Baltic Mission nd-7

by Ричард Вудмен

  Above the mist, the rising sun behind Drinkwater picked out tiny reflections ahead: the pale gold of a church spire, a sudden flash as a distant window was opened. It was curious how he could see these details twelve miles away, while closer-to there was nothing to see beyond the rounded shapes of tree-tops, elms he thought, and some willows lower down; but that was all that emerged from the nacreous vapour that hung over the water margin. An observer in one of those trees would be able to see Antigone's masts and spars above the mist, while her hull, with its rows of cannon, was invisible. Not that he thought for a moment they had been observed, and the presence of the Swedish fleet in Sassnitz Bay had persuaded him that by flying Swedish colours he would be perfectly disguised.

  He heard a distant trumpet and a drum beat, staccato and oddly clear as it rolled over the water, its rat-a-tat-tat mustering Mortier's corps to morning parade. Drinkwater pondered the wisdom of his proposed attack. It was to be made on slender intelligence and he knew his intention had far more to do with the state of his command than any real damage he would inflict upon the enemy. Somehow the unreality was emphasised by the mist and it seemed that the only real danger lay below him in that unhappy relationship between Lieutenant Rogers and the people.

  Drinkwater had taken Rogers as his first lieutenant out of pity, knowing him for a dogged fighter and competent seaman. But drink and disappointment had soured the man, and although Drinkwater curbed Rogers's excesses, in his everyday behaviour he had given ample cause for offence and grievance among the hands. He received their daily petitions with an unpleasant contempt, used an unnecessary degree of foul language towards them and provoked a general grumbling. Drinkwater's reluctance to flog was a liberality Rogers disapproved of and which seemed to provoke him to greater unpleasantness towards men whom the iron rule of naval discipline held in a state of thrall.

  It was clearly a situation that could not go on. A boat attack under Rogers, Drinkwater had reasoned, gave them all a chance to wipe the slate clean; or at least as good a chance as men in their circumstances were likely to get.

  Drinkwater felt the mast jerk and looked down into the waist. Wraiths of mist trailed across the deck but he could clearly see the ordered lines of men straining at the tackles as they lifted the heavy launch off the booms and began to transfer its weight from the stay to the yard tackles. He watched the boat lifted outboard and then lowered into the water. Drinkwater pocketed compass and glass, swung himself over the edge of the top and felt for the futtocks with his feet.

  As he jumped down onto the deck, Rogers, Fraser and Quilhampton were telling the men off into the waiting boats. Marines filed along the deck, their muskets slung over their shoulders. Together with the seamen being armed with cutlasses and tomahawks at the main-mast, they scrambled down the nets hung over the ship's side and into their allocated places in the boats.

  Drinkwater crossed the deck to where Rogers was stuffing loaded pistols into his waistband. He smiled encouragingly. 'Good luck, Mr. Rogers,' he said formally.

  Rogers nodded his acknowledgement and paused, as though to say something. But he seemed to think better of it, murmured 'Aye, aye, sir,' and slung a leg over the rail.

  'It's up to you, Sam,' persisted Drinkwater, 'you and those men down there.'

  Their eyes met and both knew what the other thought. Then Rogers had gone, and a few minutes later the boats had vanished in the mist.

  Lieutenant Rogers, his hand on the tiller of the launch, cocked one eye on the boat-compass at his feet and stole occasional glances at the faint line in the mist that marked the Rugen shore. The surface of the water was as smooth as glass, disturbed only by the concentric and ever expanding rings that marked the progress of the oar blades as they propelled the boats along. Rogers led in the launch followed by Quilhampton in the red cutter, Lord Walmsley in the blue and Lieutenant Fraser in the barge.

  Rogers was seconded by Mount and Midshipman Frey, and it was Mount's marines that made up the bulk of the launch's crew, apart from the oarsmen. In the boat's bow, mounted on its slide, a 12-pounder carronade was being fussed over by a gunner's mate.

