Absolute Honour

by C. C. Humphreys

  He awoke to a little light and footsteps. His throat by now would not allow him to make words. But he began to crawl toward the door, just as the inset window opened and a face appeared for a brief moment. Then the panel was slammed shut, but not before he heard a woman’s sob.

  ‘Fanny?’ he tried to croak.

  Footsteps faded again and he fell back into his corner. If he’d had any moisture in his body he was sure he would have wept.

  How long it was before someone approached again he did not know. Nor did he move, not even when the bolts were thrown, a key turned and the door swung open. A man he’d never seen before came in carrying a bucket and a plate. Another stood behind him in the doorway, holding keys and a cudgel. The bucket and plate were put down on the floor and Jack saw liquid slop over the lip. Then the men left. Jack crawled slowly forward. The bucket was filled with … well, he supposed it was water. It did not occupy its receptacle alone. But if it had been taken direct from the King’s Bath after a full day of scrofulous bathers, Jack would still have drunk it dry.

  He’d gulped about a quarter before he was sick. After that, he took it more slowly, sipping little and often. Gradually the terrible throbbing that had held his head for an eternity began to decline. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, and though he had no appetite, he consumed the slab of dark bread down to the last crumb. With his immediate physical problems fading, his mind began again to function. He almost preferred the nothingness.

  What kind of a stew am I in now? he wondered.

  He had been in some before – too many! It seemed to be his nature, frig the thing. But this was serious. The man questioning him obviously believed Jack to be part of the conspiracy to kill the King. Looking at it from their side, they might assume that the grenade had gone off prematurely and Jack and McClune’s cohort were victims of their own weapon. And yet, surely they’d have seen that the fellow was shot? They would not be able to explain that. Jack could explain it for them. After all, hadn’t he spoilt the plot? Saved the King? He was the hero, damn their eyes! How dare they treat him like this?

  His anger lasted mere moments. He was no hero but a fool, blinded by love, charmed by friendship. He’d known Red Hugh was a Grenadier. Known he’d chosen the house next to the one to be presented to the King, shown up the day before the event, battered, bleeding … what had Turnville said? Something about Dawkins hating the Irish even more because of what one of them had done to his comrade? Of course, Red Hugh had no creditors. He’d fallen in with these men and killed one of them.

  Jack had ignored everything obvious, so focused was he on the game of love. Still, they couldn’t hang him for a being a fool, could they?

  A little laugh came, as bitter as the taste lingering in his mouth. Half the men who danced the Tyburn jig were just and only that. It would appear that his Absolute luck, which had carried him through slavery, war and a dozen close rendezvous with death, had finally run out.

  The footsteps came again.

  A key turned, the bolts were shot. The two men who had brought him sustenance now brought in that same table, chair and lamp. Only when these were arranged did Turnville appear, Dawkins a step behind. He sat, shuffled a thicker sheaf of papers before him. The other men left, the door closed. For a long while there was silence, as Turnville read documents and Dawkins just stared. Jack’s earlier panic had not allowed him really to study his interrogator. He saw him now, a man he suspected was in his fifties, though the face seemed younger, the skin pale, as if the Colonel did not spend much time in the field. Yet there was nothing soft in the grey eyes, split by a line that ran between the brows, straight down like a knife cut.

  The eyes came up. ‘Jack Absolute.’

  He felt a little of his rigidity slip. It was a start. ‘Mrs Harper told you?’

  ‘She did. Though we nearly didn’t find her since she now lives under the name of Scudder. Fortunately for you we are diligent.’ He reached into his sheaf, pulled out a page. ‘Jack Absolute,’ he said again, reading it. ‘You have had quite the life, have you not?’

  ‘It has been … eventful.’

  A snort came, humourless. ‘An understatement. We have here a copy of a letter sent by General Murray in Quebec to the Secretary, William Pitt.’ He scanned it. ‘It seems you have a talent for disguise which proved useful to the General.’

  ‘I made some contribution, yes, I—’

  ‘He also says that you are ill-disciplined, insubordinate and prone to violence. True?’

