The Sultan's Daughter rb-7

by Dennis Wheatley

  When Roger enquired why he had been summoned, Sir William said:

  'You are under no obligation to me, but I mean to ask a favour of you. In my files I have many hundreds of letters relating to my diplomatic activities. Some of them make mention of secrets that could be damaging to British prestige, if known to the enemy. I have so many urgent matters to attend to that I have not the time to go through them. No one could be better entrusted with this task than yourself. I beg you, therefore, to undertake it. My wish is that all documents of importance should be preserved for me to take with me should we be compelled to evacuate the Embassy, and that the others should be burnt.'

  Far from thinking of refusing, Roger was only too glad to have some useful work to occupy him during the emergency, and early next morning he set about the formidable task of scanning and sorting Sir William's correspondence.

  King Ferdinand's return had brought about a new situation in the city. He had cordially endorsed his loyal lazzarOni's determination to defend Naples and, the Army having failed so lamentably, the leaders of the lazzaroni took matters into their own hands. Large bodies of them picketed all the approaches to the city, seized the returning deserters and took their arms from them. But the King's resolution to rely on this vast rabble of petty thieves and professional beggars did not last for long.

  Queen Caroline had a deep-seated distrust of mobs. In the fact that the Royal Family had been forced to show themselves on the balcony of the palace a few hours after the return of the King had leaked out, she saw a repetition of the scene at Versailles in '89 following which Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had been forced by the mob to accompany it, virtually as prisoners, back to Paris. Fearing that she might suffer the same fate as her sister, Caroline had at once begun to urge upon Ferdinand that their only certainty of safety lay in flight to Sicily.

  A few days of her nagging had been sufficient to weaken the King's resolution. Then, on the 18th as Roger learned from Sir William, a despatch was received from General Mack. He reported that what remained of his Army had disintegrated into a rabble and besought Their Majesties to escape from Naples before the French entered it. That settled the matter. For the next few days frantic preparations for the evacuation were made with as much secrecy as possible.

  Already, from the 15th, Queen Caroline had been sending each night to the Palazzo Sessa boxes and bundles of every description for transfer to Nelson's flagship. Emma sat up till daybreak, receiving and repacking everything from a fortune in diamonds to nappies for the royal babies.

  The flight was fixed for the night of Friday 21st. But recently the weather had broken, and on the Friday morning such a storm blew up that it was feared that it might be found impossible for the barges to convey the fugitives from the quay to Vanguard. During the day half a dozen contradictory messages reached the British Embassy from General Acton about possible postponement of the venture, but when evening came it was decided that the risk should be taken.

  At half past eight Nelson landed at the Arsenal steps and proceeded to the palace by way of a long, subterranean tunnel. He then escorted the royal party and their principal courtiers back along the tunnel and transported them safely, but in sheeting rain, to his flagship. Roger, still in charge of the important documents he had saved from the Embassy files, went off in another boat an hour later. He had an awful tossing and was at length hauled aboard Vanguard soaked to the skin.

  He found the decks piled with royal possessions that there had not as yet been time to stow away—pictures, furniture, statuary and innumerable bales and boxes. It looked as though Sir William's estimate, that they had succeeded in carrying off between two and three million pounds' worth of goods, might not be too high.

  The great stern cabin was crowded with people. Queen Caroline was weeping in Emma's large, protecting arms; Nelson, behaving no longer like an Admiral but like a schoolboy besotted with calf-love, was exclaiming to everyone how courageous and angelic Emma was. The royal children were also in tears. General Acton, the Court Chamberlain Prince Belmonte, Prince Castel-cicala and the Austrian Count Thurn stood grouped in a corner, looking as glum as though they were about to be sent to the guillotine. A score of other notabilities, male and female, were seated on the deck, claspipg their most precious belongings which, at short notice, were all they had been able to bring with them. Some of them were already being seasick from the rolling of the vessel.

  Pushing through the crush, Roger found Sir William and gave him the weighty leather satchel crammed with papers. Having thanked him the Ambassador said, ' Why not come with us? X pray you, do. With the King gone, anything may happen. It is certain that there will be riots and you might well be killed in one, or during the fighting when the French force their way into the city.'

  Roger shook his head. ' No. It is good of Your Excellency to suggest it; but things can hardly become worse than they were in Paris during the Revolution, so I expect to be able to take care of myself. And when the fighting is over I still hope to make my way home overland.'

  Very distressed at the sight of so much misery, Roger went out on deck, in spite of the rain, and huddled against a bulwark until he could get a boat to take him ashore. The inward trip was even worse than the outward one and the boat tossed as though a bucking stallion were beneath her. Before reaching the wharf Roger was violently sick, which strengthened his conviction that he had been wise to refuse Sir William's invitation to accompany the royal party to Sicily.

  The next two days gave him still greater cause to be glad that he was safe on land. On the 22nd a gale of such ferocity raged that Nelson's ships could not set sail and, buffeted by huge waves, rolled back and forth as though they were barrels. On the morning of the 23rd they did set sail; but the wind and seas were still so high that the ships could not round the island of Capri, the topsails of Vanguard were blown out and, when night came down, the Squadron was still helplessly beating about the bay.

