Baltic Mission (6 page)

Standing out from Elsinore Road to the south of Cronbourg was a two-decked line-of-battleship, 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-battleship 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.

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 ofland, 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 Königsberg 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 Königsberg 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 Königsberg'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 Königsberg?'

‘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 here 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 yet 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 Haffwas 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 Königsberg, 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.