“We take the next road south that we find and see if we can rescue some poor lost infantry. We will come back tomorrow to find your Cossacks.”
The next road south soon turned into a cart track and led them through scattered farms and ploughed fields. They saw the trace of candlelight through a ragged curtain of a farmhouse and stopped for directions. The candle went out. Rostov dismounted and banged on the door. A heavy silence descended.
“If you had soldiers pounding on your house at midnight, would you open your door?” Bond said.
“I tire of your jokes, Englishman. If we do not have directions, we could ride around these fields all night.”
“Would you take directions from a frightened civilian who has been listening to cannons firing for hours?”
Rostov stomped back to his horse and climbed into the saddle. “So, what would you do?”
“I have been watching that bright star looking at us through the clouds and have decided it is directly south. If we keep following it, we will eventually reach the ridge where the Field Marshal wants to place his troops.”
“Hmmph. I hope you are correct.”
Bond hoped he was correct as well. He had never been much of a sailor at night, but he knew that following a southern star at night would gradually bend one’s course toward the southwest. That should be where they would find the rest of the army.
The plan did nothing toward improving their progress or the state of the track they followed, which alternated between forest and fields. It did reduce the volume of the Count’s grumbling but the night grew very cold for July. They stopped several times to fortify themselves from the very necessary flasks they carried.
Bond found it getting very difficult to keep his eyes open, but it didn’t much matter―he still didn’t know where they were but his horse seemed to have set its eye on the same star.
They had been riding for two or three hours when they had to dismount to urge their mounts over a water-filled ditch. Then they found a rutted road on the other side.
“We’re here,” Bond said.
“Where in Perdition is here?”
“It’s a road. A well-travelled road. An army has come this way.”
“Whose? Ours or Napoleon’s?”
The road had followed the ditch for a half mile when Bond saw some dark figures on the side of the ditch. One of the figures slid down into the ditch to hide. He spurred his horse over to them.
“Where is your officer?” Bond demanded in three languages.
Another of the dark figures moved. “Keep following the road,” he said in German.
“What unit are you?”
“Jägers with Count Pahlen. Who might you be?”
“Two staff officers. This is Count Nikolai Rostov―he has information for General von Osten-Sacken.”
“Who speaks Russian here?” the man called into the darkness.
No one answered for some time. At last one man said, “French. All Russian officers speak French.”
“Who speaks French here?” Bond asked.
“I do.” A man came out of the darkness doing up his greatcoat and buckling a cavalry sabre to his side. “Lieutenant Schmidt of Wassiltschikov’s cavalry corps. What does the Russian want?”
“Did the Cossacks come past here? They must rejoin General Sacken’s corps.”
“Lost them, did you? I would lay odds they have found a better billet.”
“They has likely found some warm mademoiselles for their comfort,” said another voice.
“Where we should be.”
Count Rostov slapped his reins in frustration. “Did you see the Cossacks?”
“Ach, scheisse, your Cossacks. Go and bother somebody else.”
“Osten-Sacken went the other road. The crossroads is a mile behind you. You are lost, Officers, Sirs.”
“Aren’t they always?” someone said, and everyone laughed.
Holmes got up and opened the door, a pistol in his hand. A man stood on the step in the dark. “It is you at last, Mr. Holmes. It is van Aa.”
“Come in, old chap―what . . . ? You are bleeding.”
van Aa stared at a bloodstained rag about his arm. “Ah, I cannot stop it. Some damned Royalist shot at me as I escaped from Antwerp.”
“You escaped? What is happening at Antwerp?”
“The Arenbergs and their Royalist allies have risen against Napoleon. Of course, they are also shooting at any Dutchman they see.”
Holmes helped the other to a chair in the middle of the room. “So, Napoleon has lost his steamship port and the yards?”
“I think not. He has French troops and sailors controlling the centre of the city. The Royalists have the countryside.”
Holmes went to the bottom of the stairs and called up. “Marie, bring some water and clean cloth. We have a man to tend to.”
van Aa looked about. “Who owns this house?”
“A Dutch patriot like you. His wife and children live upstairs. He helps man the fishing boat that keeps me in contact with the Royal Navy vessels offshore.”
“It is a damned hard road to this village. I had to stumble along a broken dyke.”
“The loyalists opened the sluices. The French at Flushing do not dare come here lest they open more and drown them all.”
“What do the English know of the war?”
“Very little it seems. They believe Napoleon has left for the frontier with the Imperial Guard, but the rest of the army and the barges are still at Boulogne.”
“So Napoleon’s invasion of England is no more?”
Holmes laughed. “I think they are waiting for a message from us to tell them that.”
Once Antiochus had left Dover harbour and started on a course for Boulogne, Roberta assembled her off-duty stokers and engine room artificers to instruct them in their duties. The duty shift were some of the Stephenson workmen and unassigned trainees for the spitefuls Elizabeth had selected for their move to Dover the day before.
