Rogers opened his mouth and then shut it again.
‘Look,’ persisted Drinkwater, ‘I’m meditating an attack on the French here. You lead it. Take the post ofhonour. It’s an opportunity. God knows it’s one you can’t afford to pass up.’
‘Opportunity,’ Rogers’s voice became almost wistful, ‘I haven’t had an opportunity . . .’
‘Well, enough’s said then. Come, this will be a boat attack. We are crossing the Greifswalder Bight and will anchor somewhere here, work our way into the strait as far as we can. Then you take all the boats, the marines and a hundred-odd seamen and press an attack against the French lines around Stralsund; do what damage you can and come off again before Johnny Crapaud knows what’s hit him. Just the very thing for you. Get you a mention in the Gazette.’
Drinkwater smiled encouragingly and met Rogers’s eyes. The confusion of the man was plain to be seen. ‘A perfect opportunity, Sam.’
6
May 1807
A Perfect Opportunity
‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Drinkwater, glancing round at the assembled officers, ‘when the sun gets high enough to burn off this mist I think we might find some amusement for the hands today.’ He kept his tone buoyant. The awkwardness of the officers in Rogers’s presence was obvious. The poor fellow was being treated like a leper. A single glance at his face told Drinkwater that Rogers’s torments were not yet over. He could only guess at the remarks that had been passed at every mess in the ship: from the gunroom to the cockpit, from the marines’ mess to the ratings messing on the berth deck, the scuttlebutt would have been exclusively about the first lieutenant and his mysterious illness. Drinkwater hoped the action today would give them all something else to talk about and, more important, make them act as a ship’s company again.
Antigone lay on a sea as smooth as a grey mirror in the twilight of the dawn. In the distance, scarcely discernible, a reedy margin could be seen dividing sea and sky. From time to time the quack of ducks came from the misty water’s edge.
‘From what information we have gleaned,’ Drinkwater resumed, ‘Mr Hill and I estimate that the French siege lines are no more than about five miles from the ship. They are investing the Swedish town of Stralsund but at present a state of truce exists between Marshal Mortier, commanding the French, and the garrison of Stralsund. No such armistice exists between ourselves and the French, however, while anything we might do to provoke more activity on the part of the Swedes can only be of benefit to the Alliance. So we intend to annoy the French by mounting a boat attack on their lines wherever opportunity offers. The mist offers you good cover for your approach.’ He smiled again and felt the mood changing. The officers’ preoccupation with the restitution of Rogers was diminishing: fear and excitement were stirring them now. He had only one more thing to say to complete the shift in their thinking.
‘Mr Rogers will command the expedition in the launch.’ He paused, measuring the effect of his words. Disappointment was plain on Fraser’s face, but he ignored it and went on. ‘Now, gentlemen, I think you had better break your fasts.’ They trooped below and Drinkwater added, ‘Perhaps, Sam, you would join me in my cabin.’
In the gunroom, as the burgoo was cleared away and the toast and coffee spread its crumbs and ring-stains upon the less-than-clean tablecloth, the officers deliberated over the coming day.
‘Don’t look so damned bereaved, Wullie,’ said Mount, impishly aping Fraser’s accent. ‘You couldn’t expect the Old Man to have done anything else.’
‘It’s all right for you and your leathernecks,’ grumbled Fraser, irritated by Mount’s eagerness at the prospect of action, ‘you’re just itching to get at the enemy. At least you’ve something to do.’
‘So have you.’ Mount took up a piece of toast and regarded it with some interest. ‘D’you know this looks quite palatable, damned if it don’t.’
‘Just a bloody boat-minder . . .’
‘You might get an opportunity to distinguish yourself,’ put in James Quilhampton, pouring himself more coffee. ‘I can tell you that poor Rogers will be looking for an opportunity to cover himself with glory.’
‘Rogers?’
Quilhampton looked at the second lieutenant. ‘You haven’t known him as long as I have, Willie. He might be an old soak, but he’s no coward.’
‘Ah,’ said Mount, ‘but if he leads, will the men follow?’
