Under False Colours Page 10

  'I have no doubt but that he'd oblige you there.'

  'He has no love of the mercantile lobby. Can we guarantee such an attitude will be made known ashore?'

  'Gilham and company have rumbled with discontent for nigh on six or seven months, sir. The smugglers who buy from the warehouses report the movements of ships to and from the island. It cannot have escaped the notice of the authorities in Hamburg that some of them have been choking the anchorage for a long time.'

  'And that they bear the distinctive marks of troop transports,' added Drinkwater, thinking of the large 'DA' painted on the bows of Gilham's Ocean.

  'Quite so, sir, and if you make much of the disaffection of the crews when you are obliged to confront the douaniers ...'

  'Yes, Mr Nicholas,' Drinkwater broke in, 'but such a claim needs to be corroborated by whatever gossip precedes us. You say you have a trusted contact in Hamburg; I shall need also a German linguist. I know you to speak the language, do you know a person of such calibre that would accompany us?'

  'Yes, I do. You recollect Colonel Hamilton spoke of delaying the packet until a message arrived?' Drinkwater nodded. 'And you recall me saying that it was only tonight that events conspired to make this present proposal possible?'

  'I recollect.'

  'There is a merchant house whose head is a man called Liepmann, a Jew, resident at Altona and master of a considerable business chiefly connected with the import of sugar. He is adept at maintaining this trade notwithstanding the present blockade and we are sympathetic to his needs. He is known to the French, having opened up a lucrative communication with the city's former Governor, M'sieur Bourrienne. He is a go-between, a broker ...'

  'And will handle the commercial aspects of this transaction of ours, eh?' Drinkwater asked, jumping to the obvious conclusion.

  'Quite so. We, I mean, the Governor, is awaiting news as to how matters are to be conducted in the wake of Bourrienne's departure and under the rule of Reinhardt, the new French minister. The man who brings this, Herr Reinke, is surveyor to the Chamber of Commerce, continually mapping the shifting sandbanks of the Elbe, a man whose absence is not missed for a few days and who can be relied upon as an expert pilot and linguist. It is his arrival the Colonel anticipates.'

  'I see. And Liepmann, can you communicate a matter of this complexity with him directly, or must we wait for Herr Reinke to return to Hamburg?'

  Nicholas shook his head. 'I can send him a cryptogram by way of a fishing boat.'

  'Very well.'

  Drinkwater stopped pacing up and down and stood over Nicholas. He was resolved now, convinced that they had a chance of success.

  'You will explain our intention in full to London, Mr Nicholas, is that clearly understood?' He did not want his motives misunderstood if the affair did miscarry, or he himself failed to return. 'Encode the message and do your best to reassure Colonel Hamilton that what we intend is a bold stroke.'

  'A decisive stroke, wouldn't you say, sir?'

  Drinkwater caught the twinkle of humour in the younger man's eyes.

  'Indeed.' He smiled, then added, 'it would be even better managed if you could persuade him the idea was his own.'

  Nicholas's eyebrows shot up. 'I could try, but I doubt that I possess sufficient tact for that.'

  They laughed, just like conspirators, Drinkwater thought afterwards.

  'And the communication with Herr Liepmann ...'

  'If you draft it, I will code it.' Nicholas hesitated then said, 'I think, Captain Drinkwater, that it would be to our advantage if you also knew the method of communication with Herr Liepmann. It might, after all, be useful to you in the event of any problems that might arise.'

  'I see you are well cut out to be a diplomat, Mr Nicholas,' Drinkwater said wryly. 'This code is known to you and the Colonel ...'

  'And Herr Liepmann.'

  'Very well. I agree. Now, Mr Nicholas, paper and ink, if you please. I will see you tomorrow when I hope to have spoken with Littlewood and, I think Gilham. In the mean time, oblige me by seeing if there is sufficient bunting on this

  God-forsaken island to manufacture a dozen Yankee ensigns.' 'Yankee ensigns, Captain, you mean American ensigns?' 'That is precisely what I mean, Mr Nicholas.' 'May I ask why?' 'No, you may not. I shall tell you tomorrow evening, when

  I have decided whether or not this lunatic proposal of yours has the least chance of success. Now, sir, pen and ink, and then leave me alone.'

