Drinkwater looked round their faces. There was not a man at the table whose imagination was not fed by the prospect of real defeat having been inflicted on the hitherto triumphant Grand Army and its legendary leader.

'And the Russkies, sir. Who was in command of them?'

Drinkwater frowned. 'To tell the truth, Mr. Mount, I cannot recollect ...'

'Kamenskoi?'

'No ... no, that was not it...' 'Bennigsen?'

'You have it, Mr. Mount. General Bennigsen. What can you tell us of him?'

'He is one of the German faction in the Russian service, sir, a Hanoverian by birth, something of a soldier of fortune.'

'So your hero's taken a damned good drubbing at last, eh, Mount?' said Lallo the surgeon. "Tis about time his luck ran a little thin, I'm thinking.' Lallo turned to Drinkwater, manifesting a nat­ural anxiety common to them all. 'It was a victory, sir? For the Russians, I mean.'

'The Swedes seemed positive that it was not a French one, Mr. Lallo. It seems they were left exhausted upon the field, but the Russians only withdrew to prepare positions of defence ...'

'But if they had beat Boney, why should they want to prepare defences?'

'I don't know, but the report seemed positive that Napoleon received a bloody nose.'

'Let us hope it is true,' said Quilhampton fervently.

'And not just wishful thinking,' slurred Rogers with the wisdom of the disenchanted.

'Napoleon's the devil of a long way from home,' said Hill, laying down his knife and fork. 'If he receives a second serious blow from the Russkies he might overreach himself.'

Drinkwater finished his own meat. The uncertainty of speculation had destroyed his euphoria. It was time he turned the intelligence to real account.

'I believe he already has,' he said. 'Those decrees he issued from Berlin last year establishing his Continental System will have little effect on us.