The Spoils of Conquest

by Seth Hunter

  ‘It is not my natural element.’

  ‘No. Nor mine.’ She shuddered. ‘Camels. Scorpions under every rock. Blankets smelling of … the flies, the filth, the people … My God. And the sand. It gets everywhere, even—’

  ‘And you were heading for Suez, you say?’

  ‘Yes. Not that I knew that at the time.’

  ‘Did he not say anything to you of his intentions? I do not mean towards you, but …’

  ‘No. Only that we were going to India. To make his fortune, he said – and I would be a princess, with a palace and servants, and jewellery and silken dresses, and elephants. Pah. Did he think I was still Caterina Chodeschino, the shepherd girl from the Veneto, to be bought with trifles? I had all that in Venice before the French came, saving the elephants, and was beholden to no man for it. Men. The things they think will impress you. Elephants, though. I had never heard that before.’

  ‘And at Suez?’

  ‘Oh. Yes, Suez. We spent a week there. It was worse than Cairo. But something happened …’ She sank into reflection. Nathan wondered if she was trying to remember, or if she was deciding whether or not to tell him. He had the sense to keep quiet. ‘I decided to be nice to him. Or at least not so unpleasant.’ More reflection. ‘Well, he told me Bonaparte had promised to send him an army and that they were going to invade India.’

  ‘Bonaparte, or Naudé?’

  ‘Bonaparte, of course. Though you will think from Naudé that it was he alone. Naudé was to go with the advance guard and then Bonaparte to follow. I gave this information to a serving woman – in Cairo. I told her she would be rewarded if she took it to a certain person I know. Did Spiridion have news of this?’

  ‘I believe he did, yes.’

  ‘Good. Then he will know I was still – that I am not working for the French?’

  ‘I do not believe he would ever think that. So these men went with you to Suez?’

  ‘What men? Oh, the brigade of guards? No. I did not see them. All we had were a few camels and some goats. And the men who were with them. And Naudé’s assassins.’

  ‘Naudé’s assassins?’

  ‘Four of them. From Tripoli. They were the ones who freed me from the pasha’s prison. But then they became my jailers.’

  ‘So how long did you stay in Suez?’

  ‘Long enough. Then we went to Aden. My God.’ She covered her face with her hands in a theatrical gesture of despair. ‘Have you been to Aden?’

  ‘No. I regret I have not had that pleasure.’

  ‘Pleasure? Aden? This is a man who promises me elephants. Why Aden, I said? I had rather stay in Tripoli and become one of Karamanli’s wives, the fat pig.’

  ‘Well, it is a direct line from Aden to Mangalore.’

  ‘Really?’ She regarded him with interest.

  ‘Eighteen hundred nautical miles, near enough.’

  ‘How interesting. Is this why they made you an admiral?’

  ‘Commodore.’ He felt himself redden. ‘So what did you do in Aden?’

  ‘Well, after a few days playing the casinos and attending the theatre, just when I am looking forward to my first ball, a ship comes for us. A frigate.’

  ‘The Forte?’

  ‘No. A Dutch frigate. It comes from the Cape of Good Hope and is using Aden as a base, I think, for raids upon British shipping.’

  This made sense, of a sort. The Cape had been Dutch until they joined with the French in 1795, and the British took it from them, and Ceylon and such other colonies as they took a shine to.

  ‘Then we had to wait for another elephant – the Elephant, Naudé called it.’

  ‘The Elephanta. It is a wind – a cyclone. It comes—’ She gave him a look. ‘I am sorry, go on.’

  ‘So we do not leave Aden until the end of September. And in the third week of October we arrive at Mangalore.’

  At roughly the time Nathan had arrived in Bombay. He thought of all those weeks plodding across Syria and Mesopotamia, wondering what Naudé was doing and thinking he was being given a hero’s welcome by the Tiger of Mysore. Instead, he had been languishing in Suez and Aden with a tigress.

