Under false colours

CHAPTER 8 The Lure

For a long while Drinkwater sat in silence and Nicholas watched anxiously. The longer the silence persisted, the less Nicholas thought he had convinced his listener. He began reciting a catalogue of reasons why the mission could not possibly be misjudged.

'If you have any misgivings, Captain Drinkwater, consider the facts. The funds of the Secret Service have been worse spent. We have squandered thousands on the Chouans ... we have wasted huge amounts on fomenting the émigrés in Switzerland ... the Comte D'Antraigues and Mr Wickham have gobbled up fantastic sums, all to no effect ...'

But Drinkwater was not listening. Nicholas's words had acted like a drum beat to his tired heart. First the anger roused by Hamilton's rudeness had made him receptive to Nicholas's proposal; then the chance meeting with Sullivan, the ci-devant American, who had sown the seed of an idea ...

He got up and began pacing up and down the spartan room: three paces to the wall, three paces to the bed, up and down, up and down.

'We have already enjoyed one brilliant success, sir, from this very island when Mr Mackenzie was here and super­intended the mission of Father Robertson ...'

Drinkwater stopped pacing and held up his hand. 'Stop, Mr Nicholas, you are being indiscreet. Whatever Mr Mackenzie's achievements, beware of seeking a reputation imprudently.

Your case has much to recommend it; now I desire that you listen to me.'

Drinkwater began to walk back and forth again, though at a slower pace, his head down and his forehead creased in concentration.

'There will be a gale by morning and the packet will be delayed. We must use this time to bring the Governor round. He has only to arrest and deport me for this scheme of yours to be stillborn. That I must leave to you, but I will give you some cogent reasons for pressing the point.

'To enable us to deliver a convoy would necessitate the co-operation of too many men and I doubt the fellows on those merchant ships will agree. However, we might mount an operation with two vessels. It will be known in Hamburg that these ships have been idling here for months; it would not be difficult to persuade the authorities there that their crews are disaffected, or threatened with the naval press. The Emperor Napoleon has inveighed against the application of the press against the hapless seamen of Great Britain ...

'Apart from these two vessels, the remaining ships may be deployed as decoys in such a way as to give the impression of our sincerity, without committing them. Is there a rendezvous with the mainland that would not admit too great a risk to our people?'

'Yes, Neuwerk, an island ten leagues to the east and three from Cuxhaven.'

'Ah, yes, I recollect it from the chart. Well then, under the strictest discipline I think we might achieve something. Holding back most of the ships will perhaps serve to salve Colonel Hamilton's conscience, but he must put it about publicly that now the Ordnance Department have relinquished responsibility for the vessels, he wants them out of his charge.'

'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:

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.

Yours, & Co

Dungarth.

There was precious little sympathy for the Jew, Drinkwater thought as he opened the second letter. Its superscription was in a vaguely familiar hand. The letter was cautiously undated.

London

Honoured Sir,

I am Privy to Matters closely related to your Circumstances. Your Personal Credit stands Highly here and you will Increase the Indebtedness of Your Humble Servant if you are able to Release my Agent and his Vessel to make those provisions necessary for a Small Profit to be Realized on all our Capital at Stake.

I have the Honour to be, Sir,

Isaac Solomon.

Drinkwater could not resist a rueful smile; it was a masterpiece. As Dungarth passed the cost of the failed mission to Solomon, the wily Jew inferred that, while the gold Drinkwater had lodged with him in good faith was of considerable value, its possession and sale guaranteed Solomon and Dyer's losses were handsomely underwritten! In short he, Nathaniel Drinkwater, would finance the expedition!

Drinkwater looked up at Nicholas. It could not have escaped either Dungarth's or Solomon's notice that Helgoland's occupation was chiefly to facilitate trade with the rest of Europe.

'I feel the strings of the puppet-master manipulating me, Mr Nicholas,' he said. 'Pray do you have any instructions regarding myself?'

'Indeed sir, his Lordship's letter to the Governor advised him to allow us to confer. But I am to take you to Colonel Hamilton forthwith.'

Drinkwater reached for his hat and both men stepped out into the passageway. 'Did you receive any further instructions about the other ships — Gilham's and the rest?' Drinkwater asked as they made their way to Hamilton's quarters.

Nicholas shook his head. 'No. I fear Government is still too disorganized as a result of Canning's disgrace ... come, sir, here we are ...'

Hamilton was standing with his back to them, staring out of the window. Behind him a gentle slope of grassland cropped by a handful of sheep rose to the tower of the lighthouse. Wisely, Drinkwater broke the silence.

'I am pleased to hear that matters have been happily cleared up, Colonel Hamilton. Will ye give me your hand?'

Hamilton turned and Drinkwater saw he was holding a letter. He seemed lost for words, embarrassed at the position in which he found himself.

'Come, Colonel, my hand, sir. Let us bury the hatchet ... perhaps over a glass?' At Drinkwater's hint Hamilton unbent, took his hand and muttered something about 'spies every­where' and 'havin' to be damned careful'.

'Perhaps, sir, you would show Captain Drinkwater the letter,' Nicholas suggested, 'while I ...'

'Yes, yes, pour us a glass, for God's sake.' Hamilton handed over Dungarth's letter and threw himself down in his chair.

Admiralty, London

26 November 1809

Lt. Col. Hamilton,

Governor,

Helgoland.

Sir,

I am in Receipt of your Letter of the 2d. Ultimo. The Officer You have Apprehended aboard the Galliwasp, barque, Jno. Littlewood, Master, is in the Employ of my Department on a Special Service. It is not Necessary to make known his Name to you, but you will know him by the following Characteristics, Viz: Engrained Powder Burns about one Eye; an Ancient Scar from a Sword Cut on the Cheek and a Severe Wounding of the Right Shoulder causing it to be much Lower than the Left.

You will greatly Oblige me by affording Him your utmost Hospitality and free congress with Mr Nicholas. This Officer knows my Mind and His Directions may be assumed as Congruent with my own.

I have the honour to be, sir, & Co

Dungarth.

It was the most perfect carte blanche Drinkwater could have wished for, not to say the most perfect humiliation for poor Hamilton.

Drinkwater laid the letter down on Hamilton's desk and their eyes met.

'It is perhaps as well that his Lordship's letter arrived no earlier, Colonel,' Drinkwater said.

'How so ...?' Hamilton frowned.

'I was in damnably low spirits and had nothing of much sense to communicate. Now, Colonel, I have a proposition to make that will advance the service of our country ...'

'A glass gentlemen,' Nicholas interposed. 'Schnapps, Captain Drinkwater.' Then he added, 'From Hamburg.'

CHAPTER 9 Santa Claus

Staring astern from the taffrail of Galliwasp Drinkwater watched Helgoland dip beneath the western horizon. He wondered if he would ever see it again and the thought brought in its train the multiple regrets and self-recriminations that had become a part of him in recent years. He had written to Elizabeth and the task, long postponed, had wrenched him from his deep and complex involvement with his secret mission. Nicholas would post the letter if he had not returned in two months. It told Elizabeth everything. He had left her the burden of writing to Quilhampton's fiancee and Frey's family, giving her a form of words to use.

It was no use looking back, he thought resolutely, and smacked the oak rail with the flat of his hand. He turned forward. Gilham's Ocean was wallowing sluggishly on their larboard beam, her bottom foul with grass despite the efforts to scrape it clean. Galliwasp ghosted along under topsails, keeping station on her slower sister in the light, westerly wind. Drinkwater looked up to judge the wind from the big American ensign. The stars and bars flaunted lazily above his head.

'There's Neuwerk on the starboard bow, Captain,' Littlewood pointed with his glass, then handed it to Drinkwater.

Behind the yellow scar of the Scharhorn sand which was visible at this low state of the tide, the flat surface of the island of Neuwerk was dominated by the great stone tower erected upon it.

Drinkwater studied it with interest as the young flood tide carried them into the mouth of the River Elbe. The island was to be, as it were, the sleeve from which he intended playing his ace. He handed the telescope back to Littlewood.

'Let us hope it is not long before we see it on the other bow,' Drinkwater said with assumed cheerfulness. He wished they had left Helgoland a day earlier, before the arrival of the depressing news. It cast a cloud over the enterprise, though Drinkwater, Nicholas and Hamilton had kept the intelligence to themselves.

In the period of waiting for Galliwasp and the other vessels to be made ready, their crews sounded and appointed and the secret messages sent to Liepmann in Hamburg, Drinkwater had been daily closeted with Hamilton and Nicholas.

On the occasion when Drinkwater had first broached the idea with Hamilton and the Governor had grasped the olive-branch thus held out to him, Nicholas had judiciously kept Hamilton's glass full of schnapps. Between them Nicholas and Drinkwater had boxed the Colonel into a corner from which his naturally cautious nature could not extricate him. In some measure a degree of bellicosity had been engendered by the arrival of Combatant and her cargo of cannon, and Drinkwater had insisted that the seamen of all the ships help to land and site them. This thoughtfulness on Drinkwater's part earned him Hamilton's grudging gratitude, for he himself had shown too great a prejudice against the merchant shipmasters and trading-post agents to rely on any willing co-operation from them. For his own part, Drinkwater's act was not disinterested. Requesting such assistance was a ready means of measuring his command over the odd collection of merchant seamen and naval volunteers that he would shortly lead into the enemy heartland. The fact that after months of inactivity something was afoot proved a powerful influence.

As a mark of their improved relationship Hamilton, Nicholas and Drinkwater got into the habit of dining together, partly to keep up Hamilton's enthusiasm and partly to discuss the progress of the preparations.

Over the dessert wine one evening Hamilton became expansive and Drinkwater learned of Helgoland's real importance as a 'listening post' on the doorstep of the French Empire.

'Hamburg has always been important,' Hamilton said. 'We nabbed Napper Tandy there after the Irish Rebellion. The place was full of United Irishmen for years.'

'They say Lord Edward Fitzgerald's wife is still resident there,' added Nicholas.

'She's supposed to be French, ain't she?' asked Drinkwater, 'though I believe her sister's married to Sir Thomas Foley. I recall him at Copenhagen.'

'Were you in Nelson's action, Captain Drinkwater, or Gambier's?'

'Nelson's, Colonel, just before the last peace.'

'It was after Gambier's scrap that we took this place from the Danes.'

'Yes. I was bound for the Pacific by then.'

'And after that Colin Mackenzie carried into effect a master­stroke,' added Nicholas.

'Ah, yes, you mentioned some such affair, a Father Robinson ...'

'Robertson. A Jesuit who was sent from here via Hamburg to contact the Spanish forces Napoleon had isolated as a garrison on the island of Zealand — for Napoleon occupied Denmark as soon as we had seized the Danish fleet, all the while inveighing against British perfidy!'

'That would be about the time of the Spanish revolt, then?'

'Quite so. The object was to inform the Spaniards of their countrymen's uprising against the French and, if possible, repatriate them.' Nicholas refilled his glass, then went on. 'Robertson posed as a cigar and chocolate salesman and made contact with their commander, the Marquis of Romana. As a result the entire corps was withdrawn aboard the squadron of Rear-Admiral Keats then cruising in the offing.'

Almost all, Ned, a few of the poor devils were unable to escape. They say squadrons of riderless horses were left charging up and down the beach in perfect formation!' Hamilton amplified.

'What of Robertson?' Drinkwater asked.

'I believe he got back to England eventually. He was multilingual, don't you know, a remarkable fellow ...' Nicholas's admiration was obvious and not for the first time Drinkwater found himself wondering how much the young man might want his own reputation enhanced by a similar coup de main.

'Boney was reported to be hoppin' mad, when he heard of the loss of the Spanish corps,' Hamilton said, 'Romana's troops were considered to be the best in the Spanish army.'

The story and its outcome were satisfying to men planning their own foray and added to Drinkwater's high hopes, but on the eve of their departure news of a more sinister kind reached the island, borne by Herr Reinke, whose long awaited arrival signalled the end of their preparations.

On receipt of the news Nicholas had withdrawn to write to Lord Bathurst that his nephew, lately employed on diplomatic service in Vienna, had mysteriously disappeared at Perleberg and was presumed dead.

He confided as much to Drinkwater, warning him of the dangers he ran, as a naval officer out of uniform, in going to Hamburg. 'I beg you to be careful,' he said. 'I am sure that Napoleon has taken this revenge in part for the successes Robertson and others have enjoyed at his expense. He would be especially glad to seize anyone connected with the betrayal of the Tilsit agreement.'

'I understand,' Drinkwater had said, 'there is no need to labour the point.'

'Schar buoy, Kapitan,' Herr Reinke, the pilot pointed ahead. 'You make good course a little more to ze east.'

Drinkwater nodded at Munsden, standing by the helmsman. 'Bring her round a point, Mr Munsden, if you please.'

He exchanged glances with Littlewood. To facilitate the negotiations shortly to be opened with the authorities at Hamburg, Drinkwater was to assume the character of Galliwasp's master, leaving Littlewood free to deal with matters of trade with which Drinkwater had no experience.

It was refinements of this nature which had occupied Drinkwater in recent weeks, refinements designed to make plausible the defection of several British master mariners in the cause of profit.

To these had been added another. Both Combatant and Bruizer had been ordered on cruises, so that reports that there were no men-of-war in Helgoland Road would encourage belief in the merchant masters' decision to dispose of their cargoes. In a day or two, whenever they might return, either or both Combatant and Bruizer would be sent into the mouth of the Elbe, as though seeking out the whereabouts of the missing transports.

To emphasize the anxiety of the Governor to recall his cruisers, Bengal fires would be thrown up from the lighthouse at two hourly intervals during the coming night.

Referring to the chart spread on the companionway cover, Drinkwater monitored Herr Reinke's directions. They passed between the Scharhorn and the Vogel sands and left Neuwerk Island astern, raising the Kugel beacon and the flat mainland on which the town of Cuxhaven nestled behind its sea wall. They passed the familiar fishing boats, any one of which might have been a visitor to Helgoland, and doubled the North Ground where the river narrowed. Small villages appeared, each cluster of houses nestling close to its church: Groden, with its wind-pump, Altenbruch and Otterndorf. The South Ditmarsch shore closed from the north and, with the tide now ebbing and the sun setting at the end of the short, mid-winter day, they anchored off Brunsbuttel.

'We shall have visitors soon,' said Littlewood, pointing to a boat putting off from a large, heavily sparred cutter that lay anchored inshore of them. 'She's a Dutch-manned hooker of the Imperial Customs. They're smart as mustard in these waters, those squareheads,' Littlewood said in reluctant admiration.

Drinkwater studied the cutter. The massive mainmast, exaggerated tumblehome and huge leeboards marked her as a formidable craft amid the shallow waters of the adjacent coast. He remembered such a cutter with which he had fought at the battle of Camperdown. Whether it was the recollection, a sense of foreboding, or the cold of the December twilight, Drinkwater could not tell, but suddenly he shivered.

