Napoleon's Gold: A Jack Starling Adventure

by Guy Roberts

  ‘Jack,’ Cleo had come closer her voice low and tense. ‘Jack, the bricks.’ He leaned forward and carefully picked up one of the bricks from Reynard’s chest. It was heavy – far heavier than any piece of masonry should be. He rubbed at it cautiously and his breath caught as a golden gleam flashed out from beneath the grime. Jack ducked his head forward, looking into the hole that Reynard’s body had battered through the brick. The thick chapel walls were hollow, with a foot-wide space between the inner and outer shells of the building. Reynard’s body had broken through the outer shell and laid bare the secret of the chapel’s walls – a hollow space filled with bars of solid gold, racked one atop the other in narrow towers that were now spilling out into the open air for the first time in two centuries.

  ‘Huh,’ Cleo gasped, trying to swallow up a chuckle as it bubbled uncontrollably from her chest. Jack grinned as well, a slow sense of victory warming him from head to toe.

  ‘We did it,’ he whispered in amazement, not quite ready to believe their triumph.

  ‘We did!’ Cleo shouted in reply, letting out a war-whoop and grabbing him in a bone-crunching hug. ‘We actually did it!’ Jack returned the hug, picking her up in his arms, his own laughter joining hers as they stood together for a long minute, ignoring the stares from people emerging from the barn and farm house.

  ‘All that time,’ Jack marveled, ‘hidden right here in plain sight.’

  ‘Under a layer of fresh white paint,’ Cleo nodded in understanding, ‘it must have been used to hide the fresh brickwork, right after the battle itself!’

  Jack shook his head in amazement. ‘So many people coming to this farmhouse year after year to look at the battlefield… and not one realizing they were walking past a fortune in Napoleonic gold.’ He looked down at the pile of dust-covered golden bars. Hundreds of millions of pounds worth of gold lay scattered amid the debris of destruction, nearly indistinguishable from the bricks and masonry that had hidden them for so long.

  ‘Well,’ Jack sighed eventually, ‘I guess we should figure out what to do next.’

  ‘Next?’ Cleo frowned. ‘What do you mean, next?’

  ‘Well…’ Jack paused, not sure how to explain what he had realized over the last few days. ‘We need to contact Sir Johnathon somehow and let him know about the gold…’

  ‘Wait, what?’ Cleo was suddenly furious. ‘I’m not passing over my gold to some public service ghost! This is our gold, Jack, we found it. You can’t expect me to give it up!’

  Jack shook his head. ‘There’s no way we can keep it,’ he explained. ‘We found it, yes, but look how much of it there is. Could we just carry it away? Do you think they will let us?’

  ‘I don’t care what they think!’ Cleo shouted. ‘That gold is ours! We were both nearly killed a dozen times for it! We found it, we deserve it!’

  Jack shook his head. If only it was that simple, he thought, but this gold carried a blood price two hundred years in the making. He knew the gold was bigger than either of them. After two centuries of mystery, the secret of Napoleon’s gold had been uncovered. The moment the tourists in the Hougoumont farmhouse came close and saw the gold for themselves then it would explode onto the world stage. The body of Reynard, the nearby tourists and Redcoats, the shattered wall and the piles of spilt bricks were all signs that the time for secrecy had ended. Jack knew they would be lucky to escape jail time, let alone with any of the gold.

  He turned aside from Cleo’s protestations as an ambulance raced into the courtyard, lights flashing. It reversed up to the chapel and Jack stepped wearily forward to start the inevitable bureaucratic cleanup. He pulled open the rear door of the ambulance to help the paramedics emerge, but was dumfounded to see the interior of the ambulance was an empty space. What should have been a well-equipped emergency vehicle was actually an empty shell – the trunk space cleared out as if the ambulance was just a common van.

