Baltic Mission nd-7

by Ричард Вудмен

  In the June heat the dust clouds rose from the horses' hooves and engulfed the chaise so that Drinkwater's view of the countryside was through a haze. The road ran parallel to the wide and shining expanse of the Kurische Haff, the huge lagoon which formed the ponded-back estuary of the Nieman. On either side, slightly below the level of the highway, the marshy grassland was grazed by cattle.

  'A somewhat monotonous landscape, Captain,' observed Mackenzie conversationally, 'but I assure you, you are seeing it at its best.'

  'You know it well?' prompted Drinkwater, enforced leisure making him anxious to discuss with Mackenzie more than the appearance of the hinterland of Memel.

  Mackenzie, with an infuriating evasion, ignored the question. 'I believe that it was the great Frenchman De Saxe that wanted this country for his own. A bastard aspiring to a dukedom, eh? And now, in our modern world, we have an attorney's son aspiring to an empire ... That, my dear Captain, is progress.'

  'He has done more than aspire, if what you are saying is true.'

  'You prefer "acquire" then?'

  'It would be more accurate ... Mackenzie.'

  'Macdonald.'

  'Macdonald, then. This chaise, you say it belongs to our ambassador, Lord Leveson-Gower, and that he arrived in Memel last night?'

  'Yes. The Tsar let it be known that his lordship was no longer welcome about His Imperial Majesty's person. He confirms what I had already learned, that emissaries have been received with every appearance of cordiality from French Headquarters and that Prince Czartoryski has left for a preliminary interview with the French Emperor to arrange a secret meeting.'

  'So your worst fears are indeed justified.'

  Mackenzie nodded. 'And now we have the leisure, I can offer you a full explanation of what has happened, and how your help is essential.'

  'Anything that lessens my doubts about the folly of this journey would be welcome,' said Drinkwater grimly, suddenly clutching at the side of the chaise as it heeled over, its offside wheels running off the road while they overtook a heavily laden ox-cart trundling slowly along. He gestured at the pair of plodding peasants who trudged at the head of the team and the man and woman who sat on the cart.

  'I am still unconvinced about your lack of secrecy,' he said frowning. 'I am at a loss ...'

  Mackenzie laughed. 'This business of spying,' he said, still smiling, 'is not always a matter of cloaks and daggers. I move about quite openly for the most part. For me the subterfuge of disguise is of little use. I am well known in high places in Russia. The Tsar himself might recognise me, for I have served in the Caucasus with a commission from himself.'

  Mackenzie's eyes drifted off, over the flat landscape that was such a contrast to the precipitous peaks of those distant mountains. 'General Bennigsen knows me too. In fact we shall be sharing lodgings with him.'

  'Good Lord!'

  'Let me explain, Captain. There is no hurry, we have a long way to go. To allay your fears of being discovered you will observe before we go very much further that the whole country is turning out. Tilsit, the town on the Nieman whither we are bound, is attracting all the country gentry for miles about. It has been declared a neutral zone and will be seething with soldiers and squires by tonight. It was already filling when I left. Nothing like this has happened in this backwater since De Saxe came to Mitau to wrest Kurland from the Tsars. We shall be like a drop in the ocean. Sometimes a bold front is the best concealment.' He nodded at Walmsley's back. 'I have told your young friend there to cluck to his horses in French, and am glad that he knows enough of the tongue to manage tolerably well.' 'You think of everything.'

