For Our Liberty

by Rob Griffith

  One second my feet stood on rock, the next they stood on nothing. Rocks slid down the cliff and I heard curses from below. My hands began to slip on the rope as they took all my weight and I knew I had moments before whomever was climbing up behind me had more than rocks falling on his head. My feet flailed, desperately searching for something more substantial than thin air to hold my weight. My hands slipped again, the rope burning my palms. The portmanteau slipped from my shoulder on to my arm and hampered my grip even more. I managed to twist my wrist to wrap the rope around it slightly, it helped but I could still feel it sliding through my fingers. Just when I thought I was certain to fall, my left foot found a rock projecting from the cliff, but as I put my weight on it the rock came loose and fell. I swore. Then my foot found the hole left by the rock. With my weight held by that one foot I managed to get a better grip on the rope and pull myself back up very slowly. My heart was hammering in my chest and my arms and shoulders felt as thought they were on fire. My right foot found the path again, it became wider and I damn near raced to the top before anything else could befall me.

  A hand grasped the back of my coat and dragged me on to the cliff top. I lay on the wet grass and stared up at the sky while I got my wind back. I could hear the scrabbling of the next man up the rope and roused myself to help him. The man who had helped me was a portly middle aged farmer, by the look of his clothes. I thanked him and then when the head and shoulders of Lajolais came into view grabbed hold and helped the farmer get him up on to the grass. It took half an hour at least for us all to be at the top. None of the other climbers seemed to have the problems I did, perhaps they learned from my mistakes. When at last Major Rusillion joined us we followed the farmer along a narrow track. It had started to rain again, and we were all soaked and shivering by the time we saw the light of the farmhouse ahead. I’ve never wanted a warm fire more and we all began to walk even quicker, not caring to look for signs of patrols or a trap. We just wanted warmth.

  We stumbled into the farmhouse to find the space before the fire already taken by a very stout gentleman, and one I recognised instantly.

  “Welcome back to France,” said the man who had trained me in England before my first mission, Georges Cadoudal was a Breton who had fought the revolution almost since its inception. He was a big man, with tight black curls and side burns. He greeted each of us warmly and thankfully relinquished his place near the roaring fire, which was the only warmth we wanted at that moment. The farmer’s wife and daughters helped us out of our coats and gave us warm broth at the table. After the days on the ship the farm seemed like a palace. I could stand full height and the floor stayed still. The smell, and taste, of home cooked food was intoxicating and even the daughters were comely. As they helped the last of us from our coats Cadoudal turned with a worried look to the General.

  “Where is the Prince?” he asked looking amongst the eight of us.

  “It was deemed too dangerous yet, he will come when it is done,” said Pichegru with the air of a man unconvinced by his own argument, and hastily tucked into his soup.

  “That isn’t what was agreed,” Cadoudal said.

  I had gathered on the journey over that the original plan had been for one of the Bourbon Princes to accompany us to be ready to take over when Bonaparte was ousted. The Comte d’Artois, Duc de Bourbon, or Duc d’Orléans would have been a figurehead for the coup to rally around, but as Pichegru had said, in the end it was decided it was too much of a risk to chance them falling into Bonaparte’s hands.

  “Moreau is expecting a Prince,” said Cadoudal striding back and forth in front of the fire, annoying me at the time as he was preventing its warmth reaching me. I was only half listening to the argument while I sipped the hot soup and tore into the warm loaf.

  “And he will get one, after Bonaparte is overthrown,” said Pichegru, mopping up the last of his own soup with a hunk of bread.

  “I have told people a Prince is coming, that fact alone persuaded many doubters of our seriousness,” said Cadoudal walking forward and thumping his fist on the table.

  “I have letters, don’t worry,” said Pichegru. “Sit, have some food, Georges.”

  “Letters will not suffice,” said Cadoudal ignoring the invitation and pacing again.

  “They will have to,” said the General, obviously growing weary of the argument. One that he had probably anticipated.

  “Moreau will not act now.”

