A Set of Lies

by Carolyn McCrae

  I asked how he had come to be a soldier and he replied that he had made his mark on the recruiting sergeant’s list and drunk the cider without understanding what he was doing, but that he had left the village of his birth without regret.

  He knew nothing about the wars that the army he had joined was fighting. The men he marched with talked of fighting frenchies, a savage people, they said, who had risen up against their betters and beheaded their king. Some had said they shouldn’t be fighting the French, they should be fighting with them and beheading the King of England, but Ennor Jolliffe said he had no quarrel with any man and would do as he was told. One lesson Ma had taught him was to obey every instruction given him. His comrades were disappointed that they did not go to France, instead his company marched to Portsmouth where it embarked on a ship headed for India.

  When Ennor began his story he had spoken hesitantly but by the time we approached Exeter he had gained in confidence and spoke with surprising eloquence of how he had been befriended by a comrade who had been a schoolteacher before, to his eternal regret, taking the King’s Shilling whilst drunk after an argument with his wife. This man, whose name he made certain I knew was Edgar, had taught him to read and write during the long voyage and in the periods of inactivity that stretched between the battles they fought.

  Without my prompting he talked of his three years in India, of how he had savoured the thrill of standing in a square shoulder to shoulder with others, how he had seen countless men dead and horribly maimed but how he had emerged from every battle unscathed and longing for the next action.

  His voice changed as he talked of his career after India. When he returned to Europe the enemy was a very different one and his satisfaction with life ended when Edgar died. I suspected it had not been an easy death and there was much he kept to himself of the circumstances.

  With the then recent declaration of peace Ennor was returned to England where, for the first time, he had to find his own way of surviving in the world. He and his comrades had been told to go back to their homes and families but they had no answer when he asked what if there was no home or family to go to. He had returned to his village because he had nowhere else to go.

  As he told me of that he became agitated. He had been hounded by men he did not know and who believed him to be a stranger. Strangers, especially those with a military bearing, were not welcome as they would be the Revenue and Revenue Men were trouble. He had sought refuge in the Chapel and had talked to the Minister who had told him his mother’s name was Tegan and that she had been Ma’s daughter.

  In the months that followed he had wandered the roads of Cornwall, earning money where he could but many times he was turned away. His supply of coins dwindled and by late September he was sleeping rough in the hedgerows.

  He was grateful when he was arrested and held in the prison in Bodmin Town. There he was given food once a day and had a place to sleep out of the rain. He had no idea why he had been taken, nor did he know why, a week later, he was turned out. He was given no explanation and he expected none. He had had a lifetime of accepting the decisions of those in authority.

  That morning Providence indeed had made our paths meet. Had the farmer he approached given him a day’s work he would not have been walking along the road west of the village of Lostwithiel. Had he branched to the right rather than to the left at a fork he would not have noticed the berries on the tree that looked as though they would go some way to relieving his hunger. Had he not spent those minutes foraging in the wood he would have passed the tree fallen across the road and my coach would have sped past him without my ever noticing him.

  But Providence ensured that he was rejected by the farmer, and that he did turn left, and that he did spend time choosing the ripest berries so that when he rounded the corner in the narrow lane he did offer his help to the man standing beside a coach held up behind a fallen tree.

  *

  The hours passed as he talked of his history and, as I listened, I resolved to learn the man’s regiment, his record and the reason for his brief incarceration in Bodmin Gaol. He showed a private soldier’s readiness to obey orders without question and there was a native sensitivity and intelligence that could be harnessed. I was convinced that the man would be up to any task we had for him.

  After we had changed horses at Blandford I began to consider more seriously how this man could be turned to my country’s advantage.

  The peace would not last, of that I was certain. General Bonaparte was increasing his power and influence and his first action, once war was again declared, would be to invade Great Britain. Of all nations in the loose coalition that had made peace at Amiens only Great Britain had retained any semblance of resistance to France. I understood what many of my fellow-countrymen did not, that this peace had been contrived, not because differences had been resolved, but because the self-interested men in Parliament would no longer pay for war. They had cut the purse-strings and therefore fighting had had to be brought to an end. I believed then that only when they understood that General Bonaparte was bent on invasion of our islands would the penny-pinching self-servers in Parliament be prevailed upon to provide the funds to allow the country to defend itself against tyranny and revolution.

  Anticipating the course of current conflicts was my responsibility and one that weighed heavily upon my shoulders. Although Great Britain and Ireland had the finest navy, military organisation and fighting men, it was my department, the highly organised network of intelligence gatherers, that was at the root of everything the army and the navy were tasked to do.

  Inevitably the country would soon be at war again and in some way yet to be devised Ennor Jolliffe, a man of obscure beginnings, of no education but of remarkable physical appearance, would play his part in our winning of it. A transformation would be required, a detailed plan formulated and approved, a select group of men convinced and, no doubt, many arguments won, but by whatever means were required I was sure that Ennor Jolliffe would play his part in my country’s future victories.

