The Twisted Sword: A Novel of Cornwall 1815

by Winston Graham

  Early on the second morning he came to a village and spent some of his few coins buying bread and cheese and butter and another bottle of wine. The shopkeeper, looking at his hat and tunic, asked if he was going to join his regiment, and Ross said yes, hoping that no one would remark his broken accent. Nobody did. The shopkeeper wished him luck and told him to make haste. ‘The Little Father must not be kept waiting. He is ready to strike.’

  It puzzled Ross that there was still no sign of pursuit. Perhaps there was no one to send. France was in turmoil. The armed forces worshipped Napoleon and would follow him to death or victory; but a large proportion of the people longed for peace and a quiet existence. Who knew what General Wirion’s private thoughts were? And what in any case did it matter that one middle-aged Englishman should be at liberty when the destiny of Europe was shortly to be decided?

  On the morning of the second day he came upon a town of a fair size (General Wirion’s map had been discarded, as it did not cover so far north), but emboldened by the total lack of interest people were taking in a lonely, ragged, ill-dressed soldier, he rode straight in and by luck found the kind of little shop that he was seeking. There he sold the silver candlesticks and the pistol, and the boots, which were too small for him. The one valuable item of his personal belongings he had been able to retain throughout his captivity was the gold watch that had belonged to his father. When planning his escape he had decided to sell this to provide him with the money to sustain him on his flight, but when it came to the point he chose not to. The items he had filched from General Wirion would see him through the next two or three days. He would like to keep the watch for Jeremy.

  He learned from the shopkeeper that he was in Sedan; that if he followed the river he would come to Charleville-Mézières – not too far distant – maybe twenty-five kilometres. And after that? The shopkeeper shrugged. Far, far to the west was Arras. North and nearer, but still distant, was Charleroi. That, no doubt, was where he should be heading. Troops marching, gun carriages rattling, they had all been through here yesterday and the day before, and the day before that. A great army. No doubt he was one of the stragglers. Where did he come from: he was not French? Poland, said Ross.

  He led his little pony away and wandered through the narrow streets, stopped for a coffee and an omelette at a white-washed inn which had some tables outside. It was the first hot food since Saturday night, and last night it had been raining.

  Charleville-Mézières was in fact two villages planted on either side of the Meuse with a narrow stone bridge connecting them. He spent that night in an orchard and again bought food on the Wednesday morning in a hamlet whose name he never knew. It was in the late evening that he first saw the soldier.

  He had seen others before and kept his distance successfully. This man was a figure at the end of a long tree-lined track, riding in the same direction as himself but half a mile back. Ross would not have picked him out so quickly had he not turned in his saddle to see the inclination of the sun. There was a copse by the roadside and he jumped down and led his pony into the thickest part of it to allow the solitary gentleman full right of way.

  As he approached he could be seen to be a tall man, sitting very erect, dark cloaked in spite of the heat. He wore tight-fitting white pantaloons and black tasselled Hessian boots. A well-dressed, well-mounted officer. And glinting plainly under the cloak, where it was open to give the rider some air, was a scarlet, tight-buttoned tunic.

  Ross stared unbelieving. This must be some strange foreign regiment, certainly not French; one could have sworn … Yet he made no move and would have allowed the man to go by. And the man, who was staring straight ahead, would have certainly gone by but for Ross’s pony. Seeing the horse, the little animal let out a snuffling neigh and shook his head until the harness rattled.

  The man brought his horse up short; there was a pistol strapped to his saddle and this was whipped out of its holster.

  ‘Qui va là?’

  The foliage of the copse would not have deflected a bullet. There was nothing to do but come forward … Ross led his pony out. The two men eyed each other.

  The officer said: ‘Qui êtes-vous? Que voulez-vous?’

  In his halting French Ross began the story he had told the innkeeper. He was a Pole, he said in an apologetic tone, who had been delayed by a fever and was now hastening to follow his regiment and hoped to rejoin it tonight. Ross was aware that his uniform would hardly pass muster to a critical eye, and at the same time he was measuring whether a quick leap would enable him to knock the pistol down and unseat the horseman.

  The officer seemed willing to accept the story, and with the words, ‘Alles-vous en, donc,’ was ready to let the matter rest.

  It might have been better to do just that; ships could pass in the night … Yet Ross wanted to hear the man speak again.

  With a humility that sat strangely on him he asked if the officer could tell him the direction the French army had taken; and he listened very carefully to the man’s reply. Ross’s French was halting, this man’s fully fluent, but with a distinct accent.

  Ross said: ‘Do you speak English?’

  The officer fingered his pistol and glanced around. The only sign of life were two goats grazing nearby, and a cottage at the turn of the road.

  ‘What is it to you? What do you wish?’

  Having made the move, there was no further point in concealment.

  ‘In fact I am British. It is true that I am trying to make my way north, but I am hoping to avoid the French and to join the Allied army. The tunic under your cloak – it is very much like a British army uniform. May I ask what it really is?’

  ‘What is your name, please?’

  ‘Poldark. I am an Englishman who was attached to the British Embassy in Paris. But when Bonaparte returned I was arrested as a spy, and since then have been interned in Verdun.’

