He would respond to Gilles, greeting with an abstracted nod and then pay no further heed to him. But he had the reputation of being a cold and somewhat reserved person, always a trifle remote, as though wrapped up in some private thoughts of his own. He took little part in the lighthearted banter his companions indulged in freely as soon as their chiefs' backs were turned. At such times a hint of the frivolous atmosphere of Versailles invaded the austere world of the navy.
Now and then the cheerful group would be joined by the Duc de Lauzun, who commanded a legion of foreign mounted volunteers, and the Comte de Ségur, colonel of the Soissonais regiment to which young Noailles belonged. At such times Gilles would listen avidly, feeling himself transported by some magic into the King's very antechamber. Naturally, too, the talk turned much on women, for Lauzun was a great flirt.
But, except at these headquarters' conferences, it was rare for all the aides de camp to be together, for there was no lack of work and Rochambeau, who knew them well, always had some task for them, at least by day. At night, they were all of them determined not to be bored. Thanks to them, Brest, echoing to the lilt of violins from ballrooms, with the clink of glasses and the sound of drinking songs joined to the racket from the Arsenal, became easily the noisiest city in the kingdom. For a few days, at least, for the Chevalier de Ternay and the Comte de Rochambeau soon put a stop to all that by having each ship loaded as soon as it was ready. They were already quite sufficiently behindhand, as Gilles discovered for himself as soon as he took up his post.
The troops had, in fact, begun their embarkation according to plan on the evening prior to Gilles' arrival.
Hoping to set sail on the eighth of April, the Chevalier de Ternay had originally intended to embark the Royal Deux-Ponts on the fourth, Lauzun's legion on the fifth, and Soissonais regiment on the sixth, the Bourbonnais on the seventh and the three artillery companies of Auxonne, belonging to the Toul regiment, along with the Saintonge regiment, from Crozon and Camaret, on the eighth. They were to have assembled at Roscanvel and taken straight on board the Ardent and the transports amongst which they were to be divided from there. However, since nothing was ready by that date, this was altogether impossible, especially since the weather had turned very bad.
The winds were so bad, indeed, that on the tenth of April a ship of the line, the St Joseph, and a Spanish fore-ship, the Santa Rosa, which had attempted to leave harbour both ran aground. The two commanders' faces grew longer and longer as they stared into a continuous barrage of rainy squalls.
But Gilles soon discovered that this delay could be very informative. As he watched the fleet and the cumbersome convoy it was to escort gradually taking shape in the offices of the Arsenal and in the harbour itself, and while he learned to recognize the seven ships of the line of the first two divisions, the supply ships of the third, the frigates and the twenty-eight transports, with the flags of their commanders and how the troops were distributed about this floating city, at the same time, in the after-cabin of the Duc de Bourgogne, he was sitting, stiff as a board and making scarcely more noise, sharing in all the hopes and fears of the two commanders and their reactions to the orders, frequently absurd, of their respective ministries, as well as the total lack of news from the rebellion to which they were committed to carry so many brave men. According to their latest information, which was already six months old, General Washington's position was by no means hopeful and the English under General Clinton still held New York. The Chevalier de Ternay's orders, nevertheless, were to sail to Rhode Island and Versailles seemed to be making no attempt to discover whether or not it was still in rebel hands.
Gilles gradually grew accustomed to the sight of the little admiral storming into the room after the arrival of practically every letter from the ministry.
'M. de Sartines is making a fool of me,' he exclaimed one evening, while the floorboards echoed to his uneven pacing. 'First he takes it on himself to order me on no account to leave Brest if the English fleet is lying off Ushant. Now he writes that the intentions of the English Admirals, Graves and Walsingham, are unknown to us and must therefore give cause for grave alarm. Since when, I ask you, have the English taken to informing us of their intentions? He might as well forbid 'me to put to sea at all. Who does he think we're going to fight?'
Another evening, it was worse still.
'Do you know what I have here?' he cried, his voice shaking with anger, thrusting a letter with a flaunting red seal under Rochambeau's nose.
