Baltic Mission nd-7

by Ричард Вудмен

  'All paid, Ned, all paid.'

  To Drinkwater's infinite relief Edward withdrew and Nathaniel began to fasten the last plank. It was the upper one and the nails went home with difficulty. In the end he was forced to bang hard, several times. The noise seemed deafening and as he drew back he heard the scrape of boots on gravel as a man jumped down onto the hard from the quay. He uttered a silent prayer that Edward would not react and rolled away from the buoyancy chamber, retreating further into the blackness beneath the raft.

  As he lay inert, his eyes closed, trying to still his breathing, he could hear the sentry move round the pontoon, the crunch of his boots close beside him on the wet gravel. Beyond the shadow of the raft Drinkwater was aware of the first flush of dawn, a pale lightening of the river's surface. He could hear the man muttering and knew that he would be looking for the two drunken Kurlanders. For a second Drinkwater hesitated. Then, knowing he must leave Edward in no doubt of his successful escape, he acted.

  Rolling from under the raft he found himself suddenly at the feet of the sentry.

  'Qui va la?' snapped the astonished man unslinging his musket.

  With one eye on the lowering bayonet Drinkwater grunted and rose on one knee. Tucking in the filthy breast of his blouse he gripped the boarding axe more firmly and staggered to his feet. If he allowed himself to be kept at bayonet point he was lost. The sentry growled at him.

  Sucking in his breath he tore the axe from his breast and then, expelling air for all he was worth, he swung his arm with savage ferocity, twisting his body at the same time. With such sudden impetus the axe whirled and struck deep into the skull of the French soldier. With a dull thud the man fell, stone dead.

  Drinkwater paused for an instant to catch his breath again, then he rounded on the raft and pressed close to the timber side of the float.

  'Can you hear me?' he hissed. 'Yes,' he heard Edward's low reply. 'You're quite safe. I'm going now.'

  Edward tapped twice and Drinkwater turned back to the gravel slipway and the dead sentry that lay beside the lapping water of the river. Slinging the musket he grabbed the man's heels and dragged him quickly into the water beneath the overhang of the quay. After the gloom beneath the raft it seemed quite light, but the dawn was delayed by rolling banks of heavy clouds and no cries of alarm greeted his panting efforts. He let the man's feet go and pushed the body out into the river. Unslinging the musket he let it fall to the muddy bottom of the Nieman. In the town the clock struck a half hour as he lowered himself into the water. He paddled out into the stream, nudging the body of his victim until he felt the current take it, then let it go. The water bore the thing away from him and he rolled on his back and peered back at the Westkai. He could see a party of sentries marching with a corporal, bringing the relief guard: he had left not a moment too soon. He began to swim with more vigour, the freedom of the river almost sensual after the strain and activity of the night. A light rain began to fall. Drinkwater rolled onto his back and let the gentle drops wash over his face.

  By the time he floundered ashore on the opposite bank the rain had become a steady downpour.

  14

  The Meeting of Eagles

  25 June 1807

  Drinkwater found himself in shallow water a mile below the town where the Nieman's banks were reeded. Lush green water-meadows lay beyond, rising slowly to low hills clear in the grey light. A windmill surmounted one of these and he remembered passing it as they had approached Tilsit. He lay for some time, gathering his strength and no longer sustained by the vodka. The rain had drawn a heavy veil of cloud across the sky and a smoking mist hung over the river. He had come a long way downstream, to be met by a herd of piebald cows whose steaming muzzles were turned suspiciously towards him. He would have to make for the road and knew that the next hour was, for him, the most dangerous. He had been unable to think out any strategy for his journey back, hoping that he would land in darkness only a short distance below the Ostkai.

  'You are grown too old for this lunatic game,' he muttered wearily to himself and rose to his feet. Squelching through the reeds he reached a place where the river bank was trodden down by countless cattle hooves. The raindrops plopped heavily into each tiny lake and the mud dragged at his feet. He struggled through cow-pats and sodden grass, making towards the windmill and the road. He was within a few yards of the mill when the bugle sounded reveille. With a sudden panic he realised the place was a billet and full of soldiers. He fell back towards a ditch on his left. Then he saw the boat.

