CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
What am I doin' up here? Lewrie asked himself for the tenth time in five minutes as he steadied his most powerful telescope on the rat-lines of the upper shrouds in the main-mast fighting top. Swaddled in his furs, he was certain he resembled a shaggy cocoon wherein a larva slept, glued to a sturdy twig; it was certainly cold enough for him to adhere to any metal, did he grasp any without his woolen mittens.
Going aloft had never been one of his favourite activities, not since his first terrors as a Midshipman, who was naturally expected to spend half his waking hours in the rigging, chearly 'yo-ho-hoing' and scrambling about with the agility of an ape. Damn his dignity, but he had eschewed the backwards-leaning final ascent of the futtock shrouds, and taken the lubber's hole, instead of clinging upside down like a fly on the overhead. All to take a gander at Kronstadt.
He didn't know quite what he'd expected when first learning his destination; Arctic glaciers and the entire Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland completely covered with vast sheets of ice several yards thick; littered with upwellings of ice like a boulder field, or a plain full of Celtic dolmens, a titanic Stonehenge.
But the fact of the matter was that the Baltic Sea was fairly open, boisterous and rolling, as much an ocean as the Atlantic or the North Sea, with the ice confined to still, protected waters, harbours, and short friezes along the beaches.
Thermopylaehad scouted quite close to Reval, within a league of the naval port and its breakwater batteries, two days before, and had spotted the Russian navy preparing for war. They had counted the number of line-of- battle ships and frigates still locked in the ice, seen how many already had their masts set up and yards crossed, and the smoke from forges, barracks, shipwrights' manufacturies, and what both Count Rybakov and Capt. Hardcastle had identified as the bakeries and smoke-houses where rations were being prepared.
Even more ominously, they had all seen the hundreds, thousands of peasant workers out on the ice sheets afoot, chopping and chipping a channel wide enough for two large warships abreast, seen and heard the explosions as kegs of gunpowder were used to blast the thickest of the ice-or at least blow deep-enough craters, which the men with axes and shovels could attack, after.
Now, here was the principal naval harbour of Russia's Baltic Fleet, not three miles away, and it was the same story. Every now and then, an explosion spurted a dirty cloud of powder smoke aloft, along with a shower of ice chips (sometimes a serf along with it) behind the breakwater mole, or in the roads near the harbour entrance, the sound coming seconds later as a soft pillow-thump, and a tremor in the sea that thrummed through the frigate's bones. But, just as at Reval, no one had tried a shot at them from those heavy 42-pounder cannon along the mole, or the harbour entrance bastions… no matter how infuriated the Russians might be by the sight of a British frigate, all flags flying, lying just beyond maximum range. It was uncanny, as if stiff final diplomatic letters declaring a state of belligerence had to be exchanged first. Or whenever the Russians could finally get those ships of the line to sea, sail West, and announce a state of war with their first broadsides.
Lewrie tugged a mitten off with his teeth, reached into a pocket of his furs for pencil and paper, and quickly made notes on all he could see, then steeled himself for the descent to the deck once more.
Why am I doin' this? he asked himself again as he went through the lubber's hole, with his booted heels fumbling for firm purchase on stiff, icy rat-lines.
'Many ships, sir?' Lt. Ballard enquired, once he was down.
'Rum, first,' Lewrie demanded. 'Nigh-boilin', if God's just. Settle for tea or coffee, 'long as it's hot!' His teeth chattered and his words slurred from the stiffness of his jaws.
'Ah, that's better… thankee, Pettus,' he said after a welcome swig of coffee from the ever-present black iron kettle. 'The Russians' main fleet is back at Reval, Mister Ballard,' he said, reading from his notes. 'Here, I saw two un-rigged 'liners'… Third Rates, I make 'em. But there's nine frigates with their masts and yards set up, and what looks t'be five or six bombs, along with God knows how many floating batteries for harbour defence… useless at sea. Oh, there's several more Third Rates and larger in the graving docks, or on the stocks under construction… or would be, if it weren't so bloody cold… but the real threat's back West of here.'
'They are chopping and blasting lanes through the ice here, as well, sir,' Lt. Ballard commented with a faint grunt of puzzlement and a frown. 'Even though there is not much to get out to combine with the Reval ships? Odd.'