  ‘And were released?’

  ‘No, no. I escaped last Sunday.’

  The man was in his middle thirties, with a bony face, sharp dark eyes, a mouth which given the chance could have been humorous.

  ‘Whom did you work under at the British Embassy?’

  ‘Chiefly Lord Fitzroy Somerset.’

  ‘What position did he hold?’

  ‘He was Minister Plenipotentiary after the Duke of Wellington left for Vienna.’

  ‘What was your mission?’

  ‘I was asked by the Earl of Liverpool to come to France to report on the sentiments of the French army.’

  The man smiled wryly. ‘I think we know those now, don’t we. Who else was at the Embassy?’

  ‘Charles Bagot. Ian McKenzie.’

  A moment’s silence. The larks were singing in a cloudless sky.

  ‘Your pony gave you away.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He looks tired. Have you come far today?’

  ‘From Charleville-Mézières.’

  The officer put his pistol back in its holster.

  ‘I am going north. Ride with me a little way.’

  III

  On Friday the 9th June the Queen Charlotte, Captain Robert Buller, sailed on her first voyage to New York since the end of hostilities. With her went Andrew Blamey, rehabilitated against his will – or so he made a play of it to his friends, though certainly not to Captain Buller, who was going to be no easy task-master – but privately responding to the challenge and privately satisfied to get his old berth back and privately pleased to tell Tamsin about it and to take a fond leave of her.

  Because of it Clowance warmed to Stephen again, and their own separation two days later was affectionate and uncritical, she hiding her anxieties.

  The Adolphus sailed on the Sunday evening, bristling with men and arms. Stephen had been content with his four long six-pounders. The armourers in the port had tried to sell him some nine-pounder carronades, but Stephen had fired such weapons while in the Unique and knew their range to be too short – also they jumped violently and sometimes even capsized whe
n they were hot. Four solid six-pounders would bring most of his potential prey to heel.

  Stephen had found Captain Buller’s warning all too appropriate. More than half his crew were good hardy seamen, anxious to avoid the press and keen to forage in search of a quick profit; but the rest were a mixture in which out-of-work miners predominated. He made do, comforting himself with the knowledge that most miners had some knowledge of the sea, smuggling or fishing in their spare time, and knowing that if it came to a fight there would be none tougher. Not all could load a musket; they all knew what to do with a cutlass.

  The weather was still stormy, the winds fitful, but it was good sailing weather. With his son standing eagerly beside him Stephen set a south-westerly course, making in the general direction of Cherbourg.

  IV

  ‘What did you say your name was?’

  ‘Poldark.’

  ‘I think I have heard it somewhere before. My name is Colquhoun Grant.’

  ‘I have heard that before, unless there are two officers of that name.’

  ‘There are, damn the feller.’

  ‘But are you not the one who was at Bussaco?’

  ‘I was. Were you there?’

  Ross told him. Grant laughed. A snorting chuckle.

  ‘That is where I heard the name. His lordship looked upon you as an unfriendly observer.’

  ‘But you … were you not Wellington’s chief information officer?’

  ‘Reconnaissance officer. Yes.’

  ‘We never met,’ Ross said. ‘But your name was well known in the army. Isn’t that the uniform of the 11th Foot?’

  ‘It is. And no doubt you wonder why I come to be wearing it deep inside the enemy positions.’

  ‘It had crossed my mind.’

  ‘Because I am a reconnaissance officer I prefer to wear my uniform. I always have. There are obviously greater dangers of recognition and capture but if caught one is not hanged or shot as a spy. As you undoubtedly would be, Poldark, if you were captured in your present garb.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Ross. ‘But so far it has allowed me to travel unmolested.’

  Grant looked up at the fading daylight.

  ‘We need to avoid Rocroi. This morning there was a heavy concentration of French dragoons there. I do not suppose they have yet crossed the frontier.’

  ‘We are near the frontier, then?’

  ‘Oh yes. But I fear it will not guarantee you safety.’

  ‘Safety I seek. But it would not be the first consideration if this were a crisis in which I could be of use.’

  Grant looked at him. ‘It is certainly a crisis. Bonaparte has joined his army today just south of Beaumont, which is some thirty kilometres north-west of where we are now. When he will move and which way are matters yet to be discovered.’

  ‘You have agents?’

  ‘I have agents. Not always the most reliable. It was different in Spain.’ When Ross did not speak he added: ‘Many Belgians have been disillusioned by the peace. They were promised independence and instead have been given over to Holland under a Dutch prince … I shall be meeting a reliable man tonight, late tonight when the moon has set. Damn the moon.’

  They rode on for another twenty minutes and then Colquhoun Grant led the way off the track and into a coppice full of brier and young ferns.

  ‘This is as far as we may go as yet. There are French troops all around here. I have not eaten since morning so shall take something now. You are welcome to share it if you wish, Poldark.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll join you. But I have some bread and cheese and a half-litre of wine.’

  They dismounted and unsaddled their horses, tethering them in a clearing where there was good grass. Grant took off his cloak and sat down in his full regimentals as if he were in an officers’ mess, except that he squatted in the undergrowth.