The question and the doubt associated with it hung over the table, stirring the cold and personal apprehensions that forgathered before action. Quilhampton shrugged the shadow off first. Like Rogers he too awaited his ‘opportunity’ and his youth was easily convinced it might be soon. He stood up, his chair scraping in the silence.
‘Mount,’ he said lightly, ‘you rumble like a bad attack of borbory-gyms.’
‘Thank you, my young and insolent friend. I suppose I could prescribe myself the carminative of being proved right.’
‘I hope you’re damn well not,’ said Fraser, obviously getting over his pique, ‘I haven’t written my will this commission.’
‘I didn’t know you had anything to leave behind you,’ laughed Mount.
Fraser made a face, wiped his mouth and looked up. Lord Walmsley stood in the gunroom door.
‘What do you want?’
‘Mr Hill’s compliments, gentlemen,’ said Walmsley in his easy manner, ‘but the mist’s beginning to clear, the first lieutenant is making the dispositions for the boats and the captain’s going aloft. Mr Hill is also awaiting the opportunity to come below and have his breakfast.’
‘Oh! Damn me, I forgot.’ Quilhampton shoved his chair in and reached for his hat and sword. Fumbling with the belt as he made for the door he shouted over his shoulder to the negro messman, ‘King! Be a good fellow and bring my pistols on deck!’
In the main-top Drinkwater trained his glass carefully, anxious not to miss the slightest detail emerging from the upper limit of the mist as it hung low over the marshy shore. From their landfall at Cape Arcona they had sailed round the east coast of the island of Rügen, across the mouth of Sassnitz Bay where the Swedish fleet lay at anchor, and round into the Greifswalder Bight. Yesterday they had worked patiently westwards, towards the narrow strait that separated Rügen from the Pomeranian mainland. With a man in the chains calling the soundings they had manoeuvred Antigone as far into the strait as wind and daylight permitted, and learned of the state of truce between the Swedes and French from a Swedish guard boat. As daylight finally faded, and with it the breeze, they had fetched their anchor.
Above the mist, the rising sun behind Drinkwater picked out tiny reflections ahead: the pale gold of a church spire, a sudden flash as a distant window was opened. It was curious how he could see these details twelve miles away, while closer-to there was nothing to see beyond the rounded shapes of tree-tops, elms he thought, and some willows lower down; but that was all that emerged from the nacreous vapour that hung over the water margin. An observer in one of those trees would be able to see Antigone’s masts and spars above the mist, while her hull, with its rows of cannon, was invisible. Not that he thought for a moment they had been observed, and the presence of the Swedish fleet in Sassnitz Bay had persuaded him that by flying Swedish colours he would be perfectly disguised.
He heard a distant trumpet and a drum beat, staccato and oddly clear as it rolled over the water, its rat-a-tat-tat mustering Mortier’s corps to morning parade. Drinkwater pondered the wisdom of his proposed attack. It was to be made on slender intelligence and he knew his intention had far more to do with the state of his command than any real damage he would inflict upon the enemy. Somehow the unreality was emphasised by the mist and it seemed that the only real danger lay below him in that unhappy relationship between Lieutenant Rogers and the people.
Drinkwater had taken Rogers as his first lieutenant out of pity, knowing him for a dogged fighter and competent seaman. But drink and disappointment had soured the man, and although Drinkwater curbed Rogers’s excesses, in his e
veryday behaviour he had given ample cause for offence and grievance among the hands. He received their daily petitions with an unpleasant contempt, used an unnecessary degree of foul language towards them and provoked a general grumbling. Drinkwater’s reluctance to flog was a liberality Rogers disapproved of and which seemed to provoke him to greater unpleasantness towards men whom the iron rule of naval discipline held in a state of thrall.
It was clearly a situation that could not go on. A boat attack under Rogers, Drinkwater had reasoned, gave them all a chance to wipe the slate clean; or at least as good a chance as men in their circumstances were likely to get.
