Baltic Mission

by Richard Woodman

  ‘The truth, mind,’ warned Mackenzie, the pistol unwavering.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ agreed Edward testily, reaching for his breeches as if insulted that he was suspected of real perfidy.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘There are to be long negotiations, but Napoleon is a master of deceit; he played Alexander like a woman. I have never heard flattery like it. He sold his ally Turkey to the Tsar, promised him a free hand against the Porte, guaranteed him the same in Swedish Finland, told him that he was a true child of the liberating ideals of the French Revolution and that the two of them would release the new renaissance of a resuscitated Europe! I could scarcely believe my ears. Why such a tirade of flattery and promises should be made in such secrecy is for you to judge.’

  ‘One always seduces in private,’ observed Mackenzie, ironically, ‘but go on. What of Great Britain?’

  ‘That came last, though I distinctly heard Alexander declare his hatred of the English at the start, but he was much less easy to hear . . .’

  ‘Go on, we have little time . . .’

  ‘Britain is to be excluded from all trade with Europe or Russia. The Tsar agrees to chastise anyone who trades with a nation so perfidious as yours.’ Edward paused, his choice of words significant. ‘Your navy is to be destroyed by sheer weight of numbers. Napoleon said your navy is exhausted, your sources of manpower drying up, and that you cannot maintain a blockade for ever. He told the Tsar, who made some remark at this point, that your victory at Trafalgar was a narrow one and that this is proved by the death of Lord Nelson. He claimed the tide would have gone the other way but for the Spaniards deserting the French. Had the French had the Russian fleet with them that day the trident of Neptune would have been wrested from Britannia and with it the sceptre of the world!’

  ‘What eloquence,’ remarked Mackenzie.

  ‘So the Russian fleet is to break out of the Baltic, eh?’ asked Drinkwater.

  ‘Yes. The Baltic is to be a mare clausum to Britain, supine under Russian domination, and to outnumber you the Portuguese fleet is to be seized at Lisbon and the Danish to be commandeered at Copenhagen.’

  ‘God’s bones!’ exclaimed Drinkwater, his mind whirling with the news. With France and Russia allies, Napoleon’s power in Europe would be absolute. The Russians would be free to expand into Turkey, the French to mass their great armies on the Channel shore once more for a final descent upon England. Napoleon would be able to summon the combined navies of every European power to add to his own. There were ships of the line building at Toulon, at Brest, at Antwerp; the Portuguese navy and the Danish navy would add a powerful reinforcement to the Russian squadrons already at sea, cruising as allies of Great Britain. Against such a force even the battle-hardened Royal Navy would find itself outgunned by sheer weight of metal! And, as Drinkwater well knew, the Royal Navy, that reassuring bulwark of the realm, was wearing out. Its seamen were sick of endless blockade, its officers dispirited by stalemate, its admirals worn with cares and its ships with sea-keeping. Such an outcome negated Drinkwater’s whole life and he was filled with a sudden urgency to be off, to leave this stifling attic and regain the fresh air of his quarterdeck and a quick passage home with this vital intelligence.

  ‘You have done well,’ Mackenzie was saying, spilling into his palm a shower of gold. He held it out to Edward who was now fully dressed. ‘Here, this is on account, the rest within the month in the usual way.’

  Edward pocketed the cash. He was again the Russian officer, Ostroff. He held out his hand to Drinkwater. ‘The parting of the ways, then Nat?’

  Drinkwater nodded. ‘Yes . . . it would seem so.’

  ‘I have discharged all my obligations today.’

  ‘With interest,’ said Mackenzie drily as the two brothers shook hands.

  ‘Where’s Walmsley?’ Drinkwater asked suddenly as their minds turned towards departure. The three men exchanged glances.

  ‘He can’t be far away,’ said Mackenzie. ‘It isn’t the first time he’s wandered off.’

  ‘No, but it will be the last,’ snapped Drinkwater anxiously.

  ‘He’s gone a-whoring,’ said Edward as he bent to pick up his gear. Mackenzie slung his saddle-bags over his shoulder and Drinkwater put a pistol in his waistband.

  ‘We cannot wait,’ said Mackenzie, looking at Drinkwater.’ Perhaps he’s down below.’ Mackenzie unbarred the door and led them out down the steep and narrow stairs.

