Dennis Wheatley - The Rape Of Venice

They reached Colombo on December 3rd, and would have liked to stay there for a while to see something of Ceylon; but on the afternoon of their landing they met a Captain Jarvis of the Frigate Amazon who, it transpired, had served under Roger's father, Rear Admiral Sir Christopher Brook. The Amazon had met with bad weather and put into Colombo for repairs. She was sailing again the following day for Madras and when Captain Jarvis offered them a passage in her they felt it too good a chance proceeding with a maximum of speed and safety to be refused.

As Amazon had come out direct from England, Captain Jarvis was able to give them news of the principal happenings in Europe during the late summer and early autumn. In the last days of July the Austrian General, Würmser. had in turn defeated the best French troops in the Army of Italy, under Massena and Augereau, and very nearly succeeded in cutting its communications. But its Commander in Chief, General Buonaparte, had shown great resolution in this crisis. Ruthlessly abandoning all but essentials, he had raised the siege of Mantua and ordered Serurier to throw his siege artillery into the river Mincio rather than allow it to be captured. He had then succeeded in manoeuvring himself into a position between, the two main bodies of the Austrians and a week later heavily defeated them at Solferino.

In a further series of smaller battles, things had gone badly for the Austrians, and these had culminated in mid-​September in a further heavy defeat. Würmser’s original army of 41,000 men had been whittled down to a fragment. To save that, he had been forced to throw it into Mantua, and the French had resumed the siege of that key fortress.

Despite these many Austrian reverses, Roger felt that the campaign might have gone far worse. Although Moreau and Jourdan had crossed the Rhine, the Archduke Charles had prevented their making any serious advance; so there was no question of their coming south to Buonaparte's assistance, and he was still bogged down before Mantua. Owing to a lagoon and much marshy ground outside its walls, the fortress was in any case a very difficult one to take. Würmser had at, least succeeded in revictualling and reinforcing it, and the Corsican had lost his siege train; so there was every prospect that he would be held up there for the rest of the year's serious fighting. In any case, he had been thwarted in his grand design of joining up with the Army of the Rhine and advancing through the Tyrol on Vienna; and it was that which really mattered.

On the other hand, Roger learned with a cynicism that gave him no satisfaction that his predictions to Mr. Pitt about Buonaparte treating Italy as the Treasure Chest of Europe, to be robbed at will, had duly come to pass. While keeping his eagle eye on the main conflict Buonaparte had detached an expedition to strike south which had crossed the Po and seized Bologna in the Papal States. The terrified Cardinals had at once signed an armistice, closing their territories to the English, agreeing to yield up one hundred classic works of Art, to accept a French garrison in the important port of Ancona, and to pay in specie and kind an indemnity amounting to many millions of francs. Further, on the excuse that by allowing English ships to use Leghorn the Grand Duke of Tuscany was not observing strict neutrality, Buonaparte had sent another expedition to seize the port, and had himself gone down to the Tuscan capital. Although technically on a visit, he had entered Florence like a conqueror, browbeaten the Senate into accepting his orders regarding their future foreign policy, and extorted from them many works of art and a huge indemnity in 'compensation' for having 'had to' occupy Leghorn.

The worst news that Captain Jarvis gave them was that Spain had gone over to the enemy. On August 19th she had signed the treaty of San Idlefonso, allying herself with France and, when calling to deliver mails at Gibraltar, he had learned that Spain had declared war on England on October 5th.

From Colombo, Amazon made a swift passage round to Madras, arriving off the Company's headquarters in the Carnatic on December 8th. Next morning, Roger and Clarissa went ashore with Captain Jarvis in a Masulah boat. These were a type of long, very broad punt, the flat boards of which were held together only by coconut fibre. They had been evolved as the best means of passing the three distinct barriers of surf, each separated by over a hundred yards, which made landing on this coast a matter of no small danger. So dangerous, in fact, was it considered that each Masulah boat was accompanied by several hollowed-​out tree trunks, called Catamarans, to act as life-​boats should the larger craft capsize, The natives who manned the Mazulah and Catamarans were all naked, except for a small piece of rag attached to a string round their middles, and so violent was the sea that those in the Catamarans were frequently thrown into it; but they swam like fish and soon clambered back into their tree trunks. Captain Jarvis's party reached the shore safely but, as was usual, they had all been soaked to the skin by the blinding sheets of spray, and poor Clarissa presented a sadly bedraggled sight.

They had left Bill Bodkin aboard the Amazon, and before going ashore said good-​bye to him with mixed feelings. Like all ships in the Royal Navy, the Amazon was always short of hands; so, although protected from being 'pressed' by travelling as Roger's servant, Bodkin had, during the short voyage from Colombo, volunteered to serve in a watch. Finding him a first-​class seaman, Captain Jarvis had offered to make him a petty-​officer if he would sign on permanently instead of returning to the service of the Company. Bodkin had agreed so Roger had made him a handsome present of money and, after having wished him luck, that was the last they saw of him.

In spite of their liking for the honest seaman they were, owing to their unorthodox relationship, far from sorry to be freed from his company. He had known them in the Minerva as uncle and niece, and that at Cape Town Clarissa had become Mrs. Winters. The fact that in Zanzibar they had declared themselves to be husband and wife had, Roger had explained to him, been the only means of saving Clarissa from being taken into the Vali's harem as a concubine; so the lovers had fair reason to suppose that although they shared a pavilion while there, the simple sailor would assume that they were doing so only as close relatives. In the circumstances, they could not have avoided leaving Zanzibar as Mr. and Mrs. Brook, and having arrived in Goa as a married couple it would obviously have been embarrassing to reveal there that they were not so in fact. The same applied, although with less force, on their arrival in Colombo, and by then Bodkin must have been beginning to wonder when they did mean to resume their proper relationship in public.

But that was now the last thing that either of them wished to do. They had gone quite mad about one another. The idea of their having once again to disguise their feelings and resort to clandestine meetings in order to give free reign to their passion, was intolerable to them. They were both set upon getting properly married as soon as a situation arose in which they could conveniently do so; and, in the meantime, they were determined to continue to enjoy to the full the status of marriage which Fate had thrust upon them. On arriving in Calcutta, they meant to set up house together, and to have done so with Bodkin at length forced to the conclusion that they were committing incest would have proved extremely awkward; so they were greatly relieved that he had signed on in Amazon, which was to remain on the Madras Station.

On Captain Jarvis's introduction Lord Hobart, the vigorous Governor of Madras received them most kindly. For four days they enjoyed his hospitality and made several very pleasant excursions into the country round about the settlement. Then on December 12th they went aboard one of the Company's ships that was sailing for Calcutta. She made an average passage for that time of the year, entered the broad mouth of the Hooghly early on the morning of the 22nd and dropped anchor in Diamond Harbour. A pilot schooner took them up the river, past the wealthy suburb of Garden Reach, to the city, and by evening they were installed at its leading hotel.