Drinkwater felt the mast jerk and looked down into the waist. Wraiths of mist trailed across the deck but he could clearly see the ordered lines of men straining at the tackles as they lifted the heavy launch off the booms and began to transfer its weight from the stay to the yard tackles. He watched the boat lifted outboard and then lowered into the water. Drinkwater pocketed compass and glass, swung himself over the edge of the top and felt for the futtocks with his feet.
As he jumped down onto the deck, Rogers, Fraser and Quilhampton were telling the men off into the waiting boats. Marines filed along the deck, their muskets slung over their shoulders. Together with the seamen being armed with cutlasses and tomahawks at the main-mast, they scrambled down the nets hung over the ship’s side and into their allocated places in the boats.
Drinkwater crossed the deck to where Rogers was stuffing loaded pistols into his waistband. He smiled encouragingly. ‘Good luck, Mr Rogers,’ he said formally.
Rogers nodded his acknowledgement and paused, as though to say something. But he seemed to think better of it, murmured ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ and slung a leg over the rail.
‘It’s up to you, Sam,’ persisted Drinkwater, ‘you and those men down there.’
Their eyes met and both knew what the other thought.
Then Rogers had gone, and a few minutes later the boats had vanished in the mist.
Lieutenant Rogers, his hand on the tiller of the launch, cocked one eye on the boat-compass at his feet and stole occasional glances at the faint line in the mist that marked the Rügen shore. The surface of the water was as smooth as glass, disturbed only by the concentric and ever expanding rings that marked the progress of the oar blades as they propelled the boats along. Rogers led in the launch followed by Quilhampton in the red cutter, Lord Walmsley in the blue and Lieutenant Fraser in the barge.
Rogers was seconded by Mount and Midshipman Frey, and it was Mount’s marines that made up the bulk of the launch’s crew, apart from the oarsmen. In the boat’s bow, mounted on its slide, a 12-pounder carronade was being fussed over by a gunner’s mate.
The boats pulled on in comparative silence, moving in a world that seemed devoid of time or distance, so disorienting was the mist. It hung heavily, close to the water, discouraging speech, so that the only noises were the laboured breathing of the oarsmen, the dull regular knocking of oar looms against thole pins and the dip and splash of the oar blades. Under the bow of each boat a chuckling of water showed as they pulled on for mile after mile. After two and a halfhours Rogers drew out his watch and consulted his chart. Then he stood in the stern of the boat and waved the others up alongside. The boats glided together, their oars trailing, their men panting over the looms, dark stains of sweat on the backs of their shirts.
‘By my reckoning we must be bloody close to the French lines,’ hissed Rogers. ‘We’ll move across the channel to the mainland side. If we sight a decent target we land and do our worst. Now you buggers keep in close contact. I’ll give the order to attack. Understand?’
There was a general nodding of heads.
‘Very well. Get your lobsters to fix bayonets, Mr Mount.’
Mount gave the order and the whispering hiss and click of the lethal weapons was accompanied by a sudden twinkling of reflected sunlight from the silver blades.
‘There’s a bit o’ breeze coming up,’ observed Fraser and, for the first time, dark, ruffied patches appeared on the water. The heat of the sun was warming the marshes and water meadows on either side of the strait, the rising air sucked in the sea-breeze, a strengthening zephyr which began to disperse the mist in patches.
‘Very well, keep your eyes open then.’ Rogers waved the boats onward. The oars began to swing again and the boats resumed their passage.
Rogers stared into the mist ahead. He felt the public shame of his recent humiliation like a wound and could still only half comprehend why Drinkwater had sanctioned Lallo’s treatment. But he was pragmatist enough to know that, if nothing else, his future hung upon the day’s events. He had under his command the greater part of the ship’s marines and a large detachment of seamen. He was seconded by most of the officers and had left the frigate almost without boats. What was more, he was alone in a mist and was determined, at any cost, to make an impression upon the enemy. His mouth set in a grim line and, as he looked forward, the eyes of the men tugging at the oars avoided his own. Well, that was as it should be. He was the first lieutenant again, and by heaven they would feel his wrath if they did not do their utmost to secure him a paragraph in the Gazette!
‘Boat, sir! Starboard bow!’
