Under False Colours

by Richard Woodman

  'Madame.' He bowed as she swept out, leaving him prey to misgivings as to her motives. He heard the faint crunch of her conveyance on the snow covered gravel and then Liepmann came back into the room.

  'She drives herself?' he asked.

  'Ja, she is dangerous, that one — but I think ...' he paused, 'she gave you papers for London?' Drinkwater nodded. 'Good. I can tell you that your two ships passed Brunsbuttel this morning.'

  'Excellent,' said Drinkwater. 'Herr Liepmann, the British officer of whom we spoke earlier, he is a friend. I must get him out.'

  The long-suffering Liepmann nodded slowly. 'We must talk ...'

  He was dog-tired when they at last retired. He had eaten nothing since the thin burgoo Gilham had obtained for him that morning. The hock had left him with a headache but he could not compose his mind for sleep and sat at the open window listening to the distant sounds of the search parties fade.

  The night yielded no secrets. The dying away of the shouting proved nothing. Drinkwater thought of Frey and his men drifting slowly downstream amid the ice-floes, desperately hoping they had evaded their pursuers on the river bank. He thought, too, of James Quilhampton lying delirious a few leagues away, and of Elizabeth alone in her distant bed. But again and again his thoughts returned to Hortense with a fierce mixture of desire and suspicion.

  Outside the snow had stopped. A few stars appeared, and then the moon. By its light he turned over and over the sealed packet she had given him. Was it for London? Or was it a piece of incriminating evidence deliberately planted on him? And was the 'assignation' to which she claimed she was going, a meeting to denounce him, a British naval officer out of uniform in the house of a well-known Jewish merchant? Marshal Davout would delight in seizing a British spy caught red-handed in Hamburg whilst at the same time destroying the centre of the apparatus by which his master's Continental System was being cheated. In self-preservation Thiebault would corroborate the suspect Madame Santhonax's story and they could expect cavalry in Altona by dawn!

  What had Hortense to lose? By so simple a denunciation she could secure the Emperor's gratitude; Santhonax's backpay and her pension would be assured. He had not only confessed to having murdered her husband, but also provided her with a reasonable explanation which, made into a deposition before an advocate or a notary in Paris, would restore her husband's reputation at a stroke.

  How could she not adopt such a course of action?

  And yet ...

  And yet he would still have rather spent that sleepless night in her bed than anywhere else on earth.

  Drinkwater woke to the alarming jingle of harnesses. He had fallen asleep across the bed fully clothed, as he might have done at sea. He had left the window open and was chilled to the bone. On leaping up and staring from the window, his worst fears were realized. A troop of brass helmeted dragoons, their grey cloaks thrown back to reveal their green coats, stood about the drive holding their tossing horses' heads. Immediately below, where the tracks of Hortense's chaise could still be seen, Herr Liepmann stood talking to a beplumed officer. A maid emerged bearing a tray of steaming steins and was made much of by the cavalrymen.

  At almost the same instant, or so it seemed, the manservant who had attended him the previous evening entered Drinkwater's room after a perfunctory knock. Balanced on one hand he too bore a tray, with the other, its index finger at his lips, he commanded Drinkwater to silence.

  The aroma of coffee, bread and sausages filled the cold air and Drinkwater relaxed. The appearance of breakfast and the raised finger did not, he judged, signal betrayal. To divert himself from being caught at the window, and compelled by hunger, he settled to the welcome food.

  From time to time he rose, cautiously peering down to the driveway and was finally rewarded by the sight of the troopers mounting up. A few moments later Liepmann entered the room.

  'I have news.' He held up a note. 'M'sieur Thiebault writes to tell me that trade is to stop ... for a little while, you understand.' Liepmann smiled wryly.

  'Thiebault sent the message by that officer of dragoons?'

  'Lieutenant Boumeester is a Dutchman; they were Dutch dragoons. Their loyalty is, er, not good.' Liepmann shrugged. 'It is not only fat burghers who like to sugar their coffee, Captain. I have other news: Boumeester tells me more soldiers come to guard the hospital. Marshal Davout is angry.'

  'So we do not have much time.'

  'I go to Hamburg today. My carriage and Doctor Castenada's will —' Liepmann held out his hands, palms flat towards him and brought his finger tips together, seeking the English verb.

