Under false colours

slowly to leeward.

'There, sir! On that damned beacon!'

'Very well. Get the stern boat away. You take her Frey, and mind the ebb o' the tide over that bank!'

Drinkwater saw the boat bobbing across the water towards the beacon. For a moment he stood stupidly inactive, his eyes misting with relief. With an effort he pulled himself together and stiffly descended again to the platform dragging the lowered blankets after him.

He tried waking the others but his throat was swollen and the noise he made was no more than an ineffectual croak. His head hurt and he found he could do little except watch the boat approach, his body wracked by shuddering sobs.

He had mastered his nervous reaction by the time Frey reached him, but it took him some time to recognize his former midshipman.

'Mr Frey? Is that you? You succeeded then, eh?' Drinkwater's voice was barely more than a whisper.

'Are you all right, sir?' Frey asked, his face showing deep concern at Captain Drinkwater's appearance. He waved for reinforcements from the boat and by degrees Quilhampton was lowered into it, bruised by further buffeting to his battered frame. Awkward and stumbling, Castenada and Drinkwater finally succeeded in getting aboard, and they began the journey back to the cutter.

The sea ran smooth over the bank, but where the retreating tide flowed into the channel a line of vicious little breakers briefly threatened them. At Frey's order the oarsmen doubled their efforts and they broke through the barrier to the open water beyond. Shortly afterwards they bumped alongside Alert's black tumble-home. Hands reached down and dragged Drinkwater and Castenada up on to the cutter's neatly ordered deck. A strange officer confronted Drinkwater, his hand to the forecock of his bicorne hat.

'Tis good to be seein' you at last, sir,' he said smiling. 'We've been beatin' up and down for days now, lookin' for you. O'Neal's the name, sir.'

'I'm very much obliged to you, Mr O'Neal, very much obliged,' Drinkwater croaked. 'Mr Quilhampton here needs a masthead whip to get him aboard ...'

Drinkwater could remember nothing after that, nothing at least beyond slaking his inordinate thirst and finally sinking into the sleep of utter exhaustion.

Lieutenant James Quilhampton woke to the sound of the wind. Above his head he could see exposed rafters and the underside of rattling tiles. The wind played among the cob­webs that strung about the rough, worm-eaten timbers, giving them a dolourous life of their own, an effect heightened by the leaping shadows thrown by a pair of candles that guttered somewhere in the room.

Quilhampton shifted his head. The 'walls were white­washed, or had been a long time ago. Now flakes of the distemper curled from the damp walls and patches of grey mould disfigured the crude attempt at disguising the stone masonry. He located the candles on a table at the foot of his narrow bed. A man was asleep at it, head on hands, his face turned away. A long queue lay over the arm upon which his head rested. The hair was dark brown, shot with grey, and tied with a black ribbon.

Quilhampton frowned. 'Sir? Is that you?'

Drinkwater stirred and looked up, his face gaunt, the old scar and the powder burns about his left eye prominent against the pale skin.

'Aye, it's me.' Drinkwater smiled, yawned, stretched and hauled himself to his feet. He kicked back his chair and came and stood beside Quilhampton.

'More to the point, James, is that you?'

'I'm sorry ...?' Quilhampton frowned.

'You've been talking a lot of drivel these last few days, I wondered — we all wondered — whether you were lost to us.'

'Where am I?' Quilhampton's eyes roved about the room again.

'Safe. You're on Helgoland, in the old Danish barracks ... No, no, don't fret yourself, they ain't Danish anymore. They're the property of His Majesty King George ...'

'King George ... yes, yes, of course, foolish of me.'

'And you ain't to worry about that court martial, my dear fellow. I've been taking sworn affidavits from Frey and your people.'

Quilhampton nodded. 'That's most kind of you, sir.' He managed a wan smile. 'It's a pity you made me write to Mistress MacEwan pressing my suit.'

'Why?'

'I'll have to write again ... she'll not want a man who hasn't —'

'I can't answer for Mistress MacEwan, James,' Drinkwater broke in, unwilling to allow his friend to subject himself to such morbid thoughts, 'but I'm damned if I'll have you considerin' such things until you're up and about. Castenada said if you got over the secondary fever, you had a fair chance of walking within a month. We'll make all our decisions then, eh?'

'You'll stay here for a month, sir?'

'Just at the moment, James. There's a March gale roaring its confounded head off out there, so we have precious little choice!'

Hearing the reassuring words, Quilhampton nodded and closed his eyes. He did not hear the note of impatience in Drinkwater's voice.

'I do not think I shall have any difficulty in persuading the Governor, my dear sir,' said Nicholas smiling at Drinkwater, 'none at all.'

'Very well. We need to conclude the matter, and as long as those three ships lie in limbo off Neuwerk ...'

'Quite so, quite so,' Nicholas eyed the glass and its contents before passing Drinkwater the glass of oporto. 'Despatched by the Marquis of Wellesley, Canning's replacement at the Foreign Department,' he said with evident satisfaction, 'doubtless a tribute to his brother's successes in the peninsula ...'

'And of his approbation at your, or am I permitted to say our, little achievement?' asked Drinkwater, raising the glass.

'Ah, sir, you mock me.'

'A little, perhaps.'

'Your good health, Captain.'

'And yours, Mr Nicholas.'

They sipped the port in unembarrassed silence, Drinkwater still studying the chart spread out before them, and in particular the Scharhorn Sand surrounding the island of Neuwerk. He wanted to return, to lay the ghosts of the Elbe that still haunted his dreams and to release the three transports from their anchorage under the French guns before Davout's proposed absence from Hamburg encouraged M. Thiebault to order them up the Elbe.

They were the ships that were to have stood surety for Thiebault's bond, the guarantee that he and Gilham and Littlewood would retire downstream, paid and unmolested. They and their crews had waited patiently until Drinkwater's release, expecting their 'recapture' daily, but a series of strong westerly winds and vicious gales had postponed the operation until the end of March.

'Of course you may not find things as easy as you assume, Captain,' Nicholas said guardedly.

'What d'you mean, sir?'

'While you were ill, two boats got off. One brought a secret despatch from Liepmann. He had it on good authority ...'

'Thiebault?' enquired Drinkwater quickly.

Nicholas shrugged. 'Presumably, but there were what he called inexplicable rumours of a rift between Paris and Petersburg that were of a sufficiently serious nature as to suggest war was being contemplated, at least in Paris.'

'Good Lord! Then we succeeded better than I imagined; but how does this affect the meditated attack?' He flipped the back of his hand on the chart.

'It is also reported, Captain, that reinforcements have arrived in Hamburg, to wit, Molitor's Division, about