The Shadow of the Eagle

by Richard Woodman

  ‘Your appearance here off Calais is providential not only for myself and for France, but for the peace of Europe.’

  Drinkwater was suddenly weary. What had the woman come for? He sensed some mystery but so preposterous a claim seemed to be verging on the hysterical, just when the abdicated Napoleon Bonaparte was to be mewed up on a remote island.

  ‘I see you are growing tired, Captain …’

  ‘No, no …’ he lied.

  ‘I must perforce beg you, as a man of influence, sir, to grant me a small comptence if I reveal what I know’

  ‘Competence? You mean a pension?’ So that was what it was all about! Here before him, one of the most beautiful women in Europe was begging. She was one piece of the human flotsam from the wreckage of Bonaparte’s empire. He felt meanly disappointed, as though her presence here on this night should have some nobler motive. ‘So, you have come to trade.’

  ‘I have almost nothing, Captain, and I must look to the magnanimity of my enemies and the honour of a man I have always thought of as a true spirit, wherever our respective loyalties have led us in these past years. I should hate you for what you did to my husband, but Edouard would have killed you …’

  ‘He tried, several times, Hortense …’

  Ashamed of his meanness, he felt a great pity for her. She would not be the only casualty in the fall of France. Though he had been a consistent enemy of his sovereign’s enemies, he had often, in the privacy of his own thoughts, admired the establishment of a new order. The regal buffoonery of the preceding day had reminded him of the craziness of the world.

  ‘Pray let us terminate the reminiscences, Hortense, they are painful for both of us. Do I understand you wish me to have you a pensioner of the British government?’

  ‘Please …’ There was no denying the extremity to which the woman was reduced.

  ‘Sadly, you are unlikely to believe me when I say I am of little influence and certainly quite incapable of finding the support which would gain you such a living …’

  ‘I don’t ask for very much, Nathaniel; fifty pounds per annum, enough to keep me from the gutter … forty even.’ She saw him shaking his head and a sudden fire kindled in her eyes. She dropped the intimacy they had fallen into. ‘Come Captain, you cannot claim to be of no account. I know you are otherwise; why else are you serving in a squadron commanded by a royal prince? Your Prince William could see to it that I was awarded such a pension! Shall I go and petition him …?’ She was scornful, her eyes ablaze.

  ‘Madame, Madame, you do not know what you say!’ Drinkwater had to laugh. ‘His Royal Highness and his brothers are so often in debt that I would counsel you to steer clear of that path. You might find yourself reduced to whoring in his bed in expectation of guineas, only to be paid in florins! England is not France; your Prince of Benevento has far more power than Prince William Henry, and probably a more generous purse, whatever other vices he has.’

  ‘But you can do it, Nathaniel, for God’s sake, you must! Do I have to beg? I will …’ She looked round and saw the cot.

  ‘For God’s sake get up! This is too melancholy a drama for such behaviour …’ Drinkwater was keenly aware that, despite his caution, Hortense Santhonax had boxed him into a corner. ‘Forty pounds you say? Well, well, I will see what I can do, though don’t depend upon it. Come, come,’ he floundered, ‘it is not seemly to see you so reduced…’

  ‘I have your word?’ She had at least the grace to plead.

  ‘You have my word.’

  ‘Thank you, Nathaniel. It gives me no pleasure to be beholden to you.’

  ‘It gives me no pleasure that you are,’ Drinkwater replied grimly. He would have to find the woman’s pension himself, if he could not obtain funds under some pretext or other. ‘So, what is this news that will save Europe?’

  To her credit, Hortense Santhonax came straight to the point. ‘A group of officers in Paris, unwilling to swear the oath of allegiance to the Bourbon or to take advantage of the dissolution of their vows to the Emperor Napoleon, have already plotted to rescue him from exile.’

