For Our Liberty

by Rob Griffith

  “France, of course. Where else would we send a confidential agent? Don’t you tell your boys anything any more Brooke?” Pitt barked at Brooke. Brooke shot me a look that indicated I wasn’t toadying anywhere near enough.

  “My pardon, sir. I am about to give Blackthorne the details. Would you excuse us?”

  “Yes, I suppose I will have to won’t I?” Pitt said and muttered something about what he’d do if he was still Prime Minister. He took a sip of port and then shook my hand again. “Best of luck to you Blackthorne,” he said.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said. Brooke motioned me to one side and introduced me to the other officers, who were still grouped around the useless telescope. They seemed to welcome the interruption to their fruitless attempts to make it work.

  “Blackthorne, this is Colonel Charles Smith and his brother Commodore Sir Sidney Smith,” Brooke said. I shook hands with both gentlemen. Colonel Smith was the elder and looked it in his scarlet jacket and powdered wig. Commodore Smith I had met before in Egypt but he did not recognise me and I did not remind him of our meeting. Smith was somewhat notorious, not for his naval adventures but more for his nocturnal ones. Smith had been bedding Princess Caroline, to whom even the fat pig of a husband Prinny turned his nose up. German, florid, gregarious, coarse, and far from attractive, Princess Caroline was said to have a libido like a drunken sailor back from a circumnavigation.

  Smith wasn’t the only one to enjoy her favours, if you can call them that, there were others who wanted to bed the future queen. However, there were rumours of a child, but I should say no more, apart from mentioning that since Nelson had Emma Hamilton perhaps there is something about naval heroes that means that they can’t keep it in their breeches. Anyway, Smith had his black hair cut short in the Roman manner, and this was only just becoming fashionable. His navy uniform was cut well and weighed down by a selection of gaudy medals and orders. He was not tall but he was well built and had the air of a coiled spring. James had told me that he had undertaken some clandestine missions in Egypt and I had read of other exploits in the papers including escape from the infamous Temple prison in Paris. I also knew from James that Captain Wright, the one who had gotten me into all this, had been Smith’s lieutenant in Egypt.

  “Now, Blackthorne,” Brooke said when the usual formalities had been dispensed with, “where do you think we’ll be sending you?”

  “France, sir, as Mr Pitt said.”

  “Quite so, but why do you suppose?”

  “I would not care to suppose, sir. I shall go where I am ordered and do what I am asked,” I answered, toadying still.

  “A good but unimaginative answer Lieutenant Blackthorne,” said Commodore Smith. “However, can you not surmise what worries us most?”

  “I would imagine that the army massing around Boulogne would be causing some concern, if the preparations I have seen are any judge,” I said.

  “Indeed, Lieutenant, and what do think is stopping those French regiments from invading?” said the Commodore.

  “The Navy, sir?” If his brother had asked I would have said the army, of course.

  “Quite correct. The squadrons blockading the French ports are all that stands between us and French rule,” Commodore Smith waved his hand at the fleet anchored just off shore.

  “We’d stop them before they left Kent,” said Colonel Smith, somewhat peeved.

  “Perhaps, brother. Your confidence in our army is heart warming but would you agree Lieutenant Blackthorne?”

  “I think we could give them a bloody nose, sir,” I said, for the Colonel’s benefit, “but stop them? No. Not if they got across in sufficient numbers.”

  “I agree,” Commodore Smith said and Brooke concurred looking eager to regain control of the conversation.

  “But, your pardon sir, they are not likely to be able to cross are they?” I asked. “The French navy is no match for ours and even if our squadrons were blown off station they could return before too many French landed. It would be a massacre; our seventy-fours would decimate the landing barges, would they not?”

  “I would hope so too Blackthorne,” said Brooke, “but suppose for a moment that the French had weapons to defeat our ships. New weapons that we could not defend against.”

  “Then I would suggest the good farmers of Kent begin to plant garlic, but with respect, sir, hasn’t someone been paying too much attention to Mr Ackerman’s latest set of prints?”

