The Baltic Gambit

HERCULES FURENS, 123-24
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Oh, springing joy," Lewrie dourly said as a hired barge came alongside Thermopylae's starboard, cleared to make way for their passengers and goods, about ten in the morning of the day after Mountjoy had brought his news aboard. The two Russian nobles had found their coaching journey from London too exhausting, though Mountjoy had said that they'd been in no urgent rush, and had made stops every two hours for warm-ups, late-morning starts each day, and early-afternoon halts at only the best coaching inns or hotels from London onwards.

After reaching Great Yarmouth, they'd lodged themselves in the Wrestler's Arms, the same hotel where Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker and his "little batter pudding" still enjoyed their honeymoon; where the gravely ill Capt. Speaks, his wife, retainers, physician, and parrot, strove for his recovery, and where there were several large fireplaces and deep-piled soft beds. They had sent word aboard that they would rest for a night, then join Thermopylae at first light, this morning.

Evidently, first light to a pair of Russian nobles meant closer to "Clear Decks And Up Spirits" at Seven Bells of the Forenoon, almost nigh to Noon Sights, than "Crack of Dawn," "First Sparrow Fart," even Eight Bells of the Morning Watch, at 8 A.M.

Forewarned, Lt. Ballard had concentrated upon the loading of any last-minute purchases by the Purser, the Master Gunner, Sailmaker or Armourer, the Cooper or Carpenter, for the officer's and Midshipmen's messes, and the Captain's Cook.

Lt. Ballard surreptitiously pulled out his pocket-watch to take a squint at it, then heaved a small, fretful sigh before stowing it away again.

"Doesn't make a diff'rence, Mister Ballard," Lewrie told him. "The wind's still foul for us t'make an offing." He looked up to the long, snaking commissioning pendant at the truck of the main-mast… the winds had come more Sutherly, but not by all that much, as yet. "Whistle up the side-party, and All Hands, now they're almost alongside. Perhaps by sundown."

"Aye-aye, sir."

"Beg pardon, Captain Lewrie," Capt. Hardcastle, their merchant master, intruded. Not willing to spend Admiralty funds on an expensive shore lodging when he could pocket the difference and sleep for free aboard Thermopylae, and drink and sup on Navy largesse, he had reported aboard just after noon of the day before. "In my experience, the wind will shift quick, by dawn tomorrow. Go back to stiff Westerlies. Let us get out slick as anything."

"Not having served in the North Sea before, sir, I thankee for that news, Captain Hardcastle," Lewrie told the fellow, who looked as if he'd spent most of his life being battered by stiff winter winds and heaving, green-white seas. Hardcastle was ruddy, chapped, skinny yet wiry as a teenaged topman, though going rapidly bald. Lewrie had dined him in the night before, and the man ate like a teenaged topman, too.

Lt. Eades appeared in his finest uniform, with a party of his Marines, accompanied by Sgt. Crick and Corporals Thomas and Frye. The frigate's officers and Midshipmen were there, as well, turned out in Sunday Divisions Inspection best. Pulley, the Bosun's Mate, sounded a call for All Hands to bring the crew up from where they'd been sheltering belowdecks from the wind and the cold.

"Humph!" Lewrie said with a suspicious sniff as he got an eyeful of the goods stowed down the centreline of the approachings barge. "A powerful lot of it for one waggon-load, Mister Mountjoy. Do they buy their wine by the tun, or do they fetch off their own water kegs?"

"I'm not quite sure, sir." Mountjoy, who had been scuttling to and from shore to hasten their arrival since the aforementioned Crack of Dawn, sounded as if the nobles' cargo had multiplied overnight. "I think something was said of last-minute shopping, but…"

"So," Lewrie demanded. "Which of 'em's which, then?"

There were only four civilian passengers in the barge, besides the three sailors managing her, all looking up at the railings of the frigate with varying interest; or the studied lack of it. There was a tall and thick-set older fellow in a lustrous and expensive-looking coat of some sleek fur that reached to his ankles, with the collar up round his neck below a fashionable narrow-brimmed thimble of a beaver hat. Was it his own hair that was so white, or did he sport a short peruke? He appeared sublimely indifferent to the proceedings.