“I believe you have all had some experience in other steamships, so all I mean to talk about now are the differences you will find in Antiochus. The steam pressure is a little higher because we use railway locomotive boilers that have higher stress tolerance.”
“Why is that, My Lady?” one of the men asked.
She smiled at him. Their enthusiasm was infectious. “Locomotive boilers have to work under rougher conditions in the open than steamship boilers cloistered as it were in the bowels of a ship. Anyone else have a question?”
She soon found there were many questions, some she answered and some she put off until she was speaking to those who needed the answers for their work. Everyone wanted to know if it was true that their captain had been a stoker.
“I would rather let Captain Worthington tell you himself, but yes. It is no secret that he was a leading stoker just five years ago. I hope you will take from that the possibility that you all may receive good advancement if you do your duties well.”
“What is this ‘condenser’ thing?” another asked.
“Ah, there is a story behind that. A year ago at a function in the Admiralty a gentleman asked me why steam engineers did not save the ‘steam’, as people call it, that railway locomotives blow out.”
They all laughed.
“Well. There was a good idea hidden in that question and I have put it into practice here. The water vapour may be too cold to act as steam, but it is a much purer water than the make-up water we put into the boilers. So on Antiochus we save as much vapour as we can in the condensers and use it again and again.”
Partway through her talk the voice pipe from the bridge whistled. “There is another new idea you will find useful,” she said as she lifted the whistle to answer.
“Engine room here; Chief Engineer.”
After a moment, she said, “Aye aye, Captain.” She set the whistle back. “I’m called to the bridge but you will find the shift engineer and other men are worth listening to until I return.”
When
she reached the bridge, she found Worthington discussing their plans with the new officers a vessel as large as Antiochus was entitled to. Worthington had a “number two”, a lieutenant commander named Collins who came directly from duty on a seventy-four; Hardy, a first lieutenant who had gone through training aboard Spiteful for one of the new vessels still building at Clydebank; and a gunnery officer named Brown.
She looked astern to see that Spiteful under Lieutenant Copeland and Regent with Lieutenant Farley were keeping formation with one on each side of Antiochus.
“The last information Captain Hawke could give me was that the French ironclad could not be seen at Boulogne,” Worthington told her.
“He has just returned from the French side of the Channel?”
“That he has, My Lady,” Collins said.
“Do’st suppose the ironclad is steaming back to the Westerschelde for repairs, My Lady?” Worthington asked. “Could the fires Lieutenant Farley started in the stern have damaged an engine?”
“If it came close enough and hot enough, it probably could,” she answered. “But possibly the steering gear was damaged by the fires, and it must be a very complex arrangement inside that double hull.”
Chief Petty Officer Brown all but saluted before he spoke. “They says, My Lady, that you saw the ironclad when it was under construction. Are the engines close to the stern? Closer than the engines of a regular side-paddle ship?”
“Well, I did see it, but I only walked past as it was in the building dock. I would envisage that the engines are aligned in echelon inside the hulls for a neutral weight distribution, but I did not see which was the closest to the stern.”
“But for one reason or another it may be limping back under partial power or else partial steering,” Worthington said, looking into her eyes.
“You want to try to catch it,” she said with a smile. “Isn’t that outside the scope of our orders?”
He shrugged. “We can go as far as Calais.”
“If it left last night, steaming at five knots, say . . .”
He finished her thought. “It could be between Calais and Dunkerque.”
“Then we might make landfall off Calais,” Collins said.
“And if we see its smoke,” Brown said, “it would be regular practice for us to investigate.”
Worthington smiled. “I think you might go to the quartermasters and order a change of course, Mr. Hardy. Calais it is. Signaller, send to our flotilla ‘change course for Calais’.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
Some Time for Action
Roberta came up from the engineroom of HMS Antiochus when they were in sight of the British ships landing troops on the beach at Neuport. The main landing of the army had been at Dunkerque, but Wellington, recently made Duke of Wellington, sent two more invasion flotillas to land here and at Oostende. These vessels he asked to be supported by steamships in the event the French ironclad should be repaired and come out of the Westerschelde to attack them.
She climbed up to the navigation bridge where Captain Worthington and several of his officers were observing the activity. Worthington smiled and saluted as he saw her, the rest offered the Naval, knuckles to the forehead, salute. When she leaned on the rail for a better look at the ships, they took turns at telling her what was happening.
“There are eight ships of the line and five horse transports here, My Lady,” Sparrow, the young midshipman, said. “Lieutenant Bright says they are landing a cavalry brigade.”
Bright, the commander of the Marine detachment, stood out in his red jacket; he looked at the lad patronisingly. “His Grace is clearly posting a screening force to the east of his main force. No doubt they will scout south on the left flank of the army as the advance proceeds inland.”
“Thank you, Sir. But what is the task of the Oostende landing that we must join soon?”
“That will be primarily an infantry force to hold the town as the hinge of the whole army when His Grace swings inland to threaten both Ghent and Brussels,” Bright said.