  “Unfortunately not,” said Brooke. “Blackthorne, in Paris at this moment there is an American by the name of Robert Fulton who has designed and built a vessel that will travel under the sea and deploy an underwater mine sufficient to blow the keel off a first-rate. He calls these mines torpedoes, a kind of fish I believe. He is trying to sell his inventions to the French. If they are sensible enough to see their potential then I shall take up garlic farming myself,” It was the turn of the Smith brothers to agree with nodding heads.

  “You are serious, sir?”

  “Never more so.”

  “Has this Fulton tested his contraptions?”

  “Yes,” said Commodore Smith. “He sank a target brig off Brest and tried to go after one of our frigates but the wind was in her favour. More worryingly still he is trying to interest the French in a steam-propelled vessel that he has tested on the Seine. Imagine our fleet becalmed and the French merrily puffing their way across the Channel! The man has to be stopped!”

  “Yes, indeed Commodore,” said Brooke, trying to calm Smith. “A task that we will entrust to Lieutenant Blackthorne, here.”

  I hoped that no one saw my expression when he said this. I had thought my first mission might be something simple, like a quick jaunt across the Channel, meet a few royalists and then back in time for the last performance at the Haymarket. I did not expect to have such a weighty task to achieve and I was not alone.

  “Mr Brooke, I have voiced my doubts about the suitability of Lieutenant Blackthorne to you before and will not fail to do so now that he is present. He has promise, no question of that, but he lacks experience. Captain Wright on the other hand…”

  “Is known to half the gendarmes in France and practically has his own seat permanently reserved on the Paris mail coach. Blackthorne is new blood and we need someone unknown for this.”

  “But…”

  “But nothing, Commodore. Blackthorne is the best man we have available,” said Brooke and whilst I appreciated the sentiment I feared for our country if I was the best we had.

  “He is practically the only man we have available,” muttered Colonel Smith, as he tinkered again with the telescope. A lens fell on the floor and cracked in two. The Colonel picked up the pieces, checked that Pitt wasn’t looking, and dropped them over the wall.

  “Yes, well,” said Brooke, “we have been rather unlucky of late. I’m afraid, Blackthorne, that Lacrosse has captured several of our agents in the last weeks.”

  My first thought was not of the implications of that news for the safety of the nation, or even of myself. Instead I feared for Dominique and for Claude.

  “Is the Calvet family at liberty still?” I asked.

  “Yes, Calvet has retained his position, with the support of Dossonville and his niece and nephew are in hiding. They are safe enough for the present” said Brooke. “Now, to your orders Blackthorne. You will sail for France tonight on His Majesty’s Ship Vincejo. You will be landed on the French coast where you will meet a Monsieur Devrieux. He will arrange for your onward travel to Paris. Once in Paris you will find and meet with Fulton and present him with this letter.” Brooke handed over a thick document sealed with the Admiralty crest. “You will then return to the coast with his reply, or if possible with him, and back to England. If you are able to you will also destroy any prototype vessels Fulton has made. Remember that there is a traitor in Paris so be careful whom you trust. Do not put your meetings with Fulton in jeopardy by pursuing the traitor yourself, we have another agent working on that problem. Any questions?”


  Only about ten thousand, I thought. Who was this man Devrieux? How was I to travel to Paris? Where would I find Fulton? What did the letter say? Who was the agent hunting the traitor? What were the chances of me getting back to dear old England with my head intact?

  “None, sir.” I said.

  “Good,” said Brooke. “I don’t have to tell you how important this mission is, but I have every faith you will succeed. In your last little escapade you displayed courage and resourcefulness.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said, reflecting that whenever someone tells you that they don’t need to tell you something they always do so anyway. I wasn’t fooled by Brooke’s praise either. I knew they had to be pretty desperate to pick me for the Fulton mission.

  I said my farewells to the brothers Smith and Mr Pitt. Brooke shook me by the hand and the orderly appeared again to direct me to a room where I could rest before the evening tide. I was led into the dining room where servants were still arranging cutlery and crystal and then into a long wood-panelled corridor. Daylight flooded in from above through a glass lantern in a central hub connecting the rooms of the inner part of the castle. I had just passed a door when a pleasantly familiar voice made me turn.

  “Mr Blackthorne. I trust that you found Colonel Smith?”