  With ineffable relief he turned to it. It was a crude, flat-bottomed punt, meant only for river work, but it had a pair of oars across the thwarts and offered Drinkwater the only satisfactory means of reentering Tilsit. He was dressed as a lighter-man and here was a boat, presumably belonging to the mill, and a downpour to explain his soaking condition. With renewed heart he clambered aboard and untied the frayed painter from a rotten stake. He got out the oars and worked the boat out of the dyke. Ashore he could hear shouts as men assembled for morning roll-call. He entered the main river, the rain hissing down, the smooth grey water an infinity of concentric circular ripples. Keeping close to the bank he found the counter-current and pulled easily upstream. Despite his lack of sleep he found his lassitude evaporate; the demands of pulling the boat sent new life into his chilling limbs and the rain seemed warm upon his tired muscles.

  Edward Drinkwater lay on his back in the solitary darkness and fought successive waves of panic that swept over him, manifesting themselves in reflexive spasms of nausea. Despite the pale sliver of sky that showed through the slits his brother had opened in the float, the surrounding darkness had a threatening quality, a sentient hostility that caused him to imagine it was contracting upon him. So strong was this awful sensation that twice he found himself stuffing a fist into his mouth to prevent himself from screaming, while a cold sweat broke out all over his body. But these periods of terrifying panic waned and were replaced by a slow acceptance of his situation which was aided by the bottle of vodka. After an hour or two he floated in a kind of limbo: the stinking bilge-water and the damp clothes that wrapped him seemed bearable.

  He was jerked from his reverie by the noise of approaching feet scrunching the gravel and his heartbeats thundered in the clammy darkness as men resumed work on the raft. The hammering and sawing went on for what seemed hours, resonating throughout the float so that his former silence seemed heavenly by comparison. He lay on his back, twisting about from time to time to keep his circulation going, watching the narrow strip of sky periodically obscured by the boot-soles of the French soldiers and diverting himself by practising eavesdropping on their conversation. Sometime later he smelt a curious smell and recognised it as it grew stronger for the odour of Stockholm tar. He knew then that it was almost time for the pontoon to be dragged down the slipway and into the river.

  'They are heating tar.' observed Lord Walmsley, taking his eye from Drinkwater's telescope and turning towards Mackenzie lying on the truckle bed. 'D'you think the Captain and Ostroff are all right?'

  'Uh?' Mackenzie rubbed the sleep from his eyes and rolled off the bed to join Walmsley at the window. 'I hope by now Ostroff is — what d'you sailors say? — battened down in that pont volant and the Captain already in the stable below. What o'clock is it?'

  'Seven has struck, and the half hour. D'you want me to look in the stable?'

  'Yes, take my cloak. Bennigsen's lot sleep late; they gave a dinner last night for some French officers. Just act boldly, there are too many comings and goings for anyone to take any notice, and the sentries are too ignorant to stop anyone with an air of authority' Mackenzie gave a short, contemptuous laugh. 'Good men in a fight but deprived of any initiative ... the Jew will notice you ... take a rouble from the gold on the bed and slip it to the burgher if you see him.' Mackenzie's voice became weary, as though the corruptibility of men bored him. Behind him the doorlatch clicked and the stairs creaked as Walmsley descended to the stables. Mackenzie focused h
is attention on the distant pontoon. The final touches were being put to the decorations, a wooden monogram placed over each of two draped entrances. He saw two men, wearing the regulation aprons of pioneers, emerge from under the pontoon with a steaming pot of pitch. The men worked doggedly but without enthusiasm as the rain continued to fall. He shifted his glass to the barge that the two brothers had moved across the river the evening before. Already a group of labourers had brought piles of sawn deals from an adjacent warehouse where they had been awaiting shipment, and were laying them across the lighter's open hatch to make a platform. Mackenzie took the glass from his eye and rubbed it, yawning. A movement on the extreme right of his field of vision caught his eye. A man was rowing upstream in a small boat. He would soon become involved with three other boats, anchored to moorings which they had been laying in midstream. There was more movement too, on the Westkai. They were changing the guard opposite. The sentries from a line regiment were being replaced by the tall bearskins and red plumes of the French Imperial Guard.