  ‘I do not consider myself especially … violent. I—’

  Another page was pulled out. ‘This report comes from London. It tells how you were involved in the assassination of Lord Melbury.’

  Jack gasped. ‘The report is wrong, sir! It was not political. Lord Melbury died in an honest duel with …’ He hesitated.

  ‘With your father. A fugitive now, gone to fight in Germany, though …’ a scrap of paper was raised, ‘we have a sighting of him at a tavern here in Bath a few days ago.’ The note was laid down. ‘So we have the King’s minister killed, an attempt made on the King’s life and Absolutes everywhere we look.’

  ‘It is not what it appears to be, sir.’

  ‘No?’ Turnville leaned forward. ‘Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell me, then, what it is.’

  Jack frowned. ‘It is a, uh, complicated story, sir. It will take some time.’

  Turnville sat back. ‘We have that. Years in your case, perhaps. Wait!’ He leaned back, called out, ‘Holla!’ The door opened. ‘Send in Tully.’

  Another man, smaller even than Turnville, bespectacled and hitherto unseen, entered. ‘Sir?’

  ‘A confession, Tully. Be so good as to bring your pencil.’

  The man left, returned with a lap desk and his own chair to set up just behind the other. When he was ready Turnville waved at Jack. ‘You may begin.’

  Jack did, as near to the beginning as he could manage, from his father’s duel with Lord Melbury. Occasionally, the Colonel displayed impatience with too much detail – he seemed distinctly uninterested in the various uses of a bear to survive a colonial winter, for example. Mostly he just sat and stared and, for a good hour, the only sound, other than Jack’s voice, was the scrape of pencil on paper.

  Jack told the whole truth – nearly. He didn’t see that Letty’s being Red Hugh’s cousin was relevant, so he tried to reduce her to an anonymous woman the Irishman had encouraged him to pursue. He hoped it might shelter her from enquiry. But it provoked the only interruption to the flow of narrative.

  ‘If you are referring to Laetitia Fitzpatrick,’ Turnville said, ‘she is not the innocent you claim her to be. Just seventeen and already a veteran traitor. Quite the player herself. Seems she was claiming an affiliation to the Earl of Clare, drawing half the eligible young men in Bath to seek her hand and bring their fortunes to the Jacobite cause. When in fact her only known relative is that impoverished rogue McClune.’ He lifted a quill, tapped the feather against his teeth. ‘We found her nest, a lodging house in the Lower Town. Long since deserted. It seems her cousin went and fetched her before he fled.’

  This was a blow Jack tried to keep from his face. There was the slimmest hope that, if he could talk his way out of this, he could find Letty to confirm Red Hugh’s words: that she loved Jack, beyond the conspiracy. He’d been sure the Irishman would have no choice but to flee, unencumbered by women. He’d underestimated him again.

  ‘On,’ Turnville said, rapping a knuckle upon the desk.

  The rest took little longer. Though Dawkins shook his head in obvious disbelief at the tale of Jack’s thwarting of the assassination – and the clerk seemed to catch something in his throat when Jack mentioned elephants and had to scratch it out three times – the Colonel merely stared on impassively.

  Finally, Jack’s tale petered out. He had told them what had happened, why he had been so gulled. He realized how ridiculous it made him look. But ridiculous men could hope to leave a gaol. The guilty c
ould not.

  Turnville continued to study a point on the wall above Jack for some time. ‘Quite the story. But I have a different version for you. Simpler. Far shorter.’ He held up his fist and began to tell out his fingers. ‘You are lying. You are guilty. You were turned. You are a Jacobite. You are no longer loyal to King George.’

  ‘I am not a Jacobite. I have not been turned. I am guilty of nothing but stupidity. And,’ he rose from the bedstead and Dawkins instantly stepped toward him; Jack looked at him – he would not let this man hit him again without a response. Then he looked down at the Colonel. ‘And I assure you, sir, I am no liar.’

  Turnville studied him for a long moment. Then, waving his man back, he stood, nodded. ‘Well, that we shall soon verify. And God have mercy on you if you are proved false, because Dawkins won’t.’