  The boats pulled on in comparative silence, moving in a world that seemed devoid of time or distance, so disorienting was the mist. It hung heavily, close to the water, discouraging speech, so that the only noises were the laboured breathing of the oarsmen, the dull regular knocking of oar looms against thole pins and the dip and splash of the oar blades. Under the bow of each boat a chuckling of water showed as they pulled on for mile after mile. After two and a half hours Rogers drew out his watch and consulted his chart. Then he stood in the stern of the boat and waved the others up alongside. The boats glided together, their oars trailing, their men panting over the looms, dark stains of sweat on the backs of their shirts.

  'By my reckoning we must be bloody close to the French lines,' hissed Rogers. 'We'll move across the channel to the mainland side. If we sight a decent target we land and do our worst. Now you buggers keep in close contact, I'll give the order to attack. Understand?'

  There was a general nodding of heads.

  'Very well. Get your lobsters to fix bayonets, Mr. Mount.'

  Mount gave the order and the whispering hiss and click of the lethal weapons was accompanied by a sudden twinkling of reflected sunlight from the silver blades.

  'There's a bit o' breeze coming up,' observed Fraser and, for the first time, dark, ruffled patches appeared on the water. The heat of the sun was warming the marshes and water meadows on either side of the strait, the rising air sucked in the sea-breeze, a strengthening zephyr which began to disperse the mist in patches.

  'Very well, keep your eyes open then.' Rogers waved the boats onward. The oars began to swing again and the boats resumed their passage.

  Rogers stared into the mist ahead. He felt the public shame of his recent humiliation like a wound and could still only half comprehend why Drinkwater had sanctioned Lallo's treatment. But he was pragmatist enough to know that, if nothing else, his future hung upon the day's events. He had under his command the greater part of the ship's marines and a large detachment of seamen. He was seconded by most of the officers and had left the frigate almost without boats. What was more, he was alone in a mist and was determined, at any cost, to make an impression upon the enemy. His mouth set in a grim line and, as he looked forward, the eyes of the men tugging at the oars avoided his own. Well, that was as it should be. He was the first lieutenant again, and by heaven they would feel his wrath if they did not do their utmost to secure him a paragraph in the Gazette! 'Boat, sir! Starboard bow!'

  Rogers jerked from his introspection and looked to starboard. At the same instant a challenge rang out. A large boat, pulling a dozen oars a side with a huge-muzzled cannon in her bow and the blue and gold of Sweden lifting languidly over her stern, loomed out of the mist. It was a 'gunsloop' rowing guard in the supposedly neutral water of the strait.

  Rogers swore and pulled the tiller over, turning to watch the other boats follow in his wake, and headed more directly for the southern bank. Astern he heard shouting and the splash of oars holding water, turning the big gunsloop after them. But after five minutes, despite the gradual dispersal of the mist, they had lost the Swedish boat.

  A few minutes later the grey margin of Pomerania was visible ahead and then on the larboard beam as Rogers straightened their course parallel to it. A few cows, brindled black and white, stood hock-deep in the lush grass that swept down to the water. Ruminating gently they stared at the passing boats.

  The appearance of the guard-boat had galvanised the oarsmen. Before, the stroke had been that leisurely and easy swing that a practised oarsman could keep up for hours, now the men tugged at their oars and the boats began to leap through the water. Then, quite suddenly, the mist lifted and at the same instant Rogers saw the means of realising his long awaited 'opportunity'.

  'By God, Mount!' he said in a low and excited tone. 'See there, ahead! A whole bloody battery with its back to us!'
r />   Ahead of them a sudden bend in the channel brought the Pomeranian shore much closer. A small, low bluff formed a natural feature, a patch of beaten earth which the French had taken advantage of and on it constructed a demi-lune with an earthen rampart reinforced by fascines and gabions. The rampart was pierced by crude embrasures and in each, facing away from the approaching boats towards the town of Stralsund, were eight huge siege guns and a pair of howitzers. A smaller field piece faced across the strait and commanded any approach from Rugen. In quieter times the little bluff had been used as a quay, for behind the battery was a small inlet, the estuary of a stream that wound, willow-lined, inland towards a village. The edge of the inlet was piled with rotten wood staithing from which local peasants had shipped their hay and other produce to the markets of Stralsund. It took but an instant for Rogers to perceive that the inlet and quay gave direct and undefended access to the rear of the battery.

