The Baltic Gambit l-15

by Dewey Lambdin

  "Did Nettles whip up anything for dessert, Pettus?" he asked, once the last morsel had gone down his gullet, and the last warm sip of rum-laced coffee had been drunk.

  "Nought for dinner, sir," Pettus answered, removing his plate. "Said he's saving his best efforts for supper. But there's jam and extra-fine biscuit I could fetch out."

  "Sounds fine," Lewrie told him, requesting a refill of coffee, minus the rum this time. All the while keeping one ear cocked for a call from the deck, the sound of the cutter bumping back alongside of the hull… and the ticking of the carriage clock that he kept on the side-board.

  Fretting and frowning, now he was in private, Lewrie went over to his desk and pretended to immerse himself in the minutiae of ship's paperwork. Finally…

  "Midshipman Plumb, SAH!" the sentry called.

  "Enter!" Lewrie replied, a tad too eagerly and loudly, even to his ears.

  "Mister Fox's respects, sir, and he says that the cutter is-" Plumb began.

  "Tell Mister Fox I will come to the quarterdeck, Mister Plumb." Lewrie cut him off, going quickly for his furs.

  He trotted up the gangway ladder to the starboard entry-port, where Capt. Hardcastle and Midshipman Tillyard stood over a large wooden bucket.

  "Well, sirs?" Lewrie asked, striving for at least a shred of idle interest.

  "It's rotten, sir," Hardcastle said, kneeling down to lift out a slab, about the size of a serving platter, and about eight inches thick. The edges crumbled at his touch. Lewrie reached out to touch it, giving it a squeeze. At first it felt solid enough, but even as he applied moderate pressure, he could feel it flaking away, as if he could compress it into a slushy snowball, did he try harder.

  "Get a lot of it together, sir, and it'll slow a ship down," Hardcastle told him. "Where the floes are solid, not like these bits that've broken off, you'll still have unbroken ice, about three feet or more thick, though there'll be air bubbles underneath, where it'll be half the thickness. Where it'll first begin to break up, sir."

  "I thought it would be flat and smooth, top to bottom," Lewrie speculated aloud, putting out both hands to take the slab from Captain Hardcastle. It was still quite heavy; though, as he turned it over, he saw that the bottom of the slab was pebbly and pitted. Without warning the slab broke in half, split right down the middle, and shattered on the oak decks of the starboard gangway. "Well, damn," he muttered.

  "Up north on the Swedish coast, sir," Hardcastle told him, "up at Karlskrona, it'll still be solid, and three or four feet thick, as I said, but… won't be long before it's half that, and breaking up."

  "And Kronstadt, and Reval?" Lewrie asked of the Russian ports.

  "Two or three weeks behind the Swedes, sir," Hardcastle speculated with a grim expression. "It's melting fast, even so."

  "Mister Fox? Get way on her again. 'All to the royals,' and wring the last quarter-knot from this wind, long as it lasts," Lewrie told him. "Soon as the cutter's back on the tiers."

  "Aye-aye, sir."

  Get these Russians ashore soonest, Lewrie grimly told himself as he kicked some larger chunks of ice down the gangway; Reconnoiter Reval, for certain-don't think we can get all the way t'Kronstadt if it melts out last-then dash back to Karlskrona t'smoak them out and… report to the Fleet… if we can get back past Copenhagen and the Narrows… if the Danes let us!

  Getting in was the easy part, he realised; getting out of the Baltic would be the really tricky part!

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  What am I doin' up here? Lewrie asked himself for the tenth time in five minutes as he steadied his most powerful telescope on the rat-lines of the upper shrouds in the main-mast fighting top. Swaddled in his furs, he was certain he resembled a shaggy cocoon wherein a larva slept, glued to a sturdy twig; it was certainly cold enough for him to adhere to any metal, did he grasp any without his woolen mittens.

  Going aloft had never been one of his favourite activities, not since his first terrors as a Midshipman, who was naturally expected to spend half his waking hours in the rigging, chearly "yo-ho-hoing" and scrambling about with the agility of an ape. Damn his dignity, but he had eschewed the backwards-leaning final ascent of the futtock shrouds, and taken the lubber's hole, instead of clinging upside down like a fly on the overhead. All to take a gander at Kronstadt.

