The Flag of Freedom

by Seth Hunter

  It was so typical of his mother that it was only with the greatest restraint that he had prevented himself from tearing the letter up in a fury of frustration and scattering the pieces to the wind.

  Instead, he had carried it around with him ever since, reading it over and over again and tormenting himself with his imaginings. What did his mother mean by now that Sara has moved in with Godwin and Mary?

  By Mary, she must mean Mary Wollstonecraft, who had known Sara in Paris. But who was this Godwin? Could he have taken up with Mary? It seemed unlikely, for poor Mary was fatally attached to an American called Gilbert Imlay, who was, not to put too fine a point on it, an adventurer, a scoundrel and a spy. He and Mary had gone through some form of marriage ceremony, of doubtful legality, in Paris, and they had a child – little Fanny. But when Mary had discovered that Imlay was involved with another woman – an actress from a strolling theatre company – she had tried to kill herself. Twice. If she had now taken up with another man – this Godwin – he could hardly be worse than Imlay. But what part had Sara to play in the ménage?

  Nathan knew he had no right to be jealous, but he could not help himself.

  Not that he could do anything about it, of course, stuck here on the Rock of Gibraltar, with the apes.

  There had been no news of his court martial, nor indeed of any formal charge brought against him, either by the Admiral or anyone else. It was the opinion of Dr Moll that no such charge would be brought. There was a widespread feeling in the fleet that he had been made a scapegoat for the failure of the attack on Cadiz. And that far from being guilty of cowardice or mutiny, he had acquitted himself with considerable merit. In the chaplain’s opinion, the Admiral would not risk putting his judgement to the public inspection of a court martial. Doubtless, after leaving Nathan to kick his heels for a few weeks on the Rock of Gibraltar, he would quietly permit him to resume his duties.

  But the chaplain knew a great deal less about Admirals than he did about swallows. And this particular example of the species was as well-known for his obduracy as for his severity especially when he considered his authority to be in question. Besides, Nathan had no duties to resume, not as the Captain of a ship. He might stay kicking his heels in Gibraltar until the end of the war.

  And if he was not guilty of cowardice, he could certainly be accused of disrespect.

  He had taken the reluctant step of sending a letter to the Admiral, expressing his contrition for having written to him in such a manner. Thus far, there had been no reply. And as the weeks dragged into months, he began to feel he had been forgotten.

  These melancholy thoughts were interrupted by the report of a cannon. Nathan stood up and walked to the edge of the cliff. He saw the situation at once. A vessel had entered the Bay of Algeciras and appeared to be heading towards the Rock, a cloud of smoke in her wake indicating that she had just fired one of her sternchasers. She was under a full press of sail to catch what little there was of the wind, but her obvious difficulty in this regard had attracted the attention of the Spanish gunboats based in Algeciras and they had put out to intercept her.

  Another gun – and another puff of smoke from her stern. Then an answering discharge from the gunboats. Three of them. No, four, for there was another emerging from the haze to the west.

  A great cloud of gulls rose from the Rock and set up a riot of complaint, and from down below among the fortifications along the harbour, Nathan heard the sound of a bugle and saw the red- and blue-coated figures of the garrison hurrying to their posts.

  He was joined at the top of the cliff by Sir John and several of his fellows, who had emerged from their haunts within the Rock to watch the developing battle.

  ‘I think it is the Fly,’ Nathan instructed them tersely. The Fly was the regular packet which plied between Gibraltar and Lisbon with despatches and mail and the occasional passenger. It also brought news from the Mediterranean fleet off Cadiz. Every time he saw her, Nathan hoped she would bring an order for his release. Or at least news from family and friends.

  ‘She is not going to make it,’ he informed his companions, for it was clear, from the vantage of his great height, that the gunboats were gaining on her. ‘She will have to come up into the wind and bring her broadside to bear.’

  The apes bowed to his greater expertise; certainly there was no observable sign of dissent. Sir John nodded gravely, and his followers emitted a series of frenzied hoots in anticipation of the manoeuvre that Nathan had predicted. He did not disclose to them his serious doubt as to whether the broadside of the Fly would be sufficient a discouragement to four determined aggressors.