  The only person they met in their descent through the eerie silence of the house was the Jew, who was on an upper landing. Mackenzie passed more money to him and the three men walked into the courtyard, shadowed by the late afternoon sunlight.

  ‘I have a horse quartered here,’ said Edward turning aside.

  ‘Where do you go now?’ asked Drinkwater.

  ‘To Vorontzoff,’ Edward replied, entering the stable. Drinkwater followed to see if Walmsley was repeating his performance of that morning: a brief look showed the hayloft empty.

  ‘Come on . . .’ said Mackenzie.

  Drinkwater hesitated. ‘I must have a look for Walmsley.’

  Mackenzie swore and, for the first time since they had met, Drinkwater saw irresolution in his face. ‘Damn it then, a quick look, but hurry!’

  General Santhonax had searched the warehouses of the lower town as unobtrusively as possible. The thought that a soaking man could not vanish without accomplices beat in his brain. He reached the Ostkai with its tall houses where the previous evening he had selected the barge. Lariboissière’s men, with whose help he had crossed the river, were already stretching the first cable of the bridge Napoleon had ordered thrown over the Nieman. Angrily he turned away. Perhaps the inns round the town square might have offered concealment.

  Lord Walmsley smiled down at the girl. The bed of the Russian prince was rumpled by the wanton violence of their combined lust, but Walmsley knew he had to leave, to see if the strange, English-speaking Russian officer, Ostroff, had returned to the attic. He emerged onto the landing, hearing a noise on the stairs. Below him someone went out into the courtyard. From a window he could just see down into the deepening shadows of the yard. Captain Drinkwater was there and he was joined by Ostroff, leading a grey horse out of the stable. At the same time Mackenzie appeared, shaking his head. It was obvious that departure was imminent. Behind him the girl appeared and wound her arms around him.

  Below in the courtyard the three men were holding a hurried conference.

  ‘Nothing. It means we’ll have to search the place thoroughly.’

  ‘He may have wandered off anywhere,’ said Mackenzie. ‘I let him go for a while yesterday . . .’

  ‘You’d best forget him,’ said Edward, putting one foot in the stirrup. ‘I will keep an eye out for him and spirit him away if I can.’

  ‘And if you can’t?’ asked Drinkwater, at once furious with the midshipman for his desertion and in a quandary as to what to do.

  ‘Come, this is no time to delay, we must make the best of our separate ways now,’ Mackenzie said, taking Drinkwater’s elbow. ‘Come on, it is only a short walk to Gower’s chaise and we have little to fear. It will not be very surprising if a Scottish merchant and an English shipmaster evacuate Tilsit in the wake of the day’s events.’

  Edward looked down from his horse. ‘Goodbye, Nat, and good luck. Forget your young friend. I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘Very well, and thank you. Good fortune.’

  The two men smiled and Edward dug his heels into the flanks of the grey and clattered out of the yard. At the arched entrance his horse shied, skittering sideways as a tall military officer almost collided with them. Edward kicked his mount forward.

  As the big grey horse trotted away Santhonax looked under the arch. He saw two men walking towards him carrying bags over their shoulders; they had the appearance of travellers on the point of departure, yet he could see no reason for men to leave a town that was so full of wild celebration. With sudden caution he drew his pistol as they e
ntered the covered passage and moved towards him.

  Drinkwater saw the man under the arch and caught the movement of the drawn pistol.

  ‘Look,’ he hissed, sensing danger at the same moment as Mackenzie.

  Drinkwater’s hand went to his own pistol, Mackenzie strode forward.

  ‘Bonsoir m’sieur,’ he said. In the gloom the man turned and Drinkwater recognised Santhonax. Without a moment’s thought he swung his heavy pistol butt: the steel heel of the weapon caught Santhonax on the jaw and he crashed against the wall. Drinkwater hit him a second time. Santhonax sprawled full length, unconscious.

  ‘It’s Santhonax,’ hissed Drinkwater as both men stared down at the French general, their thoughts racing. ‘Do you think he was looking for us?’

  ‘God knows!’

  ‘Do we kill him?’

