Baltic Mission nd-7

by Ричард Вудмен

  They spread right across the beam of the ship, no further aft than the main-mast. Some ships bore a white line painted across their deck planking there, but not the Antigone. She had been acquired from the French and no such device had ever been added. They were perched in the boats on the booms, up on the rails and sitting on the hammock nettings. Men crowded into the lower ratlines of the main shrouds and all wore expressions of expectancy.

  Between the untidy mob of 'the people', the midshipmen, master's mates and warrant officers occupied the neutral ground. Abaft them the files of marines made a hedge of fixed bayonets, cold steel ready for instant employment in defence of the commissioned officers.

  The murmur of comment that noted the absence of Rogers subsided the instant Drinkwater's hat began to rise in the stairwell, but he heard it, as he was meant to. He strode to the binnacle and looked at the men and took his time, opening the punishment book with great deliberation, gauging the mood of the hands. He looked about him, checking that the helmsmen, quartermaster, sentinels and look-outs were at their stations.

  'Bring up the prisoners!'

  The ship's corporal guarding the four seamen with a drawn bayonet shoved them forward from the companionway. They stood miserably after a cramped night in the bilboes, their ankles sore from the chafing of the irons. They could expect, by common custom, three dozen lashes apiece. Drinkwater turned to Fraser and raised an eyebrow. 'Mr. Fraser ...' he reminded.

  'Off hats!'

  'Benson, Hacking, Kissel and Myers ...' Drinkwater read their names and then fixed the four guilty men with a baleful grey eye. He was not in the mood for the lugubrious formalities of the Articles of War with their dolorous recital of the punishment of death for each and every offence, scarcely suggesting that 'such lesser punishment' was ever employed in mitigation. 'You four men were drunk last night at the call for all hands ...' Drinkwater pitched the words forward so that they could all hear. 'If you had been topmen such conduct might have caused you to fall to your deaths. Indeed you might have killed others. Understand that I will not tolerate drunkenness...' he looked from the four wretches in front of him and raked the whole assembly, officers included, with his eyes,'... from anyone, irrespective of station. At the next occurrence I shall punish to the very extremity of the regulations.'

  He turned to the four prisoners. 'You four men are stopped all grog until further notice. Mr. Pater,' he turned to the purser, 'do you see to it: no grog.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.'

  A murmur broke out amidships, but this time Fraser needed no prompting. 'Silence there!'

  'Very well. Dismiss the ship's company, Mr. Fraser, and send Mr. Comley aft.'

  Drinkwater stalked away and, tucking the punishment book in his pocket, grasped the taffrail with both hands and stared astern. Behind him Fraser ordered the ship's company to disperse and they did so in noisy disorder, only the measured tramp of the marines' boots conveying the impression of discipline. A few minutes later Comley appeared.

  'You sent for me, sir?'

  'Yes.' Drinkwater turned and faced the bosun. 'I shall flog on the next occasion, Mr. Comley, be quite certain of that.' 'Yes, sir.'

  'You must see to it that it ain't necessary'

  'Very well, sir. Them four men'll suffer more from loss o'grog...'

  'A flogging still hurts 'em, Mr. Comley, and I'd not have any of them thinking I've no stomach for it. You do understand, don't you?'

  Comley looked at the captain. He was not used to being intimate with Drinkwater twice in two days, preferring his daily encounters with the first lieutenant. He had the measure of Mr. Rogers who was no different from half-a-hundred first luffs in the navy. He had seen the captain in action and heard more of him from his old Cornish coxswain. For all that a shrewd cockney knew that a Kurnowic man could spin a lie like an Irishman and make it sound like the unvarnished truth, there was something in Drinkwater's eyes that bade Comley take care.

  'I understand, sir,' he said hurriedly.

  'Very well. And now, Mr. Comley,' said Drinkwater more brightly, 'I want you to put it about the hands that there'll be a good-conduct payment at the end of this cruise, payable in cash ... do close your mouth there's a good fellow.'

  Comley did as he was bid, but stared after the retreating figure of the captain as he was left standing thunderstruck by the taffrail.

