The Shadow of the Eagle (2 page)

The officers sighed, their strained features relaxed and Marbet ordered Delaborde to refill all their glasses, then turned to Lejeune.

‘And your ships, my Admiral… ?’

‘Are ready. They can sail the instant they receive word.’

‘And the Azores … ?’

‘The Azores?’ repeated Lejeune, a gleam of satisfaction lighting his curiously dark eyes, ‘They are perfect!’

Marbet snatched up his glass: ‘To the new enterprise!’

‘Damnation to the English!’

‘Long live the Emperor!’

CHAPTER 1
The Company of Kings

 24 April 1814

A pretty sight, sir.’

Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater lowered the glass and looked at the suave young lieutenant resplendent in the blue, white and gilt of full dress, his left fist hitched affectedly on the hilt of his hanger.

‘Indeed, Mr Marlowe, very pretty.’ Drinkwater replaced the glass to his eye and steadied the long barrel of the telescope against the after starboard mizen backstay.

‘Redolent of the blessings of peace,’ Marlowe went on.

‘Very redolent,’ agreed his commander from the corner of his mouth.

Marlowe regarded the rather quaint figure. They were of a height, but there the resemblance ended. Against his own innate polish, Marlowe thought Captain Drinkwater something of a tarpaulin. True, his uniform glittered in the late April sunshine with as much pomp as Lieutenant Marlowe’s own, and Captain Drinkwater did indeed sport the double bullion epaulettes of a senior post-captain, but judging by the way they sat upon his shoulders, he looked a little hunchbacked. As for the old-fashioned queue, well, quaint was not the word for it. It was like an old mare’s braided tail, done up for a mid-summer horse fair! The irreverent thought caused him to splutter with a half-suppressed laugh. It sounded like a sneeze.

‘God bless you, Mr Marlowe.’ The glass remained steadfastly horizontal. “Tis the sun upon the water and all these gilded folderols I expect.’

Drinkwater swung his glass and raked the accompanying ships. To starboard His Britannic Majesty’s ship-rigged yacht
Royal Sovereign
drove along under her topsails and a jib. She was ablaze with gilt gingerbread work and gaudy with silken banners. Aloft she bore the fouled anchor of Admiralty at the fore, the Union flag at her mizen with a huge red ensign at her peak, but at her main truck flew the white oriflamme of the Bourbons, its field resplendent with golden lilies. It denoted the presence on board of King Louis XVIII of France, on passage to his restoration as His Most Christian Majesty. Accompanying the king was a suite which included the Prince de Condé, the Due de Bourbon and the bitter-featured Duchesse d’Angoulême, the Orphan of the Temple, sole surviving child of the guillotined Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette.

Beyond the
Royal Sovereign
, aboard the huge three-decked, first-rate
Impregnable
, flew the standard of Prince William Henry, Duke of Clarence and third son of King George III. As admiral-of-the-fleet, an appointment the prince had held since 1811, he was carrying out this ceremonial duty of escort as an act of political expediency by the British government. He had been removed from the frigate
Andromeda
in 1789, and had not served at sea since then, despite constant petitioning to the Admiralty. Notwithstanding the elevation of his birth, Their Lordships were deaf to his pleading, for he had commanded
Andromeda
with such unnecessary severity that he had earned the Admiralty’s disapproval.

As a sop to His Royal Highness’s vanity for this short, but auspicious command, His Majesty’s Frigate
Andromeda
, lately returned from Norwegian waters with a prize of the Danish frigate
Odin
, was assigned to the Royal Squadron.

Other ships in company were the British frigate
Jason
and the
Polonais
, lately a French ‘national frigate’, but now sporting the white standard of the restored House of Bourbon, together with a pair of Russian frigates and the cutter-rigged yacht of the Trinity House.

Having scanned this impressive group of allied ships, Drinkwater closed his glass with a snap and turned on his heel, almost knocking Lieutenant Marlowe off his feet.

‘God’s bones, man …!’

‘I beg pardon, sir.’

‘Have you nothing better to do than hang at my elbow?’

‘I was awaiting your orders, sir?’

‘Keep an eye on the flagship, then. I imagine the prince will want some evolutions performed before we arrive at Calais.’