  ‘They fire the guns and wave the flags. They even have a band. And all these men in robes and turbans and beards – they are there to greet us. They think we bring the French army. They do not look so pleased when we march off the ship. Just Naudé and his four assassins and me. Naudé tells them Bonaparte is marching overland through Persia – which is a lie, of course. I do not think Bonaparte will leave Cairo, unless he goes back to Paris. But then two days later four French ships arrive – from the Île de France – with a hundred men. Volunteers, Naudé told me, sent by the governor to help Tipu Sultan fight the British. Condottieri, I call them,’ she sneered. ‘Freebooters.’

  ‘Only a hundred you say?’

  ‘Ninety-nine, to be precise. I can tell you exactly who they are, or what they are, if you wish. They are two generals, thirty-five officers, thirty-six European soldiers, twenty-two native troops, and four men who build ships. And two emissaries of Tipu Sultan who were sent to the Île de France. Sheik Abouram Sahib and Mehmet Bismila. I hope the Sultan is pleased with what they achieve for him. Two generals and a hundred men to drive the British out of India.’

  If the East India Company wished for a pretext to declare war upon the Sultan of Mysore, this surely was it. Good news, too, for Nathan, if there were no more than a hundred men landed. He regarded Caterina with something like awe. No wonder Spiridion had spoken so highly of her as an agent. If it was all true, of course, and she was not just making it up.

  ‘Two generals? That seems excessive for such a small army.’

  ‘I think they have nothing better to do – on the Île de France. Probably they are retired. The commander is only a colonel – Colonel Chappuys. Louis Auguste Chappuys. He fought in India in the last war. For the King of France. But now he is for the Revolution.’ She did not look as if she believed this, or expected anyone else to believe it.

  ‘And the ships from Île de France – there were four, you say?’

  She nodded. ‘I can tell you exactly what they are, too, if you wish.’

  ‘Please do.’ He prepared to make a note of them; he did not have a memory like hers.

  ‘There is the Forte – the one you were chasing. A frigate of forty-two guns, but I expect you know that, being an admiral or whatever it is you are.’

  He nodded. It was almost possible, he discovered, to feel sorry for Naudé.

  ‘Then there is the Iphigenie, twenty-two guns, the Général Malartic, named after the Governor of Île de France, twenty guns, and the Succès, eighteen guns, all of them corsairs.’

  ‘And the Dutchman – was she with them when they left Mangalore?’

  ‘Yes. She is the Braave, thirty-six guns, Captain Van Norden.’

  Five altogether, including two heavy frigates. The two squadrons were evenly matched. In fact, the odds – and even the number of guns – favoured the French, especially now that he had lost the Comet. It was surprising, in fact, that they had fled so precipitately to the south instead of stopping to fight.

  ‘And who is in command – not Naudé?’

  ‘No. He thinks he is – he has a certain political authority, and since the Revolution that carries weight, I know – but the true commander is Leloup, the captain of the Forte, Captain Jean-Baptiste Beaulieu-Leloup – the Wolf.’

  Nathan glanced at her a little sharply because she no longer sounded flippant or ironic. She sounded, he might almost have said, whimsical. Perhaps the Wolf had succeeded where Bonaparte had failed.

  ‘I do not suppose you know where he is heading next, this Wolf?’

  ‘Oh, but I do,’ she said, smiling sweetly. ‘Do you wish to know that, too?’

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Silver Ship

  ‘Devil’s Point?’

  Tully appeared dubious.

  ‘You think she is making it up,’ Nathan ventured. ‘The Devil and the Nun.’r />
  ‘Not at all, but—’

  ‘She showed me on the chart. Here.’ Nathan pointed it out to him: a small promontory on the south-east coast of Ceylon, where the Arabian Sea meets the Bay of Bengal. They were in the little office on the quarterdeck, about the size of a shed which was used as a chartroom by the sailing master. It was the only place on deck where they could talk in some privacy and without shouting. The wind had increased markedly while Nathan had been with Caterina; it was now blowing a near-gale and they were braced against the bulkheads like a pair of great apes in a packing case.

