Ebb Tide (27 page)

'Don't let us down, Frey, don't let us down,' Drinkwater intoned, raising his eyes to the distant
Kestrel.

The fire flared up wonderfully, throwing out a welcome heat that drew the Baroness and her daughter towards it. Jago kept them away from the seaward side as Drinkwater stared at the cutter for the first sign that they had seen the fire and knew it for the beacon it was. He walked down the beach, detaching himself from it in the hope that they might see his figure.

For a long time, it seemed, nothing happened.
Kestrel
lay with her bowsprit to the north-north-east, stemming the tide, hove to on the starboard tack and standing offshore slightly, trying to maintain station. It was the worst aspect from which to attract attention. The fire began to die down, though Jago revived it with more driftwood. It died down a second time and Drinkwater was about to give up when he saw
Kestrel
swing round and curtsey to the incoming sea as she tacked and paid right off the wind which had now veered more to the eastwards. He hardly dared hope for what he so earnestly desired, but a few moments later she was headed south-westwards and Drinkwater saw a red spot mount upwards to the peak of the gaff.

'British colours!' he muttered to himself, and then he turned and walked back up the beach to the huddle of fugitives, unable to conceal his satisfaction.

'They have seen us,' he announced. And as they watched, sunlight flooded the scene, toning the grey sea to a kindlier colour and chasing away the fears of the night.

CHAPTER 12
Escape

April 1815

Drinkwater hurriedly kicked the fire out. '
Allons!'
he said and began to lead off down the beach. The sight of
Kestrel
running along the coast towards them relieved him sufficiently to spare a thought for Edward. If his brother had encountered trouble, there was little he could do to help. If not, then Edward must by now, with the coming of the sunrise, have realized that the party could not lie alongside the high road and that Drinkwater would quite naturally gravitate towards the sea. In either case, Edward's salvation lay in his own hands. At the worst they could cruise offshore until, somehow, he re-established contact.

The five of them had reached the damp sand which marked the most recent high water and stood waiting patiently while
Kestrel
worked down towards them, looking increasingly substantial as she approached beyond the line of breakers. Drinkwater took Jago to one side as they assessed the size of the incoming waves.

'This isn't going to be easy, Jago.'

'No, sir.'

'They're frightened and they're hungry. Trying to get them to clamber into the boat is going to prove impossible, so I want you to take the girl and I'll take the Baroness. We will lift them over the gunwale and I want you to go off first. I'll follow with the boy. Don't come back for me. Stay aboard...'

'But sir...'

'Jago, you're a good fellow and you've done more than necessary tonight, but don't disobey orders.'

'Aye, aye, sir. 'Jago paused, then asked, 'What about that bearded fellow, sir? Who is he?'

'He's Colonel Ostroffs Cossack servant and God knows how we are going to get him into the boat. Perhaps we shall just put a line round him and drag him out to the yacht.' Drinkwater turned and looked along the beach. The vast expanse of strand stretched for miles and remained deserted. 'So far, so good,' he said, 'but I don't know how long our luck will last.'

'No, sir.'

'Now go and pick up the girl, for the boat's coming.'

Frey had not wasted time. He had towed the boat astern and now sent it in on its line, a single man at the oars as instructed, to work it inshore across the tide. Drinkwater ran back up the beach and saw a figure sitting at
Kestrel'
s cross-trees. Watching the bobbing and rolling approach of the boat he waited until she was in the breakers and then flung up his hands and waved his arms frantically above his head. The figure in the cutter's rigging waved back and, somewhere out of sight of Drinkwater, beyond the curling wave-crests, they ceased paying out the fine and the boat jerked responsively. The tide had taken the thing down the coast a little but the wind was just sufficiently onshore to drive it into the shallows with a little assistance from the oarsman. Hurrying back to the waiting fugitives, Drinkwater nodded to Jago. The seaman turned to the boy and commanded him to stay put, then he scooped up the girl and began to wade into the sea.

