Baltic Mission

by Richard Woodman

  ‘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 ofkvass from his saddlebags, 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 the 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 trails 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 it 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.

  ‘Voilà, 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 shakoes 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 bow-legged 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 a
bout 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 . . . !’

  The man was looking curiously at Lord Leveson-Gower’s horses in the shafts. At the Count’s remark he looked up and growled something in reply, at which the whole squadron, its commanding officer included, roared with laughter.

  ‘On your way, Alexei, and bon voyage, Captain!’ he said, and Walmsley, seeing the road ahead clear, whipped up the horses.

  Drinkwater wiped his face with relief. ‘Who the devil was that? You seemed uncommonly intimate.’

  Mackenzie laughed. ‘That, believe it or not, was Ostroff’s superior officer, Count Piotr Kalitkin, commander of two squadrons of the Hetman’s Don Cossacks. He knows me for a Scottish merchant, Alexander Macdonald, and we have been drunk several times in each other’s company. He thinks you are going to Tilsit . . .’

  ‘Yes, I got the drift of it: to find out why my cargo has not been brought down river to Memel.’

  ‘Excellent!’ laughed Mackenzie, in high good humour after the incident.

  ‘What was that exchange between the Count and that malodorous fellow?’ asked Drinkwater.

  ‘It was an obscenity. The Count asked the man, Khudoznik, if he wanted to bugger our horses before he stood aside and let us through. Khudoznik replied there was no need for he had found a farm where the farmer had a wife, a daughter and forty cows!’

  ‘Good God!’

  ‘I doubt they’re any worse than your own seamen . . .’

  ‘Or some of the officers,’ agreed Drinkwater, jerking his head in Walmsley’s direction, ‘but those fellows looked born in the saddle.’

  ‘Indeed. Their Little Father, the Tsar, exempts them from taxation in exchange for twenty to forty years of military service. And they will literally steal the shirt from your back, if you let them.’ Mackenzie nodded at Drinkwater’s open coat.

  ‘It seems I had a lucky escape in several ways,’ remarked Drinkwater.

  It was dark by the time they reached the town and here they encountered sentries. They were the third in a little convoy of carriages that had bunched together on the road, and by the time the sergeant had got to them he paid scant attention to the pass Mackenzie waved under his nose.

  ‘I doubt if the fellow can read,’ Mackenzie said, as Walmsley urged the exhausted horses forward, ‘although, if he could, he would find the pass in order and signed by Prince Vorontzoff.’ Mackenzie stood and tapped Walmsley on the shoulder. ‘Pull in over there,’ he ordered in a low voice, and the chaise passed into the deep shadow of a tall building. Mackenzie and Walmsley exchanged places and the chaise rolled forward again.

  ‘How do you do?’ Drinkwater asked Walmsley in a low voice.

  ‘Well enough, sir,’ replied the midshipman, stretching tired muscles. ‘Where are . . . ?’

  ‘No questions until we are safe.’

  ‘Safe, sir?’

  ‘In hiding.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll feel safe until I’m back on the old Antigone.’

  ‘We are of one mind then. Now be quiet.’ They had pulled into a side turning which bore no resemblance to what Drinkwater had imagined the Jew’s house looked like even in the darkness. Mackenzie dropped from the box, opened the door and motioned them down. Taking the saddle-bags from the chaise he handed them to Drinkwater.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said and moved round to the horses’ heads. He led the chaise off, and left the two Englishmen standing in the darkness. They pressed back into the shadows and listened to the noises of the night.

  Kalitkin’s news of an armistice was affirmed by the noise of revelry around them. Every window they could see was ablaze with candlelight. The strains of violins and balalaikas, of bass and soprano voices were added to raucous laughter and the squeals of women. Beside him Drinkwater heard Walmsley snigger nervously and their proximity to a bawdy house was confirmed by Mackenzie who approached out of the shadows without horses or chaise.

  ‘The more people, the easier the concealment,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve left the chaise at a brothel full of officers’ horses.’ He led them back the way they had come and into the comparative brilliance of the town square.

  The place was full of people milling about, women giggling on the arms of officers, the curious gentry and their outraged womenfolk hurrying past the licentious soldiers. Beggars and whores, vendors and street musicians filled the open space and occasionally a horseman would ride through, or a carriage escorted by lancers trot by to be wildly cheered in case it was the Little Father, the Tsar.

  Drinkwater began to see what Mackenzie meant. The crowd, hell-bent on pleasure, took no notice of them. Within minutes they had entered beneath a low arch, reminiscent of an English coaching inn, and found themselves in a courtyard. Two or three orderlies lounged about, smoking or drinking, but no one challenged them. Even the tall sentry at the door snapped to attention as Mackenzie, walking with an air of purpose, threw open the door and led the trio inside.

  Crossing the courtyard Drinkwater had been aware of stable doors and upper windows flung open, from which candlelight and the noise of drunken revels poured in equal measure. Inside, the stairs were littered with bottles, an officer in his shirt sleeves, his arm round the waist of a compliant girl, lounged back and ignored them. A half-open upper door revealed a brief glimpse of a mess-dinner, a table groaning under food, bottles, boots upon the table cloth and a whirling dancer kicking out the trepak to the wild and insistent beat of balalaika chords.

  On the next floor the doors were closed. A woman’s chemise and a pair of shoes and stockings lay on the landing. Above the shouts and cheers from below, the shrieks of drunken love-making came from behind the closed doors and were abruptly drowned by the concerted tinkle of breaking glass as, below, a toast was drunk to the dancer.

  A flight higher they encountered the Jew, his family behind him, peering anxiously down from an upper landing. Mackenzie addressed a few words to him and he drew back. Drinkwater saw the dull gleam of gold pass between them.

  They passed through a further door, dark and concealed in the gloom. It shut behind them and they stumbled up bare wooden steps in total darkness. At the top Mackenzie knocked on a door; three taps and then two taps in a prearranged signal. There was the noise of a bar being withdrawn and a heavy lock t
urning. He followed Mackenzie into a tiny attic, the rafters meeting overhead, a dormer window open to the night and from which the quick flash of lamplight on water could be glimpsed. Mackenzie stood aside, revealing the single occupant of the attic.

  ‘Let me introduce you, Captain, to the man called “Ostroff”.’

  12

  24 June 1807

  Ostroff

  ‘By God, it is you . . .’ Edward came forward, holding up a lantern to see his brother. ‘Mackenzie said he would force the issue one way or another. It never occurred to me he would bring you back. You’ve come a damned long way to collect your debt.’

  Edward’s poor joke broke the ice. Drinkwater held out his hand and looked his brother up and down. The jest about money was characteristic; Edward was still the gambler, the opportunist. He was heavier of feature than Drinkwater remembered, his face red with good living and hard drinking, and he wore a Russian uniform unbuttoned at the neck. His feet were stuffed into soft boots and he had the appearance of a man who was about to leave. As if to confirm this he took off his tunic and loosened his stock.

  ‘By God, it’s hot up here, under the eaves. ‘Who’s this, Mackenzie?’ He indicated the midshipman.

  ‘Our driver, who has done a fine job and deserves some reward. Have you a bottle?’

  Edward reached under a truckle bed and produced a bottle of vodka. ‘There are glasses on that chest.’

  They drank and Drinkwater performed the introduction, explaining that Ostroff was a British officer in the Russian service. Fortunately the looks of the two brothers were too dissimilar to excite suspicion as to the true nature of their relationship and Walmsley, tired and slightly over-awed by the situation he found himself in, maintained a sensible silence. As they finished the vodka Mackenzie motioned to the midshipman.