Tyger

CHAPTER 16

THE SOUTHERN BALTIC SHORE STANK.

It wasn’t the bodies-they’d been cleared away days before. It was the ever-present stench of East Prussia, with its flat, open plains broken with marshes and waterways, intensively farmed by fearful peasants who hadn’t yet joined the flood of humanity eastwards, away from the rolling thunder of war.

Flugelleutnant Klaus Gursten knew he should be used to it by now but, born and bred a Berliner, he couldn’t warm to these lands, so much in thrall to a medieval past. The people stood about as he and his horse clattered into the farm courtyard, the men in long smocks, the women in stitch-worked dirndls, gaping in wonder at what was happening to their ageless existence.

He slipped from his mount, grunting at the pain of fatigued muscles as a soldier took the animal in hand.

The farmhouse, with its limply hanging liebfahne flag of eagle and up-thrust sword, was the field headquarters of the Prussian commander, Generalleutnant von Hohenlau.

Gursten marched smartly past the two sentries and into a low room. Seated at a large kitchen table spread with maps, von Hohenlau was conferring with his chief of general staff, Gerhard Scharnhorst, a handsome officer in fashionably high collar with a romantic curl of dark hair on his forehead.

Scharnhorst was standing and speaking in low tones. He looked round as Gursten entered and acknowledged his clicked heels and bow with a terse nod. “Yes?” he said, pausing. His campaign uniform was dark Prussian blue with the Brandenburg red cuffs but had little in the way of gold lacings, and Gursten knew he was facing a soldier who had learned his trade and gained field promotion under the peerless Frederick the Great. He had an intimidating presence.

“From Feldmarschall Count von Bennigsen, Generalleutnant. Orders in respect of a possible flank attack.” He handed over a package and stepped back smartly.

Von Hohenlau grimaced as he sliced it open. Bennigsen was overall commander of the coalition forces-but he was a Russian and at the head of an army far superior in numbers to what remained of the Prussians.

“Is he still at Heilsberg?” he asked.

“He fears Davout and Soult will prove troublesome but he’s brought Labanoff across his rear. Yes, sir, he’s still there.”

“Humph.” Von Hohenlau extracted the papers and scanned them quickly. A dark frown appeared and he read again, more slowly.

“Do you know what this contains?”

As staff intermediary between the two allied commanders, there were few secrets Gursten didn’t know. “The Feldmarschall has many concerns, sir, and-”

“He demands I extend my right until it reaches the sea.”

“To prevent the French turning your flank, sir.”

Scharnhorst leaned forward and murmured something to von Hohenlau, who said, “He’s aware that Bonaparte lurks beyond. Who would not be happier were I to lengthen my lines? The devil has an unemployed regiment of cavalry to play with, and if I were to be stretched thin in the manoeuvre it could all be up with us.”

“I’m sure he knows, sir, but is persuaded that Bonaparte must be checked in his advance until Oberst Tolstoi’s reinforcements arrive.”

“Very well. It shall be done.”

Slapping down the orders, he looked up. “Herr Gursten, you’ve done your part-you should get your belly filled and rest while you can.”

He grunted peevishly and nodded to his chief of staff. “So, Gerhard, shall we get up the plans? We’ve no time to lose.”

Gursten was effectively dismissed. He threw off a smart salute, wheeled about and marched away.

In the fields a massed line of fusiliers was drilling, the red-faced feldwebel screaming orders at raw recruits, stumbling landwehr from the nearby war-torn and devastated countryside. Gursten tried not to show his despair at the level to which the proud but heavily mauled army had sunk and made his way to the mess-tent.

The field-kitchens were at work and the odour of boiled mutton triggered sharp pangs of hunger. He had left Bennigsen’s lines early that morning and eaten only biscuits and raisins on the way.

“Hey, now, the prodigal returns!” It was Engelhardt, his friend since those far-off days of peace.