  'Did you hear that, soldier?' he asked the marine whose sentry post was across the frigate's stem, ready to hurl a lifebuoy at any man who went overboard.

  'Does that include the sojers, Bose?'

  'I dunno,' ruminated Comley.

  'He's a rum bastard,' offered the marine.

  'He is that,' said Comley, going forward with the extraordinary news.

  Mr. Lallo stared unhappily at the snoring figure in the cot. Inert, Lieutenant Rogers seemed even larger than the surgeon remembered him when standing. If he woke now, what the devil did one say to him?

  'Please, Mr. Rogers, the captain says you're a drunken oaf and would you be so kind as to keep quietly to your cabin for a day or so. After you have rested and your body has acclimatised itself to no rum, you'll be fit as a fiddle to resume your duties.' It was impossible. For days Rogers would toss and rave and drive himself to the edge of sanity. Lallo shook his head. In his younger days the surgeon had eaten opium. It had only been a mild addiction, but the memories of those hallucinations still haunted him.

  "Ere ye are, Mr. Lallo ...'

  He turned, his finger to his lips, as his loblolly boy, Skeete, entered the first lieutenant's cabin. Skeete wore an expression of impish glee that revealed a mouth full of carious teeth. Lallo took and shook out the heavy canvas strait-jacket.

  'Very well, work your way round the cot and if you wake him I'll have you at the gratings.'

  Rogers stirred as Lallo moved forward and Skeete moved round the cot. 'What the ... what the devil?'

  'Hold him!'

  'I am holding him!'

  'Let me go, damn you! Help, murder!'

  Lallo thrust a rag into Rogers's gaping mouth and knelt upon his struggling body, trying to avoid the halitosis of Skeete. They passed the lashings of the jacket, rolling Rogers over and avoiding his thrashing feet. In that position it was easy to secure the leather gag and, wiping the sweat from their eyes, roll him face upwards once again.

  'There! It is done.' Skeete grinned, his face hideous. "Tis like trussing a chicken . . .' His pleasure in so dealing with a person of Rogers's importance was obvious.

  'Hold your tongue!' snapped Lallo as the man's stinking breath swept over him yet again. 'Help me settle him a little more comfortably.'

  The fight had gone out of Rogers. The skin on his forehead was pallid and dewed with drops of heavy perspiration. His eyes were wide open, the pupils unnaturally dilated and expressive of a bursting sense of outrage.

  'Get out... and Skeete, try and keep your damned mouth shut about this, will you?'

  'Anything to oblige.'

  Lallo stared disgustedly at his assistant. His manner had the sincerity of a Jew proclaiming a bargain. The surgeon sighed and turned to Rogers when they were alone. He and Skeete were guardians of the frigate's most arcane secrets. Mostly they consisted of who was receiving treatment for the clap or the lues, but now Rogers's infirmity was to be included, under disguise, since the whole ship knew he was 'indisposed'. Such an open secret had to be treated with due form, in accordance with the ritual that maintained the inviolability of the quarterdeck.

  Rogers grunted and Lallo gave his patient his full attention. 'Now, Mr. Rogers, please try and behave yourself. You have been drinking far too much. Your liver is swollen and enlarged, man. You are killing yourself! You know this, don't you?' Rogers's eyes closed. 'You have got to stop and the captain has ordered you be confined for a day or two, to see you over the reaction ... now you try and relax and we'll see if we can't dry you out, eh? Until I'm sure you'll behave, I am compelled to restrain you in this way. Do you understand?'

  Rogers gru
nted, but the malevolent glare from his eyes was full of a terrible comprehension.

  5

  News from Carlscrona

  April-May 1807

  Drinkwater laid down the pencil and stared at the little column of figures with a sense of quiet satisfaction. With only a one per cent commission on the specie in the strongroom, to which as captain he was entitled, he would be able to pay a 'good conduct' bounty of three pounds per man and still have a few guineas left over for himself. Not only that, he had acquired another form of punishment: that of cancelling the bounty if an individual deserved it.

