Beneath the Aurora

by Richard Woodman

  The sight overwhelmed the watch on deck; they stared open-mouthed, gaping at the northern sky, their faces illuminated by the unearthly light, while the frigate Andromeda and her prize stood south-east beneath the aurora.

  CHAPTER 17

  December 1813–January 1814

  The Return

  ‘So, you bring home a prize at last, Captain Drinkwater.’

  Barrow peeled off his spectacles and waved Drinkwater to a chair. A fire of sea-coal blazed cheerily in the grate of the Second Secretary’s capacious office, but failed to take the chill out of the air. Outside the Admiralty, thick snow lay in Whitehall, churned into a filthy slush by the wheels of passing carriages. Icicles hung from every drainpipe and rime froze on the upper lips of the downcast pedestrians trudging miserably along.

  Drinkwater sat stiffly, feeling the piercing cold in his aching shoulder, and placed his battered hat on the table in front of him.

  ‘Is that a shot hole?’ Barrow asked inquisitively, leaning forward and poking at the cocked hat.

  ‘A musket ball,’ Drinkwater said flatly, finding the Second Secretary’s curiosity distasteful. ‘I fear my prize is equally knocked about,’ he added lest his true sentiments be too obvious.

  ‘I hear the Master Shipwright at Chatham is much impressed with the Odin; a new ship in fact. There seems little doubt she will be purchased into the Service. I don’t need to tell you we need heavy frigates as cruisers on the North American station.’

  Drinkwater nodded. ‘Quite.’

  ‘You do not seem very pleased, Captain.’

  ‘She has already been purchased at a price, Mr Barrow.’

  ‘Ah, yes. I recollect your losses. Some friends among them, no doubt?’

  ‘Yes. And their widows yet to face.’

  ‘I see.’

  Drinkwater forbore to enlarge. He was filled with a sense of anti-climax and a yet more unpleasant duty to attend to than confronting Catriona Quilhampton, or Tom Huke’s dependent womenfolk.

  ‘Coming from Norway,’ Barrow continued, ‘you will not feel the cold as we do! The Thames is frozen, don’t you know. It has become such a curiosity that there is a frost fair upon it in the Pool.’

  ‘I saw something of it as I came across London Bridge.’

  ‘Indeed. Well, Captain, the First Lord desired that I send for you and present the compliments of the Board to you. Whatever the cost it is better than losing Canada; imagine that in burnt farmsteads and settlements, the depredations of Indians and the augmentation of American power.’ Barrow smiled and replaced his spectacles. One hand played subconsciously with a pile of papers awaiting his attention. The profit and loss account of the Admiralty was, it seemed, firmly in credit and John Barrow, fascinated by a hole in a sea-officer’s hat, was satisfied.

  ‘You will not have heard all the news, I fancy, though it is run somewhat stale by now.’ Barrow’s high good humour was so buoyant that it threatened to become infectious.

  ‘News, Mr Barrow? No, I have heard nothing.’

  ‘Dear me, Captain, we must put that right at once. Boney was trounced at Leipzig in mid-October,’ Barrow explained. ‘Schwarzenburg’s Austrians refused battle with the Emperor, but attacked his marshals in detail and forced the French to concentrate on Leipzig. With Blücher attacking from the north, Schwarzenburg pushed up from the south, leaving Bernadotte to advance from the east. He dallied, as usual, waiting to see which way the wind would blow, but Bonaparte sent a flag of truce to discuss terms. The delay allowed the Russians to reinforce the Allies and the attack was resumed next day with the odds two to one in the Allies’ favour. At the height of the battle the Saxons and Württembergers deserted Boney and, with the game up, he began to withdraw across the River Elster. He might have got away, but the single bridge was prematurely blown up, and in the ensuing chaos the French losses were gargantuan – over two hundred and fifty guns alone! Since then thousands of men have straggled, conscripts have deserted in droves and the French garrisons in Germany are isolated. The 26,000 men at Dresden have surrendered and typhus is said to be raging in the camps of the Grand Army!’

  Drinkwater suppressed a shudder at the mention of that fearful disease, but was unable to restrain his interest. ‘And what is the news from Spain?’

