Dennis Wheatley - The wanton princess

The northern tip of Martinique lay only twenty-five miles from the southern tip of Dominica, and Roseau, the capital of the latter, some forty-five from Fort de France. The wind being fairly favourable the passage was made in a little under two days and, soon after dawn, the French squadron appeared off Roseau.

Roger, who meanwhile had declared himself recovered, knew that a great part of the island, dominated by a lofty extinct volcano, Mornc Diablotin, was covered with dense jungle. In spite of that, had he been commanding the expedi­tion he would have landed his troops on the eastern shore and, even had it taken a fortnight, had them cut their way through the jungle to assault the capital from the rear. As the garrison of such a place was unlikely to consist of more than a single battalion, and the French had twelve thousand men at their disposal, by adopting such a strategy they could not have failed to take it; and on the island there were no other towns of importance, so the surrender of Roseau would have completed the operation.

After landing his troops, Missiessy could too, have sailed his squadron round to the west coast and, when they made their assault, have assisted them in a swift capture of the place by bombarding the fort and town. But the Admiral, confident that the broadsides of his ships would swiftly cause the British flag to be hauled down, elected to rely on a frontal assault.

That the garrison had been taken by surprise there could be no doubt as, but for the firing of a single alarm gun, nearly a quarter of an hour elapsed before the fort began to reply to its bombardment by the French. But once the British gunners got into action their fire soon began to tell. Not only were they better trained and reloaded their pieces more swiftly, but they had the advantage always enjoyed by shore batteries engaging ships. Their cannons were on a firm base, whereas those in the ships were in constant motion owing to the swell of the sea. In consequence, the shooting of the British was much more accurate. Soon the French squadron was taking heavy punishment. Cannon balls smashed great holes in the sides of the ships, ploughed through the soldiers massed on their decks and brought down spars and masts.

Roger could not escape the obligation to stand on the poop of the flag-ship near the Admiral and his staff. As the battle raged the palms of his hands became damp and he felt goose pimples on his skin from fear that at any moment a cannon ball might cut him in half. Then, to his great relief, soon after ten o'clock, it became so obvious to Missiessy that he was getting by far the worse of the engagement that he had a signal hoisted breaking off the action.

A quarter of an hour later the squadron was out of range of the fort and heading up the coast. In a quiet bay some miles north of Roseau the ships dropped anchor and lay there for two days while the dead were consigned to the sea and the damage that had been done to the ships was, as far as possible, repaired.

On the day following the assault Missiessy called his Cap­tains aboard the flag-ship for a Council of War, at which Roger and other senior Army officers were present. The general opinion was that now the garrison at Roseau had been alerted and shown itself capable of putting up such a stout resistance there could be no hope of taking the island. It was then decided to sail north and see if they would meet with better fortune at Montserrat, Nevis and St. Kitts.

Had the French succeeded in taking Dominica Roger would then have been faced with the problem of getting from there to the exit of the Windward Passage where 'Enterprise' had been lost; which meant a voyage of twelve hundred miles across the Caribbean west of the are of islands that enclosed that sea, and he had already planned how to set about it.

Now he had to think again, but he soon decided what to do. As he was only a passenger and not under Missiessy's orders he went to the Admiral after the Council of War, and said, 'Since there is to be no further attempt to take Dominica, sir, it is pointless for me to remain in the West Indies and the Emperor will expect mc to return to France as soon as possible. The speediest way for mc to do so would be to get a ship from Guadeloupe, so I should be grateful if you would have mc put ashore at Pointe-a-Pitre.'

Guadeloupe was the next island northwards in the chain from Dominica and the squadron had to pass it on its way to Montserrat, so.Roger's request presented no difficulty. Two days later he said good-bye to his companions on the terrible Atlantic crossing and was landed at Pointe-a-Pitre.

There Roger had no fear of being recognized as Mr. Brook, as Guadeloupe was the only French-owned island in the Caribbean that had never been taken by the British. The Governor made him welcome as one of the Emperor's A.D.C.s and. eager to hear all about Napoleon's Imperial Court, said that he must be his guest at the Residency until he could get a ship. Roger thanked him and. now that Missiessy was out of the way, enquired, not for one to take him back to France, but one bound for San Domingo.

On account of his health he was not expected back in France until the early summer; so now he would sav that he had employed his time by visiting several French islands in order to be able to report upon conditions in them.

If, haunted as he was by the nagging fear that Georgina had been sold into a brothel, it was unlikely that she would have been taken so far from the place where she had been captured as Guadeloupe. Nevertheless, during Roper's «'av of six days on the island, on the excuse of amusing himself after a long voyage, he visited all the haunts of vice in Pointe-a-Pitre, and paid the 'Madams' handsomely to produce all their girls for his inspection, having said that he was searching for one girl in particular whom he had known on a previous visit to the West Indies.

The majority of the girls in the less expensive houses were Caribs or of mixed blood; but in the better ones more than half of them were French with here and there Spanish, Dutch and English trollops. Sonic of them had previously served in houses in other islands and these, having stood them wine, Roger closely questioned; but none of them could recall having known a woman at all resembling Roger's description of Georgina.

On March 10th he went aboard the ship that was to take him on the eleven hundred mile run north-west across the Caribbean. The winds proved fairly favourable and for day after day, now brown as a berry, he lay on deck shaded by a sail from the blazing sun, reading or idly watching the flying fish skim the blue water. It was April 2nd when they docked at Port-au-Prince, and there he paid only a formal call on the Governor, courteously refusing his offer of hospitality with the explanation that he meant to spend only long enough in the capital to hire a small sea-going craft in which he intended to sail up the coast.

This left him free to explore the vice haunts of the city; but after three days he had met with no success in his quest for news of Georgina. Meanwhile he had chartered a ketch owned by a grizzle-haired quadroon named Charbon. who knew those waters well. The crew were mulattos; one of them called Pepe Pcpe being a half-caste Spaniard who could act as an interpreter in Cuba. On the 5th he sailed across the southern end of the Windward passage for Santiago dc Cuba, arriving there on the 10th.

As allies of the French, the Spaniards made no difficulties for him; and for the next three days, with Pepe Pepe as his companion, he continued his search, visiting a score of brothels, but with no more success than in Port-au-Prince. On the 13th he sailed again, this time up the Windward Passage and round the north-eastern end of Cuba to Baracoa. This was the nearest port to the place where 'Enterprise' had gone down and, again with Pepe Pepe's help, he spent forty-eight hours visiting every vice spot in the town, until he had satisfied himself that Georgina had not been taken there.