Baltic Mission nd-7 Read online

  Rogers, satisfied with the evolutions of the ship's company, gave the men permission to lay in. Watching, Drinkwater knew that there had been a few seconds' hesitation before the nod to Comley had brought the bosun's pipe to his mouth and the topmen had come sliding down the backstays. Rogers crossed the deck and knuckled the fore-cock of his hat.

  'Very well, Mr. Rogers, you may beat to quarters.'

  As Rogers turned away Drinkwater caught again that slightly malicious grin that he had noticed when he had ordered Fraser to keep the deck off Varberg. Whipping a silver hunter from his fob, Rogers flicked it open as he roared the order. Again, and with a mounting disquiet that he could not quite place, Drinkwater watched the motions of the men. To a casual glance they appeared perfectly disciplined, tuned to the finest pitch any crack cruiser captain could demand but... that element of perplexity remained with him.

  The marine drummer doubled aft, unhitched his drum and lifted his sticks to his chin in a perfunctory acknowledgement of the prescribed drill; then he brought them down on the snare drum and beat out the urgent ruffle. The frigate, alive with men still belaying ropes and laying in from aloft, suddenly took on a new and more sinister air. Along the length of her gundeck the ports were raised and round each of twenty-six 18-pounder cannon and the ten long 9-pounder chase guns the men congregated in kneeling and expectant groups. Others mustered elsewhere, the marines at the hammock nettings and in the tops, the firemen unreeled their hoses and worked the yoke of their machines to dampen the decks. Boys scattered sand or stood ready with their cartridge boxes. The activity died to an expectant hush. Each gun-captain's hand was raised. Rogers lifted his speaking trumpet. 'Run out the guns!'

  The deck beneath Drinkwater's feet trembled as the gunners manned their tackles and hauled the heavy cannon out through the gun-ports.

  With every man at his station, her yards braced to catch the quartering breeze and her charges safely tucked under her lee, Antigone entered The Sound. Drinkwater indulged Rogers in a final look round the upper deck while he studied the ramparts of Cronbourg less than a mile away. Through his glass he could see the tiny dots of heads beneath the gigantic swallow-tailed stan­dard which rippled gallantly in the breeze. At this distance those men could not fail to remark the belligerent preparedness of the British cruiser. Denmark was a neutral state, but not therefore without influence upon international affairs. Her trade, particularly in the matter of naval stores, if directed towards the beleaguered fleets of France, could be damaging to the war-efforts of Great Britain. And since Napoleon had decreed that no European country, whether under the control of his legions or attempting to maintain a precarious neutrality, might trade with Britain, the British must treat her with suspicion.

  'Ship cleared for action, sir.' The snap of Rogers's hunter made Drinkwater lower his glass.

  'Very well. An improvement?'

  'About the same, sir,' replied Rogers non-committally, and in a flash Drinkwater knew what he had been witness to, what had been going on under his very nose. He fixed his keen glance on the first lieutenant.

  'I thought they were a trifle faster that time.'

  He saw a hint of uncertainty in Rogers's eyes. 'Well, perhaps a trifle faster,' said Rogers grudgingly, and Drinkwater was certain his instinct was right. Between first lieutenant and the hands there existed a state of affairs exactly analogous to that between Britain and Denmark: a neutrality in which each warily sought out the weakness and the intentions of the other. Rogers, the first lieutenant, the all-powerful executive officer, was always ready to punish any gun-crew, yardarm party, or individual, whose standard was not in his opinion of the highest. Against him were pitted the people, hydra-headed but weak, vulnerable to some simple, silly slip, yet knowing that they had only to wait and the bottle would destroy the first lieutenant. The certainty of this knowledge came as a shock to Drinkwater and the colour drained from his face, leaving his eyes piercing in the intensity of their anger.

  'By God, Sam,' he said softly through clenched teeth, 'I will not have you judge, lest you be judged yourself.' Rogers's glance fell as they were interrupted.

  'I think we have not bared our fangs in vain, sir,' said Hill, stumping across the deck to draw Drinkwater's attention to the events unfolding on the starboard bow. Hill paused, sensing an open breach between captain and first lieutenant where he had anticipated only an exchange of remarks concerning the ship's internal routines. He coughed awkwardly. 'Beg pardon, sir, but ...'