'They most-like want those frigates out,' Lewrie decided aloud, gulping down more hot coffee. 'I would.'
In Reval, they'd seen twelve Third Rate 74s, three 100-gunned vessels of the Second Rate, and one huge First Rate, which the Naval List had named the Blagodat, of 130 guns. There were also three more warships slightly smaller than Third Rates, more of the sort of vessel employed by Baltic powers and the Dutch, which might mount anywhere from sixty to seventy guns. Still, mercifully iced in so solidly that horse-drawn sledges and working-parties on foot had done the ferrying and stowing instead of barges, sheer hulks, and hoys.
'Not as dire as I thought, Arthur,' Lewrie said with a relieved smile, and a quick glance upward to where he had clung in shuddery terror. He looked back just quick enough to see Lt. Ballard wince at the use of his Christian name, and purse his lips in distaste.
What is his problem? Lewrie thought, vexed, and that, too, was for the hundredth time, this voyage. He keeps that up, I'll start considerin' him in the 'hate Lewrie' club.
'Mister Lyle, sir,' Lewrie said, turning away to consult with the Sailing Master. 'Where might we land our 'live lumber' best?'
Soon be rid of 'em! Lewrie exulted inside; Thankee, Jesus!
'Well, it appears there's less than a half-mile to a quarter-mile of ice off the shores hereabouts, sir,' Mr. Lyle opined as he and Lewrie bent over the smaller-scale chart of the Kronstadt and St. Petersburg approaches. 'We could row them to the edge, have them send for a coach.'
'Too close to Kronstadt,' Lewrie objected, 'and we've trailed our colours to ' em already. I expect their army's astir like an anthill. Uhm… what about here, on the north shore? This little port town of… Sestroretsk? I doubt it's ten miles from Saint Petersburg, by road,' he said, pinching fingers together against the distance scale of the chart, and placing them against the map. 'There's even a road from there to the capital… and if Peter the Great left anything behind, it's probably a good'un, too. Mister Ballard?'
'Sir?'
'Get us underway, course Nor'east, for this piddlin' wee town here on the chart,' Lewrie ordered. 'We'll land our diplomats there, and be shot of 'em.'
Lewrie went below to his great-cabins and found that his guests had already packed up their essentials, and looked eager to leave his company, as well. Off Reval, Lewrie had considered dropping them off at another wee place on the coast called Paldiski, but Count Rybakov (damn his genial, urbane soul!) had demurred, saying that it would be more than a week before they could reach St. Petersburg by troika and that he must seek out someplace closer.
'Ah, Kapitan!' Count Rybakov exclaimed upon seeing him, 'There is good news? You have chosen a place to land us?'
'Sestroretsk, cross the bay on the north shore, my lord,' Lewrie told him, stripping his furs off for a while. They stank like badgers, and had begun to itch him something sinful. 'Far away from any of your country's forts or garrisons, but within mere miles of your destination.'
'I know of it, and the road to Saint Petersburg is quite good, even by troika' Rybakov replied, as pleased as if Lewrie had presented him with King George's keys to the Tower of London, and all of its treasures. 'No wolves, either, ha ha!' he laughed, snapping fingers in glee. 'We are within hours of home, Anatoli. Is it not splendid?'
'At last,' Count Levotchkin agreed, with the first sign of any real enthusiasm he'd evinced since first coming aboard. He'd dressed for the occasion in a new bottle-green suit, top-boots, and a striped yellow waist-coat and amber-gold neck-stock. And, for the first time since he'd come aboard Thermopylae, he even looked sober!
'We must express our gratitude to Kapitan Lewrie for our swift, and safe, passage, Anatoli,' Count Rybakov insisted, looking round the great-cabins at their separate piles of luggage and chests, over which their manservants, Fyodor and Sasha, still fussed. There were three piles, Lewrie noticed, the third the largest by far, and mostly made up of crates and middling-sized kegs. 'We bought far too much before sailing, Kapitan Lewrie… what is the sense of taking vodka or Russian brandy ashore with us? Like how you Angliski say, 'carrying coals to Newcastle,' ha ha?' the nobleman chortled most cheerfully. 'Caviar, pickled delicacies… all so available in Saint Petersburg, and for