  The gale came with the dawn and Drinkwater went out to revel in the rising wind that so accorded with his mood. Unshaven, his stock loosened and his eyes gritty from lack of sleep, Drinkwater felt again the electrifying thrill he had last experienced when talking to the Jew Solomon after his night of dissipation in the Wapping stew.

  It seemed now a pity to waste that night of seedily shameful labour, and it was a consoling thought that the success of the resuscitated mission might avenge the loss of Quilhampton and all the brave fellows aboard the Tracker.

  He was convinced that, given the right conditions, they could deceive the French. If neglectful providence chose to favour their endeavours they might achieve a great deal more, for the detachment of the Tsar from his alliance with Napoleon was too grand a design to baulk at for the loss of a few muskets and pairs of boots ...

  Drinkwater stretched and sniffed the damp air as it rolled a grey cloud over the heights of the island, obscuring the lighthouse tower and the church spire. It reminded him of the squadrons of His Britannic Majesty's Fleet keeping watch and ward off Ushant and La Rochelle, off L'Orient and Toulon, the Scheldt and the Texel.

  Just suppose there was a rupture between St Petersburg and Paris; just suppose for a second time the Grand Army was drawn off to the east where it had narrowly missed defeat at the hands of the Russians at Eylau ...

  Just suppose the apparently senseless deaths of Quilhampton and Frey, and even of poor Tregembo, were transformed into so rich a prize as a lasting peace ...

  Then the storm-battered ships of the western squadrons and the Mediterranean fleet could be withdrawn; their people could go home to their families; he himself could go home to Elizabeth and their children.

  He shivered, suddenly chilled in the damp air. Flights of such improbable fancy were inimical to the grim, omnipresent business of war. He went inside again, in search of hot shaving water and a solution to the greatest obstacle he foresaw to the enterprise.

  The compliance of Captain Littlewood was essential to the success of Nicholas's idea. A second ship in support would add credibility to Drinkwater's appearance in the Elbe while the remainder could, at little risk, play their part without being committed. But without the Galliwasp's cargo, nothing could be attempted, let alone achieved.

  Littlewood was, therefore, the first person with whom he discussed the plan that morning. He found the shipmaster on the foreshore talking to Watts and Munsden, his two mates. Seeing Drinkwater approach, Littlewood extended his arms then dropped them disconsolately by his side. Beyond the trio, Galliwasp had been hauled off to a mooring buoy, one of a trot laid by Browne and his seamen to enable ships to ride out bad weather. A pair of sheerlegs rose from the barque's waist and most of her company hung about the water's edge, where a pair of boats lay drawn up on the beach.

  'I'd hoped to get the main mast in her this morning,' bemoaned Littlewood, 'but this damned gale ...'

  He left the sentence unfinished.

  'Well, Captain Littlewood, count your blessings,' said Drinkwater cheerfully, 'at least you have her off the shoal.'

  'Just what I were sayin', Cap'n Waters,' said Watts. 'She'd not take another poundin'.'

  'Perhaps, Captain Littlewood, you'd take a turn along the foreshore with me,' Drinkwater said.

  They walked south in silence. To their left lay the road with its crowd of anchored ships and the sandy island beyond. To their right the steep cliffs of the island rose from the sand and rock pools of the narrowing littoral strip. Waders ran about on the tideline of bladder
wrack left by the last high-water. A pair of pied oystercatchers took flight, their brilliant orange bills shrieking a piping cry of alarm as the two men disturbed them.

  'I was wondering when you'd be along, Cap'n Waters,' said Littlewood as the beach narrowed beneath the beetling rock face of the cliff.

  'I've passed the time of day with you most mornings, Captain Littlewood,' Drinkwater said cautiously, wondering how best to approach the subject he wished to broach.

  'That's not what I mean.' Littlewood cocked a shrewd eye at Drinkwater.

  'What exactly is it that you do mean then?'

  'I'm not a fool, Captain Waters. I don't need a supercargo to deliver a cargo anywhere in the world. I know what you are, if not who you are.'

  'Mr Solomon was indiscreet ...'

  'Mr Solomon was protecting his investment, Captain,' Littlewood said, according Drinkwater's rank a less than casual ring. 'I knew you'd be up in them barracks a-thinkin'. You see, I know my cargo's valuable, and I ain't just talking pounds, shillin's and pence.'