  It was true that his own fortune would be the poorer, but he was not a greedy man. The days of being an indigent midshipman and making free with gold taken aboard a prize or two were behind him, thank God. A small bequest by an old and bachelor shipmate had rescued him from the poverty of reliance upon pay and his home was comfortable if modest. Although he had withered Tregembo's suggestion that he purchase a gentleman's estate, the idea occasionally occupied his thoughts, but in a sense he thought the money better spent this way. Commissions on specie were a perquisite of which his puritan soul did not wholeheartedly approve. Besides, he knew Elizabeth would have appreciated his action and that she, unlike so many post-captains' wives, did not measure her husband's success by the number of horses that drew her carriage.

  Drinkwater's mood of self-esteem was ruptured by the sudden appearance of Midshipman Frey. 'Beg pardon, sir, but the lookout's reporting a sail...'

  A few minutes later he stood beside the master, levelling his glass and focusing upon the newcomer. 'What d'you make of her, Mr. Hill?'

  'Swede, sir ... naval dispatch vessel, from Carlscrona probably ... ah, that's interesting.'

  Drinkwater saw it at the same time. In addition to the yellow and blue of the Swedish national colours at her main peak, the schooner had broken out a flag at her foremasthead as she altered course towards them. The flag was the British Union.

  'She wants to speak to us. Heave to, Mr. Hill, and a whip and a chair at the main-yardarm.'

  Half an hour later a damp civilian gentleman in a caped surtout stood uncertainly upon Antigone's deck and looked curiously about him. Drinkwater approached and extended his hand. 'May I present myself. I am Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater of His Britannic Majesty's ...'

  'I know, Captain,' the stranger cut him short, 'and damned glad I am to have found you.' He laughed at Drinkwater's surprise. 'Yes, I'm British. Straton, British Resident at Stockholm.' They shook hands. 'May we adjourn to your cabin? I have something of the utmost importance to communicate.'

  'Of course, Mr. Straton.'

  'Would you be so good as to hoist in Johansson, the pilot?'

  'Pilot? Why should I need a pilot? Where is he for?'

  'Carlscrona, Captain. Come, let me explain in your cabin.'

  'Very well. Mr. Hill, you are to hoist in another person. It seems you are right about Carlscrona. Come, sir, this way.' He led Straton below.

  In the cabin he indicated a seat and sent Mullender for a bottle of wine.

  'Our present position is about twenty miles south-east of Gotland, I believe, Captain,' said Straton non-committally as Mullender fussed around.

  As soon as the steward had gone Drinkwater said, 'Well, sir?' expectantly.

  'Well, sir. To be brief, you are not to deliver your consignment of specie to the Russians.'

  'The devil I'm not! And on whose instructions, may I ask?'

  'Those', said Straton, drawing a slim leather wallet from a voluminous pocket in his greatcoat, 'of His Majesty's Government...' He handed a paper to Drinkwater who took it and examined it closely. As he did so Straton studied the captain. Grey eyes were masked by his eyelids, one of which was freckled by blue powder burns, tattooed into the soft skin like random ink-spots, his tanned face was disfigured by a thin scar that ran down his left cheek and the mop of brown hair bowed over the paper was shot with grey and tied at his nape in an old-fashioned queue. The epaulettes, Straton noticed shrewdly, were not level, betraying an inequality in the height of the shoulders, the evidence of a serious wound. It was obvious to Straton that Captain Drinkwater had seen a deal of service, but to his courtier's eye the captain still seemed something of a tarpaulin officer, perhaps too set in his ways to appreciate the tangled diplomacy of the Baltic. He would have preferred a younger man, in his late twenties perhaps, and from his own class. The captain looked up and returned the papers.

  'You must forgive me my suspicions, Mr. Straton.' 'They are quite understandable.'

  'The truth is I am astonished at the change in my orders, but they are dated recently'

  'Yes, they arrived by fast cutter at Helsingborg and were delivered overland by a courier. I received them less than a fortnight after your own dispatches from Varberg. All I can tell you is that there is some doubt as to the wisdom of forwarding further subsidies to the Tsar at the moment.'

