Nathaniel Drinkwater 10 - Under false colours by Richard Woodman

Author:Richard Woodman [Woodman, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-12-11T04:53:11+00:00

CHAPTER 10

Hamburg

January 1810

'It is good, Kapitan,' Herr Reinke said in his flat, humourless English, 'everything is arranged.'

'There are no problems?' Drinkwater enquired, hardly able to believe what Reinke, Littlewood and Gilham accepted without apparent misgiving.

'No.' The ghost of a smile now played about Reinke's face. 'You have not been many times in this trade?' he asked, though he seemed to be merely confirming an impression rather than seeking a fact. 'You are surprised it is easy, yes?'

'Yes, I am.' Drinkwater poured two glasses of Littlewood's blackstrap, handing one to the German surveyor.

'Prosit. Things are a little different now. When Bourrienne was Governor it was more easy.'

Drinkwater knew of the corruption, if corruption it was, that had flourished under the city of Hamburg's disgraced Governor. Bourrienne's hand had been light on the helm, but deep in the pockets of his unwilling subjects, for he had connived at flouting the proscriptive decrees of his Imperial master on the pretext that too severe an imposition of trading embargoes would produce indigence and destitution among the inhabitants of the Hanseatic towns. Such disaffection, Bourrienne had argued, could fester and then erupt as open rebellion. It was rumoured to be happening in Prussia and other German states unhappy with their vassal status. Bourrienne's recall and subsequent disgrace was a measure of Napoleon's displeasure, and a gauge too, Drinkwater thought, of the Emperor's likely reaction to news of similar irregularities with Russia.

'In fact, Kapitan, more than one thousand English ships already discharge their cargo here, in Hamburg, every year since you take Helgoland.'

'I see. Then there is a ready supply of capital in the city?' Drinkwater persisted. Such details he had left to Nicholas, assured by him that they would encounter no obstacles and which, preoccupied as he had been by the planning and writing of orders concerning the logistic and military side of the operation, he had been content to ignore. Now, in the very heart of the great city, as he waited for the hatches to be opened and the contraband cargo discharged, he found his curiosity aroused.

'Ja,' said Reinke. 'Mainly Jews, like your Herr Liepmann, but also good German merchants. Herr Liepmann is knowing that the Governor must provide some stores for the Grand Army. Some things, like these boots you have, the Governor will sell to Paris. Herr Liepmann will buy from you, the Governor's agents will buy from Liepmann. Paris is happy it has boots; the Governor is happy: he has a profit because he sell at more than Herr Liepmann sell to him; and Liepmann is happy because he also has a profit when he buy from you and sell to the French. And you are happy because without Liepmann buy your cargo, you have nothing.'

'But how,' Drinkwater asked, feeling far from happy, 'did Herr Liepmann reach this accommodation with the Governor? And how does he preserve it when Bourrienne leaves and Reinhard arrives with new orders to enforce the embargo more strictly?'

'Ach, you don't understand that! Well, that is most easy.

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