“And sharp set-but naught that can’t be remedied with a libation of the right sort, Willy.”

“Ho, the kellner!” Engelhardt called imperiously to the mess-man. “A pair of schnapps-from the red bottle, mind.”

After the man had brought glasses of the golden liquid, they toasted each other, then Engelhardt leaned forward. “Now, Klaus, you can tell me. How goes it in the centre? Will the Russkies stand?”

Gursten hesitated, considering his response.

Prussia had a proud history and, since Frederick the Great’s profound modernising of state and military, it had looked to itself as pre-eminent on the continent-until the ferocity of, first, the French Revolution, then the genius of Napoleon Bonaparte had transformed the scene.

Staying cautiously neutral, the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III had secured peace for his realm, but when the battle of Trafalgar had confined Bonaparte to a European cage the emperor had been compelled to look east for new conquests. The Austrians and the Holy Roman Empire stood in his way and Bonaparte did not hesitate, striking into its heart. Yet instead of joining with their fellow Germans against the erupting force, the king had decided on a retreat into neutrality.

Gursten knew Friedrich had blundered but with the absolute autocracy of the Hohenzollern court it would be madness for him to say so, especially to his friend, a loyal and unquestioning officer of the traditional kind.

The result of the king’s action was decisive. After the spectacular defeat at Austerlitz, despite the entry of Russia to aid the Austrians, a collapse of the coalition against Bonaparte became inevitable.

During an uneasy peace a general rearrangement of borders and alignments followed, but it was clear that with the Confederation of the Rhine, Bonaparte was intent on destabilising the centuries-old patchwork of kingdoms and principalities. Friedrich had reconsidered his neutrality and blundered again into disaster.

With confidence born of an unbroken tradition of Prussian military discipline and success, he had declared war on the French empire, his well-trained armies outnumbering Bonaparte’s rag-tag allies and auxiliaries, but it was a fatal misjudgement. Impatient for glory, he did not wait for the distant Russians to join and two giants faced each other on the battlefield.

Bonaparte moved on them efficiently. In the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt he succeeded in encircling and comprehensively obliterating his opponent in a victory so complete it effectively removed Prussia as a player from the world stage.

Within nineteen days of those opening scenes, Emperor Napoleon was riding into Berlin a conqueror. Two members of the Prussian royal family had been mortally wounded on the battlefield and the rest were in headlong flight, with the pitiful remnants of the army. Only the approach of winter and the need to consolidate his triumph kept Bonaparte from continuing.

The Russian Army, marching heroically through the mud and snow, reached the frontier in Poland and dug winter quarters opposite the French lines in preparation for the spring. Surviving Prussian generals had pulled together something of an army but it was a shadow of what it had been and joined the Russians very much as the lesser partner, von Hohenlau agreeing to serve under their commander, Bennigsen.

It couldn’t last: even in the freezing hell of a Polish winter manoeuvres turned into aggressive thrusts and the two armies became locked together in a bitter struggle on the plains of the Vistula around a little village called Eylau.

Gursten shuddered at the memory-it had been only a few months ago and he recalled it as yesterday. A titanic ebb and flow of hundreds of thousands over treacherous terrain in the cruel bitterness of howling snowstorms. Forced marches and last stands against merciless artillery as stolid Russian peasant soldiers came on against the unbending will of Bonaparte in a conflict that lasted agonising days.

It stopped Bonaparte in a bloody stalemate but at what cost? Never again did he want to see the ghastliness of frozen corpses and piteous wounded strewn over the wreckage of battle, some piled together, others littering the landscape in every direction. In the fields around Eylau alone no less than fifty thousand casualties lay in an appalling scene of slaughter.

Then Bennigsen, suspecting a trap, had retreated and yielded to Bonaparte. Since then it had been a steady falling back.

Bennigsen had taken the centre of the line, with von Hohenlau and the Prussians on his right, the Austrians tying down Massena on his left, and as spring turned to summer they had contested every mile, every yard as they fell back towards Konigsberg.