Rogers jerked from his introspection and looked to starboard. At the same instant a challenge rang out. A large boat, pulling a dozen oars a side with a huge-muzzled cannon in her bow and the blue and gold of Sweden lifting languidly over her stern, loomed out of the mist. It was a ‘gunsloop’ rowing guard in the supposedly neutral water of the strait.
Rogers swore and pulled the tiller over, turning to watch the other boats follow in his wake, and headed more directly for the southern bank. Astern he heard shouting and the splash of oars holding water, turning the big gunsloop after them. But after five minutes, despite the gradual dispersal of the mist, they had lost the Swedish boat.
A few minutes later the grey margin of Pomerania was visible ahead and then on the larboard beam as Rogers straightened their course parallel to it. A few cows, brindled black and white, stood hock-deep in the lush grass that swept down to the water. Ruminating gently they stared at the passing boats.
The appearance of the guard-boat had galvanised the oarsmen. Before, the stroke had been that leisurely and easy swing that a practised oarsman could keep up for hours, now the men tugged at their oars and the boats began to leap through the water. Then, quite suddenly, the mist lifted and at the same instant Rogers saw the means of realising his long awaited ‘opportunity’.
‘By God, Mount!’ he said in a low and excited tone. ‘See there, ahead! A whole bloody battery with its back to us!’
Ahead of them a sudden bend in the channel brought the Pomeranian shore much closer. A small, low bluff formed a natural feature, a patch of beaten earth which the French had taken advantage of and on it constructed a demi-lune with an earthen rampart reinforced by fascines and gabions. The rampart was pierced by crude embrasures and in each, facing away from the approaching boats towards the town of Stralsund, were eight huge siege guns and a pair of howitzers. A smaller field piece faced across the strait and commanded any approach from Rügen. In quieter times the little bluff had been used as a quay, for behind the battery was a small inlet, the estuary of a stream that wound, willow-lined, inland towards a village. The edge of the inlet was piled with rotten wood staithing from which local peasants had shipped their hay and other produce to the markets of Stralsund. It took but an instant for Rogers to perceive that the inlet and quay gave direct and undefended access to the rear of the battery.
He was standing now and he commanded his oarsmen to pull with greater vigour. Behind him the officers in the other boats had also seen the enemy position and acknowledged his frantic wave.
‘Make ready, men,’ said Mount quietly beside him.
Rogers looked again at the battery. He could see a pair of artillerymen, each carrying a bucket and wearing fatigues, walking slowly across the beaten earth of the compound. A group of men
were gathered round one gun intent upon some task or another and one further man was lounging on the rampart, staring in the direction of Stralsund. Rogers could see quite clearly the puffs of smoke from the indolent sentry’s pipe.
‘We’ve got ’em, by God, Mount! The buggers are as good as asleep!’
Rogers put the tiller over and the launch swung in towards the inlet and the quay. He could not believe his luck. ‘Come on you lubbers! Pull!’
‘We are pulling . . .’ someone muttered and Rogers’s eyes narrowed and he scanned the boat for the insolent seamen. Perhaps he would have taken the matter further but at that instant emerging from the mist astern of them, the Swedish gunsloop hailed them. The cry made the sentry turn. He jerked upright and then began to shout, a hoarse bellow of surprise and alarm. The gunners carrying the buckets dropped them and ran; the group round the siege gun turned and ran also. More men were shouting and appearing from somewhere. Rogers was vaguely aware of trees, horse-lines and a row of limbers, ammunition-boxes and shot piles.
The sight of red coats and the glint of sunshine on bayonets swiftly raised the alarm. Even as the launch closed the last few yards to the quay the French artillerymen were dropping to one knee and levelling muskets fetched from the arms stacks.
‘That gun ready?’ roared Rogers at his gunner’s mate forward.
‘Aye, sir!’
‘Then clear those bastards out of our way!’
The launch jerked and the carronade roared, recoiling up its slide and flinging its reek back over the gasping oarsmen. The marines were fidgeting and Mount was standing beside Rogers. Most of the canister splattered against the wooden piling, but sufficient balls raked the compound to knock down three or four of the defenders.
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