'Danke,' he gasped, his breath coming out in clouds that were already freezing on the stubble about his mouth. He lifted one foot to steady the punt and half turned towards Castenada.
'Thank you, Doctor,' he hissed at the grey shape standing at the edge of the ice.
'Wait!' Castenada bent and picked up his bag and handed something to the four men. Then he was plunging awkwardly through the broken ice and, teetering uncertainly alongside Drinkwater, grabbed his arm for support.
'I come with you. He will not live without a doctor, not in this cold!'
Drinkwater looked doubtfully at the narrow punt, then patted Castenada.
'Very well! Get in!'
Drinkwater tried to steady the narrow punt as Castenada climbed clumsily aboard, but it rocked dangerously. When the surgeon had settled down Drinkwater followed, seating himself amidships on the single thwart and shipping the oars. He looked briefly ashore. The four men had already gone, taking the coffin with them. They would fill it with earth and it would be buried in the morning.
Leaning forward he could see in the stern Quilhampton's face. 'Shall we go home, Mr Q.?'
'If you please, sir,' came the uncertain, whispered reply.
Drinkwater turned his head and murmured over his shoulder, 'Are you ready, Doctor?'
'Adelante, señor!'
Drinkwater dipped his oars and pulled out into the stream, feeling the mighty tug of the great river. He could just make out the skyline broken by the roofs of Blankenese and the spire of its little kirk. Tugging at the oars he watched their bearing draw astern as the Elbe bore them towards the sea.
CHAPTER 17
Ice
At the first brightening of the sky Drinkwater sought shelter for the hours of daylight. Helped by the river's ebb they had dropped well downstream to where the Elbe widened, spreading itself among the shallows of shingle beds and islets towards its southern bank. Drinkwater pulled them up to a small reef of gravel which extended above the flood level far enough to support a sparse growth of low alder and willow bushes. Along the northern margin of this ait the stream ran deep enough to keep it ice-free, since a shallow bend in the main channel scoured its shore.
With his hands protected by the purloined stockings, Drinkwater was warm enough from the steady exertion of pulling and Quilhampton gallantly professed he felt warm enough, wrapped as he was in furs and blankets. Castenada was rigid with cold, so that, having run the punt aground, it was only with difficulty Drinkwater managed to assist first Quilhampton and then the Spanish surgeon into the shelter of the alder grove.
It was clear that the cramps of immobility as much as the cold were affecting Castenada, and watching him, Drinkwater concluded he suffered also from a heavy conscience; in his impetuous desire to assist Quilhampton he had abandoned his other charges.
Drinkwater busied himself gathering all the dry driftwood he could find, supplementing it with dead alder and willow branches. Paring a heap of kindling with the kitchen knife given him for cutting the sausage, and catching a spark from the horse pistol, he contrived to get a fire burning.
'This wood is dry enough not to make much smoke,' he observed, fanning the crackling flames as they flickered up through the sticks.
Quilhampton stared about them. 'The air is marvellously dry,' he said, and Drinkwater looked up from his task. The light easterly wind they had experienced during the night had died away. The sun was rising as a red ball and the Elbe reflected the perfect blue of a cloudless sky. The distant river banks seemed deserted as Drinkwater painstakingly surveyed them. He had no idea how far downstream they had dropped, but by the width of the river he guessed they had made good progress.
'If the weather stays this fair,' Quilhampton said as Castenada kneeled beside him to change his dressing, 'there will be little wind to worry us.'
'True,' said Drinkwater, and both sea officers looked at the low freeboard of the punt and thought of the long, exposed stretch off-shore, beyond Cuxhaven.
'Perhaps we can lay our hands on another boat,' said Drinkwater with feigned cheerfulness, though both knew the risks such a course of action entailed.
'I expect we could do something to make her more weatherly,' Quilhampton said, the perspiration breaking on his face as Castenada tried to draw the ligatures from his stump after sniffing the wound.
'Do you use the lead acetate dressing, Doctor?' Drinkwater asked, hardly able to bear the pain on Quilhampton's drawn features.
Castenada looked up. 'Ah, you know the French method, eh, Captain? The method of Larrey, yes?'
Drinkwater shrugged. 'It was shown me by a French surgeon on the Bucentaure during the action off Cape Trafalgar.'
Castenada frowned and rewound the bandage over Quilhampton's hot stump. 'The Bucentaure ... I thought ...' he motioned Drinkwater to help him draw on Quilhampton's coat again.
'She was French? Yes, she was. I was a prisoner.'
'Ahhh.' Castenada sat back on his haunches and stared unhappily at Drinkwater.
'Doctor, I understand something of what you are feeling. When we are a prisoner we dream of freedom: when we are free we mourn for those left behind. Is that not the case?'
'Si, si ... yes.'
'You should not judge yourself too harshly. Left to my tender ministrations, Mr Q. here would probably be dead by now.' Drinkwater leaned forward and patted Castenada's shoulder. 'You are an agent of providence,' he said, aware that he had borrowed the phrase from Hortense Santhonax.
Towards sunset on that short winter's day, the cooling air laid a low mist over the Elbe and Drinkwater determined on an early start. He had spent part of the day asleep, but having first eaten from the scanty stock of supplies provided by Liepmann, he had observed the build-up of ice about them, certain it would encroach further during the following night. Having taken the precaution of placing the largest stones he could find on the islet in the fire, he raked them out and with Castenada's help, succeeded in rolling them in a blanket and placing them in the punt between Quilhampton's legs.
'Insurance against freezing my assets, eh, sir?' joked Quilhampton as the boat bobbed with its forefoot still aground on the shingle beach.
After each gulping a slug of schnapps, Drinkwater and Castenada shoved off and clambered in, settling themselves for the long night ahead.
'Very well gentlemen,' Drinkwater said, leaning forward with his oar blades just above the water, 'are we ready to proceed towards England?'
'I am ready to go to España,' chuckled Castenada from the bow and Drinkwater exchanged glances of amusement with Quilhampton.
Drinkwater set himself an easy pace, knowing it was not difficult to row for many hours with a favourable current, but the cold attacked his legs at once, for they were not subject to the constant movement of his upper body. Quilhampton kicked his blankets aside below the extended furs and shared the warmth of the stones.
'I'm obliged to you, James.'
They could hear Castenada's teeth chattering and invited the surgeon to sample more schnapps until all that could be heard from the bow of the punt was a light snore.
'I'm sorry about your arm, James,' he said, tugging an oar clear of a pancake of ice that spun, ghostly, on the dark water.
'Having already lost half, the remainder don't come as so much of a shock,' Quilhampton jested feebly. They fell silent and Drinkwater knew Quilhampton was thinking of Catriona.
'How did you lose it?' he asked, seeking to divert his friend's tortured mind. 'I know it was in defence of the Tracker, but specifically?'