  She paused a moment, satisfied herself that Drinkwater had taken the bait and went on. ‘Talleyrand’, she said, eschewing the former French foreign minister’s imperial title, ‘is arranging matters so that the Emperor will be exiled on the island of Flores in the Azores. Money has already passed into the hands of certain influential Russians to ensure this, so the decision will be supported by Tsar Alexander. I do not think either the Prince Regent or your government will oppose it. But, having consented not to disturb the peace and tranquillity of France, a deposition to which effect the Emperor has already signed, the Emperor will embark in ships which will convey him from the Azores and transport him to North America. Scarcely will your navy have ordered frigates to watch the islands, than Napoleon will have vanished, as will many of his guard, to join forces with the Americans. Can you not imagine the joy with which Mr Madison will welcome the greatest military genius the world has ever known?’

  ‘I can imagine Mr Madison regretting his eagerness when Mr Madison is no longer Mr President,’ Drinkwater remarked drily, but Hortense was quick to dismiss his scepticism.

  ‘Napoleon Bonaparte will have lost Europe, Nathaniel, but he will gain Canada! The Québecois await him eagerly…’

  Drinkwater thought of the speculations in the English press and Hortense’s earlier reference to them. Napoleon’s intended destination of America was at least a speculation. It might be a great deal more. ‘And you say the Tsar is complicit in this plot?’

  ‘Absolutely, yes. The matter has been settled between Alexander and Napoleon, thanks to Caulaincourt. I do not believe Napoleon will try and usurp the presidency of the United States, nor that he would again overreach himself, for he too is no longer a young man; but Canada will fall to him, and he will have again an empire the size of Europe! Do you think he cannot beat the British out of the country that was once a possession of France?’

  The enormity of the implications came as no surprise to Drinkwater. It was as if the possibility seeped into him, giving form to a deep fear, charged with all the inherent horror of something inevitable. The idea was not new, the thing was perfectly possible and not very difficult. But it marked the base ingratitude of the Tsar, into whose coffers the British had poured thousands of pounds to keep his armies in the field.

  ‘If this is true …’

  ‘It is true,’ she shook her head as if wishing she could dismiss it. Then she looked up at him, ‘And it is worth forty pounds a year.’

  But Drinkwater was no longer listening, he had turned away and stared through the stern windows. They had swung to the flood now and the eastern sky was already showing the first glimmer of the dawn. What was proposed was nothing less than the ruin of Great Britain hard upon the heels of the ruin of France. The euphoria of peace would be snatched from an exhausted people, the economy would be wrecked by further war, the troops mutinous if they had to be shipped in great numbers across the Atlantic to confront the resurgent Emperor of the French …

  It did not bear thinking about. But he could not avoid it. When Britain had lost the Thirteen Colonies of North America, she had still had the vast wealth she derived from India and the sugar islands of the West Indies. Once before India had been threatened by Napoleon, now it was all too clear that it would be the Tsar’s patiently obedient and savagely efficient legions who would thrust down towards the sub-continent. Drinkwater had few illusions but that they were capable of such a campaign.

  He swung round to find Hortense intently watching him.

  ‘This is not bluff, Madame?’ His voice was suddenly hard, his brows knitting above his eyes which glittered fiercely. She felt less sure of herself, saw briefly the man who had killed her husband and who had spent his adult life engaged in a war with the elements as much as her fellow countrymen.

  ‘No, no, if you want proof, you can examine the papers of the port of Antwerp. Three days after the Emperor abdicated, two
frigates, new ships just fitted out in that port, sailed for the Atlantic’

  ‘If true I doubt I have time to examine any papers …’ Drinkwater’s brain was racing. He, more than anyone else, knew the state of affairs at Antwerp. French money had been building ships on the Scheldt for years. As head of the Admiralty’s secret Department he had received regular reports of their progress: no doubt two, three, a dozen frigates and perhaps a seventy-four or an eighty might be in a fit state for sea. And the present time, with the blockade everywhere stood easy, was the most propitious for a quiet departure of two frigates. They could look like Indiamen, by God!

  ‘Do you know the names of these ships?’ he asked, his voice rasping.

  ‘I almost forgot,’ she said. ‘One was to have been called L’Aigle, but it has very likely been altered to something more like a Dutch East Indiaman. It was given out that they were bound for the Indies. They wear Dutch colours, but are French, of that you may be certain. Off Breskens they took on arms and men additional to their crews, veterans, men of the Old and the Middle Guard, Chasseurs à Cheval and Empress Dragoons, even Poles of the Lanciers …’

  ‘D’you know anything of their passage, Hortense, if they left three days after the Emperor abdicated, then they left on …’

  ‘The 9th April, and had weighed anchor from Breskens by the 14th…’

  ‘Ten days ago, by God!’

