Under False Colours #10 A Nathaniel Drinkwater Novel

by Woodman, Richard

• ISBN13: 9781574090796
• ISBN10: 1574090798
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-10-25
• Publisher: Sheridan House

Summary

Acting for the Admiralty's Secret Department, Captain Nathaniel Drinkwater advertises his cargo of Russian military stores, thus embarking on a scheme to flout Napoleon's Continental System and antagonize the French Emperor's new ally, Czar Alexander.

Table of Contents

PART ONE: THE BAITING OF THE EAGLE	1	(90)
Upon a Secret Service	3	(9)
Baiting the Eagle	12	(20)
The Jew	32	(12)
The Gun-brig	44	(7)
The Storm	51	(13)
Coals to Newcastle	64	(13)
Helgoland	77	(14)
PART TWO: THE LURING OF THE EAGLE	91	(88)
The Lure	93	(14)
Santa Claus	107	(19)
Hamburg	126	(10)
Sugar	136	(10)
The Iron Marshal	146	(8)
The Firing Party	154	(10)
Altona	164	(15)
PART THREE: THE SNARING OF THE EAGLE	179	(66)
Beaute du Diable	181	(7)
The Burial Party	188	(10)
Ice	198	(9)
The Scharhorn	207	(13)
Refuge, Rescue and Retribution	220	(17)
Outrageous Fortune	237	(8)
Author's Note	245

Excerpts

'God's bones!' Nathaniel Drinkwater swallowed the watered gin with a shudder of revulsion. His disgust was not entirely attributable to the loathsome drink: it had become his sole consolation in the weary week he had just passed. Apart from making the water palatable the gin was intended as an anodyne, pressed into service to combat the black depression of his spirits, but instead of soothing, it had had the effect of rousing a maddeningly futile anger. He pressed his face against the begrimed glass of the window, deriving a small comfort from its coolness on his flushed forehead and unshaven cheek. The first floor window commanded a view of the filthy alley below. From the grey overcast sky — but making no impression upon the dirty glass — a slanting rain drove down, turning the unpaved ginnel into a quagmire of runners and slime which gave off a foul stench. Opposite, across the narrow gutway between the smoke-blackened brick walls, a pie shop confronted him. 'God's bones,' Drinkwater swore again. Never in all his long years of sea service had an attack of the megrims afflicted him so damnably; but never before had he been so idle, waiting, as he was, above a ship's chandler's store in an obscure and foetid alley off Wapping's Ratcliffe Highway. Waiting ... And constantly nagging away at the back of his mind was the knowledge that he had so little time, that the summer was nearly past, had already passed, judging by the wind that drove the sleet and smoke back down the chimney pots of the surrounding huddled buildings.