  “He must. Leave him to me. I will persuade him,” said Pichegru, again motioning for Cadoudal to sit.

  ‘No, I promised a Prince. To everyone. You’ve made me look like fool. A fool.”

  “It wasn’t my decision, Georges.”

  “We are finished,” said Cadoudal and stormed out of the room. As you can imagine that rather killed the conversation for some while. I held my bowl out for more soup and reflected that perhaps enigmatic comments were on balance better than outright predictions of total failure.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  After a day recovering from our landing at the farmhouse of La Poterie under the diligent care of the Troche family we split up. The brothers Polignac, the Marquis de Rivière and Lajolais being the less renowned were to make their own way to Paris using the normal coach services. Cadoudal and Pichegru were too well known so they, Major Rusillion and Picot (I’ve remembered the name of the General’s aide now) were to follow prearranged lignes de correspondence.

  Travelling by night they would travel between maisons de confiance, isolated farms and chateaux owned by sympathisers. I could have gone with either group, but a sense of duty and a dislike of Lajolais made me opt to stick with the General. A decision I came to regret.

  Like most journeys, it began well enough. We were guided each night between the safe houses by a local royalist or anti-bonapartist; the two groups were not always one and the same. We had good mounts. The food was simple but there was plenty of it, each host family falling over themselves to treat us well. The conversation between the five of us was genial enough to begin with but, as with all travelling companions, we soon began to get on each other’s nerves. Picot constantly moaned he was cold or wet, or both. He had a point. It was January after all. But moaning about it didn’t do anybody any good. Even the General snapped at him to be quiet on more than one occasion. It was Cadoudal that annoyed me the most. He seemed able to pontificate on any subject under the sun, and for an inordinate amount of time. I was thankful that on most nights caution dictated we rode in silence.

  I had time to think and much to dwell upon. What had Wright meant that the traitor could be closer than I thought? I not unnaturally began to look upon my companions with suspicion. Pichegru was of course beyond reproach, or if he wasn’t then we were all doomed and the whole conspiracy was a trap and I couldn’t contemplate that. Cadoudal might have been tiresome and pompous but I didn’t doubt his passion for his cause. No, it was Rusillion and Picot that I watched closely. Picot especially, I thought, would easily cave to the mere threat of torture to protect his own skin, and Rusillion had the air of someone who had become weary with the struggle and that perhaps if Fouché or Lacrosse dangled the temptation of a comfortable retirement or perhaps even a command in Bonaparte’s army he too could be persuaded to betray us all. Such were my thoughts as night after night we rode ever closer to Paris, ever closer to whatever the fates had in store for us.

  Our guides told us that the patrols on the roads to Paris had been doubled. Gendarmes were stopping everybody and asking them for papers or searching wagons and coaches. We’d had one or two close shaves when we had to rapidly dismount and hide behind a hedge or in a copse as riders passed us by but we felt safe enough under the cloak of darkness. Our good fortune ended in the forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

  The night had started badly when our guide hadn’t arrived. There was no explanation and our hosts bid us stay another day but we could all almost smell Paris it was so close and Russilion swore he knew the road to next maison de confiance. Of
course he got us lost soon after we left the chateau and then it started snowing. Heavy wet flakes the size of duck down obliterated the path ahead and hemmed us into our own little world. There was no moonlight and as we entered the forest we could have been alone in the world for all we could see of it. But of course we weren’t. We should have got to the next safe house well before dawn but we were still trudging slowly through the snow, leading the weary horses, as the grey light of day struggled through the clouds. The forest had that eery silence that only a heavy blanket of snow can bring. The soft thuds of our horses’ hooves and the occasional snort from them seemed to be swallowed up. None of us spoke, so when we rounded a bend and saw the two land pirates waiting for us and shouting at us to hold fast you can imagine that it came as quite a shock.