'Madame, s'il votes plâit
...' and without further ceremony, Drinkwater lifted the Baroness and followed Jago, leaving the Cossack to shift for himself. At once a wave almost knocked him over. The woman screamed as she took the brunt of it, stiffening in his arms. The sudden shock of the cold water and the spasm of the Baroness caused him to stumble and he fought to keep his balance as he lugged the greater weight of her sodden clothing. The mangled muscles of his wounded shoulder cracked painfully, but he managed to keep his footing. Jago, ahead of him, was now up to his armpits in the water but was able to lift the terrified girl above his head and deliver her roughly into the keeping of the oarsman.

Drinkwater struggled forward, the water alternately washing him back and forth, tugging at his legs one second
,
then climbing his body to thrust at his chest. It swirled about his burden so that he half-floated, half-floundered, while the frightened woman clutched him and averted her face. Jago was splashing back towards him, giving him an arm as he shuffled, bracing himself as every successive wave washed up to him. Then he was in the breakers, close to the boat, and Jago and he had the woman between them. The boat seemed to come close, then a wave rolled in and the boat soared into the sky, Drinkwater felt the insupportable weight of the wave knock him over. He fell backwards, oddly cushioned by the water, but with the gasping Baroness fighting free and both of them lying in the receding wave, undignified in their extreme discomfiture as they fought for their footing.

Jago had also been knocked down, but the two men, soaked and now shivering, grabbed the Baroness and helped her to her feet. In the wake of the steep breaker, the sea fell away and in the brief lull Drinkwater was yelling: 'Now, Jago! Now!'

The two men struggled together, clasped their arms beneath the protesting woman's rump and hove her up. The boat loomed again, then fell and was suddenly, obligingly close to them, offering them an instant of opportunity. They pitched the woman in with a huge, unceremonious heave as the oarsman trimmed the craft. The Baroness cried out with the impact and the hurt, while a moment later Drinkwater was flat on his back, fighting for breath as he dashed the water from his eyes. Ten yards away the transom of the boat flew up into the air with Jago clinging to it, kicking with his feet.

The oarsman was pointing and shouting, but Drinkwater, struggling to his feet, waved for them to get out, shrieking the order and then turning to make his sodden way back to the shore and the others. Wiping his eyes, he hoped that the ordeal of the Baroness had not completely unnerved her son.

As he waded through the shallows, he saw the young boy watching the departing boat as the line from
Kestrel
plucked it out into deeper water. Alongside him, his face obscured by his beard, Khudoznik stared expressionlessly. Drinkwater tried to smile reassuringly, but the smile froze on his lips, for beyond the boy, a line of horsemen spread out across the sand.

They were some way off and Drinkwater spun round to try and gauge how long it would be before the boat came in again. It would take some time to get the Baroness and her daughter aboard
Kestrel
and perhaps they had not yet seen the approaching cavalry in their preoccupation.
Kestrel was,
after all, only a yacht and had but a handful of men as her crew who would be occupied in dispositions they had made on the assumption that this evacuation would take place in the dark, uninterrupted by the intervention of any enemy.

He ran a little way up the beach in an attempt to gain some elevation to see what was happening, but
Kestrel's
waterline remained out of sight behind the cresting breakers, though a dark cluster of men amidships could be seen actively engrossed in some task. He looked over his shoulder. The cavalry were quite distinct now, advancing at a gallop, and he felt the knot of panic wring his guts. His pistols were soaked and empty, his sword his only defence. He hurried back to the boy who, in turning to follow him, had seen the cavalry. So had the Russian.

'M'sieur, regardez!'

Drinkwater nodded at the boy. 'Where in the name of Hades is that boat?' he muttered, hurrying back. Suddenly he saw the transom on top of a wave and Jago's face above it waving the oars as he back-watered furiously.

'Come on, son!' Drinkwater cried, holding out his fist and splashing forward, waving at Khudoznik to follow. He felt the boy's hand take his and the two of them splashed forward, first up to their knees in the water and then, suddenly, to their waists, then their breasts.

Faint cries came from behind. Drinkwater thanked heaven for fine soft sand — horses could get through the stuff no quicker than humans — but his moment of congratulation was short-lived. Out of the corner of his eye Drinkwater could see that off to the right, half a dozen horsemen had ridden directly down to the firm wet sand and were thundering towards them at full gallop. Jago drifted closer and Drinkwater thrust the boy forward.

