by Tom Williams
Despatches were duly sent from Paris and made their way across the Atlantic. The generals passed their instructions to the majors, who commanded the captains and, in time, the lieutenants were told who they were to be fighting next.
Their response was noisy disbelief.
‘It’s madness. We’ve no sooner beaten the blacks than we are to turn on their masters!’
Captain Todd raised his hands for silence. He was a good man and he understood the lieutenants under his command.
‘We’re soldiers. We are here to fight. And we fight who we’re told to fight. The blacks we have been fighting were slaves and rebels. But there are others here with black skins but the rights of free men. And the new government in Paris has asserted that they are entitled to the same rights and liberties as any other French citizen. Rights and liberties which the white planters here deny them. So we are told to fight the planters. And we will fight them with as much martial vigour as we fought the blacks.’
There was some muted cheering at this, but as the junior officers messed together that night, there were mutterings of discontent. Lieutenant Dunne – who traced his family tree back to the Lords of Ui Riagan — went so far as to argue that the order was unreasonable and unlawful. The French king, he insisted, could never have approved it. ‘It’s those revolutionaries with their nonsense about the Rights of Man. The blacks can have no rights. They’re not fit for decent society and everyone knows it. It’s in the blood. You can’t make a hunter out of a carthorse. Breeding matters.’
Burke thought of his own breeding and how Dunne would despise the household he had grown up in. And then he thought of the efforts he had made to separate himself from his roots in Kilkenny; the books he had read, the attention he had paid to the accents and manners of the mess.
‘Breeding matters, to be sure,’ he said. ‘But the meanest of men can aspire to be something more.’
Dunne laughed. ‘Are you sure you are no Jacobin yourself, James?’
Burke heard others laugh with Dunne and he was quick to join in. He cursed himself inwardly for having spoken out without thinking. The talk moved on to safer topics and Burke poured himself another glass of wine and let the conversation wash over him.
Lieutenant Dunne’s views were of no interest to the army. They fought the planters with the same disciplined enthusiasm as they had fought the slaves. Their enemies this time were no ragged desperados armed with machetes. The planters had muskets of their own and fought in the towns where the Regiment of Dillon could not use the tactics that made them such a formidable force in open country. Instead, James found himself leading his new platoon in desperate fights through the narrow streets of the island’s settlements. Every window could hide a man ready to fire down into the platoon. Every house had to be broken into and searched.
It went on for months. In Europe, summer had long since turned to winter, but, in the Caribbean, they continued to fight in tropical heat. Burke marched his platoon from town to town and in every town there was more fighting and more of his dead to bury. He felt his life reduced to marching and fatigue and blood.
He no longer knew why he fought, but he fought well and reports spoke of him as ‘a promising young officer’. Increasingly, though, as he lay to sleep, he would remember, as if it had been a dream, a giant Negro telling him, ‘You have yet to find your path.’
*
On February 1st, 1793, France declared war on Great Britain. It was months before the news reached the Caribbean but the planters were not slow to recognise a potential new ally. They sent word to Jamaica that they would welcome British rule and, in summer, the British arrived.
The Regiment of Dillon had been fighting continuously for almost a year. They had fought slaves who wanted to be free. They had fought Europeans who wanted to see the blacks kept in their place. Now, a regiment composed entirely of Irish, English, and Scots was to fight the British army.
The Regiment of Dillon marched out to meet the British with its flags flying and the drums beating but their heart was not in it. In an hour, the battle was over. Three hundred were dead. When the British offered terms, the regiment was ordered to lay down its arms.
Lieutenant Burke thought he would feel shame but instead he felt nothing. He was numbed from months of warfare. His dreams, he thought, were shattered. There could surely be no chance of advancement through a military career now. And then came what seemed like a miracle. The British offered the regiment a choice: internment as prisoners of war or the opportunity to fight under the flag of King George. For Burke, the chance of a commission under King George was all he had wanted. Like so many officers in the Regiment of Dillon, Burke had been driven to the army of France because he could not afford the cost of a commission in the army of England. And now the fortunes of war had made him what he always wanted to be: an officer in His Britannic Majesty’s army.
Chapter Two
Tilbury docks stank. They stank of the mud of the Essex marshes and the tar of old ropes and older timbers.
James Burke sniffed, curling his lip with disgust. It was something, he supposed, that his orders came directly from Colonel Taylor, aide-de-camp to the Duke of York and the man chiefly responsible for Britain’s intelligence of the French. It had been Colonel Taylor who had noticed that one James Burke now owed his allegiance to His Majesty King George, and that he spoke fluent French and acceptable Spanish. So Burke had found himself seconded from his regiment for special duties. He was denied the opportunities for promotion that glory in the field might bring and, instead, sent scurrying around Europe in a succession of commissions that had risked his life and liberty but left him still a mere lieutenant at the age of thirty-three. He lacked the money to buy himself promotion. Without either hard cash or social connections, he still languished as a subaltern, while those who had fought alongside him in Saint-Domingue were already majors.
