much less. We leave it to you as our gift, Kapitan,' he said with his arms wide, and a smile on his phyz worthy of a doting papa, 'in recognition of the great service you do us, in the cause of peace for all our peoples.'
'Well, don't know as I can rightly…,' Lewrie began to object, wondering how many jots and tittles in the Articles of War he would be violating did he accept; charging passage aboard a King's ship? Taking a bribe for services rendered? Breaking bulk cargo for his own use? Extortion? What could an attorney make o' that? he wondered.
'Do we take it with us, Kapitan, it would take hours longer to unload and row ashore,' Count Rybakov reminded him, 'putting you and your ship in greater danger. Really, we insist, don't we, Anatoli?'
'It is as Count Rybakov says, Kapitan,' Count Levotchkin seconded, sporting a smile upon his phyz which put Lewrie in mind of the expression 'shit-eating.' 'It is a small expression of gratitude.'
'Well, if ye won't land it, and won't take it with you…,' Lewrie said at last, 'then I accept, though it's hardly necessary.'
'Then it is settled,' Count Rybakov cheered, beaming.
It was mid-afternoon by the time HMS Thermopylae came to anchor off the small coastal town of Sestroretsk. The small harbour inlet was iced up solidly, of course, its larger fishing boats locked immobile, its smaller rowboats drawn up on the shingle, upside down, for the winter, and the floating stages of its pier resting on the ice. Off the beach and solid ground, there was at least two hundred yards of dingy white ice; the depth in which Thermopylae could swim restricted her to lay off another quarter-mile.
All three ship's boats were hoisted off the tiers and overside-the cutter, launch, and captain's gig-then manned with a Midshipman and six or eight oarsmen apiece, as the main course yard dipped, swung, and deposited stout rope nets of dunnage into the two larger boats. The gig was sent ashore immediately, right to the edge of the ice floe, with Count Rybakov's servant, Fyodor, and Capt. Hardcastle, who was the only other man aboard somewhat fluent in Russian, to arrange for transport, carriage and dray waggons, or sledges. The gig could not reach the pier, of course, and spent many minutes at the outermost edge of the ice, with two men in the bows using a boarding axe and a gaff pole to smash through the thinnest, rottenest parts 'til the boat could go no further, and there was enough thickness for a man to trust his life upon it. Lewrie watched Fyodor and Capt. Hardcastle gingerly step out of the gig and tap their way shoreward, pace by wary pace, pausing to see if the ice would hold their weight, and listening to the ominous creaks, groans, and crackles, most-likely.
Lewrie lifted his telescope to scan the town. Sestroretsk looked sleepy, filthy, and smoke-shrouded from its many chimneys. It was a place mostly of wood construction, half the residences made of logs, with shake-shingled steep rooves. Its one church looked more like a barn, with the grain silo replaced by a bell tower on one end, and an onion-domed second tower at the other, the dome, and its odd-shaped cross, the only spot of real colour in town. Evidently, Lewrie imagined, paint was at a premium in Russia. Tall drifts of snow lay hard against every building, driven by the prevailing winds, or their last blizzard. And the people…! There were only a few civilians about who sported European-style suits or dresses; the bulk of them wore an assortment of shapkas or ushankas with huge ear-flaps, tall felt boots, (men and women, both) and extremely baggy pantaloons or pyjammy trousers… all smothered, of course, in rough hide coats lined with wool piling, mangy furs, or blankets and quilts for extra warmth. And, to Lewrie's continuing edginess, most of them stood gazing dull-eyed at the strange, foreign frigate, as if they were so many cattle or sheep with about as much curiosity!
'It is a great pity that what little you see of my country is a poor village,' Count Rybakov said from Lewrie's side, come up to the quarterdeck unbidden amid all the shifting of cargo. 'Our great Tsar Peter changed us in one generation from an Asian country to a European nation, and blessed Ekaterina… Catherine… contributed more to awakening us from barbarism to civilisation, but… so much remains to be done before we truly become as neat and pastoral as your rural shires, Kapitan Lewrie. As well ordered as villages in France, or our cities as impressive as London, Paris… or even Dover or Yarmouth!
'But we are patient,' Rybakov mused, 'and those things will come, in time. As long as we do not spend our blood and treasure on useless wars, yes? Ha! Look at it. So close to Saint Petersburg, yet no one tries to make it even a 'Potemkin village'! What a hovel!'
