Baltic Mission nd-7

by Ричард Вудмен

  'Yes, everything,' Mackenzie insisted, 'perhaps the history of Europe. You are the one man who can help!'

  'But I am a sea-officer, not a spy!'

  Drinkwater's protest roused Mackenzie. 'It is precisely because you are a sea-officer that we need you ... Ostroff and I. You see, Captain Drinkwater, my hypothesis has proved correct. Napoleon and Alexander are to meet in conditions of the greatest secrecy, and to gain access we need a seaman's skills.'

  The British spy made out a desperate case for Drinkwater's help and he had to concede the justice of the argument. What Mackenzie demanded was incontrovertibly within the latitude of Dungarth's special instructions. Whatever the bureaucrats at the Admiralty might think of him leaving his ship, he felt he was covered by Lord Dungarth's cryptic order: You should afford any assistance required by persons operating on the instructions of this Department. Now he knew why the old, recurring dream had woken him a few mornings before; he had felt a presentiment and he knew the moment for full atonement had come.

  'Damn these metaphysics,' he growled, and turned his mind to more practical matters.

  Mackenzie had suggested they took a third person, someone with a competent knowledge of horses, for they had far to travel, yet one who would play up to the fiction of Mackenzie mas­querading as a merchant and Drinkwater as the master of an English trading vessel lying in Memel. For this there was only one candidate, Midshipman Lord Walmsley, the only one of Antigone's people who was familiar with horses, and who spoke French into the bargain. His lordship showed a gratifying willingness to volunteer for a 'secret mission' and was ordered to remove the white patches from his coat collar and to dress plainly. His preparations in the cockpit spread a sensational rumour throughout the ship.

  For himself Drinkwater begged a plain blue coat from Hill, leaving behind his sword with the lion-headed pommel that betrayed his commissioned status. Instead he packed pistols, powder and ball in a valise together with his shaving tackle and a change of small clothes.

  'You will not need to worry about being conspicuous,' Mackenzie had yawned, 'the countryside is alive with travellers all going wide-eyed to see their Little Father the Tsar meet the hideous monster Napoleon.'

  The hours of the afternoon rushed by. He had left instructions with Quilhampton to execute his will should he fail to return, and had attempted to write to Elizabeth but gave the matter up, for his heart was too full to trust to paper. Instead he went to the orlop to see Tregembo who was recovering well, and passed on a brief message to be given in the event of his disappearance. It was inadequate and ambiguous, but it was all he could do.

  'I wish I could come with 'ee, zur,' the old man had said, half rising from the grubby palliasse upon which he lay. Drinkwater had patted his unhurt shoulder.

  'You be a good fellow and get better.'

  'And you look after yourself, boy,' Tregembo had said with a fierce and possessive familiarity that brought a sudden smile to Drinkwater's preoccupied face.

  Finally, he had written his orders to Rogers, placing him in temporary command. Should he fail to return within ten days, Rogers was to open a second envelope which informed their Lordships of the state of affairs Mackenzie had so far discovered and his own reasons for leaving his ship. As the dog-watches changed, Mackenzie woke, and half an hour later they left the ship.

  Lieutenant Quilhampton commanded the boat, making his second trip to Memel to land agents and scarcely imagining why the captain found it necessary to desert them like this. The mood in the boat was one of silent introspection as each man contemplated the future. Drinkwater and Mackenzie considered the problems ahead of them while James Quilhampton and the oarsmen gazed outboard and wondered what it would be like to be under the orders of Samuel Rogers. The only light heart among them was Lord Walmsley who had a thirst for an adventurous lark.

  The long northern twilight offered them no concealment as they pulled into the river, past the lighthouse tower and its fire. The quays of Memel were still busy with fishing boats unloading their catches. Drinkwater tried to assume the character of Young, master of the Jenny Marsden, as typifying the kind of man he was trying to ape. He tried to recall the jargon of the merchant mariners, mentally repeating their strange terms in time with the oars as they knocked against the thole-pins: loss and demurrage; barratry and bottomry; pratique and protest; lagan and lien, jetsam and jerque notes, flotsam and indemnity. It was a bewildering vocabulary of which he had an imperfect knowledge, but in the event there were no Custom House officers to test him and with a feeling of anticlimax Drinkwater followed Mackenzie up a flight of slippery stone steps onto the quay, with Walmsley bringing up the rear.