There, the royal family and government in exile had set up on the last piece of unconquered Prussia and that was the situation now: a straggling line across East Prussia with vast armies manoeuvring and clashing in savage encounters, half starved and desperate.

Somewhere out there as they supped, not far beyond the enemy lines, Bonaparte held state in his forward imperial headquarters, controlling his marshals and their divisions like chess pieces. Victor, Soult and Davout, Murat and Ney, young sons of the revolution, determined on glory and fame at any cost.

Gursten pulled himself together and told his friend, “Bennigsen stands-he must. He’s too many enemies at court to show cowardice.”

That much was safe to say. Tsar Alexander was too ambitious by half: if it were in his interest to turn his coat he would, and with it take all the military resources of Russia.

“And we?”

“We face Victor and his seven divisions with our one and a half. But, yes, we’ll stand. I know von Hohenlau, one of the best. Old school from the glory times. If he gets orders to stand, he will, count on it.”

“He’s on the march, Klaus.”

“Orders to extend to the right to meet the sea and stop Victor turning his flank.”

“Risky.”

“Yes.”

Gursten downed the last of his schnapps. “If you’ll excuse me, Willy, I really must rest.”

At first light he was a-horse, with von Hohenlau’s acknowledgement to Bennigsen, riding across the adjacent field in the damp, misty morning to the rutted Liebdorff road east.

At first he made good time, threading through the tents and artillery parks of von Hohenlau’s rear until he reached the deserted countryside beyond, where he turned parallel to the lines.

Breaking into a canter he relaxed into the rhythm of the movement-until an hour further on something intruded into his senses. It was deathly quiet but on the air there was the faintest disturbance. He reined in and tried to listen above the snorting and snuffling of his horse. Wanting to hear better, he dismounted and walked away a little.

Over to the southwest, in the direction of the lines, there were signs of vague disorder, rising dust and the faint, muffled sounds of battle, an engagement of sorts-well to the rear, where it had no right to be. He knelt down, put his ear to the ground and heard the subliminal thunder of many horses.

He felt a cold wash of fear. It could only be that the French had observed the Prussian move to the sea and, knowing that their line would be stretched, had thrown a flying column in the other direction to smash a wedge between the allies.

It would be heavy cavalry first to punch through-that was what he must be hearing-and it was open country: they would be moving fast.

He looked around helplessly-the road stretched on for miles, nothing in sight on these God-forsaken plains. A wind-breaking hedge followed the road and on the far side there was a ditch, the field beyond nothing but a mass of wild-growing nettles.

The drumming of hoofs was now viscerally perceptible. Cavalry warhorses would soon catch his slightly built mount, but if he was seen on foot out in the open he’d be instantly cut to pieces.

The skyline was now stippled with movement, trumpets braying faintly amid a ragged tapping of musketry. In an agony of despair he tore loose his sabretache and dived into the base of the hedge, wriggling frantically until he reached the ditch the other side.

It was running in jet-black slime and oozed effluvium. As the drumming turned to thunder he ripped the dispatches to pieces and thrust them deep into the mud then snatched a look through the hedge.

The whole horizon to his front was alive with galloping cuirassiers in shining breastplates and their distinctive curved, plumed helmets, intoxicated with the charge that had carried them deep into the enemy lines. Their heavy sabres glittered in the wan sun; each had hate on his face.

There was only one chance: he crouched, then thrust himself face down into the ditch and lay still.

The thunder turned into an avalanche of noise-in the next few seconds he would either live or die. The terrible hoofbeats grew louder, overwhelming-then strangely cut off as the cavalrymen launched themselves over the hedge to crash down beyond the ditch and away.

He kept deathly motionless, his back crawling as he tensed for a casual brutal hacking with a sabre as they passed over him. It went on and on until the last stragglers had gone.