It was almost dark when the customs boat pulled alongside. Two officers in cocked hats and boatcloaks were followed up the ship's side by four armed seamen, one carrying a lantern.

'You are Americans, Ja?'

'Nein, mynheer, we are English!' Littlewood stepped forward. Drinkwater watched a second boat go alongside the Ocean. He hoped Gilham would play his part and then jettisoned the thought. It was too late to worry now, they were committed and Captain Gilham, for all his unprepossessing appearance, did not seem averse to his task. A thin man with spectacles on a long nose, his face was a mass of broken veins, suggesting he was a toper. Drinkwater had learned, however, that Captain Gilham never touched liquor, held Sunday services aboard his ship and spent much of his time recording what he termed 'the marvels of atmosphereology'. The result, Drinkwater had been told, was a meticulous log of weather observations taken every six hours, day and night for the past sixteen years.

'You are English?' the astonished Dutch customs officer was asking. 'Den vy do you come into ze Elbe, mit your scheeps?'

Littlewood explained. 'We have been tricked by our Government. We have been kept at Helgoland too long,' he gestured at the Ocean's riding light. 'Captain Gilham has been seven months waiting for orders. We have received no pay, no provisions; my charter has expired. Now we wish to discharge our cargoes. If the British Government don't want them, perhaps we may find a market in Hamburg.'

The two Dutch officers looked at each other and the older one shrugged, saying something to the other which inferred the English speaker was the junior.

'Vat is your cargo?'

'Boots,' Littlewood said, raising one foot and waving his hand at it, 'coats, big coats, some muskets, flints, powder and shot.'

The junior douanier’s eyes opened wide and he translated for the benefit of his colleague. The senior muttered something, then strode to the rail and cupped his hands about his mouth, bellowing across to their friends aboard Ocean.

'He's asking what cargo the Ocean has,' Littlewood murmured.

A hail came from the other boarding party. For a few moments a shouted dialogue echoed back and forth between the two anchored ships, breaking the silence that had followed sunset and the dropping of the wind. At last the senior officer turned back to the waiting men and issued some orders. The other translated.

'You must here stay at Brunsbuttel. I vill here stay mit my men,' he gestured at the seamen with him, then accompanied his superior to the ship's side and saw him safely into the boat. As it pulled away the departing douanier shouted something.

'He say I am to shoot anyone who make trouble.'

'We ain't going to make trouble. Is he coming back in the morning?'

'Ja. He vill make zis arrival telled to Hamburg.'

'That is very good.'

'Dat is ver' good,ja.'

Drinkwater made a small movement of his head in Ocean's direction and Littlewood took the hint.

'Captain Gilham!' he hailed, 'is everything well with you?'

'Perfectly well, sir, the temperature is falling and we'll have a touch of seasmoke on the water at dawn.'

The laughter that greeted this weather report eased the tension. Having set their own anchor watch, the crew of the Galliwasp, including her putative master, drifted below in search of food and sleep.

'You were right, Captain Gilham,' Drinkwater said, welcoming the master of the Ocean aboard the next morning. A low fog lay like smoke over the surface of the river so that the two ships seemed to float upon cloud, and in pulling across, Gilham's disembodied head and shoulders had drifted eerily, the boat beneath him invisible.

'It's not a matter of judgement, Captain Waters, but simply the appreciation of an immutable natural law.' He looked up at the cloudless sky. "Tis a raw morning, but the sun will soon burn this off.'

'Did your guests make any objection to your paying us a visit?' Drinkwater asked, nodding towards the Dutch customs officer who stood warily watching them.

'Oh, they made a fuss, but ...' Gilham shrugged and disdained to finish the sentence. Drinkwater smiled.

'Are your men still game?'

'Certainly. Why should they not be? They are being well paid for a little inconvenience. They were more discontented lying at anchor in that detestable anchorage.'

Drinkwater envied Gilham the cold, unemotional approach of a man whose life was guided by the simplistic principles of profit and loss.

'Every man has his price, they say,' Drinkwater said.

'And it is a very accurate saw, sir,' added Gilham, cocking an appraising eye at the mysterious 'captain' Littlewood had informed him was a personage of some importance.

'You sound as though you have done this sort of thing before, Captain.'

'I am told,' Gilham replied obliquely, 'that best Bohea is available for guests at the Tuileries and Malmaison.'

'As is cognac at the Court of St James ... hullo, our friend stirs.'

Both men watched the uncanny sight of a large gaffed mainsail hauled aloft from an unseen deck as the Dutch customs cutter got under way. The long masthead pendant with its Imperial device trailed out in the light north-westerly wind. Littlewood joined them and in silence they observed the manoeuvre. After a few minutes they heard the splash of an anchor and the rumble of cable, then the mainsail disappeared again. The Dutch cutter was anchored closer to the two British merchant ships.

'When this seasmoke burns off,' Gilham said, 'you'll see her guns run out.'

'That ain't a matter of immutable law, Captain Gilham,' Drinkwater remarked lightly, 'but it's a damned sound judgement.'

A few minutes later, arriving as weirdly as Gilham had done, the senior Dutch customs officer clambered back over the Galliwasp's rail. Seeing Gilham he frowned and addressed a few curt words to the tired junior he had left to stand guard the previous night. The younger man said something in reply, then shrugged.

The senior officer crossed the deck, his face angry. He asked Gilham a question and the younger officer translated.

'He say vy do you come this scheep?'

'To talk with my friends,' said Gilham, his expression truculent. 'How do we know you won't cheat us?'

The junior of the two Dutchmen shrugged again and relayed the message. The exchange reversed itself.

'It is verboten you make talk.'

It was Gilham's turn to shrug. 'I do not understand.'

Again the pantomime of translation. This time there was a longer exchange, then: 'Vy do you come here to Brunsbuttel?'

'We told you last night,' Gilham said sharply, his self-appointment as spokesman lent force by his very real frustration. 'Because I have been waiting at Helgoland for seven months to discharge my cargo.' He held up his fingers to emphasize the period. 'Now the British Government tell me it is not wanted. I have no money. I must pay my crew. I have the expenses of my ship. I have a wife. I have sons.' He punched the air with his index finger, advancing on the unfortunate Dutchman until his fingertip tapped the blue-coated breast, physically ramming at him the cogency of the simple sentences. 'Now I come to sell to the Hamburgers what the British Government does not want. Tell that to your chief, and tell him that he does not tell me what I must and must not do. I am master of the Ocean and by heaven, I'll not be pushed around by you, or him!'

Drinkwater watched the Dutchmen; one quailed visibly under Gilham's onslaught, the other's face darkened as he understood the import of Gilham's speech. As his junior turned to explain, he was brushed aside. Gilham found himself under attack. The senior officer exploded into a tirade of invective in which God, swine and the English were recognizably called upon.

The senior douanier did not wait for this to be translated for his audience, but turned on his heel and went over the Galliwasp's rail in a swirl of his cloak. His colleague began to stammer out an explanation but ceased as Gilham touched his arm.

'Never mind, my friend,' he said, impishly smiling, 'we understand.'

The customs officer stood nonplussed, then shrugging dismissively shouted something to his seamen and followed his commander over the side. A moment later another young officer climbed aboard.

'The king is dead, long live the king,' Gilham said drily.

'Well, I suppose we'll just have to wait and see what happens now,' Littlewood remarked. 'I wonder if there's fog in the outer estuary?'

By noon the visibility had improved and in the crisp, cold air, they could see the light tower at Cuxhaven and beyond it, the gaunt outline of the Kugelbacke beacon. Closer, the green river bank to the north and the white painted houses and spired kirk of Brunsbuttel spread out along the Ditmarsch shore. Closer still, the low, black hull of the Dutch cutter swum out of the dissipating mist.

'Looks as innocent as a swimhead barge, don't she,' said Littlewood as they studied her sharply raked bow.

'Not with those black muzzles pointing at us,' said Gilham.

'How d'you rate your own people if it came to a fire fight?' asked Drinkwater in a low voice.

'They don't have any practice,' replied Littlewood, 'though they'd be game enough.'

'Well, gentlemen,' said Gilham resolutely, 'if you're contemplating a private war, I'm returning to the Ocean. As I said to that squarehead, I've an interest in survival, never having rated glory very highly. Besides,' he added as he whistled for his boat's crew, 'it's dinner time.'

Littlewood and Drinkwater, who dined later, stood in silence for a while, curiously sweeping their glasses along the shoreline. The pastoral tranquillity of the scene was far from the blasts of war they were discussing. Cattle grazed the water-meadows and they could see the red flash of a shawl where a girl was tending poultry on the foreshore.

'Boat putting off from the Dutchman.' Munsden's report made them turn their telescopes on the cutter. Both of their recent visitors were leaving, bound for the beach where a horseman rode down to meet them.

In the sunshine they could see a green uniform topped by a plumed shako.

'French officer of chasseurs,' said Drinkwater, holding the figure in his Dollond pocket-glass.

'I can see some more of them, look, behind the large cottage to the left of the church ...'

Drinkwater swung his glass to where Littlewood was indicating. He could see mounting figures pulling out of what he presumed were their horse-lines.

'I wonder why he never asked for our papers,' pondered Littlewood as the two men watched the Dutchmen leap ashore and confer with the French officer.

'I think we annoyed him too much and he was frustrated by not being able to speak to us directly. Gilham upset him and I suspect he's reporting us to his superiors. He's got us under his guns and he may be under some constraint, being a Dutchman.'

'There are some fiercely republican Dutchmen,' Littlewood said.

'Yes, I know.'

'I wonder what lingo they speak between each other?' Littlewood mused as they watched the French officer jerk his horse's head round.

'God knows,' said Drinkwater.

The French officer apparently shouted an order and four troopers, the men that had just mounted up, broke away from the horse-lines and rode after him as he set off eastwards at a canter.

'Odd that he needs an escort,' said Littlewood, lowering his glass and wiping his eye. 'Matter of waiting now,' he added.

They were compelled to wait two days before they learned of any reaction in Hamburg. Early on the morning of the first of these, however, a cloudy morning with the wind backed into the south-west, the horizon beyond the yellow scars of the exposed sandbanks to seaward was broken by the grey topsails of two ships.

In silence the observers on the decks of the Galliwasp and Ocean watched their approach with anxiety. This anxiety was real enough, for the first event of that day had been the arrival at Brunsbuttel of a jingling battery of horse artillery. The unlimbered field guns now pointed directly at them and, with the cannon of the Dutch cutter, neatly enfiladed them. Until the appearance of the distant topsails, the curious aboard Galliwasp and Ocean had occupied their enforced idleness by studying the artillerymen who, having established themselves, lounged about their pieces.

Despite the protests of their guard, Littlewood had sent Munsden aloft with the watch-glass to call down a commentary on events to seaward of them which was eagerly attended by those below.

'They are the Combatant and the Bruizer, right enough, and they're just clewin' up their main an' fores'ls.'

'Where are they?'

'Comin' up abeam of Cuxhaven ... aye, Combatant's roundin' up into the tide ...'

'Anchoring or taking a tack inshore?' Littlewood asked anxiously, for whatever he did, Combatant's commander must look as though he was making a determined effort to retake the truant merchant ships.

'She's opening fire!'

They could see the yellow flashes from the deck now, and the sloop's yards braced sharp up as she crabbed across the young flood tide.

'There won't be much resistance at Cuxhaven,' said Littlewood, 'if the last reports were correct.'

'No,' said Drinkwater, staring through his glass, his heart beating for those two distant ships. The thunder of that opening broadside rolled dully over the water even as Combatant loosed off a second and a third.

'Bruizer's standin' on,' reported Munsden, unconsciously betraying the plan, the gun-brig making directly for them while the heavier sloop occupied whatever might be at Cuxhaven in the way of artillery. And then they knew. Six yellow pin points of muzzle flashes were followed by another six.

'My God, they've got two batteries of horse-artillery there! They weren't evident the other day when we passed.'

'Moved in this morning, like our friends yonder,' Littlewood said, jerking his head at the nearer shore without lowering his glass.

'Bruizer comes too far to the north, Kapitan,' said Herr Reinke, the pilot and surveyor. 'He must be careful.'

Drinkwater transferred his attention to the gun-brig. Unaware that any resistance would be forthcoming from Cuxhaven, a pretext for the withdrawal of the two men-of-war had to be invented. To achieve this, Smithies had been ordered to incline his course so as to take the bottom on the North Ground, the sandbank opposite Cuxhaven. The resulting confusion would offer the commander of the Combatant a pretext for breaking off the action. In fact there was little risk to the shallow draft gun-brig. The tide was rising and with her anchor down, she would float off in an hour or two.

But with the Combatant engaging artillery ashore and Smithies acting over-zealously, the ruse looked as though it might be more realistic than was intended.

'If anything miscarries, Captain,' Littlewood muttered beside him, aware of Drinkwater's apprehension for the naval ships, 'don't forget to look cheerful!'

Drinkwater grunted, his throat dry. Of course, Reinke could be wrong. At this distance it was notoriously difficult to judge angles of aspect.

'Bruizer's struck sir!' Munsden called. 'And lost her foretop-mast!'

Littlewood burst into a cheer and slapped Drinkwater heartily on the back. Drinkwater staggered under the impact of the blow and coughed on his chagrin. Over the water the rolling concussions of the Combatant's guns duelling with the batteries at Cuxhaven echoed the thumping of his heart.

An answering cheer came from the men ranged on the customs cutter's deck. Littlewood rounded on the Dutch officer aboard Galliwasp, 'Why you not weigh your anchor and go and fight?' he urged. The douanier shook his head.

'Cuxhaven guns make stop your scheeps.'

And so it proved. Combatant broke off the action and tacked across the stream as the tide slackened. Bruizer refloated and swung her head seaward. A boat was seen between the two ships, then, as Combatant went about again, she drew Bruizer in her wake on an unseen towline. As she tacked back towards the Cuxhaven shore she laid a few last broadsides at the enemy. Apart from holes in her sails, she appeared unscathed.

'As neat a piece of seamanship as I've seen in a long while,' said Littlewood from the corner of his mouth.

'If she had lost a mast, then things might have turned out differently,' breathed a relieved Drinkwater. He already had cause to regret the loss of one gun-brig.

'Oh, he kept out of range of those nine-pounders ... but I'm glad to see you looking a little more cheerful at that spectacular British defeat.'

Littlewood grinned at Drinkwater, and this time Drinkwater smiled back.

'Russia? You are saying, Captain, that your cargo was consigned to Russia?'