  'They will meet?' offered Drinkwater.

  'Ja, and I will speak. You must stay here. If I am not come back, do not worry. Go to the place we talk about last night.'

  Drinkwater nodded, yawning. 'Your servants can be trusted?'

  'They are paid by me, Captain. I will tell them what you need. Auf weidersehen.'

  They shook hands. When Liepmann had left Drinkwater lay back on the bed. A moment later he was fast asleep.

  It was almost dark when he awoke. The manservant was gently shaking him and indicating a tray of food, some rough, workman's clothes and a pile of furs. Drinkwater threw his legs out of the bed and rubbed his eyes. The manservant drew back a corner of the furs. A large horse pistol, a bag of balls and a flask of powder lay exposed. The weapon reminded Drinkwater with a shock of what the night held in store. He felt his heart thump as the lethargy of sleep was driven away.

  'Herr Liepmann,' he asked, 'is he returned from Hamburg?'

  'Eh?' The servant frowned and shrugged.

  Drinkwater tried again. 'Herr Liepmann, is-he-come-from-Hamburg?'

  'Ach! Nein, nein.' The servant shook his head, smiled and backed out.

  After eating, Drinkwater changed his clothes. Over woollen undergarments he drew a coarse pair of trousers and a fisherman's smock. Two of the furs he rolled tightly and secured across one shoulder, the rest he bundled up with his cloak. Liepmann had provided a pair of sabots, but instead he drew on Dungarth's worn, green hessian boots, for they were comfortable and he had formed an attachment to them as a talisman. Pausing a moment, he shoved Liepmann's borrowed silk stockings in a pocket. Loading the pistol he stuck it in his belt. Then he picked up the sealed packet given him by Hortense. Perhaps after all he had misjudged her. Drawing a pillow-slip from the bed he improvised a bag and lanyard, pulled the latter over his head and tucked the bag inside his smock. Finally he pulled his queue from its ribbon and shook his tousled hair so that it fell about his unshaven cheeks.

  By the time he had finished it was quite dark. He heard the curfew sounded at the hospital and made his way downstairs. The manservant was waiting for him and beckoned him to follow. The heat of the kitchen made Drinkwater sweat. Lantern light was reflected from rows of copper pans and a large joint of meat lay half butchered on a large scrubbed table. But apart from Drinkwater and the servant, the stone flagged room was empty, cleared of cooks and scullions by the trusted manservant who now handed Drinkwater a heavy leather satchel. A glance within revealed cheese, bread, wine, schnapps and sausage. A door from the kitchen led directly from the house and the servant lifted the latch for him.

  Nodding gratefully, Drinkwater slipped out into the night; it was snowing again.

  Lieutenant James Quilhampton drifted in and out of consciousness. The sound of hoof beats and the swaying of his narrow stretcher seemed to have accompanied half his lifetime. Periodically, familiar faces swam before him: his mother, Captain Drinkwater, young Frey, and Derrick the Quaker clerk he had inherited from Drinkwater. There were others too: Catriona MacEwan, elusive as always, and laughing at him as she ran perpetually away. He kept trying to follow her, but every time he tripped and fell, amid the terrible crashing of breakers and hideous thunder of cannon that made the abyss into which he descended shake in some mysterious way which he did not understand. Here they were waiting for him. The dark man with the saw and the knife whose kindly voice spoke in a
foreign language and who thrust the knife into his arm so that he felt the white fire of amputation as he had done years ago during the bombardment of Kosseir.

  When the man with the knife had finished another foreigner would appear. A man with spectacles and ice-cold eyes whose bald skull seemed too large for his shoulders and who took only a single look at him before uttering a curse. The bald man was God, of course, consigning him to the pit of hell, because Catriona was laughing at him and he fell again further and further, to where the dark man with the knife reappeared, pushing his hands into Quilhampton's very flesh. He knew the dark man was the devil and that he had been judged a great sinner.

  Sometimes he heard himself shouting, for words echoed in his head and once another demon peered at him, a pale face with coiled hair that framed a face lit by the light from a lantern.

