Gunston’s two A.D.C’s had automatically been transferred to him on his arrival. To one of them, a tall fair-haired youth named Colin Cowdray, he at once took a liking, but the other was a boorish Captain whose sole conversation consisted of grumbles that he was missing the fox hunting in England; so after a few days Roger had returned him to Gunston, saying that he would, in due course, replace him with another officer more to his taste. Accompanied therefore only by Colin Cowdray and a groom Roger set out on horseback late one afternoon for St. Pierre.
A Colonel Penruddock, who commanded the garrison there, received him with due honours and entertained him to an excellent dinner. Penruddock, a man in his late thirties, came of an old Cornish family which had fought for Charles I during the Great Rebellion, and Roger found him both efficient and congenial. The following day they made a round of the fortifications, and the next an excursion through ever steepening jungle-fringed paths to the summit of Monte Pelée, the great volcano five miles inland from St. Pierre, which one hundred and seven years later was fated totally to destroy the city.
On the third afternoon, pleased by all that he had seen, but much worried at having learned that the 57th Regiment of Foot, stationed in St. Pierre, was as severely stricken by Yellow Fever as the troops in Fort Royal, he took the road back. They had not gone far when Colin Cowdray’s mare cast a shoe; so Roger told him to return and have her shod, while he rode on with the groom.
Presently he came abreast of a small but charming property; and, reining in, asked an elderly negro engaged on clearing out a ditch at the side of the road who lived there. To his surprise the old fellow replied that the house belonged to a Madame de Kay.
Dismounting, Roger gave the bridle of his horse to his groom and walked up the short drive. On a veranda before the house a coloured maid was laying a small table; so he told her who he was and asked her to request her mistress to allow him to pay his respects to her.
The maid went in but returned with the reply that her mistress begged to be excused, as she was averse to receiving the Governor in her house.
Roger frowned at this new evidence of the dislike with which the British were regarded, but sent the girl back with another message to say that he would much like to talk to her mistress about her son William’s early marriage to a Mademoiselle Tascher de la Pagerie?
A few minutes later a grey haired lady wearing a lawn mob cap, a tight bodice, voluminous black skirts, and carrying an ebony cane, came out of the house.
When Roger had made a leg to her curtsy, she said: ‘I am much surprised, Monsieur, that you should know aught of my son’s marriage—if indeed it can be termed so, for it has long been regarded as invalid.’
‘That, Madame,’ Roger smiled, ‘I gathered from a handsome mulatto woman called Lucette; and it was she who recently told me of it.’
‘Then that limb of Satan is still alive?’
‘Yes. And, I was so intrigued by the youthful romance she related, in which she said she had played a part, that on learning that you lived here I felt I must find out how much, if any of it, was true. On second thoughts, though, I fear you must regard my curiosity as an impertinence, and the means I used to overcome your reluctance to receive me an aggravation of it.’
Making a slight inclination of the head, she said: ‘You were announced to me as the Governor; so I thought you to be the brutish young Colonel who lords it in Fort Royal and rides rough-shod over all our susceptibilities.’
He gave a rueful smile. ‘Alas, Madame, from what I have gathered there are good grounds for the antipathy you display towards him. I am the new Governor, and landed but ten days ago. As I have lived long in France and am accustomed to French ways, I hope before long to give people here cause to form a better opinion of myself.’
Her face softened then, and she gestured with her long cane towards the table. ‘In that case, as I was about to partake of a dish of tea, perhaps you would care to join me?’
‘Indeed I would; and for me it will be a treat, as tea is so hard to come by in these coifee islands.’
As they enjoyed the brew he described how the Circe had been captured and how Lucette’s duplicity, after she had made Bloggs second-in-command of the ship, had nearly cost him and his party their lives.