"The older gentleman is Count Dmitri Rybakov, sir," Mountjoy prompted from Lewrie's right elbow, in a loud whisper as if in awe of foreign nobility. "The heavy-set chap in the shapka fur hat beside him is most-like his servant. The other one, standing by the stays, is Count Anatoli Levotchkin, and his servant. Now where's Lieutenant Ricks? He was to leave London but a day behind us."

"Um-hmm," Lewrie responded, more interested in the perfect turn-out of his side-party and officers for a moment, to make sure nothing was amiss. It would not do his suddenly resuscitated career any good for a titled foreigner to lodge a complaint of lиse-majestй upon him. Count Rybakov, so bored-looking, simply struck Lewrie as the very sort of arrogant pain-in-the-arse who'd take offence over the slightest bit of suspected dishonour or disrespect.

He then turned his attention to the younger man whom Mountjoy had pointed out to him. If Count Rybakov looked about fifty years old, the younger noble could pass for his son. Levotchkin appeared to be in his early twenties, if not in his late teens. He also wore a sleek, long double-breasted fur overcoat, though with the wide collar and lapels down, and had one of those fur hats-a shapka-on his head with the ear-flaps turned up. The "Baldy" beside him, his supposed manservant, was a hulking, pugilist-big and rough-looking brute, who not only wore no hat at all despite the cold, but wore a shaggier and cheaper hide coat lined with sheep wool open to the elements. Whilst the other men wore buckled shoes or top-boots that peeked from below the hems of their long coats, this fellow wore fur-lined mid-calf boots with his trousers stuffed into them.

"Looks like those two had a bad night of it, somewhere," Lewrie japed under his breath, taking note of a few fading bruises on both the young noble's, and his servant's, faces.

"I understand they were set upon by a gang of thieves a couple of weeks ago, in London, sir," Mountjoy supplied, sotto voce now that the barge was snugly alongside.

No! Lewrie goggled; Can't be! Can it? What're the odds that that's Tess's 'Count Anatoli'?

"What were they doin' in England, anyway, before this scheme got dropped on 'em, Mister Mountjoy?" Lewrie asked, turning away from the barge to look at the fellow from the Foreign Office.

"Oh, Count Rybakov had come to purchase blooded race horses and hunters, sir," Mountjoy was happy to relate, to reveal his knowledge. "English and Irish thoroughbreds. Simply mad for them. And I think Count Levotchkin was doing a term or two at Oxford."

Christ, he very likely is Tess's 'Count'! Lewrie realised as he tried to portray idle curiosity; Now ain't this goin' t'be int'restin'!

"… liked London Society so much that he stayed on nigh a year, sir," Mountjoy was blathering on, cheerful as a magpie, "after he sent his new horses on to his Russian estates. He got invited to country houses for fox-hunting and steeplechasing last Autumn. The Pytchley or the Quorn, I forget which, but he took a hedge badly during one of the 'cub-hunts' before the season started proper, and had to heal up. By then, he was back in London, just in time for the winter balls and such. Everybody likes him immensely, even the Prince of Wales. He's a lively dancer, too, especially at the contre-danses."

"Who? Levotchkin?" Lewrie asked, taking another squint at the stiff-faced young twit clinging to the larboard stays of the barge's single mast.

"Oh no, sir, Count Rybakov!" Mountjoy corrected him. "I don't know that much about Count Levotchkin… just met him before we took coaches here… seems a serious sort of sprog, to me, he does."

"Well, does Rybakov dance well, I'll have the ship's band tune up, and let him try his hand at a horn-pipe," Lewrie wryly said.

"Does Thermopylae actually have a band?" Mountjoy asked.

"No… but I've still my penny-whistle," Lewrie told him with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek.

"Lord spare us," Mountjoy said in a whispered sigh; echoed by Lt. Ballard, who had overheard, and had been a victim aboard Alacrity when Lewrie had first tried his hand at music. His talent had not improved appreciably when Mountjoy had been aboard HMS Jester, either.

With his servant's help, the elder noble clumsily mounted the gunn'l of the barge, trying to balance for a breath or two, using his gold-knobbed ebony walking-stick as a prop, before stepping out for the main-mast channel platform. A slight harbour scend raised up the barge just in time to make it an easy step. Rybakov was quick to seize hold of one of the thick dead-eyed main stays; as if catching his breath at his daring before essaying anything more strenuous, he looked up for the first time, glowering at the difficulty of battens and man-ropes.