The bright blue of a girl’s dress brought a flash of colour to the grey of the afternoon. Burke watched appreciatively as she made her way along the dockside. She paused, catching his eye with an enquiring glance, but he had business to attend to. Besides, he was an officer on His Majesty’s service, and not one to consort with dockyard whores.
‘She’s a good-looking enough wench.’
Burke turned to his companion.
‘William Brown, you are incorrigible. Does rank mean nothing to you?’
Brown grinned up at him. It was over ten years since they had faced Boukman together. Though they never spoke of it, Brown and his lieutenant shared a bond even closer than that of most men who had fought alongside each other for so long. Burke might sometimes stand on his dignity with others, but he and Brown shared the relaxed familiarity of those who had faced death together and trusted each other with their lives.
As they mounted the gangplank, which bounced disconcertingly with their tread, Burke was confident that no one watching would have seen anything but what they were supposed to see: a gentleman and his servant. Burke was (as seemed somehow only proper) the taller of the two by several inches, a difference accentuated by the height of his beaver hat. His dark hair was carefully barbered and his neck was wrapped in a black silk stock of the latest fashion. William followed after, rather as a ship’s boat might bob in the wake of an elegant yacht. He was decently but plainly fitted out with a brown coat and trousers over his military pattern boots. The boots, together with the style of his hair – pulled back from his forehead and lacking only the regulation pigtail – gave away the fact that he had recently been in the army, but people would assume that the master must have used his influence to obtain the release of a valued servant from the forces of the Crown.
At the ship’s rail, a steward, resplendent in a jacket dripping with gold braid, stepped forward to greet Mr Burke. He snapped his fingers for a cabin boy – barefooted but smart in his blue smock – to lead the gentleman forward, while Brown was despatched to his accommodation in steerage quarters. Burke followed his guide, his long strides easil
y keeping pace with the boy, while his deceptively lazy gaze took in the details of the scene around him: the crew standing by at their stations on the deck or on the ratlines, ready to loose the sails; the Captain on the low quarterdeck; the gentlemen in a nervous huddle toward the bows, and the servants making their way uncertainly to their quarters aft.
Burke’s eye was caught by a figure in a long, dark coat. The man was huddled against the rail, staring gloomily across the murky waters of the Thames.
‘It’s all right, lad. Make sure my man knows which my cabin is. I’ll stay on deck a while.’ He slipped a coin into the boy’s hand and moved toward the gloomy passenger who had caught his attention. ‘Mr O’Gorman.’
The man started as if he had been struck, before turning with a visible effort of self-control.
Burke proffered his hand. ‘I recognised you from your description.’
Indeed, the man before him matched Colonel Taylor’s description perfectly. ‘Shortish, stoutish, red-faced, brownish hair – what there is of it. Wears a rather vulgar gold ring on his left hand.’ It was the ring Burke had noticed first. Together with the quality of his coat, and the fine leather of his boots, his appearance marked him as wealthy but his crumpled cravat suggested, to Burke’s eyes, that he was not really a gentleman.
O’Gorman hesitated for a moment. Then, as if suddenly aware of the hand, took it and shook it with a desperate compensatory fervour.
Burke extricated his hand. ‘We should talk, Mr O’Gorman.’
O’Gorman opened his mouth to reply, but was cut off before he could speak.
‘In private, would be best. You can show me our cabin. We can talk there.’
O’Gorman gave a half-shrug of resignation and led the way forward and through the door that led to the passenger accommodation. Burke followed, sensing the other’s resentment. O’Gorman had earned his wealth in business and was more used to giving orders than to taking them.
O’Gorman opened the third door leading off to the right of the narrow companionway. Burke moved past him and entered the cabin without waiting for an invitation. His mission depended on O’Gorman’s unquestioning cooperation and Burke intended to impose his authority as quickly and completely as he could.
‘You have had word of my coming.’
O’Gorman barely had time to nod before Burke was speaking again.
‘We are new business partners, you and I. We travel together, sharing this cabin and you initiate me into the secrets of commerce with the viceroyalty of La Plata.’
‘I understand all this.’ O’Gorman was angry and his Irish brogue, distinct at the best of times, grew broader. ‘But I protest –’
Burke cut him off with a gesture.
‘Save your breath. We neither of us chose our situation and we must simply make the best of it. We are a nation at war and I am about His Majesty’s business. You, sir, will do all in your power to assist me. If you do not, you may expect the excise to busy themselves with every cargo you deliver. And I am told they can be very clumsy in the handling of your goods.’
Both men had remained standing, despite the low ceiling. Now, though, O’Gorman sat himself down. He made to pull his chair up to the table that filled most of the space in the cabin, but it was screwed to the floor, a precaution against foul weather that left the merchant tugging impotently at his seat while Burke gazed sardonically down at him.
O’Gorman struggled silently with the furniture for a few seconds before collapsing back in his chair. ‘Very well.’ He sounded suddenly weary. ‘Tell me what you want of me.’
Burke took the other chair and leaned forward toward O’Gorman. He sat silently, examining the other’s features. He had no reason to like the man. O’Gorman was a merchant and not a gentleman. He lacked finesse and was inclined to bluster. His Irishness, too, counted against him. Burke had put Kilkenny firmly behind him and his accent now bore no trace of his origins. But if his mission were to succeed, O’Gorman must be won over.