In turn she told him that she had lost her husband during a hurricane that had swept the island in ’91; but that William was still alive and well, although he now lived for long periods in England. He had continued to be in love with Josephine, and she with him; but after she had sacrificed her feelings for her duty to her parents, and married according to their wish, he had been persuaded to secure the family fortunes by marrying Lord Lovell’s niece. Josephine’s aunt had fulfilled her promise to the de Taschers by finding a rich parti for her; and in ’79 she had been wed to the Vicomte Alexandre de Beauharnais.
‘Surely that would have been the General who was sent to the guillotine by the Terrorists in ’94?’ Roger put in.
Madame de Kay nodded. ‘Yes; and poor Josephine also came within an ace of losing her head. I still frequently see her parents, and when they learned that she had been thrown into prison they were greatly worried for her. Mercifully, like many other innocent people, she was saved by the fall of Robespierre, and through the good offices of a Monsieur Tallien restored to her distracted children.’
With a boyish grin, Roger took the last scone from a plate that Madame de Kay had been offering him, and said:
‘I pray you forgive my greed; but it is years since I have tasted scones the equal of those my dear mother used to make.’
‘She must, then,’ his hostess smiled, ‘like myself, have been born north of the Tweed.’
‘Yes, she was a MacElfic.’
Madame de Kay nearly dropped the plate. ‘Mercy be! But I was born a MacElfic too. And did you not say your name was Brook? It was an English naval officer of that name that pretty Marie ran away with. You must be their son.’
‘I am indeed. My mother, alas, died three years ago; but my father is still alive and is now Admiral Sir Christopher Brook. It seems, then, that you knew my mother?’
‘Knew her, dear boy!’ There were tears in Madame de Kay’s eyes, and she laid her hand gently on Roger’s. ‘Why, we were cousins, and in girlhood the closest friends.’
For a moment Roger was thunderstruck; then he said; ‘I recall hearing my mother speak of a cousin named Margaret whom she would fain have seen again. But after her elopement with my father he severely wounded her brother in a duel; so from a double cause the two families remained permanently at daggers drawn.’
Madame de Kay nodded. ‘There was also the original cause for ill-will, in that we had a passionate devotion to the Stuarts, while your father was hot in favour of the Hanoverian line. But it is overtime that old quarrels on that score should be forgotten.’
While two hours passed like twenty minutes, Roger talked with his new-found kinswoman, telling her of his life, and of his hopes of bringing tranquillity to Martinique. She gladly promised to aid him in that, with the many friends she had made among the leading families of the island during her long residence on it. Then as dusk fell he kissed her, promised soon to bring Amanda to see her, and walked down the drive to reclaim his mount from the patient groom. As he rode back to the capital, he felt that sheer luck had given him the key to the most difficult of his problems.
But he had yet to resolve that of Colonel George Gunston.
The crisis between them arose two days later. On Roger’s return from St. Pierre, Fergusson had handed in his report. It was a grim document. It stated that the hospitals were insanitary; that the food given to the sick was unsuitable and often unfit for human consumption; that the military surgeons were few and mostly drunken incompetents; that French civilian doctors refused to give their aid because they had been subjected to unbearable insults; that the nursing orderlies were callous, slothful and corrupt, and that medical supplies were almost non-existent.
Roger sent for Gunston, made
him read the report, then said: ‘I have decided that drastic measures must be taken. I intend to appoint Fergusson as Surgeon-in-chief. I shall give him absolute powers to take all measures he sees fit to cleanse these pest houses and ensure proper nursing for the sick. More, I will have arrested and tried by court-martial any of the army surgeons who ignore his instructions or fail to keep the orderlies under them up to the mark and so lose a patient through neglect.’
Gunston gave a low whistle. ‘The devil you will! Then you will be bringing a hornets’ nest about your ears. Were you an Army man you would realise that the medicos are a law unto themselves.’
