Beneath the Aurora

by Richard Woodman

  ‘Are you all right, sir?’

  Drinkwater smiled ruefully. ‘Well enough, Tom, well enough.’ He brightened with an effort. ‘An attack of the megrims, nothing more.’ He forced a laugh. ‘Too many damned islands.’

  * See The Bomb Vessel and 1805.

  * See In Distant Waters.

  CHAPTER 8

  October 1813

  A Bird of Ill-omen

  The morning bore a different aspect. Drinkwater woke to the short, jerking plunges of the creaking frigate as she butted into a young head sea and knew the worst. Dressing hurriedly, he went on deck to find his apprehensions confirmed. As he ascended to the deck, he noticed the hammock of the sick man swinging in isolation beneath the open waist, slung between the boat-booms. Then, as he emerged on to the quarterdeck, the near gale buffeted him, the howl of it low in the rigging. Under topsails and a rag or two of staysails and jibs, Andromeda rode a grey sea studded with paler crests which reflected the monotone of the sky. Curtains of rain swept eastwards some two miles away on the lee bow, and the blurred horizon to windward promised more. The decks were already sodden, and much of the good work of the day before was already undone. Staring about him he saw no sign of Utsira.

  ‘Morning, sir.’ Lieutenant Jameson touched the forecock of his hat which, Drinkwater noted, dripped from earlier rain as he held his head down against the wind. ‘A few squalls ha’e blown through, but she’s snug enough under this canvas, sir.’

  ‘Yes.’ Drinkwater wanted to ask if they had seen any sign of the Kestrel, but it would only have betrayed the extent of his anxiety, for it was obvious there was no sign of the cutter in the grey welter beyond the safety of Andromeda’s bulwarks. Instead he asked with almost painful inconsequence, ‘Where are you from, Mr Jameson?’

  ‘Montrose, sir.’

  ‘And your family? Do they farm?’

  ‘My father is an apothecary, sir,’ Jameson said, with a hint of defiance, as though he was half ashamed and half daring his commander to scoff at his low birth.

  ‘A useful calling, Mr Jameson. I wonder what he would have thought of the event of yesterday?’

  ‘I doubt that he would ha’e seen the amusing side of it, sir.’

  ‘And you? What did you think?’

  ‘I, sir . . . well, I . . . I don’t know . . .’

  ‘Come, come, I never knew a lieutenant who had no opinion. I’ll warrant you had one in the wardroom last night. Perhaps you did not approve?’

  ‘No! I mean, I don’t think I would ha’e done . . . I mean . . .’

  ‘You mean you could not have done it, I sense. Is that not so?’

  ‘Well, sir, perhaps,’ agreed Jameson, whose chief objection had been having to jump around naked himself, though he had taken his discomfiture out on the embarrassed Walsh.

  ‘Sometimes, Mr Jameson, it is very necessary to do things which seem, at face value, to be ridiculous. Your joke about the flea party was a good one, for, though you may have considered the proposition ridiculous, I am of the opinion that the ship-fever is caused by that annoying little parasite and that he will hop aft along the gangway and nip you as readily as he will nip those men forrard there.’

  ‘You are very probably right, sir,’ capitulated Jameson resignedly.

  ‘Well, then, perhaps you are more resolute in what you think we should do today. What would you advise?’

  Jameson shrugged. He was not used to having his opinion sought, least of all by the captain. ‘Heave to, I suppose, since we are on the rendezvous.’ He paused and looked at Drinkwater who said:

  ‘Nothing more?’

  ‘No . . . well, yes, I suppose it would be best to run back towards the island, we ha’e hauled out to the nor’ west during the night.’

  Drinkwater nodded. ‘See to it then,’ he ordered curtly and turned away, to begin pacing the deck along the line of the starboard carronades.

  ‘Strange old cove,’ Jameson muttered to himself, raising the speaking trumpet to his mouth. ‘Stand by the braces, there!’ he called, then lowering the trumpet towards the men at the helm, ‘Larboard wheel if you please . . .’

  In the cabin Drinkwater was studying the spread charts with Birkbeck when Huke knocked and entered.

  ‘Fishing boats in sight, sir. I thought at first it was the cutter. I’ve told Mosse to drop down towards them.’

