by David McDine
‘Thank you. That was my mission and now I will leave you in peace. My apologies for interrupting your committee meeting.’
Citizen Bardet appeared surprised, and amused. ‘As you can see and ’ear, there is little peace in a ’ulk. But I thank you for your … politesse. It is something we are not accustomed to from the English.’
‘Please don’t mention it. Now, is there anything I can do for you?’
‘Nothing, unless you can set us all free or perhaps arrange for a shipment of good French wine …’
Then, as an afterthought, he added: ‘But maybe you would like to buy a souvenir of your visit?’ He waved towards the craftsmen. ‘Time ’angs ’eavy on the ’ulks, so the men with skills pass the day making things with bone, wood – whatever they can find …’
Anson nodded. ‘I noticed them at work and I admire their industry.’
‘The things they make are sold to the guards, visitors and dealers who sell them on ashore. Guillotines are especially popular with our English customers, although, regrettably the models are made from bones of animals rather than aristos …’
‘I see,’ Anson smiled at the black humour. ‘I suppose for republican Frenchmen aristocratic bones would be more appropriate!’
‘Bien sȗr! But they are difficult to come by in the ’ulks. Nevertheless, every purchase by visitors ’elps the economy of our little world. If you buy something, the craftsman who sells it to you then pays a comrade to perform some service, in turn he may purchase some extra food, and so it goes …’
‘I see. Yes, I would be delighted to buy a souvenir. He held out his hand and for a moment the Frenchman hesitated, looking round as if gauging the reaction of his fellow prisoners. Then, mind made up, he took Anson’s hand.
‘Au revoir, Citoyen Bardet, et bon chance.’
The Frenchman grinned. ‘A bientôt, monsieur. But if we meet again I very much ’ope our positions will be reversed!’
The guard sergeant led Anson to where the craftsmen were busily engaged in producing items for sale to make life in the hulk more bearable – and, not least, to keep themselves occupied.
As they approached, a large rat scurried past pursued by two half-naked prisoners armed with pointed sticks. Anson glanced at the sergeant but he appeared oblivious. No doubt such hunts were commonplace here.
Pinned to a bulkhead beside the craftsmen was a poster promoting a boxing match to be held on board several days hence, pitching a powerful-looking Breton against a scar-faced bruiser of similar hefty build from Marseilles.
The sergeant noted his interest and grinned. ‘Quite some fight, that’ll be, sir. They ’ate one another, that pair do. Both reckon they’re the hulk’s champion, so this’ll be a decider. A lot of money will be riding on this match …’
He paused, no doubt wondering if the visiting officer might be too regimental to trust with such information, tapped his nose and added conspiratorially: ‘Of course, they ain’t supposed to gamble but ’ow can you stop ’em? Anyway, I fancy a bit of a flutter meself.’
Anson was non-committal. ‘Really?’
‘Yeah, my money’ll be on the Breton. Tough as a brick-built shite-house, he is. Mind you, the other bloke’s supposed to ’ave learnt ’is trade in the drinkin’ dens of Marseilles where they’ll duff you up soon as look at you, so it could go either way. But the Breton hasn’t got so many scars on his face as the other bloke so I reckon that’s a good sign.’
Anson raised his eyebrows. Gambling didn’t interest him and he had no great wish to see a couple of Frenchmen beat the living daylights out of one another. But he reckoned it was not for him to interfere with the running of the hulk. That was down to the absent-on-business Lieutenant Packham, wherever he might be.
Nodding to the craftsmen, Anson examined their work: beautiful ships, houses and a great variety of other models made from bone, exquisite marquetry boxes and straw-work mats and baskets.
There were also paintings for sale – some landscapes, apparently of remembered French scenes, and others showing the hulks themselves. There were portraits, too. Some were of famous people including France’s First Consul, General Bonaparte and his wife Josephine, presumably painted from memory, and there were others, both of prisoners and members of the guard force.