It had worked: he was grateful for his concealing dark blue uniform, its frogging and ornamentation out of sight under him. If he’d been seen it was likely he’d been taken for a stale corpse not worth the sticking.

He knew better than to make any move just yet for they’d penetrated deeply and must now regroup and return. Sure enough, they milled about in the field for a space and then, with hoarse shouts and a blare of trumpets, made off in a body to the south.

Still not daring to stir he waited until the jingling tumult had died away and carefully raised his head.

They were nearly out of sight and he got to his feet slowly, surveying the trampled hedge and field. His horse was lost, of course, and he faced the prospect of a long tramp in his heavy riding boots until he saw the beast about a quarter of a mile away, calmly cropping the nettles.

Heart still thudding he mounted and rode off at desperate speed back whence he’d come.

He burst in on von Hohenlau, who was surrounded by excited staff officers; obviously his news was not unexpected. He told a distracted Scharnhorst the details, then withdrew to change his filthy uniform.

When he returned there was a different atmosphere: a grave and serious quiet.

“Sir?” he enquired, of a despondent artillery hauptfach.

“They’re through-Soult threw five squadrons of heavy cavalry at our left and he’s pouring a column of his finest through after them. Klaus, it means we’re cut off from Bennigsen-and we’ll have to shorten our lines to face the bastards.”

Always it was the same: a restless probing of the front, and at any weakness, Bonaparte would pounce, sending instant marching orders to a tried and trusted marshal and supporting orders to others. It took masterly staff-work but Bonaparte’s veterans could be relied on.

Later in the evening, when lamps threw soft gold on tired faces, and supper lay uneaten, worse news came.

“Sir. Soult is deep into our lines. We’ve now reports that he’s wheeling left-sir, he intends to cut us off, isolate us. We must pull back, retire on Kreuznicke.”

Scharnhorst nodded slowly. “It must be done quickly.”

Von Hohenlau shook his head. “No.”

“Sir?”

“My last orders were to stand and that is what I will do.”

“Sir, if we don’t retire we’ll be cut off, encircled! We must-”

“Silence! Have I not a staff officer with a shred of honour? We’ve lost communication with our field commander, whose orders to us were to stand fast. He’s in the belief that we’ve obeyed his last order and therefore remain in post to halt any advance in this sector. Do we now as Prussians betray that trust?”

“If we are surrounded we will be put to the siege and-”

“Sir! This is of no account. Recollect, if you will, that Pomeranian Kolberg still defies the tyrant under siege, near two hundred miles behind Bonaparte’s lines. Are we so craven that we fear to do the same?”

Scharnhorst pulled himself erect. “There is a difference, sir, which it would be folly to overlook.”

“Yes?” von Hohenlau snapped, his expression flinty.

“At Kolberg they are two, three thousand. Here we are sixteen thousand. Without we have supply and-”

“Noted. And dismissed. We do not move. I shall want plans to safeguard our perimeter and take all necessary steps by daybreak.”

“Very well, Generalleutnant.”

By mid-morning it was clear that the French had achieved their objective-the Prussians were now isolated from the rest of the line and were left to their own resources for rations, ammunition and stores.

An entire division and more-how long could it last?

Gursten received a summons to Headquarters. Von Hohenlau and Scharnhorst were together conferring and looked up to regard him gravely.

“Flugelleutnant Gursten, I know your father and your uncle. It is because of them I feel able to make the request I do.”

“Sir?”

“Our situation must be made known to the higher authorities, in detail, that decisions may be made.”

“I understand, sir.”

“This is a mission of the utmost importance and of extreme peril.”

“Sir.”

“You will pass through the enemy lines and make your way to Konigsberg.”

“Not to Feldmarschall Bennigsen, sir?”

“To Konigsberg-to His Majesty and his ministers. There you will lay before him our entire disposition. If he gives leave for me to retire I shall do so but, on my honour, will obey no other.”

