CHAPTER 9
Colonel Ostroff
April 1815
Paralysis gripped Drinkwater as he watched the boat approach. He was robbed of the capacity to think, and stood like a loon, as though his brother's return automatically meant the ruin he had so greatly feared. He might, he thought afterwards, have acted in such a way as to bring ruin upon himself had not he recalled, quite inconsequentially to begin with, that this supposed stranger allegedly spoke poor English. He did, however, speak good French and that fact called for an interpreter. The presence of Jago would act as a brake upon any precipitate action the impetuous Edward might take. Drinkwater turned and called forward, 'Pass word for Jago to lay aft!'
Then he said to Frey, 'Send this man below with Jago, I'll interview him in the cabin. You may set course for Harwich.' 'Aye, aye, sir.'
Drinkwater hurried below, seated himself in the cabin and endeavoured to compose himself. A few moments later, with a clattering of feet on the narrow companionway, Jago led the newcomer into the cabin.
'Pray sit down, sir,' Drinkwater said coldly, waving to the bench settee that ran along the forward bulkhead as Jago rendered the invitation into French. Time had not been entirely kind to his brother and there was a moment when Drinkwater thought they might have got the wrong man. A wide scar ran across his cheek and bit deep into the left side of the nose. Unlike his elder brother, Edward seemed to have lost much hair.
'Ask him his name, Jago.' The exchange revealed the stranger to be Colonel the Count d'Ostroff, of the Guard Cossacks, lately in Paris on the staff of Prince Vorontzoff.
'He asks for a pail, sir. Feeling sick.'
'You'd better get one.'
The gloom of the cabin after the daylight on deck clearly caused 'Ostroff' some difficulty in seeing his interlocutor, but the moment Jago had gone, he leaned forward and peered into Drinkwater's face. 'It is Captain Drinkwater, isn't it?' he asked with a low urgency.
'I am Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater, yes.'
'Don't you recognize me?' A touch of alarm infected the man's voice, which betrayed a trace of accent.
'Yes...'
'Nat, I must talk to you.' 'Ostroff' swallowed hard, his face pallid, his eyes intense.
'Help me at least by maintaining this fiction until we reach Harwich,' Drinkwater said coolly.
'No! You cannot leave the French coast...'
'I understand', Drinkwater said in a loud voice, overriding his brother as Jago and the bucket noisily descended the companionway, 'that you speak a little English.'
But the Colonel had no time to confirm or deny this. Instead he grabbed the bucket from Jago's hand and vomited copiously into it. As his head emerged he turned it to one side and, between gasps for breath, let out a stream of French. The only words Drinkwater recognized, and which seemed to be repeated with emphasis, were 'très important'.
'He says, sir, that it is very important that you do not leave the coast. He says there are three people ashore who must be taken aboard before they are killed.'
'Did he ask Commander Wykeham of the Adder to bring them off?' The question was relayed and the Colonel nodded his head. 'And what did Commander Wykeham say?'
Drinkwater waited. It was a foolish question, he realized, but Edward was equal to the occasion, even though he was suffering. 'He, that's Commander Wykeham, did not seem to understand, he says, sir. That's why he, the Colonel here ... Do I call him the Colonel or the Count, sir?'
'Let's stick to Colonel, Jago.'
'Very good, sir. Well, that's why the Colonel came across to us so obligingly, sir. Thought we'd be an easier touch.'
'Yes, thank you, Jago.' Drinkwater caught Edward's eye and sighed. 'Who are these three fugitives? Victims of the change of government?'
The Colonel nodded and set the bucket down beside him. 'I speak good English,' he said, looking at Jago, 'I can speak directly to your captain, thank you.'
Jago turned from one officer to the other with an astonished expression on his face. 'Well, God bless my soul,' Drinkwater said hurriedly. 'I think you may go then, Jago. I'm obliged for your help.'
'Will you be all right, sir?' asked Jago, looking suspiciously at the Colonel.
'I think even I can defend myself against a seasick man, Jago, thank you.'