  Then he was gone, the clerk following, the other men coming in to clear the room. When the last had left, Dawkins turned again. He stopped when he saw Jack had placed his back against the wall. And that he had the empty bucket in his hand.

  ‘Yes?’ asked Jack, and the man looked as if he was going to come. Then Turnville called from the hall and, with a last growl, he too was gone.

  Jack sat, his legs suddenly unsteady. He could not remember all he had said. He just knew it was the truth, most of it. His only hope now was that it would be enough.

  When the door opened on what Jack thought was the fifth day of his captivity – time was hard to track in that near lightless world – he assumed it would be as every previous visit had been: a man bringing in water and some unidentifiable food once a day, another man warding him with cudgel or gun. But this time was different.

  One of them stood in the doorway. He crooked a finger. ‘You. Now.’

  Jack, who had been standing on his hands against the wall in an effort to alleviate the boredom, dropped onto his feet. ‘Where?’ he asked apprehensively. He wasn’t sure he would get a trial. He suspected that many who came into Turnville’s orbit didn’t.

  The man just crooked the finger again. Another man, the one with the cudgel, stood behind him. Jack had no choice. ‘Delighted,’ he said.

  The room three floors above was hardly ornate, simply an ordinary drawing room fitted out as a study. Yet the green of the patterned wallpaper was almost sickeningly vibrant after the cell. And though he could see rain falling through the tall windows, the day still appeared brighter than any summer he could remember. He stood there blinking, first at that light, then at the man behind the huge oaken desk.

  Dawkins was also there, and he and the cudgel man stood behind Jack at the door. Turnville was writing. ‘Get him a chair,’ he said quietly, not ceasing his scratching, not looking up. One was brought, and Jack was forced roughly onto it. The men returned to their post. Silence, save for rain and the moving nib, lasted minutes. At last, Turnville looked up.

  ‘I have your confession here,’ he said, spinning a paper around, dipping and then holding out the quill to Jack. ‘I have most of the details, I believe. Treason, murder, conspiracy. Usual stuff. Just sign at the bottom.’

  Jack made no move forward. ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘Because it will save your life, boy.’ The goose feather was still held out. ‘His Majesty has decided, based on your military service, your youth and your family’s formerly good name, to spare you the noose. You will be transported, of course. To the Indies probably, where, if the fever doesn’t get you and you live ten years, they may make you a free man again.’

  Jack had experienced slavery with the Abenaki and fever aboard the Robuste. He wanted neither experience again. But the noose? In life, at least there was hope. He leaned forward, read: ‘I, Jack Rombaud Absolute, do hereby confess to be a foul traitor to England and her glorious King George …’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s a lie. I cannot sign it. Hang me for a fool, if you must. But I will not live as a slave and a traitor.’

  The Colonel sighed. ‘Are you quite sure?’

  Jack felt his throat tighten – perhaps in anticipation. While he could still speak, he said, ‘Quite.’

  ‘Good lad,’ said Turnville. Lifting the paper, he ripped it swiftly from end to end. ‘Would have been very disappointed if you had.’

  A signal was given, a man approached from the back. A crystal glass was held out, the scent of sherry rising from it. He quickly gripped it with two hands, did not lift it so they would not see his shakes. ‘What … what is happening?’

  Turnville sipped from his own glass, put it down. ‘I’d like to offer you employment.’

  Jack was not certain he’d heard correctly. He lifted the liquid to his lips, took half at a gulp. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Employment. In the service of His Majesty. Though since you are already a soldier, perhaps you should consider it a transfer.’

  Jack swallowed the rest of the sherry. ‘May I have another?’ Turnville nodded. The glass was filled and Jack now held it in one hand. ‘You do not believe me to be a traitor?’

  ‘I believe you to be what you just called yourself – a fool. Not a hanging offence and almost obligatory in one so young. Besides, you have other qualities attested to by,’ he waved his hand over the desk, ‘General Murray, Colonel Burgoyne, one Captain Engledue of the Robuste. Bravery, verging on the foolhardy. A taste for disguise. An ability with languages and weapons. All very useful to us.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Jack was content to sip this second sherry.