  'It is my business to. Now, as for me, I proceeded directly towards Tilsit when your lieutenant landed me the other day. As soon as I encountered the outposts of the Russian army I made my way to the bivouac of the Hetman's Don Cossacks and found Ostroff. Together we went off to Piktupohen where the Imperial Russian headquarters lay and located Vorontzoff. The Prince is as staunch a believer in a British alliance as his old father and distrusts the French. He told me at once that Alexander has agreed to a secret meeting with Napoleon. Both Vorontzoff and Ostroff undertook to supply whatever information they might learn as to the outcome of this secret conclave, as I told you yesterday. By a stroke of luck Vorontzoff, in his capacity as an Imperial aide, was ordered into Tilsit to commandeer lodgings for the Tsar and his Commander-in-Chief, General Bennigsen. As a result, I was able to apply a little influence and General Bennigsen and his staff will be quartered in a large house on the Ostkai, having a good view of the Nieman and the French across the river. It is an ancient house, built round a courtyard, and the ground floor consists of stables and a large warehouse. The owner is an old Jew who proved characteristically amenable to gold. I secured a tiny attic, locked and barred from the inside and obviously a well-used hiding place during the frequent persecutions of the Hebrews. Here I prepared to hole-up until it became clear what had been arranged between Alexander and Napoleon. I was ideally placed. If my hypothesis proved true and Alexander and Napoleon combined, then it was likely that Bennigsen would fall from grace. He is already in disfavour, having lost at Friedland. Such are the suspicions at the Tsar's court that the fact that he was born a Hanoverian and hence a subject of our own King George is held against him, and there is, in any case, a rising tide of resentment against German officers, who are held largely responsible for the recent military disaster.'

  'But I thought the Tsar owed Bennigsen some obligation due to the part he played in the murder of his father,' put in Drinkwater, as Mackenzie drew breath.

  Mackenzie smiled with a sardonic grin. 'There is little honour in this world, least of all among thieves and murderers, despite the proverb,' he said. 'No, I think Bennigsen will be quietly sacrificed when the time comes. Alexander is unpredictable in the extreme, and an autocrat's foreign policies are apt to be as erratic as the tacking of your own frigate.'

  It was Drinkwater's turn to grin at the simile. 'So, you were ensconced in the attic of the Jew's house,' he prompted.

  'Yes. And I could rely upon Bennigsen's disaffection and consequent disloyalty if things went against us. Part of Bennigsen's staff arrived, a coterie of drunken young officers whose behaviour would disgrace a farmyard. But they brought with them some of the finest bloodstock in Russia, stabling them in the warehouse. My own mount was quartered some distance away and this ready form of transport further satisfied me in my choice of post.'

  'And yet you deserted this secure bolt-hole, risked everything and returned to Memel to fetch me. Yesterday you mentioned boats and secret meetings and the presence of a seaman as being vital.'

  'My dear Captain, I spavined a good horse because, without exaggeration, you are truly the only man who can help effect this thing.'

  'That much you already said, but you also said my brother ...' 'Ostroff.'

  'Ostroff, then, was not likely to be able ...' 'Not without you, Captain, hence your unique importance in the matter. You are, as it were, of a dual value.' 'I do not follow.'

  Mackenzie leaned forward, his face a picture of urgency. Gone were the traces of yesterday's exhaustion. 'Captain,' he said, 'Napoleon has ordered that his meeting with Alexander shall take place exactly midway between their two armies, in conditions of such secrecy that no one shall be privy to the settlement between them.'

  'I understand that; and that you intend, with my help, to eavesdrop on them.'

  'Exactly, Captain. You will help devise the method by which it shall be done, but there is also the question of who shall do it. I myself cannot undertake the task since it is for me to ensure that the intelligence is got out of this benighted land and back to London. Vorontzoff is out of the question since he has his duties to attend to, is of more use in other ways and is far too well known to be passed off in disguise. The only candidate for the post of danger is Ostroff, but Ostroff protests it is impossible, despite the money he has been offered, and only you, as his brother, will be able to persuade him of the ab
solute necessity of attempting this coup.'

  Drinkwater sat for some moments in silence. The whirring of the wheels on the road, the heat and the dust suggested an illusion of peace, yet every revolution of those soothing wheels took them nearer a situation as desperate and risky as any he had yet faced in his life. He was penetrating deep into territory that would soon be abruptly hostile, dressed in plain clothes on a mission of such danger that he might end his life before a firing squad, shot as a spy. He passed a hand wearily over his face and looked up at Mackenzie.

  'You have me on a lee shore,' he said ruefully as Mackenzie smiled thinly. 'So I have to convince Ostroff that he must spy on the two Emperors as well as devise a means by which it may be done?'

  'Exactly,' replied Mackenzie, leaning back against the buttoned leather of the chaise, his face a picture of satisfaction.

  'Has it occurred to you that the thing might indeed be impossible?'

  'No. Difficult, yes, but not impossible.'

  'You have a great deal of faith in my inventiveness ... something I'm not sure I share with you.'