  The Devil and the Nun. He had to admit it was a possibility. There was a man in Venice known as the Devil, though he had been named after Christ – doubly so, in fact, for his Christian name was Cristoforo and his family name was Cristolfi. Cristoforo Cristolfi. Il Diavolo. The chief agent of the Inquisitors. He had been Caterina’s archenemy before Naudé had succeeded to the role. No friend to Nathan, either. It was Cristolfi who had ordered his arrest and summary execution in the Canal of the Orphans. He still felt a chill at the thought of him, and their meetings in the Magistrata alle leggi in the Doge’s Palace, where criminals were brought to answer the charges against them. Their shared enmity of this man was a powerful bond between them. Or some sort of a bond, at any rate. It was probably not wise to count on it.

  ‘You are thinking I am right?’ said Tully.

  Nathan shook his head. He had been thinking that, but not only that. He had been thinking of a moment in the great cabin, when a violent lurch in the ship’s motion had thrown Caterina against him while they were looking at the chart. It had been disconcerting. It still was. Caterina had brought complications into his life before, and could do so again.

  ‘So why are they heading for the Devil’s Point?’ Tully asked him.

  Nathan told him what Caterina had told him: ‘There was a Frenchman from India who joined them at Mangalore. He came aboard the Forte. An important man. Even Naudé deferred to him. He called him Monsieur le Marquis, but she heard Leloup call him Fabien.’

  ‘Leloup?’

  ‘He is the captain of the Forte and the commander of the squadron.’ Once more he saw the doubt in Tully’s eyes. A glint of irony, too. ‘I know.’ The Wolf was another name she could have invented. But why would she?

  There were so many reasons it was a waste of time speculating.

  ‘She makes things up as she goes along,’ Spiridion had once told him. ‘It is a talent of hers. She will see a picture on a wall, a name on a map, and she incorporates it into whatever story she is telling at the time. I have seen her do it. It is quite remarkable. There is never a pause in the conversation and you can barely see her eyes move. I only realised when I saw the names once, after she had left the room, written on the cover of a book I had been reading.’

  And this from a man who considered her generally reliable.

  ‘How did she hear this conversation?’ Tully demanded. ‘Or was she included in it?’

  ‘No, she was not included. She was in the adjoining cabin and the stern windows were open. She heard only some of it, but they were talking of two East Indiamen bound for Calcutta with a quantity of silver bullion. The marquis had come from Madras to tell them about it. He said it had been arranged for the two ships to call at Devil’s Point to take on water and to rendezvous with a ship of war that was to escort them on the final stage of their journey to Calcutta.’

  Tully frowned. ‘How could he have known about something like that?’

  Nathan shrugged, but it was a fair point. The despatch of silver bullion would be a closely-guarded secret, and even if it had been picked up by some spy in London, the news could hardly have reached India before the silver did.

  ‘And this ship that is to meet them,’ Tully persisted, ‘does it have a name?’

  ‘The Shiva. That is the name Caterina heard. Of fifty guns.’

  ‘But I thought there was not another ship of fifty guns in the Indian Ocean.’

  ‘That is what I was told by the governor of Bombay. It does not mean it is true.’

  ‘So – two East Indiamen and a fifty-gun ship of war. Quite a mouthful for this wolf.’

  The East Indiamen were two-deckers and heavily armed. They might carry as many as fifty or sixty guns themselves, though they were usually of a small calibre. ‘Even so, if I was the Wolf, I would chance it.’

  And so would Tully. ‘So what are we to do?’ he said.

  The ship plunged into a trough and they felt the shudder down the whole of her length as she came up.

  ‘There is not much we can do in this weather,’ Nathan conceded. ‘Save to keep running before the wind.’

  Running was hardly the word for it. Tully had reduced sail to a single reefed maintop and it was all they could do to ride out the storm.

  Nathan made his way back to the great cabin and knocked politely on the door. Caterina told him to come in. She had made herself at home. She had taken the cushions from the long bench of cupboards that ran along the stern windows and arranged them in the form of a couch on the floor, right up against the bulkhead. When he opened the cabin door she had been stretched out on it with her hands clasped behind her head, but she propped herself up on one elbow and regarded him amiably when he came in.