“I will do it willingly, sir.” The odds of his slipping through an alerted besieging force were slim but the stakes could not be higher.

“How you will achieve this must be left to you, Herr Gursten. If there’s anything we can do to assist …”

Outside he set out to find his friend.

“I honour you for it, Klaus, with all my heart,” Engelhardt murmured, shaking him by the hand. The two sat down and began to plot.

Towards evening, a shabby figure and another in a junior officer’s uniform made their way to the last outposts before the enemy.

Near a pig-sty there was an old out-of-use wooden barrel. Gursten was helped into it and after it was upended his friend left.

In the suffocating black airlessness Gursten crouched and waited. Voices rose and fell. He heard muffled commands and the rumbling of a wagon or two-then quiet.

Hours came and went. His cramped body was a torture but there was no alternative.

Longer. It must be getting close to daybreak by now.

Then … voices.

He couldn’t make them out and strained to hear. Hoarse, peasant muttering. Polish-no, some other … If he chose wrongly, it could be a vile death from some looting band.

It wasn’t meant to be like this!

The plan had seemed a good one: this spot was contained within a salient of the Prussian perimeter that was scheduled to be drawn in as lines were shortened, leaving him concealed in his barrel. As the French pressed in it would be overtaken and he’d find himself behind their line, at which he’d safely give himself up, a Prussian deserter.

He froze in shock as someone casually kicked against his hideaway, then heard a distant impatient order-in French.

With a convulsive heave he capsized the barrel and scrambled out before a goggling soldier in a French uniform. He lifted up his hands and gave a twisted smile as the man shouted, bringing at the run a French poilu, a sergeant.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Gursten drawled, in deliberately bad French. “I’ve had enough of being on the wrong side. I’m giving it away.”

“Ha! You left it a bit late, fripouille Prussien. We’re going to wipe the floor with you lot before long. Still, if you’re coming over we’ll find some use for you. Take him to the adjutant.”

With a pair of soldiers on each side he was marched to the rear. He knew he would be interrogated but was prepared.

“I’m Corporal Baker Hopfner of the third Potsdamers-but precious little could I bake!”

They quickly lost interest in one who could have no knowledge of the larger picture and he was handed on to others to process.

“Can’t take you on here, m’ friend,” a jolly staff sergeant told him. “It’s a tidy trot to Headquarters for you.”

“Kind sir, have you a crust and a taste of wine first? It’s cruel hard times I’ve had and …”

The corporal was sent to get some small victuals and Gursten wolfed them.

When he had finished, he looked up with gratitude. “What corps should I join, do you think?” he asked eagerly. “I’m rare skilled on breads-pumpernickel, Bauernbrot, Zwieback and similar.”

It caused spirited discussion between the two, and by the time they’d concluded, Gursten had a considerable appreciation of the quality and reliability of Bonaparte’s troops, quite unmatchable by the most meticulous observations.

A paper was made out: a pass for one Hopfner to travel to Saaldenz, Marshal Ney’s headquarters, to join up as an auxiliary. He was given a simple knapsack with basic rations and a blanket, and two discontented soldiers were told to escort him there.

Against all the odds it was working!

They set off on the march: thirty-five miles along badly rutted roads and bare tracks over marshy, directionless moorland and heath.

Gursten had no intention of completing it for he had what he wanted: a legitimate paper accounting for his presence. He slipped away at the first opportunity and made off at a sharp angle to the north-towards the Russians.

He skirted one village and unexpectedly found himself in an apple orchard. So close to the front line it was doing service as an under-cover artillery park. He turned to go but found his way blocked by a fiercely grinning gunner who held a heavy sword to his throat. Others approached to see the fun.

“A poxy spy!” he growled, flicking the tip of the sword under Gursten’s throat. “As will be strung up when we find a tree!”

An officer in a gold-laced shako came up, knocking aside the man’s sword. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” he demanded.