  'Come, come, Captain, I'm certain that you have sufficient resourcefulness to devise a means of concealing a man in a raft!'

  The morning rolled by in a cloud of dust. The broad and shining Nieman wound its way through increasingly undulating country of low hills. Here and there the river ran close to the road, undercutting a red clay cliff before it swung away in a great loop. The coppices of willow gave way to birches and scattered elms that reminded Drinkwater of home and they passed through the occasional village with its low steadings and slow, incurious peasants. Above the noise of the horses, the creak of harness and the thrum of wheels on the dirt road, the soaring song of larks could still be heard. At one point, where the river swung close to the road, Mackenzie bade Walmsley pull over and into a side lane which led down to a ferry.

  'We'll water the horses and take a bite to eat,' he said and they pulled up beside a sunken hovel and a box-like pontoon provided with chains that formed a crude ferry across the Nieman.

  As Walmsley tended the horses and Mackenzie provided black bread, sausage and a bottle of kvass from his saddle-bags, he nodded to the ferry.

  'Take a look at it,' he muttered. 'They've one just like it at Tilsit, hauled out on a slipway and being prepared for the secret meeting.'

  Drinkwater walked casually down to the rickety wooden jetty alongside which the ungainly craft lay moored. He ignored the ferryman who emerged from the hovel and approached him, concentrating his attention on the raft. It was a 'flying bridge', or chain ferry of large size, clearly intended to transport cattle and carts across the broad river, and he spent several minutes studying the thing intently. Mackenzie shouted something incomprehensible at the ferryman which made the Lithuanian swear and retire gesticulating behind a slammed door.

  Twenty minutes later they resumed their journey. Mackenzie had briefed Walmsley as to the dangers they might now encounter, leaving Drinkwater to consider the problem of the raft. When they were fairly on their way Mackenzie leaned forward.

  'Well, can it be done?'

  Drinkwater nodded. 'In theory, yes ... but we need to consider tools, how we get to the thing ... you must let me think ...'

  Mackenzie leaned back, permitting himself a small, secretive smile of satisfaction. From time to time he cast a surreptitious glance at Drinkwater, but for the most part he dozed as the chaise rolled on. Ahead of them smoke blurred the horizon and there were an increasing number of travellers on the road. The carriages and open chaises of the gentry, blooming with the light colours of women's dresses and hats, were moving towards Tilsit, while coming in the contrary direction a thin stream of peasants accompanied by the occasional bandaged soldier made their weary way. Mackenzie roused from his nodding.

  'The wealthy and curious travel with us,' he said, 'the indigent poor escape the rapacity of the military who will be busy consuming every hidden bushel of stored grain, every chicken and pig in every poor steading, and requisitioning every house, hovel and pigsty for their billets.'

  As the afternoon wore on, Mackenzie's assertion was proved true. For now, along the road were encamped green-and-grey-clad infantry, milling in bivouac, their cooking fires sending a smoke pall up into the blue sky. Lines of tethered cavalry horses stood patiently as troopers distributed fodder, and the regimental smithies stood by the roadside and made good the ravages of the campaign. Here and there lines of unlimbered guns were pulled off the road, their gunners sitting on the heavy wooden trains smoking, drinking or playing cards. Along the riverside a party were duck-shooting and, at one point, they were over-taken by a wild group of young officers racing their Arabs, to the complete disregard of all other users of the highway.

  They passed through a village deserted by its inhabitants. In the duck-pond an entire battalion of nakedly pink Russian soldiers splashed and skylarked, bathing themselves clean of the red dust. The plain was filled with men and horses, and if seemed impossible that this vast multitude had suffered a defeat. Such numbers seemed to Drinkwater to be invincible.

  They breasted a low hill and were met by a great wave of sound, that of hundreds of deep voices intoning the chants of the Russian Orthodox liturgy. Amid the gaudy trappings of war the summit of the knoll was crowned with the gilded panoply of the church. The priests' vestments gleamed in the sunshine as they moved through a long line of bare-headed men beneath banners of gold and red. The gilded chasubles, the waving banners and the sacred images borne aloft by acolytes were accompanied by wafts of incense and the intense, low, humming song of the soldiers of Tsar Alexander at their devotions.