  There were no farewells. Quilhampton shoved the tiller over and the bowman bore off. Ten minutes after approaching the quay the barge was slipping seawards in the gathering darkness. Quilhampton did not look back. He felt an overwhelming sense of desolation: Drinkwater had deserted them and they were now to be subject to the arbitrary rule of Samuel Rogers.

  Lieutenant Samuel Rogers sat alone at the captain's desk. His eyes looked down at the table-top. It was clear of papers, clear of Mount's long-borrowed Military Atlas, clear of everything except a key. It was a large, steel key, such as operated a lock with four tumblers. A wooden tag was attached to it and bore the legend: SPIRIT ROOM.

  Rogers stared at the key for a long time. He was filled with a sense of power quite unattached to the fact that he was now in effective command of the Antigone. This was something else, something strange stirring in a brain already damaged by alcohol and the horrible experience of being lashed in a strait-jacket. Rogers was quite unable to blame himself for his addiction. He blamed fate and bad luck and, in a way, that obligation to Drinkwater which had become a form of jealousy. And Lallo's justification for his treatment had rested on Drinkwater's own instructions. He had been 'confined quietly' ... the meaning was obvious. That it had been done for his own good, Rogers did not dispute. Disagreeable things were frequently done for one's own good and a streak of childishness surfaced in him. Perhaps it was a weakness of his character, perhaps a by-product of his recent chronic alcoholism, but it was to darken his mind in the following days, worsened by the isolation. Drinkwater's absence had placed him in and the position of trust that he now occupied. That, too, was attributable to Drinkwater, and it was this sense of being in his place and having to act in his stead that suffused Rogers with an extraordinary sense of power. In this peculiar and unbalanced consummation of a long aggrieved and corrosive jealousy, Rogers found the will to reject his demon.

  With a sweep of his hand he sent the spirit-room key clattering into a dark corner of the cabin.

  PART TWO

  The Raft

  'I hate the English as much as you do!'

  Alexander to Napoleon, 25 June 1807

  Napoleon

  June 1807

  General Edouard Santhonax, aide-de-camp to His Imperial Majesty Napoleon, Emperor of the French and Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army, completed his verbal report. He watched his master pace slowly up and down the beaten earth floor of the low wayside inn which was serving briefly as Imperial Headquarters. The Emperor's polished half-boots creaked slightly as he walked between the two crude tables and their attendant benches at which sat his secretaries and crop-headed Marshal Berthier, the Grand Army's Chief-of-Staff. Their heads were bent over piles of documents taken from dispatch boxes.

  The Emperor was dressed in the dark green undress uniform coat of the Horse Chasseurs of the Guard and his plump hands were clasped in the small of his back. He spun round at the end of the tavern, his head bowed, the fine brown hair swept forward in a cow-lick over the broad forehead. He paced back, towards the waiting Santhonax.

  Santhonax stood silently, his plumed hat beneath his arm, the gold lace on his blue coat a contrast to the Emperor's unostentatious uniform. Napoleon stopped his pacing a foot in front of the tall officer and looked up into Santhonax's eyes.

  'So, my General, we have an
emissary from the Tsar, eh?'

  'That is so, Sire. He waits for your command outside.'

  Napoleon's face suddenly relaxed into a charming smile. His right hand was raised from behind his back and pinched the left cheek of General Santhonax, where a livid scar ran upwards from the corner of his mouth.

  'You have done well, mon brave.'

  'Thank you, Sire.'

  Napoleon turned aside to where a map lay spread on the rough grey wood of the table. He laid a plump finger on the map where a blue line wound across rolling country.

  'Tilsit.'

  A shadow of hatching lay under the ball of the Emperor's finger, indicating the existence of a town that straddled the River Nieman. 'You say the bridge is down?'

  Santhonax stepped forward beside the Emperor. 'That is so, Sire, but there are boats and barges, and the transit of the river is not difficult.'

  'And you are certain that Alexander seeks an armistice, eh?' 'That is what I was led to believe, Sire.'