'Yes,' said Drinkwater, staring levelly at the dark and handsome Frenchman in the sober black suit. His plain, elegant clothes reminded him of Nicholas and it was clear the two had more in common than the unaffected good taste of their dress; both were the diplomatic, and therefore the political, emissaries of their respective masters. Monsieur Thiebault had arrived from Hamburg to carry out an examination on behalf of Monsieur Reinhard, the Emperor's minister in that city. Upon Monsieur Thiebault's appraisal of the curious submission of the two British shipmasters depended the success, or otherwise, of the grand deception. And incidentally, Drinkwater thought, driving the underlying fear from the forefront of his mind, ultimately their own survival.

'But why?'

'It is a market, M'sieur. With the continent closed to us by the decree of your Emperor, we must sell wherever we can. Had I not been driven by bad weather to Helgoland, I would not be suing for purchase by you ...'

'Yes, yes, we have been over that,' Thiebault said testily, his command of English impeccable, 'but Russia is also under an embargo.'

Drinkwater laughed and Littlewood beside him smiled knowingly.

'We are able to trade with Russia, M'sieur, quite easily. As you see ...' Drinkwater nodded at the three grey great­coats and the two pairs of hobnailed boots on the table between them. 'Samples to whet their greedy appetites' Littlewood had called them when he suggested exhibiting their cargo.

'And your consignee was the Russian Government?'

'That is clear from the papers before you, sir,' said Littlewood.

'And on the papers before me it states that Captain Waters here is the master of this ship,' Thiebault said suspiciously.

'Captain Waters,' Littlewood said, brushing the matter aside, 'is new to the trade. I am acting on his behalf and as agent for the consignors.'

'And who are the consignors, Captain Littlewood?'

'You can see from the manifest, sir, Solomon and Dyer.'

Thiebault listened to something whispered in his ear by the senior Dutch officer. He nodded and consulted a second douanier on his right, a very senior French officer of the Imperial Customs Service.

'Mynheer Roos tells me this merchant house is known in Hamburg. Is that why you have chosen to offer your cargo here, despite the embargo?'

'M'sieur, Mynheer Roos knows well that a regular trade has been opened for some time between us. The Governor of Hamburg, M'sieur Bourrienne, encouraged it as a form of relief for the citizens ...'

'That is not quite the case,' said Thiebault hurriedly. Bourrienne had been recalled by the omnipotent Napoleon, to whom he had once been confidential secretary, on the grounds of corruption and disobedience.

'Perhaps not quite the case, M'sieur, but certainly the facts behind it,' Littlewood said mischievously.

'Tell me, gentlemen, as a matter of perhaps mutual interest, are Solomon and Dyer the only London house trading with Russia?'

'I shouldn't think so,' laughed Littlewood insouciantly, to Drinkwater's admiration. It was clear that Littlewood relished the cut and thrust of mercantile bargaining and had imbibed every detail of his assiduous coaching on Helgoland. He was proving his weight in gold, Drinkwater thought wryly.

Thiebault rubbed his chin in thought, his eyes never leaving the faces of the four men ranged in front of him.

'And you, Captain,' he referred to the report of Mynheer Roos. 'Gilham. Your cargo was under contract to the British Government?'

'As I've already explained, M'sieur, I've been buzz-nacking ...'

'I do not understand that word, Captain Gilham,' Thiebault said sharply. 'Confine yourself to the question.'

'Yes, I was on a Government charter.'

'And you chose a treasonable course of action ...'

'We were told in Helgoland that the operation was not now to be undertaken. We were told that the Government had written off our cargoes. Experience tells me that I will be extremely fortunate to recover my expenses.'

'What was this operation?' Thiebault asked.

'Oh, an attempt to raise the population of Hanover against the French and Prussian interference. It was common knowledge.'

'Was it?' Thiebault said archly. 'And why do you suppose your Government decided, how do you say, to call it off, eh?'

Gilham chuckled and worked himself forward on his chair. Because, M'sieur, they are embroiled in a grand fiasco off Walcheren, that much we know both from your Hamburg newspapers and from the scuttlebutt at Helgoland.'

'Scuttlebutt?'

'Gossip ... tittle-tattle ... news by word of mouth ...'

'Ah, yes.' Thiebault swivelled his eyes to the fourth of his interviewees. 'And you, Herr Reinke. You are a surveyor are you not? You have produced surveys for the Chamber of Commerce at Hamburg, yes? You speak excellent English, I hear.'

Reinke nodded gravely.

'It is not good to find you on an English ship.'

'I was making a survey off Neuwerk, M'sieur Thiebault, when I was captured by fishermen. They took me to Helgoland where they were rewarded. The English stole my survey and paid the fishermen for me.' Drinkwater heard the story delivered in Reinke's deadpan accent.

'We received no report of this incident, Herr Reinke.'

'It only happened five days ago. I am gone for many days sometimes, on my work.'

'And these gentlemen obliged you by setting you free.'

'You could say his arrival made up our minds for us, M'sieur,' Littlewood said.

Thiebault looked at Littlewood. 'You mean it was providential?' he said, and something of doubt in his tone alarmed Drinkwater.

'No, I merely meant that what we had been discussing amongst ourselves was made possible by Mr Reinke's capture.'

Drinkwater's eyes met those of Thiebault and they were like two fencers, each watching for the almost imperceptible facial movement that communicated more than words, but spoke of truth and resolution.

'And how, Captain, er, Waters, do you know you can trust us? Suppose we promise you payment, then take your cargoes and throw you into gaol?'

'Because you are a man of honour and will give us a laissez-passer,' Drinkwater leaned forward, 'and because there are three other ships waiting at Helgoland under orders to return to England which, if they receive favourable reports from Hamburg by means which you know to exist, will also deliver up their cargoes, cargoes of ball, cartridge, clothing and small arms.'

'And how do you know we would not let this message go and lock all of you up?'

'Because it would put a stop to all British shipments ...'

'Not for long, your countrymen are too greedy for that.'

'Of course,' smiled Drinkwater, 'they would ship their trade to Russia in expectation of a greater profit than you can offer.'

Thiebault looked at him through narrowed eyes. All the men in the Galliwasp's cabin knew that illegal trade flourished in spite of the Emperor's proscription. Indeed it was connived at on every level of Imperial legislation and Hamburg was notorious for being the chief channel for this illegal traffic.

'If we agree to your proposition, gentlemen, and reach a satisfactory conclusion that is beneficial to us all,' Thiebault gestured round the table, hinting that all, though opposed in theory, shared a common interest, 'how will you explain your action to your owners?'

'There are six ships involved, M'sieur. The misfortunes of war might be invoked to explain their loss. They are of course insured ...'

Littlewood's explanation had been devised by Drinkwater, but not its masterly embellishment. He had not considered the loss to the insurers, but clearly the thought of this additional damage to the economy of Great Britain appealed to Thiebault. Moreover, Littlewood was about to give greater proof of his fitness for the task.

'By the way, did we mention the sugar?' he asked innocently.

'Sugar?' Thiebault and his colleagues stiffened perceptibly.

'Yes, the best, we have a small amount in addition to these,' Littlewood gestured at the boots.

'Well,' said Thiebault, recovering, 'it is a most attractive offer gentlemen, assuming, of course, that we can afford it.' He conferred again with his flanking douaniers, then rose to his feet. 'Very well, gentlemen. I must, naturally, report this affair to Hamburg. I am sure they will be interested to know that Saint Nicholas has arrived from so unexpected a quarter ...'

'Saint Nicholas?' quizzed Littlewood.

'Ask Herr Reinke. It is a German custom, is it not Herr Reinke? Happy Christmas, gentlemen.'

CHAPTER 10 Hamburg

'It is good, Kapitan,' Herr Reinke said in his flat, humourless English, 'everything is arranged.'

'There are no problems?' Drinkwater enquired, hardly able to believe what Reinke, Littlewood and Gilham accepted without apparent misgiving.

'No.' The ghost of a smile now played about Reinke's face. 'You have not been many times in this trade?' he asked, though he seemed to be merely confirming an impression rather than seeking a fact. 'You are surprised it is easy, yes?'

'Yes, I am.' Drinkwater poured two glasses of Littlewood's blackstrap, handing one to the German surveyor.

'Prosit. Things are a little different now. When Bourrienne was Governor it was more easy.'

Drinkwater knew of the corruption, if corruption it was, that had flourished under the city of Hamburg's disgraced Governor. Bourrienne's hand had been light on the helm, but deep in the pockets of his unwilling subjects, for he had connived at flouting the proscriptive decrees of his Imperial master on the pretext that too severe an imposition of trading embargoes would produce indigence and destitution among the inhabitants of the Hanseatic towns. Such disaffection, Bourrienne had argued, could fester and then erupt as open rebellion. It was rumoured to be happening in Prussia and other German states unhappy with their vassal status. Bourrienne's recall and subsequent disgrace was a measure of Napoleon's displeasure, and a gauge too, Drinkwater thought, of the Emperor's likely reaction to news of similar irregularities with Russia.

'In fact, Kapitan, more than one thousand English ships already discharge their cargo here, in Hamburg, every year since you take Helgoland.'

'I see. Then there is a ready supply of capital in the city?' Drinkwater persisted. Such details he had left to Nicholas, assured by him that they would encounter no obstacles and which, preoccupied as he had been by the planning and writing of orders concerning the logistic and military side of the operation, he had been content to ignore. Now, in the very heart of the great city, as he waited for the hatches to be opened and the contraband cargo discharged, he found his curiosity aroused.

'Ja,' said Reinke. 'Mainly Jews, like your Herr Liepmann, but also good German merchants. Herr Liepmann is knowing that the Governor must provide some stores for the Grand Army. Some things, like these boots you have, the Governor will sell to Paris. Herr Liepmann will buy from you, the Governor's agents will buy from Liepmann. Paris is happy it has boots; the Governor is happy: he has a profit because he sell at more than Herr Liepmann sell to him; and Liepmann is happy because he also has a profit when he buy from you and sell to the French. And you are happy because without Liepmann buy your cargo, you have nothing.'

'But how,' Drinkwater asked, feeling far from happy, 'did Herr Liepmann reach this accommodation with the Governor? And how does he preserve it when Bourrienne leaves and Reinhard arrives with new orders to enforce the embargo more strictly?'

'Ach, you don't understand that! Well, that is most easy.' A smile of pure worldly cynicism lit up Reinke's sober face. 'We are not barbarians. The French take Hamburg and we must live, nein? We must, what is word ...?'

'Adapt?'

'Ja, to adapt. Hamburg must adapt. There are ways of doing things. Herr Thiebault, he is un homme d'affaires, he understands ...'

'And has a taste for sugar?'

'Ja! You understand Kapitan, but also, I think, he is much interested by these boots.'

The seasmoke they had experienced at Brunsbuttel became a daily phenomenon as they lay at buoys off the city of Hamburg. The ships had worked their way slowly upstream, catching the wind and tide when they served, anchoring when they became foul and hampered progress. Reinke piloted them skilfully, for the channel wound between a vast expanse of salt marsh and shoals. The flat wilderness of reed beds where the mighty Elbe swirled and eddied over the shallows was the haunt of heron and harrier, of a myriad species of ducks and geese. Alders and willows crowded the banks and midstream aits, and cattle stood hock deep in the water-meadows near the scattered villages past which they had slipped under their false, American colours.

At Blankenese the land began to rise in a series of low hills until, beyond the village of Altona, they could see the smoke and spires of the great city that lay on the Elbe's northern bank. Here, in accordance with Thiebault's instructions, they were directed to secure to midstream mooring buoys. Their Dutch escorts departed and French soldiers, grizzled infantry of a line battalion recruiting its strength in the 'soft' posting of garrison duty, took over as their guards. The contrast they made with Hamilton's men struck Drinkwater, for these were veterans in the real sense of the word, men whose entire lives had been spent in bivouac, men used to scraping a bare subsistence from the country they found themselves in, men of almost infinite resource, easy in their demeanour like his own seamen, yet possessed of the intelligent eye, the keen weapon and that invisible yet detectable esprit that marked them as invincible. Their proximity increased Drinkwater's unease.

On their arrival Littlewood was escorted ashore. When he returned he reported he had met the mysterious Herr Liepmann. He expressed himself satisfied with the transaction and said that Liepmann had undertaken to transmit a secret message through his own channels to Isaac Solomon in London. Three days into the new year lighters arrived alongside, each with a gang of workmen and more guards.

'They,' said Littlewood nodding at the blue uniforms of a platoon of voltigeurs, 'are proof that the French authorities themselves are taking this little lot into safe-keeping.' Here Littlewood shifted his nodding head to the first bales of greatcoats that swung up and out of Galliwasp's hold.

Drinkwater was aware that he ought to have shared the obvious euphoria of Littlewood and Gilham, but he could not shake off the thought that matters had gone too well and that the plan had worked almost too faultlessly. In his mind he reviewed the interviews, Thiebault's reactions and Reinke's laboured explanations. There could be no doubt that a cargo had been shipped from London for Russia, and that the French knew about it, for if Fagan had not alerted them, Thiebault had most certainly done so and had made no attempt to disguise the fact that he had digested the information with interest.

Drinkwater ought, he knew, to have enjoyed a sense of relief far greater than that of his companions for, against the odds, he had carried out his orders. The enemy had been baited and taken the lure, and this appeared to have been confirmed by the account of the 'naval battle' off Cuxhaven in the Hamburg newspapers, for it was too preposterous a story not to have originated in Paris, a reprint of Le Moniteur's account of 'two British frigates trying to force a passage into the Elbe in pursuit of neutral, American shipping. They had been engaged and driven off by horse-artillery detachments, one having been dismasted.'

It was only after Reinke had translated this mendacious account that Drinkwater realized that the 'neutral, American shipping' referred to Galliwasp and Ocean, and that the report was virtual confirmation that the French had been deceived.

There was, he realized, no absolute guarantee that the men of the Galliwasp and the Ocean would be released, though Reinke assured him he had nothing to worry about. It was of little advantage to the French to hold merchant seamen, for they were outside the normal cartel arrangements for the exchange of prisoners and merely an expense, though their confinement did deprive the British of their services as pressed men. At a local level the pragmatic realization that their detention would deter others from bringing the desired luxuries through the blockade was a more persuasive argument in favour of letting them continue their voyaging.

'If Thiebault makes trouble,' Reinke promised, 'we will make trouble also.'

It was clearly in the interests of the Chamber of Commerce to ensure the freedom of the Britons in their midst, an action facilitated for all the parties concerned by the fiction that they were American, though it was difficult to imagine what form this 'trouble' might take.

As he leaned on Galliwasp's rail and watched the beefy German lightermen swinging out the ground tier of bales with their heavy grey greatcoats hidden under the dull burlap, Drinkwater told himself he was becoming old and jittery, apprehensive that as a disguised sea-officer in enemy territory, he ran the risk of being shot as a spy.