  He didn't know quite what he'd expected when first learning his destination; Arctic glaciers and the entire Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland completely covered with vast sheets of ice several yards thick; littered with upwellings of ice like a boulder field, or a plain full of Celtic dolmens, a titanic Stonehenge.

  But the fact of the matter was that the Baltic Sea was fairly open, boisterous and rolling, as much an ocean as the Atlantic or the North Sea, with the ice confined to still, protected waters, harbours, and short friezes along the beaches.

  Thermopylaehad scouted quite close to Reval, within a league of the naval port and its breakwater batteries, two days before, and had spotted the Russian navy preparing for war. They had counted the number of line-of-battle ships and frigates still locked in the ice, seen how many already had their masts set up and yards crossed, and the smoke from forges, barracks, shipwrights' manufacturies, and what both Count Rybakov and Capt. Hardcastle had identified as the bakeries and smoke-houses where rations were being prepared.

  Even more ominously, they had all seen the hundreds, thousands of peasant workers out on the ice sheets afoot, chopping and chipping a channel wide enough for two large warships abreast, seen and heard the explosions as kegs of gunpowder were used to blast the thickest of the ice-or at least blow deep-enough craters, which the men with axes and shovels could attack, after.

  Now, here was the principal naval harbour of Russia's Baltic Fleet, not three miles away, and it was the same story. Every now and then, an explosion spurted a dirty cloud of powder smoke aloft, along with a shower of ice chips (sometimes a serf along with it) behind the breakwater mole, or in the roads near the harbour entrance, the sound coming seconds later as a soft pillow-thump, and a tremor in the sea that thrummed through the frigate's bones. But, just as at Reval, no one had tried a shot at them from those heavy 42-pounder cannon along the mole, or the harbour entrance bastions… no matter how infuriated the Russians might be by the sight of a British frigate, all flags flying, lying just beyond maximum range. It was uncanny, as if stiff final diplomatic letters declaring a state of belligerence had to be exchanged first. Or whenever the Russians could finally get those ships of the line to sea, sail West, and announce a state of war with their first broadsides.

  Lewrie tugged a mitten off with his teeth, reached into a pocket of his furs for pencil and paper, and quickly made notes on all he could see, then steeled himself for the descent to the deck once more.

  Why am I doin' this? he asked himself again as he went through the lubber's hole, with his booted heels fumbling for firm purchase on stiff, icy rat-lines.

  "Many ships, sir?" Lt. Ballard enquired, once he was down.

  "Rum, first," Lewrie demanded. "Nigh-boilin', if God's just. Settle for tea or coffee, 'long as it's hot!" His teeth chattered and his words slurred from the stiffness of his jaws.

  "Ah, that's better… thankee, Pettus," he said after a welcome swig of coffee from the ever-present black iron kettle. "The Russians' main fleet is back at Reval, Mister Ballard," he said, reading from his notes. "Here, I saw two un-rigged 'liners'… Third Rates, I make 'em. But there's nine frigates with their masts and yards set up, and what looks t'be five or six bombs, along with God knows how many floating batteries for harbour defence… useless at sea. Oh, there's several more Third Rates and larger in the graving docks, or on the stocks under construction… or would be, if it weren't so bloody cold… but the real threat's back West of here."

  "They are chopping and blasting lanes through the ice here, as well, sir," Lt. Ballard commented with a faint grunt of puzzlement and a frown. "Even though there is not much to get out to combine with the Reval ships? Odd."

  "Th
ey most-like want those frigates out," Lewrie decided aloud, gulping down more hot coffee. "I would."

  In Reval, they'd seen twelve Third Rate 74s, three 100-gunned vessels of the Second Rate, and one huge First Rate, which the Naval List had named the Blagodat, of 130 guns. There were also three more warships slightly smaller than Third Rates, more of the sort of vessel employed by Baltic powers and the Dutch, which might mount anywhere from sixty to seventy guns. Still, mercifully iced in so solidly that horse-drawn sledges and working-parties on foot had done the ferrying and stowing instead of barges, sheer hulks, and hoys.

  "Not as dire as I thought, Arthur," Lewrie said with a relieved smile, and a quick glance upward to where he had clung in shuddery terror. He looked back just quick enough to see Lt. Ballard wince at the use of his Christian name, and purse his lips in distaste.

  What is his problem? Lewrie thought, vexed, and that, too, was for the hundredth time, this voyage. He keeps that up, I'll start considerin' him in the 'hate Lewrie' club.