“Well. Now we know the Duke’s entire plan, Brighty,” said Ward, Antiochus’ second Lieutenant, with a smile. “I’m surprised they didn’t appoint you to the Duke’s staff—or will you be taking over if he gets into difficulties?”
Lieutenant Bright moved away without answering, and Roberta followed him to stand near Worthington. The usual leg pulling between the sailors and the “lobsters” was proceeding apace even though they had only been at sea for six days. “Will you be asking for more speed to join the other ships, Captain?” she asked.
“Not unless I receive a signal from Farley, My Lady.”
Lieutenant Farley in HMS Regent was scouting ahead of the ships on course for Oostende. He would send signals back through the escorting vessels if he spotted smoke coming from the direction of the Westerschelde.
“Will you be giving further instruction to the officers detailing their duties in action, Captain?” Bright asked.
“Tonight, most likely, Sir,” Worthington answered. “I do not see any prospect for the French to get out of the Westerschelde before dark―should they have their ironclad repaired to make a foray.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Bright said. “I also had a question of my control over the Marines manning the 32 pounders in the bow emplacement.”
Roberta exchanged smiles with Worthington. “Shall I, Captain?”
“By all means,” he said and turned to the Marine. “You must have been made aware that Lady Bond was the builder of Antiochus.”
“Yes, Captain. It seems most unusual.”
Roberta eyed him narrowly. “I will take note that I am considered ‘unusual’, Lieutenant. No, do not be embarrassed. I have long grown accustomed to being unusual. The employment of Royal Marine gunners in the bow redoubt was a measure I took in the design to avoid the Admiralty losing a day’s steaming. They are under the control of the deck officers when battened down for action.”
“Oh,” was all he replied.
“You have direct control over the anti-boarding gunners and the musket armed marines, Sir, as is more usual,” Worthington said.
“I see, Sir.” Bright seemed bowed but not broken. “When going into action, how much time should I expect I will have to place my Marines against enemy boarders, Captain?”
“None, Lad, if I have my way. I do not intend to steam about like a public school pugilist trying for a good place to land a punch. That is what HMS Ironside did and was thrashed. I will fight like a good Yorkshireman and go straight at my enemy and flatten him. Sink him, in this case.”
“We saw the report of the fight in the Westerschelde, Lieutenant,” Roberta said. “Sent to the Admiralty by a good friend of us both, I might add. That information and our experience with commanding spitefuls in action tells us that the best ‘good place’ is with the ram buried in our opponent’s hull.”
Lieutenant Bright returned to the other side of the navigation bridge and joined the rest of the officers. Roberta soon noticed that the other officers were eagerly listening to his account of the recent conversation. The experience of having a woman in any position of command was beyond their understanding. Having one who held half the command from her control over the engines must have been grist for gossip in every ship of the navy since her steamships went into service.
She hoped that she and Captain Worthington could maintain one secret at least. Their relationship must remain outside of their service life while they were together on Antiochus. She could not expect to hear the decision of the Bishop of London’s consistory court for weeks―would not have known it had been convened if Lady Caroline had not penned a note. She would miss Lady Caroline.
Lord Bond rode alone down the National 51 route from Sézanne looking for the bridge over the Seine that might lead him to Schwarzenberg’s army and the three monarchs. London―specifically Lord Liverpool―had asked him to assess whether Tsar Alexander still harboured the desire to burn Paris, in revenge for the burning of Moscow in 18
12. He had no expectation that he might discuss the matter in a conversation with the Tsar, but if he could have a conversation with Marshal Wittgenstein or Barclay de Tolly, he might get some useful opinions.
As he rode along, he mulled over the possible reasons for such a request, but had to assume that London was trying to negotiate a secret agreement with the French. Whether with Louis XVIII, whom one would expect to be king when Napoleon was beaten, or with some of Napoleon’s marshals who might desert the emperor if they could obtain a satisfactory end to the war, he could not guess.
He thought he might stay with the Austrian headquarters for a while now that Blücher had taken his army as far as the Marne to see if he could crush MacDonald’s corps before Napoleon could reinforce him. He did not believe Blücher would be able to enter Paris from that direction, while the Austrians might stand a better chance following the Seine through Fontainebleau.
This whole campaign was taking on the character of a game of snooker. None of the commanders seemed to want to end the campaign with a knockout, like the battle of Leipzig two years before. There would be honours for the general who took Paris, but no fame for he who lost an army trying to accomplish that. He imagined the temperature was higher in Napoleon’s camp, but he doubted he could get access to that.
He had to cease his thoughts and pay attention to his surroundings when he saw the church spire of Villenauxe-la-Grande ahead. Count Rostov had told him he might find a troop of the Kiev Dragoon Regiment on piquet duty there. That would be the last place watched by Sacken’s troops―after that it would be no-man’s-land. He would have to decide which of two roads leading to bridges over the Seine would be less likely to have French cavalry watching them.
The village seemed deserted as he rode in. He drew rein outside the church and looked at the main square; it was where he might expect to find the dragoons if things were quiet. The place was desperately quiet, but no dragoons.
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