  He felt better when the demon had withdrawn, cooler, as if he had been reprieved from the most extreme regions of hell, though the swaying rhythm of his body went on and on.

  He must have slept, for when he was next aware of anything he was quite still, lying on his back in total darkness. There was a great throbbing in his left shoulder, as though all the pain of his punishment were being applied there. He found it difficult to breathe and, with growing consciousness, felt no longer the supine, indifferent acceptance of the feverish but the horror of the trapped. He tried to move: his right arm was pinned to his side. He raised his head: his forehead met obstruction. The sweat of fear, not hypothermia, broke from his body. The crisis of his amputation had passed but they had taken him for dead. He was in his coffin.

  Drinkwater found the boat quite easily, where the road from Altona to Blankenese dipped down to the very bank of the Elbe and a shingle strand marked the ballast bed. It must have been here that Frey had first seen Liepmann's barge, for large stakes had been driven into the ground as mooring posts. The fisherman's punt was drawn up in the centre of the little beach, a light craft such as a wild-fowler or an eel-fisherman might have used. Inside was a quant and a pair of oars, and he found it fitted with nocks intended for the latter cut in the low coaming.

  Ice had formed at the water's edge but he could make out the darker unfrozen water beyond the shallow bay. Carefully he stowed the satchel and the spare furs, his boots crunching on the shingle. Once he stood stock-still when a dog barked, but it was only a mongrel in the village close by. When he was satisfied with the boat he moved up the beach, wrapped himself in the cloak and settled down to wait. A low bank some five feet high gave him a little protection from the snow and he squatted down, drawing his knees up to his chin.

  He had slept too well during the day to doze, and the time passed slowly. He took his mind off the cold and the pain in his shoulder by trying to calculate long multiplication sums in his head, forcing himself to go over the working until he was confident of the answer. Faintly, borne on the lightest of breezes, he heard the chimes of a distant clock and realized it was that of the Michaelskirche in Hamburg. For him to hear it so far downstream meant that the snow was easing. When he heard ten strike, as if by magic, the sky cleared. He got up and moved cautiously about to restore his circulation; it was getting colder.

  Then he heard the stumbling feet and rasping breath of men carrying something. Drinkwater crouched until he could see them, four men bearing a coffin and a fifth bringing up the rear. His heart thumping, Drinkwater rose and showed himself.

  Who the four men were he had no idea beyond knowing that Liepmann would pay them well for their work and their silence, but the fifth was Castenada, bag in hand. He came forward as the mysterious bearers lowered the coffin on to the shingle beside the punt.

  'Captain ...?'

  'All is quiet, Doctor.'

  Both men bent anxiously over the coffin and Castenada began to lever up the lid. Drinkwater waited. He wanted to ask after Quilhampton's condition and, at the same time, to warn his friend to keep silent.

  With a grunt, Castenada pulled the lid aside. In the starlight the pale blur of Quilhampton's face was suddenly revealed, his mouth agape as he fought for air.

  Castenada swiftly produced a bottle of smelling salts from the bag he had brought with him. He handed it to Drinkwater.

  'Under his nose!' he ordered and Drinkwater did as he was bid while the surgeon chafed his patient's cheeks. Quilhampton groaned and Castenada transferred his attention to Quilhampton's shoulder, feeling the heat of the wound through the dressing and the sleeve of his coat.

  'It is God's will, Captain,' he said, 'he is past the crisis, but he will have suffered from the shock.' Castenada put a hand on Quilhampton's forehead and clicked his tongue. Quilhampton groaned again.

  'James ... James, it is me, Drinkwater. D'you understand? You are among friends now, James. D'you understand?'

  'Sir? Is that you?' Quilhampton raised his right hand and Drinkwater seized it, squeezing it harder than he had intended in the intensity of the moment.

  'Yes, James, it's me. We're going for a boat ride. Be a good fellow and lie quiet.'

  'Aye, aye, sir,' Quilhampton whispered, his fever-bright eyes searching the blur that he could not really believe was Drinkwater's face.

  Drinkwater stood up. 'Come.' he said, motioning with his hand, 'into the boat.'

  They lifted him as gently as they could, laying him on the furs Drinkwater had prepared and covering him with more furs and the blankets Castenada had packed in the coffin.

