by Seth Hunter
The book was basically about the corruption of a modest and well-mannered young virgin called Eugénie by a gang of reprobates led by an older woman called Madame de Saint-Ange, her younger brother, the Chevalier de Mirval, and a middle-aged roué called Domancé, all of whom combined forces to teach the young virgin what the author was pleased to call the ‘Arts of Love’.
Thus far, so French, Nathan had thought, anticipating something similar to Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Laclos, which he had read in Paris during the Terror. But it was much worse than that. Much more immoral, much more explicit, much more brutal.
There were many passages to which Nathan took excep tion, but what revolted him most was the underlying philosophy of the book – that individuals should dedicate their lives to the pursuit of pleasure and the selfish gratification of their own wants and needs. He read out the particular passage that had caused him to exclaim out loud. Tully laid down his pistol and stretched out a hand. ‘May I see?’ he requested. ‘Ah, de Sade,’ he declared, after glancing briefly at the cover.
Nathan was taken aback. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Alas, I have not had that pleasure,’ replied Tully. ‘But I know of his reputation.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh yes, we have many an interesting discussion about him during literary evenings in the gunroom.’
‘Literary evenings? In the gunroom?’ Nathan realised, far too late, that he was being made game of. ‘Well, you may find him amusing, I assure you I do not. He is a – what does my mother call it – when you hate women?’
‘Misogynist.’
‘Quite. Did you learn that in one of your literary evenings?’
‘I think we were discussing ethics on that particular evening.’
‘Well, anyway, he is one of them. And a sodomite to boot. And I would not be surprised if he was one of those depraved creatures who consort with animals.’
This was one of the most heinous crimes in the Navy and a hanging offence, obliging the poor animal to be thrown overboard so that it could not, in its contaminated state, be served for dinner.
‘And what is more,’ Nathan continued, ‘what is worse in many ways, is that he attacks any decent, human impulse as hypocritical, self-serving and unnatural. The man is a pervert, a scoundrel and a – an anarchist.’
‘None of which disqualifies him from being an author, of course,’ Tully pointed out.
‘Well, it damn well should.’ Nathan was outraged. ‘And it confirms everything I have ever heard about the Frogs. No wonder we are at war with them.’
Tully looked surprised. He was aware that Nathan was part Frog on his mother’s side, while he, as a native of Guernsey, had enough of the breed in his nature to be wary of comparison.
‘You are not normally given to prejudice,’ he remarked. ‘In fact, I believe that is the first uncharitable comment you have ever made about the French, even given the present state of hostilities between us.’
‘Then I have been unaccountably naive,’ Nathan informed him. ‘Clearly, they are a nation of vicious Sybarites.’
‘Sybarites, possibly,’ Tully considered. ‘But not necessarily vicious. I think perhaps you should not judge the nation by the individual. De Sade is a marquis, you know, and was confined to the Bastille in the King’s time for abusing prostitutes – which shows some discrimination on the part of the French.’
‘So why was he freed?’
‘Well, the Bastille, as you will know, was stormed in the first days of the Revolution. There were only six prisoners there, I believe, and de Sade was one of them. I suppose they thought he was a political prisoner, or a victim of injustice. However, I think he has since been re-interred by the Revolutionists, who were as much appalled by him as was the King.’
‘Well, that is at least something in their favour,’ Nathan replied grudgingly, ‘though I am surprised they have not sent him to the guillotine.’
‘I believe they are less enamoured of the guillotine than they were in former days, and have sent him to the madhouse instead. But speaking of the guillotine – the reason we are at war with them, surely, is that they cut off the head of their king, and took issue at our protest?’
‘There is that,’ Nathan conceded. ‘But it is not the only reason. We are always at war with the French, on one pretext or another. I have thought a great deal about this and I think the main reason is a basic incompatibility between the British and the French natures. Or, you might say, our philosophies of life.’
‘Do the British have a philosophy of life?’
‘You are being frivolous – but indeed there is some truth in this. The British have but one philosophy which is to live and let live. It is a very flexible philosophy, a very tolerant philosophy. Whereas the French have many philo sophies – they change as a snake changes its skin, while its essential nature remains the same. And they are forever trying to impose these philosophies upon everyone else – as if they are universal truths. Particularly since the Revolution.’