Spotting a potential customer, one of the prisoner-artists offered to paint Anson’s likeness there and then, assuring him: ‘Monsieur, I will make you look almost human!’
But he declined, telling himself he must not keep the boat waiting any longer. In any event he was not keen to have his scarred features recorded for posterity, and, since he had no wife, who would he give such a painting to anyway?
Nevertheless, after a careful perusal of what was on offer he left the hulk carrying two neatly-wrapped packages. He knew exactly who would appreciate such mementos.
6
Back from the Dead
Back ashore, Anson reported to Captain Wills on the success of his assignment.
‘You were well received, I hope?’
‘The captain was not on board, sir. Ashore on, er, official business, I believe, and the officer of marines is sick in hospital. But his sergeant proved a perfectly competent guide.’
Captain Wills raised his eyebrows. He was clearly well aware of the type of business Packham was likely to have been pursuing ashore.
‘And you managed to meet the senior prisoner, Bardet?’
‘I did, sir. He was holding a meeting with his committee but he received me respectfully and I reported on Lieutenant Hurel’s funeral …’
‘Did you return his belongings?’
‘I did, sir, as instructed.’
‘In front of them all?’
Puzzled, Anson nodded.
‘Excellent! And you were believed?’
Anson frowned. ‘Why would I not be believed, sir? I’m afraid I don’t follow …’
‘It is of the greatest importance that they believed your version of events.’
‘But why would they not, sir? Naturally they accepted what I told them. After all, I merely reported what I had observed myself on Dead Man’s Island.’
Wills laughed. ‘Capital! But I have to tell you that you have successfully sold them a pup, a perfect lie!’
Anson was shocked. ‘How can that be, sir?’
The captain put up his hands. ‘Now at last I can let you in on a closely guarded secret – the reason why you were summoned to attend that mock funeral and why you were sent on board the hulk to report back to the Frogs.’
‘Mock funeral?’ Anson queried.
‘Yes, mock.’ Wills got up, opened the door to a connecting office and added theatrically: ‘I think it’s time you met the late lamented Lieutenant Hurel …’
Anson’s astonishment could not have been greater.
He stood open-mouthed as the captain ushered in a lank-haired young man of medium height, dark, gaunt good looks, wearing a coarse, ill-fitting cutaway blue brass-buttoned jacket, check shirt, red neckerchief, loose off-white trousers and a pair of once-black shoes that had clearly seen far better days – and long ago at that.
‘Lieutenant Anson, meet Lieutenant Hurel, former inmate of the prisoner-of-war hulks!’
‘Good grief!’ Anson exclaimed. ‘I thought I had just attended your funeral!’
‘Most kind of you, monsieur, and you have reported my death and burial to my fellow countrymen I understand?’
Suddenly Anson could see things clearly. He turned to Captain Wills. ‘Am I to understand that you wished to make this officer disappear from the hulk without making his comrades suspicious, sir?’
‘Correct!’
‘So his death and the funeral were staged?’
The captain nodded. ‘Using a pretended fever and a coffin filled with flints.’
‘And I was duped into believing it all so that I could convince the French he really was dead …?’
Captain Wills clapped his hands. ‘Spot on, my boy, spot on! But to say you were duped i
s coming it a bit heavy. To make sure you were entirely convincing I was obliged to keep you in the dark … until now.’
‘But why have you gone to all this trouble? Not wishing to insult Lieutenant Hurel, but what is it about him that makes all this subterfuge necessary?’
The Frenchman had seated himself at the captain’s desk, folded his arms and assumed a slightly supercilious smile.
Wills waved Anson to another chair. ‘He is of the greatest importance to our cause because he has indicated his willingness to undertake a clandestine mission. He is a royalist, you see.’
Anson looked questioningly at the Frenchman, who nodded. ‘It is true, monsieur. I owe the republicans nothing. They are my enemies. You British are their enemies, too, so it follows that you are my friends. I ’ave what I believe you call a score to settle …’
‘And may I ask what this mission is and what part I am expected to play, other than to attend fake funerals?’