  Picot was the first to react. He fell to his knees and sobbed. Cadoudal looked down at him with pity and then caught my eye. We were all armed of course. Pichegru and Rusillion were at the rear, both wearing shabby green greatcoats with pockets deep enough for a pair of bulldogs (sorry, that’s cant for pistols, the pockets weren’t big enough for actual dogs). Being furthest from the thieves they had the best chance of doing something about them. For my part, being at the front, and closest to what looked like one experienced and one very nervous bully ruffian I wasn’t inclined to be the hero. One kept back, covering us with a pair of pistols from his horse and with the other’s nag beside him. He was the younger of the two, not that I could see his face, covered as it was by a scarf, but he was slightly built and nervous, his eyes flicking amongst us and his horse was obviously feeling his tension as it was a mite skittish. The one on foot came forward, his feet crunching on the snow. He wore a long grey coat that had seen better days and a black hat that had long ago lost most of its shape. The scarf around his lower face was red. He looked at us all, sizing us up. He rolled his eyes at the sobbing Picot and then calmly walked up to me and put one of his pistols to my head.

  “Empty your saddle bags, drop your purses on the ground. Any funny business and your friend here will have an extra hole in his head,” he said, pressing the gun harder and making me lose my balance and step sidewards, just in case the rest of my companions were under any illusion to whom he was referring. Judging by the temperature of the pistol barrel pressed into my temple I’d have guessed that they had been waiting for someone to pass their hiding place for some time. The older one, the one with the gun to my head, repeated his demand and punctuated his request by cocking his pistol. I felt the click of the lock and could smell the powder in the pan.

  Any self respecting knight of the road would have been warming themselves next to a fire in an inn or still abed with their baggage and not braving a blizzard to hold a pistol to someone’s head and demand they hand over their worldly goods. My horse snorted at my side, puffs of its breath floating up into the falling snow.

  “You are making a mistake,” said Cadoudal.

  “No, you are fatty, I’m not joking. It’s been a cold night. I want to get back home to my bed. I don’t really care if I leave you all alive or if I leave you all dead. Get a move on,” he said.

  That’s when it occurred to me. If he was as experienced as I had thought he was he’d have had his pistol cocked before he put it to my head. I looked at him. Most of his face was hidden but you can tell a lot from a man’s eyes. His didn’t look cruel. Desperate perhaps, but not cruel. His clothes were more those of a labourer than a highwayman, not that highwaymen had a dress code, but you gather my meaning. As his breath escaped from the folds of his scarf I could smell drink on it. Perhaps he was the calmer of the two because he was the drunker.

  “Come on, get on with it,” he shouted.

  My companions began to obey, unfastening saddle bags and the luggage from our one pack horse. Purses clinked as they fell into the snow. The one with the gun to my head watched them, the sound of coin falling to the ground bewitched him. He was on my left. My right hand found one of my own pistols in my pocket. I couldn’t quite believe he hadn’t asked us to disarm. I was convinced they were new to the game. Certain enough to gamble my life.

  As he watched what he thought was to be his loot gather on the forest path he wasn’t watching me. I swung my left arm up, knocking his pistol away, while I pulled my own from the other pocket, thumbing back the lock as I drew it out of my cloak. He looked at me with terror for a second, even as he pulled the trigger and sent a ball flying up into the trees. I fired into his chest, both shots came at almost the same second and shattered the blanket of silence. I dived to the ground as three more shots rang out. The snow was thick, soft and cold. I lay still for several moments, waiting for more shots but none came. I waited a little longer to be absolutely sure that the shooting was over and then I stood. The one I had killed lay still, the snow turning red around him. My gamble had paid off, his had not.

