Under False Colours

by Richard Woodman

  CHAPTER 19

  Refuge, Rescue and Retribution

  February-April 1810

  Acting Lieutenant Frey stood beside Lieutenant O'Neal on the heeling deck of the twelve-gun cutter Alert. From time to time he went forward, levelled a battered telescope and scanned the horizon. It was broken at two points: by the Vogel sand to the north and the Scharhorn to the south. Beyond the Scharhorn lay the low island of Neuwerk with its stone tower and beacons. The crew of the alarm vessel marking the entrance of the River Elbe — technically the enemy — waved cheerfully as the heavily sparred cutter with its huge gaff mainsail carried the wind and tide on her daily reconnaissance into the estuary. The deck-watch on the Alert waved back.

  Frey walked aft again and shook his head.

  'Nothing?' asked O'Neal in his Ulster accent.

  'Nothing,' said Frey disconsolately.

  'We'll take the tide up as far as Cuxhaven,' O'Neal said encouragingly.

  The incoming tide had covered the Scharhorn Sand by the time Drinkwater had got Castenada and Quilhampton up on to the massive beacon. The heavy baulks of timber tapered to a platform halfway up, access being provided by a ladder so that during the summer months carpenters from Cuxhaven could repair the ravages of the winter gales. Above the platform the structure rose further, culminating in a vertical beam of oak about which, in the form of a vast cage, the distinctive topmark was constructed.

  The effort of gaining the safety of the beacon cost them all dear. The three of them lay about the platform as though dead, and it was more than an hour before coherent thoughts began to stir Drinkwater's fuddled brain from the lethargy of relief at having found a refuge. He began to contemplate the bleak acceptance of eventual defeat. He knew death was now inevitable and thirst more than cold and exposure was to be its agent. They were still reasonably well provided for against the cold, having salvaged all the furs and blankets from the punt. Damp though they were, the furs provided a windbreak and some means of conserving their body heat. They were already thirsty and the task of dragging Quilhampton and their own unwilling bodies up the beacon made it worse.

  It was not long before Drinkwater could think of nothing other than slaking his burning throat. His tongue began to feel thick and leathery, and his head ached. The more the desire for water increased, the more fidgety he found he became, fretting irritably, moving about and eventually standing up, clinging shakily to an upright and staring wildly round about them. He could see to the east the low island of Neuwerk with its tower and beacons, and beyond it the masts and yards of two or three anchored ships. Slowly, almost uncomprehendingly, he swung his red-rimmed eyes to the north.

  The cutter was about two miles away, its mainsail boomed out as it ran east into the mouth of the Elbe. With despairing recognition he took it for the Dutch customs cruiser. Only after a few minutes did he realize the cutter had no lee boards, that the stem was ramrod straight, not curved, and the long running bowsprit was of an unmistakably English rig. He had been deceived! The foreshortened mainsail had given the impression of having the short narrow head of Dutch fashion, but this was no Netherlander, this was a British naval cutter, and now he could see the blue ensign at her peak as she passed on her way upstream toward Cuxhaven.

  Hope beat again in his breast.

  'They haven't gone up river yet, then,' said O'Neal, standing beside the two men leaning on the Alert's tiller and nodding at the three ships anchored in Neuwerk Road.

  'No,' said Frey, 'and that bodes no good for Captain Drinkwater.'

  It was common knowledge at Helgoland, now that Littlewood had brought back the Ocean and the Galliwasp and Frey and his men had arrived in a stolen sailing barge, that a grand deception had been carried out against the French. It had never been Drinkwater's intention that all the ships of the abandoned convoy should be used to deceive the enemy. Under the terms of the agreement with Thiebault, they were to have gone only as far as Neuwerk, there to await the release of Ocean and Galliwasp, a tempting surety for the good behaviour of the French.

  Drinkwater's failure to appear; the complications arising from the appearance of Tracker's, survivors and unbeknown to Nicholas, Hamilton and Littlewood at Helgoland, the temporary interdiction on trade imposed by Thiebault as a result of Davout's arrival, meant that the ships had remained anchored off Neuwerk under enemy guns.

  O'Neal studied them through his glass. 'The Yankee colours are all flying hauled close-up,' he observed, the precaution of having them fly their American colours on slack halliards having been adopted as a secret signal that things were not well on board.

