Flashman and the Seawolf

by Robert Brightwell

  Ignoring the calls that I looked better as I was, I washed the muck off in a bucket of seawater and felt more refreshed. Remembering my conviction less than an hour ago that I would end my days chained to a Spanish galley, I too felt the need to go and congratulate Cochrane for getting us out of the fix. He received my words with a grin

  “Ah don’t worry yourself Flashman and I am sorry for using you like that. I needed you to take a good gulp to get the effect. If I had told you what was in the cup you would have sipped and we could have been lost. But truly I am sorry I had to act so. I thought that the Algiers story and quarantine flag would work but they were a damned suspicious bunch on that boat.”

  “Do you think they were looking for the Speedy?” I asked.

  “Oh undoubtedly” he replied. “We have taken twenty prizes along this coast and they had disguised themselves exactly like something we would have found hard to resist. Well we did try and take it didn’t we? I am just damn glad they revealed their surprise before we did. We have obviously been hurting them if they have gone to all the trouble of preparing a disguised frigate. Now we will set sail in a while as I want to reach Estepona at nightfall, will that serve you Flashman?”

  Well that brought me up sharp. For a while I had forgotten about the landing and had just been recovering from the scare that the frigate had given me. But now just a few hours later I was to be on the enemy shore. I remembered Wickham’s words and tried to take some comfort from them, “straight in and then straight out” and that I should only be ashore for a couple of hours. After this recent fright I really hoped he was right.

  Both Cochrane and Parker shot the noon day sun with their sextants to confirm our latitude so that we could be sure of coming in on the right spot. Having cruised the coast before, they were already roughly familiar with its outline, although it was hard to see as we approached with a blinding sun setting behind it. As darkness fell the leadsman started taking soundings and after the sun had set there was still light in the sky to confirm that we would be coming on to the small bay just to the south of town. I went and got changed into some clothes that I had bought in Gibraltar after Cochrane pointed out that my London clothes would stand out a mile in a Spanish village. I was soon wearing some patched old breeches, a rough shirt and a long coat with some sturdy boots. I also had a wide brimmed hat which would leave my face in shadow to complete the outfit. I pushed both of my new pistols into my belt but behind my back so that they were not visible when the coat was open. The farmer I was pretending to be would not normally be armed. I then pushed the letters into one of the pockets of the coat. By the time I came back on deck you could make out the white line of the surf where waves broke on the shore and the crew were lowing one of the boats.

  We planned to make the landing just after midnight. Cochrane came up to me as I got ready to go. “I will wait here until an hour before dawn, which should give you plenty of time. If anything goes wrong then I will come back tomorrow night as well.” He gave me a rough map showing where I would land in relation to the town. The church was by far the tallest building and so should be easy to find. Sensing my nervousness, he added quietly “You will be fine Thomas, just go in carefully and slowly and if there is any sign of trouble come back.”

  Archie led the eight man boat crew that rowed me ashore. All of the oars were wrapped in rags to reduce the sound of splashing and they pulled strongly through the low waves to beach the boat on the shore. I was about to jump out but Archie got two of the seamen to carry me so that my boots would not get wet and covered in sand which could arose suspicion.

  “I will walk with you to the ridge and hide in the dunes,“ he said. “I can watch the town from there.” We crouched down as we approached the ridge and I got my first look at Estepona. It was dark but the silhouette of the buildings was clearly visible and there in the middle of the dark huddle of buildings was one that was unmistakeably a church, with the tall bell tower next to the main building sticking up like a finger pointing at the sky.

  Archie seemed excited by the moment too. He patted me on the back with a whispered “Good luck Thomas” and I slithered forward over the dunes so that I did not create a silhouette on the skyline. This was it. This was what I had come all this way for and with the crew of the Speedy risking their lives to put me ashore I had to see it through. As I moved crouching down the slope between the bushes and plants growing on the sand I tried to convince myself that there was nothing to worry about. Wickham was the expert in this sort of thing and he had predicted a simple in and out job, I could be back up these dunes within the hour if things went well. But somehow I could not convince myself. The hairs prickled on the back of my neck and a feeling of foreboding grew as I approached the town. Behind the dunes there was a road along the coast and this led into a street that seemed to go to the centre of town. As I got to the end of the street the town was still silent, not even a dog barked. I pulled my hat down low over my brow to hide my face and tried to walk as quietly as possible. There was sand in the street which muffled the sound of my boots.

  As I reached a cross roads I found a grotto to the virgin made of stone with a niche in front where people had left offerings and in between the stones were some scraps of paper where people had left prayers. On impulse I reached into my pocket and took out the letters. There was a gap between the grotto and the wall behind and I slide the letters into the gap. If the priest was there I could retrieve them or tell him where to find them. If something was wrong they would not be found on me, which might just save me from being hung as a spy. One street further on and the road opened out into a square which I would have to cross to the reach the church. I paused on the corner. Two lights were visible in the buildings surrounding the square, but still the town seemed eerily quiet. It was at this precise moment that the moon came out from under a cloud, while not full it still provided enough light to see the open ground I would have to cross, and for people to see me. There were some abandoned market stalls and a horse trough and some trees in the centre to provide some shade, with some posts to tie up horses. Taking a deep breath I set off across the square. As soon as I started moving I had a strong feeling I was being watched, but I was committed now and to dart around would just raise suspicion. I kept walking glancing left and right but could see no movement. Now I was at the church door and there was a great ring handle, I twisted it slowly to avoid it banging but it made a screeching noise that in the silence sounded loud enough to wake the dead. I pushed the creaking door open and slipped inside.