  'Yes, yes, I see them,' snapped Drinkwater and raising his glass once more, affected to ignore Rogers.

  Standing out from Elsinore Road to the south of Cronbourg was a two-decked line-of-battle-ship, and astern of her a small frigate. They too were cramming on sail, coming in at an angle to Antigone's bow as though to intercept her.

  'Their bearing's opening, sir,' offered Hill, coolly professional again, 'only slowly, but they'll not catch us.'

  'Very well, Mr. Hill, but we ought not to outrun our charges.' Drinkwater nodded at the brigs, now some distance astern of them. The Danish warships would pass between Antigone and the two British merchantmen.

  'Notified of our approach from the castle, I'll warrant,' remarked Hill.

  'Yes.' Drinkwater subjected the two ships to a further scrutiny through his glass. The Danes had proved tough opponents in 1801, reluctant to surrender and forcing from Lord Nelson the remark that they played the hottest fire he had ever been under. The two Danish ships broke out their own studdingsails. He watched critically. It was well done.

  'I thought we had buggered their damned fleet for them,' said Rogers with characteristic coarseness in an attempt to defuse the atmosphere between himself and Drinkwater.

  'Apparently not,' Drinkwater replied as if nothing untoward had occurred, watching the ships as their respective courses converged. But Hill was right, the bearings of the Danes were drawing aft, showing that the Antigone was the faster ship. 'They've had six years to right the damage,' he said, turning to look again at the lumbering brigs on the larboard quarter. 'I don't like exposing our charges like this and I'm rather disposed to test their mettle ... Secure the guns where they are, Mr. Rogers,' he said with a sudden sharpness, 'and get the stuns'ls off her!'

  Rogers began bellowing orders. Again Antigone seethed with activity. Whatever discontents might be running through her people, the chance of demonstrating their superiority as seamen before a mob of tow-haired Danes animated the ship. In a few minutes her studdingsails fluttered inboard.

  'Clew up the courses!' Drinkwater ordered sharply, for he had not wanted anything to go wrong, or the Danes to put a shot across his bow, turning a voluntary act into a submissive one.

  'Lower the t'gallants on the caps!' Antigone's speed slowed, yet she held her course and the hands were sent back to their battle-stations as the Danish warships came up, the frigate ranging out to larboard so that they overtook on either quarter.

  Hill was looking at him anxiously.

  'My God,' said Rogers to no one in particular, 'if they open fire now they will...' His voice trailed off as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. It was, Drinkwater noted, the gesture of a thirsty man.

  'They are neutrals, gentlemen,' he said. 'They dare not fire upon us without provoking an act of war. They simply wish to demonstrate their readiness not to be intimidated on their own doorstep ... Just keep the men at their stations in silence if you please, Mr. Rogers, and perhaps we may yet surprise 'em,' Drinkwater added as an outbreak of chatter started up in the waist.

  Drinkwater strode forward as the line-of-battle-ship ranged up on their starboard beam, her two tiers of guns also run out so that they dominated the much lower deck of the British frigate.

  'Mr. Mount!' Drinkwater called to the marine officer.

  'Sir?'

  'Form your men in two divisions, facing outboard on either side, then bring 'em to attention.' 'Very good, sir.'

  As the quarterdecks of the three ships drew level the marines stood
rigid. Drinkwater casually mounted the starboard rail in the mizen rigging. He turned back inboard. 'Have the hands piped aloft to man the yards, Mr. Rogers.' He ignored the puzzled apprehension in Rogers's eyes and turned to the Danish ship, not two hundred feet away and stealing their wind. He doffed his hat in a wide sweep.

  'Good day, sir!' he shouted.

  A line of Danish officers regarded him and there was obviously some conferring going on on her quarterdeck. After a pause a junior officer was pushed up onto her rail.

  'Gut morning, Capten. Vat ship is that, please?'

  'His Britannic Majesty's frigate Antigone, upon a cruise with merchantmen in company, sir,' Drinkwater bawled back cheerfully.

  'Ve hope you do not vish to stop Dansk ships, no?'

  'My orders are to stop all ships carrying cargoes of war material to His Majesty's enemies. This policy is clearly stated in His Majesty's Orders in Council, sir, copies of which have been delivered to your Government's representatives in London.'

