The Sultan's Daughter (7 page)

Desperately, he looked about him. To run back the way he had come meant certain capture. The cliff was much too high to scale and it shut him off from attempting to escape inland. But there was still the sea. Sobbing for breath he swung about, pounded down the slope, splashed through the shallows, then flung himself headlong into the water.

It was icy. As his head came up above the surf his heart contracted in a spasm and a shudder ran through him. But, still almost entirely submerged, he stumbled and thrust his way out until, with only his head above water, his feet could just touch the sea-bed.

He had decided to take the plunge on a sudden inspiration that he might get away by swimming out to the sloop. But he had temporarily overlooked the fact that it was early February. As he stood there, up to his neck in the sea, he knew that had he attempted to swim the Channel his chances of success would have been no more hopeless. Strong swimmer though he was even if he could have wriggled out of his heavy travelling coat and rid himself of his boots the cold would have numbed him into insensibility before he had swum a hundred yards.

Yet he still had one faint hope. Racked with pain as they were, the two men he had wounded might not have seen which way he had gone. If so, the patrol would divide to
search the shore for him in both directions. Then, if he could stand the cold long enough, he might crawl out and find a hiding place under the cliff until the coast was clear of his enemies. To fortify himself against the ordeal he foresaw he got out his flask of brandy and took a long pull from it. The spirit coursed through his veins like fire, yet gave him only temporary relief from the deadly chill.

And his hope proved vain. The man he had shot in the shoulder had seen him run off and splash into the sea. As the main body of the patrol came up he began shouting to them, and Roger could plainly hear him giving an account of what had happened. In the faint starlight he could just make out the group of figures as it split up, and the men spread themselves along the shore, evidently peering seaward in an endeavour to spot him.

With only his head above water, and against the black background of the sea, he knew that it would prove impossible for them to do so. But his lips were blue with cold and shudders ran through him every moment. He felt certain now that if his body remained for another five minutes in the grip of those icy waters he would die there. Miserably he admitted to himself that there was nothing for it but to surrender, so he began to wade ashore.

As soon as his chest was above the level of the sea, he feebly waved an arm and cried in French, ‘Don't shoot! I give myself up to you.'

No sooner had he spoken the words than he realised that, taken by surprise, he had committed an appalling blunder. Instead of firing his pistol when attacked, those were the very words he should have used, adding, ‘I am a Frenchman, and have just escaped from the English.'

To account for himself he could have told the story he had given to Formby—that he had been picked up by the sloop while attempting to get to France in a small sailing boat, or that he was a French prisoner-of-war who had escaped from the Isle of Wight and had bribed the Captain of the sloop to bring him over. By wounding two men of the patrol he had quite unnecessarily declared himself to be an enemy. Now it was going to be the very devil of a job to make his captors believe otherwise.

With his mind almost atrophied by cold, he vaguely berated himself for his folly, while lurching and stumbling his way ashore. When he reached the strand he collapsed upon it.

Laughing at the obvious madness of this Englishman who had endeavoured to escape by taking refuge in the sea when it was near freezing, but by no means lacking in humanity, the men of the patrol stripped off his heavy coat and pummelled a little warmth back into his shuddering limbs. Then one of them produced a flask of cognac and at short intervals tipped the greater part of it down Roger's throat.

After this treatment he was sufficiently recovered to gulp out that he was a Frenchman, and would later give them the story of how he had escaped from England. At that, they exclaimed in great surprise and at once asked why, if that were so, he had attacked their two comrades. Roger stammered out that by coming upon him suddenly in the dark they had caught him unawares, and that he had been forced to it in self-defence, otherwise they would have cut him down before he had had a chance to explain himself.

His French accent was so impeccable that, to his great relief, they no longer appeared to have doubts about his nationality; but they obviously remained extremely puzzled about his behaviour.

As soon as he could stand, the officer said, ‘We will get to the bottom of this later. Let's take him along to the other patrol and find out what has happened there.'

