Beneath the aurora nd-12 Read online

  '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.

  "Twould 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'.

  Presendy 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.
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  '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 with 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.

  'We'll have the t'gallants off her and the courses clewed up. There's enough wind to handle her under the topsails.'

  Huke and Birkbeck nodded their understanding. With the ship heeled and moving fast, the gunnery would be inaccurate and wild, and Drinkwater had given specific orders that he wanted little damage done to the enemies' fabric.

  'Take 'em quickly by surprise, with as little damage as possible,' he had said. The thought of rich prizes gained this policy a ready co-operation and the word passed along the gun decks. A short and lucrative cruise would be dandy!

  The bay beyond the bluff was just beginning to open now. They could see the two ships with boats about them, see too the stars and bars of their hostile nationality.

  There was a sudden sound as of rending silk. Aloft three holes appeared in the main topsail and the twanging of parted rigging came to the astonished knot of officers on the quarter­deck. To starboard half a dozen columns of water sprung into the air.

  'What the devil ...?'

  The boom of a battery's fire rolled over the water towards them. Drinkwater saw the little clouds of smoke swiftly torn to shreds by the wind from the gun embrasures that lined the cliff-top of the bluff. Above the half-hidden but unmistakable grey line of a stone parapet, another swallowtail ensign rose upon a flagstaff.

  'There's a fort there!' Birkbeck cried in sudden comprehension, with the outraged tone of a cheat outsmarted.

  'Aye,' Huke retorted, 'and he knows us for what we are.'

  'He certainly ain't fooled by our colours!'

  Confronted by this sudden revelation, Drinkwater had to think swiftly. He was reluctant to give up the attempt on the American ships, but the next salvo from the fort hit home, tumbling men from a forecastle gun like rag dolls. Their sudden cries rent the air, as an explosion of splinters erupted from the bulwark. Another shot ploughed up the deck and crashed through the opposite bulwark to fall, spent, into the sea alongside the starbord main-chains.

  'Let fall the courses, there! Set the t'gallants!'

  He must run on, then work up to windward and return under the lee of the opposite, southern shore, past the fort but out of range of the guns hidden behind those high ramparts. It was the only way he could reconnoitre the enemy position.

  The discovery of the fort transformed the situation. The matter would be more difficult than he had at first anticipated, no mere tip-and-run raid, but it could be managed if he kept his head. He felt the hull shudder as more shot struck them. How far did those damned guns in the fort traverse?

  Then, with the added momentum of the extra sails and without firing a shot in return, they swept out of range and Drinkwater forced himself to concentrate his attention on the two ships anchored in the bay. Both were frigate-built, large privateers, or possibly worse: perhaps naval frigates.

  It was essential, then, that Drinkwater should turn Andromeda and move her back to seaward of the enemy ships. At least he could cut them off from escape. Moreover, it was imperative that he find an anchorage, for they could not beat out through the gorge with the wind funnelling through it. The lower appearance of the southern shore suggested the sea-bed extended into the fiord at a similar gradient, affording him the shallow water he sought. He only hoped that whatever bottom the anchor flukes might strike, it would prove soft enough to hold them.

  'Full and bye, Mr Birkbeck. Brace the yards sharp up. I want to claw offshore, tack ship and seek an anchorage under the lee of the farther side.' He turned to the first lieutenant. 'Secure the guns, Mr Huke.'

  A buzz of disappointment greeted this order. On the gun deck Lieutenant Mosse, commanding the starboard battery, sheathed his sword and addressed his colleague in charge of the port cannon.

  'He who turns and runs away, lives to fight another day, eh, Jameson?'

  'A flea flees,' returned Jameson.

  'You possess a shining wit, Jameson.'

  'I'd sooner that than a wicked tongue.'

  Andromeda came up into the wind with a clatter as the helm was put over. Her sails bellied aback as she came round and the bead-blocks aloft rattled as she bucked up into the wind.

  'Mainsail haul!' The main and mizen yards were trimmed to the new course as the foreyards continued to thrust her head round on to the larboard tack.

  'Let go and haul!'

  The frigate settled down to claw her way across the fiord. The wind was strong now, augmented by cold katabatic gusts that slid down from the distant high ground. Drinkwater regarded the enemy fort over the starboard quarter.

  'The ruse with the ensign didn't pay off then, sir,' Huke said, after reporting the guns secure.

  'I think, Tom,' Drinkwater replied, without taking the glass from his eye, 'that as we carried off most of the Danish fleet, what few ships they retain are well known to any Danish officer worth his salt.'

  'Even one commanding a remote fort in Norway?'

  'Well, I don't think it is any coincidence,' Drinkwater said, counting the embrasures in the distant fort, 'that the Yankee ships are anchored under those guns, do you?'

  'No. It's a damnably perfect rendezvous for them.'

  'I think, sir,' put in Birkbeck sharply, 'they were expecting something larger!'

  An urgency in Birkbeck's voice made Drinkwater lower the glass and look round. 'What the devil ...?'

  He swung to where Birkbeck pointed. Far down the fiord, her white sails full of the following wind which had so lately wafted Andromeda through the narrows and which now mewed her up in the fiord, a large man-of-war was running clear of the gorge.

  'Now there', said Drinkwater grimly, raising his glass,
'is a bird of exceeding ill-omen.'

  CHAPTER 9

  The Wings of Nemesis

  October 1813

  Captain Drinkwater felt the cold grip of irresolution seize his palpitating heart. Here was the spectre of defeat, of dishonour. Retreat, he knew, merely postponed the inevitable and spawned greater reluctance; honour demanded he fight, if only to defend that of his flag. The white ensign now flew in place of the swallowtail ruse de guerre. He considered striking it after a few broadsides in permissible, if disreputable capitulation.

  These thoughts coursed through his mind while it was yet clouding with other, more demanding preoccupations, for he saw the approaching enemy not merely as a hostile ship-of-war, but as the manifestation of something more sinister, an agent of fate itself. Here came the punishment for all his self-conceit. Sommer had served not simply his own ends, but also a greater purpose, to accomplish the destruction of Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater and his overweening pride in the obscurity of a remote Norwegian fiord.

  How foolish he had been, he thought, to believe in providence as some benign deity which had taken a fancy to himself and which would cosset him personally. Blind faith proved only a blind alley, a trap.

  Oh, it had sustained him, to be sure, given him a measure of protection which he, during his brief strutting moment, had transmuted into a gallant confidence, but he had outrun his alloted span, a fact which he now knew with a chilling certainty. He was old and careworn, a dog who had had his day and was masquerading in a young man's post, seduced by what...?

  He found, in a wave of mounting panic, that he did not know. The vaguest notion of duty swept through his perception, to be dismissed as cynical nonsense and replaced by damning self-interest. What did he hope to achieve? This enemy ship approaching them had come, undoubtedly, to transfer the arms and munitions to the waiting Yankees, as Bardolini had foretold. And if providence had, in its cosmic wisdom, decided that Canada should, like America itself, be free of King George's government, it would surely engineer the defeat of so petty a player as Nathaniel Drinkwater.