  *

  By the time we were changing coach at Andover I had concluded that I could not trust so speculative, but potentially so important, a plot to members of my department. I would need the assistance of old friends.

  Nine years before I had served in the Duke of York’s campaign in the Netherlands alongside a man then known as Major Arthur Wesley. The Major relied upon me to scout out valuable intelligences and we had developed an unlikely friendship as we were both considered to be foreigners by many of the men we fought alongside.

  On many long nights in that campaign he talked of his ambitions for peace. He was confident victory would be assured in the current wars with the continental powers but his vision went beyond that. He talked of how England had been at war with the lands of France since recorded history began. The Major’s ambition was no less than to end the pattern of a thousand years. He persuaded me that peace would be soon restored to Europe and, once in place, must be preserved for generations to come. I absorbed his enthusiasm and we talked long into many nights of finding a way.

  Upon our return to London the Major introduced me to one of his mistresses, Frances. She impressed me with her beauty and her intelligence and we stayed in close contact through the years Major Wesley spent in India.

  As many members of Society did at the time, Frances travelled widely on the continent and she was not unique in making such close acquaintance of Joséphine de Beauharnais in the salons of Paris that she attended her marriage to Napoleon Bonaparte. I had unbridled admiration for Frances’ bravery and resourcefulness in providing me with the many snippets of gossip she gleaned on her visits to France, information that, I have no hesitation in recording, did no harm at all in the furtherance of my career.

  In the years since our first meeting Frances had married and as Lady Frensham was restless and ready, I felt sure, for a new kind of adventure. I had no doubt she would give me every assistance. I knew Frances would be discreet and, desp
ite being the mistress of several prominent men in the military and in politics, her primary allegiance, even before her husband, was to the man we both referred to as The Major, who remained in India amassing his considerable fortune and establishing the ascendency of his career.

  As the coach carrying myself and Ennor Jolliffe sped through the well-constructed roads of Surrey I reflected that ten years had passed since those days in the Low Countries but I believed I could still rely upon the Major, now General Wellesley. He would quickly grasp the opportunity for what it was and would assist where only he could. Communication with India was difficult but I decided not to delay in writing to him, telling him of what the fates had provided. We had not yet defeated our enemies on the Continent but one day we would and General Bonaparte would be England’s prisoner. In a way I had yet to determine information and intelligence would be obtained that would achieve our ambitions for peace. I knew I could also rely on Lady Frances.

  *

  On entering Westminster I directed the coach driver to Frensham House.

  I had thought my request would be the main topic of my conversation with Lady Frances but she had greater news. Bonaparte’s appetite for conquest had re-kindled, the peace was over and my priorities, of necessity, lay elsewhere.

  In one hour I explained the outline of my plan and Lady Frances enthusiastically took up the challenge of the transformation of Mister Jolliffe. Within two hours of our arrival in Mayfair I set off to walk to Whitehall and Ennor Jolliffe left with Lady Frances for her country house on the Isle of Wight.

  I learned later that the curriculum of education Lady Frances Frensham set out in preparation for whatever would arise was a wide-ranging one. Ennor Jolliffe was taught the manners required in the presence of people of different levels of society, his rudimentary abilities with pen and paper were enhanced, though the handwriting he was made to copy hour upon tedious hour was not in the classical style. The manner of his speech was changed, though his acquired accent was not in any way similar to that of English society. He found great difficulty with mathematics, though he excelled when learning the geography of the continents. He had a natural aptitude for the drawing and reading of maps and paid particular attention to the places he had been to in his years with the army. I was told that he spent many hours studying the coastline and topography of Saint Helena, an island he had visited on his voyages to and from India.

  I did not ask how Lady Frances explained the ragged ex-soldier who joined her household but I have no doubt she concocted some clever story and to my knowledge no one ever questioned the identity of the man who lived under her protection for the twelve years that would pass before my plan could be executed.

  For the first five years of Ennor Jolliffe’s transformation, I worked for the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte and his allies. My responsibilities took me to Northern Africa, to the Caribbean and to the Americas but whenever I returned to England I received reports from Lady Frances.

  In any period of inactivity I concentrated my mind on perfecting my plan. As the years passed the details were refined, problems were recognised and solutions identified.

  I had made the man I still thought of as The Major aware of the possibilities from the beginning and, although I had not managed to convince him that it could achieve success, he had instructed me to keep him informed of the protégé’s progress. Should a strategy with some chance of success become practicable The Major’s influence would be essential to ensure that funds were made available for the property purchases, the annuities and the bribes upon which the long term success of his plan would depend.

  *

  In the spring of 1807 I travelled to the Isle of Wight and had my first meeting with Ennor Jolliffe for nearly five years. I was impressed by the transformation and even more anxious to discuss my plan with The Major, who was now Sir Arthur Wellesley, the newly elected Member of Parliament for Newport on the Isle of Wight.

