Dennis Wheatley - The wanton princess

'Mon cher Colonel, you are out of date,' Decres smiled. 'The Emperor deceived the enemy brilliantly by his forced march to the Rhine, but before he left Paris he realized that if Villeneuve reached the Channel at all it would be too late for his fleet to play any useful part in the deception. Fresh orders were sent some time after your departure, that when he left Cadiz he was to re-enter the Mediterranean and use his ships to protect our lines of communication between Marseilles and Genoa, so that we can continue to supply our army in Italy.'

That was another and far worse blow for Roger; but he concealed his dismay and, soon after, took his leave of the Minister.

On the following day, October 25th, a special bulletin was published in Le Moniteur. A full account of the battle of Ulm was given, then the great news that the Austrians had surrendered. On the 20th, at the foot of the great Michaelsberg that Ney, 'the bravest of the brave', had stormed, the Emperor sat his white charger. Behind him were his Marshals and his brilliant staff, and behind them the serried ranks of the Imperial Guard. To either side were four columns of troops each thousands strong, the standard bearers holding aloft their Eagles. From Ulm there filed out a long, sad procession headed by old General Mack. When he had handed over his sword, twenty thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry laid down their arms before their con­querors.

No more was said, but Roger could foresee the sequel. Kutusoff and his thirty thousand Russians could have saved the day if only Mack had had the simple sense to withdraw while there was still time and fall back upon them; but on their own, they could not possibly check the advance of the Grande Armee; so they could only retreat while Napoleon, the way now open to him, entered Vienna in triumph.

Sadly, Roger contemplated the situation. In England the new Coalition, brought about by Mr. Pitt with such tireless labour and a great outpouring of British gold, must have raised high hopes. They had been shattered at the very first encounter. In Vienna Napoleon would impose a peace on Austria that would bring the war in Italy to a close, and he had troops enough to defeat both any Russian advance in Central Europe and from Swedish Pomerania.

Still more in Roger's mind was the fact that he had sent by Georgina misleading information to England. A British fleet might now lie in wait for Villeneuve in the Channel, but he would not appear. If he, or Rosily, left port at all it would be for the Mediterranean; so both his fleet and that of Gantheaume in Brest would remain intact. That meant that when Napoleon had dealt with his enemies on the Continent, he might, after all, next Spring succeed in combining the two fleets, clear the Channel and invade England.

There was nothing more that Roger could do, and his depression was lightened only by the belief that Georgina was alive. Yet, at times, he had worrying misgivings even about that. They had been together for so short a time and all that had occurred that evening in Cadiz now seemed so improb­able. He had since often wished that he had returned there, found his boat's crew and through them verified his belief that he really had brought her off from the frigate. Even at the risk of an encounter with the infuriated Fournier, he felt now that he should have done so; for that in itself would have been proof that the whole episode was not a vivid dream.

During his long journey north he had told himself again and again that had he not seen her in the flesh he would never have relied on her taking his information to Gibraltar but have gone there himself. Yet why had no mention of her betrayal of him and of John Beefy's death passed between them; and why had he not given her back her pearls?

Now that he had completed his mission and had nothing else to think about, these unsubstantial but worrying doubts began to obsess him and, after another day in Paris, he decided that he would have no peace of mind until he settled them. Suddenly, too, it dawned upon him that if as he really felt sure, his encounter with Georgina had not been a dream, only a crossing of the Channel lay between them and a glorious reunion.

His mind made up, he hastened to the Tuileries, saw Duroc again and said to him, 'Old friend, in another week it will be November. As you know, the weakness of my wretched lungs compels me each year to winter in the south of France. In your next despatch to the Emperor please be good enough to inform him that I have taken leave to go thither.'

Duroc readily agreed and later that morning Roger set out for Bordeaux. Now imbued with fresh energy he reached the city on the 28th. To his relief he found the smuggler Jubert still operating. He was not due to sail with another cargo of Bordeaux wine until November 1st but Roger, seized with impatience to be off, paid him handsomely to speed up his loading and, in spite of the weather not seeming very propi­tious, to set sail at midday the next day. But using his gold to overcome Jubert's better judgment was to cost him dear.

When they put to sea it was already choppy and a few hours later when darkness fell, owing to heavy cloud that hid the moon and stars, it became black as pitch. During the night the weather worsened, the little ship rolled and pitched and Roger, lying in one of the only two bunks aft, was very ill. In the cabin it was atrociously stuffy and when morning came he staggered out on deck to get some fresh air. A bitter wind was blowing that sent showers of spray hissing over the side. White horses crested every wave and no other ship was in sight.

For a while he clung to a handrail as the lugger bucked and lurched, striving it seemed, to drag him from his hold. Rain came, at first in drifts that stung his face and forced him to close his eyes. Then the wind eased a little and it began to rain in earnest. It sheeted down so that visibility was reduced to a few feet. Within ten minutes, in spite of the oilskin cape that Jubert had lent him, he was soaked to the skin. The downpour had run off his bare head and down his neck both behind and in front so that his underclothes had become saturated and as he moved the water squelched in his boots. Yet he was loath to take cover in the frowsty cabin, so he continued to hang on there.

The deck was awash with flying spume and the torrents of rain. It had become bitterly cold but the water, pouring from side to side with each roll of the ship, had sloshed so high against the galley that it had penetrated it and put out the stove; so there was no possibility of getting a hot drink, or even lukewarm soup. Roger had a big flask of cognac and, from time to time, swallowed a mouthful. The raw spirit made him gasp but eased the pain in his heaving stomach.

About midday, after what had seemed to Roger endless hours of torment, Jubert, skilfully judging from long practice the lurch' of the vessel, crossed the deck to him and bellowed in his ear:

'You are unlucky for us, Monsieur. The last time I took you across we were caught by the Revenue men and turned back. And now this. I said we'd meet bad weather, but you refused to heed my warning. For all your gold I'll not take you as a passenger again.'

White, shaking, breathless and with his eyes half-closed, Roger could only mutter, 'You could have refused. Grumbling won't help matters now. Go look to your ship and leave me be.'

The smuggler gave a crooked grin, 'It'll be worse yet, and’ since you've no stomach for it, you'd best get back to the cabin.'

As Roger's arms were aching from holding on he knew that the advice was sound, yet he hated to lose face by admitting that he could not stand up to the storm; so he ignored Jubert's advice and remained where he was.

The Captain proved right. During the afternoon the waves became mountain-high so that the lugger seemed to race through the sea as though she were a car on an endless switchback. For minutes on end she soared up one green slope to hit the wave crest then career like a toboggan down into another valley. Lest she be pooped, Jubert was holding the lugger head-on to the storm but, having been up all night, by late in the afternoon he was very tired. As they rushed up a great wave he made a slight miscalculation, so that instead of the bow of the ship cutting through the foaming crest she struck it at a slight angle.