CHAPTER 10
The Landing
Kestrel stood offshore until the coast of France had dropped over the horizon astern, then they altered course to the east-north-east and ran parallel with the shoreline before turning south again. Just as twilight occluded the day, they saw the faint glim of light at Calais and, allowing for the set of the tide, laid their course for a point some five miles east of the town. In the interim, Drinkwater had told Frey the bare essentials of the operation. The Russian officer, Colonel Ostroff, was responsible for aiding the escape of a French baroness and her two children. They were currently in a farmhouse outside Calais and a small party was to be landed on the beach that night. Frey's orders were to haul offshore and to wait. Ostroff had assured Drinkwater that they could reach the farmhouse, withdraw the fugitives and escape to the beach before daylight. The shore party was to consist of Drinkwater, Ostroff and Jago, for the latter's knowledge of the local dialect might prove useful.
Both Drinkwater and Frey knew that the operation hinged entirely upon their getting safely ashore and pulling the much larger party out again. It was one thing to land three men through the surf, men who might flounder ashore wet but in reasonable safety, but quite another to re-embark those three men after a night's march with the added encumbrance of a woman and two children. However, any alternative plan seemed too risky, and it was a business Drinkwater had some knowledge of. He therefore gave Frey careful instructions, and the entire crew of the cutter were made aware of the night's business.
As they ran in towards the coast again, they all ate a hearty meal of boiled ham, onions and carrots, accompanied by the last of the fresh bread. Ostroff and Drinkwater prepared a brace of pistols each which, with their swords, were neatly parcelled up with powder, ball and shot, and wrapped in oil-cloth. Drinkwater pulled grey trousers on over his boots but wore his old undress uniform coat and a plain bicorne hat. Ostroff remained in his dark civilian habit and Jago was loaned a blue coat.
There would be a quarter moon after midnight, though the night sky was cloudy and the blustery northerly breeze was chilly enough to drive people indoors after dark. The breeze would, however, also create a heavy surf on the beach, and Drinkwater tried to warn his brother of the problems they might encounter. It was an hour after dark before they finally closed with the coast, the boatswain plying the lead amidships. The proximity of the shore was announced by a steepening of the sea and the appearance of the pale strand with its fringe of rollers above which the spray smoked pallidly in the fitful starlight. Frey brought the cutter to, the boat was launched and the three men tumbled into it, Drinkwater amidships at the oars, Jago forward and Ostroff aft. Each man carried his oil-cloth bundle over his back on a line. The two oars were secured by lanyards so that they should not be lost, and in Jago's charge the boat's painter was secured to a long length of line flaked out on the cutter's deck, a line made up of several lengths which the cutter had provided and which included the unrove halliards from the main and jib topsails.
As soon as the boat had shoved off, Frey dropped the cutter's head-sails, scandalized her mainsail and let go her anchor, to hold Kestrel just long enough to let the boat, under the impetus of wind and sea, drift and be paddled towards the beach. Drinkwater gently back-watered, keeping the boat's head to sea, while Jago watched the line as the men on board Kestrel paid it out. The boat bobbed into the surf where it fell first one way and then the other, the drag on the line and a deft working of the oars by Drinkwater amidships keeping her from completely broaching to, though she rolled abominably and Edward shifted awkwardly, clearly unhappy with the violent motion and the occasional slop of water into her.
'Sit still, damn it!' Drinkwater commanded sharply. Suddenly, some twenty yards from the thundering surf, the boat jerked. The line was not long enough. Then, after a few moments, the vessel fell violently into the trough of a wave, evidence that a further length had been bent aboard Kestrel and was being paid out. Now they entered the last and most dangerous phase of their uncomfortable transit.
Drinkwater leaned back and turned his head. 'Be ready, Jago.' He had to shout to make himself heard as the waves now peaked and fell in breakers all about them. Rising high, the boat suddenly dropped and Drinkwater anticipated a bone-jarring crash as the keel struck the sand, but the next second, at a steep angle and lurching to one side as she went, she seemed to climb like a rocket as a roller ran ashore under her.
'Now!'
Jago jerked the boat's painter with all his might and they felt the bow tugged round as those aboard Kestrel ceased paying out and belayed the long line. They shot up and down, the spray filling the air about them, their hands, gripping the gunwales, soaked by water splashing into the boat.
'Over you go!' Drinkwater shouted at Edward, who sat hunched and immobile in the stern. The violent movement of the boat almost threw them out of its own accord, then he was gone, suddenly leaping and turning all at the same moment, so that a few seconds later Drinkwater saw the dark shape of him floundering ashore against the pale sand and the final wash of the breakers as they surged exhausted up the beach.
Now it was his turn. He shipped the oars and moved aft, taking his weight and bracing himself with his hands on the gunwales. He crouched on the stern thwart, facing the beach. In fact he felt his muscles cracking with the effort; he was too damned old for this sort of thing! In fact he was a bloody fool! He looked up. Edward was standing not thirty yards away, watching the boat as it sawed at the painter and rose up and crashed down in the very midst of the breakers. Drinkwater cleared his head and concentrated, seeking a moment as the boat descended when he should not have too much water beneath him. Sensing the time was right, he jumped over the stern, landed heavily up to his knees in water and ran forward as fast as he could, almost toppling as he went. He felt his brother grab him and he paused, panting.
'Damn you and your confounded Baroness,' he gasped without rancour. Edward chuckled and both men turned and watched for Jago to follow. 'You managed that very well,' Drinkwater said.
'It is just as well that I learned a few Cossack riding tricks,' Edward muttered shortly. 'Ah, here he comes.' Jago was caught by an incoming breaker which washed up around him, soaking him to the waist, but now they were ashore, their bundles dry and none of them much the worse for the experience.
'It'll be a damned sight more difficult leaving,' Drinkwater remarked, as they turned and walked directly up the wide slope of the beach. Half way up the sand they stopped and stood in a group. Drinkwater reckoned that with the night-glass, Frey would be able to see that they had made it and, sure enough, the boat was suddenly gone, plucked back to Kestrel by the long line. Before they struck inland Drinkwater took a last look seaward. He could just make out the dark shape where the cutter's scandalized mainsail stood out against the sky. The tide was making and had two hours yet to rise.
'Come on,' he said, and turned inland. They needed to find the coast road and a landmark to which they could return and which would lead them back to the right part of the vast beach which ran for miles, from Calais to Ostend and beyond, to Breskens and the great estuary of the Schelde, away to the east-north-east.
They found some pollarded willows which would serve their purpose, then Edward went ahead to discover the road. He said something in French which Jago repeated to Drinkwater. 'He says, sir, that it is as well he is an officer of light cavalry. An officer of light cavalry has to have an eye for the country.'