  The Emperor hung his head for a moment in thought. At the end of the table Berthier stopped writing, pushed aside a paper and sat poised, as though sensing his master was about to dictate new movements to the Grand Army. A silence hung in the long, low room, disturbed only by the scratching of the secretaries' pens and the buzzing of a pair of flies in the small window of the inn, for the June heat was oppressive.

  'Very well!' The Emperor made up his mind and began to pace again, more rapidly than before. Santhonax stepped back to make way for him.

  'Write, Berthier, write! The town of Tilsit is to be declared a neutral zone. On the acceptance of our terms by the Tsar, orders are to be passed to the advance units of the Grand Army that have already crossed the Nieman, that they are to retire behind the line of that river. An armistice is to be declared. General Lariboissiere of the Engineers is to requisition boats and to construct a pontoon or raft surmounted by pavilions, two in number, one to accommodate their Imperial Majesties, the other their staffs.' The Emperor paused and looked at Santhonax.

  'It is fortunate, General, that you were formerly a frigate-captain. We shall put your maritime expertise to good account.' Napoleon smiled, as if pleased at some private joke, then he addressed himself to Berthier again. 'General Santhonax is to liaise with General Lariboissiere as to the method of mooring this raft in midstream and to be responsible for the complete security and secrecy of the meeting between ourself and the Tsar.'

  The Emperor swung suddenly round on Santhonax and his eyes were ice-cold.

  'Is that clearly understood, my General? Secret, utterly secret.' 'Perfectly, Sire.'

  'The Russian court is a sink of iniquitous intrigue, General Santhonax, a fact which should be uppermost in your mind.' The Emperor's mood had mellowed again; he seemed suddenly in an almost boyish good humour.

  'Of course, Sire,' replied Santhonax dutifully.

  'Very good! Now you may show in this Russian popinjay and let us set about the wooing of Alexander!'

  11

  The Road to Tilsit

  June 1807

  Captain Drinkwater woke from a deep sleep confused and disoriented. For several moments he did not know where he was. The unfamiliar smell of his bedding, the whitewashed ceiling and the chirruping of sparrows outside the small window all served to perplex him. Slowly he recalled the rapid train of events that had taken place since they landed from the barge and took their unceremonious farewell of Quilhampton.

  Led in silence by Mackenzie, Drinkwater and Walmsley had walked swiftly into a maze of small, narrow streets reminiscent of an earlier age, with overhanging buildings and rickety roofs. Despite a lingering light in the sky, the omnipresence of the shuttered houses threw them into darkness as they followed the spy. Then abruptly they stopped and Mackenzie knocked imperiously on a nail-studded door. After a moment it opened, there was a quick exchange of what Drinkwater took for sign and countersign and then he and Walmsley were drawn inside, the door was closed behind them and they stood in a large, partially lit room, their presence and necessities being explained by Mackenzie to the occupant of the house. A sense of curiosity filled Drinkwater. The street smells of Memel had been odd enough, but those of the house seemed almost diabolical and this impression was heightened by what he could see of the room. Low and overhung with beams, it was largely lined by shelves, drawers and cupboards. On the drawers he could see vaguely familiar lettering and in the cupboards, behind glass, the owner's lantern shed highlights on jars and sorcerers' retorts. On the shelves, however, were even more sinister exhibits: a monstrous foetus, a coiled snake and a diminutive mermaid. Beside him he felt Walmsley shudder with apprehension and utter a low expression of repulsion. Drinkwater recognised the lettering on the little wooden drawers as the abbreviated Latin of the Pharmacopoeia.

  'We are the guests of an apothecary, I believe,' Drinkwater whispered to the midshipman. Both men were fascinated by the ugly mermaid whose wrinkled, simian face stared at them, the dancing light of the lantern flame reflected from her glass pupils.

  Mackenzie and their host turned at this moment. 'Ah, so you like my little mermaid do you, gentlemen?' The apothecary was of middle age and held the lantern for them to see the piece of cunning taxidermy. His accent was thickly Germanic, but his command of English appeared good. Mackenzie smiled.

  'Well, gentlemen, our host will show you to your rooms. It is already late. I advise you to retire immediately. I have some business to attend to and we must make good progress tomorrow.'