‘Liberty, equality, fraternity.’
‘Precisely. These are complicated ideas. One man’s liberty is another man’s oppression. Freedom may become licence – take de Sade. I have no objection to fraternity, but what do the Frogs mean by it? Fraternity to whom? They can scarce bring themselves to show it to each other, let alone to anyone who is not Frog. Fratricide is more like it. And as for equality … am I the equal of a goatherd? I think not – not when it comes to herding goats. Just as I consider myself to be his superior when it comes to commanding a ship of war, though others may have a different opinion.’
Tully made a small gesture of disavowal. ‘But surely that is not what the Revolutionists mean by equality,’ he argued. ‘Surely it is that your goatherd has a right to equality in law – and the right to choose who makes the law, who is chosen to rule over him, in effect. As the Greeks did, in classical times.’ He looked to Spiridion for support, but Spiridion was still asleep, or pretending to be.
‘That is as maybe, but my point is that whatever philosophy they acknowledge, the French are by nature inclined to take it to extremes,’ Nathan insisted. ‘They get some half-baked notion into their heads and before they can consider it properly, weighing up the pros and cons, the profit and loss, so to speak, as an Englishman would, they proceed to enact it. It is like the theatre to them. But they are the worst actors in the world. They overact.
‘I was in Paris during the Terror, as you know, and I have witnessed this at first hand,’ he continued as he warmed to his theme. ‘I knew Robespierre and Danton, you recall, and many of the other leaders of the Revolution. And Bonaparte, too, though he is not, strictly speaking, a Revolutionist, and he was unemployed at the time. But he was just the same. Actors, all of them. Terrible actors. Bonaparte even wrote a novel. He insisted on reading parts of it to me when we were in Paris. That was terrible, too. And as for their National Assembly, which is what they are pleased to call their democratic parliament, it was the worst theatre imaginable. It was worse than Shakespeare. What is the matter?’
For Tully’s polite expression had become uncertain.
‘Only that Shakespeare is generally considered to be rather good.’
‘Really? Well, I confess I have only seen Hamlet. My mother took me when I was in London. But if that is the measure of the man, I am at a loss to know why he is so well regarded. There were one or two good lines. “To be or not to be”, that was good – clever, at any rate – but even then, it is a speech about suicide. There is hardly a character who is not deranged or a murderer or both. And most of them end up dead. There was hardly a single player left standing when the final curtain fell. Madmen and murderers and suicides lying in pools of blood. All it needed was a guillotine and you could have been back in Paris. My mother liked it, of course, but then she is half-French. No,’ he concluded, ‘the French should stick to the stage – and writing novels – and let the British run the world.’
‘So is that your own reason for fighting
them?’ enquired Tully with a tolerant smile.
‘Me? Gracious, no. I am fighting them because the King tells me to and pays me to – at the rate of eleven pounds four shillings a month – and would hang me else.’
He spoke flippantly, but, in fact, there was some truth in this: that having taken the King’s shilling, so to speak, at the age of thirteen, he was honour bound to serve him for as long as the King desired. There were probably other reasons, but he was damned if he knew what they were, let alone explain them.
He knew why Nelson fought – or at least why Nelson said he fought: for God, King and country – for Glory – and because his mother had taught him to hate a Frenchman like the Devil. And most officers in the King’s Navy would have agreed with him. Possibly adding prize money and promotion to the tally.
Nathan envied them their certainty. He wished he could share it. But he had doubts about God and the King. Particularly since the King had gone mad. He believed in his country but he was not totally persuaded that his country was in mortal danger. The French were a damned nuisance and constantly needed to be put in their place, but for all Billy Pitt’s rhetoric he could not see them marching into London and setting up the guillotine in Whitehall. Why would they bother? Which left promotion and prize money, neither of which was to be despised, but they scarcely represented a just cause for war. He told himself, time and again, that the French had to be stopped – but he was not sure he believed it. He was not sure that Billy Pitt believed it – there were rumours that he was engaged in secret negotiations for a peace, even as he sent British soldiers and sailors out to fight and die, provided he would not lose face by it.