  Without my knowledge Lady Frances arranged a picnic and of the six who spent an afternoon in enjoyment of the first warm sunshine of 1807 I suspect I felt the least comfortable. Sir Arthur, his wife Kitty, Lady Frances with Sir Robert and her protégé Ennor Jolliffe all conversed amiably about the weather and the views and the contents of the hampers while I was on tenterhooks, awaiting some solecism from the Cornishman. It seemed to me that I was the only one of our party aware that the Cornishman’s ability to be a convincing substitute for His Imperial Majesty was being tested in every movement he made and in every sentence he uttered.

  I believe that Sir Arthur had doubted my plan could have any chance of success but in the course of that afternoon’s picnic I saw him become convinced, and in his conviction lay the seeds of our success.

  As we rode back towards Newport Sir Arthur confirmed that he would give me his backing. He also, and I remember this clearly, gave me his word that I could depend upon his sponsorship for as long as was necessary.

  He fulfilled his first promise. Without his assistance the plan would never have borne fruit. But many years after that sunny afternoon spent on the downs above Freshwater Bay he broke his word. His political ambitions overrode his obligations and he withdrew his support.

  *

  Sir Bernard, in his study in Oakridge Court, wrote page upon page of careful code.

  He wrote of how within weeks of that afternoon picnic he joined the entourage of Sir Arthur Wellesley, who had relinquished his political positions to again head an army against European forces. Initially in Denmark but for the most part on the Iberian Peninsula, he was Wellington’s trusted spymaster-in-chief working directly for the newly promoted General. Sir Bernard wrote of his actions, most of which were irregular and more often than not without written orders.

  He wrote of how he travelled more miles in Iberia than most men, losing count of the times he had ridden through the borderlands of Portugal and Spain, covering ground from Valladolid, Burgos and Vitoria in the north, to Badajoz and Gibraltar in the south, Coimbra in the west and Madrid and Cuenca in the east. He described the bands of irregular guerrilleros he worked with, whose approach to fighting the regular and well-trained Napoleonic troops reminded him of his early experiences of warfare against the British. For the duration of the campaign his job was always to gather intelligence and report first to Wellesley.

  Sir Bernard described how, in those days, he and the General not only respected each other but also enjoyed each other’s company, achieving, despite their different circumstances, something of the camaraderie of the early campaigns in the Low Countries. He wrote of how their conversations had always returned to their abhorrence of the wars both accepted were necessary if the ambitions of the Emperor and the spread of Bonapartism were to be halted. Long hours were spent sharing views of the world that could be created after the war had been won.

  *

  Despite the dangers I faced in those years on the Peninsula my life was a straightforward one. Having no responsibilities for any other person I had no care for my own safety. I was not a brave man, I was simply one with little understanding of the consequences of many of my actions.

  When our armies crossed the Pyrenees the advance into the enemy’s territory was swift and the General believed it would not be long before he would have Bonaparte under his control. In the summer of 1813 he ordered me to return to England, to refine the details of the plan in the light of current circumstances and be prepared to put it into action.

  It was then that doubt began to prevail. Would the opportunity be rejected by those who had the power but lacked the will? Would the scheme be obstructed and the years of investment in Ennor Jolliffe wasted? Would the training which had continued for twelve years be sufficient? Once in his position would Ennor Jolliffe pass the closest scrutiny?

  *

  The months until the spring of 1814 were months of frustration.

  We believed Napoleon to be defeated many times but still he fought on, unable to accept the inevitability of defeat. We believed our government
had firm plans for the disposal of the man on the event of his capture but they dithered between parole, trial, assassination or exile. The resolve of those few men and women aware of my scheme was sorely tested as many times our plans were frustrated by circumstance.

  All was set for Paris in April 1814 but Bonaparte abdicated before reaching the capital and was hastily, and in every right-thinking Englishman’s view unwisely, exiled to Elba.

  Elba presented problems as, if we were to make our substitution, we would depend upon the cooperation of the Navy. Valuable months were lost as delays were contrived and excuses were manufactured by the Admiralty intent on establishing its independence of political control.

  My eyes and ears in the exiled Emperor’s entourage had no knowledge of our scheme and their intelligence was not useful so it became necessary to place someone who knew what was planned close to the General to inform me of circumstances.

  The ever-resourceful Lady Frances volunteered her services and she spent the summer and autumn of the year 1814 on Elba.

  We could not have done what we did without the Frenshams. Their heirs and successors deserve to know the truth as much as do mine and Olivierre’s.

  *

  As Sir Bernard sat in the study at Oakridge Court writing of those times, only fifteen years before, it seemed to him that the events he described had not occurred to him and to the men and women he knew now, but in some way to other people.

  He was not the man he had once been. His life had become one of provincial domesticity. One afternoon, as he stared through the window of his study, the thought occurred to him that it was more than twelve years since he had killed a man.