  The four Germans helped Drinkwater drag the punt out over the ice, until it gave way and the boat floated.

  'Danke,' he gasped, his breath coming out in clouds that were already freezing on the stubble about his mouth. He lifted one foot to steady the punt and half turned towards Castenada.

  'Thank you, Doctor,' he hissed at the grey shape standing at the edge of the ice.

  'Wait!' Castenada bent and picked up his bag and handed something to the four men. Then he was plunging awkwardly through the broken ice and, teetering uncertainly alongside Drinkwater, grabbed his arm for support.

  'I come with you. He will not live without a doctor, not in this cold!'

  Drinkwater looked doubtfully at the narrow punt, then patted Castenada.

  'Very well! Get in!'

  Drinkwater tried to steady the narrow punt as Castenada climbed clumsily aboard, but it rocked dangerously. When the surgeon had settled down Drinkwater followed, seating himself amidships on the single thwart and shipping the oars. He looked briefly ashore. The four men had already gone, taking the coffin with them. They would fill it with earth and it would be buried in the morning.

  Leaning forward he could see in the stern Quilhampton's face. 'Shall we go home, Mr Q.?'

  'If you please, sir,' came the uncertain, whispered reply.

  Drinkwater turned his head and murmured over his shoulder, 'Are you ready, Doctor?'

  'Adelante, señor!'

  Drinkwater dipped his oars and pulled out into the stream, feeling the mighty tug of the great river. He could just make out the skyline broken by the roofs of Blankenese and the spire of its little kirk. Tugging at the oars he watched their bearing draw astern as the Elbe bore them towards the sea.

  CHAPTER 17

  Ice

  February 1810

  At the first brightening of the sky Drinkwater sought shelter for the hours of daylight. Helped by the river's ebb they had dropped well downstream to where the Elbe widened, spreading itself among the shallows of shingle beds and islets towards its southern bank. Drinkwater pulled them up to a small reef of gravel which extended above the flood level far enough to support a sparse growth of low alder and willow bushes. Along the northern margin of this ait the stream ran deep enough to keep it ice-free, since a shallow bend in the main channel scoured its shore.

  With his hands protected by the purloined stockings, Drinkwater was warm enough from the steady exertion of pulling and Quilhampton gallantly professed he felt warm enough, wrapped as he was in furs and blankets. Castenada was rigid with cold, so that, having
run the punt aground, it was only with difficulty Drinkwater managed to assist first Quilhampton and then the Spanish surgeon into the shelter of the alder grove.

  It was clear that the cramps of immobility as much as the cold were affecting Castenada, and watching him, Drinkwater concluded he suffered also from a heavy conscience; in his impetuous desire to assist Quilhampton he had abandoned his other charges.

  Drinkwater busied himself gathering all the dry driftwood he could find, supplementing it with dead alder and willow branches. Paring a heap of kindling with the kitchen knife given him for cutting the sausage, and catching a spark from the horse pistol, he contrived to get a fire burning.

  'This wood is dry enough not to make much smoke,' he observed, fanning the crackling flames as they flickered up through the sticks.

  Quilhampton stared about them. 'The air is marvellously dry,' he said, and Drinkwater looked up from his task. The light easterly wind they had experienced during the night had died away. The sun was rising as a red ball and the Elbe reflected the perfect blue of a cloudless sky. The distant river banks seemed deserted as Drinkwater painstakingly surveyed them. He had no idea how far downstream they had dropped, but by the width of the river he guessed they had made good progress.

  'If the weather stays this fair,' Quilhampton said as Castenada kneeled beside him to change his dressing, 'there will be little wind to worry us.'

  'True,' said Drinkwater, and both sea officers looked at the low freeboard of the punt and thought of the long, exposed stretch off-shore, beyond Cuxhaven.

  'Perhaps we can lay our hands on another boat,' said Drinkwater with feigned cheerfulness, though both knew the risks such a course of action entailed.

  'I expect we could do something to make her more weatherly,' Quilhampton said, the perspiration breaking on his face as Castenada tried to draw the ligatures from his stump after sniffing the wound.

  'Do you use the lead acetate dressing, Doctor?' Drinkwater asked, hardly able to bear the pain on Quilhampton's drawn features.