Dennis Wheatley - The wanton princess

The morning after the Grand Council the Emperor sent for Roger, gave him a despatch and said, 'You will take this to Villeneuve and hand it to him personally. I have chosen you rather than an ordinary courier because this is in a sense a mission. You already know the Admiral and as one of my personal staff he will know you to be in my confidence. You are to inform him of the latest developments in Europe and discuss them, and the orders contained in this des­patch, freely with him. My orders are that he is to put to sea, come up Channel, raise the blockade of Brest so as to free Gantheaumc and make possible the invasion. Now, this is the delicate point. Should he again show reluctance to risk his ships you are to hint that I may deprive him of his command and give it to Admiral Rosily. You could say that you chanced to overhear a conversation between myself and Decres. That should spur this mulish sailor into being of some use to me. Do you understand?'

'Perfectly, Sire,' Roger bowed. 'But Your Majesty will appreciate that to execute your order I'll have to ride near the whole length of France and Spain, so you can hardly expect Villeneuve to appear in the Channel much before mid-October.'

'Umph,' Napoleon gave a grunt. 'I know it. But that will be lime enough. The weather is often excellent in the autumn. Unless the Admirals prove even more spineless than they have so far led me to suppose, we'll cat our Christmas dinners in what's left of London. Go now, and ride hard.'

Much perplexed as to what course to pursue, Roger set out on his long journey. More than ever now he regretted having quarrelled with Mr. Pitt before the Prime Minister's resig­nation for, had he not done so, the Foreign Office would have kept him informed during Addington's administration of the changes that occurred from time to time in the secret post offices maintained in France for conveying intelligence to England. Such pillar boxes rarely lasted more than a year or two before the static agents who ran them were detected by counter-espionage or decided that it was no longer safe to run them at the same address; so those that Roger had used in the old days of the Revolution and the Directory must have long since been closed down. In the previous year he had had to get his information in person, and must do so again now.

How and when were the questions. If Jubert was still smuggling cargoes of wine across from Bordeaux, that was the answer to the first. The second was a much knottier problem. Normally, taking into consideration the bad posting service in Spain, horses going lame and other causes of delay, he could not be expected to accomplish his thirteen-hundred-mile journey in much under twenty-six days. But if he rode all-out he could probably lessen that time by ten days. That should be sufficient for him to break his journey at Bordeaux, cross to England, recross to France and still reach Cadiz by about September 18th.

But should any mischance befall him during the crossing everything would go awry. Villeneuvc would not receive his orders, so remain in port and the crux of the matter was to get him out of it, then ensure that he was intercepted and defeated.

Roger thought again of Talleyrand's remark that, if only one of France's two major fleets were crippled sufficiently to render it useless for a year or so, that would put an end to the invasion project. And he had no doubt that Talleyrand was right. It also entered his mind how fortunate it was that the shrewd Foreign Minister was evidently not aware that Napoleon had chosen for this mission le Colonel Breuc for, knowing him now to be still loyal to England, and therefore not to be trusted where operations against that country were concerned, Talleyrand would certainly have produced some plausible reason why one of the Emperor's other A.D.C .sshould be charged with conveying his orders to Villeneuvc.

After considerable cogitation Roger decided that he dared not risk a crossing from Bordeaux before delivering his des­patch in Cadiz. Villcneuve would not put to sea immediately. Several days must elapse before he had watered and revictuallcd to capacity for a long cruise and got his ships into the best possible state to engage, as he would foresee he might have to, in a great naval battle. And Cadiz was only some sixty miles from Gibraltar.

Since Spain was at war with England the Rock was again besieged, so it might not be easy to reach, but Roger felt fairly confident of his ability to do so one way or another within a few days of leaving Cadiz; and from Gibraltar, while Villeneuve was still in port fitting out his fleet for the great endeavour, a fast frigate could be despatched to England, to ensure that a fleet of sufficient strength would be waiting to give battle to him by the time he entered the Channel.

Alternatively, Roger decided, should it prove too difficult and dangerous to get through the Spanish lines to Gilbraltar, he could ride back at full speed to Bordeaux, cross with Jubert or some other smuggler to Devon and by the new semaphore telegraph send his information to London, still with enough margin of time for Villeneuve to be intercepted.

Having settled this question in his mind, Roger decided that there was nothing to be gained by exhausting himself in riding all-out to Cadiz. The longer Villwneuve's sailing was delayed the worse the weather would become; which meant that even if he succeeded in evading a battle with a British fleet and enabled Gantheaume's to emerge from Brest, the worse would be the prospects of the invasion being successful.

In consequence, Roger rode south through Rouen, Lc Mans, Tours, Poitiers, Angouleme, Bordeaux, Bayonne, Vitoria, Burgos, Madrid, Cordoba and Seville by easy stages, averaging no more than fifty miles or so a day, and arriving at the little town of Jerez de la Frontera on September 19th.

Jerez was fewer than twenty miles from the coast but over thirty from Cadiz, because the road to the port ran first in a semi-circle round a wide bay then along a ten-mile spit of low-lying ground to the city, which lay at its northern extremity. It was this peninsula, running parallel to the coast and almost enclosing a great area of protected water, that made Cadiz the finest natural harbour in Europe.

Early on the morning of the 20th Roger rode out of Jerez; but when he came to the crossroads near the coast, instead of taking the road that curved round towards Cadiz, he con­tinued on for another fifty miles until, in the afternoon, he reached Algeciras. Further thought had decided him that, if he could do so without difficulty, it would be better for him to inform the Governor of Gibraltar of his mission before delivering the despatch to Villeneuve, as that should result in the Admiralty receiving news of French intentions several days earlier than if he had followed his original plan.

To the east, only a few miles across the bay from Algeciras, the great Rock of Gibraltar towered up clear in the evening light. The shipping lying under the guns of its forts and the houses on the terraced roads could be seen quite distinctly; but that evening Roger learned that to get there was a thing that could not be done without considerable risk and, anyway, not overnight.

The inn at which he had put up was much frequented by Spanish officers. On seeing his French uniform they saluted him with grave courtesy. He spoke a little Spanish and several of them spoke French so he had no difficulty in conversing with them and spent the evening drinking in their company. As an allied officer they freely discussed the progress of the siege with him and, although it had made no headway, it soon emerged that the fortress was so closely invested that it would be a most hazardous proceeding to attempt to get through the Spanish lines.

Next day he rode out round the perimeter encircling the approaches to the Rock, to La Linea and back, and his ride convinced him that he could not get through to it by land. He would have to use some of his gold to bribe a fisherman in some village along the coast to put him ashore on the Rock at night. But that meant a delay of two or three days, and as he had ridden down through France and Spain without hurrying he felt that he could no longer put off delivering his despatch. He reckoned it would be at least a week before Villeneuve was ready to put to sea; so he would have ample time to ensure a frigate's being despatched from Gibraltar before the French fleet sailed.