  A tiny puff of white smoke appeared on the island and a ball plunged into the sea two cables on their starboard bow. The ritual shot had been fired at them every time they sailed into the estuary, but providing the cutter's reconnoitring sorties did no more than establish the emptiness of the river, they were otherwise unopposed. After an hour when they were well within sight of the Kugel beacon and the lighthouse at Cuxhaven, O'Neal shook his head. 'Damn all!'

  'Aye ...'

  O'Neal raised his voice. 'Stand by to put about! Heads'l sheets there! Mainsheet! Bosun, stand by the running back-stays!' He waited for his crew to run to their stations, then ordered, 'Down helm.'

  With a brief thunder of flogging canvas the Alert came round to larboard, passed her bowsprit through the wind and paid off on the starboard tack.

  'Now she'll feel the wind,' said O'Neal as the course was steadied and the sheets were hove down hard. Regular showers of spray rose over the weather bow and O'Neal studied a shore transit he had noted.

  'She's lee bowing it,' he remarked, 'ebb's away already.'

  Drinkwater never took his eyes off the distant cutter and the moment he saw her turn he descended to the platform from the upper part of the beacon from which he had been watching her. Ignoring Castenada's half-witted protests Drinkwater gathered up the blankets. He wished he had the means of making a fire, but all thought of coaxing a spark from the sodden horse pistol lock was, he knew, a waste of time.

  Laboriously climbing the beacon he sat and joined the blankets, corner to corner, then streamed the improvised flag from as high as he could reach, managing to catch a knotted corner of his extempore hoist in a crack in the timber topmark. The distress signal flew out to leeward, a stained patchwork of irregular shape.

  Drinkwater leaned his hot and aching head on the weathered oak of the Scharhorn beacon, closed his eyes and hoped.

  Frey saw the signal, staring at the beacon for a few seconds before he realized the distortion to its topmark. His heart skipped as he raised the glass and caught in its leaping lens the flutter of the blankets.

  'D'ye see there?' he pointed. 'Distress signal! Port Beam!' 'Down helm! Luff her, haul the stays'l sheet a'weather!' O'Neal responded instantly to Frey's shout. 'Where away?' he asked, as soon as the Alert had come up into the wind, lost way and fallen off again, neatly hove-to and edging slowly to leeward.

  'There, sir! On that damned beacon!'

  'Very well. Get the stern boat away. You take her Frey, and mind the ebb o' the tide over that bank!'

  Drinkwater saw the boat bobbing across the water towards the beacon. For a moment he stood stupidly inactive, his eyes misting with relief. With an effort he pulled himself together and stiffly descended again to the platform dragging the lowered blankets after him.

  He tried waking the others but his throat was swollen and the noise he made was no more than an ineffectual croak. His head hurt and he found he could do little except watch the boat approach, his body wracked by shuddering sobs.

  He had mastered his nervous reaction by the time Frey reached him, but it took him some time to recognize his former midshipman.

  'Mr Frey? Is that you? You succeeded then, eh?' Drinkwater's voice was barely more than a whisper.

  'Are you all right, sir?' Frey asked, his face showing deep concern at Captain Drinkwater's appearance. He waved for reinforcements from the boat and by degrees Quilhampton wa
s lowered into it, bruised by further buffeting to his battered frame. Awkward and stumbling, Castenada and Drinkwater finally succeeded in getting aboard, and they began the journey back to the cutter.

  The sea ran smooth over the bank, but where the retreating tide flowed into the channel a line of vicious little breakers briefly threatened them. At Frey's order the oarsmen doubled their efforts and they broke through the barrier to the open water beyond. Shortly afterwards they bumped alongside Alert's black tumble-home. Hands reached down and dragged Drinkwater and Castenada up on to the cutter's neatly ordered deck. A strange officer confronted Drinkwater, his hand to the forecock of his bicorne hat.

  "Tis good to be seein' you at last, sir,' he said smiling. 'We've been beatin' up and down for days now, lookin' for you. O'Neal's the name, sir.'

  'I'm very much obliged to you, Mr O'Neal, very much obliged,' Drinkwater croaked. 'Mr Quilhampton here needs a masthead whip to get him aboard ...'