In Nathan’s more pensive moods, he thought that his own reason for fighting – the main reason, at least – was that he did not wish to appear shy of the dangers it involved, and so forfeit the respect of his fellows. In short, he did not wish to let the side down. Ben Hallowell had put it rather more eloquently, but this was what it amounted to. And a kind of stubborn resilience. A feeling that once he had set upon a certain course, he had a duty to himself and everybody else to see it to a conclusion. It was in his nature.
He only wished he had a better sense of where he was going.
‘Now we are in spitting distance, as it were, of Scanderoon,’ Nathan challenged Spiridion over a miserable dinner of sardines and ship’s biscuit, ‘perhaps you would be good enough to share with us your opinion of the route Mr Hudson has proposed, after we are put ashore.’
They had been over the maps, of course, in Mr Hudson’s company, but Spiridion had been strangely reticent on that occasion, as if he were keeping his own counsel on the subject, and they had not discussed it in any detail since.
‘Well, we will be following the Silk Road of course,’ Spiridion replied after removing a bone from his teeth, ‘at least for the first part of the journey …’
‘The Silk Road,’ Nathan mused in a tone not far short of wonder. He had seen many wonders in his short life, but most of them had been at sea and never had he hoped to travel in the footsteps of Marco Polo. ‘It goes all the way to China, does it not?’
‘It does, though we should not go as far that,’ Spiridion informed him considerately. ‘There are several branches, of course. But the Great Silk Road, which is the one we want, goes by way of Baghdad and then across Persia into Afghanistan, whence it continues along the Hindu Kush and the Karokoram Pass into China. We will get off at Baghdad, so to speak.’
These were the names that dreams were made of – Nathan’s dreams, certainly, when he was a boy growing up in Sussex, and he did not think he had entirely outgrown them, if at all.
‘And Mr Hudson indicated that we should travel by camel, did he not.’
Spiridion paused a moment and a small smile crossed his face. ‘Indeed. There is no other way. I believe the creatures may be obtained without too much difficulty at Aleppo. I take it you can ride a camel.’
Nathan frowned. ‘Well, it is not something I have ever attempted. Have you?’
‘But of course. I learned when I was in Tripoli. So did Mr Banjo.’
‘I see. Well, I am sure it cannot be that difficult.’ This was partly in the nature of a question, but as there was no response, Nathan continued: ‘I am more concerned with the nature of the terrain we must travel across – and its rulers. It is all part of the Empire of the Turks, is it not?’
‘It is. Though we usually call it the Empire of the Ottomans, they being a superior species of Turk. But as you will know from your own experience, the empire is in serious decline. Large parts of it are ruled by satraps who are almost independent of the authorities in Constantinople. This is the case in Baghdad. Many provinces are in a state of rebellion or lawlessness, others waiting for the right opportunity to go their own way. In the opinion of many observers, the entire edifice is on the point of collapse.’
‘And is that your own opinion?’
‘My opinion is that it has been on the point of collapse for two hundred years or more, and yet it continues in place. However, the French invasion may well provide the final push. It is to be hoped it will not happen in the course of our journey.’
‘So tell me about Scanderoon,’ Nathan persisted. ‘Why is the plague so prevalent there?’
But Spiridion only shrugged. ‘Who can tell? Most foreigners who reside there die within a year or two of their arrival. But if we do not stay long, we may escape it.’
This was not as encouraging as Nathan had hoped.
‘And the brigands?’
‘Wealth will always attract those who wish to steal it. And the Silk Road has seen a great deal of wealth over the years. But the brigands are not as great a threat as they were – as the Silk route has declined in importance, so have they. A single East Indiaman sailing by way of the Cape can carry as much treasure as a hundred camel trains, as I am sure you will know, and the brigands have taken to the sea, changing their name to pirates – or privateers, as many prefer to call themselves. I am told the Silk Road traffics as much in opium these days as in silk.’
‘Opium?’
‘From the Oriental poppy. A key ingredient of many medicines, including laudanum. Very good to smoke, too, I am assured, mixed with tobacco. You should try it. It would calm your restless nerves.’