  Fortunately, help was at hand. Two British gunboats were issuing from the harbour to provide an escort. Nathan watched as they came up on each side of the brig, engaging her assailants with the 24-pounders in their bows. After a few more shots for the sake of appearances, the Spanish withdrew, helped on their way by a series of scornful hoots from the audience upon the heights – and the Fly scurried, with a maidenly swirl of her skirts, into the shelter of the harbour.

  Nathan took a polite leave of his associates, and made his way down into the town via the Douglas Path. Even if the packet had letters for him they were unlikely to be delivered for at least a day or two, but she would almost certainly have brought some more general news from the fleet. And besides, it would soon be sunset, when he was obliged to return to his adequate, but by no means cheering accommodation in the Moorish castle.

  He was in no particular hurry, however, and stopped to exchange pleasantries with two of the local labour force he encountered along the way, for he was putting his time on the Rock to good use by learning Spanish. So he was still some way from the foot of the hill when he saw the tall, gangling figure of the Reverend Dr Henry Moll climbing towards him. His face betrayed a measure of anxiety and he was out of breath.

  ‘I am sent by the Governor to find you,’ he announced. ‘There is a gentleman come by the packet – an official of the Admiralty in London – who is most anxious to make your acquaintance. He is waiting for you at Governor House.’

  Nathan tried to question him further but Dr Moll, normally the most garrulous individual Nathan had ever encountered, appeared strangely reluctant to engage in conversation. All he would say was that the Governor was in ‘a rare state’ and had been ready to call out the guard until he himself had volunteered to find Nathan and bring him in.

  Then, just as they entered the High Street, he said: ‘Be mindful of what you say, and whatever happens, do not lose your temper.’

  Chapter Five

  The Grand Design

  Governor House had once been a convent, built for the Franciscans during the Spanish occupation. Nathan had been here on two previous occasions to dine with the Governor, who had until now showed him every courtesy, having made it clear that he thought the charges against Nathan were absurd. But there was another, more personal reason for his sympathy. They had both been prisoners of the French in Paris during the time of the Terror: Nathan on suspicion of being a British spy, General O’Hara after being taken captive during the Siege of Toulon. For a time they had even shared the same prison – the old Luxembourg Palace on the edge of Paris.

  But there was no sign of the Governor now, only one of his less charming aides, who was pacing at the main entrance, clearly anxious for Nathan’s delivery and accompanied by two Marine sentries with muskets and bayonets. His greeting was terse and he hurried Nathan through the corridors and left him to kick his heels in a small, dark room with bars on the windows while he scurried off to ‘see if the Commissioner is ready to receive you’.

  Nathan was left to brood on the significance of this development. It was clearly not auspicious. Fortunately he did not have long to wait. Within a few minutes the aide was back.

  ‘Follow me,’ he snapped. It took all Nathan’s self-control and his memory of the chaplain’s injunction not to kick the man.

  Another brisk march through the corridors and up a flight of sta
irs, the Marines clumping along behind in their heavy boots, as if Nathan might attempt escape. The aide knocked on a door and upon being given an invitation to enter, ushered the prisoner in before him.

  ‘Ah. Captain Peake.’

  It was the man he had met in the Admiral’s flagship. The représentant en mission with a face like the guillotine. Mr Scrope.

  He was standing at the fireplace, still wearing his travelling cape and taking some refreshment, but at Nathan’s entrance he crossed to the solitary desk and sat down, waving Nathan into one of two chairs set before it. His cape was a little stained with salt spray from his passage on the Fly but he still looked like a man who did not get out much.

  ‘I had expected to find you at the castle,’ he said, ‘but I am told you are in the habit of taking a stroll at this time of the afternoon.’

  Nathan chose to ignore the sarcasm and answered with his own.

  ‘I take what exercise I can,’ he said. ‘In the circumstances.’