"Should we have lowered a bosun's chair, d'ye think?" Mountjoy whispered. "I know you always say it's undignified, but…"

"Might not have a clue," Capt. Hardcastle opined. "Might've got aboard a merchantman right off the pier, by gangway, sir."

Lewrie stepped to the bulwarks, and leaned out the open entry-port. "Might you require a chair-sling, sir?"

"How the Devil…?" Count Rybakov fumed back, waving one hand at the boarding battens, "tiy idysodar charochko," he added under his breath. "Aah!" he spat right after, discovering that his expensively gloved right hand was sticky with tar.

"The boarding battens are like rungs on a ladder, sir," Lewrie helpfully explained. "The ropes strung through their outer ends, one holds onto as one ascends. Really, we can rig a sling…"

"Chort!" Count Rybakov snarled; whether he meant "Damn" or did he intend "Shit," it was no matter. It was a quite useful word. He flung his walking-stick up at Lewrie, who, startled, barely managed to snag it as it twirled, else it would have gone into the waters between the hulls of the frigate and the barge, then stepped off the chain platform to the battens, took hold of the man-ropes with both hands, and made a slow way upwards; right foot up first, then he brought the left to meet it before moving up to the next batten. Once clear of the chain platform, the younger Count Levotchkin sprang up atop the gunn'l of the barge with ease, hopped across to the platform, then waited for the older man to clear the battens. He grinned, as if it was funny.

Lewrie couldn't make out what Rybakov was saying under his breath, but he could guess. Each deep exhalation sounded furious in some language. He's goin' to complain, I just know it, Lewrie thought; A stern letter to the Foreign Office, Admiralty, askin' for my head.

As the crown of Count Rybakov's stylish hat peeked above the lip of the entry-port, the Bosun and his Mate began to shrill a long duet call. Lt. Ballard cried for the crew to doff hats, and Lt. Eades barked for his Marines to bring their muskets to the Present, with loud and uniform slaps of hands on wood, and short boots stamping on oak decks.

Lewrie doffed his cocked hat with his right hand in salute, and tucked the walking-stick behind his left leg. "Welcome aboard Thermopylae, my lord," Lewrie said with a hopeful smile.

"Errr, Count Rybakov grumbled back, sounding very much like a pirate rolling off an angry "Arr!" as he stripped off his thin gloves. Without caring where they went, he tossed them over his shoulder, then stuck out his right hand. For an eyeblink, Lewrie thought he wished to shake hands, but realised that Rybakov only wanted his walking-stick back.

By then, the younger noble had scampered up the battens to the deck, as the Bosun and his Mate continued their long, intricate call worthy of an Admiral being piped aboard.

"Welcome aboard His Majesty's Ship Thermopylae, my lord," Lewrie repeated for him, doffing his hat once more. Count Levotchkin glared a very stern, chin-high look at one and all, slowly swivelling his head from bow to stern, and up and down the waiting row of officers and Midshipmen, who were "toeing the line" of a deck seam with their hats off and lifted high in salute. The young sprog had seemed excited when he had stood by the barge's stays, looking up, almost in wonder and expectation, but now, he had put his "aristocratic phyz" on, as if ordinary people and experiences were beneath him, and made no impression.

"Count Rybakov… Count Levotchkin, allow me to present to you Captain Alan Lewrie of his Britannic Majesty's Navy," Mountjoy quickly intervened to make the formal introductions, "an officer famed for his skill and courage. Captain Lewrie, I name to you Count Dmitri Rybakov and Count Anatoli Levotchkin."

"Your humble servant, my lords," Lewrie chimed in, bowing from the waist and making a "leg" with his hat swept to his chest. "May I present you to my officers, my lords? After all, we shall all be together for some time on our voyage."

"Are any of them noble?" Count Levotchkin asked, giving them all a dubious up-and-down scanning, much like a tailor to the Crown might to a pack of new-come parvenus.

"Uhm, I don't believe…?" Lewrie said, looking to Lt. Ballard for help in that regard. Ballard gave his head a brief shake of no. "No one, sorry."