  Later it was learned that the sufferings of the passengers had been appalling. The majority of the Italians remained night and day on their knees, alternately vomiting and offering up last prayers. Count Esterhazy, in the hope of appeasing the sea, threw into it a diamond-encrusted snuff-box with a portrait of his mistress on the lid. Sir William sat on his cot holding a loaded pistol, having determined to shoot himself at the last moment rather than drown. Alone among the women Emma, to her eternal honour, refused to succumb. All the royal servants were incapacitated; so she looked after the whole family, gave away her own bedding and could not be persuaded even to lie down until Vanguard, with considerable difficulty, got into the harbour of Palermo on the 26th. But even her devoted care could not prevent Prince Alberto, Queen Caroline's six-year-old son, from dying in her arms on the second day of that terrible voyage.

  Meanwhile panic, confusion and mutiny reigned in the bay. On the morning of the 22nd, as soon as it became known that the Royal Family had abandoned Naples, hundreds of other families made up their minds to flee from the French. Sir William had sent word to the British residents, the majority of whom had been accommodated during the previous night in three transports. Nelson had made arrangements for two Greek polacres to take off the French Royalist exiles; but from first light onward, in spite of the raging storm, a large part of the Neapolitan nobility put out in a swarm of boats and begged to be taken on to the heaving ships.

  There was trouble, too, in the Neapolitan Navy. The Commander, Commodore Caracciolo, naturally felt aggrieved that his King should have taken refuge in a British ship rather than in one of his own. To add insult to injury, a part of the royal treasure that had been sent aboard his flagship was later removed to the * greater safety' of Vanguard. But Queen Caroline did not trust the Neapolitans, and neither did Nelson.

  They had some reason for that. As soon as Caracciolo's sailors learned that the Fleet was to put to sea, the majority of them refused to abandon their families and went ashore. Caracciolo reported that he had sufficient men to handle his flagship, and acco
mpanied the exodus to Palermo—although only to be hanged from the yardarm by Nelson six months later on somewhat dubious evidence that he had turned traitor. But what was to be done about the other ships of the Neapolitan Navy that could not weigh anchor?

  Nelson was in favour of sinking them there and then; but the King, the Queen and Acton, having almost bankrupted their country to build their Fleet, implored him to spare it. He was prevailed upon to do so, but left behind Commodore Campbell, who was in command of three Portuguese frigates, with strict instructions that in no circumstances was any part of the Neapolitan Navy to be allowed to fall into the hands of the French.

  Ashore there was general turmoil. Before sneaking out of his palace, Ferdinand had "sent for General Prince Pignatelli. When the General arrived he found no King but a document, left carelessly on a table, appointing him Regent of Naples. Unfortunately he was both a weak and a stupid man, and hopelessly incapable of handling the situation. He took no steps whatever to place the city in a state of defence and when the Eletti, as the Municipal Council composed of nobles was called, urged him to form a National Guard for the maintenance of order he told them that such matters were nothing to do with them.

  Had Pignatelli been a brave and able man it is quite possible that Naples might have been saved from the French, for their advance was being checked in a most unexpected manner. Now that the Neapolitan Army had been disembarrassed of its cowardly officers, the many thousands of soldiers who still remained in the field suddenly began to fight. The war they waged was entirely un-coordinated but, often led by fanatical village priests, they fell upon the French with extraordinary ferocity wherever they could find them. The French were very inferior in numbers and were forced to concentrate in solid bodies and, instead of advancing further, defend themselves in villages.

  But no advantage was taken of this unlooked-for respite. On the contrary, matters in Naples went from bad to worse. Pignatelli, presumably on the King's instructions, endeavoured to set fire to the Arsenal. He was prevented by the Eletti, but they failed to stop him on December 28th from burning the hundred gunboats that were anchored off Posilipo and having the great store of powder and shot kept at Mergellina thrown into the sea. Ten days later Commodore Campbell, by then convinced that the Regent meant to hand over Naples to the enemy without striking a blow, turned the guns of his Portuguese frigates on the helpless Neapolitan vessels and sank all the bigger ships of the Fleet.

  In defiance of Pignatelli, the Eletti decreed the calling up of fourteen thousand citizens; but the move proved abortive, as the Regent refused to release more than two hundred muskets from the castles. He declared his policy to be to do nothing to increase the enmity of the French but to levy a huge tax and use the money to bribe them to concede an armistice.

  He appeared to be successful in this. On January 11th General Championnet agreed to spare Naples for two months on condition that various strong places and a great area of territory were ceded, that the ports of the Two Sicilies were declared neutral and that, within the current month, Naples paid an indemnity of ten million francs, half of which was to be forthcoming within the next three days.

  During this fortnight of confusion and anxiety Roger played no part in events. Having sent off his despatches, he was free of all responsibility and he had no urgent reason for endeavouring to get home. With such patience as he could muster he continued to hope that in another month or so the peninsula would have been sufficiently pacified for him to risk setting out for France. In the meantime he kept himself occupied by riding every morning, practising in a fencing school near his hotel for an hour or so every afternoon and picking up the rumours of the day in cafes in the evening.