  ‘I feel more comfortable on the floor while the wind it blows,’ she said. ‘You do not object?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Nathan said. All she needed was a water pipe and the cabin would be more like it had been when he had first seen it. ‘But you are welcome to use the state room as your own. I will have the cot made up with clean bedding.’

  ‘Oh but I will not take your cabin. I am very happy to sleep here, unless …’

  They batted this to and fro for a while. In the end it was settled that she should sleep in Nathan’s cabin room and that he would sleep in the small dining room and they would share the state room between them.

  He sat down in one of the armchairs for the time being and regarded her thoughtfully.

  ‘I have been wondering why Naudé took passage on the Forte,’ he began, ‘having been sent as emissary to the Sultan of Mysore – in Seringapatam.’

  ‘I wonder that, too,’ she said, frowning.

  ‘And did you come to any conclusion?’

  ‘I think Naudé knew the marquis before.’

  ‘Before what?’

  ‘Before he met him in Mangalore. He was in India during the last war with the English – did you not know?’

  Nathan had not known. There was no reason why he should. Naudé had largely been Spiridion’s concern. The two men were by way of being rivals. Spiridion had been the leading British agent in the region, and Naudé had been the French. There were many issues between them, and Caterina was one of them.

  ‘He was in Pondicherry,’ said Caterina, ‘as a young ensign in the army of the King of France. Barras was his colonel.’

  Nathan had not known this, either. Barras was the leading light of the Directorate – the five men who ruled Revolutionary France. Which made him the effective ruler – the new Fat Louis. Bonaparte’s wife – Josephine – had once been his mistress, which was the main reason Bonaparte had been made a general, according to his detractors. Nathan was not of this opinion. Whatever else you said about Barras – and his venality was legendary – he knew a good soldier when he saw one. On the other hand, he was first and foremost a politician, and Bonaparte’s success in Italy, though it was useful, had made him dangerous. There were some who thought Barras had sent Bonaparte to Egypt to be rid of him. As far away as possible. India, even.

  ‘I think Naudé knew something of this when we were in Egypt,’ Caterina said. ‘He was always saying to me: “In India I will make my fortune – and I will make you my princess.” I thought it was just the words of a Frenchman, a braggard. But it is possible he knew something of these ships, do you not think?’

  Nathan considered. It was just possible that if the silver ships had left England in spring – April or even
early May – the news could have been relayed to Paris, and thence to Toulon before Bonaparte’s armada sailed to Egypt. There was a regular trade in spies across the English Channel – and smugglers of both sides profited by it. But the silver would have been loaded in great secrecy – and in closed leather boxes or trunks. No ordinary spy could possibly have known about such a delivery.

  And then there was the question of dates. The big East Indiamen usually left Britain much earlier in the year – to take advantage of the seasonal winds across the Indian Ocean. The usual schedule was to go out with the southwest winds from June to September, and to come back with the north-easterlies in November and December.

  The other question concerned this mysterious marquis.

  Barras had been a marquis, too, Nathan recalled. No, not a marquis – a vicomte. Paul François something something, Vicomte de Barras. Nathan had known him in Paris – or at least met him. Several times. Like Bonaparte, Barras had been under the impression that Nathan was an American sea captain and adventurer, trying to interest the Directory in building a new French empire in the Americas at the expense of Spain. Barras was by no means a Revolutionist. His main interest was money – and empires were largely about money.

  Barras had talked to him about India when they were in Paris. How he had fought at Pondicherry when it was besieged by the British. So Barras, this mysterious marquis and Naudé had all been in India at the same time.

  It was all very murky. He wondered if Caterina knew more than she was saying. Perhaps drink would loosen her tongue. He doubted it somehow, but it would be interesting to see where it might lead. He could spend a happy few hours rolling around in the great cabin with Caterina on her cushions while they rode out the storm. But it would not do. It would not do at all. He excused himself and went back on deck and to the less dangerous embraces of the sea.

  They were two days riding out the storm – and another two in search of the rest of the squadron. They found the Antelope first, and then the Eagle, both a little the worse for wear, but sound enough to resume the hunt. And at the end of the second day, just as night was falling, the Bombay came straggling down from the north under a jury rig. So then they were four.