Jago withdrew with an obvious and extravagant reluctance. As he disappeared, Drinkwater held up his hand. 'The rules of engagement', he said in a low voice, 'are that you call me "Captain" and I refer to you as "Colonel". Now, I have news for you, your mistress is dead.' Edward's mouth fell open, then he retched again, a pitiful picture of personal misery of the most intense kind. Drinkwater felt a sudden wave of sympathy for his visitor, that instinct of protection of the older for the younger. Averting his face, he pressed on. 'It is only by the greatest good fortune for you that she died almost on my doorstep, otherwise you would have had to consign yourself to the ministrations of Commander Wykeham ...'
'Mon Dieu ...La pauvre Hortense ... How did it...? I mean ...' Edward raised his unhappy, sweating face from the wooden bucket, all thoughts of Commander Wykeham far from his mind. A pathetic tear ran down his furrowed cheek and Drinkwater guessed he was near the end of his tether.
'You sent her off at a terrible risk...'
'No! It was she who insisted on sailing in that damned chasse marée; insisted it would be all right, that she could contact you ... The bloody skipper promised he knew the English coast like the back of his hand.'
'Well, that's as may be. The lugger was dashed to pieces upon a shoal,' Drinkwater persisted. 'Hortense was washed up dead on the beach not far from my home, between the Martello towers at Shingle Street. We found her the next morning. She has been buried... Well, never mind about that now. I am sorry, I had no idea you knew her.'
Edward shook his head and wiped his eyes. 'Damnation, Nat...'
'Stop that!' Drinkwater snapped, 'Don't let your damned guard down! Not yet!' He veered away from the personal. There would be time to rake over their respective lives later. 'These confounded fugitives, I have no wish to appear inhuman, but what the devil have they to do with me?'
'If the Bonapartists get hold of them they will probably be shot.'
Drinkwater sighed. 'A lot of people have been shot in the last twenty-odd years, Colonel. I had the dubious honour of escorting King Louis back to his country a year ago. It seems our labours were in vain. From what I hear, the Bourbons did little to endear themselves to their subjects and those who support them deserve little sympathy ...'
'These are not Bourbon courtiers, Captain,' Edward said, pulling himself together and speaking rapidly. 'They are the Baroness de Sarrasin and her two children, aged nine and ten. The Baroness was born into a liberal but impoverished noble family. She was very young during the worst excesses of the Revolution and, being a woman living in the remote countryside, escaped the worst. Later she married an officer in the army. He too was of noble blood, an émigré who returned when Napoleon invited the nobility back to France to join the army. He served Bonaparte with distinction and was created a Baron of the Empire, but last year he was on Marshal Marmont's staff and...' Edward shrugged.
'And?' Drinkwater prompted.
'You do not know what Marmont did?'
'Should I?'
'Marmont surrendered his entire Army Corps before Paris, precipitating the fall of Napoleon. The Baroness's husband was implicated in the capitulation and she is consequentially tainted as a result of his involvement. The loyalties of all members of the family have, as I believe you know, been confused and inconstant.'
'As I know?' Drinkwater queried with a frown. 'How should I know about this Baroness de Sarrasin and her family?'
'Since her husband's disgrace she has reverted to using her maiden name. The officer she married was named Montholon...'
Drinkwater frowned. 'Montholon! But that was Hortense's maiden name. So, he is Hortense's brother?'
'Was her brother. He was mysteriously killed while out riding soon after N
apoleon reached Paris. The Baroness and her children were hidden by friends. You have to help her!'
'Have to? Is she your lifeline now?'
Edward shook his head. 'For God's sake,' he said, dropping his voice still further, 'I am neither an ingrate nor a monster. I have the chance to make some sort of reparation for the past. I need your help. If you cannot do it for me, pray do it for Hortense's sake. She said you were fond of her, that you had duelled with each other for years...'
'Did she?' Drinkwater said flatly. 'Duelled, eh? Is that how she put it? Well, I suppose 'tis as good a metaphor as any. Tell me how you met her. That strikes me as the oddest coincidence of all.'