  Drinkwater could remember nothing after that, nothing at least beyond slaking his inordinate thirst and finally sinking into the sleep of utter exhaustion.

  Lieutenant James Quilhampton woke to the sound of the wind. Above his head he could see exposed rafters and the underside of rattling tiles. The wind played among the cobwebs that strung about the rough, worm-eaten timbers, giving them a dolourous life of their own, an effect heightened by the leaping shadows thrown by a pair of candles that guttered somewhere in the room.

  Quilhampton shifted his head. The 'walls were whitewashed, or had been a long time ago. Now flakes of the distemper curled from the damp walls and patches of grey mould disfigured the crude attempt at disguising the stone masonry. He located the candles on a table at the foot of his narrow bed. A man was asleep at it, head on hands, his face turned away. A long queue lay over the arm upon which his head rested. The hair was dark brown, shot with grey, and tied with a black ribbon.

  Quilhampton frowned. 'Sir? Is that you?'

  Drinkwater stirred and looked up, his face gaunt, the old scar and the powder burns about his left eye prominent against the pale skin.

  'Aye, it's me.' Drinkwater smiled, yawned, stretched and hauled himself to his feet. He kicked back his chair and came and stood beside Quilhampton.

  'More to the point, James, is that you?'

  'I'm sorry ...?' Quilhampton frowned.

  'You've been talking a lot of drivel these last few days, I wondered — we all wondered — whether you were lost to us.'

  'Where am I?' Quilhampton's eyes roved about the room again.

  'Safe. You're on Helgoland, in the old Danish barracks ... No, no, don't fret yourself, they ain't Danish anymore. They're the property of His Majesty King George ...'

  'King George ... yes, yes, of course, foolish of me.'

  'And you ain't to worry about that court martial, my dear fellow. I've been taking sworn affidavits from Frey and your people.'

  Quilhampton nodded. 'That's most kind of you, sir.' He managed a wan smile. 'It's a pity you made me write to Mistress MacEwan pressing my suit.'

  'Why?'

  'I'll have to write again ... she'll not want a man who hasn't —'

  'I can't answer for Mistress MacEwan, James,' Drinkwater broke in, unwilling to allow his friend to subject himself to such morbid thoughts, 'but I'm damned if I'll have you considerin' such things until you're up and about. Castenada said if you got over the secondary fever, you had a fair chance of walking within a month. We'll make all our decisions then, eh?'

  'You'll stay here for a month, sir?'

  'Just at the moment, James. There's a March gale roaring its confounded head off out there, so we have precious little choice!'

  Hearing the reassuring words, Quilhampton nodded and closed his eyes. He did not hear the note of impatience in Drinkwater's voice.

  'I do not think I shall have any difficulty in persuading the Governor, my dear sir,' said Nicholas smiling at Drinkwater, 'none at all.'

  'Very well. We need to conclude the matter, and as long as those three ships lie in limbo off Neuwerk ...'

  'Quite so, quite so,' Nicholas eyed the glass and its contents before passing Drinkwater the glass of oporto. 'Despatched by the Marquis of Wellesley, Canning's replacement at the Foreign Department,' he said with evident satisfaction, 'doubtless a tribute to his brother's successes in the peninsula ...'

  'And of his approbation at your, or am I permitted to say our, little achievement?' asked Drinkwater, raising the glass.

  'Ah, sir, you mock me.'

  'A little, perhaps.'

  'Your good health, Captain.'

  'And yours, Mr Nicholas.'

  They sipped the port in unembarrassed silence, Drinkwater still studying the chart spread out before them, and in particular the Scharhorn Sand surrounding the island of Neuwerk. He wanted to return, to lay the ghosts of the Elbe that still haunted his dreams and to release the three transports from their anchorage under the French guns before Davout's proposed absence from Hamburg encouraged M. Thiebault to order them up the Elbe.

  They were the ships that were to have stood surety for Thiebault's bond, the guarantee that he and Gilham and Littlewood would retire downstream, paid and unmolested. They and their crews had waited patiently until Drinkwater's release, expecting their 'recapture' daily, but a series of strong westerly winds and vicious gales had postponed the operation until the end of March.