Burke forced a smile and leaned confidentially toward his fellow passenger. ‘I want you to introduce me into the merchant community in Buenos Aires.’
O’Gorman gave a puzzled frown. ‘But why is that a concern of His Majesty’s Government?’
Burke reached into his pocket and tossed a coin onto the table. It fell heavily, displaying the Spanish coat of arms.
‘A Spanish dollar. An ounce of solid silver. Whoever controls the source of that silver controls a large part of the wealth of the world. And it is our belief that Napoleon has his eyes on it.’
O’Gorman picked up the coin and weighed it in his palm, almost absent-mindedly: ‘It comes from Upper Peru. Nowhere near Buenos Aires.’
‘But the mines are governed from Buenos Aires. The silver is shipped through Buenos Aires. Good God, man, the viceroyalty of Río de la Plata is run from Buenos Aires, and governs half of South America. It’s the key to control of the Spanish mines.’
O’Gorman looked again at the coin and up at the young officer opposite him.
‘You think that the British can take Buenos Aires before the French do?’
Burke smiled.
‘I’m sure they can. My job is to find out the best way to do it.’
*
James Burke had hoped that the voyage, tedious and uncomfortable as it was almost certain to be, would at least offer no immediate hazards beyond those naturally associated with wind and wave. William’s arrival at his cabin put an end to that.
William had brought a small sea chest with the essentials required for Burke’s comfort on the voyage. Good servant that he was, he insisted on stowing away as much as possible in the limited space available. As he pulled drawers from under the bunks, or opened the cupboards built into the walls, he seemed to be for ever tripping over O’Gorman’s feet or clumsily striking him with an elbow, apologising all the time with evident sincerity. O’Gorman bore with it for a while but Burke could see his temper about to break.
‘Why don’t you take yourself onto the deck, Mr O’Gorman?’ he suggested, placatingly. ‘It will be your chance to see the last of the Thames.’
O’Gorman’s jaw clenched and, for a moment, Burke thought he was about to protest that he should not be forced from his cabin to allow a servant to go about his business. Burke held O’Gorman’s eyes in a steady gaze as the merchant opened his mouth to speak and then, as if thinking better of it, rose from his seat, and without a word left the cabin.
Burke and William listened to his footsteps moving down the companionway and then the clatter of his toecaps on the steps that led to the deck.
‘I thought he’d never go,’ said William.
‘You were hardly subtle. I hope whatever you’re going to tell me is important. O’Gorman must think I have the worst-trained servant on the ship.’
‘Helswig is on board.’
Burke raised an eyebrow. ‘Well done, William. That certainly is important. Where did you see him?’
‘He’s lodged aft with me and all the others. We’re packed in pretty close up there but I thought I should just take a look around in case I saw any familiar faces. It can’t be just Colonel Taylor that’s interested in Buenos Aires. I didn’t expect to see Helswig, though.’
‘No, that is an unpleasant surprise. It suggests that the opposition is showing at least as much interest in the River Plate as we are. Did he see you?’
William shook his head. ‘I just caught a glimpse of him the once and then made sure to keep out of the way. But where there’s Helswig, there’ll be the Dutchman. And he’ll be travelling up front with you. There’s no chance of you avoiding him for long.’
Burke did not reply for several seconds but then he spoke decisively. ‘Either the Dutchman is deliberately following us or it is a most unfortunate coincidence. In either case, his presence endangers our mission. If he is not currently in the pay of Spain, he will sell the Spanish his services as soon as he is able – and he will identify me as a British agent.’ He allowed a spasm of
distaste to pass across his face. ‘I am afraid it is necessary that both men meet with an accident. And the sooner, the better. No one knows them yet. You said yourself that there’s a mass of people there and they will be a while getting familiar with their companions. If Helswig goes over the side now, it’s only the Dutchman who will notice.’
Burke drew a watch from his pocket. ‘It’s barely noon as yet. My guess is that the Dutchman will leave his man to his own devices until he changes for dinner. Then he will want help with his toilet. When you came aft, you crossed the main deck. Is there any connection below decks between your quarters and the upper class cabins?’
‘There’s one door, sir, but it’s kept locked.’
‘Good. Then Helswig is easily disposed of. He will have to cross the deck to serve his master and when he does, we will put him overboard.’
‘Won’t he be seen, sir?’
Burke opened the cabin door and let William into the companionway. He gestured up to where thick panes of glass admitted light from the deck above.
‘Those windows, William, are mounted in a structure that stands a good two feet clear of the deck and there,’ – he gestured toward the far end of the corridor – ‘are stairs rising either side to allow us the convenience of an alternative exit. Now, if you see someone on deck passing that door and then you see them gone, what do you think? Why, that they have descended the ladder and vanished below. It is only if you were to see an actual attack that you would consider the possibility that they would have taken the other direction. The Thames is a noble river but no one would expect a person aboard a snug little craft like this to be stepping over the side.’