'No, by heaven! Another order to postpone sailing?'
'Not this time, but it's very nearly as stupid. The minister, sitting in his office in Versailles, has despatched instructions as to the course I am to set: the Pointe du Raz, Cape Ortegal and Finisterre! As though I needed his advice! And he goes on to say that the English coast must at all costs be given the widest possible berth! It's too much! Who does he think he is writing to? Who has spent all his life at sea – M. de Sartines or I?'
And the one-time Knight of Malta crumpled the minister's letter into a ball and tossed it at Gilles' feet.
'Leave it!' he commanded as the young man bent to pick it up. 'You are too young to bother your head with ministerial idiocies!'
Rochambeau had begun to laugh but now he got up from his chair and, going across to where the little admiral stood quivering with rage, he laid a friendly, soothing hand on his shoulder.
'Calm down, my friend. It's an impertinence, I grant you, and not easy to bear. But don't forget we ought to be well at sea by this time, and the minister can't tell, after all, that the winds haven't changed and that you ever received his letter. Suppose we had already sailed and there's an end of it. You are much more your own master than I am, are you not? You are the leader of the expedition, whereas I am simply sent to General Washington to fight, I'll not say under his command, but according as he shall direct.'
Ternay shrugged his shoulders with a little smile. 'You're a tactful fellow, my dear Count. As if you didn't know that I've my orders to stay close to you. It comes to the same thing – All the same, your minister is easier to bear with than mine.'
The General said nothing but his expression was eloquent. He, too, had his problems. Only that morning he had received a distinctly curt letter from the Minister for War, the Prince de Montbarrey, in which that eminent person expressed his astonishment that so little effort seemed to have been made to accommodate the young Duc de Lauzun, who was complaining bitterly to his friends among the Queen's circle at court against a refusal to embark his horses.
'My men are cavalry,' he was protesting angrily. 'Hussars! What good are hussars without horses?'
'On paper, he's right, of course,' Rochambeau concluded, taking up his own ministerial epistle, 'but with the best will in the world it's quite impossible to give him his way and no amount of minister's orders can change that! What's more, I thought he had understood when I explained it.'
The General had indeed spent some time explaining matters to the fuming cavalry officer. To carry horses across the Atlantic special horse-transports were required. But there was only one of these, the Hermione, and she could carry no more than twenty horses, when what was needed was at least two hundred. Even then, the animals would not arrive in good condition, but on an ordinary vessel they would be unlikely to arrive at all. But it had been no use. Lauzun was obstinate and he had complained.
'So here I am,' Rochambeau concluded, 'forced to disobey my minister—'
'Let me sort that out,' Ternay interrupted. 'I don't mind making an enemy.'
That same evening, the young duke was told very forcefully by the Commodore to stop complaining and accept the situation.
'Horses, sir, you can find on the spot. You'll have no trouble remounting your men. Any we did take with us would not survive. Though we could always eat them, of course…'
Lauzun paled.
'You seem to forget, Admiral, that you, too, are responsible to a minister and that Her Majesty the Queen—'
&
nbsp; 'Her Majesty is not in command of this fleet that I ever heard,' the sailor interrupted him rudely. 'As for you, sir, you will do well to remember that aboard my ships I am sole master after God. However, if the discipline at sea is too harsh for you, you may prefer to return to the gentler pleasures of the Trianon—' Turning to Gilles, he went on without a pause: 'Have word of my decision conveyed to the Arsenal. We are taking no horses. The Hermione will carry such medical supplies as cannot be accommodated on board the hospital ship.'
Lauzun, white with anger, stared first at the young man and then venomously back at the Admiral.
'You will not always be able to order all things as you wish, Admiral! We shall not be at sea for ever.'
The Chevalier de Ternay looked at Gilles for the first time since he had been working aboard his ship. The shadow of a smile passed over his tired face.
'Monsieur de Lauzun disliked me before, now he will loathe me. But I fear, my boy, that I have involved you also in his loathing. He is not going to forgive you for having witnessed his discomfiture.'
The young man's blue eyes met the sailor's unflinchingly and he too smiled.
'While you are in command, sir, I have nothing to fear. Are you not sole master after God? And Monsieur de Lauzun is but a man – and not perhaps as strong as I am…'
Rochambeau laughed.
'Oho! If he could hear you! It's as well for you the Bastille is some way off! Can it be that you are a follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau?'
Gilles blushed to the roots of his hair but he kept his head high.
'I have read his books, General, and admired them. But I'm not really a follower of his because what I have seen of men has given me little cause to look on them as brothers.'
'You know that, even at your age?' the Chevalier sighed. 'It has taken me a great deal longer to reach the same conclusion. Leave us now and take your message to the Comte d'Hector. And have a care to yourself, none the less.'
Gilles went ashore feeling happier than at any time since he had begun his employment. He might have made a powerful enemy in Lauzun but, on the other hand, he sensed that he had won the approval of his two commanding officers, whom he was coming to admire very much, and that weighed infinitely heavier in the balance.
The first person he saw when he set foot on dry land was Lauzun himself. The duke was evidently giving full vent to his anger and his impassive listener was none other than Fersen. Gilles moved into their field of vision and Lauzun no sooner caught sight of him than he cried: 'See, my dear Count, here comes the general's penpusher who is to turn our horse-transport into a lazar-house! If you were hoping to find a berth for that splendid animal I saw you with the other day and offered to buy from you, you may abandon the idea. Like the rest of us, you will have to make do with some American nag – supposing there are any to be had!'
The Swede looked calmly down from his blond Scandinavian height upon the Frenchman whom anger had made redder than his fine gold-laced coat.
'But there are,' he said gravely, with a lift of his eyebrows. 'I know you have been in Senegambia, my dear Duke, but I had thought you better acquainted with the uses and customs of America. What do you imagine our friends the English ride on? Donkeys? For my own part, I have heard that this General Washington, who is a gentleman of Virginia, is one of the world's finest horsemen. We shall at least have fresh horses.'
'You may be sure of that!' Lauzun cried furiously. He clapped his cocked hat with its white plumes back on to his head and, turning on his red heels, stalked off in the direction of the Rue de Siam.
The handsome officer of the Royal Deux-Ponts laughed softly and then turned suddenly to Gilles, who had halted, frowning, at the sound of his name, wondering whether or not it behoved him to challenge the Duc de Lauzun to a duel. 'Is this true?' he asked.
'Quite true, sir. Here is the order.'
'It is very tiresome. I had been hoping to take Magnus with me to the Rebels.'
'Magnus?'
'My – er – our horse,' the Swede said blandly. 'But I dare say you found another name for him?'
'Yes,' Gilles answered, with a touch of wistfulness he was unable to repress. 'I called him Merlin.'
'Oh, after the wizard?'
'Of course. He is a countryman of mine.'
'A pretty name for him. But none of this tells me what we are to do with him. After all, you are nearly as much concerned in his fate as I am and I confess I am loth to sell him. Since you belong here, perhaps you can think of someone who would agree to keep him and look after him as he deserves while we are at the wars?'
Gilles' eyes shone like stars.
'You would trust me?'
'Good God, yes,' Fersen said without hesitation. 'You did not steal him for profit but because you had need of him. Besides – you love him, I saw that at once. Those are things one horseman knows instinctively about another. So, what do you say? But let us walk on, for I believe you are forgetting your errand.'
So, while they walked towards the Arsenal, Gilles spoke of Guillaume Briant, of his passionate love of arms and horsemanship and of his low house and the meadows of Leslé. He spoke with such conviction that even before they came to the White Admiral's house, the Swede had made his mind up. One of his servants was to set out that very evening, taking with him some money, a letter from Gilles and another from Fersen himself, for the Talhouët estate.
'This evening?' Gilles said, amazed at such despatch. 'Are you afraid that Monsieur de Lauzun will try to buy him all the same and smuggle him aboard?'
For the first time, Gilles saw Fersen's rare laugh.
'He wouldn't dare. But I want to have the matter settled as soon as possible for a reason which, as the General's secretary, you must be aware of. My regiment, the Royal Deux-Ponts, is due to embark tomorrow morning, some on the transport ship, the Comtesse de Noailles, and some on the Jason, a ship of the line, which is where I shall be with other officers. General's orders,' he added with a sigh which betrayed how little he relished the prospect. 'I only hope we shall not have to wait too long before we set sail, and that we won't be lying at anchor indefinitely…'
Much to the Swede's chagrin, he was to be obliged to wait for some while yet. Rochambeau might write to the minister by his secretary on the seventeenth of April that 'if the weather clears, I shall take up my quarters aboard the Duc de Bourgogne tomorrow at the latest, so that, subject to the Chevalier de Ternay, we may take advantage of the first north wind…' But the north wind did not blow either on the eighteenth or on the days that followed, even though the General had in fact transferred his baggage to the flagship on the date announced. The ship's complement was now complete and included, in addition to part of the Saintonge regiment, with its colonel M. de la Valette, and his second-in-command M. de Charlus, two mysterious Americans who intrigued Gilles immensely but whom he was unable to get near.
One by one, the ships left the harbour to ride at anchor in the roadstead, waiting under strict discipline (no shore leave was granted at all) and in a state of total boredom for the order to set sail to be given at last.
Gilles was as impatient as any but for him there was at least some relief. From the moment of taking up his post, he had worked like a slave but once the Duc de Bourgogne was out in the roads, he found himself in a privileged position for, alone amongst those on board, he went ashore every day to carry out his chiefs' orders and, among other things, to fetch the official letters from the Comte d'Hector's office and any private ones from the Admiral's lodging. For himself, of course, there were never any letters at all.
Once only, in response to the enthusiastic letter he had written on the day of his appointment, he had received a long, friendly epistle from his godfather, full of encouragement and good advice, and this he guarded jealously as his one link with home. But he no longer suffered from the loneliness he had endured during the first few days. The two commanders who, when not attending conferences, whiled away the time playing chess, were very kind to him and, ever sinc
e the business of the horse, a kind of understanding had developed between him and Axel de Fersen which expressed itself on Gilles' side by the performance of a number of commissions on shore for the count who, immured aboard the Jason except for excursions to the flagship for meetings of the staff, was becoming very thoroughly bored. At last the belligerent Duc de Lauzun embarked also and occupied a berth in the Provence which was moored a few cables' lengths away. Not much was heard of him thereafter, except by way of the concerts which he made the band of his legion put on for him every evening as a distraction from boredom.
'He'd give a ball if he dared,' growled the Chevalier de Ternay, irritated by the waves of music which filled the roadstead every evening after sunset.
'He'd dare fast enough if he could get permission to bring women aboard,' Rochambeau replied.
Sighing, the two men called for the windows to be closed and returned to their game.
Time dragged and boredom lay heavy on the fleet and on the motionless convoy, to which fresh units were added every day. On board the Neptune, young Noailles, with the second battalion of the Soissonnais regiment, killed time by quarrelling interminably with the equally young Arthur de Dillon whose Irish blood was fretted alike by inaction and by the Vicomte's occasionally biting witticisms.
Came at last the first of May which passed over Gilles like a meteor, leaving a fiery trail behind it.
To begin with, it was in the late afternoon that the long-awaited news swept through the roadstead like a power train: the wind was changing, at last it was beginning to blow from the north. A great cheer went up, starting on the ships and moving to the harbour and thence to the whole town. The whole fleet instantly became a scene of frantic activity. The Chevalier de Ternay let it be known that if the wind held they would sail at dawn and at once despatched a frigate, the Bellone, to reconnoitre the waters off Ushant to make sure that no English fleet had suddenly popped up in the vicinity.
Falcon 1 - The Lure of the Falcon Page 15