  The Danish officer bent down, obviously in consultation with a senior, for he stood again. 'You are varned against stopping Dansk ships, Capten.'

  'I shall carry out my orders, sir, as I expect you to maintain your neutrality!' He turned to Rogers: 'I want three hearty cheers when I call for 'em.'

  He heard Rogers mutter 'Good God!' and turned again to the Dane. The big battleship was drawing ahead now and he could read her name across her stern: Princesse Sophia Frederica.

  'Three cheers for His Majesty the King of Denmark! Hip! Hip! Hip!'

  'Hooray ...' The three cheers ripped from over his head and Drinkwater jumped down from the rail.

  'Now, Sam, let fall those courses, hoist the t'gallants and reset the stuns'ls!' He turned to the sailing master, standing by the wheel. 'Hold your course, Mr. Hill... Bye the bye, did you get the name of the frigate?' Drinkwater nodded to larboard.

  'Aye, sir, Triton, twenty-eight guns.'

  'Very well.' Drinkwater clasped his hands behind his back and offered up a silent prayer that his pride was not to be humbled in front of such witnesses. But he need not have worried. It was not merely his own pride that was at stake; some of the defiance in his tone had communicated itself to the hands. This was no longer a petty internal matter, no empty evolution at the behest of the first lieutenant, but a matter of national pride. Now the captain was handling the ship and they behaved as though they were in action and their very lives depended upon their smartness.

  Antigone gathered speed as she again spread her wings. Her long jib-boom swung across the great square stern of the two-decker as she pointed closer to the wind. She began to overhaul the Danish ship to windward and with an amiable insouciance Drinkwater again waved his hat at the knot of officers who stared stolidly back at him.

  The cheering provoked no response from the Danes.

  'Miserable bastards,' remarked Rogers sullenly, coming aft as the studdingsail halliards were coiled down. In their wake the Danish battleship hauled her wind and put about, turning back towards her anchorage off Elsinore.

  Triton kept them company as far as the island of Hven, then she too put about and the incident was over. To larboard the Scanian coast of Sweden lay in the distance, while closer to starboard the coast of Zealand fell away to a low-lying, pastoral countryside dotted with church towers and white farms. Astern of Antigone the two brigs followed in their wake, while ten miles ahead, faintly blue in the distance, the spires of Copenhagen broke the skyline. The British frigate and her small convoy entered the Baltic Sea.

  3

  The Shipment of Arms

  April 1807

  Mr. James Quilhampton peered over the ship's side and watched the little bobbing black jolly-boat, from the nearer of the two brigs, hook neatly onto the frigate's main chains. The man in her stern relinquished the tiller, stepped lightly upon a thwart and, skilfully judging the boat's motion, leapt for the man-ropes and the wooden battens that formed a ladder up the frigate's tumblehome. He was met by midshipman Lord Walmsley and Quilhampton straightened up as the man, hatless despite the cold and in plain civilian dress, strode aft.

  'Good morning, Lieutenant,' he said in the rolling accent of Northumbria.

  'Good morning, Captain Young,' responded Quilhampton civilly. 'I have informed Captain Drinkwater of your approach and here he comes now.'

  Drinkwater mounted the quarterdeck ladder and cast a swift and instinctive glance round the horizon. Antigone and the two brigs lay hove-to on a smooth grey sea which was terminated to the north and east by an ice-field that seemed at first to stretch to the horizon itself. But beyond it to the east lay the faint blue line of land, a low country of unrelieved flatness, almost part of the sea itself.

  'Captain Young,' said Drinkwater cordially, taking the strong hand and wincing with the power of its grip. His right arm already ached from the cold seeping into the mangled muscles of his wounded shoulder and Young's rough treatment did nothing to ease it. 'I give you good day. I take it that you and Captain Baker and your ships' companies are well?'

  'Why aye, man. As fit as when we left London River.'

  'What d'you make of this ice?' Drinkwater disengaged his arm from Young's eager, pump-handle grasp and gestured eastward.

  'The Pregel Bar is not more than two leagues distant, Captain Drinkwater. It is unlikely that the ice will last more than another sennight.' He smiled. 'Why, man, Baker and I'll be drinking schnapps in Konigsberg by mid-month.'

