Under False Colours (26 page)

Drinkwater looked doubtfully at the narrow punt, then patted Castenada.

'Very well! Get in!'

Drinkwater tried to steady the narrow punt as Castenada climbed clumsily aboard, but it rocked dangerously. When the surgeon had settled down Drinkwater followed, seating himself amidships on the single thwart and shipping the oars. He looked briefly ashore. The four men had already gone, taking the coffin with them. They would fill it with earth and it would be buried in the morning.

Leaning forward he could see in the stern Quilhampton's face. 'Shall we go home, Mr Q.?'

'If you please, sir,' came the uncertain, whispered reply.

Drinkwater turned his head and murmured over his shoulder, 'Are you ready, Doctor?'

'Adelante, señor
!'

Drinkwater dipped his oars and pulled out into the stream, feeling the mighty tug of the great river. He could just make out the skyline broken by the roofs of Blankenese and the spire of its little kirk. Tugging at the oars he watched their bearing draw astern as the Elbe bore them towards the sea.

February 1810

At the first brightening of the sky Drinkwater sought shelter for the hours of daylight. Helped by the river's ebb they had dropped well downstream to where the Elbe widened, spreading itself among the shallows of shingle beds and islets towards its southern bank. Drinkwater pulled them up to a small reef of gravel which extended above the flood level far enough to support a sparse growth of low alder and willow bushes. Along the northern margin of this ait the stream ran deep enough to keep it ice-free, since a shallow bend in the main channel scoured its shore.

With his hands protected by the purloined stockings, Drinkwater was warm enough from the steady exertion of pulling and Quilhampton gallantly professed he felt warm enough, wrapped as he was in furs and blankets. Castenada was rigid with cold, so that, having run the punt aground, it was only with difficulty Drinkwater managed to assist first Quilhampton and then the Spanish surgeon into the shelter of the alder grove.

It was clear that the cramps of immobility as much as the cold were affecting Castenada, and watching him, Drinkwater concluded he suffered also from a heavy conscience; in his impetuous desire to assist Quilhampton he had abandoned his other charges.

Drinkwater busied himself gathering all the dry driftwood he could find, supplementing it with dead alder and willow branches. Paring a heap of kindling with the kitchen knife given him for cutting the sausage, and catching a spark from the horse pistol, he contrived to get a fire burning.

'This wood is dry enough not to make much smoke,' he observed, fanning the crackling flames as they flickered up through the sticks.

Quilhampton stared about them. 'The air is marvellously dry,' he said, and Drinkwater looked up from his task. The light easterly wind they had experienced during the night had died away. The sun was rising as a red ball and the Elbe reflected the perfect blue of a cloudless sky. The distant river banks seemed deserted as Drinkwater painstakingly surveyed them. He had no idea how far downstream they had dropped, but by the width of the river he guessed they had made good progress.

'If the weather stays this fair,' Quilhampton said as Castenada kneeled beside him to change his dressing, 'there will be little wind to worry us.'

'True,' said Drinkwater, and both sea officers looked at the low freeboard of the punt and thought of the long, exposed stretch off-shore, beyond Cuxhaven.

'Perhaps we can lay our hands on another boat,' said Drinkwater with feigned cheerfulness, though both knew the risks such a course of action entailed.

'I expect we could do something to make her more weatherly,' Quilhampton said, the perspiration breaking on his face as Castenada tried to draw the ligatures from his stump after sniffing the wound.

'Do you use the lead acetate dressing, Doctor?' Drinkwater asked, hardly able to bear the pain on Quilhampton's drawn features.

Castenada looked up. 'Ah, you know the French method, eh, Captain? The method of Larrey, yes?'

Drinkwater shrugged. 'It was shown me by a French surgeon on the
Bucentaure
during the action off Cape Trafalgar.'

Castenada frowned and rewound the bandage over Quilhampton's hot stump. 'The
Bucentaure
... I thought ...' he motioned Drinkwater to help him draw on Quilhampton's coat again.

'She was French? Yes, she was. I was a prisoner.'