"Then it is of no matter," Count Levotchkin said with a snobbish sniff. "Where are our quarters? It is cold."

"British sea-dogs," Count Rybakov said more jovially, smiling broadly. " England 's 'wooden walls,' yes? I would like to meet your officers, Kapitan Lewrie. Introduce me to them."

"Of course, my lord," Lewrie said, with a bit of relief that he was going to be friendlier than his colleague. Maybe he won't write complainin' letters, after all, he thought; hoped, rather.

Rybakov shot a stern glare in Levotchkin's direction before he went down the line of officers and Midshipmen with Lewrie, exchanging greetings. Thankfully, Lewrie could call all of them by name by then, right down to the youngest Mids, Pannabaker and Plumb. Levotchkin was forced to trail the elder man, bestowing short jerks of his head when each was named to him, obedient, but letting all know that he was very bored with the proceedings.

"Yes, our quarters, Kapitan Lewrie," Count Rybakov said after the last introductions were done, and the manservants had clambered up to the gangway with the lighter luggage.

"This way, my lords," Lewrie bade. "Mister Ballard, you'll see their dunnage hoisted aboard? I will depend on your servants to show my First Officer which items are required for your everyday existence, and which of the bulkier items may be stowed below on the orlop, sir?"

"Yes, my man, Fyodor, and Sasha, know our wants," Rybakov agreed.

Sasha! Lewrie twigged to the name; Isn't that the fellow Tess's Count called to for help, the night Mother Batson's bucks beat 'em all t'puddin'? God, this'll be really int'restin'!

"Aah… warmth!" Count Rybakov enthused, making a bee line to the Franklin stove to warm his hands, and unbuttoning his long overcoat.

"Take yer things, sir?" Pettus offered. Rybakov looked him over for a moment, as if sizing him up as worthy enough, before handing him his hat and walking-stick, and letting him remove that heavy fur coat. Once rid of his outer wear, Count Rybakov displayed a full head of hair atop his head, light grey, or dingy white, not a peruke, and worn in a modern style. His suit was dark green, waist-length in front with the long tails behind that were all the "crack" in London that season, with snug matching breeches below, and white silk stockings and stout shoes with gilt buckles. There was a waist-coat of jacquard stripes in white and salmon to add a jaunty note to a sombre overall hue, as did his neck-stock, of dark red moire silk. Forgetting his aristocratic airs, Count Rybakov turned about and lifted the tails of his coat to warm his bum, the same as any man, sighing and smiling with pleasure to have a thawed backside.

"A glass of something warming, as well, my lord?" Lewrie asked. "Or might you take tea or coffee, first?' Count Levotchkin?"

Damn the young sprog! He had flung off his own fur hat and his coat, and was prowling through Lewrie's wine-cabinet without leave.

"I'm sure you'll find something warming in there, sir," Lewrie said, allowing his sarcasm a looser rein for a moment. Levotchkin had tossed his hat atop the dining table, and had simply let his coat hit the deck in a furry heap for someone else to pick up later. Whitsell, the cabin boy tried to pick it up, but it was damnably heavy.

Without recognising that Lewrie had even spoken, Count Anatoli took a bottle of Kentucky whisky from the racks, unstoppered the decanter, and took first a sniff, then a short swig straight from the bottle. With a shrug that signifed that it might do, Levotchkin helped himself to a glass and poured it full, before crossing the cabins for a slouch on the starboard-side settee, with one top-booted foot atop the large brass tray-topped low table that Lewrie had fetched back from his time in India, 'tween the wars in the '80s.

"Kulturny, plyemyaneek," Count Rybakov chid him in Russian.

Culture, Lewrie translated from his very limited stock of words and phrases, in his head; T'other's… cousin? Nephew? One of 'em, so they're related somehow. Put some manners on, he's saying.

"Kentucky Bourbon whisky, Count Levotchkin," Lewrie told him. "I am sorry we don't run much to vodka, nor gin, either. Rum's our stock-in-trade… that, and small beer, or wine."

"Tea, yes, Kapitan," Count Rybakov exclaimed, using his enthusiasm to deflect his kinsman's bad manners. "Fyodor, ah… the glasses for tea. We Russians prefer it so hot, the tea glass must be surrounded by a metal holder."