  There were no introductions and in silence Drinkwater and Walmsley followed the apothecary to an attic bedroom where two low beds were prepared by a silent and pretty blonde girl with a plait like a bell-rope down her back. The two Englishmen stood awkwardly with the apothecary while the girl bustled about. Then, as she left, he gestured to the beds.

  'Thank you,' Drinkwater said. The man bowed and withdrew. Mackenzie had already disappeared and as the door closed Drinkwater heard the lock turned. 'It seems we are prisoners for the night, Mr. Walmsley,' he remarked with an attempt at a reassurance he was far from feeling. To his surprise Walmsley grinned back.

  'Perhaps it's just as well, sir.'

  'Eh?' Drinkwater was puzzled, then he remembered the blue eyes of the girl and her last, frankly curious glance as she bobbed from the room. 'Ah, yes ... well, I think we must sleep now.' And despite his misgivings, despite a gnawing reaction of having deserted his post, Drinkwater had fallen into a deep, dreamless and wonderful slumber.

  His confusion on waking was less comforting. He lay for a long time wondering if he had made the right decision in leaving Antigone; his thoughts alternated in a wild oscillation between a patient argument in favour of co-operating with the mysterious Mr. Mackenzie and a swift panic that he had acted with insanely foolish impetuosity. In the opposite corner Midshipman Lord Walmsley still snored peacefully, sublimely unconcerned and probably dreaming of the blonde girl.

  There was a sudden grating in the lock and the door opened. The apothecary came in and wished them good morning. The girl followed, a tray in her pink hands from which coffee, fresh bread and a species of black sausage sent up a pungent and appetising aroma. Drinkwater saw Walmsley stir and open his eyes. He looked at the pretty face, smiled and sat up.

  'Herr Mackenzie requests that you be ready in half an hour, gentlemen,' the apothecary said, then chivvied the girl out and closed the door.

  'I will shave while you pour the coffee,' Drinkwater said in an attempt to preserve a little of the quarterdeck dignity in the awkward and enforced intimacy with the midshipman. While this curious little ritual was in progress Mackenzie made his appearance.

  'Good morning, gentlemen. You must forgive me for having deserted you last night. There were certain arrangements to make.'

  He waited for the two naval officers to complete their preparations and when they were both ready said, 'Now, gentlemen, when we leave here we assume our new identities. I am a merchant, a Scotsman named Macdonald. You, Captain, are
a merchant master. I leave you to choose your own name and that of your ship. Mr. Smith here,' he nodded at Walmsley, 'is a junior mate. I have a chaise below.' He smiled at Drinkwater. 'By great good fortune you are not compelled to ride. Lord Leveson-Gower arrived here last night. He is no longer persona grata at the Tsar's court. Fortunately the chaise he used for amusing himself in St Petersburg bears no arms. I have the use of it.' He made a gesture to indicate the door. 'Come, we must be off. We have twenty leagues to cover before night.'

  They clattered down the stairs and emerged into the apothecary's room which looked less terrifying in the daylight that slanted in through the narrow windows. The mermaid was revealed as a hybrid sham, a curiosity of the taxidermist's art designed to over-awe the ignorance of the apothecary's customers. They passed through into the street.

  'The box please, Smith.' Mackenzie nodded Walmsley to the driver's seat and opened the door of the chaise for Drinkwater. 'A steady pace,' he said to the midshipman. We don't want the horses blown.'

  Walmsley nodded and vaulted up onto the seat. Drinkwater climbed in and settled himself. Mackenzie lifted their meagre baggage in with them and then climbed in himself. He tapped Walmsley's shoulder and the chaise jerked into motion. Drinkwater turned to take his farewell of the apothecary, but the studded door was already closed. Only a small, pretty, blue-eyed face watched their departure from a window.

  For the first quarter of an hour Drinkwater attended to the business of settling himself in comfort as the chaise moved over the uneven road. Mackenzie was kneeling up on the front seat, giving the midshipman directions as they drove the equipage through the narrow streets, round innumerable corners and out onto what passed in Lithuanian Kurland for a highway.

  'A sea of mud in the autumn, a waste of ice and snow in winter, a mass of ruts in the spring and a damnable dustbowl at this time of the year,' explained Mackenzie at last, 'Like every damned road in the Tsar's empire.'