"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 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!