"I'm familiar with 'em, my lord," Lewrie replied, though still fuming over the younger noble making so free with his spirits. "Sorry we don't have a samovar aboard to brew tea the way you like."

"Lots of sugar, Fyodor," Rybakov reminded his servant, who was digging through a small chest. "You have lemon, Kapitan?"

"For now, sir, aye. A limited supply, sad t'say. Hard to get in England, in mid-winter," Lewrie told him. "Tea, pipin' hot, Pettus. For you, Count Levotchkin?"

"Nyet," the young man snapped.

"If you'll take a seat, sir," Lewrie bade the older man, an arm swept in the direction of the settee and chairs. And, cocking a brow over the sheer amount of luggage coming in a solid stream through the forward door and piled by his sailors where the dining coach had been, across from the chart-space. "I've taken the liberty of re-arranging the great-cabins to accommodate you on-passage, my lord," he said once he'd sat down himself. "I've shifted my sleeping space and my desk forrud, nearer the quarterdeck, and given you and Count Levotchkin my old space, there… aft on the starboard side, with a hanging bed-cot each. The, ah… necessary is on the larboard side, yonder, and we must share… sorry. There might be room left for your servants to sleep in hammocks, do you require them to be at hand at all hours."

The new arrangements had looked cramped before; with all the chests and trunks and leather portmanteaus coming aboard, Lewrie began to wonder if there'd be room in which to swing a cat, did Fyodor and that huge Sasha sleep aft, along with Pettus and Whitsell.

Speaking of… Toulon and Chalky, intrigued yet frightened of all the bustle, darted with their bellies scraping the deck to their one secure place, Lewrie's lap.

"You will sleep here, with us?" Count Levotchkin asked, as if the very idea was insulting. "With those filthy little beasts? Pah!"

"He is Kapitan of the ship, Anatoli," Rybakov gently reminded Levotchkin. "We are his guests. The Kapitan must sleep near the helm, and his watch officers, so he may respond to the slightest change, or emergency. It will only be a few weeks, after all," Rybakov said with a grin. "And cats are not as noisy as that damned parrot who shrieked the night through at our hotel last evening. Surely, the pet of some sailor… or a fiend."

"It is not dignified," Count Levotchkin groused, removing his nose from his glass of whisky just long enough to say.

"Would you require your servants to bunk here, my lord?" Lewrie asked again.

"No," said Rybakov. "Da," said Levotchkin. "Nyet," Rybakov insisted, glaring the sulky young man to surrender the point. "They are not necessary after we retire, Kapitan Lewrie," he stated, settling the matter. "And we both understand the constraints placed upon us and our usual comforts when travelling by ship… by a warship, not one built for their passengers' pleasures… do we not, Anatoli." It was not a question, but a pointed warning, to which the young man had to nod agreement… though his face and ears went a bit redder as he swallowed his bile.

Mr. Mountjoy entered the great-cabins, sidling past two sailors lugging yet another bloody-great leather round-topped trunk, and made his bows to the nobles, before leaning down to Lewrie.

"It would seem that Lieutenant Ricks will not be available, sir."

"Why not, Mister Mountjoy?" Lewrie said with a frown.

"He, ah… was taken up for debts the morning our party left London, sir," Mountjoy mournfully said, "and is now most-like held in the Fleet prison 'til he's repaid his creditors."

"Well, damme," Lewrie groused. "Can't Admiralty pay 'em for him, so he's available?"

"They are his personal debts, sir," Mountjoy explained, "and not any sums he might have run up in active British commission. Recall, he was on half-pay to Admiralty, the last three years, and was in Russian service 'til late last Autumn, so…"

"And, I s'pose there's no one else available?" Lewrie asked, and answered his own question. "No, of course there isn't… not in time t'do us any good. Might take a week t'whistle up another'un, and he'll take the best part of the next week t'come join us here in Yarmouth."

"Well, sir, with the Russian Baltic fleet iced up in harbour," Mountjoy pointed out, looking for the best face on things, "there may not be all that great a need for immediate expertise on their navy."

"We must delay our sailing?" Count Rybakov asked, a tad agitated upon hearing of it.

