Dennis Wheatley - The Rape Of Venice

'The Austrians excuse themselves by maintaining that the British abandoned them. No doubt you will not have heard it; but the Fleet was withdrawn from the Mediterranean last November.'

'Hell's bells!' Roger exclaimed in dismay. 'Then things are come to a pretty pass. What caused this pusillanimous decision?'

'We count Admiral Hotham mainly to blame,' Mrs. Sarodopulous told him. 'He had numerous chances to smash the French while they were still weak, but failed to take them. Then the entry of Spain into the war gave our enemies a big superiority in ships, if not in their fighting power. Admiral Jervis superseded Hotham, and might have retrieved the situation, but Admiral Mann, who commanded the supporting squadron, and was to join him off Corsica, arrived there without stores, so had to return to Gibraltar. There he lost his nerve, and was chased home by the Spaniards. Jervis was by then so heavily outnumbered that he had no option but to take his fleet out into the Atlantic'

'At least, my dear,' put in her husband, 'we can cheer Mr. Brook a little by telling him of Admiral Jervis's splendid victory over the Spaniards off Cape St. Vincent, last February. With fifteen ships, he defeated twenty-​five Spaniards so severely that the Spanish fleet will not dare another encounter for a long time yet. I'm told he's been made Earl St. Vincent for it, though half the glory should go to his second in command, little Commodore Nelson, for having boldly left station at a critical moment of the battle and broken right through the Spanish line.'

'Thank God for that.' Roger sighed. 'Such a crippling blow to the Spanish Fleet makes the invasion of England somewhat less likely.'

'I'd not be sure of that.' the Greek replied soberly. 'There is great discontent in Ireland, and last December the French attempted an invasion of that country, counting upon being well received there, and hoping to make it a base for an attack on England. A fleet of forty-​five vessels was despatched from Brest under Admiral Morad de Galles. with General Hoche in command of the troops they carried. They dodged Lord Bridport's fleet and got clear away into the Atlantic. But God intervened. Only some half of the French ships reached Bantry Bay; the rest, and among them that carrying Hoche, the Irish leader Wolf Tone, the money and the plans, were dispersed by a great storm. Many were wrecked; the rest crept back into Brest during January.'

Roger nodded. That was truly a merciful deliverance. What a pity though that, with so many troops on board, our Channel Fleet failed to catch them.'

Mrs. Sarodopulous gave him a troubled glance. "All has been far from well with the Channel Fleet. In April, on returning to Spithead, it mutinied.'

'At that I am not altogether surprised," Roger said after a moment; 'an outbreak of the kind has long threatened. My father is a Rear Admiral, and he has often told me of the inhumanity with which the common seamen are treated. When the pay of the troops was raised, theirs was not; should they become incapacitated from wounds, they are frequently turned off to starve; the food given them is often scarcely fit for animals; many Captains treat their men with great brutality; and such major punishments as a flogging round the fleet are little less than murder. Their grievances are many and well founded. Yet, with Britain's fortunes at so low an ebb. this could hardly have happened at a worse time.'

'On both counts you are right.' agreed the Greek. 'And, alas, from my latest intelligence, things have become worse instead of better. In May, the mutiny spread to the Nore and some crews there, having put their officers ashore, even went to the length of running up the red flag. Yet more alarming still is Britain's financial state. Her shipments of gold in recent years to her allies on the Continent have so impoverished her that last February there were fears for the solvency of the Bank of England, For some days, Mr. Pitt was faced with the worst financial crisis London has known for many years. He has temporarily restored the situation by the issue of a Patriotic Loan, to which there was a fine response: but all over Europe the confidence of bankers in Britain's stability has been badly shaken.'

After listening to all this news of defeat and disaster. Roger felt that, short of collapse, he could not have returned to find his country in a worse mess. Shying away from this depressing thought, when they had left the dining-​room and settled themselves on a terrace to enjoy the sea-​breeze after the long hoc day he asked:

'What part, if any. has the Serene Republic played in these events?'

Sarodopulous shrugged. 'None. Who could have expected otherwise? The Venetians of old were a great and proud people, but for a century past they have been unworthy of their ancestors. Too much money from great estates on the mainland which they have long neglected, gambling, women, music, the playhouse, dabbling with the occult; all these have drained away their courage, patriotism and pride. At General Buonaparte's bidding the Serenissima handed over all its strong places and disbanded its famous Slavonian levies. But they have since paid the price for their poltroonery.'

The fools might have known from Buonaparte's treatment of the people of Milan that licking his boots would not save them.' Roger gave a short, hard laugh. 'Can one imagine that Corsican brigand refraining from despoiling so fabulously rich a city once it had opened its gates to him? I'll wager there is hardly a Titian, Tintoretto or Bellini left in it by now.'

'His hand fell on them far more heavily than that,' remarked Mrs. Sarodopulous quickly. 'He abolished the Serenissima

'What say you, Madame?' Roger stared at her in amazement. 'I'd not have thought that even he would go to such lengths. The Serene Republic has lasted a thousand years. It was as much a permanent feature of Europe as Portugal, the Netherlands or Sweden. Surely you cannot mean that, even subject to his will, it no longer has a government?'

'There is no longer a Doge; the Senate is no more. Instead, General Buonaparte has given the city a Municipality on the French lines, made up of criminals and atheists.' On what excuse did he do this terrible thing?'

'The people on the mainland were driven to desperation by pillaging and raping by his troops. On Easter Monday the men of Verona rose and massacred the French garrison. The rising was, of course, swiftly put down; but General Buonaparte charged the Senate with having inspired it. Rather than take up arms while they still had them, they agreed to his demand that the ancient State should commit suicide by voting themselves out of existence.'

'When was this?'

'In mid May. Since then the city has been ruled by its Municipals, dancing to the tune of their French masters; and all the Venetian lands west of the Adriatic have been split up into Communes on the French model.'

'This suits me ill,' Roger said thoughtfully. 'I am on my way to Venice, and now the French control the place for me to enter it as an Englishman would be to invite arrest.'

'Why, then, not go there as an Arab?' Sarodopulous suggested.

Roger passed his hand over the beard that he had not yet had an opportunity to shave off. 'Perhaps; but no! 1 wish to avoid notice as much as possible. As an Arab, in a European city, I should be much too conspicuous.'

'Not in Venice,' countered the Greek. 'The Queen of the Adriatic has for so many centuries been the gateway into Europe from the East that its population is more mixed than that of any other city. As slaves, seamen, or traders, as many coloured men have found their way there as there are Europeans in Alexandria. If you took a cargo of some sort with you, and arrived as an Arab merchant, the port officials would not give you a second glance.'

'I am no merchant,' Roger smiled, 'and I would, at least, have to make a pretence of disposing of the goods I had brought. I fear my fumbling efforts to do so would soon arouse the suspicions of the Venetian merchants to whom I tried to sell them.'