“Oh, s-sir,” Gursten stammered, “I-I think I’m lost.” He rummaged about in his undeniably French-issue knapsack and produced his paper. “It says here I’m t-to join Marshal Ney’s German auxiliary.”

The officer took it suspiciously. “Where’s your escort?”

Gursten looked down, shamefaced. “We were at an inn and, er, they didn’t wake up in the morning, and I thought I’d better-”

“They got drunk,” the officer sneered. “Not your fault. You did right-but Ney’s over there, not here. You go any further in this direction and the Russkies will have your hide on a fence.”

The gunners about him chortled.

“Get going.” He thrust the paper at him. “It’s not safe to be so near the fighting. On your way, little man!”

With profuse thanks, Gursten scuttled off.

He had to think-and quickly. No carefully laid plan could get him through the terrible danger of the opposing lines this time.

At some distance from the village there were the shattered ruins of a farmyard. It would give shelter until night fell when he could move under cover of darkness. But before he could slip away from his hideout there was the flash of guns and horses galloping past, other noises. It would be lunacy to go out but he would not get a second chance-and the value of his information was fading with every hour he was delayed.

The confusion and disorder had still not settled as the cold light of a new day appeared. He was now in very considerable danger and had to make a move.

He peered through the splintered timbers of the barn into the meadow. All the farm animals had been carried off for food but a stolid, hairy-footed old plough-horse remained, calmly snatching at tufts of overgrown grass.

For some reason his heart went out to the loyal creature in a world of madness caused by men-and he was struck by a thought equally as crazy.

In the strengthening light he scrabbled around in the rubbish of the barn until he found what he was looking for: a dusty grey farming smock and hat, even trousers still hanging on the hook where their owner had left them.

With rising hope he pulled aside the fallen beams and saw in the dark end of the barn a wondrous sight: a cart with a load of hay. It was rank-smelling but it was all he needed.

He drew on the ancient clothing and trudged out to the horse, lumbering, head down and with the pain of age.

The beast looked up at him mildly, tossing its head as he secured the straps but obediently followed him to the barn. Gursten used it to haul away an exit for the cart, then backed it into the shafts and finished the job with bumping heart, expecting a sharp challenge at any moment.

He heaved himself into the rickety seat and clicked the horse into motion. A scene from earlier times drew into the daylight-an old farmer taking hay out to his animals as he’d done every new morning of his life. No war was going to stop him. That he was bent and his head drooping, his track an aimless meander, clearly pointed to the loss of his wits in this murderous war: he was piteously taking refuge in doing what he had always done for his creatures.

Gursten’s hands on the traces were slack, letting the horse choose his way. A subtle tug every now and then pointed the nodding head resolutely towards the lines and they continued on, the wobbling wheels complaining loudly.

There was no challenge, even as he could see the emplacements with their troops lying at the ready, some staring at him as if at a ghost.

There was now a spectral quiet as he rattled on; no musket fired on him, no shouts or warnings. A tranquil vision of another age had entered their existence of blood and struggle and nobody had the heart to disturb it by harming the old man.

Steadily they progressed over the gently undulating hillocks, the horse knowing to avoid the muddy hollows, patiently plodding on.

Incredibly this must be the open country between the lines-and still nothing.

His flesh crawled with anticipation of a suspicious volley but in the unnatural quiet he shambled on and on. There were other men now, staring out at him but in a different dress, which he recognised-Uvarov’s Smolensk Grenadiers.

Keeping up his pretence he let the horse amble on until a kindly Jaeger sergeant took the bridle. “You can rest now, old man, you’re safe with us,” he said, holding out an arm to help him.

Briskly, he threw aside his smock and slid down.

“Take me to your officer,” he demanded in perfect Russian.

He had done it.

“His Majesty is dining and may not be disturbed on any account,” the haughty major-domo said icily.