'It is easily explained. Hortense was a friend of Madame Ney's. The Marshal had made something of a reputation in Russia and Prince Vorontzoff wished to meet him. I was on the Prince's staff and we attended one of Madame Ney's soirées...'
'Where you met Hortense, and thereafter matters took their natural course.' Drinkwater's tone was rueful.
'Quite so.'
'But how', Drinkwater went on, 'did you make the connection with me?'
'It was our intention to marry...'
'You and Hortense proposed to marry!'
Edward nodded. 'Yes. Does that surprise you?'
Drinkwater shook his head. 'No,' he said, giving a low, ironic laugh, 'no, not in the least. Pray continue.'
Edward shrugged. 'The war was over and I obtained my discharge from the Russian army. Paris was most congenial, and my long acquaintanceship and service with the Russian ton had taught me French. I thought in French and now hardly ever utter a word in English, though Prince Vorontozoff knew me to speak it and, as I was in his confidence, he occasionally conversed in it with me.'
'Did he know you to be an Englishman?'
Edward nodded. 'Yes, there are many foreign officers in the Russian service, though most are Germans. I gave out that I came from a family of merchants who had lived abroad for some time.'
'And by the time you met Hortense, you had proved yourself to the Russians.'
'It was difficult after Tilsit, but Prince Vorontzoff was wholly opposed to the alliance with Napoleon. He retired to the country and I went with him. He had Arab bloodstock and you will recall my interest in horses.'
Drinkwater nodded. 'But you have not told me how you linked Hortense with me.'
'Well, I wished to marry her and settle in Paris. I had provided for myself quite well.' Edward grinned. 'There were some rich pickings between Moscow and Paris, but that is by the by. Hortense struck me as being alone, despite her intimacy with Madame Ney. Baroness de Sarrasin was suspicious of her, due to the disgrace of her first husband, and it was clear she was the recipient of charity. The fall of Napoleon did not divide France, it fragmented the country. Many of the Marshals accepted the restoration of the Bourbons in return for the retention of their positions, titles and fortunes. Be that as it may, Hortense accepted me. In confidence, she told me she received a small competence from a source in England for services to the British government. I assumed this was to prove to me that her loyalties were sound. I also assumed she meant a pension and she might have lied, but she didn't, she said no, it was from a man she held in the highest esteem, though fate had made him an enemy. I thought, of course, that she had been this mysterious benefactor's mistress and that the enmity had grown up after some intimacy, but she denied this vehemently. Sheer curiosity led me to ask the name of her benefactor and sheer innocence led her to reply with our ... your surname.'
'God's bones, I had no idea...'
'You see, the fact that she was an intimate of the Neys, and I knew she was the widow of a disgraced officer, Edouard Santhonax, yet had a pension for services to Great Britain, led me to conclude that her past was as complex as my own, beset by divided loyalties and so forth.' Edward rubbed a hand over his sweating chin. 'I suppose it gave us something in common; we were both what used to be called, with disparagement, "adventurers".'
'So you told her you were my brother?' Drinkwater asked, frowning.
'Yes, eventually. When Napoleon escaped from Elba and Paris was in an uproar. Friendships that seemed to cement the new order of the restored Bourbons dissolved overnight. Everyone seemed compromised, some more than others. There will have been no shortage of informers to jostle the petitioners at Napoleon's new court. Ney rode south to bring back Bonaparte in an iron cage and promptly went over to his old master. As for me, I was now a Russian living in a city which was set fair to turn hostile, and Hortense was among the tainted. In addition the Baroness arrived, her husband dead, her own fortunes overturned. She was now in the same position as her once despised sister-in-law. Hortense was fond of her brother's children. She had had none of her own...'
'I never thought of her as a matron ...'
'She was not all ambition, you know, but she was brave and resourceful.'
'She suggested you contacted me, I suppose.'