  ‘And they were to go north, to the northwards of Scotland.’

  ‘D’you know who commands them?’

  ‘I do not know the names of the officers who command the ships. The committee in Paris consisted of only a few officers, but one of these will command the escadron, how do you say … ?’

  ‘Squadron.’

  ‘Yes, I had forgotten. It is Lejeune, he is a contre-amiral, pardon, a rear-admiral.’

  It was too pat; suspicion rose again, clouding Drinkwater’s tired mind. ‘How are you so well informed? Does Talleyrand have a hand in this?’

  Hortense nodded. ‘Of course. He presides over everything.’ She was unable to conceal her distaste. ‘He will accomplish what Napoleon failed to achieve, without lifting a finger …’

  ‘But,’ Drinkwater repeated, ‘how do you know all these details? Talleyrand cannot have discussed …’ Were these secrets from the intimacy of the bedchamber?

  She shook her head. ‘No, no, Nathaniel. I know because …’ She paused and took a different tack, capturing him in the jade gaze of her eyes. ‘Do you remember the beach at Carteret, when you came in your little boat and took a frightened émigrée off the sand?’

  ‘Yes. It was the first time I saw you.’

  ‘What was the name of your commandant? Griffon … ?’

  ‘Griffiths.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Do you recall who else came with me in the barouche?’

  Drinkwater cudgelled his brains. There had been a handful of them, then the light dawned: ‘The Comte de Tocqueville, a man called Barrallier who afterwards built ships for the navy and, of course, Étienne Montholon, your brother!’

  ‘Of course. He is now a colonel of chasseurs.’

  And he is privy to this plot?’

  ‘Yes. He has been aide de camp to Caulaincourt and commanded his escort.’

  Drinkwater frowned; fatigue and the disagreeable consequences of excess had robbed him of the ability to think through this maze of intrigue. He made an effort to clear his mind and focus his tired eyes upon her, mentally repudiating her obvious allure, so spiced as it was by her propinquity. ‘But you are betraying him, Hortense? Are your circumstances so reduced that you would play the traitor to,’ he floundered, gathering the catalogue of betrayal, ‘to your brother, to Bonaparte, to Talleyrand, to France?’

  She was weeping now, shaking and sobbing with tears running down her cheeks and revealing the dust that lay upon them.

  ‘If it had not been you, Nathaniel,’ she began in a choked voice, ‘I should have taken passage in one of these ships and found my way to England. As it is, I may slip back to Paris unnoticed. Talleyrand is no longer interested in me, I was repudiated by the Emperor and the Bourbon will not want women like me to clutter up his court, nor, would I wish to do so.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I am a drab, Nathaniel, and like most camp followers, my end will not be an easy one. Your help might at least mitigate my fate.’

  She swayed and Drinkwater stooped forward and gently held her by her arms. He was unconvinced, but her hands were on his arms too, and her body touched his, light as a feather, and then with more weight.

  ‘Do not underestimate the risk I have run to tell you these things,’ she breathed, and added as he remained silent, holding her, ‘They are like boys, Nathaniel, these conspirators; they would set the world alight again. Is that what you want? Do you not most desire to go home to your wife and children?’

  ‘That is an odd question to ask at a moment like this,’ he said, ‘or are we two in sudden accord?’ He smiled, the twist in his mouth conveying an intense sadness to her, though he spoke to encourage her. ‘Come, Hortense, courage. You have lost none of your beauty …’

  ‘I have lost an ear!’ Her tone was petulant, as though she could betray her world for this disfigurement, and she lowered her face. ‘And I am tired of conspiracy and intrigue.’