The politesse of the Hohenzollern court-in-exile was not about to be put aside for an unannounced arrival, no matter the gravity of his news, and Gursten was taken to a reception room. He fumed. It had already taken three hours to find and borrow the required dress uniform, and now this!

He had reported to Bennigsen, his headquarters lying on the way to Konigsberg, and then with a courier’s warrant had galloped madly to the Pregel river and the city. Blucher, the military aide-de-camp, had been grateful for his report but all decisions lay with His Imperial Majesty King Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg, and nothing could be done until his pleasure was known.

“Flugelleutnant Klaus Gursten,” the equerry intoned at last.

He entered with every expression of respect-whatever his faults, his sovereign was heir to Frederick the Great.

“Your Majesty,” he murmured, from the depths of an elaborate bow. He straightened and made an elegant but lesser bow to the Queen, the much-admired Luise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.

Friedrich frowned, but then his noble brow cleared. “We are always minded to hear from our loyal officers, Leutnant. Do you have news for us at all?”

“Majesty, I’m to report from Generalleutnant von Hohenlau with much urgency. He is at present under siege from the French and-”

“Siege? How can this be?”

“Sire, we were ordered to extend our lines to the sea and while so extended Marshal Soult pierced our flank and, with superior forces, continued on to encircle us. We are now beleaguered.”

“And you crossed the lines to tell us so?”

“Sire.”

“A brave and entirely meritorious act. Be assured I shall remember this at the next levee, which I believe shall be no later than-”

“Majesty, the Generalleutnant is desiring to know your wishes in respect of his position. Should he fall back on Heilungen or stand as ordered?”

“Ah, Leutnant Gursten, I know von Hohenlau well, the stubborn old fellow, and if it is a question of orders he would as soon die as yield. He will stand and I honour him for it.”

“Sire, it’s an entire division and more he has with him that-”

“Leutnant! You have done your duty in reporting. Leave us to the strategicals. Right, Blucher?”

“Your Majesty, the leutnant is no doubt alluding to the parlous situation of any army left to its own devices. If it’s not supplied it must fall, no matter what heights of courage are shown.

“I put it to you, sire, that if we cannot supply he must necessarily break out, and at immeasurable cost. I cannot at all see how it is possible to divert a sizeable portion of our remaining troops to force a corridor through to von Hohenlau.”

“Good God, Blucher! First you say that he cannot retire without ruinous loss, now you say he cannot be supplied! Are you seriously demanding I order a capitulation?” The King’s pale face reddened.

The bluff general stood erect, splendid in his dark blue full-dress uniform and silver epaulettes, his eyes fierce, and said nothing.

“Sire, there may be an alternative,” dared Gursten.

“What did you say?”

“Sire, Generalleutnant von Hohenlau has extended to the sea. Cannot we make supply with boats?”

“Ha!” spat Blucher. “You’ve forgotten something. The Prussian Navy in Rostock was trapped when Bernadotte took Pomerania. We’ve nothing left will protect your boats, sir!”

“We have nothing, but our allies have, sir.”

“Who?”

“The English are masters of the seas. Cannot we ask them to-”

“It’ll be too late. By the time we get word to London …”

“I wasn’t thinking of such, sir.”

“Then what?”

“They trade much in the Baltic, and guard their ships well. Should we request a service of their men-o’-war, I’m certain they’ll come to the aid of an ally.”

“A fine idea,” Friedrich said, looking relieved. “As may well prevent a regrettable humiliation.”

Blucher glowered. “And just how do you propose to ask ’em? Wave some sort of flag as they go past? Do you know where they are?”

“Sire,” Gursten said stiffly, “I request permission to requisition a vessel to sail out and find the nearest English ship of war to aid us.”

“Granted.”

There was no shortage of vessels. Coastwise trade had been paralysed and he was able to choose a fast-looking two-master.

“Where do you wish to go, Leutnant?” the captain asked respectfully.

“Why, out to meet an English cruiser!”