  The meagre fire in the grate did little to take the chill off the atmosphere. Unless Nathan was much mistaken, this was known as the Nun’s Room. He had been shown it by the Governor on his last visit here. According to legend, it contained the ghost of a nun who had been bricked up alive in one of the walls as punishment for attempting to run off with her lover – one of the Franciscan friars.

  ‘We reserve it for our more unwelcome guests,’ the Governor had informed him, with a smile.

  And yet the Commissioner’s opening words were encouraging.

  ‘I am sent by their lordships to enquire into your recent report concerning French intentions in the Eastern Mediterranean,’ he began, fixing a pair of spectacles upon his nose and searching among the papers set out on the desk. ‘Specifically, that General Bonaparte intends to invade Egypt – and use it as a stepping stone for an attack upon British India.’ He looked up and fixed Nathan with his penetrating stare.

  ‘That is correct,’ said Nathan. It was six months since he had sent the report but the wheels of the Admiralty moved slowly at times. It was not too late to act upon it. Bonaparte was, so far as he knew, still occupied with the Austrians in Northern Italy.

  ‘And the source of this information was a Colonel Junot, according to your report, an officer on the staff of General Bonaparte in Italy?’

  ‘He was under the impression that I was an American sea captain by the name of Turner,’ Nathan felt it necessary to explain. ‘And sympathetic to the cause of the Revolution.’

  Scrope still looked puzzled. ‘But I do not understand why he would disclose such a confidential piece of information to a mere acquaintance – do you?’

  ‘He was under a sense of obligation to me,’ Nathan pointed out. ‘I had – inadvertently – saved his life. It is all in the report I sent to their lordships.’

  What was not in the report was the fact that he had saved the life of General Bonaparte, too – when the latter was a penniless nobody in Paris. But this was not something that Nathan wished Scrope, or anyone else at the Admiralty, to know about. Bonaparte had achieved almost demonic status in London. His victories in Italy had shattered the coalition against the French. They had wrecked Pitt’s careful diplomacy, left Britain almost isolated, and France as the dominant power on the continent. Nathan would hardly achieve the thanks of a grateful nation by admitting that he had once saved the man’s life. Even inadvertently.

  Scrope was shaking his head. ‘And when did he say this remarkable plan would go into effect?’

  ‘As soon as Bonaparte concluded his campaign in Italy. He planned to use the Ionian Islands as his base, and the Venetian fleet to ferry his troops to Egypt.’

  ‘And then march overland to India.’

  ‘That was the plan, yes.’

  To march in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. That was how Junot had put it.

  ‘And this had met with the approval of the Directory in Paris?’

  ‘Apparently so.’

  ‘So it would surprise you to know that Bonaparte has negotiated a truce with the Austrian Emperor, shortly to be announced as a peace treaty, and is now in Paris preparing to march – not on India, as you suggest, but on London.’

  Nathan stared at him. ‘Yes,’ he began uncertainly, ‘it would, but—’

  ‘And it would be considerably to his advantage,’ Scrope continued, ‘if a large portion of the British fleet was despatched to the Mediterranean – in the belief that he was planning to invade Egypt.’

  So that was it. Nathan struggled to take in the implications.

  ‘You met this Colonel Junot in the Veneto, I understand?’ Scrope was shuffling about among his papers.

  ‘Yes. That is also in my report.’

  ‘Pray remind me – what precisely was your business in Venice?’

  ‘I was under orders to enter into negotiations for the surrender of the Venetian fleet – to prevent it from falling into the hands of the French.’

  Scrope observed him in his clinical way. ‘Orders from whom?’

  Nathan was taken aback. ‘You must surely know.’

  ‘If I knew, why would I enquire?’

  ‘But their lordships must be aware of the nature of my mission to Venice!’

  Scrope said nothing. The room had grown darker. It was difficult to read his expression. In his black cape he looked like a hooded crow, a raven.

  ‘I had a direct order from the Viceroy of Corsica, Sir Gilbert Elliot,’ Nathan insisted. ‘Given me in the presence of Commodore Nelson, who was then my commanding officer. I had assumed that their lordships knew of this. And that if they did not, then Admiral St Vincent had been informed.’