  He was standing now and he commanded his oarsmen to pull with greater vigour. Behind him the officers in the other boats had also seen the enemy position and acknowledged his frantic wave.

  'Make ready, men,' said Mount quietly beside him.

  Rogers looked again at the battery. He could see a pair of artillery-men, each carrying a bucket and wearing fatigues, walking slowly across the beaten earth of the compound. A group of men were gathered round one gun intent upon some task or another and one further man was lounging on the rampart, staring in the direction of Stralsund. Rogers could see quite clearly the puffs of smoke from the indolent sentry's pipe.

  'We've got 'em, by God, Mount! The buggers are as good as asleep!'

  Rogers put the tiller over and the launch swung in towards the inlet and the quay. He could not believe his luck. 'Come on you lubbers! Pull!'

  'We are pulling ...' someone muttered and Rogers's eyes narrowed and he scanned the boat for the insolent seaman. Perhaps he would have taken the matter further but at that instant emerging from the mist astern of them, the Swedish gunsloop hailed them. The cry made the sentry turn. He jerked upright and then began to shout, a hoarse bellow of surprise and alarm. The gunners carrying the buckets dropped them and ran; the group round the siege gun turned and ran also. More men were shouting and appearing from somewhere. Rogers was vaguely aware of trees, horse-lines and a row of limbers, ammunition-boxes and shot piles.

  The sight of red coats and the glint of sunshine on bayonets swiftly raised the alarm. Even as the launch closed the last few yards to the quay the French artillerymen were dropping to one knee and levelling muskets fetched from the arms stacks.

  'That gun ready?' roared Rogers at his gunner's mate forward.

  'Aye, sir!'

  Then clear those bastards out of our way!'

  The launch jerked and the carronade roared, recoiling up its slide and flinging its reek back over the gasping oarsmen. The marines were fidgeting and Mount was standing beside Rogers. Most of the canister splattered against the wooden piling, but sufficient balls raked the compound to knock down three or four of the defenders.

  'That's the way!' yelled Rogers, drawing his sword.

  The next moment the launch bumped alongside the staithe and, as the oarsmen dragged their oars inboard, Rogers leaped from thwart to thwart, closely followed by Mount. Rocking violently the launch spewed its cargo of marines onto the quay as the other boats arrived and more and more men poured ashore.

  There were far more soldiers in the demi-lune than had at first been apparent. Hidden by the willows were the bivouacs of the eighty gunners that made up the complement of the battery. They were forming into a rough line, led by a pair of officers on foot. Behind them another officer was struggling into the saddle of a trace-horse.

  'Drop that man!' Rogers screamed to Mount, pointing.

  Mount turned to a marine who was already levelling his musket, but the shot missed and the officer escaped down a lane that ran alongside the little stream.

  'Form line, platoon fire!' Mount was drawing up his men and they began to fire volleys at the enemy. Behind the marines the seamen milled, those of them who had been rowing still getting their breath back.

  'Rush the bastards!' roared Rogers impetuously, waving his sword at the other lieutenants, but Mount ignored him. He was advancing his line of marines platoon by platoon.

  'Come on, lads, charge them!' Rogers began to run, leading his men through the line of marines.

  'Hold on, Rogers!' Mount shouted as the first lieutenant began to block his field of fire, but there was no stopping him. Only a few of the seamen had followed Rogers and there were murmurs among the others, murmurs that, overheard on board, would have earned their makers a dozen at the grating.

  'Let the bastard go!'

  'Hope he gets a ball in his brain-pan ...' 'Better his balls ...' 'Good riddance to him ...'

  Mount stood for a second, furious, and behind him Quilhampton suddenly divined the intentions of some of the men. 'Come on, Mount! Forward! Bayonets!'

  'Bayonet charge!' bawled Mount as the artillerymen, taking advantage of the brief pause in the attack, loosed off a well timed volley. Several of the marines dropped, but Rogers, twenty yards from the French, was untouched.