  'Grand tenue, by Jupiter,' he muttered sardonically to himself. 'Pity about the rain.'

  He peered cautiously below him where, on the Ostkai, a similar ritual was in progress. Instead of bearskins the Russian Guard wore great brass-fronted mitre-caps that had gone out of vogue in every other European army a generation earlier.

  'Touché,' chuckled Mackenzie, almost enjoying himself, as the brilliance of the preparations was muted by the heavy downpour. The man in the small boat had pulled alongside and was making his painter fast.

  Lord Walmsley could find no sign of Captain Drinkwater in the stable, but he found something else, something he had failed to find in his walk of the previous night. The naked leg of a girl hung from the hayloft. Walmsley felt a stab of lust and cautiously peered through the gap in the stable doors. Several orderlies lounged under the overhanging roof of a balcony on the opposite side of the courtyard. They were smoking and drinking tea, and clearly unwilling to rush into the business of grooming officers' chargers while their owners slept off the excesses of the night. The stable was heavy with the smell of horses, dung and hay. The magnificent animals reminded him of his father's stables, and the naked ankle of a girl he had once laid in the straw there.

  There was a ladder close to the bare foot and he climbed it, taking care not to wake its owner. The horses stamped and pawed the ground and whickered softly to each other, but he ignored them and climbed up to the sleeping girl. She was a maid in the Jew's service and lay prettily asleep, her red mouth half-smiling and her dreams full of the love-making of the Prince who had had her the night before. She had escaped when his drunkenness became violent, and found her refuge in the hayloft. Walmsley was aroused by the sight and scent of her. He slid a hand over her leg. She turned languidly, her body responding, and opened her eyes. Walmsley smothered her surprise with his kisses, his urgency meeting her own awakened lust half-way, and with the intemperate passion of their youth they were swiftly entwined in each other's arms.

  Drinkwater flicked the painter through the ring set in the face of the quay, shipped his oars and steadied the boat at the foot of the steps. It was too late to turn back. The military activity on the Ostkai would have to be brazened out. He climbed the steps and found himself face to face with a giant of a man in a huge brass-fronted hat. The man stood immobile in the continuing rain and, without the slightest hindrance, Drinkwater shuffled past him. No one took the slightest notice of so disreputable and so familiar a sight as a dirty, stinking peasant. Even the orderlies smoking in the yard of the merchant's house ignored him. He was able to slip into the stable as arranged. From here Mackenzie was to arrange his return to the attic when the coast was clear.

  He found Midshipman Lord Walmsley standing at the top of a ladder, buttoning his breeches. Wisps of straw clung to his clothing and beside him the face of a girl appeared. He caught the gleam of gold tossed to her, saw her bite it and lie back giggling. Neither of the lovers had seen the sodden beggar at the doorway. Then Walmsley turned and spotted Drinkwater, who scowled at the midshipman and, catching sight of Mackenzie's cloak that Walmsley had carelessly draped over one of the stalls, pulled it round himself. Walmsley joined him in silent embarrassment and led him into the house.

  Mackenzie turned as they regained the attic. 'Ah, he found you all right. Good. Welcome back. Did everything pass as planned?'

  'Well enough,' said Drinkwater shortly. He rounded angrily on the midshipman. 'What the hell are you playing at, you fool? Was that English gold you gave that trollop?' he asked savagely. 'If it was you'll likely have us all damned for your stupidity.'

  'You gave that gold piece away? To a girl, or the Jew?' Mackenzie asked curtly.

  Walmsley went pale under the inquisition of the two men.

  'He gave it to a whore!'

  'Who was she? That trull that skivvies for the Jew?' Walmsley nodded.

  Mackenzie chuckled. 'Calm yourself, Captain. It was Russian gold and I expect the trull has given him something for small change. It is of no account, she has been laid by most of Bennigsen's killbucks and I doubt she can tell the difference between an Englishman and a Russian in the throes of love!' Mackenzie dismissed the matter.

  Drinkwater was dropping with fatigue. He sank on the low bed and, within moments, was asleep.