Edward nodded. 'Yes. She regarded you as a person of some influence. I had no idea whether you were an admiral, but from our last meeting I recalled you were engaged in matters usually outside the competence of a common captain in the Royal Navy. Hortense knew that you and a certain peer were involved in clandestine activities, so naturally you seemed the only person we could turn to. This was as clear to me as to her, but over this fortuitous circumstance lay the foolish actions of my youth. I had compromised you fatally. I had to tell her we were related, and why I could not come directly. She was astonished, of course,' he said with a wan smile, 'and at first refused to believe that I could possibly be your brother. I think she thought the claim an extravagant attempt on my part to impress her, but she eventually saw the folly of that and I was able to persuade her by revealing the few facts I knew about you.' He sighed, then added, 'She knew you a long time ago, I gather.'
'I rescued her from the revolutionaries — oh, years ago — just as it appears I must do again with this Baroness of yours.'
'Nat...' Edward leaned forward, his face earnest, his voice very low. Grasping his brother's wrist he said, 'I have not forgotten the great debt I owe you for helping me escape the gallows...'
'You escaped justice, by God!'
'Maybe. But the rescue of the Baroness and her children is something in reparation.'
'A noble expiation', Drinkwater said with heavy irony, 'which you have already alluded to, but somewhat dependent upon the charity of your over-burdened kin.'
'And I have lost Hortense ...'
'Perhaps we have both lost her.'
Edward frowned. 'You were never her lover...'
'Is that a question or a statement? But no, I never was,' Drinkwater said hurriedly. He paused a moment, then asked, 'Hortense was not the only woman in your life. Have you not left a wife in Russia?'
Edward shook his head. 'A mistress, yes, in fact two, both married. But I am not the complete smell-smock you think me.'
Drinkwater smiled. '"Smell-smock", now there's an expression that betrays how long it is since you spoke English.' He sighed. 'Well, it is good to see you again. Our last meeting in Tilsit was, you will recall, dangerous enough...'
'Look, Nat...'
'For God's sake, do not relax your guard! Stop calling me that, or 'twill slip out!' Drinkwater snapped. 'I have a great deal...'
'I realize what you have done ... Look, I have no intention of being anything other than a Russian officer. I can arrive in England as a Russian officer protecting the Baroness. I can spend the rest of my life speaking French. I can retire as the Baroness's protector, if she wishes, and live somewhere quietly. God knows I've endured my own share of frozen bivouacs! This might not quite equate to your cumulative privations, but I do not think there is a soul alive who would recognize Ned Drinkwater, do you?'
Drinkwater looked at his brother. 'How did you get that?' he asked, indicating his own nose. 'A sabre cut?'
Edward nodded. 'On the field of Borodino. A cuirassier of the 9th Regiment, They carried the Raevsky redoubt at t
he point of the sword. It was my misfortune to have borne a message into the place about thirty seconds before they arrived!'
Drinkwater rose and drew out a bottle and glasses from the locker. 'You will not know that it was Hortense's husband who tried to frustrate my return from Tilsit with the intelligence you obtained for us.' 'That is not possible!' 'And I killed him,' Drinkwater added. 'Mon Dieu!' Edward sat back, clearly astonished. 'I think', Drinkwater said slowly, handing Edward a glass, 'that your services at Tilsit might buy you immunity for your crime.'
Edward shrugged. 'Perhaps, but I should not wish to put the matter to the test. It would still cloud your own reputation. Aiding and abetting...'
'Yes, yes,' Drinkwater interrupted testily, 'those two words haunt me to this day.' He tossed off his own glass and rose to stand swaying in the cabin as Kestrel stood out to sea.
'I can stay Russian,' Edward almost pleaded. Drinkwater paused and the two men stared at each other in the shadowy cabin. 'What damned curious lives we have led,' Edward added reflectively.
'What damned curious times we have lived through,' Drinkwater replied.
'D'you remember what Mother used to say?' 'No, what in particular?'
'That "a friend is a friend at all times, but a brother is born for adversity".'
'Am I supposed to find that consoling? If so I find it confoundedly cold comfort. We are about to stick our heads into a noose, Colonel. By demonstrating so conspicuously outside Calais last night and this morning, in order that somehow you should be made aware of our presence, we have alerted the authorities very effectively. Now we must turn back and make a landing. I presume this Baroness and her children are in Calais itself?'
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