Hurel made to answer, but Captain Wills hushed him. ‘Look, suffice it to say that it will involve a return to France. But it is not for me to say more. In fact I know very little more myself. This whole business was the brain-child of Home Popham and now that he has left—’
‘It will still go ahead?’
‘Yes, although not quite as originally planned. Now that the French have signed a peace treaty with the German states they can concentrate all their efforts on having a go at us. Home Popham had envisaged a general reconnaissance of invasion preparations in the French ports, but now I gather a more specific mission has arisen.’
‘But why all the play-acting you asked me to do on the hulk? Surely his fellow prisoners cannot have any influence on such a mission?’
‘Ah, Anson, you are wrong there. What with exchanges of prisoners, escapes, and the presence of spies or traitors, bribed or no, connected with the hulks … well, to put it simply, wooden walls have ears.’
That, Anson knew, was only too true. His sea service had taught him that it was next to impossible to keep something hidden from others’ ears in a warship.
Captain Wills assured him: ‘What’s more, believe it or not, we know that the prisoners are able to communicate not only between the hulks but with people ashore – even to and from France itself.’
‘Good grief!’
‘So you can see why it is vital that Hurel is believed dead, and by returning his possessions so publicly I very much hope you have convinced his fellow prisoners of that. Your task will be to get him back to France, clandestinely, so that he can pursue his mission.’
Anson asked: ‘What’s to become of Lieutenant Hurel in the meantime?’
‘You will have noted that he has assumed the appearance of a common sailor?’
Anson was forced to acknowledge that the Frenchman looked the part.
‘I had first proposed that he dress as a pregnant woman, posing as the wife of an officer away at sea, but—’
‘Non, absolutely non!’
‘Calm down, Hurel, you have already won that argument.’
‘Dressing as a woman would ’ave been an affront to my ’onour.’
‘Yes, yes, but no-one would have known.’
‘I would have known, monsieur. To me, ’onour is everything. I feel I should remind you that one of my female ancestors was the mistress of a king!’
‘Forget all that, Hurel. You won your point, but now you must pose as a common sailor and when anyone else is around you must carry Lieutenant Anson’s kit.’
‘That will be preferable to becoming a woman.’
Close to exasperation, Captain Wills turned to Anson. ‘So now Hurel must do another disappearing trick. He needs to harbour up well away from here until he’s been well and truly forgotten by one and all, and until certain other plans are in place, but somewhere convenient for his coming mission.’
‘And you wish me to help him disappear, sir?’
‘You are a Man of Kent, are you not, so you would appear to be the ideal person to conceal him within striking distance of the coast. He must vanish off the face of the earth, mind. Can you make that happen?’
Anson thought for a moment. ‘I could take him to Seagate …’
Captain Wills shook his head. ‘Not yet. That would be too public and what with the smugglers going back and forth, well, the Channel ports leak like sieves.’
During his escape from France Anson had learned how the Kentish smugglers were tolerated over the other side because of their free trading despite the blockades. Indeed, they were more or less free to come and go whenever it suited them, especially via the port of Dunkirk.
And it was well known in the service that they carried not only the gold the enemy needed to fund the war in return for smuggled goods, but no doubt escaped prisoners, spies – even the latest English newspapers. No, it would not do to risk exposure by taking Hurel to the coast until the last moment.
Captain Wills toyed with his side whiskers and asked: ‘Your father is a clergyman is he not?’
‘Yes, he’s the rector at Hardres Minnis, near Canterbury. I suppose we could go there.’ But then another thought struck him. ‘No, better still, I have friend who lives near Faversham. We’ll go there.’
‘Is this friend discreet?’
‘None more so, sir.’
‘And his house?’
‘Spacious, and well away from the nearest village. He is a retired banker, unmarried, but his orphaned niece lives with him.’
‘Servants?’
Anson’s mind went back to those peaceful days he had spent as the guest of Josiah Parkin at Ludden Hall just before he had helped HMS Euphemus break away from the mutinous fleet at the Nore anchorage three years earlier.