Reinke left them that forenoon, removed now that the services of neither a pilot nor an interpreter were required. The authorities, having permitted the discharge of the cargo to commence, were content to keep the crews of the two ships in mid-stream quarantine. The work progressed slowly. Only one lighter per ship was allowed them, clear proof, Littlewood asserted, that the stores were being carefully housed under lock and key in some well-guarded warehouse.

Drinkwater waited impatiently, pacing Galliwasp's poop. Pancakes of ice began floating sluggishly past them as the weather turned bitterly cold, the copper cupola of St Michels-kirche standing green against the dark grey of a sky pregnant with snow. The first fall occurred on the second day of their discharging and Drinkwater woke next morning to a changed scene, the roofs of the city white and the hum of the quays and bustle of the river muted under the mantle of snow. At first he thought the lack of activity due to the snowfall, but then he marked a restiveness among their guards and noticed a propensity for the French soldiers to huddle and gossip quietly amongst themselves with more animation than was usual. Again, this too might have been attributable to the change in the weather, except that he was conscious of something else, a total lack of movement on the river. It was true there was more ice than there had been, but the Elbe was a great highway and a fishing ground, and he knew from long experience that men who earned their livelihood from trade and fishing do not cease at the first flurry of snow, rather they increase their activity before the severity of the weather stops them altogether.

'There's something amiss ashore,' Littlewood said, lowering the glass with which he had been scanning the adjacent quay.

'You've noticed it too,' said Drinkwater. 'It can't be another religious holiday, the churches are silent.'

'No, but there are soldiers on the quay there.' Littlewood pointed and offered Drinkwater his glass.

Drinkwater scanned the wharves. A troop of dragoons trotted past, their long carbines tucked in stirrup-holsters.

'Can't have anything to do with us,' Littlewood remarked, though his tone lacked conviction.

'Garrison reinforcements?' Drinkwater said. 'Perhaps the arrival of a French bigwig?'

'That might explain the stoppage of work, I suppose,' said Littlewood disconsolately, 'I hope it won't detain us for long, I don't like this ice.' He gestured over the side, where larger floes, flat glistening sheets, revolved slowly in the stream, occasionally jamming athwart their hawse before tearing free and continuing their passage to the North Sea.

The following night, during the early hours, Drinkwater was shaken hurriedly awake. Littlewood, still wearing night­cap and gown and holding a lantern, stood over him.

'Cap'n Waters, get up! There's a summons from the shore! Thiebault's come aboard and he wants you and Gilham.'

'What o'clock is it?' asked Drinkwater, but Littlewood was not listening.

'Something's afoot! Two lighters will be here within the hour. That should take the remains of our cargo. Thiebault wants us and the Ocean under weigh by daylight.'

Littlewood left as hurriedly as he had come, leaving a confused Drinkwater to dress and follow him. On deck he found the French customs officer muffled in a cloak.

'Captain Waters?' Thiebault's voice was tense and his tone urgent.

'Yes? What is the meaning of this?'

'Please prepare yourself for an absence from the ship.'

'But I understand you wish us to be under weigh by dawn ...' Drinkwater protested. Thiebault interrupted him.

'I can give you five minutes, Captain, but no more.'

'I demand an explanation ...'

'I have loaded pistols which will persuade you to do as I ask,' Thiebault hissed. 'I do not wish to summon the guards, but I give you five minutes to attire yourself.'

Drinkwater spun on his heel and returned to his cabin, his mind a whirl. The dull, persistent foreboding was proved right, he thought, as he forced his feet into Dungarth's hessian boots, rolled up his shaving tackle and stuffed small clothes into a leather valise. For a moment he thought of leaping from the stern window, then dismissed the idea as stupid. He would freeze within minutes, his wracked shoulder no aid to such heroics. Wrapping himself in his boatcloak and jamming the plain tricorne on his head, he returned to the Galliwasp's poop. Thiebault was impatient to be gone.

'You are quite safe, Captain Waters, but I am under the painful necessity of securing your person, and that of Captain Gilham, as guarantors.'

'Guarantors! What the devil d'you mean?' snapped an increasingly angry Drinkwater.

'Against the compliant behaviour of the other ships whose cargoes you have promised ... come sir, I will explain, but you must attend me at once, we have not a moment to lose!'

Drinkwater turned to Littlewood, an unpleasant suspicion forming in his mind. 'Littlewood, are you a party to this knavery?'

'No sir! I shall do everything possible to expedite the arrival of the remaining ships, believe me!'

'I am compelled to, sir!' snapped Drinkwater.

'Come Captain ...' Drinkwater felt Thiebault's hand at his elbow. He shook it off angrily, then Thiebault called out in a low but authoritative voice, 'M'aider, mes amis!'

The grim infantrymen of their guard suddenly surrounded Drinkwater. He was hustled unceremoniously to the rail and down into the waiting boat. Collapsing, half-trodden on by the descending Thiebault, he found an indignant Gilham held at pistol point.

'What in God's name ...?' Drinkwater began, but he felt himself seized from behind and a hand clapped firmly over his mouth. As the boat shoved off from the side of the Galliwasp, Thiebault leaned over the two Britons.

'Not a word, gentlemen, I insist. In a moment I will explain.'

And with that they had, perforce, to be content. With a regular dip and splash, the boat was pulled obliquely across the river, dodging the ice floes and bumping gently at the foot of a flight of steps set in a stone quay. They were bundled up these and into a carriage. Its blinds were drawn and Thiebault entered after them. He set a lantern in the sconce, then turned and took a pistol from one of his assistants. The door slammed shut and the carriage jerked forward with Gilham and Drinkwater staring down the barrel of Thiebault's pistol. From time to time the Frenchman cautiously lifted the edge of the adjacent window blind and peered out. In the lantern light Drinkwater noticed an unseasonal perspiration on Thiebault's forehead.

Less than half an hour had passed since Littlewood had woken Drinkwater, and in the confusion he had felt only an angry perplexity. But it was anger tempered with the odd feeling that he had expected some such event, and now that it had occurred and he was compelled to sit and wait upon events, he noticed Thiebault's anxiety with interest. Beside him Gilham was less philosophical.

'Well,' he demanded, 'what about this confounded explanation you promised?'

Thiebault let the blind drop for the third or fourth time and lowered the pistol, his thumb and forefinger easing the hammer so that the gun was no longer cocked and the frizzen clicked shut over the priming pan.

'Gentlemen,' he said with what Drinkwater thought was an effort to assume his customary urbanity, 'there has been a development in our affairs that was unforeseen. I assure you there is nothing sinister in your predicament. It is merely a precaution.'

'I do beg to differ, M'sieur Thiebault,' said Gilham sarcastically, 'it is hard to view midnight abduction at pistol point as anything other than sinister.' Gilham leaned forward and Drinkwater shot out a hand to restrain him.

'I think M'sieur Thiebault has problems of his own, Gilham. I think we are taken not merely as guarantors against the arrival of the other ships, but as hostages ...'

'Hostages, by God!'

'Hold hard, sir!'

Thiebault, clearly compromised and, judging by his obvious anxiety, preoccupied with plans of his own that took precedence over any consideration, real or pretended, shot Drinkwater an unguarded look of pure astonishment.

Drinkwater seized upon his obvious advantage. 'Who has arrived in Hamburg, M'sieur Thiebault, to compel you to take this extreme action, eh?'

Thiebault's mouth opened, then closed. He offered no explanation, and Drinkwater knew his question had found its mark.

'You see, Gilham,' he went on, never taking his eyes off the French official, 'I believe that we are hostages to be delivered up to this person if M'sieur Thiebault here has to clear his name from any charge of trafficking with the British. Is that not so, M'sieur?'

Thiebault let his breath out with an audible hiss.

'Well?' Gilham persisted, 'what d'you say to that?'

'Yesterday,' said Thiebault resignedly, 'the Prince of Eckmühl arrived in Hamburg.'

'And who in the name of Beelzebub might he be?' asked Gilham sharply.

'Marshal Davout, gentlemen,' said Thiebault, adding under his breath, 'le marechal de fer ...'

CHAPTER 11 Sugar

Captain Gilham had never heard of Davout, and the muttered soubriquet — evidence of Thiebault's fear of the marshal — made no impression upon him. Instead he raged against the Frenchman's perfidy, subjecting Thiebault to a tirade of abuse until Drinkwater silenced him, to Thiebault's obvious relief.

'Where are you taking us?' he asked.

'To a property of Herr Liepmann's, Captain Waters, where you will be quite safe.'

Drinkwater suppressed a smile. It was clear to him that Thiebault's action was on his own account, or at least on the account of those engaged in illegal trade. Drinkwater knew little about Marshal Davout, but what he did know was enough to make him sympathetic to Thiebault's plight. Davout's Third Army Corps had held the main body of the Prussian army at bay at Auerstadt while Napoleon thrashed the remainder at Jena, accomplishing in a single day the destruction of the Prussian army. He was reputed to be unswervingly loyal to the Emperor, incorruptible and humourless, a man of ruthless severity and no private weaknesses. It was no surprise that Thiebault had been driven to the extremity of seizing the two masters of the British ships just then lying in the Elbe. It was bitterly ironic, Drinkwater thought, that by exchanging positions with Littlewood, he had thus compromised himself.

'I did not wish to disturb the safe despatch of your ships, gentlemen,' said Thiebault, 'that is why I left Captain Littlewood in charge as your — what do you say? Comprador?'

'Supercargo,' offered Drinkwater.

'Ah, yes ...'

The carriage jerked to a halt and rocked on its springs for a moment before the door was opened. Thiebault hoisted himself from his seat. 'No trouble, gentlemen, I beg you.'

They descended into a dark, cobbled alley, barely wider than the coach. On either hand tall buildings rose and the air was filled with strange, exotic smells. Drinkwater knew at once that they were among warehouses.

In the Stygian gloom a blackness opened beside them with a creak and they were ushered into a cavernous space filled with a sweet, sickly smell. Then followed the crash of the closing door, the click and tumble of catch and lock, and the knock of a heavy cross-timber being put in place. A moment later the snick of flint on steel, and a flicker of light.

'Follow me, gentlemen,' Thiebault commanded, holding up the lantern.

As they made for a ladder between stacks of bales and cases, Drinkwater looked in vain for evidence of the boots or greatcoats that had come from either the Galliwasp or the Ocean. At length they ascended several flights of wooden stairs and found themselves in a small room, boarded with tongue-and-groove deals in the manner of a magazine.

'There is water here, gentlemen, and food will be brought to you twice daily. I will return soon. I do not think that you will be compelled to remain here above a week or ten days.' Thiebault gestured at the straw-filled palliasses that presumably furnished accommodation for a watchman. 'I regret, however, to tell you that escape is impossible. Herr Liepmann maintains a pair of hounds to guard against intruders. They were removed during our arrival. When I leave, they will be returned.' Thiebault paused. 'Also, I should advise you that there are many troops in the city.'

Thiebault made to leave them, but Drinkwater said, 'One thing I do not understand, M'sieur Thiebault.'

'What is that, Captain?'

'If you are so anxious to discharge the cargoes of the Ocean and the Galliwasp and want them to drop downstream by dawn for fear of discovery by Marshal Davout, why are you so anxious that the other ships come in?'

'That is no concern of yours!'

'What the deuce d'you make of all that?' rasped Gilham as the door closed behind Thiebault. 'I hope to heaven Littlewood's been paid.'

Drinkwater flung himself down on the nearer palliasse.

'I must say you seem damnably cool about this predicament, Waters. Ain't you worried about your cargo, man?'

'To be frank, sir, no.' Drinkwater propped himself up on one elbow. 'I don't think that Herr Liepmann will leave us here unattended, Gilham, so pray simmer down and let us do some thinking.'

'Or some praying,' said Gilham seriously.

'As you wish.'

Whatever the arrangements that Thiebault had made with Liepmann, it was inconceivable that the Jew should ignore the two British shipmasters held in his warehouse. Further ramifications of the affair occurred to Drinkwater as he lay in the cold and nursed the ache in his shoulder.

Thiebault was clearly heavily implicated in the illegal traffic passing through Hamburg. As a senior officer of the Imperial Customs Service he would be in an incomparable position to feather his own nest. But he would need to distance himself from his contacts, the merchants with whom he dealt, men like Liepmann who must never be left in any doubt that if Thiebault himself was ever threatened with Imperial retribution, he would strike them down first before they were able to lay evidence against him.

The presence, therefore, of his hostages in Liepmann's property, fully implicated the Jewish merchant. If Davout gave the slightest hint that he suspected Thiebault of collusion, Thiebault only had to order his own officers to apprehend Liepmann, together with two British shipmasters, to ingratiate himself with the marshal and prove his own zeal, efficiency and trustworthiness.

'If we can but make contact with Herr Liepmann,' Drinkwater reassured Gilham, 'I do not think we have much to worry about.'

'I hope you are right.'

Shortly after dark they heard the snarling bark of dogs below. The sound faded to whimpering and was followed by the noise of feet upon the stairs. A moment or two later a young man entered the watchman's hutch bearing a basket of food. Laying out cold sausages, bread and a bottle of wine on a napkin, he smiled and withdrew. As the two Britons bent to help themselves to the food they were aware of a tall man in the doorway. Drinkwater rose to his feet.

'Herr Liepmann?'

The man bowed gravely. Like Isaac Solomon he wore the long hair of Orthodox Jewry. 'Ja, mein English ist not goot. You are Kapitan Waters, ja?'

'At your service, sir.'

'Goot. I know somet'ing of you from Herr Solomon ...'

Drinkwater turned slightly so that his back was towards Gilham, and making a negative gesture with his right index finger held close to his breast, he then pointed it at his chest, indicating Gilham's ignorance.

'Ach ...' Liepmann's head inclined in an imperceptible nod of understanding.

'Herr Thiebault is a very clever man, Herr Liepmann,' Drinkwater said slowly. 'I understand he must hold us hostage against your good behaviour.' Drinkwater accompanied this speech with a deal of gesturing and was rewarded by more nodding from Liepmann.

'Ja, ja.'

'Why does he want to bring in more English ships, the ships now at Helgoland? We know he is frightened of Marshal Davout ...'

Liepmann looked from one to the other. His tongue flickered over his lips and a faint smile followed.

'Ze scheeps at Helgoland have guns, no?'

Drinkwater nodded.

'Marshal Davout he like guns. Herr Thiebault vill get guns. Make money and pleez Marshal Davout. You understand?'

Drinkwater nodded. 'Yes.'

'Damned if I do.'

'It is ver' dangerous for you here. You must not stay ...'

Liepmann had his own game to play, Drinkwater thought, but it was essential that Galliwasp and Ocean escaped from the river before Drinkwater or Gilham made an attempt at getting out of Hamburg.

