Dennis Wheatley - The Rape Of Venice

'Then you are lucky, Sir,' came the prompt reply. 'My period of exile has but just begun, and God alone knows when it will end.'

Having clapped his hands, and sent his consumah for wine, Roger remarked. 'If I am right in supposing you to be a brother of the Earl of Mornington, and you were averse to serving in India, I wonder that his Lordship, now being Junior Lord of the Treasury, was unable to secure for you an appointment more to your liking.'

The Colonel gave a wry smile. 'It would ill-​become me to complain of my brother. He has, I am sure, done his best for me, but Dublin Castle remained deaf to his appeals. I should explain, perhaps, that as an Anglo-​Irish family it is to the Castle that we look for patronage, and on and off I have been kicking my heels as an A.D.C. there for years; but the Viceroy could never be got up to scratch to do anything substantial for me. He even refused me a seat on the Revenue Board and, meanwhile, as a younger son without fortune, my debts became so plaguey worrying that there was nothing for it but to escape my creditors by seeking service abroad;

'You even thought of leaving the army, then?'

'Only from desperation and because I saw small prospect of advancement in it. As 1 am considered the fool of the family, if is probably best that I should continue to make soldiering my career.'

Roger laughed. 'You are mighty frank, Sir. But permit me to say that you do not strike me at all as the type of pin-​head that I have met with only too often among army men.'

'Thanks for your good opinion, Mr. Brook; but I must confess that my education leaves much to be desired. I never could abide Latin or Greek, so my brother removed me early from Eton. In fairness to him, I should say that lack of money was the main cause. As you may, perhaps, have heard, my father, the first Earl, was a musician of considerable talent. He was, indeed, Professor of Music at Trinity College, Dublin; but he expended so great a sum on supporting amateur societies that he dissipated his fortune, and we have since been driven even to selling our family seat. As I took so ill to the classics my brother decided to spend what he could afford on sending one of my younger brothers to Eton in my place.'

'You interest me greatly. What happened to you, then, after you left Eton?'

To economise, my mother went to live abroad, and I spent a year with her in Brussels. My tutoring there was most sketchy and, as far as learning was concerned, I benefited hardly more from a year at the Academy of M. de Pignerolle in Angers. Though there, at least, I acquired a good seat on a horse and some little polish. At eighteen I was gazetted an Ensign in the Seventy-​third. As the regiment was here in India at the time, I was under no necessity to join it. Two exchanges in the following year got me two steps in promotion without my even setting foot on a barrack square. I then became an A.D.C. at the Castle and sat for our family borough in the Irish Parliament. In the summer of '94, as a Lt.-Colonel, I took the Thirty-​third to Ostend, where we acted as rearguard in the evacuation of that town. With the disastrous winter campaign in the Low Countries that followed, I'll not trouble you. It was bloody. Sir, positively bloody; and I lost more men from frost-​bite than from bullets. Only a remnant of us got back to Ireland in the Spring of '95. Since then I have done little but dance futile attendance on the Viceroy and avoid the duns; and there, Mr. Brook, you have my undistinguished story.'

Pouring him another glass of wine, Roger said: You will find society here most mixed, but extraordinarily hospitable. Admittedly there is no war being waged at the moment by which you might advance your career; but if you enjoy dancing, music and good company, you might be stationed in far worse places than Calcutta.'

That's true enough,' agreed the Colonel. "When I first made up my mind that I must take to serving with my regiment it had just been ordered to the West Indies. Two starts were made. The first met with complete disaster: seven transports wrecked on Chesil Beach and the rest only getting back to English ports in tatters. The second met another gale so severe that the whole convoy was dispersed and thirty ships, mine among them, after weeks of desperate hazard were at length driven back into the Solent. Soon after there was a change of plan and we were ordered to India. But for that, I'd now be in the Caribbean, and like as not dead from Yellow Fever.'

Roger nodded. 'The toll it has taken of our troops out there is utterly appalling. I found two ways, though, of checking the scourge considerably. On the recommendation of a learned friend, I had the men drink a tizane made from chinquona bark each morning, and as frequently as possible sent batches of them to cruise off shore for a few days in local ships; so that they might get some good sea air into their lungs.'

"Mr. Brook, you interest me mightily,' the Colonel exclaimed. T have ever maintained that the health of his men should be the first concern of every commander. Good food, and plenty of it, warm clothing, frequent baths and compulsory attention to feet, will do more to win a campaign than knowing the contents of all the text books on tactics and strategy ever written. But I had no idea that you had been a soldier.'

'I have not had that honour, Sir,' Roger replied politely. 'The measures I spoke of were initiated by me when I was for a while Governor of Martinique. You have just spoken, though, of the trade of arms with an enthusiasm which belies the luke-​warmness you appeared to show a while ago.'

'I gave you first a wrong impression then. The man is a fool indeed who, having adopted a profession, does not make it the major interest of his life. I pray you, too, do not let me lead you to suppose that I despise books. I have brought out from England well over a hundred and they are mostly about India, its people and its wars. I am, too, learning Persian. Since I must serve here I'll neglect nothing which may make me proficient in doing so; I meant only to imply that, had I had my choice, I would have done my soldiering in Europe, as 'tis there that our struggles with the French must be decided.'

For a while they talked about the last season's campaigns on the Rhine and in Italy. When it emerged that Roger knew General Buonaparte, Colonel Wesley begged to be given the fullest possible account of this new star which had so suddenly arisen on the military horizon,

Roger sent for another bottle of claret and in the cool shade of the veranda they talked on for a further hour. He found that the Colonel knew far more than he did about the involved operations which had given the Army of Italy victory after victory, as he had studied every detail obtainable about them, but he could not hear enough concerning the French Army, its generals, officers, men, commissariat and development since the Revolution. Having been well acquainted with Dumouriez, Carnot, Dubois-​Crance, Barras, Pichegru, and many other men who had played a part in making France's new army, Roger was able to supply him with a mass of information.

As the Colonel at length rose to go, they were speaking again of General Buonaparte, and Roger said with a laugh, 'He once offered me a Colonelcy on his staff. Should I return to my old work, maybe the day will come when I'll ask it of him.'

'You lucky fellow,' Colonel Wesley smiled. "Could I but change my identity for a while, it's the sort of chance I'd give my right hand for. This sallow-​faced little Corsican has, I am certain, a real sureness of touch where the handling of an army is concerned. To think, too, that he was born in the same year as you and I, yet here are we still almost unknown to the world, and I am by far the worse off of us two, since I'm condemned to garrison duty here, perhaps for years to come; whereas he has already made himself France's most spectacular and successful General.'