  ‘Wellington is across the Pyrenees,’ Barrow declared, his eyes shining, ‘he deceived Soult by crossing an “impassable” but shallow channel of the River Bidassoa. He entered France and forced the Nivelle in November, a month after Leipzig! I tell you, Captain, it is now only a matter of time.’

  ‘And what of Marshal Murat?’

  Barrow barked a short, derisive laugh. ‘King Joachim has retired to Naples to raise troops, but is, in fact, in contact with the Austrians.’ Barrow paused and smiled. ‘So you see, Captain, we have not entirely lost the services of a Secret Department in your absence.’

  There was a sleek complacency in Barrow’s patronizing which irritated Drinkwater after the rigours of his short but violent voyage. Nor had the Second Secretary yet finished the catalogue of Allied triumphs.

  ‘And you will be interested to know that King Joachim’, Barrow pronounced the title with sonorous irony, ‘has not only concluded a treaty with Vienna, but also one with His Majesty’s government, as recently as last week.’

  ‘I see. Colonel Bardolini would have been pleased.’

  ‘Bardolini?’ Barrow frowned. ‘Oh, yes, I recollect; the Neapolitan envoy. Well, at all events, Captain Drinkwater, the Board are most gratified with the success of your cruise, and not displeased that you have enjoyed a measure of personal success.’

  ‘That is very civil of the Board, Mr Barrow.’ Drinkwater bestirred himself; much had happened in his absence. ‘Please be so kind as to convey my thanks to Lord Melville and their Lordships.’

  Barrow inclined his head. ‘Of course.’

  Drinkwater rose and reached for his hat. The inferred message in Barrow’s complimentary speech was less subtle than Barrow imagined. Drinkwater was not to expect a knighthood for taking the Odin; moreover, the Admiralty Board considered he should be satisfied with his prize-money. The gold was indeed a droit of Admiralty, having originated in Britain in the first place, as payment for wheat sent to Wellington’s army in Spain two years earlier.

  Drinkwater cleared his throat. ‘I should like to ask for a dockyard post for Birkbeck, my sailing master, Mr Barrow, and a step for Mr Frey,’ he said.

  Barrow frowned. ‘He is getting his percentage for carrying the specie as you requested in your report.’

  ‘He is an excellent officer, Mr Barrow, a competent surveyor and first-rate water-colourist. Please don’t forget’, he added, with an edge to his voice, ‘that several officers have died upon this service.’

  Barrow opened his mouth, saw the harshness in the eyes of the sea-officer before him and cleared his throat. ‘Frey, d’you say?’ He made a note of the name. ‘Then perhaps I might find something for him.’

  ‘I should be obliged.’ Drinkwater was satisfied, unaware of the effect his expression had had on Barrow. His time at the Admiralty had not been entirely wasted. He would not otherwise have known of Barrow’s predilection for exploration. ‘Good-day to you.’

  ‘Good-day.’ Drinkwater had reached the door when Barrow called after him, ‘Oh, by the way, what happened to that clerk Templeton? I did not see his name among the dead or wounded.’

  ‘He is well,’ Drinkwater replied, adding evasively, ‘he has taken furlough.’

  ‘He has lodgings off the Strand, if I recall aright. Lived there with his mother in some decayed style, I believe.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Drinkwater did not wish to pursue the matter and was in the act of passing through the door when Barrow went on, ‘You may tell him there is still a place for him in the copy room. We still need a good cipher clerk – though not so often now.’

  ‘I will tell him,’ replied Drinkwater, ‘though I am not certain he wishes to return to the copy room.’
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br />   ‘Very well. That is his affair. Good-day to you, Captain.’

  ‘Good-day.’

  Drinkwater walked down Whitehall towards the Abbey. He was deeply depressed, for Templeton was no guest of his, but had been held at the house in Lord North Street against his will under the close guard of Mr Frey.

  The fate of Mr Templeton had been the last strand in the splice. And, ironically, he had been the means by which the rope’s end had come unravelled in the first place, with his news of Bardolini’s arrival at Harwich. And, Drinkwater thought savagely, pursuing his nautical metaphor, the last strand had been the most difficult to tuck.