  Mackenzie leaned over and tapped his knee: 'You see now why Napoleon wants them for allies, and why we must not let them go. I know them, Captain, I have served with them.'

  As they slowed to force their way through the worshippers, Drinkwater thought that at any moment their progress would be challenged. But nothing happened. There seemed to be hardly a man posted as a sentry. In company with other equipages they travelled on, Walmsley on the box, making sheep's eyes at the prettier of the women in the neighbouring conveyances.

  The sun was westering when Mackenzie pointed ahead and Drinkwater craned around to see.

  'Voila, Tilsit.'

  The Nieman was narrower now, and wound less wildly between the water-meadows of lush green that were dotted with the bright gold of buttercups. More cows grazed its banks and stood hock-deep in its waters among the reeds, their tails lazily flicking off the flies and mosquitoes that abounded. On the rising ground to their left the ripening wheat and rye was trampled, but ahead of them the red roofs and towers of a substantial town lay hazy in the sunshine.

  'And look there!' said Mackenzie suddenly, pointing again, but this time across the river.

  A score of horsemen were watering their horses. They wore rakish shakos and pelisses, their two vedettes clear against the skyline.

  'French hussars!' Mackenzie declared.

  Drinkwater's curiosity was terminated abruptly when Walmsley pulled back on the reins and applied the brake, so that the wheels locked and the chaise skidded. He turned in his seat as Mackenzie put a cautionary finger on his knee.

  'I'll do the talking,' he said, nodding reassuringly as Walmsley looked round anxiously from the box.

  Ahead of them, drawn up in a rough line across the road, was a dark mass of cavalry; shaggy men on shaggy horses whose fierce eyes glared at the passengers in the carriages and moved over reluctantly to let the gentry through. Drinkwater looked at them with undisguised curiosity, for these were undoubtedly the Cossacks of which he had heard. They scarcely looked like cavalry; they wore baggy blouses and their trousers were stuffed into boots, it was true, but their waistbands and sheepskin saddles were strung about with the products of looting and plunder. Those few who were on foot waddled bowlegged with a rolling gait that reminded Drinkwater of grotesque seamen. Wicked-looking lances were slung across their backs and sabres gleamed in metal
scabbards at their hips.

  One great bearded giant, whose legs seemed to drag low on either side of his diminutive pony, kicked his mount close to the chaise. Peering at Drinkwater he made some comment which excited laughter from his compatriots. Drinkwater smelt the animal odour of the man, but Mackenzie, undaunted, riposted in Russian. The Cossack's face altered and his friends roared again at the man's obvious discomfiture.

  The man was about to reply when his pony was shoved aside by a magnificent bay horse ridden by an officer. He appeared to recognise Mackenzie.

  'Ah, Alexei, where the devil did you spring from?' he said in the French that was the lingua franca of the Russian nobility. 'I thought you had gone into Tilsit with Ostroff.'

  Drinkwater recognised the last word and felt his heart hammering painfully under his ribs.

  'Indeed, Count, I did, but I returned to Memel to fetch this gentleman here,' Mackenzie said in the same language, gesturing towards Drinkwater. 'He is the master of an English brig.'

  'An Englishman, eh?' The Cossack officer stared at Drinkwater. 'I doubt he'll be welcome in Tilsit. But, to you merchants and the English, business is business, eh?'

  'If the rumours are true, Count, and an armistice is declared, the Captain here wants his cargo out of Tilsit and Memel. But the rascally Jews won't sell at the prices they had agreed because the place is stuffed full of fools who might buy at a higher rate.'

  'Tell him to hurry then,' said the Cossack officer and added, 'you'll be lucky to find lodgings in the town unless, like the Blessed Virgin, you are satisfied with a byre.' He crossed himself as he laughed at his blasphemous joke, then he peered into the chaise.

  Drinkwater looked with sudden apprehension at Mackenzie, but the 'merchant' grinned and reached under the seat.

  'Would a bottle be welcome to help us past your unspeakably stinking ruffians, Count?'

  'As the Blessed Virgin herself, M'sieur Macdonald.' The officer grinned and caught the bottle of vodka. 'I shall toast you, Alexei, when I rest my ignoble centaurs tonight.' He turned and shouted something to the great bearded Cossack who had taken such an interest in Drinkwater. 'Hey, Khudoznik ...!'