  'Solomon told you that?' Drinkwater's expression betrayed his surprise.

  Littlewood laughed. 'No, he ain't that indiscreet, but I knew a lot was ridin' on the sale and I wouldn't have had a shipmate like yourself, Captain, if the matter didn't stink o' Government. Besides, you don't get withdrawn from the Scheldt expedition without a deal of influence in high places.' Littlewood paused, then added, 'And I've some cargo aboard on my own account.'

  Drinkwater stopped and looked at Littlewood. It occurred to him that he had been too much taken up with his own preoccupations, too morbidly bemoaning his fate to have paid sufficient attention to others whose lives were as much at hazard in the affair as his own.

  'What sort of cargo, Captain Littlewood?' Drinkwater asked.

  'Why sugar loaves, Captain Drinkwater, sugar loaves.'

  'May I ask you then what you would now do, left to your own devices?'

  'I live by profit. No Government pay supports me or my family. Doubtless I'd discharge my cargo in a Swedish port; you'd have little objection to that?'

  'Only that it fails in its objective.'

  'We've already failed in that. Besides, though the objective, as you call it, was set by the Government, the cargo was consigned at the expense of Solomon and Dyer. Whatever the outcome, they and your humble servant are entitled to a modest profit, Captain.'

  'Very well, Captain Littlewood, suppose I was to ask you a second question: do you, or Solomon and Dyer, have an agent either here,' he paused as Littlewood's eyes narrowed, 'or in Hamburg?'

  Drinkwater watched the other man's face with interest. He sucked in his cheeks and raised his eyebrows but his eyes remained fixed on Drinkwater. It was clear the idea of selling his cargo to a nearer market than Gothenburg had already occurred to him, for when he blew out his cheeks he asked, 'And if my men won't sail for Hamburg, Captain?'

  'I should requisition your ship and man her with Mr Browne's ratings,' Drinkwater said, advancing a contingent argument he had discovered during the small hours of the previous night.

  'Is Mr Browne now amenable to your discipline, then?' Littlewood said, alluding to the equivocal status the whole island must have known Drinkwater had been accorded.

  'Mr Browne knows his duty ...' Drinkwater bluffed, 'perhaps we managed our deception better with others than with you.'

  Littlewood chuckled and looked at the horizon. 'If we pay 'em, Captain, I'll answer for ten — a dozen men.'

  Drinkwater caught the significance of the first person plural and grinned as Littlewood swung round and faced him. 'How well d'you know Captain Gilham? Could we persuade him to join us?' Drinkwater asked.

  Comprehension dawned large in Littlewood's eyes. 'My God, Captain, you are going way beyond a modest profit and a new gown for Mistress Littlewood.'

  'I'm going for very high stakes, Captain Littlewood. With luck Mistress Littlewood will be able to take the air with four in hand.'

  'Damn it, sir. If Gilham ain't game I'll guarantee his ship. What about the others?'

  'I have plans for them, but the affair will depend upon the reliability of those that take part. Too many might lay us open to disaster; those that come must be volunteers, volunteers for a dangerous service. Only when you have those men game enough should you advertise extra payment. Then you can promise gold.'

  'You have thought of everything, Captain, I congratulate you.'

  'Thank you,' said Drinkwater ironically. 'We enter the Elbe under American colours, though ultimately there's no attempt to claim American nationality. We have been lying at Helgoland for months, our crews are unpaid and disaffected ...'

  'Where Gilham's concerned that ain't so far from the truth.'

  'Then you must moot it thus among the masters. Do not reveal my part until you have sounded their opinion. When they realize they can get out of this place at little risk and with a profit, they'll fall in with my plan.'

  'And you'll not risk more than the two ships, the Galliwasp and the Ocean?'

  'Not if I can avoid it, though I may want the others to proceed to Neuwerk in due course. Do I recollect you mentioning to me that Galliwasp carried a consignment of sugar on your own account?' Drinkwater asked.

  'Aye, loaf sugar.'

  'I think you may find a good market for the stuff, Captain, in which case Mrs Littlewood's carriage is assured.' Littlewood chuckled and Drinkwater went on. 'I think we will have the services of a competent pilot and an agent able and willing to purchase the cargoes.'