  ‘What good will that do, Tom? To maintain the fiction of being Danish we would need to speak . . .’

  ‘We’ve a Dane on board, sir,’ Huke interrupted, ‘I meant to tell you earlier. His name is Sommer. I have instructed him to lay aft.’

  ‘Well done. Bring him below.’

  Huke disappeared and returned a few moments later with an elderly man who, from his sandy eyebrows, might once have been blond, but whose head was now devoid of hair.

  ‘You are Sommer?’

  ‘Yah. I am Per Sommer.’

  ‘How long have you been in this ship?’

  ‘Oh, long time, Captain. In Agamemnon before, and Ruby and some other ships. In King George’s service long time.’

  ‘You have no wish to go home to Denmark?’

  Sommer shrugged. ‘I have no family. My mother died when I was born, my father soon after. He was fisherman. I become fisherman. Then one day we have big storm, off the Hoorn’s Rev. Later we see ship and I become British seaman. Now Andromeda my home. Not go back to Denmark. Too old.’

  Drinkwater looked blankly at the elderly man. For a moment or two he was lost in contemplation at the sad biography, moved at the surrender to providence. Had fate compelled Sommer to this comfortless existence just to provide him, Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater, with an interpreter at a crucial moment?

  ‘Lucky for us, sir,’ prompted Birkbeck.

  ‘What? Oh, yes. D’you know why we are flying the Danish flag?’

  Sommer shrugged. ‘Not worry very much about flags.’

  ‘Very well. We want you to speak to the fishing boats ahead, Sommer. I want to ask them if they have seen any strange ships, big ships. American ships, in fact, Sommer. D’you understand?’

  ‘American ships, yah, I understand.’

  ‘What about . . . ?’ began Huke, but Drinkwater had already considered the matter.

  ‘I want you to put on my hat and cloak when you speak to them, Sommer, to look like an officer.’

  ‘An officer . . . ?’ Sommer grinned, not unwilling to enter the little conspiracy. ‘Yah, I can be captain.’

  And they bowed him out of the cabin with almost as much ceremony as if he were.

  The two fishing boats, their grey sails almost indistinguishable against the sea, lay to leeward as the mainyards were swung aback and Sommer hoisted himself up on to the rail. There followed an exchange which, by its very nature, raised Drinkwater’s spirits, for it was obvious from the Dane’s question and the pointing gestures that followed that it had been positively answered.

  ‘Give them this,’ Drinkwater commanded, holding up a knotted handkerchief. Sommer took the small bundle and tossed it into the nearer boat as it wallowed below them. There were expressions of thanks and Sommer dropped down on deck, taking off the captain’s cloak and hat. Drinkwater took them and, in doing so, thrust a guinea into Sommer’s rough hand.

  ‘Thank you, Sommer. What did they say?’

  ‘Two American ships, sir, sailed into Vikkenfiord three days ago.’

  ‘Very good. If we take them I shall rate you a quartermaster for prize money.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain.’ The Dane knuckled his forehead and shuffled forward.

  ‘Haul the mainyards, Mr Mosse! Mr Birkbeck, the chart . . .’

  They had located the Vikkenfiord as a long inlet which once, in primeval times, had been formed by the erosion of a mighty glacier. It appeared like a long finger reaching, with a slight crook in it, into the mountainous interior. Its entrance was very narrow.

  ‘For a moment I thought it was not going to be on our chart,’ Drinkwater confided.

  ‘ ’Two
uld have to be well enough known for the Americans to find, sir,’ replied Birkbeck.

  ‘Yes,’ Drinkwater agreed, feeling a little foolish, for that was an obvious point and the entire ship knew by now that they were seeking Yankee privateers. ‘We could do with better visibility before closing the coast, but I fear we are more likely to encounter fog.’

  ‘Aye, I was thinking much the same. This can be a damnable spot . . .’

  ‘Well, there is no point in dwelling on the matter. Lay us a course to Utsira. We can afford a little further delay and if the Americans were anchored three days ago, it seems unlikely they have left already . . .’

  ‘They could have slipped out yesterday,’ said Birkbeck.