  He had attended to all the incidental details of the affair. He had buried Quilhampton as he had buried Huke, along with all the dead that had not been unceremoniously hurled overboard during the action fought with the Odin, sending their weighted bodies to the deep bed of the Vikkenfiord as he read the burial service, culminating with the psalm, ‘I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills: from whence cometh my help . . .’

  The cold and distant mountain summits had mocked him in his grief.

  And he had dutifully written to Mosse’s father, and to Huke’s sister and asked permission to wait upon her and her mother; he had discharged into the hands of the military the American prisoners who had been Malaburn’s confederates. They, in due process, would be returned to Dartmoor gaol.

  And still there was Templeton.

  The vague unease which Drinkwater had felt towards his confidential clerk had, he now knew, been founded on half-realized facts and circumstantial evidence that the preoccupations of those desperate days in the Vikkenfiord had driven from his immediate consideration.

  When, however, the light northerly winds persisted and promised them a cold but steady southward passage, Drinkwater had had more leisure to mull over the events of recent weeks. The high pressure of the polar regions extended the length of the North Sea, bringing to England a bitter, snow-girt Christmas and to London the novelty of a frozen Thames.

  Ice settled, too, about Drinkwater’s heart.

  He had wondered who had murdered Bardolini, attributing the crime to one of the many spies Napoleon maintained in London, as he had suggested to Castlereagh’s under-secretary, but the cunning and co-ordination of Malaburn’s actions, the appearance, compliance and ready impressment of those Americans, the sabotaged gun breeching, the certainties inherent in Malaburn’s conduct in that last, fatal encounter, all argued something more sinister, more organized. He became obsessed with the notion of a conspiracy.

  Drinkwater could not evade the question of what he would have done had Danks not so peremptorily shot Malaburn. With Huke dead, Malaburn had overplayed his hand, but with Huke still alive, Drinkwater did not truly know what he might have done.

  These events, isolated in themselves, were but elements in the desolation of the last weeks. Their linkage was circumstantial, no more part of a conspiracy, in fact, than Herr Liepmann’s report of a quantity of arms arriving at Hamburg. And yet, for so fatalistic a man as Nathaniel Drinkwater, the train of isolated occurrences wanted only a catalyst to link them as certainly as Bardolini’s intelligence had led Andromeda to the American privateers anchored in the Vikkenfiord.

  Two days south from Utsira, Mr Birkbeck had placed the catalyst in his hand.

  ‘I’m afraid I opened it, sir. I had no idea what it was, but I think you should see it.’

  Drinkwater knew what it was the instant he saw the package in Birkbeck’s grasp. It had been in his office at the Admiralty, then in the house in Lord North Street. Now . . .

  ‘Where did you find it, Mr Birkbeck?’ he had asked quietly.

  ‘In the hold, sir.’

  ‘Malaburn.’

  ‘It has an Admiralty seal . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m much obliged to you.’ Birkbeck had relinquished the canvas parcel and retreated, his curiosity unsated.

  Drinkwater knew Malaburn had seized the papers from his London house, but how had this American known of the house, of Bardolini’s presence there, or of the Neapolitan’s significance? And while the contents of the package had no direct bearing upon the business of King Joachim or the shipment of arms to the Americans for the invasion of Canada, they contained information which, in the hands of Napoleon’s chief of police, Savary, the Duke of Rovigo, could betray those persons in France well disposed to the cause of Great Britain, among whom was Madame Hortense Santhonax.

  Holding the package after Birkbeck’s departure, Drinkwater was almost shaking with relief at having nipped the betrayal of Hortense and her network in the bud, and then he found the answer to the half-formed question which had plagued him.

  Apart from Drinkwater himself, only one person existed who could have drawn so fine a thread through this mystery: Templeton.

  It came to him then, aside from the formal, everyday loyalty, those tiny fragmented clues, invisible to all but the suspicious and even then almost imperceptible.

  He remembered Templeton’s subtle attempt to play down the value of Liepmann’s intelligence report from Hamburg; remembered Templeton had not broadcast the news of Sparkman’s letter concerning Bardolini to the copy room, and had had difficulty concealing his satisfaction when Drinkwater himself, in an act of uncharacteristic high-handedness, had burnt Sparkman’s letter. Finally he remembered Templeton’s consternation when he learned he was to sail with Drinkwater. He must have been sick with anxiety as to the outcome of events throughout the whole passage, Drinkwater concluded.