  ‘But even more useful – no one knows you, at least in the spheres we move in. We could introduce you into a certain arena, give you another disguise, another name. A more likely one than Absolute, eh?’ The man actually smiled.

  ‘What arena?’

  Instead of answering, the Colonel reversed a clump of paper, tied together with a thick bootlace. The top page had names on it. The first was the name he’d known him by, the rest were the aliases he’d heard at their first meeting in the cell below.

  ‘Red Hugh McClune,’ Jack read aloud. ‘May I?’

  ‘Later, perhaps. But allow me to précis a little.’ Turnville rose, went to look out at the rain. ‘The Irishman and I have had a long relationship. I faced him at Culloden, though I did not know it then. I nearly caught him in London in fifty-two when he planned to be one of four hundred men who would storm St James’s Palace and seize the King. It was called the Elibank Plot. Heard of it?’

  ‘I don’t believe—’

  ‘Not surprised. Most haven’t. We try not to let these things come out. But he was there, as he has been at the bottom of most conspiracies against our State. We heard he was in America, seeking arms, fomenting discontent. And then we found him, quite by chance, in Bath!’ Turnville turned. ‘I was so pleased to meet him at last. Alas, we had only the one, brief conversation. I was to return in the morning – one week ago – to continue our talk.’ He sighed. ‘But by the morning he was gone. And Mr Dawkins’s brother was dead.’ He gestured to the man still standing behind Jack. ‘And this Mr Dawkins was the smaller of the siblings.’

  Turnville came round the desk, perched on its edge. ‘Red Hugh McClune is a very dangerous man and our most capable opponent. He is always about something big. The Elibank Plot. Killing the King here in Bath. Now he’s escaped he’ll be planning something equally spectacular.’ That half-smile returned. ‘We had him. We lost him. We would like to have him back.’

  ‘And you think—’

  ‘You know him. I mean, you can actually recognize his face. Few alive can. I am amazed he let you live, as your story goes. He must be fond of you, which, again, may be useful. It is a weakness he has not yet displayed.’ He reached for his own glass. ‘We want you to find him, point him out to us. Then we can do the rest.’

  Jack sipped the sherry. ‘But how will I find him?’

  Turnville came off the desk, moved back to his chair. Another paper was produced. ‘We suspect he was the Methodist reverend seen taking an Antwerp-bound vessel with wife and daughter from Southampton.
Yet even if he goes via the Low Countries he will still end up in France. He is employed and paid by the French equivalent of my own department – Le Secret du Roi, the Bourbon’s intelligence. He will go to them for instructions and gold. He’ll take the latter and largely ignore the former, unless they also suit the cause of the Lost King. And then we think he’ll make for the centre of the Jacobite world.’

  ‘Charles Edward?’ Jack had heard that the Bonnie Prince was in Germany.

  Turnville snorted. ‘That drunkard? No, Bliadnha Thearlaich,’ he mangled the Gaelic, ‘was his chance and he lost. Charles’s year was seventeen forty-five. As they sing in their taverns: “He’ll come no more.” ’

  ‘Then where?’

  ‘The court of the exiled King, James the Third as he calls himself. The Pope still shelters him and the Jacobite diaspora gathers around him, a broken, dispirited crew in the main, living on cold soup and former glories. But that’s where they still plot the Old Pretender’s return. In Rome.’

  ‘You wish me to go to Rome?’

  ‘Yes. Infiltrate the Jacobite exiles. We’ll give you a good story. Report all you can, who’s in, who’s out. You’ll be doing useful work. And then when our quarry finally appears, you point him out and we take him. You will have time, for our fox will go to ground in France a while, ’tis certain. He’ll also travel slower than a youth such as yourself, for I doubt he’ll abandon his women. Did you know that the so-called Mrs O’Farrell is actually Bridget O’Doherty, his wife? No matter. His cousin will also undoubtedly go with them.’