  ‘True.’ Drinkwater could not tell the master why he was certain they had not left, but his own heart quickened, for he was sure they lay within the fastness of the fiord. The weather they had endured would not have encouraged the passage of a ship from Denmark with French arms, having been contrary for a passage out of the Skagerrak, for whereas the Norwegian coast north of Utsira was fissured with sheltered inland passages, the area to the south was not.

  ‘We will pass another night on the rendezvous,’ Drinkwater said firmly, ‘and then, if the weather serves, we will run into this Vikkenfiord and take a look.’

  Drinkwater slept well that night and woke in optimistic mood. To his unutterable joy the wind had hauled south-east and Utsira was dead astern, no more than three or four leagues distant. Such a wind shift seemed like an augury of good luck. He shaved, dressed and hurried on deck. The change in the weather had encouraged more of the local fisherfolk to venture forth, and Drinkwater saw this as additional proof of providential approval.

  He had not expected to find Kestrel in the offing but such was his mood that he would not have been surprised had she been in sight, and he privately dared to hope that she and her company were safe.

  Although it was not his watch, the master was on deck, taking bearings and hurrying below to lay them off on the chart. When he returned to the deck he approached Drinkwater.

  ‘With your permission, sir, a course for the entrance to the fiord?’

  ‘If you please, Mr Birkbeck.’

  So they bore up and, with their yards braced to catch the steady beam breeze from the south-east, Andromeda headed north-east again, dropping the isolated outcrop of Utsira astern and soon afterwards raising the grey ramparts of the coast of Norway.

  It had escaped anyone’s notice that Mr Templeton had not quitted his cabin since the morning of the great dousing. Anyone of significance, that is, for the wardroom messman was aware of the captain’s secretary’s ‘indisposition’, and catered for him until, on the morning they departed Utsira, he passed word to the surgeon.

  Templeton himself had fallen victim to a conflict of emotion. Unaware of the captain’s preoccupations, he was somewhat affronted that Drinkwater had not sent for him. He was also concerned, for reasons of his own, as to what Drinkwater now intended to do. On the other hand, he found himself unable to resist submitting to wild and beguiling fantasies which washed over him in waves of sensual anticipation, so that he dared not leave his cabin to confront a world of reality in which, he felt sure, his guilt would be written plain upon his face. He had not counted upon the world of reality visiting him.

  Mr Kennedy knocked and immediately opened the cabin’s flimsy door unannounced. ‘Now what in the world is the matter with you, Templeton?’

  Templeton was shocked at the intrusion. He expected his shut door to be respected as if it were that of his home. He had no concept of ship-board manners, or prerogatives, something that Kennedy had quickly assimilated. Caught off guard and guilty, he forgot his ‘illness’ and was merely outraged.

  ‘How dare you come bursting in like this . . .’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with you,’ said Kennedy, well practised in detecting the vapours among the so-called well-to-do. ‘Come, turn out! What would become of us if we all lay about in such a manner?’

  ‘I’ve caught an ague from the cold water . . .’

  ‘Rubbish! Salt water never gave a man an ague! You are malingering, sir!’ Kennedy snapped, ‘And I have work to do!’

  ‘I didn’t summon you,’ protested Templeton, adding, as he saw the baleful look in Kennedy’s eyes, ‘nor has Captain Drinkwater sent for me.’

  ‘I think he is far too busy. Do you know where we are?’

  ‘Off Norway, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  ‘Almost upon it, in fact. There’s talk of American ships and action before the day’s done.’

  ‘Action?’ Templeton’s face grew ashen.

  ‘Aye, Templeton, action. You had better be out of bed by then, cowardice in the face of the enemy’s a hanging offence!’

  There were a lot of men on deck, Templeton thought, the same men he had last seen naked; men on and off duty, for the vista about them was such as to stun the dullest mind. They ran through a narrow strait in which the sea bore the colour and smoothness of a sword-blade. Upon either side rose precipitous heights, great dark cliffs, deeply fissured, their snowcapped summits wreathed in veils of cloud. As they passed the gorge, the land fell back, to reveal the fiord itself, opening ahead of them. The ground-willow and scrub of the littoral gave way to pines and firs whose dark cladding moved in waves with the breeze, accompanied by gentle susurrations. These trees climbed the slopes, finally dwindling to concede the rising ground to bare rock and, here and there, patches of scree. Above the talus, solitary snow-encrusted crags stood out against the sky, about the peaks of which an occasional eagle could be seen wheeling.