The warning was a product of Drinkwater’s brief encounter with His Royal Highness and his flag-captain the previous afternoon, when he had joined the squadron off Dover and had reported aboard the
Impregnable
.

The ships had been lying at anchor, awaiting the arrival of King Louis and his entourage from London, whither they had been summoned from Hartwell, a seat of the Duke of Buckingham which had been loaned to the exiled French court. The decision to include
Andromeda
had been taken late at the Admiralty, a result of the interest the prince had taken in the frigate’s return from Norway with her Danish prize.

Although his ship was about to pay off at Chatham, Drinkwater had been commanded to remain in commission: His Royal Highness had specifically asked for the ‘gallant little’
Andromeda
to be assigned to his fleeting command. Their Lordships had graciously acquiesced and a ridiculous sum of money, sufficient to have fitted out two or three frigates during the late war, had been swiftly squandered on refitting and repainting her. Drinkwater, hurrying down to Chatham, had found the preparations in hand aboard his ship to be quite obscene.

‘Good God, Mr Birkbeck,’ he had said to the master, ‘had I had one quarter of this cooperation from this damned dockyard when I was fitting out the
Virago
, or the
Patrician
, I could have saved myself much anxiety and my people great inconvenience. Why in Heaven’s name do they make such a fuss of this business now, eh? I mean where’s the sense in it?’

‘I imagine the Commissioner sees more profit in pleasing a prince than a post-captain, sir,’ Birkbeck remarked drily, and Drinkwater recalled Birkbeck’s desire for a dockyard post.

Drinkwater had grunted his agreement. ‘Well, it’s a damned iniquity.’

“Tis victory, sir, victory.’

He found himself muttering the word now, and chid himself for the crazy habit which he deplored as a concomitant of age and, who knew, perhaps infirmity? He recalled, too, the pleasure with which the prince greeted his arrival off Dover. True, His Royal Highness had asked nothing about Nathaniel Drinkwater, scarcely acknowledging him as the victor in the action with the
Odin
, but had continually made remarks about the frigate herself, turning to the suite of officers in attendance, as though he sought their good opinion.

‘Who are your officers, Captain?’

Drinkwater had named them, starting with his first lieutenant, ‘Frederic Marlowe, sir.’

‘Ah yes, I know the fella!’ The prince had seized chirpily upon the name. ‘Son of Sir Quentin who sits for a pocket borough somewhere in the west country.’

‘Ixford, sir, in the county of Somerset,’ said a lieutenant helpfully, stepping forward with a sycophantic obeisance of his head.

‘Indeed, indeed. Somerset, what…’

Only Birkbeck the master and the second lieutenant, Frey, had been in the fight in the Vikkenfiord, and the prince had heard of neither. Drinkwater rather formed the impression that His Royal Highness thought both Marlowe and Lieutenant Ashton, who was known to one of the prince’s suite, had both covered themselves with glory in the capture of the
Odin
.

Perhaps it had been sour grapes on his, Drinkwater’s part, perhaps it had galled him to be so ignored. He had said as much to the
Impregnable
‘s flag-captain Henry Blackwood. Years earlier, in September 1805, it had been Blackwood in the frigate
Euryalus
, who had relieved Drinkwater in the
Antigone
, from the inshore post off Cadiz. A letter in Blackwood’s own hand had ordered Drinkwater into Gibraltar and led ultimately to his capture and presence aboard the enemy flagship at Trafalgar.
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‘He is a harmless enough fellow,’ Blackwood said charitably. ‘When he was a midshipman, they used to call him “Pineapple Poll” on account of the shape of his head. Sometimes I’m damned if I think he is capable of a sensible thought, but then he’ll surprise you with a shrewd remark and you wonder if he ain’t fooling you all the time. The trouble is nobody says “boo” to him and he loves the sound of his own voice. He should have been given something useful to do instead of kicking his heels at Bushy Park with La Belle Jordan. He daren’t bungle this little adventure, but at the same time regards it as beneath his real dignity.’ Blackwood concluded with a chuckle.

‘That must make life difficult for you,’ Drinkwater had sympathized.

Blackwood shrugged and smiled. ‘Oh, it won’t last long. The poor devil hasn’t been to sea for so long he scarce knows what to do, but when he makes his mind up to do something, he thinks he’s a second Nelson.’ Blackwood had laughed again, his face a curious mixture of exasperation and amusement.

