The Dark Secret of Josephine rb-5

by Dennis Wheatley

  The thought of indefinite captivity in their present surroundings appalled them all, and in vain they endeavoured to reconcile themselves to the fact that even months away there was no deadline beyond which they could be certain of release. Clarissa, perhaps because she was the youngest, was the most seriously affected by this demoralizing uncertainty. In every crisis of action she had so far kept her head and shown as much courage as the older women; but now, with ultra pessimism, she declared that they would be there for years, that if ever she did get free again it would only be with a haggard face and scrawny body, and that the cruel Fates clearly intended to rob her of her youth in this way. Each night she sobbed herself to sleep and, in fact, her looks did begin to deteriorate with alarming rapidity. Her high-bridged nose became a bony beak, her cheeks lost their bloom and her golden hair its lustre. Yet there was nothing they could say to cheer her or do to check the draining away of her vitality.

  Christmas Day came and passed like any other, as to attempt any form of rejoicing would have been too bitter a mockery. But on the afternoon of Boxing Day they were aroused from their torpor by an order which brought them scrambling to their feet breathless with excitement. From the passage-way Charlemange had shouted:

  "Get your things together. We are leaving here."

  Instantly their hearts bounded with the hope that General Toussaint had succeeded in arranging an exchange for them; but the one-armed Lieutenant would neither confirm nor deny that. After spitting on the floor he just shrugged and muttered surlily:

  "I have received an order to take you to another place. That is all you need to know. Hurry now!"

  They needed no urging. Their quarters and treatment at the place to which they were to be taken could hardly be worse than the con­ditions under which they had lived for the past ten days. Within a few minutes they had packed their meagre belongings and were again being protected by their guards, as they made their way downstairs, from the menaces of scores of yelling blacks of both sexes.

  The coach stood before the house. They noticed at once that its window curtains had disappeared and that the fine leather harness had been replaced with pieces of old rope. Then they saw that its well-sprung seats and back cushions had all been ripped out, leaving its interior a bare wooden box. Nevertheless, those of them who had come- there in it were glad enough to take places on its floor in the hope that it would carry them to better times.

  Actually, owing to the removal of the seats, the continued infliction of needless hard usage by their guards, and their journey being some­what longer than the previous one, they suffered even more severely. Yet hope, now strengthened by the knowledge that they were being taken towards the coast, enabled them to bear it with a greater degree of fortitude.

  On the fourth evening the coach was halted at a cross-roads and its occupants told to get out With the others they were marched some distance along a track and then, just as the sun set, into a wood. After another half-hour's walk they came to a ruin, which they judged to be the remains of a monastery erected in the days of the Spanish occupation.

  Some negro soldiers emerged from among the piles of great stones, and their officer held a brief consultation with Charlemange, at the conclusion of which the one-armed Lieutenant marched his men away without so much as a glance at his late prisoners. They knew that they probably owed their lives to his conscientious obedience to the orders he had been given, yet none of them could feel sorry to see him go.

  The other officer gruffly told them to follow him, but refused to answer any questions; so surrounded by a new and larger escort they proceeded deeper into the forest until they reached a wide clearing. On its eastern edge they waited for over an hour, so pent up with excitement that they could hardly contain themselves. At length a single shot rang out somewhere to the west of them. The officer gave an order and two of his men fired their muskets into the air; so it was evident that the first shot had been a pre-arranged signal.

  A few minutes later, in the faint starlight, several groups of men could be seen emerging from the trees on the far side of the clearing. Led by their officer a number of the negro soldiers went forward to meet them. There was an exchange of passwords, then Roger heard a voice speaking in such bad French that it could only have belonged to an Englishman. Several of his companions had realized that too, and with unutterable relief they kissed, embraced and with tears of joy running down their cheeks, wrung each other's hands.

  After that everything seemed to happen very swiftly. Laughing and chattering the negro troops disappeared with the prisoners that the British had handed over to them, while Roger and his party found themselves surrounded by grinning red-coats and shaking hands with a plump young man who introduced himself as Captain Mansfield of the 41st

  As in a dream they walked another mile to a road where carriages were waiting. During a long drive they hardly spoke, but soon after dawn they entered Mole St Nicholas.

  It had well been termed the Gibraltar of the Indies, as it possessed a fine natural harbour and the great fortress out on the promontory dominated the strait between Saint-Domingue and Cuba. But Captain Mansfield did not take them up to it He explained that it was already overcrowded with refugees; so accommodation had been taken for them at the Hotel de France, which was situated in the central square of the little town that lay in the shelter of the Mole.

  At the hotel they were welcomed by its proprietor, Monsieur Ducas. The plump Captain said that he would wait upon them later in the day, and they managed to murmur their thanks to him. Then they were led to their rooms and, pulling off their filthy clothes, flopped into bed.

  When they awoke they could hardly credit that they were free again, but were soon reassured that they were not dreaming by the tangible comfort of their beds and solid appointments of the well-furnished rooms. The dinner hour had long since passed but Mansfield had foreseen that they would sleep through most of the day, so had called only to leave the Garrison Commander's compliments with a purse of twenty-five guineas for their immediate necessities, and orders that trays were to be sent up to them as soon as they roused from their slumbers. Having eaten and, although still almost speech­less from relief, paid brief visits to one another in their rooms, they slept once more.