‘A fig for that!’ Roger gave a grim little laugh. ‘You have yet to learn that does the occasion warrant it I can be far more ruthless than yourself. It is true that I have never held an officer’s commission; but I was sent as Représentanten Mission to General Dumouriez during his first Flanders campaign.His army was then largely a rabble of murderous sans-culottes, and as it was necessary for me to win the General’s confidence, several mornings each week, I had a dozen or two of them shot behind the nearest barn, so that from fear of me the others might more readily obey the orders given them.’
A strange look came into Gunston’s eyes, and he muttered: ‘I had no idea you were that sort of man, Brook. I’ll say no more then. These croakers need a lesson and it seems you are the fellow to give it to them.’
Roger nodded, and went on: That is but part of my plan. ’Tis my belief that fresh air and, particularly, sea breezes are what the garrison needs to restore it to health. In consequence it is my intention to commandeer all the merchant shipping lying both in the harbour here and in that of St. Pierre. Such sick as can be moved are to be put aboard, together with two-thirds of the men still considered fit for duty; and the whole are to be taken for a fortnight’s cruise.’
‘God Almighty!’ exclaimed Gunston. ‘You cannot mean this!’
‘I certainly do,’
‘You can’t! You must be crazy! Your scheme for setting the doctors by the ears is a mere bagatelle to this. It is utterly preposterous!’
‘Why so?’
‘Surely you have the sense to realise that death and sickness have already reduced our strength below the safety limit. Did you send two-thirds of our remaining effectives to sea it would be as good as handing the island back to the French on a platter. They would rise and seize it overnight.’
‘In that I think you wrong,’ Roger replied quietly. ‘I have good hopes that if due precautions are taken they will not rise at all. In the worse case they might, perhaps, capture the fortress; but….’
‘Capture the fortress!’ Gunston’s eyes seemed about to pop out of his head. ‘How can you sit there and contemplate such a disaster. It is nothing short of treachery. Yes, treachery!’
‘I was about to add that I intend to keep two of the outlying batteries fully manned. In the event of trouble’ their guns could be trained on the town, and, much as I would regret to do so, I should not hesitate to give the order for its bombardment as a means of bringing to reason any part of the population which had taken up arms against us.’
‘No! No!’ Violently Gunston shook his head. ‘No, no, no! The risk involved of losing the island altogether is too great. Send the sick to sea if you will. Although, in their weak state, I’d have thought the tossing they must receive would have been more like to kill them than cure them. But not the men still fit for duty. That would be madness.’
‘I do not agree. They may be counted fit on your duty roster, but that many are not so in fact was plain to me when I made my inspection. Few had the ruddy faces that one associates with vigorous health, and quite a number were lean-cheeked and too bright-eyed: a sure indication that the fever was already working in them. Two-thirds of them, that Fergusson shall pick out for me, must be sent for a sea voyage, Gunston; so make up your mind to that.’
The Colonel had already come to his feet. Now he thumped Roger’s desk with his fist, and cried: ‘I’ll be damned if I will! I am the Garrison Commander, and I’ll not see our hold on the island jeopardised for some cranky notion about bettering the health of my men.’
‘I am its Governor,’ retorted Roger. ‘And, if God so wills, I would rather see it lost to the British Crown through the action that I propose to take, than stand by while His Majesty’s troops are so reduced by death from fever that there are no longer enough of them to man its batteries.’
‘You fool!’ stormed Gunston. ‘Have you never heard of such a thing as reinforcements? I have already written home urging their despatch. It is true that Whitehall always leaves such requests in abeyance until the last moment. But our people there are not quite such numbskills as to risk losing Martinique for the lack of another few Companies. If you are determined upon this mad scheme, of yours, you must wait to enter upon it until reinforcements have reached us.’
Roger too now stood up. His long lashes almost veiled the anger that was in his blue eyes, but his jaw stuck out, as he said harshly: ‘I’ll not wait a day to start upon it. You have heard the orders that I intend to give. Should you attempt to thwart them you shall face a court-martial.’