  It was past noon when Mackenzie shook him awake. 'You should come and look. Great events are in progress. There is some bread and sausage ...'

  Drinkwater rose with a cracking of strained muscles. His shoulder ached with a dull, insistent pain, but he stripped the filthy rags from his body and drew on his own breeches and shirt, joining Mackenzie at the window.

  'You smell better in your own clothes,' observed Mackenzie, making way in the open casement. There was no need for concealment now for nearly every window was occupied by a curious public. Both quays were lined by the massed ranks of the Imperial Guards of both Emperors, row upon row of splendid men in the impressive regalia of full-dress, their officers at their posts. A handful of staff-officers, more youthful than useful, dashed up and down on curvetting horses, their hooves striking sparks from the cobblestones. The heavy rain of the morning had stopped and a watery sun peeped occasionally through gaps in the clouds, lighting up bright patches of red roof tiles, the green leaves of trees and the gaudy splendours of military pomp.

  But it was the river that was the cynosure for all eyes. A musket-shot from the watchers in the attic, roughly level with the slipway from which it had been dragged that morning and moored in the centre of the Nieman, the flying bridge lay at anchor. It was festooned with a profusion of drapery, red and blue and green, laced with gold tasselling, and on the side facing them the drapes had been looped back to form an entrance surmounted by the initial letter 'A'. Twenty yards downstream lay the less gaily appointed barge.

  'Impressive, eh?' Mackenzie was grinning like a schoolboy on holiday and both knew a sense of triumph at their success. Two boats had now arrived, one on each side of the river waiting at the steps there. On the far quay a cavalcade of horsemen had appeared, riding through the ranks of soldiers. On a white horse sat the unmistakable figure of Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, wearing the green and white of the Horse Chasseurs of the Guard. He was followed by a glittering bevy of marshals, one of whom ostentatiously caracoled his horse.

  'That vainglorious fellow is Murat,' whispered Mackenzie.

  They watched Napoleon dismount and walk to the steps. In the boat below him an officer stood and Drinkwater drew in his breath, for it was Santhonax. He pointed him out to Mackenzie and they watched the emperor and some of his entourage embark. People on either bank were cheering. A minute later and the French marines were plying their oars as the boat swung out for the caparisoned raft. The distant batteries began the ritual discharge of the imperial salutes.

  Mackenzie pointed downwards and they craned their necks. Almost exactly below them a similar scene was being enacted and another boat was pulling out from the Ostkai.
Sitting in the stern were several officers of exalted rank.

  'Ouvaroff and Count Lieven have their backs to us,' explained Mackenzie in a low voice, 'the gentleman with the unpleasant countenance is the Grand Duke Constantine, next to him is Bennigsen ...' Drinkwater looked at the snub-nosed, stubborn features of the Hanoverian. He was answering a query from a fifth man, a tall, erect, red-haired officer in an immaculate, high-collared tunic.

  'The Tsar.'

  Drinkwater stared at the profile of the man who was said to be composed of a confusion of liberal ideals and autocratic inclinations. Surrounded by the pomp of the occasion it was difficult to imagine that the handsome head knew anything but the certainty of its own will. A reputation for erratic decisions or total apathy seemed undeserved. The bizarre sight of the Tsar chatting to a man who had engineered the death of his own father, whom he had the day before humiliated in public and who, Mackenzie thought with his amazing prescience, might turn his coat in the next hour or two, reminded Drinkwater that he was in Kurland, a remote corner of a remote empire whose alliance with his own country was in jeopardy.

  Beside him Mackenzie's mood ran in a lighter vein. 'Trust Boney to work for a meeting on equal footing and then upstage Alexander.'

  The French boat arrived at the raft first. It pulled away to disembark the French staff on the barge, downstream. As the Russian boat arrived alongside the raft and Alexander stood to disembark, Napoleon appeared in the entrance on the Russian side, his hand outstretched. A great cheer went up from the massed soldiery on either bank. As the Russian boat dropped downstream, Napoleon let the curtains of the pavilion down with his own hands.

  As if at a signal of the combined imperial wills, the concussions of the salutes faded into echoes and from a lowering sky the rain again began to fall.

  In total secrecy, two men decided the fate of Europe.