  It was true that Templeton had witnessed the Americans letting go the anchor to deliver Andromeda to the guns of the Odin, but that had been a somewhat circumstantial occurrence, Drinkwater concluded. Moreover, in the aftermath of that event, Templeton had been singularly unhelpful in identifying the culprits. Only their own hiding on the knightheads where Huke had discovered them had revealed who they were.

  It was clear they knew very little of what was going on, and had acted according to Malaburn’s instructions, as well they might, for he had spirited them out of prison and seemed set fair to get them aboard homeward-bound American ships! Malaburn himself had taken pains to keep out of trouble during that first action. Drinkwater had no doubt now that Malaburn had been below throughout the event with the dual objective of avoiding the Danish fire and compressing the cable when sufficient had run out. Why his absence at his battle station had not been reported, Drinkwater would never know, but some dilatoriness on the part of, say, the twelve-year-old Mr Fisher, would seem to provide an answer.

  It was not difficult in a man-of-war for a seaman of experience, as Malaburn clearly was, to avoid Templeton, who was himself penned up with the officers. Templeton had given no hint of any foreknowledge of an acquaintanceship with one of the crew, but God knew what anxieties, hopes and fears had made Templeton act the way he did. Templeton’s presence may have given the American agent a great deal of anxiety, but Malaburn could not expect events to fall out too pat. He had had the greatest run of luck in collecting his chain-gang from Dartmoor and shipping it so neatly to Scotland to be pressed promptly by the assiduous Huke!

  Moreover, Drinkwater remembered angrily, Malaburn had so nearly been successful.

  He had not arrested Templeton immediately, but waited until Andromeda anchored at the Nore, observing his clerk for any clues of apprehension. On their arrival he had instructed Templeton to accompany him to London, implying his service aboard the frigate was at an end. With the crippled Odin sent up the Medway to the dockyard, Drinkwater made out a written order to Frey to turn the prize over to the master-shipwright and join him. Leaving Birkbeck in charge of Andromeda, Drinkwater had prepared to post to London, intending to take Frey and Templeton. There was nothing remarkable in the arrangement.

  Frey had joined Drinkwater as he emerged from the fine red-brick residence of the Dockyard Commissioner where he had been finalizing details for the reception of the two ships. A post-chaise awaited the three men.

  ‘Ah, Frey,
you are on time.’

  ‘Good afternoon, sir. It’s damnably cold.’

  They shook hands and Drinkwater turned to Templeton. ‘I appear to have left my gloves, would you mind . . . ?’

  ‘Of course.’ Templeton had returned towards the house.

  ‘Frey,’ Drinkwater had said in a low and urgent voice, ‘I want you to accompany me to London. I’ve made the necessary arrangements for the Odin.’

  ‘Is it the Kestrel, sir?’ Frey had asked anxiously. As the senior surviving officer of the cutter, Frey was naturally concerned with their justification for handing over the little ship. He feared a court-martial.

  ‘No, no. Listen . . .’ but Templeton was already returning, holding Drinkwater’s full-dress white gloves.

  ‘Just do exactly what I say!’ he had hissed vehemently, then swung round to Templeton. ‘Ah, Templeton, obliged, thank you.’

  ‘You had dropped them in the hall.’

  Drinkwater had grunted. Now they were ashore again Templeton had resumed his old familiarity. It bespoke his confidence. Drinkwater clambered aboard and was followed by the others. A moment later the chaise swung through the Lion Gate and on towards Rochester and London.

  Drinkwater had waited until it was almost dark before he struck. He affected to doze, killing off all chance of conversation as the chaise lurched along, passing through a succession of villages. Frey, though consumed with curiosity, obediently held his tongue.

  Templeton had stared out over the snow-covered countryside. Surreptitiously watching him, Drinkwater sought to read the man, but Templeton remained inscrutable, unsuspecting.

  As a grey twilight spread over the land and the chaise rocked on towards Blackheath, Drinkwater stirred from his mock stupor. He could no longer endure the sharp angularities of the pistol in the small of his back and drew it with slow deliberation.