Ричард Вудмен - Baltic Mission

Drinkwater drained the glass. Exactly how accurate the news was of a check to the French he did not know, but he was acutely aware that the events of the coming summer were likely to be vital in the Baltic. As the cabin door opened to admit the officers the noise of a fiddle came from forward where the hands had been piped to dance and skylark. Drinkwater stood and welcomed his guests as Mullender moved among them with a dozen glasses of blackstrap to whet their appetites.

'You ordered the purser to issue double grog to all hands, Mr. Rogers, I trust?'

'Aye, sir, I did.' Rogers had made some effort to sober up from his injudicious imbibing earlier that day.

'That is as well. I am conscious of having made all hands work hard on our passage. Despite the disappearance of the convoy, which I don't doubt we shall soon remedy, it was necessary that we deliver the Government's dispatches without delay.' Drinkwater turned to a tall, thin lieutenant who wore a hook in place of his left hand and from whose pink nose depended a large dewdrop. I see you have come from the deck, Mr. Q. Is the fog still as dense?'

Lieutenant Quilhampton shook his head, sending the dewdrop flying. 'Doing its damnedest to lift, sir, though I cannot depend on half cannon-shot at the moment. But a dead calm still and no sign of any merchantmen.'

'And unlikely to be, Mr. Q. They'll have snugged down and ridden out that gale like sensible fellows, if I don't mistake their temper.'

'Rather an unusual convoy for a frigate of our force, sir, wouldn't you say?' put in Midshipman Lord Walmsley. 'I mean two North-country brigs don't amount to much.'

I don't know, Mr. Walmsley,' replied Drinkwater who from their earliest acquaintance had avoided the use of the young man's title on board, 'their lading is almost as valuable as our own.'

'May one ask what it is?'

'One hundred and sixty thousand stand of arms, Mr. Walmsley, together with powder and shot for sixty rounds a man.'

Drinkwater smiled at the whistles this intelligence provoked. 'Come gentlemen, please be seated ...'

They sat down noisily and Drinkwater regarded them with a certain amount of satisfaction. In addition to the three officers he had summoned earlier, James Quilhampton the third lieutenant, Mr. Lallo the surgeon, and four of Antigone's midshipmen were present. Mr. Fraser was absent on deck, pacing his atonement for failing to sight the captain's barge that forenoon, an atonement that was spiced by Rogers's passing of the instruction, leaving Fraser in no doubt of the first lieutenant's malicious triumph.

In the cabin Drinkwater paid closest attention to the midshipmen. Mr. Quilhampton was an old friend and shipmate, Mr. Lallo a surgeon of average ability. But the midshipmen were Drinkwater's own responsibility. It was his reputation they would carry with them when they were commissioned and served under other commanders. Their professional maturation was, therefore, of more than a mere passing interest. This was the more acutely so since most were protégés of another captain, inherited by Drinkwater upon his hurried appointment to the corvette Melusine during her eventful Greenland voyage. By now he had come to regard them as his own, and one in particular came under scrutiny, for he had both dismissed and reinstated Lord Walmsley.

Midshipmen Dutfield and Wickham were rated master's mates now and little Mr. Frey was as active and intelligent as any eager youngster, but Lord Walmsley still engaged Drinkwater's speculation as, laughing and jesting with the others, he addressed himself to the broth Mullender placed before them. Despite Walmsley being a dominating, willful and dissolute youth, Drinkwater had discerned some finer qualities in him during the sojourn in the Arctic. But the boy had abused his powers and Drinkwater had turned him out of the ship for a period, only taking him back when Walmsley had gone to considerable lengths to impress the captain of his remorse. There were still streaks of the old indolence, and touches of arrogance; but they were tempered by a growing ability and Drinkwater had every confidence in his passing for lieutenant at the next available Board.

Drinkwater pushed his soup plate away and hid a smile behind his napkin as he watched Walmsley, at the opposite end of the table, talking with a certain condescension to Mr. Dutfield, some three years his junior.

'A glass of wine with you, sir?' Sam Rogers leaned forward with exaggerated cordiality and Drinkwater nodded politely, raising his glass. The conversation swelled to a hubbub as Mullender brought from the little pantry the roast capons and placed them before the captain. The homely smell of the meat emphasised the luxury of this fog-enforced idleness and combined with the wine to induce a comfortable mellowness in Drinkwater. He felt for once positively justified in putting off until tomorrow the problems of duty. But Mr. Mount was not of so relaxed a frame of mind.

'Excuse me, sir,' put in the marine lieutenant, leaning forward, his scarlet coat a bright spot amidst the sober blue of the sea-officers, 'but might I press you to elaborate on the news you gave us earlier?'

'I did promise, did I not, Mr. Mount?' said Drinkwater with a sigh.

'You did, sir.'

Drinkwater accepted the carving irons from his coxswain Tregembo, assisting Mullender at the table. He sliced into the white meat of the fowl's breast.

'It seems that a pitched battle was fought between considerable forces of French and Russians at a place near Konigsberg called ... Eylau, or some such ... is that sufficient, Mr. Rogers? Doubtless,' he continued, turning again to Mount, 'it is noted upon your atlas.'

A chuckle ran round the table and Mount flushed to rival his coat. He had been greatly teased about his acquisition of a large Military Atlas, purporting to cover the whole of Europe, India, North America and the Cape of Good Hope to a standard 'compatible with the contemplation, comprehension, verification and execution of military campaigns engaged in by the forces of His Majesty'. Armed with this vade mecum, Mount had bored the occupants of the gunroom rigid with interminable explanations of the brilliance of Napoleon's campaign in Prussia the previous year. The double victory of Jena-Auerstadt, which in a single day had destroyed the Prussian military machine, had failed to impress anyone except James Quilhampton who had pored over the appropriate pages of the atlas out of pity for Mount and was rewarded by a conviction that the likelihood of a French defeat was remote. The completeness of the cavalry pursuit after Jena seemed to make little difference to the naval officers, though it had brought the French to the very shores of the Baltic Sea and reduced the Prussian army to a few impotent garrisons in beleaguered fortresses, and a small field force under a General Lestocq. Mount's admiration for the genius behind the campaign had led him to suffer a great deal of leg-pulling for his treasonable opinions.

'And the outcome, sir?' persisted Mount. 'You spoke of a check.'

'Well, one does not like to grasp too eagerly at good news, since it has, in the past, so often proved false. But the Russians gave a good account of themselves, particularly as the French were reported to have been commanded by Napoleon himself.'

Drinkwater looked round their faces. There was not a man at the table whose imagination was not fed by the prospect of real defeat having been inflicted on the hitherto triumphant Grand Army and its legendary leader.

'And the Russkies, sir. Who was in command of them?'

Drinkwater frowned. 'To tell the truth, Mr. Mount, I cannot recollect ...'

'Kamenskoi?'

'No ... no, that was not it...' 'Bennigsen?'

'You have it, Mr. Mount. General Bennigsen. What can you tell us of him?'