Dennis Wheatley - The Rising Storm

Roger had already noted that the letter was addressed to "Captain G. B. Harcourt, H.M.S. Amazon, Lying in Portsmouth Roads"; so he walked over to Charing Cross and booked a seat in the night coach for Portsmouth. He then returned to Amesbury House, wrote to his mother, finished his packing and spent his last few hours in London in the company of the amiable Droopy Ned. By eight o'clock the following morning he was on Portsmouth Hard.

A bumboat took him off to H.M.S. Amazon', and when introducing himself to her Captain he mentioned that it was in her that his father had returned to England on being recalled from the West Indian Squadron in the summer of '83. As that was nearly seven years ago Roger was surprised to hear that Captain Harcourt had had the Amazon then, and well remembered carrying his father home with despatches.

The Captain remarked that as he was a long way down the list, far from expecting promotion to the command of a ship-of-the-line, "he was very lucky to have retained a ship at all in times of peace, as after the late war scores of fighting vessels had been scrapped. When serving in the West Indies he had known a dozen promising junior Captains who had since been high and dry for years. For instance, one youngster of extraordinary dash and brilliance named Nelson; but he had been on the beach for a long time past, and it was now doubtful if he would ever get another ship unless Britain again went to war.

Roger naturally said nothing of the business that was carrying him to Lisbon; but he wondered if it would result in Captain Nelson, and those other frustrated young sea-dogs, being recalled from their quiet farms to once more pace a quarter-deck and order their ships to close upon the enemy. He sincerely hoped not; for if shaking a-fist in the face of the Spaniards could prevent it, the fault would not lie with him if Britain had to draw the sword again.

H.M.S. Amazon was that month the duty frigate which was always kept in readiness for special service, so within an hour of Roger coming aboard she put to sea. Off Ushant they struck bad weather, but in spite of that, owing to good handling the ship put in to Lisbon on the afternoon of Sunday; March 28th.

On landing Roger went straight to the Embassy, where Mr. Robert Walpole, who had been British Minister to Portugal for nearly eighteen years, gave him an excellent dinner, put him up for the night and made arrangements for him to proceed on his journey to Madrid the following morning.

Only then did Roger's troubles begin. The Portuguese roads proved abominable and those in Spain, if possible, worse. Mr. Walpole had provided him with a Portuguese courier who spoke enough French to act as interpreter, but neither bribes nor threats delivered through him seemed to hurry the personnel that accompanied Roger's coach. It was drawn by eight mules, while an additional team of six ambled along behind, as a reserve which could be hooked on in front of the others to help pull the coach up hills, or out of boggy patches, when it got stuck—which seemed to happen with maddening regularity every three-quarters of an hour. The muleteers proved more mulish than the mules; and the six armed guards, which Mr. Walpole had insisted on his hiring to protect him from bandits, apparently hoped that the journey would last a month, as they refused to lift a finger to help even when the coach had to be dragged across the worst of the stony water­courses that severed the road at the bottom of every valley.

The inns in France that Roger had regarded as such miserable places were, he now found, mansions by comparison with those in the Peninsula. Most of them consisted only of a single bare room, with a lean-to behind it in which the innkeeper and his family huddled in appalling squalor. Few of them could even boast a chimney stack, so that the smoke that failed to find its way out through a hole in the roof filled the soot-blackened common room where occasional travellers both ate and slept. Every one of them was so alive with bugs that he was soon red from head to foot with bites, and in an endeavour to escape further torment took to sleeping in his coach. Such food as he could get was brought to him half raw, half cold and smothered in garlic; so that he was near sick every time he forced himself to swallow a mouthful. And the journey seemed never-ending.

Actually, although it did not appear so to him at the time, his lavish offers of largesse for increased speed did have considerable effect, as the coach covered the 400 miles in twelve days, instead of the three weeks that he was assured it would normally have taken. On Friday the 9th of April he arrived in Madrid, itching all over, half-famished from lack of decent food, and cursing Spain for the lousiest country that he had ever had the ill-fortune to enter.

To add to his fury he found the British Embassy shut up; but, to his relief, it soon transpired that Mr. Anthony Merry was living in a smaller house near by. The Consul turned out to be a youngish man of not very enterprising disposition. Madrid was his first post and he had not been there many months when the Ambassador had been recalled, leaving him as Charge d'Affaires; and it was soon clear to Roger that he did not care for the responsibility, particularly now that serious trouble was brewing with the Spaniards. It was perhaps this, added to a natural politeness, which accounted for the particular warmth of the welcome he extended to Mr. Pitt's personal representative.

He said a little plaintively that it was all very well for Whitehall to complain about delays; they did not realize there how hopeless it was for anyone of his junior rank to compel the attention of a Spanish Hidalgo like Count Florida Blanca, but perhaps the Prime Minister would be more impressed by a special envoy, even if Roger did not carry the powers of a Minister Plenipotentiary.

Roger had a good mind to tell him that rank had nothing to do with the matter, and that he ought to be ashamed of himself. For ten months he had been the sole representative of His Britannic Majesty at the Court of Madrid, and that was status enough for any man to demand an audience of the King of Spain himself, if need be. But Mr. Merry's lack of initiative was not his affair, and, even tired and irritable as he was, he was much too tactful to give gratuitous offence to a man upon whom he would have to depend for all sorts of trivial services. So he gratefully accepted Mr. Merry's offer of a bath, put on clean linen and rejoined him for dinner.

Mr. Merry was naturally anxious to hear all the news from home and would have liked to spend the evening enjoying an account of the latest gossip in London, but Roger had no mind to let the grass grow under his feet. While the servants remained in the room he did his best to satisfy the craving of his host, but directly they had gone, he said:

"I expect to be here only a few days, so I have no time to waste, and I would be greatly obliged if you would tell me all you can of the Court of Madrid."

Mr. Merry laughed. "I think, sir, you would be well advised to count your days as weeks while you are in this country; for it is the immemorial custom here."

"That we shall see, sir," replied Roger with a hard note in his voice. "In any case, I should be glad if you would accede to my request."

His host shrugged. "Let us start then with King Carlos. He is a typical Bourbon, both physically and mentally. His muscular strength is quite exceptional, he is entirely devoted to sport and enjoys only the simplest amusements. He is religious, good-tempered, believes im­plicitly in the Divine Right of Kings, and is one of the stupidest men you could meet in a long day's march. It is Queen Maria Luisa who wears the breeches. You must have heard the classic story of her as a little girl?"