"I think not, my lord," Lewrie told him, puffing out his cheeks and lips in frustration, though putting the best face on it himself. "Mister Mountjoy is correct… does the ice keep your Baltic fleet in port a month or so longer, it's slim odds we'll run into any of them at sea, before we land you at the nearest ice-free port to Saint Petersburg, so Lieutenant Rick's presence would make no difference to us. I expect, soon as the wind's come Westerly, to set sail. Perhaps as soon as tomorrow, dawn."

"I am gratified to hear it, Kapitan Lewrie," Count Rybakov said with relief. "Our diplomatic mission, and the hope of a reconciliation between our two great nations, before a war can be set in motion, from which no one can prosper but the odious French tyrant, Bonaparte, must not be hindered."

No wonder everybody likes him, Lewrie thought.

"Most gratifying to the Foreign Office, as well," Mountjoy said with an open, relieved grin.

"By dawn, we could be on our way, Anatoli," Rybakov cheerfully said. "Does that not sound pleasing?"

"Da… yes, it does," Count Anatoli agreed, sitting up a little straighter, showing his first sign of any emotion other than bored-to-tears. "Urr-rah!" he cried, right after tossing his drink down in one gulp. It did not help his welcome aboard, though, that right after he had drunk, he threw the glass at the pierced metal grate door of the stove, where it shattered.

And no wonder everyone despises you! Lewrie thought, wincing at the mess, and the loss of one of his better glasses; He keeps that up, he'll be drinkin' from cupped hands… we all will. I'd wager he has hosts o' people lined up, waitin' t'slap him silly.

Count Levotchkin smirked at their reactions to his action, and tossed off a small shrug that was all they would get by way of apology. He rose to go to the wine-cabinet for a fresh glass, perhaps a taste of something else more pleasing, while his kinsman, Count Rybakov, looked at Lewrie and rolled his eyes as if to say "what may one do with these youngsters?" while nodding and blinking a silent apology for him. Whitsell, Lewrie's runty cabin boy, went for a broom and dust-pan.

"One of our customs, Kapitan Lewrie," Rybakov said. "Whenever an oath is pledged, or a toast of significance to us, we break the glasses in the hearth, or on the floor, to seal its importance… so that no one may re-use those glasses, and renege, later. That is how urgent our… peace mission is to us… to Anatoli, you must understand."

Lewrie looked over his shoulder to the young man in question to see him opening another decanter and sniffing it, and young Whitsell by his side, as if to deter him from causing any more mayhem.

Anatoli Levotchkin, were one not aware of his cruelty and perversity, really did appear as a handsome, well-set-up fellow; tall, slim and with the build of a courtier, or a light cavalryman. He had close-cropped dark blond hair, with the typical blue Slavic eyes in a lean scholar's face, framed by sideburns to below his earlobes, and brushed forward almost in Frenchified fashion. Lewrie imagined he was rich as Croesus, or the Walpoles, but Levotchkin was dressed in scholar's drab; a black doubled-breasted coat over a grey waist-coat, with the collars of his shirt turned up to his jaws, with a bright yellow neck-stock at his throat. Dark buff, snugly-cut trousers and top-boots completed his suiting. Lawyers dressed more colourfully.

Levotchkin might be taken for a well-off young student about to take his final exams, and Blues for brilliance, or an off-leave cavalry officer in a fashionable regiment; he could be mistaken for a typical "Merry Andrew," yet…

Cavalry, for certain, Lewrie decided to himself; Only cavalry's that top-lofty, and dim. Lord, make this a short voyage!

He turned back to look at Rybakov again, and stroked his cats, who had each taken a thigh on which to sprawl and knead his waist-coat for attention and comfort.

"Tea, sir," Pettus announced, returning from the galley with a large pewter pot held in folded towels. "Boiling hot as you requested."

"Ah, tea!" Count Rybakov exclaimed, clapping chilled hands.

"Capital!" Lewrie heartily agreed as Pettus set the pot on the stove top and went for a tray of cups and saucers.

"Urr-rah" was Levotchkin's sneer, back to the laconic sulker he'd been when he'd first come aboard.

I'll not shove him overboard, th' first dark night, Lewrie vowed; I'll not!