Two of the men then took Roger by the arms and helped him walk the quarter of a mile back to the place on the beach where he had landed. The rents between the clouds were larger now, so the brighter light from the stars enabled him to see that opposite this place there was a dark gap in the cliff leading up to higher ground. In the entrance to it the other patrol was gathered and several of the men had lit lanterns. Their officer came forward and exchanged reports with the one who led Roger's party. Then they all moved up to the entrance to the gap.

Just inside it there was a rough lean-to, which was evidently used by the patrol as a shelter in bad weather. Stretched out on the ground under it, half propped up
against a wooden bench, lay an unconscious figure. Roger guessed that it must be the seaman who had been captured, and that to put an end to his struggles he had been given a knock on the head. A moment later, by the light of one of the lanterns, he recognised the man as Giffens.

The two officers conferred again, and from what they said Roger gathered that he and Giffens were to be taken to a nearby house and locked up there till morning. A few minutes later, led by the officer of the first patrol, and with two men carrying the unconscious Giffens, a party with Roger in its midst set off up the steep slope through the gap between the cliffs. Roger, still swaying with exhaustion, had to be helped, but on reaching the top of the cliffs they had not far to go. In a hollow a quarter of a mile beyond the cliffs lay a small farmhouse, which had been taken over by the Military. The shutters were closed so no lights showed from the windows, but inside the kitchen a bright fire was burning and two lanterns hung from the central beam of the room.

For the first time Roger had the chance to get a good look at his captors. The officer was a medium-sized man with a long, droopy nose, prawn-like eyebrows and a greying moustache. He was dressed in a threadbare uniform, and one of his men had just addressed him as Citizen Lieutenant Tardieu.

Roger was shaking as though he had the ague, and a pot of soup was bubbling on the stove; so one of the men gave him a bowl of it. He swallowed about half the soup in a succession of gulps, then the Lieutenant said, ‘Now you must give me an account of yourself.'

Pulling himself together, although his teeth were still inclined to chatter, Roger replied, ‘I can go into no details in my present condition. I can only ask you to accept my statement that my name is Breuc, and that the sufferings I endured during my escape from England were such that I was half out of my wits when those two men attacked me, so I automatically defended myself. In due course I shall have no difficulty in proving my identity. I hold the rank of Colonel and while in Italy had the honour to be one of General Bonaparte's aides-de-camp.'

Citizen Tardieu's eyes widened. ‘What's this you say? Aide-de-camp to General Bonaparte! I can scarce credit that.' Then after a moment he added, ‘Still, since you aver it, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and treat you with the respect due to the rank you claim.'

He then gave orders to two of his men who were standing by to fetch blankets and heat them by the fire. Ten minutes later the men helped Roger upstairs to a bedroom, assisted him to get out of his waterlogged clothes, then wrapped him in the blankets and put him to bed.

When they left the room he heard one of them lock the door, but if it had been left wide open he would not have had the strength to stagger down the stairs in a bid to escape. As things were, he would not have made the attempt, even had he been able to do so, for he felt confident that he now had little to fear. Before he was questioned again he could trust to his fertile mind to have ready a convincing story of an escape from England and, even if he were kept prisoner for a week or so, it should not be difficult to produce evidence that he was, in fact, one of General Bonaparte's aides. Greatly relieved in mind, he dropped off to sleep.

When he awoke it was broad daylight and the Lieutenant was standing beside his bed. With a pleasant smile his visitor asked, ‘Well, and how is General Bonaparte's aide-de-camp feeling this morning?'

Rousing himself, Roger returned the smile and replied, ‘Very different from last night, and almost myself again, I thank you.'

The smile suddenly left Citizen Tardieu's face, and he snapped, ‘A taller, more impudent story I have never heard. General Bonaparte's aide-de-camp, indeed! Through an interpreter I have questioned the seaman we captured. He says he knows you well. You are the son of no less a person than Admiral Sir Brook, and an accursed Englishman sent here as a spy.'