'Ahhh.' Castenada sat back on his haunches and stared unhappily at Drinkwater.

'Doctor, I understand something of what you are feeling. When we are a prisoner we dream of freedom: when we are free we mourn for those left behind. Is that not the case?'

'Si, si
... yes.'

'You should not judge yourself too harshly. Left to my tender ministrations, Mr Q. here would probably be dead by now.' Drinkwater leaned forward and patted Castenada's shoulder. 'You are an agent of providence,' he said, aware that he had borrowed the phrase from Hortense Santhonax.

Towards sunset on that short winter's day, the cooling air laid a low mist over the Elbe and Drinkwater determined on an early start. He had spent part of the day asleep, but having first eaten from the scanty stock of supplies provided by Liepmann, he had observed the build-up of ice about them, certain it would encroach further during the following night. Having taken the precaution of placing the largest stones he could find on the islet in the fire, he raked them out and with Castenada's help, succeeded in rolling them in a blanket and placing them in the punt between Quilhampton's legs.

'Insurance against freezing my assets, eh, sir?' joked Quilhampton as the boat bobbed with its forefoot still aground on the shingle beach.

After each gulping a slug of schnapps, Drinkwater and Castenada shoved off and clambered in, settling themselves for the long night ahead.

'Very well gentlemen,' Drinkwater said, leaning forward with his oar blades just above the water, 'are we ready to proceed towards England?'

'I am ready to go to España,' chuckled Castenada from the bow and Drinkwater exchanged glances of amusement with Quilhampton.

Drinkwater set himself an easy pace, knowing it was not difficult to row for many hours with a favourable current, but the cold attacked his legs at once, for they were not subject to the constant movement of his upper body. Quilhampton kicked his blankets aside below the extended furs and shared the warmth of the stones.

'I'm obliged to you, James.'

They could hear Castenada's teeth chattering and invited the surgeon to sample more schnapps until all that could be heard from the bow of the punt was a light snore.

'I'm sorry about your arm, James,' he said, tugging an oar clear of a pancake of ice that spun, ghostly, on the dark water.

'Having already lost half, the remainder don't come as so much of a shock,' Quilhampton jested feebly. They fell silent and Drinkwater knew Quilhampton was thinking of Catriona.

'How did you lose it?' he asked, seeking to divert his friend's tortured mind. 'I know it was in defence of the
Tracker
, but specifically?'

'Foolishness,' Quilhampton said, a grim chuckle in his voice. 'Like most precipitate acts, it was one of pure folly. I had engaged a big tow-headed Danish officer, hand-to-hand. The fellow had the reach of an octopus and I had to get inside his guard, and damned quickly. He came at me like the devil and thinking I had a subtle advantage, I put up my timber hand and parried his low thrust, at the same time twisting my trunk to extend my own sword. The fellow was quicker than I thought: he disengaged, cut under my false hand and ran his blade to the hilt, clean through my elbow.'

'What happened to him?' Drinkwater asked, curiously.

'He took Frey's sword at the end,' Quilhampton said miserably, relapsing into silence. After a while he too slept.

Drinkwater pulled steadily at the oars, looking over his shoulder from time to time. By now his night vision was acute and he could make out the odd feature on the nearer bank. At last he sensed the ebb ease, then the slack water and the first opposing thrust of the flood. He pulled closer to the shore, seeking the counter-current, determined not to seek a resting place until dawn.

The rhythmic exertion of his body lulled him and he allowed his mind to wander. He felt a surge of confidence in himself.

Now that the outcome depended solely upon his own efforts he felt a greater ease than he had enjoyed at the mercy of Thiebault and Liepmann, and even Captain Littlewood.

As for Hortense, he was certain now that she had not betrayed him. The papers that he felt stiff against his breast were genuine enough, and he recollected other facts to buttress her claims. He remembered Lord Dungarth telling him he had been in France twice, the same number of times Hortense had said she had met his lordship there. Moreover, Hortense had added that she had also seen Dungarth in England, a fact that might indicate she spoke the truth, for her English was flawless and she had lived there as an
emigrée
during the nineties.