  ‘You are an army man?’

  ‘Oh, long since. The American War of Independence. It seems centuries ago.’

  ‘But you have kept up your interest – in military affairs – quite clearly? Are you a major?’

  ‘Captain. My cousin is a major – was a captain at Bussaco – but he has since retired from the army.’

  ‘Do I take it you are a Member of Parliament?’

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘Well, Captain Poldark, I can offer you two choices. Later tonight I can put you across the frontier in the direction of Chimay. From there if you make north-west for Mons you may just steer clear of the French army, which by then should be advancing out of your way. From Mons make for Ghent where the Bourbon Court is; those members, that is, who haven’t already scuttled away. After that there will be no difficulty in your reaching Bruges and Ostend. But I warn you, the early part of this trek will be dangerous. And I would strongly advise you, as soon as you are over the frontier, to contrive some change of clothing to avoid misunderstanding on either side.’

  The cheese was strong but Ross was hungry. He bit into the bread to soften the taste.

  ‘And the other choice, Colonel Grant?’

  ‘It would be to come with me. I shall rejoin Wellington in two or three days, depending how the situation develops. Once Napoleon has declared himself, the need for behind-the-lines reconnaissance will become less important. But I would strongly advise you against this course. Not only will it be a bloody battle but if you were captured before you reached our positions you would quite possibly be hanged by the neck.’

  ‘It’s a risk I prefer to take … But I do not think my pony can keep up with your horse.’

  ‘Nor would it. Nor would it.’ Grant took a map from his pocket and screwed up his eyes to read it by the light of the half moon. ‘It is possible I could use you, by God. If that were the case we would have to find you a different mount, eh? I will see what news André brings tonight. We have some friends.’

  V

  On his third day in London Sir George Warleggan called by appointment to see Mr Nathan Rothschild at his offices in New Court, St Swithin’s Lane. They had met twice before, the first time in Manchester in 1810 when George was counting on the prospect of an imminent peace with Napoleon and making his unwise speculations. Mr Rothschild had lived in Manchester when he first came from Germany, and he had been liquidating some of his assets while George was moving in.

  George did not like the man. He thought him a cold fish. And for a foreign Jew whose father had been an inconspicuous curio dealer in the ghetto in Frankfurt he was too abrasive. Only thirty-eight or so, stout, rapidly going bald and affecting no wig, speaking English with a guttural Germanic accent, he had already become a close friend and valued associate of the British Government because of enormous deals he had done for them financing the Peninsular War. George resented this. How had it come about that a foreign Jew, and such a young foreigner, had attained such a position of power and eminence in a Christian society?

  He should have had a fellow feeling, for he had had something of a similar history. It was true he had suffered few of the humiliations of a German Jew, such as being confined within the Jewish district by chains slung across the exits at night, but he remembered his boyhood when he had been looked down on and patronized by sections of Cornish society as the grandson of a country blacksmith and the son of an unimportant smelter. Like Rothschild he had built upon the enterprise and initiative of an ambitious father, and now there was virtually no one in the county of Cornwall with whom he could not claim to be an equal. And certainly no one would ever dare to patronize him!

  But this was small beer compared to Rothschild – many years his junior – and a man almost deliberately disclaiming the polish that George considered himself now to have acquired. Of course he had brothers, as George did not, settled in positions of financial strength in most of the capital cities of Europe. Perhaps he felt he could afford to remain uncouth.

  George had brought with him an ambitious scheme for the development of water power in the West Country and the extension of the toll roads to open up development t
here. He did not really mind whether Rothschild was interested enough to help finance such a scheme; it was the opening he wanted for a general discussion in which several times he was able to bring the subject round to Bonaparte and the likely outcome of the new war affecting the prospects for such a development.

  For a while they fenced a little, the man with the astutest financial brain of the age, and the provincial banker on whose native Celtic cunning had been grafted years of mercantile and financial experience.

  Then Nathan, his cold eyes heavily lidded, turned the scheme down with neither dignity nor politeness; the proposition was too regional for him, he grunted. He had early sensed that the meeting was a pretext, and, once he had seen where it was designed to lead, he gave nothing further of his own opinions away. They parted with a show of amity and assurances of respect that barely hid the lack of either.

  Although he carefully chalked this rejection against Rothschild, in case on any future occasion he should be able to do him a bad turn, George came away not wholly dissatisfied. He had framed his questions and rehearsed them beforehand in such a way that even disclaimers could be a sort of admission that the knowledge was there. He was now more than ever certain that Rothschild had better lines of communication with events in Brussels than the British Government, that somehow news was got to him more quickly and more reliably.

  After leaving, he strolled north, keeping an eye open for the pickpockets and cutpurses who abounded in the area. It was a fine sunny day and the crowds milled everywhere, with hackney coaches forcing their way through, drivers cracking whips; ballad singers competing with fish cryers, and the sellers of hot rabbit pies, fresh spring water, quack medicines and cheap penknives all ringing their bells to claim attention. Beggars crawled in the gutters, elegant ladies were being carried in their chairs, less elegant ones were sharp-eyed looking for a likely man. Dust and dirt and refuse and the occasional stink.