‘I’ll not be bullied into criminal complaisance!’ bellowed Gunston. ‘Your infatuation with the lousy French has induced you to plan a means of selling us out to them. This is treason! Nothing less! ’Tis my duty to resist the measures you contemplate to the limit of my powers. Tomorrow I’ll despatch an officer to General Williamson. I’ll warn him of what’s afoot, and urge him to use his powers as Commander-in-Chief to suspend you.’
Roger’s eyes opened wide with a disconcerting suddenness. He had now got Gunston where he wanted him, and his voice held a new sinister silkiness, as he said: ‘Oh no, you won’t. Instead you will leave tomorrow yourself, carrying a despatch from me to General Williamson setting forth the reasons for our difference of opinion. You see, I am fair enough to recognise that yours is an honest one, and by making you my messenger I give you a better opportunity than myself to convince him that you are right.’
Gunston’s plump cheeks turned almost purple. ‘You swine!’ he cried. ‘You’re gambling on the General being too chicken-hearted to interfere with a political appointment, and mean to rob me of my command by refusing to have me back.’
Roger nodded. ‘That is so. For once you are proving quite intelligent.’
‘Damn it, I won’t go!’ Gunston roared. ‘I refuse to walk into this dirty trap that you have laid for me.’
‘Should you do so,’ Roger shrugged, ‘I shall be compelled to regard such flagrant disobedience in time of war as open mutiny. For that I could have you shot.’ His eyes seemed to become entirely soulless as he added: ‘A while back I deliberately took occasion to inform you that I have often watched firing squads carry out my orders; and, believe me, the sight of your dead body would not give me a single qualm.’
Gunston had no doubt that Roger meant what he said. He almost felt the icy hand of death closing round his heart. Slowly his mouth fell open in sheer horror; then, turning, his sabre-tache no longer banging on a gallantly swung thigh, he walked from the room.
Sitting down, Roger calmly began to write the despatch that his defeated enemy was to carry to General Williamson.
With Gunston’s departure, Roger’s affairs soon took a turn for the better. He appointed a sound-minded middle-aged Colonel of Artillery, named Thurgood, as the new Garrison Commander. Then, he wrote to Colonel Penruddock informing him of his plans to send the greater part of the troops in Fort Royal for a fortnight’s cruise. He added that should the experiment prove successful he meant to do the same with those at St. Pierre; but that for the time being they were to be held in a state of readiness; so that should the French in the capital attempt a rising they could swiftly be marched upon it.
Two days later he took Amanda and Clarissa out to meet Madame de Kay. She welcomed Amanda with delight and, after exclaiming at Clarissa’s beauty, declared that she would find a rich husband for her
from among the nobility of Martinique.
As they again sat over the tea-cups, she told Roger of a plan she had formed for bettering his relations with the colonists. She meant to give a garden party where he could meet all her influential friends, and the invitations to it had already gone out. But they said nothing of his being the Governor, stating only that her young kinsman had recently arrived in the island and she wished to present him to them. It was decided that Amanda and Clarissa should not attend the party, as should they do so they would either have to prevaricate when asked about themselves or give away Roger’s official position, and the intention was for him to avoid doing that for as long as possible.
The party was held a week later and as none of the guests had previously seen Roger, apart from a few who had caught a distant sight of him while driving through the town, it was over an hour before a rumour began to run round that he was the new Governor. Up till then he had met all enquiries by a casual statement that he was in the Government service; but upon being openly challenged on his identity by an elderly Marquis, he laughed and admitted it.
Meanwhile, by his frank smile, perfect French, and polished manners, he had charmed half a hundred people. When they learned that he was the Governor a few of the most bitter Anglophobes showed some resentment at the trick that had been played upon them, and left soon afterwards. But the majority were people of sense, who realised that they owed the preservation of their lives and properties from the terrorists Victor Hugues had sent there to the intervention of the British. It was Gunston’s insults and his needlessly repressive measures that had antagonised them, and now that they had met Roger they were quite prepared to give him a fair chance to redress matters.
The Dark Secret of Josephine Page 29