  ‘No, that might raise a hue and cry. Take his watch, make it look like a theft.’ Mackenzie bent over the inert body and wrenched at Santhonax’s waist. He straightened up and handed a heavy gold watch to Drinkwater. ‘Here . . .’ Mackenzie rifled Santhonax’s pockets and then turned back the way they had come. ‘Leave him. To hell with the chaise. I smell trouble. For all I know he’s already discovered Walmsley . . . there is not a moment to lose.’

  Drinkwater ran back, following Mackenzie into the stable. In a lather of inexpert haste Drinkwater tried to get a horse saddled in imitation of Mackenzie. The other came over and finished the job for him. They drew the horses out of the stable and mounted them. Drinkwater hoisted himself gingerly into the saddle.

  ‘Are you all right?’ hissed Mackenzie.

  ‘I think so . . .’ Drinkwater replied uncertainly as the horse moved beneath him, sensing his nervousness.

  ‘Listen! If we are pursued, get to Memel and your ship! Go direct to London. Ostroff and I will take care of Walmsley . . . Come, let’s go!’

  They rode across the yard and through the archway.

  Behind them General Santhonax stirred and groaned.

  Santhonax got slowly to his feet, clawing himself upright by the wall. His head throbbed painfully and his jaw was severely contused. He staggered forward and the courtyard swam into his vision. He looked dazedly about him. A young man was staring at him and then seemed to vanish. Santhonax frowned: the young man had been wearing something very like a seaman’s coat.

  His head cleared and then it came back to him. The two men, the sudden guilty hesitation and the deceptive confrontation by one of them while the other struck him with a clubbed pistol. The apparition of the youth and the smell of a stable full of horses spurred him to sudden activity. He crossed the yard and met Walmsley at the stable door.

  ‘What’s happening?’ asked Walmsley in English, mistaking his man in the gloom. Santhonax smiled savagely.

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied reassuringly, his own command of English accent-free.

  ‘Is that you, Ostroff?’

  ‘Yes,’ lied Santhonax, silhouetted against the last of the daylight.

  ‘Have they gone then?’ Santhonax heard alarm awaken in the question. ‘Are they getting the chaise?’ Guilt had robbed Walmsley of his wits.

  ‘Yes . . .’ Santhonax pushed Walmsley backwards and followed him into the stable.

  ‘Why, you’re not Ostroff! That’s a French uniform!’

  ‘Oui m’sieur, and who are you?’ Walmsley felt the cold touch of a pistol muzzle at his chin. ‘Come, quickly, or I’ll kill you!’

  Walmsley was trembling with fear. ‘M . . . midshipman, British navy!’

  With this information Santhonax realised the extent of his own failure to keep the Emperor’s secret.

  ‘You are not wearing the uniform of a British midshipman, boy! Where are your white collar-patches? What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘I was acting under orders . . . attending my captain . . .’

  ‘What captain? Where is your ship?’

  Walmsley swallowed. ‘I surrender my person . . . as a prisoner of war . . .’

  ‘Answer, boy!’ The pistol muzzle poked up harder under Walmsley’s trembling chin.

  ‘My frigate is off Memel.’

  ‘And the captain?’ asked Santhonax, lowering his pistol and casting an eye for a suitable horse. Walmsley sensed reprieve.

  ‘Captain Drinkwater, of the Antigone, sir,’ he said in a relieved tone.

  Santhonax swung his face back to his prisoner and let out a low oath. ‘You are a spy, boy . . .’

  Walmsley tried to twist away as Santhonax brought up the pistol and squeezed the trigger. The ball shattered the midshipman’s skull and he fell amid the straw and horse dung.

  Among the rearing and frightened animals Santhonax grabbed Walmsley’s saddled horse and led it through the doorway, then mounted and dug his spurs into the animal’s sides. The terrified horse lunged forward and Santhonax tugged its head in the direction of the road to Memel.

  PART THREE

  The Post-chaise

  “It is their intention to employ the navies of Denmark and Portugal against this country.”

  George Canning, Foreign Secretary, to

  the House of Commons, July 1807

  25 June 1807

  Accord

  The two Emperors sat at the head of an array of tables that glittered with silver and crystal. The assembled company was peacock-gaudy with the military of three nations. The sober Prussians, humiliated by the indifference of Napoleon and the implied slight to their beautiful queen, were dour and miserable, while Russians and French sought to outdo one another in the lavishness of their uniforms and the extravagance of their toasts.

