptune would have been wrested from Britannia and with it the sceptre of the world!'

'What eloquence,' remarked Mackenzie.

'So the Russian fleet is to break out of the Baltic, eh?' asked Drinkwater.

'Yes. The Baltic is to be a mare clausum to Britain, supine under Russian domination, and to outnumber you the Portuguese fleet is to be seized at Lisbon and the Danish to be commandeered at Copenhagen.'

'God's bones!' exclaimed Drinkwater, his mind whirling with the news. With France and Russia allies, Napoleon's power in Europe would be absolute. The Russians would be free to expand into Turkey, the French to mass their great armies on the Channel shore once more for a final descent upon England. Napoleon would be able to summon the combined navies of every European power to add to his own. There were ships of the line building at Toulon, at Brest, at Antwerp; the Portuguese navy and the Danish navy would add a powerful reinforcement to the Russian squadrons already at sea, cruising as allies of Great Britain. Against such a force even the battle-hardened Royal Navy would find itself outgunned by sheer weight of metal! And, as Drinkwater well knew, the Royal Navy, that reassuring bulwark of the realm, was wearing out. Its seamen were sick of endless blockade, its officers dispirited by stalemate, its admirals worn with cares and its ships with sea-keeping. Such an outcome negated Drinkwater's whole life and he was filled with a sudden urgency to be off, to leave this stifling attic and regain the fresh air of his quarterdeck and a quick passage home with this vital intelligence.