  "Mister Lyle, sir," Lewrie said, turning away to consult with the Sailing Master. "Where might we land our 'live lumber' best?"

  Soon be rid of 'em! Lewrie exulted inside; Thankee, Jesus!

  "Well, it appears there's less than a half-mile to a quarter-mile of ice off the shores hereabouts, sir," Mr. Lyle opined as he and Lewrie bent over the smaller-scale chart of the Kronstadt and St. Petersburg approaches. "We could row them to the edge, have them send for a coach."

  "Too close to Kronstadt," Lewrie objected, "and we've trailed our colours to ' em already. I expect their army's astir like an anthill. Uhm… what about here, on the north shore? This little port town of… Sestroretsk? I doubt it's ten miles from Saint Petersburg, by road," he said, pinching fingers together against the distance scale of the chart, and placing them against the map. "There's even a road from there to the capital… and if Peter the Great left anything behind, it's probably a good'un, too. Mister Ballard?"

  "Sir?"

  "Get us underway, course Nor'east, for this piddlin' wee town here on the chart," Lewrie ordered. "We'll land our diplomats there, and be shot of 'em."

  Lewrie went below to his great-cabins and found that his guests had already packed up their essentials, and looked eager to leave his company, as well. Off Reval, Lewrie had considered dropping them off at another wee place on the coast called Paldiski, but Count Rybakov (damn his genial, urbane soul!) had demurred, saying that it would be more than a week before they could reach St. Petersburg by troika and that he must seek out someplace closer.

  "Ah, Kapitan!" Count Rybakov exclaimed upon seeing him, "There is good news? You have chosen a place to land us?"

  "Sestroretsk, cross the bay on the north shore, my lord," Lewrie told him, stripping his furs off for a while. They stank like badgers, and had begun to itch him something sinful. "Far away from any of your country's forts or garrisons, but within mere miles of your destination."

  "I know of it, and the road to Saint Petersburg is quite good, even by troika" Rybakov replied, as pleased as if Lewrie had presented him with King George's keys to the Tower of London, and all of its treasures. "No wolves, either, ha ha!" he laughed, snapping fingers in glee. "We are within hours of home, Anatoli. Is it not splendid?"

  "At last," Count Levotchkin agreed, with the first sign of any real enthusiasm he'd evinced since first coming aboard. He'd dressed for the occasion in a new bottle-green suit, top-boots, and a striped yellow waist-coat and amber-gold neck-stock. And, for the first time since he'd come aboard Thermopylae, he even looked sober!

  "We must express our gratitude to Kapitan Lewrie for our swift, and safe, passage, Anatoli," Count Rybakov insisted, looking round the great-cabins at their separate piles of luggage and chests, over which their manservants, Fyodor and Sasha, still fussed. There were three piles, Lewrie noticed, the third the largest by far, and mostly made up of crates and middling-sized kegs. "We bought far too much before sailing, Kapitan Lewrie… what is the sense of taking vodka or Russian brandy ashore with us? Like how you Angliski say, 'carrying coals to Newcastle,' ha ha?" the nobleman chortled most cheerfully. "Caviar, pickled delicacies… all so available in Saint Petersburg, and for much less. We leave it to you as our gift, Kapitan," he said with his arms wide, and a smile on his phyz worthy of a doting papa, "in recognition of the great service you do us, in the cause of peace for all our peoples."

  "Well, don't know as I can rightly…," Lewrie began to object, wondering how many jots and tittles in the Articles of War he would be violating did he accept; charging passage aboard a King's ship? Taking a bribe for services rendered? Breaking bulk cargo for his own use? Extortion? What could an attorney make o' that? he wondered.

  "Do we take it with us, Kapitan, it would take hours longer to unload and row ashore," Count Rybakov reminded him, "putting you and your ship in greater danger. Really, we insist, don't we, Anatoli?"

  "It is as Count Rybakov says, Kapitan," Count Levotchkin seconded, sporting a smile upon his phyz which put Lewrie in mind of the expression "shit-eating." "It is a small expression of gratitude."

  "Well, if ye won't land it, and won't take it with you…," Lewrie said at last, "then I accept, though it's hardly necessary."

  "Then it is settled," Count Rybakov cheered, beaming.