For a moment Roger was utterly taken aback. He had been roused from a sound sleep barely two minutes earlier, and the events of the previous night were only just assuming their proper sequence in his mind. Yet almost his first memory was of his last conscious thought before he slept—that the officer beside him had agreed temporarily to give his claim to be one of General Bonaparte's aides-de-camp the benefit of the doubt, and his own confidence that he would find means in the morning to substantiate that claim.

Now he recalled having seen Giffens lying unconscious in the patrol's lean-to but, at that time, owing to his own recent ordeal, he had been hardly conscious himself. It had not even entered his mind that the disgruntled ex-groom might betray him. Taken entirely by surprise, he propped himself up in bed on one elbow and stammered:

‘I … I don't know what you're talking about. Admiral Brook? I … I've never heard of him. Giffens … the man is lying.'

‘I do not think so,' replied Tardieu coldly. ‘He says that he has known you for several years, and has given us chapter and verse about you. From him we also know that the ship from which you landed was a British sloop-of-war; What purpose could a naval vessel have for standing in here secretly at night other than to put ashore a spy? I mean to see that you get your deserts before you are much older. Get up now and dress yourself.'

Roger made no further attempt to protest his innocence. Experience had taught him that when in a dangerous situation the less said the better. He feared that he had already said too much. To have protested that he had never heard of
his own father had been unnecessary; worse, by mentioning Giffens by name he had admitted that he knew the seaman, which might later be difficult to explain if he was to get his story accepted that he had been picked up in the Channel.

As he thrust back the blankets he saw that his clothes were in a bundle on a nearby chair. Evidently they had been dried during the night and put there while he was still asleep. Tardieu walked towards the door. When opening it, he glanced back and, seeing that Roger was looking in the direction of the window, snapped: ‘Don't imagine you can give us the slip that way. I've a sentry posted outside with orders to shoot you should you so much as show your head.'

‘My compliments, Citizen, upon your forethought,' Roger replied tartly.

Left to himself, he took his time in dressing and used it to take stock of his alarming situation. It was, he decided, about as tough a corner as any in which he had ever found himself. Any immediate attempt to escape was obviously out of the question, and his only course was to await developments while saying as little as possible. His one consolation was that he had taken no harm from his immersion in the freezing sea. The brandy and hot soup he had been given, and his sound sleep between the warm blankets, had saved him from pneumonia or even from catching a severe chill.

When he felt that he could delay no longer he went down the narrow stairs to the kitchen. Tardieu was standing there with three of his men. Giffens was sitting on a stool in a corner mopping up with a hunk of bread what remained of a bowl of soup. As Roger appeared he gave him one swift, hostile glance, then kept his eyes averted.

Roger looked towards the kitchen range, upon which a pot was bubbling, hoping that he was about to be given some breakfast. Guessing his thought, Tardieu pulled at his grey moustache, then said with a sneer, ‘It would be a waste of a meal to give you one. You won't need it where you're going.' Then, turning to one of his men, he added, ‘Tie his hands, Corporal, then bring him outside.'

At that Roger's scalp began to prickle and the palms of his hands suddenly became damp. He could only conclude that there and then they meant to take him out and shoot him.
Instantly he broke into violent protests, demanding a trial, a lawyer, a priest.

Ignoring his outburst, Tardieu drew a pistol, cocked it and pointed it at him. Faced with the probability of immediate death if he resisted, he had no alternative but to allow the Corporal to tie his hands behind his back. When the man had knotted the cord securely he said:

‘No need to keep him covered any longer, Citizen Lieutenant. Should he try any tricks now we've only to give him a good kick.'

Tardieu put up his pistol and led the way out. Roger was pushed after him by the three soldiers and Giffens brought up the rear. Drawn up in front of the farmhouse there was a small, covered cart with a single horse harnessed to it and two other horses tethered nearby. At the sight of them Roger, now wide-eyed and sweating at the thought that they had intended to put him up against the rear wall of the farmhouse and shoot him, felt a surge of temporary relief. Evidently he was to be taken somewhere in the cart, and even a brief postponement of his execution might yet give him a chance to save his life.