  'Of course you may not find things as easy as you assume, Captain,' Nicholas said guardedly.

  'What d'you mean, sir?'

  'While you were ill, two boats got off. One brought a secret despatch from Liepmann. He had it on good authority ...'

  'Thiebault?' enquired Drinkwater quickly.

  Nicholas shrugged. 'Presumably, but there were what he called inexplicable rumours of a rift between Paris and Petersburg that were of a sufficiently serious nature as to suggest war was being contemplated, at least in Paris.'

  'Good Lord! Then we succeeded better than I imagined; but how does this affect the meditated attack?' He flipped the back of his hand on the chart.

  'It is also reported, Captain, that reinforcements have arrived in Hamburg, to wit, Molitor's Division, about nine thousand strong. Cuxhaven has received a reinforcement, so has Brunsbuttel ...'

  'The westerlies will have kept reinforcements from Neuwerk as surely as they have mewed us up here, I'm sure of it.'

  'I trust you are correct, Captain, but I would be guilty of a dereliction of duty if I did not appraise you of the facts.' Nicholas held out the decanter. 'Another glass, and then we'll go and see Colonel Hamilton.'

  'Very well, Mr O'Neal,' Drinkwater called to the dark figure looming expectantly at the Alert's taffrail, 'you may cast us off!'

  The huge, quadrilateral mainsail of the cutter, black against the first light of the April dawn, began to diminish in size as the Alert drew away from the four boats she had been towing. They bobbed in her wake while their crews settled themselves at their pulling stations.

  'Mr Browne?' Drinkwater called.

  'All ready, sir,' replied the old harbour-master.

  'Mr McCullock?'

  'Ready, sir,' the transport officer called back.

  'Mr Frey?'

  'Ready, sir.'

  'Line ahead, give way in order of sailing.' Drinkwater nodded to the midshipman beside him. 'Very well, Mr Martin, give way.'

  'Give way toooo-gether!'

  The oar looms came forward and then strong arms tugged at them; the blades bit the water, lifted clear, flew forward and dipped again. Soon the rhythmic knocking of the oars in the pins grew steady and hypnotic.

  Involuntarily Drinkwater shivered. He would never again watch men pulling an oar without the return of that nightmare of pain and cold, of ceaseless leaning and pulling, leaning and pulling. He recalled very little detail of their flight down the Elbe, almost nothing of the desperate skirmish with Dieudonne on the ice or the struggle to get Quilhampton into the comparative shelter of the Scharhorn beacon. What was
indelibly etched into his memory was his remorseless task at the oars, which culminated in his stupidly losing one and nearly rendering all their efforts useless.

  He kept telling himself the nightmare was over now, that he had paid off the debt he owed fate and that he had received a private absolution in receiving Quilhampton back from the grave. But he could not throw off the final shadows of his megrims until he had released the three transports and all their people were safely back in an English anchorage.

  He turned and looked astern. In the growing light he could see the other three boats. Two — McCullock's and Browne's — were the large harbour barges, one of which had welcomed them to Helgoland when Galliwasp had run on the reef, the third was the Alert's longboat and the fourth a boat supplied by the merchant traders, commanded by Frey and manned by the vengeful remnants of Tracker's crew. A handful of volunteers from the Royal Veterans commanded by Lieutenant Dowling were deployed among the boats.

  Drinkwater led the column in Alerts longboat. Wrapped in his cloak, Drinkwater stared ahead, leaving the business of working inshore to Mr Midshipman Martin, a young protege of Lieutenant O'Neal's. He was aware of O'Neal's anger at being displaced from the chief command of the boat expedition, pleading that the matter was not properly the duty of a post-captain. But Drinkwater had silenced the Orangeman with a curt order that his talents were better employed standing off and on in support.

  'You can run up the channel in our wake, Mr O'Neal, and blood your guns, provided you fire over our heads and distract the enemy from our intentions,' he said. Remembering this conversation he turned again. The big cutter had gone about and was now working round from the position at which she let go the boats and ran up towards Cuxhaven. O'Neal had brought her back downstream and would soon shift his sheets and scandalize his mainsail, ready to creep up in the wake of the boats, into the anchorage off Neuwerk.

  'See 'em ahead, sir!'