  “Yes, thank you Lady Hester,” I said smiling, but the smile froze upon my face when another figure came through the doorway with her.

  “Mr Blackthorne, may I present General Moore.”

  “It is all right Hester dear, Lieutenant Blackthorne and I have met before.”

  “Kind of you to remember, General,” I said, wishing he hadn’t. I had last met General Sir John Moore in Egypt. Indeed I think the last time I had stood before him I was swaying from the drink and had to turn and vomit halfway through a particularly sharp dressing down. Moore did not like me. He was youthful, successful, handsome, and a born soldier so naturally we had little in common. He was always well turned out and cut a fine dash in his scarlet uniform. Lady Hester must have sensed the atmosphere but just smiled and continued on regardless.

  “Mr Blackthorne is one of Mr Brooke’s gentleman, Jack,” she said taking Moore by the arm.

  “Then I fear for our country. Are you sober today Blackthorne?” Moore glowered at me.

  “Yes sir, those days are behind me,” I said, straining to keep my tone civil and smiling at Lady Hester. Moore wasn’t my superior officer any more but he was influential and whilst he definitely wasn’t a friend it wasn’t worth making him an enemy.

  “I doubt it. Once a drunkard…”

  “Jack, you are being uncharitable. Mr Blackthorne was perfectly charming earlier,” Hester said warmly, giving Moore another reason to hate me.

  “No doubt. Come; let us be on our way Hester.” Moore and Lady Hester brushed past me and went out on to the battlements. Hester turned and winked at me as she left. Moore was far too big a prig to cope with a girl of her spirit ,I thought.

  Still, Lady Hester was too good for me as well, so I did my best to put both of them from my mind as the orderly showed me to my room. In a few short hours I would be on my way to France. I needed rest, hot food and a drink. I got the first two but did my best to abstain from the latter, despite Mr Pitt’s assurances about port calming the nerves.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The Vincejo wasn’t much of a ship. Even a landlubber like me could tell it was small and ill-favoured. She was the size of a brig or sloop but had the quarterdeck and the forecastle of a bigger vessel. The effect was to make her seem ungainly, like a puppy with oversized paws. After a couple of hours of supposed rest at Walmer Castle I had been roused from my room and taken down to the beach where a boat was waiting for me. A brief soaking in the surf and a brisk row saw me approaching the ship that would take me back to France. I must admit to being nervous, as nervous as when I left on a similar ship for the shores of Egypt. I had the same doubts that I had back then; would I die, be maimed, or worse, would I fail?

  Thankfully the journey out to the Vincejo was short enough and I was soon pre-occupied with the prospect of climbing from a small boat to the ship without falling in or having to submit to the indignity of the bosun’s chair. All too soon the oars were shipped and we were alongside the slimy wall of planks and I was grasping at the wet rope netting. In the end a shove from beneath carefully timed with the swell landed me on the deck like a gasping fish. A hand grasped mine and hauled me up. I looked up to thank whoever it was, but when I recognised him I couldn’t believe it. Captain John Wesley Wright stood patiently while I exhausted my vocabulary of curses and made up a few of my own for good measure.

  “Ben, it is a pleasure to see you as well. Still in one piece I see,” he said, obviously amused.

  “No thanks to you, you bastard,” I replied. “It’s your fault I got embroiled in all this damn skulduggery.”

  “Now Ben, not in front of the men. You would have to admit that the last few months have been more exciting than an enforced stay in Verdun with the rest of Bonaparte’s reluctant guests,” he said.

  “I’ll admit nothing. You almost got me killed.” I really couldn’t quite comprehend that the man I had left on the streets of Paris to face the police on his own was the one who was going to take me back to France.

  “True, but it had to be done,” he said without a hint of apology.

  “Not to me.”

  “Yes, I suppose I could have chosen someone who was less likely to survive and less likely to get the job done. Come, now stop your carping, we have a rendezvous to make.”

  With that he led me to the quarterdeck and ceased to listen to my dark mutterings of treachery and revenge. I stood out of the way at the stern of the ship whilst Wright barked out a stream of orders that made absolutely no sense to me but the crew understood well enough. The small ship exploded into activity as ropes were pulled, sails were lowered and sailors dashed around the ship like rats. You must understand that then, as now, I knew little about sailing so do not expect the kind of nautical detail you would get in one Captain Maryat’s naval adventures. My knowledge of nautical terms begins and ends with splicing the main brace.