  'The devil looks after his own ...'

  They were all running forward now, marines and seamen mixed together, all mad with blood-lust and tripping over their fallen comrades. Then suddenly they clashed with the enemy. The fighting became hand to hand. The artillerymen dropped their muskets and lugged out short swords which each man had slung on a baldric over his shoulder. They were old faces, almost faces they knew, dark with campaigning, slashed by scars, as moustached as their attackers were clean-shaven. They grunted, swore, cut, thrust, killed and died as well as their opponents, but they fell back under the onslaught, out-numbered by the British who fought with a maddened ferocity. For a few blessed moments they were free of shipboard constraints and could swear and stab and hack at anything that stood in their path. With every slash and lunge they paid back the cheating of the purser, the heartlessness of the bosun's mates, the injustice of the lash and the venality of the Dockyard commissioners. In the merciless killing they found outlets for their repressed passions and frustrated desires. It was not the enforcers of Napoleon's Continental System that they killed, but the mere surrogates for the rottenness in their own.

  Lieutenant Quilhampton knew this and kept his wits about him. He had heard of men shooting their own officers in the heat of battle and kept a weather eye on Rogers. He did not fear for himself, for the constraints of naval discipline, once they had been laid upon a man, could never be entirely thrown off, even under such circumstances. Intuition told him he was perfectly safe, for he had long ago learned the wisdom of consideration and justice towards the men in his own division. But Rogers was at risk although he seemed safe now, surrounded by Mount and his marines as they swept the last of the gunners out of the battery at the point of the bayonet. The British did not pursue beyond the limit of the rampart. A few of the marines got up on the rough parapet and took pot-shots at the retreating Frenchmen as they ran stumbling over the tussocks of grass and boggy marshland of the water meadows beyond.

  'Keep an eye on 'em, Mount. That bloody officer will have gone for reinforcements!'

  'Very well!'

  All around men panted for their breath. The dead and wounded lay in heaps, their blood soaking darkly into the dry earth. Little Frey with his toy dirk was trying to bandage a cut arm. Other men were attending to the wounded.

  'Tom's lost his bonus, then,' said one man, staring down at a dead messmate. Quilhampton recalled the bonus Drinkwater had promised the men.

  'You lads start getting the wounded back to the boats now.'

  'Aye, aye, sir.'

  Rogers was still bawling orders.

  'Mr. Fraser, bring a party over here! You too, Mr. Q! I want those three limbers over to the guns. We'll blow the wheels off! And see here, these Frog bayonets are thinner than ours. You, Walmsley and Frey, gather 'em up and
stick 'em in the touch-holes of these guns. Look ...'

  Rogers picked up a French bayonet and stabbed it downwards, into the touch-hole in the breech of the nearest gun. Then he jerked his hand sideways and the narrow blade snapped, leaving the hole neatly blocked. 'See, that should fuck 'em up for a while... and stuff those shell carcasses under the guns and they'll blow the whole bloody shebang to kingdom come.'

  Officers, marines, midshipmen and men ran about at his bidding, fetching and carrying. Kegs of powder, shell cases and combustibles were placed under each of the siege guns. The field gun close to the strait was rolled into the water and every gun was rendered at least temporarily useless by spiking.

  At the height of this activity a strange officer was seen walking slowly across the open space behind the guns. Everyone had forgotten the Swedish gunsloop.

  'Excuse ... you are British, yes? I must protest very much. There is no fighting ... truce, between the forces of His Majesty King Gustavus and the army under Marshal Mortier.' He approached Rogers who, from his activity and lively direction of affairs, was clearly the senior officer.

  'Will you get out of my way ... hey, you! More powder over here ... no, no, a keg if you've got one ...'

  'You must not fight... not break the truce ...'

  'Will you get out of my way?' Rogers turned on the Swedish officer who suddenly understood he was being rebuffed and drew himself up.

  'I am a Swedish officer.'

  'I don't give a damn if you're the Grand Turk, fuck off!' snarled Rogers, shoving the Swede aside. The man spun round and reached for his sword, as angry as Rogers.