  ‘And these orders were given you in writing?’

  ‘Yes, but …’ Scrope inclined his head in a pretence of patient enquiry ‘… naturally I did not take them with me to Venice.’

  ‘So where are they now?’

  Nathan was beginning to lose his temper. He recalled Dr Moll’s advice. ‘I left them in my cabin in the Unicorn, but—’

  ‘Ah yes, the Unicorn.’ Scrope turned over another paper. ‘Which we were given to understand was sunk with all hands off the Rock of Montecristo.’

  ‘What do you mean “given to understand”?’

  ‘We now have information that she was taken by the French.’

  Nathan stared at him. ‘But – it was reported that she had run upon the rocks. That – that she was fleeing from a Spanish squadron and—’

  ‘That is as may be. The details of the action are confusing. All we know for certain is that the Unicorn is now in the hands of the French. In Corfu, to be precise.’

  ‘In Corfu?’ Nathan tried to make sense of this. He had been totally convinced that she had been lost on the rocks of Montecristo. Lost with all hands.

  ‘And her crew?’

  ‘Are held as prisoners of war. Those that have not already been exchanged.’

  So they were alive. All those men he had thought were lost. Men he had served with for the best part of two years.

  ‘Where …’ he began, but then he took in the last part of Scrope’s reply. ‘There has been an exchange of prisoners, you say?’

  ‘Of certain of the officers, including your first lieutenant, Mr Duncan, who was in command during your unfortunate absence.’

  His unfortunate absence. Nathan let this go for the moment. ‘And the others?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Scrope replied indifferently. ‘They are not my concern. However, I am told that Lieutenant Duncan had no knowledge of your reasons for going to Venice.’

  The significance of this was lost on Nathan.

  ‘But why should he? My orders were marked Most Secret. I had specific instructions not to discuss them with anyone – not even my first lieutenant.’

  ‘So it is to be assumed that – if they exist – the French now have them?’

  ‘I suppose they must, but what do you mean, “if they exist”?’

  ‘I mean that it would be difficult for you to pro
ve that they exist in a court of law,’ Scrope replied smoothly, ‘if they are in the hands of the French.’

  ‘I am sure Admiral Nelson can confirm the order,’ Nathan assured him coldly.

  ‘Unfortunately, we are unable to consult with the Admiral at present, the seriousness of his injuries having obliged him to return to England.’

  ‘His injuries?’

  ‘Admiral Nelson was badly wounded in the attack on Tenerife. It was necessary to amputate his right arm.’

  ‘No.’ It was a groan deep in Nathan’s throat. ‘But he is recovered?’

  ‘As to that, I cannot say. But he is a very sick man and is unlikely to continue in active service. It is certainly impossible to consult with him at present about any orders he may or may not have given to a junior officer in Corsica over a year ago.’

  The shock of this news deprived Nathan of rational thought for a moment. He put his hand to his head. Dimly he was aware that Scrope was still talking.

  ‘However, these “confidential orders” – whether they were given or not – are not the most pressing of the matters that concern us here. What concerns us is the advice you gave to their lordships that the French were contemplating an invasion of Egypt as the preliminary to an attack on India. Their “Grand Design”, as you called it in your report.’

  Nathan looked up. ‘You think that I was duped?’

  ‘Either that, or you were a willing partner in the conspiracy.’

  It took a moment for this to sink in.

  ‘You are accusing me of being a French agent?’ Nathan’s voice was dangerously calm. Even in the gloom he could see the hint of a smirk on the man’s face. It was enough. He launched himself forward.

  He was not precisely sure what was in his mind. Probably nothing more than to seize the man by the scruff of his neck and shake him like a rat. But the desk proved a serious obstacle to this intent. That, and the fact that the Commissioner, in his panic, threw himself to one side, upsetting his chair and precipitating himself to the floor. The inevitable delay while Nathan climbed over the desk to get at him permitted him to utter a frantic cry for help.