‘It was where I was convalescing when you sent for me during the mutiny, sir. There’s just a butler-cum-groom and his wife who is his housekeeper and cook, two live-in maids, a gardener who tends the grounds several times a week. Oh, and a woman from the village helps sometimes.’
He smiled at the recollection of Emily, the large middle-aged lady with work-coarsened hands and a noticeable moustache who had been his ministering angel when he had been laid low with fever.
‘And you are confident they are all trustworthy?’
‘Absolutely, sir! Without question.’
Wills nodded. ‘Good. Then I suggest you hole up there and when Lord Nelson is ready you will be sent for and the faceless ones at Dover Castle will brief you fully. But that will not be for at least a couple of weeks.’
Anson knew the captain was referring to those who looked after intelligence matters on the invasion coast, but he was taken aback by the mention of the great naval hero. ‘Did you say Nelson, sir?’
Wills smiled. ‘Did I? Must have been the slip of the tongue. I merely meant to say that you’d be summoned and fully briefed once the admiral is in the Downs and certain other preparations are ready.’
Anson knew that there was a mishmash of warships gathering in the great Downs anchorage off the fishing town of Deal, and it could most likely mean some sort of action was pending against the French whose ports just twenty or thirty miles across the Channel were reputed to be full of invasion barges.
But for the moment Captain Wills was clearly not willing – or able – to impart anything else.
A smarting sensation from Anson’s tender backside reminded him: ‘I rode here, sir, so if we are to get to Faversham, Monsieur Hurel will need a horse.’
The Frenchman laughed. ‘I fear that thanks to the less than adequate rations the English serve on the ’ulks I am now all skins and bones and I will not be able to sit a ’orse for very long, gentlemen. On the ’ulk I could ’ave eaten one, but I would prefer not to ride one at present!’
The captain deliberated for a moment before announcing: ‘Neither of you need ride. It would make you too conspicuous in any case. Sailors on horseback? No, I don’t think so. I’ll arrange for a private carriage to take you.’
‘And my horse?’
‘It ca
n take a make and mend, Anson, and trot along behind. All I ask is that you both disembark a few miles from your friend’s house and send the coach back. It is of the utmost importance that no-one else must know where you are. Is that clear?’
‘Perfectly clear, sir.’
7
Return to Ludden Hall
Near a familiar fork in the Dover road Anson called for the coachman to stop and motioned to Hurel to disembark.
They climbed down, Anson unhitched Ebony and watched as the driver turned the coach slowly with much fussing and chivvying of the horses. He was forced to stop the manoeuvre to let a mail coach speed by at some eight miles an hour, but then completed the turn and with a wave of his whip set off back towards Chatham.
Anson looked after the retreating mail coach wistfully, recalling the journey he had made in – or rather clinging to the top of – just such a vehicle three years earlier after the guard had been wounded during an attempted robbery.
At the time Anson had been on his way to deliver important papers to the admiral at the Nore anchorage, but he had arrived to find red flags flying from every masthead signifying that mutiny was already under way.
It was on his way home for a spot of enforced leave that he had succumbed to a fever and been brought by an elderly retired banker, active antiquary and avid naturalist, Josiah Parkin, to recover at his secluded home near Faversham.
Leading his horse, Anson beckoned to Hurel, who had slumped on to a milestone, to join him, calling: ‘You’d best carry my dunnage, sailor!’
Hurel gave him a look of disgust but picked up Anson’s bag nevertheless and they left the Dover road and set off down the lane.
After barely half a mile they came upon the familiar iron gates at the end of the drive that led to Ludden Hall.
Anson lifted the latch and led Ebony through, Hurel waiting behind to shut it after them.
Ludden Hall was just as Anson remembered it: the long, gravel driveway curved round past a small willow-fringed lake and led up to the broad paved steps fronting the iron-studded oak doors framed by large Doric columns.