'We must wait, Herr Liepmann, until we hear from Helgoland that our ships are safe.'

'Ja, ja,' the Jew nodded. 'It will be ver' dangerous for you stay here. Zis is best place. When time come we take you out of Hamburg mit ze sugar.'

'Can you send a message to Helgoland,' Drinkwater asked, 'if I write it?' Liepmann nodded. 'Herr Nicholas has told me ...'

'Ja,' Herr Nicholas tells me also.' Liepmann threw a glance in Gilham's direction and pointed at a ledger lying on a shelf. Inkpot and pen stood close by.

'In English, Kapitan ...'

Drinkwater exchanged glances with Liepmann.

'It is safe?'

Drinkwater took up the pen and wrote carefully in capitals:

G AND W TAKEN OUT OF THEIR SHIPS BY FORCE BUT PRESENTLY SAFE ENJOYING HOSPITALITY OF OUR MUTUAL FRIEND. ARRANGEMENTS SET AWRY BY ARRIVAL OF MARSHAL DAVOUT. SHIPS DISCHARGED OUTWARD BOUND.

He paused a moment, wondering how to sign himself, and then added: Baltic.

Straightening up he handed the torn-out page to Liepmann. The Jew took the pen, dipped it in the inkpot and on another piece of paper began to write a jumble of letters, having memorized the crazy alphabet from Canto II of Dante. When he had finished the transliteration he opened the lantern and held Drinkwater's draft in the candle fiame. The incinerated ash floated lazily about the table.

'There is one more thing, Herr Liepmann. You should understand that it was never intended that more ships would come, only that they would pretend to come. Do you understand?'

'They not come?' Liepmann regarded Drinkwater with surprise.

'No. They were to have gone only to Neuwerk ... to look as if they were coming into the Elbe.'

'You do not wish to sell ze guns, nein?'

'No, only the greatcoats and boots.'

'Ach ... and ze sugar, ja?'

'Yes,' Drinkwater said, matching the Jew's smile, 'and the sugar.'

Liepmann had turned to go when Gilham, his mouth full of the food which he had been busy eating during this exchange, asked, 'Herr Liepmann, did you pay Littlewood?'

Liepmann turned to Gilham, a look of mild surprise on his face. 'Ja. I pay him goot ... also for your scheep, ze Ocean, two thousand thalers ...'

In the wake of Liepmann's departure Gilham grunted his satisfaction. With a wry look at his compatriot, Drinkwater helped himself to what was left of the sausages and bread.

He felt better with food inside him, aware that the winter's day, short though it had been, had passed slowly and been full of the uncertainties that kept a man from feeling hungry until actually confronted with food.

With a little luck they would be all right. A day or two lying low and then, when Galliwasp and Ocean were clear, Liepmann would smuggle them out of the city. Drinkwater was content to leave the details to the Jewish merchant. Davout would be settling in, receiving reports from the French officials and administrators, all of whom would be wary, and it would take even so dynamic a soldier as the marshal was reputed to be, a few days to decide upon what course of action to settle. There was no doubt that he had been sent to shut the gaping door that Hamburg had become in his master's Continental System.

'You seem to know a deal of what's going on,' Gilham said, suddenly jerking Drinkwater from his complacency and reminding him that if his real identity or position were known, then capture meant certain death.

He shrugged. 'It is not so very difficult to deduce,' he said with affected nonchalance, undecided as to whether to take Gilham into his confidence. 'D'you trust Littlewood?' he asked, deliberately changing the subject.

'I don't have much choice, do I?'

It was bitterly cold in the watchman's room and Drinkwater slept fitfully, waking frequently, the knotted muscles of his wounded shoulder aching painfully. Beside him Gilham snored under a blanket with a full belly and the sailor's facility for sleeping anywhere.

Drinkwater envied Gilham. He himself was desperately tired, tired of the burden Dungarth had laid upon him and tired of the interminable war. He had done his best and was no longer a young man. Now his shoulder pained him abominably.

He thought of his wife, Elizabeth, and their children, Charlotte Amelia and Richard. He had not seen them for so very long that they seemed to inhabit another age when he was another person. He found it difficult to remember exactly what they looked like, and found all he could call to mind were the immobile images of the little portraits that used to hang in his cabin when he was in command of a frigate and not cowering under borrowed blankets in a Hamburg garret.

Where were those imperfect portraits now? Lost with his other personal effects when the Tracker foundered and poor Quilhampton died, together with Frey and Derrick.

He tore his exhausted mind from horrible visions of his friends drowning, deliberately trying to recall the items of clothing, the books, charts and equipment he must have lost along with his sea-chest and the pictures of his family.

There was his sword and sextant, his journals and the little drawing case Elizabeth had given him, pretending it came from the children ...

Mentally he rummaged down through the layers of clothing in the chest. The polar bear skin, presented by the officers of His Britannic Majesty's sloop-of-war Melusine and there, at the very bottom, cut from its wooden stretcher, the paint cracked and flaking, another portrait, found when he captured the Antigone in the Red Sea, ten, eleven years earlier.

Odd how he could recall that portrait in all its detail: the beautiful French woman, her shoulders bare, her breasts suggestively rendered beneath a filmy wrap of gauze, her hair a la mode, piled up on her head and entwined with a string of pearls. Hortense Santhonax, now widowed, though an unmarried woman when he had first seen her ...

He closed his aching eyes against the moonlight that flooded in through the lozenge shaped window set high in the apex of the gable-end. It was all so long ago, part of another life ...

Somewhere below him Liepmann's dogs stirred. Johannes, the young man who brought them their food and served as the Jew's watchman, was probably doing his rounds.

The whining suddenly rose to a bark of alarm. Once, twice, the hounds yapped before shots rang out. The barking ended in a mewling whine.

For a moment Drinkwater lay still, unable or unwilling to comprehend what was happening, then a muffled shout was followed by a curt, monosyllabic command.

Drinkwater threw off his blankets and reached for his boots.

'Gilham! Wake up!'

He kicked the recumbent figure into consciousness.

'What's the matter?' Gilham asked sleepily.

'The bloody French are here!'

Drinkwater pulled on his coat and kicked his blankets into the shadows. Feet pounded on the wooden ladders, the floor of their hideout shook. Gilham was on his feet, picking up the empty wine bottle from the table.

'Get in the shadows, man, and keep quiet!' Drinkwater hissed, though his own heart was pounding loud enough to be heard.

The door to the watchman's room was flung open. Three dragoons, clumsy in their high jackboots, burst into the room. For a moment they froze, staring about them, the moonlight gleaming on the bronze of their high, crested helmets and the steel of their bayonetted carbines. Then a fourth, a sergeant holding up a lantern, shoved past them. Drinkwater was aware of more men on the landing outside and the terrified whimper of a young prisoner. They had already seized Johannes.

The sergeant's lantern light swept the room, falling on the absurd gilt tassels on Drinkwater's hessian boots. A second later it played full in his face.

'Qu'est ce que vous foutez là?'

The lantern's light found Gilham, then the basket and utensils used to bring their supper, the pen and ink, the extinguished lamp and the torn pages of the ledger. A few black wisps of ash stirred in the air.

The dragoons stepped forward and Gilham shattered the wine bottle and raised its broken neck with a defiant cry. The noise terminated in a grunt as he doubled up in pain. The nearest dragoon's toecap struck him in the groin and vomit splashed on to the floor.

The dragoons secured their prisoners in a silence broken only by the rasp of Gilham's tortured breath. The sharp reek of spew filled the stuffy air. With cords about their wrists both Drinkwater and Gilham were pushed forward to join Johannes on the wooden catwalk that served as a landing from the topmost ladder.

They stumbled downwards, the sergeant and his lantern ahead of them, the shadows of themselves and their escort leaping fantastically on the stacks of baled and cased goods piled on all sides. At ground level the sergeant paused, ordering his patrol into rough formation. The circle of lamplight illuminated his boots and the long tails of his green coat with the brass eagles securing the yellow facing of the turn-backs. It fell also on the corpse of one of Liepmann's watchdogs, the pink tongue lolling from its gaping jaw. The sergeant kicked it aside.

'Ouvrez!' he ordered, and a blast of cold air struck them as the door was swung open. The sergeant lifted the lantern and walked down the line of his men, peering at the three prisoners pinioned between the double files. He said something in a low voice which made his men snigger, then he swung round and Drinkwater saw the sabre in his right hand. Holding up the lantern in his left, he let the beam play on the stack of bulging sacks beside them.

'Hippolyte,' he commanded, 'allez ... votre casque, mon ami.'

The dragoon who had thrown open the warehouse door trotted obediently up and doffed his helmet. He held it upside down as the sergeant lifted his sword arm.

'Qu'est que ce?' he asked mockingly, slashing at a sack. Sugar loaves tumbled into Hippolyte's helmet and the dragoons roared with laughter.

'Voila!' cried the sergeant with a flourish. 'Nom de Dieu! Sucre!'

And the patrol lurched forward into the dark cobbled alleyway in high spirits, locking the warehouse door behind them.

CHAPTER 12 The Iron Marshal

They were not long in the custody of the sergeant and his troopers. At the end of the alley they found a mounted officer whose helmet, scabbard and horse furniture gleamed in the flaring light of a torch held by an orderly on foot. The leaping flame, lighting his face from below, gave it a demonic cast as he stared down at the prisoners, listening to the sergeant's report. The officer's bay mount shifted uneasily beside the flickering brand, tossing its head and throwing off flecks of foam from curling lips. The officer soothed its arched neck with a gloved hand.

With the stately clip-clop of the charger bringing up the rear they marched off, crossing a moonlit, cobbled square, to halt in the high shadow of the Rathaus. Despite the midnight hour, messengers came and went, clattering up to the waiting orderlies who grabbed flung reins as the aides dashed into the lit archway, the flanking sentries snapping to attention and receiving the most perfunctory of salutes from the young officers.

Drinkwater, Gilham and Johannes were marched off to a side door, entering a stone flagged passage that opened out into an arched chamber guarded by two shakoed sentinels and containing a staff officer who sat writing at a desk. The escort of dragoons was dismissed, infantry took over and the dragoon officer made a sotto voce report to the staff captain. The latter barely looked up, though his pen scribbled busily across the uppermost of a small pile of papers. These formalities over, the three prisoners were taken through an iron-bound door and locked into a small chamber which had clearly been used as a storeroom.

Gilham and Drinkwater exchanged glances but their silence did nothing to reassure the young German. Johannes was agitated to the point of visible distress and would have broken down completely had not their incarceration ended suddenly. A tall corporal of fusiliers, his shako plume raking the lintel of the door as he ducked into the makeshift cell, called them out.

'Allez!'

They trooped out and followed the corporal; two soldiers with bayonets fixed to their muskets fell in behind them. At the staffofficer's desk they were motioned to pass, and climbed a flight of stone steps to halt outside impressive double doors guarded by two further sentries.

'The holy of holies,' muttered Gilham and in the silence that followed Drinkwater could hear the chatter of Johannes's teeth. When the doors opened it startled the three of them.

Monsieur Thiebault advanced towards them. His face was pale and he wrung his hands with a nervous compulsiveness.

'Gentlemen ...' he said, attempting a reassuring smile, stepping aside and ushering them forward, 'His Excellency will see you now ...' He nodded at the guards.

Drinkwater and Gilham started forward with Johannes in their wake, but Thiebault, Drinkwater noticed, made a sharp gesture with his hand and turning his head Drinkwater saw the boy's arm seized by one of the soldiers. He caught Thiebault's eye and the customs officer raised his shoulders with a fatalistic shrug.

Drinkwater's heart was pounding. If he let slip the slightest hint of his real identity, he would be shot as a spy. Though Gilham did not know of his status as a sea officer, he might make some indiscreet reference ...

'Leave the talking to me, Gilham,' he snapped in a low voice as they were ushered into a high chamber, lit by a dozen candelabrae. A fire blazed in a grate and above the mantelpiece hung the mounted heads of a pair of tusked boars. Between them were emblazoned the castellated arms of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg. More hunting trophies were displayed on the dark panelling of the burghers' council chamber that was now occupied by the commander-in-chief of the Army of Germany.

Louis Nicholas Davout, Prince of Eckmühl, Duke of Auerstadt and Marshal of France, sat at a desk in the centre of the room, his balding head bent over a pile of papers, his polished boots reflecting the fire and his gold-laced blue coat tight over powerful shoulders. Beside him, in a similar though less splendid uniform, a plumed bicorne tucked neatly under his elbow, an aide-de-camp stood in a respectful attitude.

The marshal said something in a low voice, the aide bent attentively, replied as the marshal dashed off a signature, took the document with a click of his heels and left the room. The jingle of the aide's spurs ceased as the double doors closed behind him and Drinkwater, Gilham and Thiebault were left in a silence broken only by the crackle of the fire.

Slowly the marshal lifted his head and stared at them. The firelight reflected off his pince-nez hid his eyes, but Drinkwater was conscious of a firm mouth and round, regular features. When Davout removed the spectacles his expression was intimidating. The light danced on the coils of oak leaves embroidered upon his breast as he sighed and leaned back in his chair.

'M'sieur Thiebault ...' he murmured, looking at the two Britons before him. Thiebault launched into a speech punctuated by ingratiating 'Monseigneurs'.

Whatever the content of Thiebault's discourse, Drinkwater was conscious of the unwavering gaze of Davout, the man the French themselves called 'the iron marshal', the archangel of the Emperor Napoleon. He tried at first to meet Davout's eyes, then, finding the scrutiny too unnerving and with the thought that such a wordless challenge was dangerous, Drinkwater tried to make out the gist of Thiebault's explanation while his eyes roved about the chamber with the affected gaucherie of a man aroused by curiosity. He hoped his apprehension was not obvious.

He heard, or thought he heard, Thiebault mention the word 'Russie' but could not bring himself to look at the marshal. Then Thiebault said it again and Drinkwater, conscious that Davout was still staring at him, dropped his own gaze. At the marshal's feet, amid a small heap of dispatch boxes, a leather wallet and a travelling valise, lay a frayed roll of canvas. It had been kept tight-rolled but now untied, it had sprung open enough for Drinkwater to see its inner surface.

The shock of recognition brought a wave of nausea so strong that for a moment he thought he might faint. Instead he moved, shifting his weight forward before recovering himself with a cough. He was better placed to see now the familiar portrait.

Looking down beside Davout's shining black boot heels Drinkwater saw the crown of the woman's head, the coils of auburn hair wound with pearls and the arch of a single eyebrow set against the eau-de-nil background that the artist had painted. He saw too the star shaped flaking where the unstretched canvas had shed the slight impasto of the flaming hair and the white gesso ground showed through. The position and shape of that bare patch confirmed what Drinkwater had already guessed, that the rolled canvas beneath the desk of Marshal Davout was the portrait of Hortense Santhonax that once hung in the cabin of the Antigone and which had, until very lately, rested at the bottom of his sea-chest.