  It was mid-afternoon by the time HMS Thermopylae came to anchor off the small coastal town of Sestroretsk. The small harbour inlet was iced up solidly, of course, its larger fishing boats locked immobile, its smaller rowboats drawn up on the shingle, upside down, for the winter, and the floating stages of its pier resting on the ice. Off the beach and solid ground, there was at least two hundred yards of dingy white ice; the depth in which Thermopylae could swim restricted her to lay off another quarter-mile.

  All three ship's boats were hoisted off the tiers and overside-the cutter, launch, and captain's gig-then manned with a Midshipman and six or eight oarsmen apiece, as the main course yard dipped, swung, and deposited stout rope nets of dunnage into the two larger boats. The gig was sent ashore immediately, right to the edge of the ice floe, with Count Rybakov's servant, Fyodor, and Capt. Hardcastle, who was the only other man aboard somewhat fluent in Russian, to arrange for transport, carriage and dray waggons, or sledges. The gig could not reach the pier, of course, and spent many minutes at the outermost edge of the ice, with two men in the bows using a boarding axe and a gaff pole to smash through the thinnest, rottenest parts 'til the boat could go no further, and there was enough thickness for a man to trust his life upon it. Lewrie watched Fyodor and Capt. Hardcastle gingerly step out of the gig and tap their way shoreward, pace by wary pace, pausing to see if the ice would hold their weight, and listening to the ominous creaks, groans, and crackles, most-likely.

  Lewrie lifted his telescope to scan the town. Sestroretsk looked sleepy, filthy, and smoke-shrouded from its many chimneys. It was a place mostly of wood construction, half the residences made of logs, with shake-shingled steep rooves. Its one church looked more like a barn, with the grain silo replaced by a bell tower on one end, and an onion-domed second tower at the other, the dome, and its odd-shaped cross, the only spot of real colour in town. Evidently, Lewrie imagined, paint was at a premium in Russia. Tall drifts of snow lay hard against every building, driven by the prevailing winds, or their last blizzard. And the people…! There were only a few civilians about who sported European-style suits or dresses; the bulk of them wore an assortment of shapkas or ushankas with huge ear-flaps, tall felt boots, (men and women, both) and extremely baggy pantaloons or pyjammy trousers… all smothered, of course, in rough hide coats lined with wool piling, mangy furs, or blankets and quilts for extra warmth. And, to Lewrie's continuing edginess, most of them stood gazing dull-eyed at the strange, foreign frigate, as if they were so many cattle or sheep with about as much curiosity!

  "It is a great pity that what little you see of my country is a poor village," Count Rybakov said from Lewrie's side, come up to the quarterdeck unbidden amid all the shifting o
f cargo. "Our great Tsar Peter changed us in one generation from an Asian country to a European nation, and blessed Ekaterina… Catherine… contributed more to awakening us from barbarism to civilisation, but… so much remains to be done before we truly become as neat and pastoral as your rural shires, Kapitan Lewrie. As well ordered as villages in France, or our cities as impressive as London, Paris… or even Dover or Yarmouth!

  "But we are patient," Rybakov mused, "and those things will come, in time. As long as we do not spend our blood and treasure on useless wars, yes? Ha! Look at it. So close to Saint Petersburg, yet no one tries to make it even a 'Potemkin village'! What a hovel!"

  "Potemkin…?" Lewrie asked.

  "One of Catherine the Great's court… one of her lovers, in fact," Rybakov admitted with a worldly-wise shrug. "Whenever she wished to travel to see her people, by river or by coach, Potemkin made sure that good roads were laid out, if only a single day of travel before the Tsarina's entourage. Villages on the routes were re-made and painted just for her passing… She always stayed overnight with great landowners at their country mansions, or palaces, you see. If Great Catherine went by river, Potemkin erected false villages, just the faзades, back from the banks as her ship went by. We Russians… we are very capable of deluding ourselves, ha! To seem, but not quite to be."

  Expect yer vodka helps ye, there, Lewrie smugly thought.

  "Ah! Fyodor has reached the pier, at last!" Count Rybakov exclaimed, clapping gloved hands in glee. "And I believe I see horses and carriages at the inn… carriages and sledges, in their stables. Atleetchna! Excellent!"

  "If the ice will bear the weight of horses and waggons, and if they can get up and down off the ice, ashore, aye," Lewrie said, wary of risking his ship's people at the thinnest, rottenest edge of that ice sheet to unload the boats and bear the cargo to the sledges.