Baltic Mission (12 page)

Drinkwater looked up sharply. ‘What the devil d'you mean by that? That he ain't got a commission like yourself? By God, Mr Fraser, you surprise me! Mr Lallo's a professional officer holding a warrant as surgeon, just as Hill holds one as master. Your own status as a gentleman of honour does not entitle you to make such social distinctions among persons of ability! You seem an able and active enough fellow but I'll have none of that damnable cant aboard here!
You may save that for the pump-room or Lord Keith's withdrawing room, but not here, sir, not here!'

The unexpected onslaught from the captain took Fraser aback. His face was white and his mouth hung open. Drinkwater cast another look at the papers spread out before him and then up again at the hapless young officer. ‘Very well, Mr Fraser; I am aware there is a growing fashion among young men of breeding to consider these matters of some importance, and that may well be the case ashore. However I suggest you might see Lallo at his true worth were a ball to shatter your thigh. Now cut along and pass word to him to get Rogers up here at once.'

Only the direct summons to the captain's cabin prevented the outbreak of rage the surgeon feared from a freshly released Rogers. Pale from his confinement, Rogers entered the cabin and stood menacingly close to Drinkwater, his mouth a hard line, his eyes glittering.

Drinkwater, sensitive to Rogers's fury, ignored it and, after a brief look at the first lieutenant, stared down at the maps and charts.

‘Mr Rogers,' he said levelly, ‘you're better, I understand. Now I have it in mind to employ you . . .'

‘Do you mean to pretend that nothing has happened?' Rogers's voice was strangled as he sought to control himself. ‘I have been bound and gagged, you heartless . . .'

Drinkwater looked up, his own eyes blazing. ‘What would you have me do? Eh? If I wished, Sam, you'd be going home for a court martial for that remark alone! What was done was done for your own good, and you know it. Lallo says you're over the worst. Hold off the drink for a month and your victory is complete. If I pretend that you've had the flux that's my own business. What would you have me write in the Sick Book?'

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.'

‘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 everyday 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.