With which rejoinder he left the table and went back to sleep.
The following day – their sixth day out of Abukir – they entered the Gulf of Scanderoon and late in the afternoon they sighted the port itself. From a distance, it did not look any more impressive than Spiridion had indicated; nor did it improve on closer acquaintance. Nathan could see why the agent of the Levant Company might be driven to drink. It did maintain a fort, however: a miserable-looking affair, more mud than stone, and without the dignity of a flag. They moored in the shelter of a sandy point on the western approaches, and Nathan instructed Blunt to hoist the Union flag and the blue ensign – which they had brought specially for the purpose. There was no response from the fort or from the town. It did not look as if anyone was at home, in either place.
Nathan wondered about firing a salute. It was always a troublesome business, fraught with matters of proper procedure. There was the question of how many guns should be fired, and even if that could be determined, it was always advisable to send an officer ashore, to make certain the salute would be returned – otherwise it would be taken as an insult to King George which, if he knew of it, might oblige His Majesty to declare war.
He consulted with Spiridion.
‘Surely it is unnecessary to send in advance,’ advised Spiridion, who possibly knew that as he spoke the language he would be the one who would have to go. ‘They are bound to return the salute. What else can they do?’
‘So how many guns should we give them?’
Spiridion considered. ‘Five,’ he said.
‘Five?’ Five was the number usually accorded to a minor official, such as a vice-consul. ‘That’s a bit piddling, is it not?’
‘It is
a piddling little place,’ Spiridion pointed out.
Piddling or not, it possessed the dignity of an agha or governor, and though he greeted them with initial reserve – possibly on account of the five-gun salute – his manner grew more amiable, even deferential, when he heard of the British victory at Abukir. There was no British consul in the town, and the agent of the Levant Company, Mr McGregor, had indeed removed himself to Cyprus.
‘It is gratifying to be proved right on occasion,’ Spiridion remarked, for Nathan had been ungracious concerning the salute, but the governor was pleased to forward Nelson’s despatches to the British ambassador in Constantinople and to provide them with horses for the journey to Aleppo – with a string of mules to carry their baggage and an escort of spahis, Turkish cavalry, to protect them from the fabled brigands.
It was only sixty miles to Aleppo, but it took them three days, largely on account of the road which was bad in most parts and non-existent in others. They rode much of the time through wooded hills, or along rugged, stony ridges with a steep drop on both sides, dismounting to lead the horses, or walking them very slowly. There was no arrange ment for changing mounts, as in most of Europe, and they were compelled to rest up at night – and, indeed, during the hottest part of the day. This might not have been so bad had there been any decent inns to rest in, designed on the English model, but there were not. There were establishments known as khans, the caravanserais of the rural areas, but they were mostly run down and inhospitable. The food was poor, the service indifferent and there was no drink: nothing of any substance. As for the accommodation, Nathan had known prisons with better amenities. The rooms were airless and foetid, the bedding suspect, the mattresses infested. Nathan slept on the floor, wrapped in his sea cloak, a folded coat for a pillow. He kept the silver chest with him at all times, and his pistols loaded.
They saw no sign of any brigands, and very few other travellers. It was the wrong time of the year, the commander said. He was a Turk called Sahin and most of his intercourse was with Spiridion – though he did speak some English and French – ‘backing both horses’, Spiridion reckoned. Whenever he spoke directly to Nathan, in either language, it was to apologise. He apologised for the state of the country, the state of the road, the heat, the inns, the food. And most of all for the time of the year. In the spring and early summer, he said, the hills would have been covered in wild flowers and sweet herbs: sage, thyme, lavender, marjoram and oregano – he took pleasure in naming them all, in English and in French. The sheep fed upon them and the mutton tasted like venison. He kissed his fingers and made a smacking noise with his lips. There would have been many small streams running down from the mountains and turning the wheels of countless water-mills. But at this time of the year most of the streams had dried out and the mills were idle. If they had come here just a month earlier, or even a month later, they would have found the hills teeming with wildlife – hares and wild boar, partridge and quail, woodcock, snipe, wild duck … they would have had very good hunting. But not at this time of the year.