  'Would that be Herr Liepmann, Captain?' Littlewood asked.

  'Damn me, yes, how the deuce ...?'

  'He is Solomon and Dyer's agent.'

  'Is he now,' Drinkwater said, one eyebrow raised quizzically. 'How very curious.'

  Odd how things came together as though drawn inexorably by fate, Drinkwater thought.

  'Better not make too much of our leave-taking,' he said as they approached the landing place. 'Get Galliwasp refitted and your cargo reloaded. We can do nothing until you are ready. Sound out the other masters and let me know in due course what their attitude is.'

  'Aye, I'll see to it. As for this morning, what shall I give out as the nature of our conversation?'

  Drinkwater considered the matter for a moment. 'Why, that I've overheard talk in the mess that the Ordnance Board is abandoning the convoy.'

  'That should set the cat among the pigeons,' Littlewood rumbled.

  'It just happens to be true, Captain Littlewood.'

  He found Nicholas waiting for him when he returned to the barracks.

  'Is your despatch ready, Captain?' Nicholas asked, a trifle impatiently, drawing from his breast a small octavo volume bound in brown calf. 'Dante, Captain, The Reverend Cary's translation.' Nicholas turned a few pages. 'Canto the second. You must commit these lines to memory.' Nicholas dipped the pen he had leant Drinkwater and began to scratch on a sheet of paper, quoting as he wrote:

  Thy soul is by vile fear assail 'd which oft

  So overcasts a man, that he recoils

  From noblest resolution, like a beast

  At some false semblance in the twilight gloom.

  Nicholas finished scrawling and looked up. 'Now, sir, 'tis perfectly simple: write the letters of the alphabet beneath each letter of the verse, omitting those already used, thus: Thy soul is ... a to h, leaving the s of is blank, for you have used it in soul, and so on to the end. I and j are synonymous and those letters not found in the verse, j, p and q substitute for x,y and z. Cary's translation is new and not much known on the continent, though Liepmann has a copy. You have only to learn the verse.'

  After Nicholas had gone, Drinkwater read the lines again as he committed them to memory. It struck him first that they uncannily described his own situation and the realization made the hairs on the nape of his neck crawl with a strange, primeval fear. And then, as he strove to remember the verse he realized that he no longer felt the oppression of spirit so acutely, that the mental activity of the last
hours had roused him from his torpor.

  This lift in his mood was sustained during the three days that the gale blew, three days during which he worked over and over his plan and committed Dante's lines and the information of Gilham's charts (which Littlewood had surreptitiously obtained for him) to memory. By the light of guttering candles he pored over and over them and finally burnt the blotchy copy of Cary's rendering of the Florentine poet's words in the candle flame. The plan to carry the cargoes into Hamburg had gained a powerful grip on his imagination and he eagerly awaited Nicholas's assurance that he had won Hamilton over to the plot.

  He knew he could no longer dwell on the loss of his friends, only grasp the promises and seductions of tomorrow. That much, and that much alone, was allowed him. 'Hope,' he muttered to himself, 'must spring eternal.'

  Then, in the wake of the gale, as it blew itself out in glorious sunshine and a spanking breeze from the west-north-west, His Britannic Majesty's Sloop Combatant, carrying additional cannon for the defence of the island and confidential mail for the Governor, put an end to the dallying.

  'It is providential, my dear sir, quite providential don't you know,' Nicholas said, hardly able to contain himself. 'Colonel Hamilton has received instructions from Lord Dungarth regarding yourself, Captain Drinkwater: combined with the arrival of the cannon it has quite put the backbone into him.' 'Lord Dungarth's instructions don't run contrary to our intentions then?'

  'Quite the reverse ... and here are letters for yourself.' Nicholas pulled two letters from the breast pocket of his coat. Taking them Drinkwater tore open the first. It was from Dungarth.

  London, Nov. 26

  My Dear Nathaniel,

  I am sorry to hear of your Misfortune. The Venture has Miscarried in common with the Affair in the Scheldt. Your Failure is Insignificant beside this. You may also have heard of Rupture in Government. All, alas, is True. Take Counsel with Ed. Nicholas and Act as you see fit. Solomon and Dyer have Accepted Heavy Losses.