Ричард Вудмен - Baltic Mission

'He is one of the German faction in the Russian service, sir, a Hanoverian by birth, something of a soldier of fortune.'

'So your hero's taken a damned good drubbing at last, eh, Mount?' said Lallo the surgeon. "Tis about time his luck ran a little thin, I'm thinking.' Lallo turned to Drinkwater, manifesting a nat­ural anxiety common to them all. 'It was a victory, sir? For the Russians, I mean.'

'The Swedes seemed positive that it was not a French one, Mr. Lallo. It seems they were left exhausted upon the field, but the Russians only withdrew to prepare positions of defence ...'

'But if they had beat Boney, why should they want to prepare defences?'

'I don't know, but the report seemed positive that Napoleon received a bloody nose.'

'Let us hope it is true,' said Quilhampton fervently.

'And not just wishful thinking,' slurred Rogers with the wisdom of the disenchanted.

'Napoleon's the devil of a long way from home,' said Hill, laying down his knife and fork. 'If he receives a second serious blow from the Russkies he might overreach himself.'

Drinkwater finished his own meat. The uncertainty of speculation had destroyed his euphoria. It was time he turned the intelligence to real account.

'I believe he already has,' he said. 'Those decrees he issued from Berlin last year establishing his Continental System will have little effect on us. Preventing the European mainland from trading with Great Britain will starve the European markets, while leaving us free to trade with the Indies or wherever else we wish. Providing the Royal Navy does its part in maintaining a close blockade of the coast, which is what the King's Orders in Council are designed to achieve. I daresay we shall make ourselves unpopular with the Americans, but that cannot be helped. Napoleon will get most of the blame and, the larger his empire becomes, the more people his politics will inconvenience.' He hoped he carried his point, aware that a note of pomposity had unwittingly crept into his voice.

'So, gentlemen,' Drinkwater continued, after refilling his glass, 'if the Royal Navy in general, and you in particular, do your duty, and the Russians stand firm, we may yet see the threat to our homes diminish. Let us hope this battle of Eylau is the high-water mark of Napoleon's ambition ...'

'Bravo, sir!'

'Death to the French!'

'I'll drink to that!' They were all eagerly holding their glasses aloft.

'No, gentlemen,' Drinkwater said smiling, relieved that his lecturing tone had been overlooked, 'I do not like xenophobic toasts, they tempt providence. Let us drink to our gallant allies the Russians.'

'To the Russians!'

Drinkwater sat alone after the officers had gone. Smoke from Lallo's pipe still hung over the table from which the cloth had been drawn and replaced by Mount's atlas an hour before. He found the lingering aroma of the tobacco pleasant, and Tregembo had produced a remaining half-bottle of port for him.

He had watched the departure of his old coxswain with affection. They had been together for so long that the demarcations between master and servant had long since been eroded and they were capable of anticipating each other's wishes in the manner of man and wife. This uncomfortable thought made Drinkwater raise his eyes to the portraits of his wife and children on the forward bulkhead. The pale images of their faces were lit by the wasting candles on the table. He pledged them a silent toast and diverted his thoughts. It did not do to dwell on such things for he did not want a visitation of the blue devils, that misanthropic preoccupation of seamen. It was far better to consider the task in hand, though there was precious little comfort in that. Locked away beneath him lay one of the subsidies bound for the coffers of the Tsar with which the British Government propped up the war against Napoleon's French Empire. Eighty thousand pounds sterling was a prodigious sum for which to be held accountable.

He drew little comfort from the thought that the carriage of the specie would earn him a handsome sum, for he nursed private misgivings as to the inequity of the privilege. The worries over the elaborate precautions in which he was ordered to liaise with officials of the diplomatic corps, and the missing shipment of arms in the storm-separated brigs, only compounded his anxiety over the accuracy of the news from Varberg. There seemed no end to the war, and time was wearing away zeal. Many of his own people had been at sea for four years; his original draft of volunteers had been reduced by disease, injury and action, and augmented by those sweepings of the press, the quota-men, Lord Mayor's men and any unfortunate misfit the magistrates had decided would benefit from a spell in His Majesty's service.

Drinkwater emptied the bottle and swore to himself. He had lost six men by desertion at Sheerness and he knew his crew were unsettled. In all justice he could not blame them, but he could do little else beyond propitiating providence and praying the battle of Eylau would soon be followed by news of a greater victory for the armies of Tsar Alexander of Russia.

Occasional talks with Lord Dungarth, Director of the Admiralty's Secret Department, had kept Drinkwater better informed than most cruiser captains had a right to expect. Their long-standing friendship had given Drinkwater a unique insight into the complexities of British foreign policy in the long war against the victorious French. All the British were really capable of doing effectively was sealing the continent in a naval blockade. To encompass the destruction of the Grand Army required a supply of men as great as that of France. 'It is to Russia we must look, Nathaniel,' Dungarth had once said, 'with her endless manpower supported by our subsidies, and the character of Tsar Alexander to spur her on.'

He had one of those subsidies beneath him at that moment; as for the character of Tsar Alexander, Drinkwater hoped he could be relied on. It was rumoured that he had connived at the assassination of his own sadistically insane father. Did such acquiescence demonstrate a conviction of moral superiority? Or was it evidence of a weakness in succumbing to the pressure of others?

Wondering thus, Captain Drinkwater rose, loosened his stock and began to undress.

'Here's your hot water, zur,' Tregembo stropped the razor vigorously, 'and Mr. Quilhampton sends his compliments to you and to say that we'll be entering The Sound in an hour.' Tregembo sniffed, indicating disapproval, and added, 'And I'm to tell 'ee that Mr. Hill's on deck ...'

Drinkwater lathered his chin and jaw. 'And my presence isn't necessary, is that it?'

Tregembo sniffed again. 'That's the message, zur, as I told it.'

Drinkwater took the razor and began to scrape his lathered face, his legs braced as Antigone leaned to the alteration of course. 'Huh! We're off Cronbourg, Tregembo, and the Danes are damned touchy about who goes through The Sound. Where are the two brigs?' he asked after a brief pause, pleased that he had located his charges at Vinga Bay as predicted.

'Safely tucked under our larboard beam, zur.'

'Good. We'll keep 'em on the Swedish side.' He concentrated on his shave.

'You'll pardon me for saying, zur,' Tregembo pressed on with the familiarity of long service, 'but you've been under the weather these past two days ...'

'You talk too much, too early in the day, damn you... God's bones!' Drinkwater winced at the nick the razor had given him.

'You'd do better to take more care of yourself,' Tregembo persisted, and for a second Drinkwater thought he was being insolent, referring to his own bloodily obvious need to keep his mouth shut. But a single glance at the old Cornishman's face told him otherwise. Tregembo's concern was touching.