'Tell him to hold on, Jago! Don't try and get us aboard!'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

The boy understood. The two of them splashed and kicked and grasped the gunwale of the boat and then they succumbed to the feeling of being drawn through the water as the line was hauled in. After what seemed an eternity Drinkwater felt them bump alongside
Kestrel.
He called for a rope with a bowline to be dropped down and, passing his arm round the boy's waist, got him to put his head and shoulders through the bight as he spat water and kicked with his feet.

'Courage, mon brave!'
he shouted in his ear. The boy was shivering uncontrollably but above him he could see the white face of his mother. Blood ran down her cheek from a gash on her forehead but she had extended her hand in a gesture of supplication and she wore an expression of such eloquent encouragement and bravery that Drinkwater fought back his emotions. 'Haul away!' he bellowed harshly as he waited his own turn, watching the boy's spindle shanks lifted out of the sea above his own bobbing head.

'Welcome back, sir,' Frey called down to him. 'Where's the Colonel?'

'We lost contact,' Drinkwater said, but then Frey looked away as the first ball flew overhead.

'Here, sir!' The bowline dropped alongside Drinkwater. He let go of the boat and struggled into the loop. The next second the line was cutting excruciatingly into his back and under his armpits as he was drawn high out of the sea. For a moment he stared at the cutter's wildly pitching deck and the great quadrilateral of her slatting mainsail, then as he descended he span slowly round. The beach looked suddenly very close and there in the surf was the Cossack Khudoznik running alongside a single horseman and pursued by a semi-circle of hussars.

One hussar had lost his shako and another was already dead on the sand. A second fell as Khudoznik ran in among the horse's legs, grabbed a boot and swiftly detached it from the stirrup, pitching the trooper off his horse which he then mounted with consummate agility. Alongside him the single horseman tossed aside his pistols and drew a sword. It was Edward.

A moment later Drinkwater was lowered to the deck.

'That's the Colonel, sir!' shouted Frey, pointing.

'I know!' Drinkwater turned to find Jago alongside. 'Get the Baroness and her brats below, Jago. Mr Frey, clear the left flank with one of the swivels. But Frey was already pointing the after port swivel, and its sharp bark sprayed the beach with small shot.

Drinkwater threw his legs over the cutter's rail and dropped back into the boat. The swivel had struck one of the hussars from the saddle and hit a horse. Miraculously it had left both Edward and Khudoznik unscathed, but the following shot from the forward swivel was less partial. Edward's horse foundered beneath him and he threw himself clear as it staggered and sank to its knees with a piercing whinny. Khudoznik had whipped the pistols from the saddle holsters and was laying about him when a second shot from the after gun drove the hussars back. By now a frantic Drinkwater, his teeth chattering, was paddling backstroke towards the beach, shouting at Edward.

'Run into the sea, Ned! For God's sake don't stay there!'

A hussar bolder than the others, an officer by the look of his fur shabraque, spurred forward, intent on sabring the fugitive, but Edward still had his sword and cut wildly with it so that the officer's horse reared. At the same moment Khudoznik drove his own mount directly at the attacker. Just as Edward avoided the low thrust made by the hussar officer under his mount's neck, horse and rider crashed to the sand under the impact of the Cossack's terrified horse. With its bit sawing into its mouth, it reared above the dismounted hussar and its wildly pawing hooves struck the unfortunate man.

Edward staggered back and saw for the first time that it was Khudoznik looming above him. He shouted at him in Russian, but the next second the Cossack lurched sideways as a carbine ball struck him in the side of the skull. Khudoznik slipped from the saddle and landed heavily on the wet sand. Edward took a single glance at him, then turned and ran into the sea.

No more than ten yards separated them now, then Drinkwater felt the boat strike the bottom with a jarring thud that made his own teeth snap together. Edward seemed to tower over him before the next wave passed under the boat and then he had his arms over the transom and Drinkwater was jerking the painter and saw it rise dripping from the water as the hands aboard
Kestrel
lay back on it. As they began to draw out through the surf followed by a few balls from the hussars' carbines, Drinkwater met his brother's eyes as Edward gasped for breath.