  But the news of the armistice seemed to give him the sort of chance for which he had been waiting. Before that it would have been suicidal for him to attempt to join the French. To increase the strength of his Army, King Ferdinand had released all the criminals from the Sicilian jails and had formed no fewer than sixteen battalions with them. With thousands of such desperadoes roving the countryside, no solitary traveller could possibly have hoped to get through to Rome. But now the French would be sending emissaries to Naples, and Roger planned to get in touch with them. If, on some excuse or other, he could have himself sent to General Championnet, the rest should prove easy. After Bonaparte's letters had been copied he had retrieved them from Sir William. He would only have to show them and declare himself as Colonel Breuc to be provided with an escort that would see him safely back to France.

  On the 12th, in accordance with the armistice terms, the Neapolitans handed over Capua. General Mack, now scared that his own soldiers would kill him, sought the protection of the French.

  When he was about to surrender his sword Championnet said contemptuously, ' Pray keep it. My Government does not allow me to accept presents of English manufacture.' Then he told the old man to go home.

  On the evening of the 1'th the French Commissioners arrived to collect the first half of the indemnity. It had been got together only with great difficulty as Ferdinand had emptied the national treasury before his departure, carrying off twenty million ducats. But the French never * got their money. A seething mob of lazzaroni refused to allow it to be handed over and attacked the five carriages in which the Commissioners had arrived. They were rescued only with difficulty by the National Guard, kept in protective custody for the night and departed the following morning vowing vengeance for the insults to which they had been subjected.

  Roger found it impossible to get anywhere near them and, as the action of the lazzaroni had put an end to the armistice, he was left in the same frustrating situation as before.

  Within the next twenty-four hours it became clear that the lazzaroni were now the real masters of the city. For the past three weeks they had, in one way or another, been acquiring arms and, just in time, a great quantity of weapons became theirs for the taking. The five thousand troops whom Nelson had conveyed to Leghorn returned with their tails between their legs. The Grand Duke had, after all, proved too frightened to launch an attack from Tuscany on the French and had packed the Neapolitans back into their transports. On their arrival at Naples, hordes of lazzaroni swarmed aboard the vessels and seized every weapon in them.

  Elated by their success, they proceeded to attack the Castel Nuovo. Pignatelli sent orders to the Commander to defend the castle but not to fire upon the mob. As it was an impossibility to do one without the other, the unhappy officer allowed the lazzaroni to take possession. By similar means they secured the great fortress of Castel Sant'Elmo, up on the heights, and the other great Castel dell'Uovo, down on the harbour.

  They then began a witch-hunt for ' Jacobins', as Neapolitans with revolutionary leanings were termed. Anyone believed to have French sympathies was dragged into the street and murdered, then his house was pillaged. This led many hundreds of the lesser nobility and bourgeoisie with Liberal leanings to decide that the only hope of saving their lives lay in siding with the French and, if possible, helping them to capture the city. A number of them banded themselves together and, by a trick, succeeded in gaining possession of the Castel Sant'Elmo, where they shut themselves up.

  Meanwhile the lazzaroni had broken open all the prisons. The intellectuals who had been locked up in them, on Queen Caroline's orders, as Jacobins were butchered, but the criminals were let loose to join in the orgy of murder and destruction that was now taking place.

  On the night of the 17th Pignatelli fled to Palermo. By that time the mobs were no longer bothering themselves about the politics of the wealthier citizens, but were breaking into and looting every house in which they thought they would acquire plunder easily. A hundred thousand male and female cut-throats were storming through the great, wealthy city and its state of anarchy had become worse than that in Paris during the most terrible days of the Revolution.

  Roger, now considerably alarmed for his own safety, remained in his hotel; but even that did not save him from a most unpleasant experience.
On the night following Pignatelli's flight the hotel was attacked by a mob howling for blood. He had only just time to jump out of bed, snatch up his weapons and money-belt, pull on his travelling coat and get out of his bedroom window on to the roof of a verandah at the back of the building.

  Climbing down to the ground, he made off through a side door in the courtyard and along several alleys until he could no longer hear the shouts and screams coming from the hotel. It was bitterly cold and he spent the rest of the night huddled, shivering, in a doorway, praying that Hell might open and swallow Ferdinand and Caroline for the horror they had brought upon their capital.

  By dawn he had decided that Naples had become too hot to hold him. Tempests or no tempests, he must get out of this inferno before he was murdered; so he must go home by sea. As soon as there was light enough, he set out along the waterfront and trudged the five miles or more south along the bay to the little fishing port of Portici. There he talked cautiously with some fishermen and, selecting one of whom he liked the look, drew him aside. After ten minutes' haggling he persuaded the man, for a considerable sum in gold, to find him some warm clothes, then run him down the coast and across the straits to Messina.

  Soon after midday, warmed by a good meal of fish soup and rough wine, and wearing coarse woollens under his travelling coat, he went aboard the fishing smack. The crew consisted of the owner and his two stalwart sons. Roger had little fear that, having such odds in their favour, they might set upon and rob him, since they se.emed very decent folk and, moreover, he was armed with two pistols as well as his sword.