  ‘Then it makes us the more equal,’ Drinkwater said again. It occurred to him that she had received some unbearable humiliation. ‘Suppose this plan of Talleyrand’s and the Tsar’s worked; suppose Napoleon Bonaparte, sent to exile in the Azores, was sprung from his prison and spirited across the Atlantic; suppose your brother commanded a division of trappers and mountain men in the army of New France, eh? Wouldn’t you want to be a part of that? A great lady of Quebec, or Montreal, or even Louisbourg if it was rebuilt? Yet you expect me to believe you would hazard all that against a pension of forty pounds per year?’

  He was looking down at her hair, the scent of which rose from its auburn profusion. She raised her face and stared up at him. Her yielding body had become rigid.

  ‘I have nothing, nothing!’ She hissed, desperation in her tone. ‘Why should I come here, tonight, eh?’ She pulled away from him, holding him at arm’s length as she might have remonstrated with the son she had never had. ‘Why should I not sit in Paris and wait for an invitation to become La Reine de Louisbourg, eh?’ She threw the tide at him in French like striking him with a gauntlet. ‘I do not owe you anything, and if I come to trade this information it is not to betray France, or my brother …’

  ‘What of Talleyrand?’ Drinkwater snapped. ‘What of Napoleon?’

  ‘Why is it you English men are so stupid?’ she spat back. ‘I am old! It is known what I have been! It is known what I am now! Why is it impossible for men to understand, eh? You never come to terms with the inevitable, do you? Only the clever, men like Napoleon and Talleyrand, can rise above these petty considerations. It is said in Paris that, despite everything, Napoleon could have rallied the army south of the Loire, but he did nothing. Instead he abdicated in the sure and certain knowledge that only a chapter of his life was over, but not the whole history. He is a Corsican, not a Frenchman. And he believes in fate, just like you.’ Hortense paused, to let the point sink in. ‘Napoleon has abandoned France just as he abandoned her before and set off for India. Then, when he found his grand design more difficult that he thought, he abandoned his army in Egypt and returned to France. When Admiral Villeneuve failed him at Trafalgar, he abandoned the invasion of England; when he was confronted with difficulties in Spain, he abandoned the war to his marshals; when he was foiled by the Russians, he abandoned his army in the snow … Why should he change now? Is fate going to give him another opportunity in Europe?’

  ‘No,’ Drinkwater said slowly.

  ‘Certainly, I am being selfish. Perhaps this is a betrayal; perhaps this is saving many lives, perhaps …’ she shrugged and moved slightly closer to him again, lowering her voice, ‘this is fate, Nathaniel.’

  And she pushed against him unashamed, h
er head bowed unexpectantly, their roles reversed, as though she was now the child and he the parent. His arms went instinctively around her and though he felt the soft roundness of her breasts it was pity, not lust, which rose and overwhelmed him.

  ‘I think we are both too old,’ he murmured into the darkness of the shadows beyond her shoulders, and gently stroked her hair. She seemed to shudder, like a small and terrified animal. ‘Shall you want a passage to England?’

  She pulled back and looked up at him. ‘Where could I go in England?’

  He shrugged. Suddenly the reaction of his wife to the arrival of a strange, mysterious and beautiful woman claiming refuge, seemed unlikely to be sympathetic.

  ‘Perhaps one day …’

  ‘Peut-être, Nathaniel. We shall see … I have told you everything…’

  ‘I shall see you leave tonight with some money. There will be a ready market for English gold in Calais. I shall also ensure provision is made for you.’

  ‘Is that possible?’

  He thought for a moment and then nodded. ‘Yes, I can arrange matters…’

  Her relief was pathetic. The fear left her and he felt her whole body transformed. Lust pricked him as she embraced him once more.

  ‘Hortense …’

  And then he found himself kissing her as he wished he had kissed her twenty years earlier.

  CHAPTER 3

  A Clear Yard-arm

  April 1814

  ‘The eastern sky was lighter by the moment as Drinkwater paced the quarterdeck. The boat had long since vanished in the direction of the Calais breakwater, the Bourbon cockade deceptively jaunty, visible like a rabbit’s scut as Hortense bobbed away.

  He thought again of the warmth of her body against his and the prickle of lust still galled him. She had been compliant in that moment of mutual weakness, for they both drew back after a moment, almost ashamed, as though their long acquaintance had been supportable only as long as it was above the carnal.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he had muttered, even while he still held her, ‘but I…’