  The church was lit by around a dozen candles, some on a stand near the confessional but most centred around the altar where a grey haired figure, dressed in a priest’s robes knelt in prayer. I shut the door behind me and felt a surge of relief. An old priest alone just as expected, I felt foolish now for leaving the papers at the grotto. I walked slowly down the aisle as the old priest got up and with the aid of a stick turned to walk towards me. Something was not quite right. To this day I am not sure what triggered my sense of alarm. Perhaps he had got up a bit too quickly to see me than his subsequent limping would have indicated possible or perhaps his limp just wasn’t right. Whatever it was, relief was replaced with suspicion. I glanced about the church, there were lots of dark corners and recesses but we seemed to be alone. With a growing sense of unease I continued to slowly walk down the aisle.

  “Can I help you my child?” the priest asked in an old quavering voice. We were just yards apart now and the candles from the stand by the confessional lit his face more clearly. I noticed that the skin under his grey beard seemed to shine more than the rest of his face and then it hit me like a blow for I recognised him. The skin shone because it was glue and the beard was false. Beneath the grey hair and false beard was the same man I had seen twice in London, once with a sedan chair and the second time in the coffee house with Wickham. I stopped and must have gaped in recognition for the agent realised that the disguise had not worked and straightened up looking disappointed. />
  “Welcome to Spain Mr Flashman” he said. “I am glad you did not keep me waiting long. Your presence was reported to us in Gibraltar and as we knew where you coming we had lookouts along the coast. You have some papers I believe for a British agent? Perhaps you would be kind enough to hand them over.”

  My mind was racing “How did you know I was coming here?”

  The agent smiled triumphantly “Mr Wickham is a very trusting man. He leaves papers where they can be read by, for example, his new Spanish agent. Do you remember Consuela Martinez, you met her in London with Wickham?” I did indeed remember the cool dangerous looking Spanish lady and her coldly calculating look.

  “Yes Wickham sent her to tail me but instead as she really works for us she told me that Wickham was trying to recruit you for a mission in Spain.” He gave a small laugh and fingered the gold crucifix hanging around his neck.

  As the facts sank in I saw now why I had been hunted in London and in that same instant I understood that as the agent was telling me all of this he had not intention of letting me live so that I could reveal Consuela’s real identity.

  “So it was you that had that man looking for me at Vauxhall and later…” I could not bring myself to mention my apartment, a memory I had been trying hard to forget for weeks now.

  He seemed supremely confident as though he was still playing a part on the stage and spoke loudly so that his voice carried to the corners of the church.

  “Yes, you are a hard man to kill Mr Flashman, we nearly had you at Vauxhall and then again when Jose cut the throat of your woman. You surprised me then, I confess you did. I did not think you would get the better of such a practiced killer. But I promised you then that you were a dead man Mr Flashman and I keep my promises.”

  I am not a brave man, most of my killing has been done either in fear or occasionally rage. I had killed the man I now knew as Jose in fear when I had seen that terrible gash on Jasmine’s throat but now as I heard him boast of the killing I felt a cold fury build in me. I looked again around the church and could see no one else. The priest apparently had no weapons and stood now just two feet away. But it seemed he had such contempt of me that he felt he could mock me with impunity. If he was alone and I was able to kill him, then that could be my only chance of escape.

  Still I hesitated and while I moved my right hand slowly inside the folds of my coat I asked “So Jasmine was killed on your orders?”

  “Of course, we did not want the slut around as a witness, anyway why should you care what happens to a common whore?”

  Those words were the impetus I needed for action. As he finished the sentence my hand closed around the butt of one of the pistols in my belt and then two things happened which even though I did them, took me by surprise. The first was that I heard myself snarl “because I loved her.” In that second I realised what I had repressed until then, that she had indeed been my first true love which was why I had felt such emptiness when she had gone.

  The second surprising thing was that without any conscious thought I had whipped the pistol from my belt, cocked it and pushed it against the agent’s chest and pulled the trigger. As my hand had flashed out of my coat the agent had managed to announce its arrival with a high pitched shriek of “pistol” but had otherwise made no move to defend himself. The impact of the ball smashing though his ribcage knocked him back and then he fell slowly to the floor. He was not yet dead but gasping and wheezing as blood spread across his vestments and dribbled from his mouth. The sharp crack of the gun had been slightly muffled by his clothes and the flame from the discharge had set some of them smouldering.

  For a second I stared in shock at what I had done and then for another moment I dared to hope that I could get away. That hope was dashed as the door to the church burst open and two soldiers and a young army officer burst in. As they did so I turned to see if there was another way out, just in time to see two more soldiers rising from behind tombs within the church with muskets levelled at me. They had been there all along but for some strange reason had let me kill the agent. That strange reason was revealed a second later when the curtain of the confessional was pulled back and from the recess within an elegantly dressed army officer moved forward with a pistol levelled at me. I am not sure if anyone has ever been stupid enough to flick the testicles of a mating tiger but I imagine that the resulting look of malevolent danger would be similar to that which I experienced from this officer, who had sat calmly in the confessional while I killed the agent.

  He was about forty, my height and as he moved slowly forward with the pistol held as steady as a rock he smiled at me with utterly no warmth at all. In fact his eyes looked at me in a way that reminded me of a shark I had seen caught in Southampton, they were cold and pitiless.

  “Good evening Senor Flashman. I must firstly thank you for disposing of Hernando, his reliance on theatrical costumes was becoming an embarrassment.” With that he stepped forward to the still breathing Hernando who watched him while fluttering one hand feebly at this chest. A flicker of flame had started to build around the scorch mark on the dying man’s vestments and delicately this new arrival reached out with his boot to press out the flame. Evidently he continued to apply weight to the dying man’s chest as with a final gurgle and a whimper the eyes of the man I now knew as Hernando rolled back up into his head and he lay still.

  “He was too well connected at court to be disposed of easily, without questions being asked. But now he has been murdered by a British agent who we have apprehended.” The stranger smiled at me and then to the young officer now standing behind me he added “search him.” They patted me down and quickly found the remaining pistol but also searched all my pockets as though looking for something else.

  When nothing was found he added “No despatches Senor Flashman, that is disappointing, surely you did not come all of this way just to pray at our fine church?”

  “Who are you?” I finally managed to get my voice back

  “Ah forgive me I am Colonel Abrantes, I am what you would call a liaison officer between Spain and our French allies. There are those within Spain and outside it that are resistant to change Senor Flashman, they seek comfort in the old ways of nobility and decadence. In France they are pressing ahead with modernisation and innovation. My job is to remove obstacles to building a greater Spain. I do hope you are not going to be an obstacle Senor Flashman.” And with that he nodded to someone standing behind me and I felt a massive blow on the black of my head and the world went black.

  I only know what happened next because of Archie. As he sat in the Dunes he watched me disappear into the maze of houses. Then a strange thing happened, a light flashed from the top of the bell tower. Being the smart lad that he was, he realised that this was a signal sent while the buildings hid the tower from my view and that he was possibly not the only one watching my arrival in town. Slowly he backed down the side of the ridge and then he silently worked his way along it. Sure enough a hundred yards further on he found a soldier lying in the dunes watching the town through a telescope, with a shuttered lantern at his side and a musket which had slid down the dune to near his feet. In a moment the soldier was walking back to the beach and the waiting boat crew at the point of his own musket. A swift interrogation followed which confirmed that I had walked into a trap organised by a Colonel Abrantes who seemed to strike more fear into the soldier than a sailor standing over him with a cudgel. The boat was despatched to tell Cochrane the situation while brave Archie decided to go into town to see what was happening to me. The signal lantern was left on the beach so Archie could call for the boats return.

  Archie got to a darkened doorway overlooking the square just in time to see the exit of our party. There were now two carts outside the church. From the light coming out of the open church doorway he saw two soldiers holding the arms and legs of a person dressed in white with a black stain on their front that was swung into one cart and which was clearly a corpse. Then he saw me being dragged out unconscious, d
raped over the shoulders of two soldiers and deposited none too gently in the other cart. The cart with the corpse headed off in one direction but the rest of the group headed out of an exit on the other side of the square. Archie followed at a distance and presently they came to the closest thing to a fortress that Estepona had on the outskirts of town. It was a tall round stone tower, built to hold a cannon to protect the harbour and now surrounded by a tall stone wall which created a courtyard around the tower.

  I knew nothing of this when I came too in a round dark room. I was cold and wet and realised that I had been brought around by having a bucket of cold water thrown over me. Instinctively I tried to move to protect myself from the shock of the cold water but found that I was bound. I was strapped to what seemed to be a low stool with a high back. My hands were tied behind the back of the stool and there were other ropes binding me to it about my chest and throat.

  The room was lit by guttering torches mounted in wall sockets and looking around I could see three other people in the room. Slightly to the left and smiling at me coldly with his shark like eyes was Abrantes. To the right was a huge cove in shirtsleeves, he was grinning at me and holding an empty bucket. Looking around I saw another figure to my far right, an elderly white bearded man lying leaning against the wall wearing what seemed to be thick black gloves that he had resting over his chest.

  “Senor Flashman” said Abrantes calmly, “I know you came ashore with letters for the priest over there” and he nodded to the old man. “You are already a dead man for the murder of Hernandes but your death can be quick or it can be slow. Possibly if you co-operate fully I will be able to speak to the court and they may show mercy and spare your life in sentencing.” I thought back to my fears of being a galley slave just yesterday and realised ironically that this fate was the best I could hope for today. I looked into his eyes and saw little chance of mercy being shown there. I knew instinctively that as soon as I told him what he wanted to know it would be curtains for poor Flashy. There was no chance of me even getting to trial as the last thing he would want is the circumstances of Hernandes’ death coming out.