  Next morning the hotel servants were kept busy for an hour carry­ing up many copper cans of hot water, so that the new arrivals could thoroughly cleanse themselves in hip baths. Two barbers were sent for and a mercer who brought with him a selection of ready-made garments. By midday the gentry of the party, if not fashionably dressed, were at least presentable, and the others had substituted clean tropical attire for their flea-infested clothes.

  At two o'clock Mansfield arrived to carry Roger, Wilson, Fergusson and the three ladies up to the fortress to dine with its commandant, Colonel Seaton. He proved to be a dour, elderly Scot, who had made his way in the Army by conscientious, if not enlightened, endeavour. It was at once clear to them that he was no courtier, but shrewd enough to realize that the goodwill of such influential people as the Governor-designate of Martinique and the Countess of St. Ermins might one day stand him in good stead. Having commiserated with them on their misfortunes he expressed his willingness to help them in any way he could.

  They thanked him in no measured terms for having rescued them by agreeing to an exchange of prisoners, and for his other courtesies; after which Roger reimbursed him for his loan with a draft on Hoare's Bank, and said that they would all like to go to Jamaica as soon as a passage could be arranged. He told them that as his communications with Kingston were frequent he thought there should be nothing to prevent their leaving in the next few days. They then went in to dinner.

  It proved an indifferent and far from cheerful meal. Although the Colonel spoke guardedly, it was clear that he felt a bitter resentment against the powers at home who showed a most lamentable lack of understanding about the problems and needs of troops campaigning in the West Indies, and that he was greatly depressed by the heavy toll that d
eath from Yellow Fever was taking of his men.

  Recalling Droopy Ned's advice, Roger suggested that he should send the greater part of them to sea for a short voyage; but he seemed pessimistic about such a step having results of permanent value, and said that in any case his numbers were so reduced that he could not possibly do so without risking the security of the Fortress.

  They finished dinner about seven, upon which the ladies retired to the drawing-room while the men sat over their port An hour later they joined the ladies and soon afterwards Georgina initiated the polite movements for making their adieux. At this the Colonel expressed unfeigned surprise, reminding them that it was New Year's Eve, and saying that his officers were greatly looking forward to welcoming them in the mess to celebrate seeing the old year out

  In their complete absorption with their freedom they had com­pletely forgotten the date, and although they would rather have once more savoured the joy of getting between clean sheets at the hotel, politeness demanded that they should now stay on where they were. As none of them had any acquaintances in common with the Colonel, and he did not know enough about Saint-Domingue to be interesting on that subject, the conversation was kept up only by gallant efforts on the part of the visitors. But at last it struck ten o'clock and he led them through several chilly stone passages to the Officers' Mess.

  As British women were as rare at Mole St. Nicholas as flies in December at home, the thirty-odd officers assembled there greeted Georgina, Amanda and Clarissa with a tremendous ovation. But they had been through too much too recently to meet it with a genuine response. They did their best to show their appreciation of the many gallant toasts drunk to them, and did their utmost to disguise the accumulated weariness from which they were still suffering, but they, and Roger, Fergusson and Wilson too, were heartily glad when the New Year of 1795 had been ushered in with the singing of 'Auld Lang Syne', and they were at last free to take their departure.

  Next day, after sleeping late and the luxury or another bath, Roger felt much more like his old self and having found out where Madame de Boucicault was living, he performed the sad duty of waiting upon her with the news of her husband's death. Then, on returning to the hotel, as he had nothing to do, he decided that it would be interesting to learn the views of a rich bourgeois on possible developments in Saint-Domingue. Accordingly, he sought out Monsieur Ducas and suggested that the landlord should join him in a bottle of wine.

  Murmuring his appreciation of the honour 'Son Excellence le Gouverneu’ proposed to do him, the hotelier led Roger to his private sanctum and sent for a bottle of his best Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Soon, as Roger's French was so perfect, he kept forgetting that he was talking to an Englishman and in response to skilful leading questions began to give free rein to his beliefs.

  He was a loyal Frenchman. In Saint-Domingue, just as in France, the nobility had been stupid, greedy and overbearing; so to begin with he had been all in favour of the Revolution which promised to pull them down a peg or two. But somehow everything had gone wrong. In Paris the demagogues had abandoned God and murdered their king. Then they had seized upon the discord in the colonies to further their criminal designs against all owners of property. To save themselves from wholesale massacres the colonists had been forced to call in the English. What else could they do? Yet France would in time become sane again, and Samt-Domingue was almost as much a part of her as Provence. So in due course it must be restored to the mother country. There would be difficulties, of course. But it was to be hoped that the British would see the obvious necessity for this.

  The great tragedy was, he added, that there a moderate Revolution could quite well have been effected without bloodshed. That it had been otherwise was due to the mulattoes. It was they who had first taken up arms, and had they not done so the negroes would never have followed their example.