He felt the flesh on the back of his neck crawl and brought his incredulously staring eyes up to meet those of the marshal.

'M'sieur Thiebault speaks that you had cargo for Russia, oui?'

Recovering himself, Drinkwater nodded. 'Yes, Excellency, military stores ...'

'Et sucre, n'est-cepas? And sugar ...?' Davout's accent was thick, his English uncertain. 'Why come to Hamburg, not Russia?'

'My ship was damaged in a storm, sir. We,' Drinkwater gestured vaguely at Gilham who had the presence of mind to nod, suggesting their circumstances had been identical, 'put into Helgoland. Then the winter, the ice in the Baltic ...' he made a helpless gesture of resignation, 'we could not go on to Russia. At Helgoland the Government told us they had abandoned us and we decided to sell our cargo here, in Hamburg.'

Drinkwater paused. Without taking his eyes off the two Britons, Davout queried something with Thiebault who appeared, by his nodding, to be confirming what Drinkwater had said. Drinkwater decided to press his advantage, mindful of the rolled and damaged portrait at Davout's feet.

'We had an escort of the British navy, but we became separated ...'

'What name this ship ... this escort?' Davout's poor English, learned during a brief period as a prisoner of the Royal Navy when a young man, could not disguise the keenness of his question.

'Tracker,' said Drinkwater, noticing the exchange of glances between Davout and Thiebault and the half-smile that crossed the marshal's face.

'You have news of her?' Drinkwater asked quickly. Davout's eyes were cold and he made no answer, while Thiebault was clearly unnerved by Drinkwater's effrontery in asking such a question.

'You sold your cargo, Capitaine?

'Yes ...'

'The sugar?'

'Yes.' Drinkwater looked at Thiebault. Perspiration was pouring from the customs officer's forehead and it was clear that Thiebault's future, as much as that of Drinkwater and Gilham, rested upon this interview. Such anxiety argued that Davout's hostility must be at least in part aimed at Thiebault. This consideration persuaded Drinkwater to press his question again.

'Do you have news of Tracker, Excellency?'

Behind Davout Thiebault, his face twisted with supplication, made a gesture of suppression. Davout ignored the question.

'Peut-être ... perhaps you not go to Russia ... perhaps you only make these papers.' Davout struck the desk and Drinkwater saw the Galliwasp's confiscated documents with the crown stamp of the London Customs House upon them, among those on his desk. The pince-nez were lifted to the bridge of the marshal's nose, then lowered as Davout got to his feet and came round the table to confront Drinkwater.

'You come to Hamburg as a spy?'

'Monseigneur, l'explication ...' began Thiebault despairingly.

'Assez!' snapped Davout, turning away from Drinkwater with a contemptuous wave of his hand. He returned to his desk and picked up the pince-nez he had left there. Casting a baleful look at Thiebault he spoke a few words.

'Was the Tracker coming to Hamburg?' Thiebault translated.

'The Tracker?' Drinkwater said with unfeigned surprise, 'No, of course not.' He turned towards Davout, an alarming thought forming in his mind. 'No, Excellency, the Tracker was under orders for Russia ...'

Drinkwater was unable to gauge whether or not the marshal believed him, for a knock at the door was followed by the reappearance of the aide-de-camp. It was clear that he was expected and that the matter was of greater importance than the interrogation of two British shipmasters caught breaking the Emperor's Continental System. Davout returned to his desk and curtly dismissed Thiebault and the prisoners. He did no more than nod at the young French officer, who left the doorway immediately.

Thiebault accompanied them to the foot of the steps where a weary glance from the staff officer still shuffling paper was followed by a bellow for their guard.

'What in God's name was all that about?' asked Gilham unable to remain silent.

'Oblige me a moment longer,' muttered Drinkwater motioning him towards Thiebault who was addressing the staff officer. Thiebault turned towards them, his expression one of relief. His tone was suddenly preternaturally light, the manner an attempt to recover his former insouciance. He had clearly suffered an ordeal.

'Well, gentlemen, I think His Excellency is satisfied with the, er, arrangements ...'

'You mean the boots?' said Gilham sarcastically.

'Indeed, Captain ...'

'What the devil was all that about the Tracker, M'sieur?' Drinkwater asked, frowning.

'Are our ships clear of the river?' Gilham added.

'Gentlemen, gentlemen, please; His Excellency has ordered that you be taken to Altona, to the military hospital there, just for a few days. It is a mere formality, I assure you.' Thiebault lowered his voice, 'His Excellency is due to inspect the defences of Lübeck shortly. I will send you word ... now, if you will excuse me ...'

Thiebault turned to go as two fusiliers approached. At the same moment the door at the far end of the room opened, admitting a blast of cold air which set the flames of the candles on the staff officer's desk guttering. A French officer escorted a cloaked figure towards them. The officer was resplendent in the campaign dress of a lieutenant in the horse chasseurs of the Imperial Guard. His scarlet pelisse was not draped, a la hussard, from his left shoulder, but worn over the dolman, the gold frogging buttoned to his neck against the cold. His overalls were mud spattered, evidence of a long, hard ride, and his face, below the fur rim of his busby, was fiercely mustachioed. He drew the cloaked person after him, reached down to the sabretache that trailed over the flagstones with his scabbard and drew out a sealed document.

'Lieutenant Dieudonne a votre service,' he said, holding out the letter. 'Pour le Marechal ...' He nodded at the cloaked figure, his green and red plume throwing a fantastic shadow on the wall.

The momentary distraction had provided Thiebault with an opportunity to escape, and though Gilham protested, more questions on his lips, Drinkwater was rooted to the spot, overcome by a moment of premonition that prepared him for the shock as the cloaked figure threw off its hood.

As she shook her head the auburn hair fell about her shoulders, and although he could not see the woman's full face, there was no doubt about that profile, at almost the same angle as she had assumed for the artist Jacques Louis David. He knew the face so well, for David's portrait — painted for her dead husband and later captured by Drinkwater — now inexplicably lay rolled under the desk of the Prince of Eckmühl.

In his distraction Drinkwater resisted the tug of his guard so that the soldier became angry, stepped behind him and thrust his ported musket into the small of his prisoner's back with a sharp exclamation. Drinkwater stumbled forward, losing his balance and attracting the attention of Lieutenant Dieudonne and the woman. Gilham caught Drinkwater's arm; recovering himself, Drinkwater looked back. Beyond the menacing guard the woman was staring after him, her face in the full light of the leaping candles on the staff officer's desk.

There was no doubt about her identity: she was Hortense Santhonax and she knew Nathaniel Drinkwater to be an officer in the Royal Navy of Great Britain.

CHAPTER 13 The Firing Party

Outside stood the carriage that had brought Madame Santhonax, its door still open. A dozen chasseurs sat on their horses round it, exchanging remarks. Drinkwater moved forward in a daze. He was tired, cold and hungry, and the night's events had become unreal. For months — since the terrible events in the jungle of Borneo — he had been deprived of all energy, overcome by a mental and physical lethargy impossible to throw off. There had been brief moments when he felt he was recovering, when Dungarth had inspired him to take on the mission to Russia, when Solomon had entertained him that morning after his night of filth and subterfuge, and when young Nicholas had revived the failed project at Helgoland.

But these had been brief and faltering revivals and, he could see now, merely fatal circumstances conspiring to bring him to this strange encounter. He was deep in blood, the killer of Edouard Santhonax, the executioner of Morris and murderer of poor Tregembo. Now he was to be called to account, to die in his turn, shot as a spy on the denunciation of a French woman within the Rathaus. He was convinced she had recognized him, for their eyes had met and she could have read nothing but fear in his expression. Nausea rose in his gorge, he missed his footing again and again. Gilham caught him.

'Are you all right?'

'Aye,' gasped Drinkwater, feeling a cold sweat chill his brow in the icy air.

'I think they want us in the carriage,' Gilham said, his hand under Drinkwater's elbow.

Not her carriage, surely, he thought, that was too ironic a twist of fate. In any case, at any moment ...

'Arrête!'

This was it. The denunciation had been made, the staff officer was running out after them and he was about to be arrested, unmasked as a spy and on the summary orders of Marshal Davout, shot like a dog.

But Drinkwater was wrong.

The staff officer called something to the chasseurs, one of whom was a non-commissioned officer. They were bundled into the carriage and Drinkwater caught the elusive scent of the widow Santhonax. He sank shivering into the deep buttoned leather of the seat and closed his eyes as the carriage jerked forward.

'Are you well, Waters?' Gilham asked again.

'Well enough. Just a little tired and hungry ...' No denunciation had come; perhaps she had not recognized him. Why should she? It had been a long time; they had changed, though age seemed to have enhanced rather than diminished her beauty. Nor did she possess a portrait of him to remind her of his features ...

Drinkwater's relief was short-lived. The carriage swung round a corner and jerked to an abrupt halt. The door was flung open and they were ordered out.

'Regardez-là, messieurs,' the non-commissioned officer said, leaning from his creaking saddle.

They stood at the entrance of a courtyard. It was lit by flaring torches set in sconces and seemed to be full of soldiers, infantrymen under the command of an elderly, white haired captain who was tucking a written order inside his shako before putting it on.

'What the devil ...?' Gilham began, but Drinkwater cut him short, his heart thumping painfully in his chest. Far from feeling faint, the greatest fear of all had seized him and he felt a strong impulse to run.

'It's a firing party!' he hissed in Gilham's ear. A word of command and the milling rabble of soldiers lined up in two files. A moment later a man was led out from an adjacent doorway. It was Johannes.

'God's bones!' Drinkwater swore. He wanted to move, to do something, but his legs would not respond and he watched helplessly as a bag was pulled down over Johannes's wildly staring eyes. He saw the young man's legs buckle, heard the muffled screams as he was dragged to the wall. With the ease of practice Johannes's trussed hands were tied to a ring bolt in the masonry and the boy fell forward in a faint. The double file of fusiliers raised their loaded muskets on the captain's command and a volley rang out, echoing round and round the courtyard as the body of Johannes slumped downwards. Pulling a torch from a sconce the white haired captain walked forward and leaned over the boy's shattered body. Casually he emptied a pistol into the left ear. A surgeon came forward; Drinkwater and Gilham were ushered back to the carriage. As they climbed in and the door was shut, Gilham echoed Drinkwater's own thoughts.

'Poor fellow. For a moment I thought that was for us.'

They sat in silence for a while, the death of Johannes and their part in it weighing heavily upon them.

'That was because of the sugar, wasn't it?' remarked Gilham, seeking some quieting justification for his conscience.

'Yes, I believe so,' muttered Drinkwater.

'It allowed that bugger Thiebault to clear his own yardarm,' Gilham went on. 'Which was what he was doing with all that jabbering to Monseigneur What's-his-name, eh?'

'Yes, I imagine so ...'

'Sacrificed that poor young devil to save his own skin.'

'I do not think,' said Drinkwater, slowly recovering himself, 'that whilst Marshal Davout would turn a blind eye to the military stores, he could countenance the sugar. It was too blatant a breach of the Emperor's proscription of British imports.' He paused. Gilham's face was no more than a pale blur in the darkness that had come with moonset and an overcast sky promising more snow. 'I am surprised a man of

Davout's stamp did not have us shot out of hand too. I think Thiebault must have pleaded for us ...'

'You think we are out of danger, then?'

'I think you are, Captain, but as for myself, I am not so sure.'

'Why ever not?'

'It is probably best that you do not ask that question. I will answer it only by saying that your association with me places you in the greatest danger.'

'What on earth are you talking about?'

'I sincerely wish I could tell you, Gilham, but prudence dictates that I hold my tongue at least for a little longer. What you are ignorant of cannot be held against you. The example of Johannes might have been intended to warn the people of Hamburg against obtaining sugar, but we were made to witness it as a warning to ourselves. No doubt His Excellency the Marshal considers his act magnanimous ...'

'But I ... oh, very well,' Gilham said before lapsing into a perplexed silence.

Opposite him, Drinkwater strove to order the chaos of his thoughts. There was no doubt about the accuracy of Gilham's assessment of Thiebault's conduct. He had indeed 'cleared his own yardarm' and sacrificed Johannes to satisfy the Marshal's notion of loyalty to the Emperor's edicts. Davout's clemency to both himself and the British shipmasters had been purchased along with the Northampton boots. The profit and loss of that account was a matter between Littlewood, Liepmann, Thiebault and the minister of war in Paris, but possibly Davout had retained his reputation for incorruptibility. What ought to have brought Drinkwater a measure of satisfaction was the clear indication that so unimpeachable and elevated a servant of the Empire as Davout was convinced that the original destination of the boots had been Russia. It made the desperate charade Drinkwater had endured in Mrs Hockley's brothel an unnecessary farce.

But he derived no consolation from these considerations, for far more disturbing were the appearances of the portrait and its subject. It was an inescapable fact that the former had come from his very own sea-chest, taken aboard His Britannic Majesty's gun-brig Tracker for safe-keeping. Its survival argued a case for the survival of the brig, for had the brig foundered, the chest — stowed in her hold — would have sunk with her. The only possible explanation was that Tracker had been captured, probably disabled in the tempest and driven ashore as Galliwasp had been, but on less hospitable shores.

Perhaps then, Quilhampton and Frey, Derrick and the others were still alive! He felt a surge of hope, of revitalization, kindle in his heart. If only it were true, how much of the burden would it lift from his shoulders! Surely, in a world that could disinter the portrait of Hortense Santhonax, so small a miracle was possible?

And what of her; had she recognized him? And if so, had she denounced him to Davout?

He tried to recall the strange encounter in the Rathaus. She had undoubtedly seen him, as he had seen her. He had known her not merely because he had kept her hidden likeness for years, but because he had met her, rescued her from revolutionaries and carried her safe to England, an emigrée refugee.

She had been exquisitely beautiful then, a proud young aristocrat, Hortense de Montholon, whose association with the equally proud republican, Edouard Santhonax, had led to their eventual marriage and the turning of her coat. She had gone back to France at the end of the Terror and been landed on the beach at Criel by Lord Dungarth and an unknown master's mate called Nathaniel Drinkwater. He thought her more beautiful in her maturity, grown stately as Republic had given way to Empire and the parvenu crown had need of a new aristocracy.

And now their paths had crossed again; the widow Santhonax was in Hamburg, and their eyes had met!

But she had been a prisoner!

The realization hit him like a pistol ball, so that he exclaimed out loud.

'Damn it, Waters, are you unwell?'

'I have just recalled something. Tell me Gilham, did you notice the cavalry officer who came in as we were leaving?'

'The hussar fellow with the lady? Yes, of course I did, striking pair.'

'What did you make of'em?'

'What d'you mean?'

'How did you interpret their relationship?'

'Their relationship?' Gilham asked in astonishment.

'Was there anything that struck you about it?'

'Well, she was brought in under constraint, like us ...'

'Precisely!' said Drinkwater, relieved the impression had not been the work of his highly charged imagination. 'She was a detainee.'

'Is that what you wanted me to say?'

'It was what I hoped you would think. She was brought under escort, and an escort of Guard chasseurs is no ordinary escort, in this very carriage ...'

'But what in heaven's name has this woman to do with us? Look, Waters, there's something damned fishy going on.' Gilham's tone of voice had changed, become guarded, suspicious. 'Why did you insist on doing all the talking back there? You were accustomed to taking a back seat, letting Littlewood jabber. I think you owe me an explanation.'

Drinkwater sighed, staring at the pale oval of Gilham's face as he leaned forward in the gloom.

'Very well,' he said resignedly. It was perhaps better to level with Gilham. There might be no time for explanations later, and Gilham seemed a cool enough fellow in his way.

'My name is not Waters, Captain Gilham. I will not worry you with such details; suffice it to know that I am a post-captain in the navy ...'

'Dear God!' Gilham fell back in his seat.

'You need not worry. Your treasonable act of selling military stores to the enemy was only achieved with the assistance of both His Majesty's navy and His diplomatic service.'

'I have been duped.'

'I suspect we have all been duped a little, in one way or another. Hardly anyone in this affair is precisely what he seems, but to keep to the point ...'

There was considerable relief in confessing things to Gilham. He felt better for the confession, felt that speaking aloud conferred a kind of existence upon his theories, delivered them from the dark womb of his turbulent mind to the harsh reality of this bitterly cold winter's night.

'It was intended to ship Galliwasp's cargo to Russia; you may have realized from Davout's reaction that it would have been contrary to French interests, casting suspicion on the Tsar's reliability as their ally.'

'And having failed to do that, a shipment into Hamburg in so public a manner achieved the same objective.'

'Exactly, except that the French profited from the boots.'

'But at a cost,' added Gilham, and Drinkwater could almost hear the smile in his voice.

'Aye, at a cost. You may recall Littlewood speaking of the loss of our escort.'

'The brig Tracker that you mentioned tonight? I wondered why that came up.'

'We thought she had foundered, but I now know her to have fallen into enemy hands.'

'How the deuce d'you know that?'

'Because beneath Davout's desk was a rolled canvas portrait. That portrait was my property, held aboard the brig with the rest of my personal effects.'

'Your wife?'

'No.' Drinkwater shifted uneasily, glad of the darkness, aware that the relief of confession came at a price. 'It was captured aboard a French frigate, the Antigone, years ago, when it was cut-out by the people of the brig Hellebore. I brought her home and subsequently commanded her. I kept the portrait as a curiosity; you see I knew the lady in my youth ... I was much struck by her ...'

'And she was the woman brought in tonight by M'sieur Moustache, eh?'

'Yes.'

'So she knows you are the spy that Davout suspected.'

'I think that is the gist of it,' Drinkwater said slowly. 'She has no reason to think well of me, though I once did her a small service.'

'She will denounce you then, if she was under detention, perhaps to gain her own freedom.' Gilham's tone was confidently matter-of-fact, as though the thing was a fait accompli.

'Did the marshal strike you as a man to be swayed that easily?'

'He was certainly not a man who would compromise his position for a woman's blandishments, no, but if he had already made some connection between a captured portrait, a portrait in the possession of the enemy ...'

'D'you think that the finding of an old, damaged portrait would have aroused any suspicion unless the lady was well known to the discoverer, and under some suspicion already? If I told you that she was the mistress of a highly placed but disgraced French official all of whose intimates might have fallen under suspicion, would you not think the matter took a different turn and might be seen in another light?'

'It would depend on how eminent this fellow was.'

'The Emperor's former minister for Foreign Affairs?'

' Talleyrand?'

'Just so.'

'Whew! Then it is a coincidence she's in Hamburg?'

'No, I don't think so. The lady is here on her own or Talleyrand's account, perhaps to contact London through Helgoland. The coincidence is that we are in Hamburg ...'

'D'you think she will hold her tongue? About your identity?' Gilham asked anxiously.

'I think she will keep her own counsel until it suits her, which does not mean I may rely upon her silence. I imagine she might be tempted to seek a private squaring of accounts after she has contacted Helgoland.'

'So we must wait upon our friend Thiebault?'

'Altona is on the Elbe, Gilham, and we are both seamen.'

Gilham chuckled in the darkness and shortly afterwards the carriage drew up at the military hospital at Altona.

Drinkwater had thought the night could spring no more surprises on him, but he was wrong. The military hospital at Altona was a complex of long, low wooden buildings surrounding a snow covered parade ground. It was almost dawn when they arrived and a few figures were about, dark visaged men in tattered fatigues.

'Who the devil are they?' asked Gilham of nobody as they stood shivering while the chasseurs handed them over to more of the ibiquitous blue-coated infantry Napoleon had planted across the face of Europe.

A soberly dressed man hurrying past with a small bag stopped beside them.

'English, yes?'

'Yes, we are English,' announced Gilham. 'You are not French?'

'I am Spanish, Señor. My name is Castenada, Doctor Enrico Castenada, before in the service of the Marquis de la Romana.'

Comprehension dawned on Drinkwater. 'You were left behind when the Marquis's army was withdrawn from the Danish coast by the Royal Navy.'

'Si, señor, that is correct.' He switched to French and said something to the guards. They shrugged and closed the gates behind the departing chasseurs.

'Come, I will take you to the English quarters,' Castenada said beckoning them to follow.

'There are other Englishmen here?'

'Si, señor, I practise my English with them.'

They crossed the parade ground as a bugler started to blow reveille. More men appeared, most in worn, darned clothing, some wearing bandages, a few on crutches. There was something familiar about them ...

'Sir? Is it you? Captain Drinkwater, sir?'

The speaker's carious teeth grinned from an unshaven jaw, his breath stank of poor diet and personal neglect. He swung round and called out, 'Hey, lads, it's the Cap'n!'

'You're from Tracker, ain't you?' Drinkwater asked grinning. 'How's Mr Quilhampton?'

The man turned and shook his head. ' 'E ain't so good, sir, but 'e put up an 'ell of a fight, bless yer!'

'What about Mr Frey?'

'I'm all right, sir!' said Frey running up and seizing Drinkwater's outstretched hand. His eyes were full of tears and the two men clasped each other with relief.

'Why, I'm damned glad to see you, sir, damned glad!'

CHAPTER 14 Altona

'How many of you are there?' asked Drinkwater eagerly, his mood transformed by the meeting with Frey. 'No, wait.' He turned to the grinning seaman who had first recognized him. 'I'd be obliged if you'd warn the men not to use my name.' He lowered his voice. 'I'm here incognito, d'you see.'

The man laid a finger beside his nose, winked and grinned lopsidedly, exposing his foul teeth. 'Aye aye, sir, I understands, we'll hold our tongues, don't you worry.'

'Very well then, be off and see to it!'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Drinkwater turned his attention back to Frey. 'So, how many of you are there?'

Frey looked away. 'Eleven.'

'Eleven? God's bones, is that all?'

'That excludes the badly wounded, sir; there are seven of them, plus the Captain, Lieutenant Quilhampton. They took him to Hamburg last night.'

'Last night?' Drinkwater frowned. Had Quilhampton been somewhere within the Rathaus at the same time as he and Gilham? Had Davout summoned him for questioning in connection with the discovery of that damned portrait?

'He's badly wounded, sir,' Frey said, breaking his train of thought.

'How badly?'

'He took a sword thrust, sir, in his left arm, above the stump. It was gangrenous when we arrived here and Doctor Castenada had to perform a second amputation. Mr Quilhampton was in a high fever when they took him last night.'

'God damn!' Drinkwater blasphemed impotently. For a moment his thoughts were with his friend, lying delirious in the hands of the French, then he mastered himself. 'Is there somewhere less exposed that we can talk? This is Captain Gilham, by the way, the master of the Ocean, transport. Mr Gilham, a protege of mine, Mr Frey.'

The two men shook hands perfunctorily.

'They are very lax here, sir. There is talk about a new Governor having arrived ...'

'We know,' Drinkwater cut Frey short, 'but somewhere to talk, for the love of God, it's too cold here ...'

Frey led them into a barrack hut that appeared to be a sort of officers' mess. It was full of Spaniards, the remnants of Romana's Army Corps, left behind when Rear-Admiral Keats evacuated the bulk of the Spanish forces from Denmark.

Frey indicated a table and two benches reserved for the Tracker's pitifully small number of surviving officers.

'You had better make your verbal report, Mr Frey.'

Frey nodded, rubbing his hands over his pinched face. Drinkwater noted the grime of his cuffs and neck linen. His hollow cheeks had not been shaved for several days and his eyes were red rimmed and sunken.

'You recall the night of the tempest, sir?'

'Yes, very well.'

'We lost our foretopmast within the first hour. It was badly sprung and the stays slipped at the cap. As we strove to clear the wreckage we were continually swept by the sea and lost several men in the confusion, both aloft and from the deck. We burnt bengal fires for assistance, but were not certain of your whereabouts by then ...'

'We saw them and put about, but were unable to find you. Soon afterwards we were in like condition and drove ashore on Helgoland, but pray go on.'

'We were less fortunate, sir. By daylight we had three feet of water below and in so small a vessel it damned near had us foundering. We had precious little freeboard and were wallowing abominably. Mr Q., sir, was a tower of strength. Though we had lost a deal of our company, including both the bosun and carpenter, we got sail on her and strove to make northing ...'

'But the wind backed and drove you east.'

'Aye sir, you were in like case no doubt?'

'Aye.'

'We fetched upon a bank, drove over it and anchored in its lee. When the gale abated we began to set things to rights. We had men at the pumps three hours out of every four and one fell dead from the labour. But Mr Q. drove us near as hard as he drove himself; we found the leak, clapped a fothered sail over it and began to gain on the water in the hold. We planned to empty half our water casks and wing 'em out in the hold for buoyancy, but the Danes came out in their confounded gunboats. They lay off and simply shot us to pieces with long twenty four pounders. We didn't stand a chance until they boarded us. Then we gave them cold steel, for there was scarce a grain of dry powder in the ship and that had been spent in the carronades. I think there were about forty of us when the action began ...'

'And James was wounded when the Danes boarded?' Drinkwater prompted.

Frey nodded. 'Aye, sir. He did his damndest ...'

'Mr Frey,' Drinkwater said after a moment, drawing Frey from the introspection he had lapsed into on recounting the fate of the Tracker. 'I would not have you think I ask this question from meanness of spirit, but what became of my personal effects?'

'We took some care of those, sir. Mr Q. had your chest sown into canvas and the whole tarred over. They weren't in the hold, d'you see, Mr Q. had 'em stowed in his cabin. When the Danes took the Tracker, they looted her of anything moveable. I'm afraid, sir,' Frey admitted, lowering his eyes, 'your chest was seized along with the ship's orders, sir.' He paused and looked Drinkwater full in the face. 'That was my fault, sir. I had forgotten about them in the heat of the action, sir, after Mr Q. was wounded ...'

Drinkwater looked at the crestfallen Frey. After Quilhampton had fallen the command of Tracker would have devolved to him, and in the bitter moment of surrender Frey had forgotten to destroy the brig's secret orders.

'So the enemy know we were bound for Russia?'

'Yes sir, and the private signals for the ...'

'Yes, yes, I realize that!' said Drinkwater sharply, aware of the irony.

'I'm mortified, sir, there's no excuse ...'

'I'm sorry, I spoke hastily, I implied no reproach, it's just that... well, never mind. You will have to admit these things in your written report, but I do not think you need concern yourself over much.'

'Sir?' Frey looked puzzled.

'No court martial will condemn an officer who has been through what you went through, Mr Frey and, by your account, gallantly defended his ship. You must submit to the court's judgement, of course.'

'I have already written my report, sir,' Frey said gloomily.

'Well, no matter of that now,' Drinkwater said. He was impatient to reassure Frey and though both he and Quilhampton — if he survived — would have to appear before a court martial, such considerations were in the future and Drinkwater was more urgently pressed by the present.

'Just one thing more, Mr Frey, before we decide what is to be done.' He noticed Frey's expression change, responding to the positive note in Drinkwater's voice. 'What happened after you submitted to the Danes? By what authority were you brought to Altona?'

'Oh, the French appear to control the Danes, sir. As soon as we got ashore, after the Tracker was looted and burned — for she was hulled and aground by the time we struck — we were turned over to the French garrison at a place called Tonning. The Danes, though willing to fight us at sea — for revenge on our attack on Copenhagen three years ago I reckon — seem to lack independence ashore. There are French troops quartered upon them. It was the French that finally took the ship's orders ... and your effects, sir,' Frey added as an apologetic afterthought. But what of you, sir?'

Drinkwater looked at Frey. He had been wondering about the precise circumstances in which the portrait had come to light and compromised Hortense. He would never know, of course, and there were far more immediate things to consider.

'Me? Oh, I will tell you one day, Mr Frey, when we are in better spirits and have put these present misfortunes behind us. Come, sir, tell me something about this place. You spoke — ah, Gilham, you have found something with which to break your fast.' Drinkwater looked up at the merchant shipmaster.

'This is for you: burgoo, though a thin stuff compared with our usual British fare, but 'twill warm you.'

'I'm obliged to you.'

'I will get some for your young friend if you'll hatch some way out of this damnable place.'

'You'll take your turn with us, not wait for Thiebault?'

'I don't trust that lizard, damn him, not now he's under the thumb of Marshal What's-his-name.'

Drinkwater could not resist a grin. 'Very well, now Mr Frey ...'

'Well, 'tis a hospital really, as you doubtless guessed. We were brought here because so many of us were wounded.'

'Were you one of them?'

'Only a trifle, sir, a scratch, that's all. Several men have died since we arrived, but we have been tolerably well treated, allowed to bury our dead, and the commissioned officers permitted, on parole, to walk on the river bank.'

'Ah, that's good. Have you given your parole?'

'I wouldn't, sir.'

'Why not?'

'Mr Quilhampton forbade it, sir. He said 'twas enough to lose his ship, but he would not surrender his honour.'

'A Quixotic notion, but I apprehend he had ideas of escape, eh?'

'He did not know how ill he was.'

'I see,' Drinkwater paused, 'and are visits permitted to Altona itself?'

'Oh yes, we sent a man in to purchase foodstuffs ... before we ran out of money.'

'D'you think it possible to send a message to Altona? Do any of the villagers enter the hospital at all?'

Frey's brow creased in a frown. 'Well there is a boy that comes up with fresh bread and the Commandant has some intercourse with the place for his table ... Doctor Castenada would be the man to ask, sir. He is a remarkable fellow.'