  "You think the ice in the Frisches Haff will have cleared by then?'

  'Aye, man. Once thaw sets in 'twill soon clear.'

  'In view of the presence of ice I think it better that I should remain with you. You might have need of my protection yet.'

  'As you wish, Captain.'

  'You have your instructions as to the formalities necessary to the discharging of your arms and ammunition?'

  'Aye, Captain.' Young smiled again. 'You may allay your fears on that score. They will not fall into the wrong hands.'

  'Very well. But I could wish for more positive assurances. News from the shore that Konigsberg is not in danger from the French...'

  'No, Captain, I doubt there's any fear o' that. At Vinga we heard that Boney's had both his eyes blacked proper by them Russians. You've no need to fear that Konigsberg's a French port.'

  'Let's hope you are right,' said Drinkwater.

  'What about your own cargo, Captain Drinkwater?' Young asked.

  'Eh? Oh. You know about that do you?'

  'Of course,' Young chuckled, 'have you ever known a secret kept along a waterfront?'

  Drinkwater shook his head. 'I have to deliver it to Revel but, as you can see, the ice prevents me for the time being.' He attempted to divert the conversation. He had no business discussing such matters with Young. 'What will you do once you have discharged your lading at Konigsberg?'

  'Coast up to Memel and see what Munro has for us.'

  'Munro?' asked Drinkwater absently.

  'A Scottish merchant who acts as my agent at Memel. He and I have been associates in the way of business for as many years as I've owned and commanded the Jenny Marsden. The rogue married a pretty Kurlander at whom I once set my own cap.' Young grinned and Drinkwater reflected that there was a world as intimately connected with the sea as his own, but about which he knew next to nothing.

  'The trade and its disappointments seem to keep you in good humour, Captain Young.'

  'Aye, and in tolerable good pocket,' Young added familiarly. 'We had better anchor then . ..'

  'Aye, Baker and I will work our way inshore a little, if you've a mind to close in our wake.'

  'It won't be the first time I've worked a ship through ice, Captain,' said Drinkwater returning Young's ready smile. 'Mr. Q! Have the kindness to see Captain Young to his boat.' He could not avoid having his wrist wrenched again by the genial Northumbrian and felt compelled to dispel his anxiety by more of the man's good-natured company. It would do him no harm to learn more of the Baltic for he might y
et have the convoy of the whole homeward trade at the close of the season. 'Perhaps you and Baker would do me the honour of dining with me this afternoon, Captain. 'Tis a plain table, but...'

  'None the worse for that, I'm sure. That's damned civil of ye, Captain Drinkwater. And I'll be happy to accept.'

  'Very well. Ah, Mr. Q ...'

  As the little jolly-boat pulled away, Drinkwater raised his hat to Young and then, his curiosity aroused after the conversation, he fished in his tail-pocket for the Dollond glass and levelled it at the distant smudge of land. The sand-spit that separated the open sea from the great lagoon of the Frisches Haff was pierced at its northern end, allowing the River Pregel to flow into the Baltic. Twenty miles inland lay the great fortress and cathedral city of Konigsberg, once the home of the Teutonic knights and later a powerful trading partner in the Hanseatic League. Now it was the most eastern possession of the King of Prussia and the only one, it seemed, that contained a Prussian garrison of any force to maintain King Frederick William's tenuous independence from Napoleon. As such it formed an important post on the lines of communication between Russia and the Tsar's armies in Poland, a depot for Bennigsen's commissariat and the obvious destination for one hundred and sixty thousand muskets, with bayonets, cartridge and ball to match.

  'Beg pardon, sir, but the brigs are hauling their mainyards.'

  Mr. Quilhampton recalled Drinkwater from his abstraction. He shut the glass with a snap, aware that he had seen nothing through it apart from grey sea, ice and the blue line of a featureless country. It seemed odd that history was being made there, among what looked no more substantial than a streak or two of cobalt tint from Mr. Frey's watercolour box.

  'Filling their sails, eh, Mr. Q? Very well. Do you do likewise. And you may pass word to rouse up a cable and bend it onto the best bower. We shall fetch an anchor when those two fellows show us some good holding.'