  Drinkwater frowned. 'Why is that? Not many days ago Colonel Wilson sat in that very chair and emphasised how important they are to the continued maintenance of the alliance. Besides, from what I hear, Sweden is scarcely a safe haven for such a sum.'

  Straton dismissed his doubts about the political capacity of Captain Drinkwater.

  'You are concerned about the reliability of the King, no doubt, Captain. Well, it is common knowledge that His Majesty King Gustavus Vasa is quite mad, but he isn't insane enough to lose sight of reality. This situation creates a state of uncertainty which keeps even his court guessing! Although he has foolishly quarrelled with Berlin and petulantly withdrawn troops from Stralsund as a consequence, he is unlikely to fall out with us. It is true that internally Sweden is in trouble, for Gustavus has no interest in the welfare of his people, hates the French and therefore hates the reforming faction of his own nobility who are Francophile in sentiment. The people of Sweden are opposed to the King's foreign policy, concerned about their ruined economy and apt to contrast their plight with their prosperously neutral neighbours in Denmark whom they used to regard as inferior.'

  'On the face of it then, hardly a place for eighty thousand pounds ...'

  'Government instructions are explicit, Captain Drinkwater,' Straton said and Drinkwater shrugged. It was no concern of his, but he remained curious.

  'But why deny Russia the money?'

  'I believe it is only a temporary delay'

  'What on earth for?'

  'As an inducement, I assume. You have heard of the action at Eylau?' 'Yes.'

  'Well, there has been some agitation in St Petersburg to have General Bennigsen removed, a court intrigue you understand, probably related to the fact that certain people do not want a German to reap the credit for the death-blow to Napoleon.'

  'Let them argue about that when they have secured the victory. At least the Russian rank and file have proved themselves the equals of the Grand Army

  'Exactly, Captain, and the removal of Bennigsen would be a disaster. The campaigning season is already open. If the Tsar is swayed by the anti-German lobby then the damage to the Russian army may be incalculable. A large number of officers of German extraction occupy key posts; Bennigsen's dismissal would unsettle them and reduce the chances of success in the next, vital, clash with the French. A brief withholding of your subsidy is the British Government's caution to the Tsar to maintain the status quo. Bennigsen's army did well at Eylau and he has it in his power to deal the fatal blow to the over-extended divisions of France. Then ...' Straton brought the edge of his hand down on the table like the blade of a guillotine, 'c'est fini, n'est-ce pas?'

  'It seems a devious and damned risky gamble to me,' replied Drinkwater uneasily, 'but then it doubtless would to a sailor.' He paused and drained his glass. 'So I am to accompany you to Carlscrona, eh?'

  'Exactly, Captain.'

  'Then perhaps I can offer you the hospitality of my cabin while I go and pass the requisite orders.'

  As the south-westerly gale blew itself out, the warm air it had drawn into the
southern Baltic cooled on the distant ice-edge and Antigone became shrouded in rolling banks of damp fog. To the north the ice began to melt rapidly but, in the open sea south of Gotland, the fog and the calm kept the British frigate and her smaller Swedish consort immobilised for almost two weeks. Then, quite suddenly, as if impetuously relenting, the long northern winter metamorphosed into summer and on a day of brilliant sunshine, on a sea as blue as the Mediterranean ruffled by a light easterly breeze, the Antigone closed the Swedish coast. Only the islands littering the approaches to Carlscrona remained gloomy, hump-backed under their dense mantles of fir trees.

  Johansson, the pilot, stood at the weather rail and guided their course as they wove between the islands. All hands were on deck, trimming the yards as the frigate followed the schooner towards the Swedish naval arsenal of Carlscrona. Drinkwater remarked the dark spikes of the fir trees and the scent of the resin they gave off, sharp in his nostrils. Under her three topsails and a jib, Antigone ghosted through the still water, the hiss and chuckle of her wake creaming out from under her round bows.

  'You seem to have a most expertly drilled company, Captain, though I am no judge of such matters.'

  'You are very kind, Mr. Straton, but I daily wonder how long they can be kept at this ceaseless task. Many of these men have not seen home for four years.'