'Is he to be trusted?'

'Aye, sir, as far as I can judge. He professes a dislike of the French.'

Drinkwater grunted and rubbed a hand across his stubbled chin. 'I used,' he said, 'to have some sneaking regard for 'em — unpatriotic, don't you know — but it seems to me that the Rights of Man was a not entirely dishonourable banner to fight under. Then last night Gilham and I saw a boy shot for hoardin' sugar ...'

'We hang smugglers, sir,' Frey said.

'That's rather why I had a sneakin' regard for the Frogs,' grinned Drinkwater. 'Now tell me, if I asked you to plan the seizure of a boat large enough to take two dozen men down stream, what would you say?'

Frey's face was transformed by sudden enthusiasm. 'I've thought about it, sir! There is little time, for the ice is already forming along the reed beds, but there's a ballast bed just below the village and they bring barges down from Hamburg and fill 'em there. They've sails and sweeps, a dozen of us could easily ...'

'How the devil d'you know all this if you refused your parole?'

'I didn't say I hadn't had a walk along the river bank, sir!'

'I think, Captain Gilham,' Drinkwater said, 'that we may have discovered an exit from our impasse.'

'I hope to heaven you're right, my dear fellow, for if your friend chooses to denounce you, well ... I don't think we have much time.'

Drinkwater needed no reminding that time was pressing. For all he knew Davout might have despatched a galloper that very morning with a message to Altona to have a certain 'Captain Waters' placed under close arrest.

Even if Hortense had not recognized him — and he was certain in his heart that his face had stirred some memory — it was likely that when confronted with the portrait and the story of its being found aboard a British man-of-war, the connection was inevitable.

Seeking a quiet corner, Frey took him to consult Castenada. The worthy surgeon provided ink and paper, nodding when Frey explained the new prisoner wished to communicate with someone in Altona.

For his own part, Drinkwater carefully wrote out the lines of Dante and encoded his message to Liepmann. It told briefly of their seizure in the warehouse, the interview with Davout and the suspected duplicity of Thiebault. Drinkwater also informed him of the fate of Johannes. Finally he made his request: I ask that you find the whereabouts of Lieutenant Quilhampton, commander of the British ship seized at Tanning.

'Do you know of a Herr Liepmann, Doctor Castenada?' Drinkwater asked, 'I believe he lives in Altona.'

'Si ... yes, yes. He is well known. You want that I, er, convey that message?' Castenada pointed at the final draft Drinkwater had copied out.

'Yes, is it possible, without risk?'

'Yes ... I will take it myself,' Castenada held out his hand and took the paper and stared at it. 'This is not English?'

'No ...' said Drinkwater cautiously, unsure of the Spaniard's trustworthiness.

'It is like the pharmacopoeia, eh?' Castenada smiled and folded the paper. 'Fortunately, Herr Liepmann is supplying me sometimes, my, er,' he frowned and scratched his head, failing to find the right word and ending his unfinished sentence with a shrug.

'Ah, medicines!' offered Frey.

'Yes, yes, of course, medicines.' Castenada smiled with satisfaction.

'How soon can you go into Altona?' Drinkwater asked.

'Today, I go today. In hospital like this I always want more of the, er, medicines, no?'

Drinkwater nodded. 'Very well ...'

He and Frey walked back across the parade ground where the snow was falling again. 'If he brings me a reply I shall know I can trust him, but it is better that I am not seen talking to him, for his sake as much as mine. Do you watch him, Mr Frey, and when he returns question him. This man Liepmann knows me and will reply in code. If Castenada plays his part, you may offer to get him and the twelve fittest Spaniards out of this place in your barge. Promise them that they will be repatriated to Spain at the expense of the British Government, d'you understand?'

'Perfectly, sir.'

'Now, have you given any thought as to how to get out of this place?'

'The main gate is locked at sunset, early at this time of year, after which a general curfew is imposed upon us all. It is never broken — there has been no need to break it ...'

'Did you not think of escape before now?' Drinkwater broke in.

'I have thought of little else, sir, as I told you,' said Frey in an aggrieved tone and looking askance at Drinkwater, 'but I did not contemplate it without Mr Quilhampton, sir.'

'Of course, my dear fellow, forgive me, I have a lot on my mind. Pray go on, do.'

'The party to leave will break out on a given signal. When the guards shut the gates they invariably congregate in the guardhouse for a hot drink — chocolate if they can get it — after which they take up their night duties. They are very slack, most of them, being invalids themselves recuperating from wounds or sickness. Castenada tells me several have a disgusting and intractable disease, others are malingerers. If we secured them, I estimate we have an hour before the alarm is raised, time enough to get to the river and seize a barge.'

'And the keys of the gates are kept in the guardroom?'

'The corporal of the guard has them.'

'What of the officers? Don't they make rounds?'

'The Commandant has a German mistress in Hamburg, Captain Chatrian is fond of the bottle and Lieutenant Blanchard is not known for his zeal. They make their rounds before turning in, but we have at least an hour. Immediately after curfew has been sounded the officers go to dinner.'

'The virtues of military routine, eh?' said Drinkwater drily. 'I think you can rely on some revision of this regime if Marshal Davout hears of it.'

'I don't think anyone was perturbed, sir, as long as it was only the Spanish that were held here.'

'Well, Davout may be a new arrival in Hamburg, but he ain't ignorant of the fact that a British brig was taken; my personal effects were in his possession.'

'What?' Frey was incredulous, but Drinkwater hurried on without amplifying the statement. 'I want you to leave tonight, Mr Frey.'

'Tonight, sir?'

'Yes, tonight, that is what I said. You have objections?'

'Only insofar as Mr Q. is concerned, sir.'

'I shall attend to James, Mr Frey. I am not coming with you. You will take Captain Gilham as pilot and make for Helgoland. Keep your eyes open for a Dutch cutter of the Imperial Customs Service, otherwise drop downstream by night if possible. On arrival at Helgoland you will deliver a message to the Foreign Service agent, Mr Nicholas, and report to the senior British naval officer. Is that clear?'

'Yes, sir ... but what about you, sir?'

'Exactly what happens to me rather depends on the news Castenada brings from Herr Liepmann. One thing is certain, however, I have no intention of staying here a moment longer than you. I have had my fill of hanging around waiting upon events. I shall break out with you and require only that when you secure the guards you seize a pistol, some ball, flints and powder. A sword would be useful ...'

Drinkwater wished he had the sword cane with which he had terrified the frightful whore in Ma Hockley's flop-house. 'A French sword bayonet will do.' He smiled at Frey. 'Very well, Mr Frey, any questions?'

'No sir.'

'Until tonight then. I leave you to make all arrangements, muster your men, and so forth. Let us say our farewells now and as inconspicuously as possible. Good luck my dear young fellow.'

Drinkwater nodded abruptly at Frey, then turned on his heel. It was going to be a damnably long day and at any moment, he thought, glancing at the sentries lounging at the gate, Lieutenant Dieudonne, or the overworked staff officer, or, God forbid, Hortense Santhonax herself, might appear at the entrance, demanding his further presence in Hamburg.

Castenada proved as good as his word; nor did Liepmann abandon him. His message was both coded and cryptic; translated it read: This thing already known. I am your servant.

Drinkwater frowned over the last sentence, recalling Liepmann's competence as an English speaker. Was it a mere awkward formality, or did he imply a more sincere and pragmatic attachment? Castenada, in whose quarters Drinkwater had deciphered the message, caught his eye.

'I speak with Herr Liepmann, Captain. Your friend Mr Frey he tells me he is to leave this place tonight; he asks me to find some of my men to go with him. I ask him how he is to escape and, after him not telling me, I, er, persuade him that my men will not make a foolish try. He tells me by barge. I know all the barges belong to Herr Liepmann ...'

'Yes ... go on.'

'I tell Herr Liepmann . . .'

'You what?' Drinkwater snapped.

'Of course, Herr Liepmann say you must take. He will not report the barge missing.' Castenada smiled. 'You understand? Herr Liepmann is your friend.'

For a moment Drinkwater felt an ungracious, xenophobic suspicion, but the value of Castenada's helpful intervention could not be denied. Besides, he had no time to waste.

'I am indebted to you, Doctor Castenada, perhaps in happier times I will be permitted the honour of repaying you.' Drinkwater felt the stiff formality of the stilted phrases sounded insincere, but Castenada bowed with equal courtesy.

'There is one other thing, sir,' Castenada said. 'Herr Liepmann suggested a possibility of helping you, señor, if you made your way to his house.'

Drinkwater tried to recall if he had said anything in front of Castenada to indicate whether or not he himself intended to escape with the others — and decided he had not. Perhaps Liepmann guessed from the question in the note that Drinkwater would remain behind; perhaps it was a simple offer, an expansion of that coded phrase, I am your servant. Drinkwater had no way of knowing, but Liepmann was one of the confraternity of Isaac Solomon, and, oddly, he inspired in Drinkwater the same confidence. He nodded at Castenada. 'Thank you.'

Castenada told him the whereabouts of Liepmann's house. 'You will find the house, it is not difficult.'

'I am most grateful.' Drinkwater paused, then added, 'Doctor Castenada, I am aware that things may be made very difficult for you after we have escaped.'

Castenada shrugged. 'After the Marquis de la Romana escaped it was difficult, but I live. A doctor can always live, especially in war.'

'Is there anything I can do for you, after I return to England. Do you have a wife to whom I can pass a message? If you do not already know, there is a British army in Spain now ...'

'I know, Captain, and it marches into Spain and out again, and just now it is marching out again. Like Spanish armies, Captain, eh? You have a piece of song they tell to me when I am speaking English for the first time: The Grand Old Duke of York, yes? He had ten thousand men, he march them up to the top of the hill, eh, Captain? And he march them down again.'

Castenada began to laugh and Drinkwater found it impossible not to laugh with him.

Well Gilham, are you ready?'

'As much as I ever will be. I think you're mad to stay, but good luck.'

They shook hands and took a look round the bare room with its crude wooden beds. 'I have to admit that I am not keen to sleep here,' Drinkwater said, adding, 'you will be able to take your atmosphereological observations again soon.'

A gleam showed in Gilham's eye and he drew a small notebook from his pocket.

'I have not stopped, Captain.' He smiled, then asked, 'By-the-by, what is your name?'

Drinkwater grinned. 'Ask Frey when you get to Helgoland. He'll tell you.'

'It's Drinkwater, isn't it? That fellow called you Drinkwater.'

'Maybe. Now let us see if the others are ready?'

They peered across the parade ground. A thick fall of snow obscured the far side and they could see nothing. Curfew had already been sounded and the 'patients' had all been locked in their wooden billets. They did not have long to wait. The stolen pick, a trophy of latrine digging, split hasp and staple from the pine planks of the building.

'You're the last,' hissed Frey.

'Privilege of rank,' murmured Drinkwater, feeling the old, almost forgotten thrill of action. Outside he and Gilham joined the crouching column of silent men sheltering in the lee of the hospital wards.

'I'd be obliged if you'd bring up the rear, sir. That's where the Spanish are.' Frey whispered in his ear then motioned his men on. Even in the snow and darkness Drinkwater recognized faces. Men he had flogged, men he had sailed with round Cape Horn and into the Pacific, men who had fought the Russian line-of-battle ship Suvorov to a standstill. Some of them saw him and grinned. With a pang of conscience he realized his clerk Derrick was not among them. He had not asked after Derrick and the omission bothered him. Then Gilham was tapping him on the shoulder and the faces passing him were no longer familiar. Drinkwater and Gilham fell in at the rear of the column.

Like a snake they moved round the perimeter of the parade ground. By the gate they could see a yellow loom in the snow where the guardroom door stood open. It was suddenly cut out and a man's silhouette appeared. With wonderful unity, the crouching, loping column froze, every man watching the guard pitch a cigar to the ground. A faint hiss came to their straining ears and the guard turned back amid the sound of laughter. The yellow light shone out illuminating the snow again.

From the rear Drinkwater could see Frey massing his men about the door. They appeared like dark sacks until, at a signal, they moved forward amid a few shouts.

Suddenly the gates were open and Drinkwater caught a glimpse of the guardroom and half a dozen trussed and gagged men. He began to run.

Beyond the gate the road swung to the right and Drinkwater almost collided with Frey.

'Good luck, sir. Two cables down this road there is a junction. It is the road between Hamburg, Altona and Blankenese. We turn right for the river, you must go left for Hamburg.'

'I know, Castenada told me. Good luck.'

'I could only find you a sword bayonet.' Frey thrust the weapon at him. The steel was bitterly cold to the touch. When he looked up he was alone. In the snow he could hear no sound of the retreating men, nor of the struggling guards. The loom of the hospital wall threw a dark shadow and he experienced a pang of intense fear and loneliness. A moment later he was walking swiftly south to the junction with the main road.

He had no trouble locating Herr Liepmann's house. It was set back off the road behind a brick wall, but the iron gates were open and the light in the porch beyond the formal garden gave the impression that it had been illuminated for his benefit.

It was, he thought as he felt the scrunch of gravel below the snow, a welcoming sight.

There were signs of wheel tracks in the snow, a recent arrival or departure, he judged, for they had not yet been covered. Perhaps the generous lighting was for the carriage, not for him. The thought made him pause. Should he simply walk up to the front door?

At his tentative knock it was opened, and guiltily he flung aside the sword bayonet.

'Kapitan, Wilcomm ... please ... you come ...'

Liepmann held out his hand and drew Drinkwater inside. The warmth and opulence of Liepmann's house seemed like the fairyland pictures of his children's books. He had not realized how cold he had been, nor, now that the heat made him perspire and his flesh crawl, how filthy he was.

'I have clothes and wasser, come ...'

It was ironic, he thought, that he should again clean himself in the house of a Jew, but he did not object. Liepmann led him to a side chamber where a servant waited upon him, standing impassively while, casting dignity aside in the sheer delight of washing off the past, Drinkwater donned a clean shirt and underdrawers. Silk breeches and stockings were produced, together with an embroidered waistcoat. Finally, the man servant held out a low-collared grey coat of a now unfashionable cut which reminded him of the old undress uniform coat of the British naval officer. As he threw his newly beribboned queue over the collar and caught sight of himself in the mirror, he caught the eye of the servant.

The man made a small, subservient gesture of approval, stood aside and opened the door. Ushering Drinkwater back into the hall, he scuttled round him and reaching the door of a withdrawing room leading from it, threw it open.

Drinkwater was disoriented by the luxury of his surroundings and entered the room seeking Liepmann to thank him for the splendour of his reception. But Liepmann was not in the room. As the door was opened a woman rose from a chair set before a blazing fire. She turned.

He was confronted by Hortense Santhonax.