  General Bennigsen, still smarting from the Tsar’s rebuke, sat next to the King of Prussia whose exclusion from the secret talks had stung him to the quick. His lovely Queen displayed a forced vivacity to the two Emperors, who sat like demi-gods.

  ‘She is’, Napoleon confided slyly to the Tsar, ‘the finest man in the whole of Prussia, is she not?’

  Alexander, beguiled and charmed by his former enemy, delighted at the outcome of the discussions which gave him a free hand in Finland and Turkey, agreed. The man he had until today regarded as a parvenu now fascinated him. Napoleon had shown Alexander a breadth of vision equalling his own, a mind capable of embracing the most liberal and enlightened principles, yet knowing the value of compulsion in forcing those measures upon the dark, half-witted intelligence of the mass of common folk.

  ‘I hope’, Napoleon’s voice said at his side, ‘that you are pleased with today’s proceedings?’

  Alexander turned to Napoleon and smiled his fixed, courtly and slightly vacant smile. ‘the friendship between France and Russia’, he said to his neighbour, ‘has long been my most cherished dream.’ Napoleon smiled in return. ‘Your Majesty shows a profound wisdom in these matters,’ he said and Alexander inclined his head graciously at this arrant flattery.

  Napoleon regarded the banquet and the numerous guests, his quick mind noting a face here and there. Suddenly his benign expression clouded over. He leaned back and beckoned an aide. Nodding to a vacant place on a lower table he asked the young officer, ‘Where is General Santhonax?’

  16

  June 1807

  The Return of Ulysses

  Drinkwater clung to his mount with increasing desperation. He was no horseman and the animal’s jerking trot jolted him from side to side so that he gasped for breath and at every moment felt that he would fall. It was years since he had ridden, and want of practice now told heavily against him. The thought of the long journey back to Memel filled him with horror.

  Equally anxious, Mackenzie looked back every few yards, partly to see if Drinkwater was still in the saddle, partly to see if they were pursued.

  As they left the town and found themselves surrounded by the bivouacs of the Russian army they passed camp-fire after camp-fire round which groups of men played cards, drank and smoked their foul tobacco tubes. There were other travellers on the road, officers making their way to the celebrations at T
ilsit; but the news of peace had removed all necessity for caution and the horsemen continued unopposed along the Memel road.

  At last they drew away from the encampments. It was dark but the sky had cleared, and a silver crescent of moon gave a little light, showing the dusty highway as a pale stripe across the rolling countryside. As Drinkwater jogged uncomfortably in his saddle it occurred to him that as he became accustomed to the horse, he became less able to capitalise on his improvement, for his buttocks and inner thighs became increasingly sore.

  Drinkwater grunted with pain as they rode on, passing through a village. The road was deserted but the noise of shouting, clapping and a guitar came from its inn. A few miles beyond the village Mackenzie looked back at his lagging companion. What he saw made him rein in his horse. They were in open countryside now. The Nieman gleamed a pistol shot away, reflecting the stars, and the road lay deserted before them.

  Drinkwater looked up as he saw Mackenzie stop and heard him swear.

  ‘I’m doing my damndest . . .’

  ‘It’s not that . . . Look!’

  Drinkwater pulled his horse up and turned. A man was pursuing them, his horse kicking up a pale cloud of dust, just discernible in the gloom.

  ‘Santhonax!’

  ‘Can you remember the content of Edward’s report?’ Mackenzie asked sharply.

  ‘Of course . . .’

  ‘Then ride on . . . go . . . get back to your ship. I’ll do what I can to stop him, but do not under any circumstances stop!’

  ‘But you? What will you do?’

  ‘I’ll manage . . . get to London overland, Captain, bringing your midshipman with me, but you go now!’ And Mackenzie brought an impatient hand down on the rump of Drinkwater’s horse.

  ‘God’s bones!’ Drinkwater lost the reins and grabbed the animal’s mane, his sore knees pressed desperately inwards against the saddle. He dared not look back but he heard the pistol shots, and the image of Santhonax still in hot pursuit kept him riding through the night as if all the devils in hell were on his tail.