Baltic Mission (5 page)

‘Here's your hot water, zur,' Tregembo stropped the razor vigorously, ‘and Mr Quilhampton sends his compliments to you and to say that we'll be entering The Sound in an hour.' Tregembo sniffed, indicating disapproval, and added, ‘And I'm to tell 'ee that Mr Hill's on deck . . .'

Drinkwater lathered his chin and jaw. ‘And my presence ain't necessary, is that it?'

Tregembo sniffed again. ‘That's the message, zur, as I told it.'

Drinkwater took the razor and began to scrape his lathered face, his legs braced as
Antigone
leaned to the alteration of course. ‘Huh! We're off Cronbourg, Tregembo, and the Danes are damned touchy about who goes through The Sound. Where are the two brigs?' he asked after a brief pause, pleased that he had located his charges at Vinga Bay as predicted.

‘Safely tucked under our larboard beam, zur.'

‘Good. We'll keep 'em on the Swedish side.' He concentrated on his shave.

‘You'll pardon me for saying, zur,' Tregembo pressed on with the familiarity of long service, ‘but you've been under the weather these past two days . . .'

‘You talk too much, too early in the day, damn you . . . God's bones!' Drinkwater winced at the nick the razor had given him.

‘You'd do better to take more care of yourself,' Tregembo persisted, and for a second Drinkwater thought he was being insolent, referring to his own bloodily obvious need to keep his mouth shut. But a single glance at the old Cornishman's face told him otherwise. Tregembo's concern was touching.

‘You cluck like an old hen,' Drinkwater said, his tone and mood mellowing. He had to admit the justice of Tregembo's allegation, although ‘under the weather' was an inadequate description of Drinkwater's evil humour. He wiped off the lather and looked at
Tregembo. It was impossible for him to apologise but his expression was contrite.

‘ 'Tis time we went ashore, zur. Swallowed the anchor, in a manner of speaking.'

‘Ashore?' Drinkwater tied his stock, peering at himself in the mirror. ‘Ashore? No, I think not, Tregembo, not yet. I don't think I could abide tea and gossip at the same hour every day and having to be polite to the train or gentlewomen who infest my house like weevils in a biscuit.'

Tregembo was not so easily diverted, knowing full well Drinkwater's exaggeration only emphasised his irritability. ‘ 'Tis time you purchased a bit of land, zur. You could go shooting . . .'

Drinkwater turned from the mirror. ‘When we swallow the anchor, as you quaintly put it, Tregembo,' he said with a sudden vehemence, holding his arms backwards for his coat, ‘I pray God I have done with shooting!'

Tregembo held out the cocked hat, his face wearing an injured look.

‘Damn it, Tregembo, I've a touch of the blue devils lately.'

‘You know my Susan would run a house fit for 'ee and Mistress Elizabeth, zur.'

‘It's not that, my old friend,' said Drinkwater, suddenly dropping the pretence at formality between them. ‘Susan and Mistress Elizabeth would both be full of joy if we went home. But d'you think they'd tolerate our interfering indefinitely?' He made an attempt at flippancy. ‘D'you think you'd be content to weed the onion patch, eh?' He took the proffered hat and smiled at the old Cornishman.

‘Happen you are right, zur. There's many as would miss 'ee if'ee took it in mind to go.'

Drinkwater hesitated, his hat half raised to his head, sensing one of Tregembo's oblique warnings.

‘I know the people are disaffected . . .'

‘It ain't the people, zur. Leastways not as cause, like. They be more in the nature of effect.'

‘Meaning, Tregembo?' asked Drinkwater.

‘Mr Rogers, zur, is shipping a deal of the gunroom
vino
. 'Tis a fact 'ee cannot hide from the people, zur. They hold 'ee for a fair man, zur. 'Twould be a pity to see Mr Rogers become a millstone, zur, if 'ee takes my meaning.'

Drinkwater jammed the hat on his head. He should be grateful for Tregembo's warning, yet the old man had only revealed the cause of his own recent ill-humour. Carrying eight thousand pounds around
in an explosive corner of the world with one hundred and sixty thousand muskets tucked under his lee for good measure was bad enough, but to have to contend with a pot-tossing first lieutenant to boot was well-nigh intolerable.