  ‘ ’Tis wonderful, sir,’ a voice said, and Templeton turned to see his sea-mentor Greer, the boatswain’s mate, standing awestruck.

  ‘Sublime, Greer, sublime,’ Templeton whispered, suddenly aware of an overpowering breathlessness.

  ‘I’ve never seen nought like it, Mr Templeton, ’cept in a picture-book once, when I was a boy, like.’

  The revelation of childhood wonder combined with so manly an appreciation of nature’s bounty to make Templeton turn to Greer. Their eyes met and Templeton knew for a certainty that Greer had similar inclinations, though not a word passed between them and they regarded again the dark shores of the Vikkenfiord. Templeton felt quite deleriously free of all his cares.

  A few yards away Lieutenant Mosse nudged his scarlet-clad colleague Walsh. ‘There, sir, I do declare I was right and you owe me a guinea.’

  ‘You may be right, Stephen, but that ain’t proof!’

  ‘What proof d’you want?’

  ‘Just proof,’ said Walsh enigmatically, leaving Mosse shaking his head, amused.

  ‘You have no need to worry about the depth,’ Drinkwater said to Birkbeck, ‘though it will not hurt to take an occasional cast of the lead. These fiords are uncommon deep.’

  ‘Aye, sir, but just in case . . .’

  ‘Indeed, by all means.’

  And so their progress was punctuated by low orders to the helmsmen which kept the frigate in the centre of the fiord, her yards squared to the following wind, and the desultory and unrewarded call of the labouring leadsmen of ‘no botto-o-om’.

  Presently the high land fell back and the gradient became less steep on the southern shore. The margins of pine forest widened to great swathes, rounding the contours of the mountains under their dark, luxuriant mantle.

  ‘Something sinister about them damned trees,’ said Huke.

  ‘Hiding trolls and what-not, eh, Tom?’ grinned Drinkwater, ‘I didn’t know you had a fancy for the Gothick.’

  ‘Sir! Right ahead!’ A hail from the forecastle broke into this inane conversation and Drinkwater raised his glass. Ahead of them the fiord widened considerably, having an appearance more like an English lake in Cumbria. To starboard the mountains retreated further to, perhaps, ten miles distant, while to port they remained closer, their foothills coming down in hummocks and indenting the coast, so that little bays with brief strands alternated w
ith rocky promontories. Ahead, one such headland, more prominent than the others, gave the fiord its crooked shape. Just emerging beyond this small but impressive cape were the masts and yards of two large ships.

  They were some distance off and Drinkwater could make out little of them before he was confronted by a more immediate problem. The wind, which had funnelled through the gorge, from which they had run well clear, now assumed its truer direction and swept down from the south-east and the more distant mountains to starboard. Above their heads the squared sails were all a-flutter with a dull, insistent rumble.

  ‘Larboard braces there! Lively now! Cast off your starboard pins!’

  In a few moments order was restored and, with a beam wind, Andromeda gathered speed. Drinkwater raised his glass again. The strange anchored ships beneath the cape were clearer now. He could see the bright spots of their ensigns and he closed his glass with a snap.

  ‘Beat to quarters, Mr Huke, and clear for action.’

  His Britannic Majesty’s frigate Andromeda bore down upon the anchored ships at a fine clip, the deceitful swallowtail Danish ensign standing stiffly out from the peak of the spanker gaff. A British ensign awaited the order to be run aloft. Boarding parties of seamen and marines, each told off under the command of a midshipman or master’s mate, waited by the quarter boats, the red and blue cutters.

  It was clear that the only patch of shallow water capable of holding the flukes of an anchor lay close inshore, in the bay that, Drinkwater guessed without looking at the chart, lay just beyond the bluff. A sudden gust of wind laid the frigate over, so that she surged ahead, rapidly drawing closer to the point itself.

  Beside him Huke reported the ship cleared for action. Every gun, including the runaway cannon which had been hand-spiked and shoved back into its rightful station, was loaded and shotted and every man stood ready at his post.