  Wright was much as I had left him in Paris. He was still tall, dark and commanding. He was as much in charge on his ship as he was that morning on the streets. His long face and strong nose were emphasised by his cocked hat. His eyes shone in the setting sun and he came over to me as the little vessel slowly got underway.

  “She may be one of the most inefficient vessels in the navy, but she is all mine. We’ll be off the French coast before you know it,” he said.

  “Do you make this run often?” I asked.

  “Yes, damn it. We’re as regular as the Dover packet used to be. I should be going to Paris in your stead not acting as a ferryman, but it is deemed that I am too well known, and besides Admiral Keith disapproves of his officers doing anything as underhand as spying.” Wright looked towards France with obvious regret and I ignored his implication that I was a second choice. A few months earlier I would have been glad not to be chosen at all but at that moment on the quarterdeck of the Vincejo I grudgingly admitted to myself that I was content enough to be there. Don’t mistake me, I wasn’t the kind of adventure-seeking madman that Wright was, but at least the waiting and preparation was over. The die had been cast.

  Wright navigated the ship around the shoals of Goodwin Sands and out into the channel. The setting sun touched the horizon behind us. For all its ungainliness the Vincejo seemed to me to sail well enough. I paced the quarterdeck and looked her over with what I hoped looked like a professional eye. Her crew were the usual mix of broken old tars, resentful pressed men and young boys. From the name I guessed the Vincejo was a Spanish prize but all trace of its former owners had long been scrubbed from the decks. Her sixteen guns were short and portly eighteen pound carronades, arranged on either side like rows of sleeping fat friars. Those guns would do her little good less than a year later when she was cornered by the French in Quiberon
Bay. She would become a prize of the French navy and her captain would be sent to Paris as a spy. John Wesley Wright was killed soon after Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar, although the French tried to make it look like suicide.

  I am sorry, dear reader, if my tale has begun to sound like the ramblings of an aged aunt who, at every family gathering lists even more distant relations who have expired from the least likely causes. The sad truth is that in 1803 we still had nearly twelve years of war before us and my acquaintances were increasingly drawn from those at the heart of the conflict and so fearfully few of them made it to the end and the slaughter at Waterloo.

  I would like to lighten the mood with some amusing anecdotes of the short journey across the Channel but the truth is that once we hit the swell beyond the shelter of the Downs I spent most of the journey with my head over the side. I must have been sick because I even refused the offer of a tot of rum from a concerned Wright. He swore it would settle my stomach but the very thought just sent me dashing to the side and, of course, being a landsman I chose the windward side.

  I eventually made it down below to a cabin long enough to change my shirt. Whilst I had my luggage open I checked through my meagre belongings. The Alien Office had furnished me with precious little in the way of equipment. All I had from them was a few blank passports, some sympathetic ink to write out my dispatches and a copy of the Gentleman’s Magazine from December 1802. This latter item was to act as a codebook. The said magazine, whilst not unfamiliar to me, is not one I subscribe to myself given that its subject matter rests too much on the cultivation of vegetables and prison reform for my tastes. All in all, my employer had given me enough equipment to ensure that I would be shot if caught. I had to supply everything else myself.

  My clothes were few and hopefully discrete; breeches of black and bottle green, white shirts, a dark blue coat and cloak that was grey on one side and black on the other. My hat was the same one I had bought in Locks and my boots knee-length. Where possible I had favoured the French style in everything. In the pockets of the coat were a pair of small double-barrelled travelling pistols and tucked at the bottom of the valise was my old cavalry carbine and a few cartridges, for no good reason other than to make me feel safer. If I ever had to use it I knew I would likely be dead before the day was done. Contrary to what you might suppose, spies are not meant to shoot people. The last item that I checked before dashing back on deck was a sword-stick. It looked like a normal black cane but a twist of the top revealed a long slim blade that would probably snap the first time I used it but the cutler had been very enthusiastic about its merits and it was quite stylish.