  Jack looked at the space inside with bafflement, then turned as the driver of the ambulance stepped around the corner of the vehicle. Jack stared at him in surprise. Clad in a nondescript blue uniform, Deschamps stared at him with venomous fury. A Browning 9mm pistol was clutched in one of Deschamps’ hands. Battered and exhausted, Jack’s response time was far slower than it should have been and he barely reacted as Deschamps raised the gun and fired three shots into his torso at point blank range. Jack fell backward as if kicked by a mule. Hissing in savage fear, Cleo lunged forward, a bar of gold held in her hands like a club. Deschamps caught the bar in one hand, absorbed the attack and then pushed her back to fall sprawling by Jack’s side. Jack struggled weakly, a strange pressure on his chest and his sight dimming. Without a word, simply ignoring the tourists gathering on the other side of the courtyard, Deschamps raised the pistol and pointed it carefully at Jack’s head. The pressure on Jack’s chest was unrelenting and he could barely find the strength to lift one hand against the looming threat. The fury in Deschamps’ eyes faded, replaced by a look of contemptuous triumph. Jack shut his eyes for a moment, thinking of what could have been, then looked up to meet his fate.

  A single shot rang out across the courtyard.

  Jack slowly opened his eyes.

  Deschamps stood above him with a shocked expression on his face. Blood was dripping from what was left of his hand while a Redcoat on horseback sat with a rifle trained on his face. The Browning 9mm lay in the dirt, shattered into pieces by a single rifle shot. A cluster of horsemen had gathered beside the empty ambulance, their riders staring grimly at Deschamps. Each one was clad in the regimental colors of the Scots Greys – red coats, black leggings and gold trim, but the weapons they carried were decidedly modern. Jack ignored the growing waves of pain from his torso and looked across in surprise at the unexpected deliverance. A single rider spurred forward from the group, clad in a heavy black riding cloak. Jack and Sir Johnathon smiled at each other and then Jack slumped weakly back against the ground.

  A look of alarm on his face, Sir Johnathon dismounted swiftly and rushed to Jack’s side. Some of the horsemen moved to put handcuffs on the injured Deschamps, while others helped Cleo pull herself off the ground.

  ‘Sir Johnathon,’ Jack acknowledged the older man weakly.

  ‘Well done, Jack, well done.’ Sir Johnathon smiled down at him and gripped his arm in warm congratulations. The older man’s face drew still as he took in the extent of Jack’s wounds. Two guardsmen carrying medical kits squatted at Jack’s side and started cutting the muddy uniform away from his chest.

  ‘We did it.’ Jack winced as the last stitch of his heavy red jacket was cut away carefully lifted back.

  ‘You did, laddie. You did it.’ Sir Johnathon smiled. ‘Just keep still now.’

  Jack shook his head slowly. ‘You know I don’t like obeying orders.’ He slowly pushed the medic’s hands away, then gingerly pried the broad steel plate of the bullet proof vest away from his bruised flesh. Three divots marred the steel where Deschamps’ attack had been stopped dead. Jack looked down at his battered torso and winced to see the purple and yellow bruises spread across his body.

  ‘Severe tissue damage across most of his body, several stab wounds and muscle strains… but internal organs are fine,’ one of the medics spoke quickly. ‘He’ll need a little surgery here and there to clean things up and I have no doubt he’ll be hurting for a while, but vital signs are excellent.’ Sir Johnathon nodded at the medic and patted Jack on the shoulder.

  ‘There you go, Jack,’ the civil servant’s feigned insouciance could not hide his relief. ‘After all that you are basically fine… we will get you to the US army hospital in Landstuhl this afternoon and make sure everything is patched up good as new.’

  Jack pushed his face into some sort of a smile. Every part of his body felt as though it had been stampeded over by a herd of buffalo and a great weariness had settled over him. He knew that Sir Johnathon’s bluff comments were designed to distract him from the pain and to hide the very real concern that Jack had seen in the civil s
ervant’s tired old face.

  ‘Sir!’ an excited voice reached over from the blasted chapel wall, and Jack looked over to see one of Sir Johnathon’s helpers pulling a heavy leather pouch from the depths of the false recess. The civil servant remained kneeling by Jack as the pouch was hurried across the courtyard. More safety workers had arrived and canvas screens were being erected to hide Reynard’s body and the shattered wall from shocked onlookers. Outside, on the battlefield, the sounds of combat continued undiminished, but Jack’s attention was drawn to the cracked leather pouch delivered into Sir Johnathon’s waiting hands. The civil servant quickly untied the leather band holding the pouch closed and pulled out a sheaf of official looking papers, each one yellowed with age. His expert eyes flickered across the pages quickly, then a great sigh of relief seemed to flow out from his chest. A moment later Sir Johnathon had folded the papers up and slid them back into the dusty leather carryall.

  Jack lay back, observing Sir Johnathon for a long moment.

  ‘Directions to the next pot of gold?’ he eventually asked. Sir Johnathon looked down at him and grinned, shaking his head to dismiss the issue.

  ‘Secrets of State, my friend.’ He passed the leather bag to an adjutant, who promptly carried it back to the horses accompanied by two burly guards. ‘There were things hidden with that gold that even David Starling didn’t know about.’ Sir Johnathon paused for a moment, looking at Jack carefully. ‘Best you forget about it for now,’ he admonished firmly.

  ‘What happens to the gold?’ Jack asked.

  Sir Johnathon gave a prim smile. ‘Best not to ask about that, either. A hidden cache of Napoleonic gold… can you imagine the diplomatic furor that could trigger? Britain would claim it was theirs, France would claim it was theirs… the Spanish would say it was stolen from them originally and no doubt the South Americans would get in on the act as well, saying it was taken from them in the first place.’ Sir Johnathon shook his head. ‘Best to let sleeping dogs lie, I feel.’

  Jack shook his head, shocked that the older man could make such far-reaching decisions so easily. ‘So what will you do with it?’

  ‘Well,’ Sir Johnathon sighed. ‘We will honor the wishes of the old Duke of Wellington. I shall see to it that the Government does not seize this gold. But we won’t leave it hidden in a chapel wall for two hundred years either.’

  Jack tried to push himself upright, but Sir Johnathon was able to push him back down with the slightest touch.

  ‘Don’t worry, Jack,’ Sir Johnathon urged. ‘The gold will be used for good things, I promise you.’

  ‘What about Cleo and I?’

  ‘I will tell COBRA that the gold was not found, but that you helped uncover the murderer of your brother after following a series of directions he left to you. You and Cleo will be free to go and Andrew Freeman will be reinstated.’

  Jack raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Sir Johnathon nodded. ‘One of our staffers pieced it together – she found out that Andrew had been following David’s orders from beyond the grave. In all honesty, he did better than the rest of us put together.’ Jack nodded. He was glad to hear Andrew hadn’t been punished for his actions.

  ‘But there was a spy in COBRA,’ Jack protested, eyebrows knitted. ‘Andrew was warned about it and Deschamps knew everything that COBRA was up to.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Fairchild nodded in agreement, his face stern. ‘A computer hacker from the continent had outsmarted COBRA’s firewalls. David had been aware of it some weeks ago, but suspected it was a member of COBRA who was spilling information, rather than the machines we were using. Most of the IT infrastructure remained clear, but one or two pieces of equipment remained infected… including several of my telephones. Unfortunately, my temporary replacement used an iPad which had not been screened at all – that was the source of almost all of Deschamps’ intelligence gathering.’

  ‘What happened?’ Jack tried to follow.

  ‘A hacker in Berlin targeted every electronic access point in COBRA that they could find. Everything that was done or said inside COBRA over the last three days was recorded by the iPad and transmitted to Deschamps.’ Sir Johnathon’s face was cold. ‘A single iPad acted as a window into everything we were doing to track you down, and my own voice was traced across every telephone I used after leaving COBRA.’ He bowed his head apologetically. ‘If I had not spoken on the telephone to the Grand Master about Freemasons’ Hall, then Deschamps would never have known to ambush us after we arrived.’ Sir Johnathon looked doleful for a moment. ‘A terrible security lapse. Andrew Freeman is making sure it will never happen again.’

  A shadow was thrown over them and the pair looked up to see Cleo standing before them, her green eyes anxiously scanning Jack’s battered body. Jack leaned upright and let the medic wind a thick bandage around his waist, hiding the wound from view.

  ‘Are you back in at COBRA?’ Jack looked across at Sir Johnathon, wincing as the medic adjusted the bandages.

  ‘As if I had never left,’ Sir Johnathon smiled. ‘I am in your debt. Great Britain, in fact, is in your debt.’

  He glanced at his watch. ‘But there is something I would like you to see.’ Sir Johnathon admitted, ‘before you get rushed off to hospital.’

  Between Sir Johnathon and Cleo, Jack managed to haul himself upright without too much pain. With Jack in the centre, the trio made their way past the shattered chapel wall. Walking slowly to minimize Jack’s discomfort, the trio moved to the eastern wall of the Hougoumont gardens. The doorway they had staggered through to escape the cavalry charge was still open, their Redcoat friend watching the battle scenes beyond as they approached and rested by the open door. The fields beyond were a maelstrom of mud and confusion. The overcast sky glowered with a heavy grey frown and the battlefield was gloomy and dark. Thin lines of British troops could be seen still in place along the northern side of the valley, while two mammoth French columns were pushing doggedly through the muddy fields toward them. Massed volleys of musket fire were crackling out from the British lines, flickers of red amid the white plumes of gunpowder. Beyond it all, the great hill of the Lion’s Mound peered down upon the battle, its flanks flickering with pinpricks of light as innumerable cameras flashed and popped.

  ‘Look there.’ Sir Johnathon pointed to the two columns of French troops laboring under the musket fire of the British ranks. ‘Napoleon’s last gamble, the advance of the Imperial Guard.’

  The crackling musketry rose to a crescendo and Jack winced as he imagined what it must have been like to advance through such withering volleys of lethal musket balls.

  ‘The strongest and bravest of Napoleon’s troops,’ Sir Johnathon continued, ‘Undefeated in a generation of European warfare. Every one of them thought that this was their moment, this was when they would triumph and the British lines would fall.’

  The musketry fire hit a frantic note and Jack could see the French columns were finally slowing down, grinding to a complete stop in the face of the indefatigable British musketry. The gathering gloom seemed to pile darkness onto the battling foes. Jack held his breath as the red sparks of musket fire stood out in the growing twilight.

  ‘Look!’ Cleo whispered in amazement. Jack blinked in surprise and then felt a broad smile reach across his face. The once-undefeated Imperial Guard had been thrown back, their columns falling away from the British lines like a receding tide. A single figure on horseback rode out past the British lines, the straight-backed figure suddenly the focus of the entire battle. A single beam of sunlight pierced the clouds and bathed the solitary horseman in glorious sunshine.

  ‘Jack, look,’ Sir Johnathon’s voice was thick with emotion, ‘The Duke of Wellington!’ The three watched spellbound as the distant figure removed his cocked hat and waved it in the air three times. At the signal, the stretched out ranks of the British lines began to march forward as one, shrugging away the exhaustion of the battle, pipes and drums playing in glorious triumph as the army pursued the
routed French.

  ‘The signal for the General Advance,’ Sir Johnathon declared. ‘Napoleon’s done, by God!’ The cannonades fell silent and a keen wind blew from the north, rolling the smoke and haze southward. Shouts of victory and exultation rang out across the mud-strewn fields as the beam of sunlight expanded outward to cover the advancing British troops in a glittering raiment. Cheers and hurrahs came from the troops, mingling with the strains of British hymns and military anthems.

  The three of them stood by the doorway, watching the advance in silence.