‘Belay that infernal prattle,' he snapped and threw open the cabin door. Ducking through with a nod to the marine sentry he sprang for the ladder to the quarterdeck.

Behind him Tregembo shook his head and muttered. ‘Jumpy as a galled horse . . .' He rinsed the razor, dried and closed it, nodding at the portrait of Elizabeth on the adjacent bulkhead. ‘I did my best, ma'am.'

Lifting the bowl of soapy water he threw it down the privy in the quarter-gallery where it drained into
Antigone
's hissing wake as she sped past the fortress of Cronbourg at the narrow entrance of The Sound.

On deck, Drinkwater's sudden arrival scattered the idle knot of officers who stared curiously ahead at the red-brick ramparts and the green copper cupolas of the famous castle, above which floated a great red and white swallow-tailed flag, the national colours of neutral Denmark. Drinkwater took Hill's report and left the master in charge of the con. He stopped briefly to stare at the two trim brigs with their cargoes of arms that they had found two days earlier in Vinga Bay, just as predicted; then he fell to pacing the starboard rail, watching the coast of Denmark. The shreds of conversation that drifted across to Drinkwater from the displaced officers were inevitably about the great expedition, six years earlier, which had culminated in Lord Nelson's victory at Copenhagen. Although he had distinguished himself both before and during the famous action, Drinkwater's already morbid humour recalled only a dark and private episode in his life.

It was here, among the low hills and blue spires already slipping astern, at the village of Gilleleje, that Drinkwater had secretly landed his own brother Edward on the run from the law. Edward had had a talent with horses and drifted into the life of a gambler centred on the racing world of Newmarket and the French emigrés who had settled there. His entanglement with a young Frenchwoman had resulted in him murdering his rival. Drinkwater had always felt his honour had been impugned by the obligation Edward's ties of blood had held him to. Even at this distance in time, even after Drinkwater had discovered that in murdering his rival, Edward had inadvertantly killed
a French agent, Drinkwater was still unable to shrug off the shadows that had so isolated him then. Nor did it seem to mitigate Drinkwater's personal guilt that Edward had found employment as an agent himself. For after landing at Gilleleje and going to Hamburg, Lord Dungarth had sent him eastwards, relying on his ability to speak the French he had learned from his faithless mistress. Drinkwater knew that Edward had been at the battle of Austerlitz and was the origin of accurate intelligence about the true state of affairs in the Russian army after that bitter and shattering defeat. The news, it was said, had killed Billy Pitt; and this too seemed full of a dark accumulation of presentiment. With an effort, Drinkwater cast aside his gloom. Sunshine danced upon the water and they were rapidly approaching the narrowest point of The Sound commanded by the Danish guns in their embrasures at Cronbourg. It was, he thought with sudden resolution, time to make a show, a flourish. He spun on his heel.

‘Mr Rogers!'

The first lieutenant's florid features turned towards him. ‘Sir?'

‘Call all hands! Stuns'ls aloft and alow! Then you may clear for action!'

‘Stuns'ls and clear for action, sir!' The order was taken up and the pipes twittered at the hatchways. Drinkwater stood at the starboard hance and watched the temper of the hands as the watches below tumbled up. Topmen scrambled into the rigging and Comley's mates chastised the slower waisters into place as they prepared to send up or haul out the studdingsails. Drinkwater's gaze rose upwards. Already the agile topmen were spreading out along the upper yards on the fore- and main-masts. Out went the upper booms, thrust through their irons at the extremities of the topsail and topgallant yardarms. At the rails by the fore-chains, the lower booms were being swung out on their goosenecks. Festoons of guys straightened into their ordered places. He watched with satisfaction as the midshipmen, nimble as monkeys in their respective stations, waved their readiness to the deck. The upper studdingsails, secured to short battens, were stowed in the tops. At the signal first the weather and then the lee studding-sails were run up to the booms next above. They fluttered momentarily as the halliards secured them, then their lower edges were spread to the booms below. On the fo'c's'le two large bundles had been dragged out of their stowage in the boats. They were similarly bent onto halliards and outhauls stretched their clews to the guyed ends of the lowest booms which were winged out on either side of the
frigate's fore-chains. In a minute or so
Antigone
had almost doubled the width of her forward sail plan.

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 màlicious 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 the 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 machine 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-commitally, 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 guncrew, 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 one 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 I . . .'

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