It seemed that Dungarth had been right, all those years ago, in setting her free on the beach at Criel. If he had thought that having turned her coat once, she might do the same thing again, he had been proved correct.

Despite the desperation of their position, there were other considerations that gave him a ridiculous pleasure as he listened to the snores emanating from both ends of the punt. The squalid and shameful subterfuge he had embarked upon in Ma Hockley's whore-house in order to sow the seed in the informing ear of Mr Fagan, and the consequences of the Russian convoy and its near disastrous end on the island of Helgoland had at least achieved more than he had expected. The tale of British trade with Russia had been successfully carried to Custom House officers and a Prince-Marshal of the French Empire. That Hortense had joked about it was evidence enough that it would likely reach the ears of the Emperor Napoleon. He had, he thought, as he stared up at the star-spangled arch of the sky, every reason to be modestly pleased with himself...

The ice-floe was heavy and spun the punt round so that Drinkwater almost lost his starboard oar.

As he grabbed for it his arm was soaked to the elbow and the freezing water chilled him enough to make him gasp. A moment later the wildly rocking punt grounded and his passengers woke.

'God damn,' Drinkwater swore and easing a booted leg over the coaming, he tested the depth of the water. It took him twenty full, laborious minutes to work the punt back into navigable water, twenty minutes during which he discovered that Lord Dungarth's cast-off hessian boots, though of a fashionable style, let water damnably.

'I wonder,' he said in an attempt to restore the morale of his party after the incident, 'whether our Northampton manufactures are entirely waterproof?'

They holed up for the second day on a larger, lower islet than the first. It did not yield the same amount of dry wood and they spent a miserable day. Their only high spot was in getting Quilhampton on to his feet and making him dance about a little, supported between Drinkwater and Castenada.

'Who looks a damn fool now?' Drinkwater asked as, puffing and blowing, they eased the invalid back on to his furs. As the sun westered they plundered the diminishing stock of food in Liepmann's satchel.

As the time for departure approached, Drinkwater tried to search the river ahead, but he had no vantage point and, apart from discovering the main stream appeared to swing a little to the north-west, he gleaned little information.

They set out an hour before sunset. The ice in mid-river was more noticeable, and Drinkwater had frequent trouble with floes impeding the oars as he waited for the ebb tide. The punt bumped and spun violently at times, so that stifled grunts of pain came from Quilhampton. Castenada became increasingly silent as the desperation of their plight dawned upon his landsman's perception.

In the small hours they ran aground for the sixth or seventh time. Drinkwater got out and paddled, splashing round the punt, aware that as much ice as water lay underfoot.

It seemed colder than ever, the river running over a vast area of shallows which had frozen solid where pools had formed between the gravel ridges. Walking in a circle about the boat to the limit of the painter, Drinkwater discovered a section of shingle that rose two or three feet above the water. Returning lo the punt he ordered Castenada on to his feet and between them they manhandled first Quilhampton and then the punt out of immediate danger.

Casting about they discovered the ubiquitous supply of driftwood which proved sufficient to light a fire, though the effort expended with flint and steel tested Drinkwater's patience to the utmost.

'We must shield the fire glow from observation,' he said, indicating Castenada's cloak, 'I have no idea where we are, though the villages about Cuxhaven cannot be too far away now.'

In blankets, cloaks and furs they lay as close to the fire as they could. Shivering and miserable the three of them fell into a light sleep so that, after their exertions, dawn found them still unconscious.

The nightmare assailed Drinkwater shortly before dawn. It was an old dream, filled with the noise of clanking chains that might have been the sound of a ship's chain pump, or the fetters of the damned in hell. There was a woman's face in the dream, pallid and horrible, and she chanted dreadful words that he heard as clearly as if they were being whispered in his ear:

He could not make out whether or not it was the face of Hortense or Elizabeth, or some harpy come to warn him, but he woke to her scream and knew the dream for an old foreboding.

He was bathed in perspiration and felt a constriction in his throat presaging the onset of a quinsy.

The long scream dissolved into the unimagined reality of a distant trumpet note.