Next morning, the boats of the squadron, each commanded by a lieutenant, had brought off King Louis and his suite from Dover. The reverberations of the saluting cannon had bounced off the white cliffs and the ramparts of the grey castle as flame and clouds of smoke broke from the sides of the allied men-of-war. Simultaneously, the ramparts themselves had sparkled with the fire from a battery of huge 42-pounders, so that the thump and echo of their concussion danced in diminuendo between the wooden sides of the assembled ships. Bunting had fluttered gaily in the light breeze, augmented by the huge white standard which rose to the main truck of the
Royal Sovereign
as the king boarded her. Of imperturbable dignity, King Louis was of vast bulk and still suffering from an attack of gout. Too fat to climb the side, he had been hoisted aboard in a canvas sling, followed by the Duchesse d’Angoulême and other ladies. Meanwhile the seamen in the adjacent ships had manned the yards and cheered lustily, though more at the prospect of shortly being paid off, Drinkwater had suspected, than of respect for the royal personage.

That was undoubtedly true of his own men; what of the French aboard the
Polonais
? After a generation of ferment and opportunity, what were their private feelings? Perhaps they would accept the return of the Bourbon tyranny as the price for peace. As for the Russians, well, who knew what the Russians thought?

The thin rattle of snare drums and the braying of trumpets had floated over the water as the echoes of the guns died away. From the quarterdeck of
Andromeda
the impression given at a distance was of a seething, glittering ants’ nest, and Drinkwater had sensed a mood of envy suffusing his own young officers, as though their own presence on the distant yacht would have guaranteed their individual ambitions.

As for himself, was it age that made him relieved that he had not had to pander to the king and his court? He had caught the eye of Lieutenant Frey, the only one of his commissioned officers with whom he had formerly served, and who had recently endured a court-martial from which he had been honourably acquitted. Perhaps the rueful look on Frey’s face had spoken for all the foiled aspirations of his young peers; the embarkation of the dropsical and gouty monarch marked the end of the war and thus terminated the gruesome opportunities war presented to them; perhaps, on the other hand, the sensitive Frey was regretting his late commander, James Quilhampton, could not share this moment. The thought pricked Drinkwater with so sharp a pang of conscience that something of it must have shown on his face, for Frey had crossed the deck smartly.

‘Are you all right, sir?’

‘Yes, perfectly, thank you, Mr Frey,’ Drinkwater had said as Marlowe and Ashton turned at the sudden movement. Dizzily, Drinkwater waved aside their concern.

‘I thought for a moment, sir,’ Frey had observed, lowering his voice, ‘you were unwell.’

‘No, no.’ Drinkwater had smiled at Frey. ‘I thought of Mr Q, Frey, and wished he were here to share this moment with us.’

Drinkwater had regretted his confidence the instant he had uttered it, for the shadow had passed over Frey too, and he had shivered, as if it had suddenly turned cold. ‘Amen to that, sir.’

For a moment both men had thought of the cutter
Kestrel
, the action she had fought off Norway, and the death of Lieutenant James Quilhampton. It had been the abandonment of her battered hulk for which Frey, as senior surviving officer, had stood trial.

‘Come,’ Drinkwater had remarked encouragingly, ‘let us not debar ourselves from some pleasure on this momentous occasion.’

‘I think we have already survived the momentous occasions,’ Frey said quietly, his eyes abstracted. ‘This has an air of hollow triumph.’

Drinkwater had been moved by this perceptive remark, but his private emotions were cut short by Marlowe’s sudden comment that a signal was being run up the
Impregnable
‘s flag halliards and Birkbeck the master had then hove alongside him, muttering presumptuously that it was the signal to weigh.

Now, in the late afternoon of 24 April, they were well within sight of Calais. To the southward the chalk lump of Cap Gris Nez jutted against the sky; closer the gentler, rounder and more pallid Cap Blanc Nez marked the point at which the French coast turned east, becoming flat and, apart from the church steeples and towers, featureless as it stretched away towards Dunquerque and the distant Netherlands. The little fishing village of Sangatte was almost abeam as the squadron breasted the first of the ebb tide and carried the breeze which had freshed during the day. An hour, an hour and a half at the most, would see them bringing up to their anchors in Calais Road.