'Potemkin…?' Lewrie asked.
'One of Catherine the Great's court… one of her lovers, in fact,' Rybakov admitted with a worldly-wise shrug. 'Whenever she wished to travel to see her people, by river or by coach, Potemkin made sure that good roads were laid out, if only a single day of travel before the Tsarina's entourage. Villages on the routes were re-made and painted just for her passing… She always stayed overnight with great landowners at their country mansions, or palaces, you see. If Great Catherine went by river, Potemkin erected false villages, just the faзades, back from the banks as her ship went by. We Russians… we are very capable of deluding ourselves, ha! To seem, but not quite to be.'
Expect yer vodka helps ye, there, Lewrie smugly thought.
'Ah! Fyodor has reached the pier, at last!' Count Rybakov exclaimed, clapping gloved hands in glee. 'And I believe I see horses and carriages at the inn… carriages and sledges, in their stables. Atleetchna! Excellent!'
'If the ice will bear the weight of horses and waggons, and if they can get up and down off the ice, ashore, aye,' Lewrie said, wary of risking his ship's people at the thinnest, rottenest edge of that ice sheet to unload the boats and bear the cargo to the sledges.
'We shorten the trip, Kapitan,' Count Rybakov assured him with an easy, wry grin. 'After all, there are many peasants there, and for twenty kopeks each… perhaps five pence in your money… they will chop and saw a way for your boats to ice which will bear the weight. It is winter! They have nothing better to do. Fyodor has more than enough coin to arrange this, I saw to it.'
Indeed, after a long palaver, perhaps a harangue from Fyodor, villagers came flooding off the shore, down the stairs to the landing stages, with axes and saws, and came out to the edge of the ice where the gig waited to begin their labours. Ashore, three sledges emerged from the stables on their runners, and horses were put into harness to pull them.
'Let's get the launch and cutter under way, Mister Ballard,' Lewrie ordered. 'Pass word for the gig to return, and stand ready to bear our passengers ashore, once the sleds are loaded. And warn the lookouts aloft to keep their eyes peeled for any sight of infantry or cavalry on the road.'
Sestroretsk might look isolated and without a garrison of its own, but it was damned close to St. Petersburg, and God only knew how many regiments. It was surrounded by scrubby, winter-fallow fields, and a massive swath of pine forest, in which a brigade could lurk.
The serf labourers made quick work of cutting an inlet through the ice sheet, wide enough for a royal barge, and about thirty yards or so deep. Their breath steamed in the frigid air, but they grinned and stamped their booted feet and pounded or jabbed their tools on the ice to show that it was safe. Sure enough, by the time the first boat poled its way into the tiny man-made inlet, the first sledge was there, about fifteen yards back from the new edge, and the serf labourers, in a flurry of arms and legs and strong backs, toted the cargo from boat to troika as quickly as Thermopylae's people could manhandle it out.
'Russia has so many strong backs and hands, Kapitan Lewrie,' Count Rybakov told him as the last of his light luggage was fetched to the gangway and entry-port by two sailors. 'Millions of them. That is why no one will ever begin a war with us. It may not be modern, nor is brute strength and numbers elegant, but… it will suffice.'
'I s'pose, my lord,' Lewrie pretended to agree, though thinking of what a modern army with muskets and artillery could do to medieval peasant levies, poorly trained and led. Or, what the British Navy could do to what he'd seen so far of Russia's best, at sea.
'Almost… almost,' Count Levotchkin muttered to himself with rising anticipation as he joined them by the entry-port. 'Pachtee vryemya, Sasha. Pachtee vryemya, da?'*
'Da,' his hulking manservant grunted back.
'Side-party to assemble for departing honours, Mister Ballard,' Lewrie ordered. Thermopylae was at Quarters, with at least half the guns of the larboard battery, which faced the shore, and half of the starboard battery facing the sea, manned and ready. Marines were in full kit, and under arms, and all officers but Lewrie wore swords on their left hips. 'And, there's the last of the second boat's cargo on the sledges, at last!' he exulted.
'I say dosveedanya, Kapitan Lewrie,' Count Rybakov said offering his bared hand for a departing shake, 'That is 'good-bye.' Adieu, and may God keep His eyes upon you, and grant you and your ship a safe and swift passage back to England. It is a grand thing you do for our countries, might I even say a holy thing, to keep peace between Russia and England!'