  The younger accomplice lay beneath his wounded horse. It had been Cadoudal, Pichegru and Rusillion who had all fired I think. One had got the rider, two had hit the horse. The beast was twitching and breathing hard. Cadoudal walked up to the animal and put it out of its misery, steam was rising from the horse’s wounds. The shot made me jump. I brushed the snow from my clothes and walked towards Cadoudal. He was calmly reloading his pistol. A whimper came from the other thief, his leg was trapped under the horse and a ball had struck him in the neck. He was bleeding a lot, the blood gushing with each beat of his heart like ale from a barrel. As soon as Cadoudal had finished reloading he simply levelled the pistol at the thief and dispatched him as dispassionately as he had the horse. I looked at Cadoudal, I don’t know what expression was on my face but Cadoudal just shrugged and went to help the others pick up our belongings. I knelt beside the body of the thief and pulled his scarf aside. He was just a boy, perhaps fifteen. I wondered what calamity had led him and his father here. I could see the resemblance in their faces. I shut his eyes. The snow began to cover him.

  “Blackthorne, we must leave,” said Rusillion leading my horse over to me. I knew he was right. Still it took a minute or so for me to rouse myself to mount. Once I did I followed the others who were already away up the path. Dawn had passed. The snow was still falling. The forest was still quiet. The bodies were still behind us. Soon they would be buried deep beneath the snow and hopefully we would be next to a fire but at that moment I felt as if I’d be cold for a very long time.

  We got to Paris a day later. The controls at the barriers of all the gates were being strictly applied. At my behest we split up and made our own way into the city. It had taken us seven days to travel from the coast I wasn’t about to risk failure at the last by sharing a gig with two notorious counter-revolutionaries. If the plot failed because the General was captured I still had commitments in the city. If, God forbid, the conspiracy failed I wasn’t going to fail Dominique as well. I had promised that no power on earth was going to stop me seeing her again, especially not Bonaparte’s police. I entered Paris alone, via the Porte Saint-Denis, an hour or so before Cadoudal and Pichegru would come through the same gate. I rode up to the large and overly ornate iron gates adorned with Republican symbols and dismounted at the guard house, itself bedecked with more doric columns and porticos than was strictly necessary. I presented my papers to the disinterested official and was waved in with a grunt. I was back.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  The Café Foy had not changed since I had been there last. The little waitress was still surly and the coffee was still good. I sat in the corner, reading Le Moniteur and supping my mocha. The newspaper made little comment on the defeat of the French in St. Domingue and the establishment of the Republic of Haiti by rebel slaves, apart from trying to blame England of course. If it had been a British island then no doubt they would have been crowing about a victory for the people; fraternity, equality and so on. I looked up from the paper when a slap followed by outbreak of loud guffaws broke through the cloud of tobacco smoke and coffee fumes. One of a crowd of students had obviously been a little
too fresh with the little waitress, a mistake even I would not have made, and he had the imprint of her hand on his face for his troubles.

  Perhaps the café had not changed but I had. The last time I had been here I was running for my life and thoroughly bewildered. I hoped that this time I sat there with a demeanour more suitable to a professional spy. I had sat with my back to the corner, facing the door. I had noted each person at the other tables, from the young firebrands discussing politics to the war-weary grenadier sergeant. None were lingering suspiciously over their food and none paid much attention to me or anyone else, apart from one of the youthful hotheads who blushed every time the more pleasant and prettier waitress served their table, and who followed her coquettish rump with his eyes every time she went back to the kitchen.

  I said at the end of the last chapter that nothing would stop me seeing Dominique but two days had passed since I had arrived in Paris and this was the first time that I had been able to slip away from Pichegru and attempt to get word to Dominique that I was back in the city. All the conspirators had made it through the gates without arrest, a fact that didn’t say much for the competence of the guards.

  We were all staying in a second floor apartment on the Rue du Puits-de-l’Hermite, near the Jardin des Plantes. It was cramped and with so many men living there it soon smelled of old socks and worse. Lajolais had met with some of the conspirators already in Paris. Pichegru was to meet with Moreau the following day. The General’s high forehead was creased with concern and his hair had gone greyer. The news Lajolais had brought had not been good. There were doubts, divisions and suspicions amongst the plotters. We all had to listen to Pichegru’s long, and largely justified, rants on the stupidity of most of the Royalists and their petty jealousies but despite everything we all still knew that we could, might, succeed. The obstacles were many but they weren’t insurmountable.