  "I thought," remarked Roger, "that the mulattoes had played only for their own hand, because they realized that while liberal sentiment in pre-revolutionary France might gain for them equal rights with the whites, there could be no question of such rights being granted to the negroes."

  "That is true, Monseigneur. And, of course, many of the wealthier mulattoes were slave owners themselves. But once a country becomes divided against itself in civil war, who can say where the conflagration will stop? It was seeing the white planters murdered and their houses plundered that inflamed the minds of the negroes. But for that, the windy orations of the Terrorists sent out from Paris would in most cases have fallen on deaf ears. The slaves did not then understand what freedom meant, or want it They were in the main quite contented with their lot"

  "You surprise me. Are you really convinced of that?"

  "Indeed I am. When in France you must have seen how the peasants toil in the fields from dawn to dusk, and turn their women too into beasts of burden. It is the same in Italy and most other European countries; yet these people are free. The negroes were no worse off while working here in the cane-brakes."

  It was a new point of view to Roger. He remembered an occasion when he had breakfasted with Mr. Pitt The Prime Minister's great friend William Wilberforce had been present, and had talked at considerable length on the horrors of the slave trade. Now, he repeated some of the statements Wilberforce had made to Monsieur Ducas.

  The Frenchman shrugged. "I do not deny that the conditions under which fresh cargoes of slaves are brought over from Africa -are often appalling, and that many of them die from sickness or ill-treatment on the voyage. For that, Monseigneur I fear that your countrymen are mostly to blame, since 'blackbirding', as it is called, has long been one of the most profitable fields of British enterprise. I spoke only of the condition of the slaves either born here or once they have been purchased by our colonists.

  "I spoke, too, only of those who are put to the hardest manual labour. A nigh proportion of them were employed in shops, cafes, bars; as boatmen, coachmen, grooms, gardeners and house slaves. In most cases those so employed were much better off than people in similar occupations in Europe."

  "On what do you base that contention, Monsieur?"

  "Because they had security. And that applied also to those who laboured in the fields. In Europe a workman is paid only as long as he is useful to his master. Should he fall sick he is dismissed and must live on charity. Should he be in no position to obtain it he starves. The situation of the slaves was very different. A good one cost up to 4,000 livres—in your money £160. They were therefore valuable properties. When they became ill their owners naturally took good care of them in order that they might soon become fit to work again. Moreover, food is very cheap here; so when they grew old and could work no more mere was no question of turning them adrift, as happens in Europe. They were put on to light tasks suited to old people, then allowed to just sit about taking care of the piccaninnies, without being a burden to their relatives, until they died.

  Again Roger recalled previous conversations he had had bearing on the subject For many generations the peasantry in England had been much better off than those on the Continent, but in recent years great numbers of them had been forced to leave the land. The en­closures of the commons had in many cases deprived them of the free grazing, free fuel and other amenities they had long enjoyed. Then the spinning jenny and other inventions had sadly depleted the amounts they could earn by their cottage industries; so by the thousands they had migrated to the towns.

  As long as they had remained cottagers, in bad times, or cases of personal misfortune, they had been able to turn to their landlords or the village parson for assistance; but once they became workers under the smoke clouds belched out from the chimneys of the new factories, no one any longer felt responsible for them as individuals.

  In association with Sir Richard Arkwright, the Duke of Bridge-water, Josiah Wedgwood and other such industrial pioneers, Georgina's father, Colonel Thursby, had made his great fortune from the new canals and mechanical inventions. It was he who had told Roger that, too late in life, he now r
ealized the misery that investors like himself were bringing to the people of the Midlands and the North. He had then described the desperate struggle for employment during periods when trade fell off; the starvation wages paid which necessitated women and children as well as men toiling m the mines for such long hours that only in summer did they see the light of day; the drunkenness in the filthy gin-shops on Saturday nights, which had become the only outlet for once decent men who, when youths, had taken their recreation in the gay gatherings at the hiring fairs, and such annual jollifications as beating the bounds, jumping St John's bonfires, welcoming Jack-in-the-Green, and dancing round the village Maypole.

  As Roger thought of these things he felt that Ducas had made a good case, and after a moment he said: "You paint a very different picture, Monsieur, from what I had imagined slavery to be. But now that things here have come to such a pass, it seems to me that there is little hope of pacifying the country unless it is agreed once and for all that the slaves should be given their freedom."

  "But that is impossible!" exclaimed the Frenchman. "Monseigneur cannot have realized that our slaves form a large part of our fortunes. To suggest that we should surrender our right to their labour is much the same as proposing that we should give away our houses or land. Besides, unless the planters got back the capital invested in their slaves few of them could finance the payment of wages to them for many months, until paid for the produce they had raised. No; all we French loyalists are agreed that the slaves must continue to be slaves, otherwise this island will fall into final destitution and ruin."

  Roger thought that Ducas and his kind were displaying typical traits in the French mentality. They wanted the British to fight the negroes for them but keep the colony for France; and after the negroes had been defeated set the clock back four years by reinforcing slavery on those who had already freed themselves. He was tempted to remark that to cling to such ideas amounted to a refusal to face facts, but decided that to do so would not impinge on the Frenchman's narrow vision, so instead he said thoughtfully: