Dennis Wheatley - The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

Yet, after seeing the miserable, makeshift state of the defences, Hugh Elliot confessed to Roger that he saw small hope of their holding the city in the face of a determined assault. All that he had seen during the morning had made him so pessimistic of Gustavus's chances of successfully giving battle to the Danes, and escaping being made their prisoner on the fall of the city, that at mid-day, when they re­joined the King, he told him that he had determined on writing yet a third letter to Prince Charles in an eleventh-hour attempt to induce the enemy to negotiate.

The letter was written and despatched to Uddevalla by a galloper early in the afternoon. After that they could only continue with their feverish preparations against attack and wait, with such fortitude as they could muster, for what the night might bring.

In the middle of the night the messenger returned with a despatch which stated that, while the Danish forces would continue their pre­parations for a mass assault on Gothenborg, Prince Charles was pre­pared to give the British Minister an audience the following day.

The relief of Gustavus and his entourage was immense. Yet they recognised that their lives and safety still hung in the balance, and the outcome of the interview was awaited with feverish impatience.

Mr. Elliot departed for Uddevalla at dawn on the morning of the 7th, taking Roger with him to act as his confidential courier, but when Roger returned to Gothenborg late that night he could only report that negotiations were proceeding. Between six a.m. and one p.m. he had covered the sixty miles with Hugh Elliot in his carriage, and between four in the afternoon and ten at night he had done the return trip on horseback, so he again slept the sleep of exhaustion.

At eight o'clock next morning he set out again, to see if he could secure more definite tidings which might lift the sense of doom from the anxious and breathless city; but when he reached Uddevalla Hugh Elliot had none to give him, so he slept there that night.

On the morning of the gth there was a further conference, and after leaving it at mid-day the British Minister said to him with a wry . smile: "Half-a-loaf is better than no bread. I have succeeded in inducing the Danes to grant King Gustavus an eight-day armistice. You have well earned the right to inform him of these good tidings, for what they are worth, so ride on ahead and tell him. I feel desperately ill, so shall follow more slowly in my carriage to give him full particulars."

Roger rode all out and reached Gothenborg by five in the after­noon. Gustavus received his news with the utmost thankfulness, and asked him how he might reward him for bringing it. Roger then told him how he had been forced to abandon his Star and ribbon in a dungeon at Schlusselburg; upon which the King promptly replied: "I will make you an Officer,of the Order, for no man has better deserved it!" and presented him with his own Star, mounted in diamonds.

At ten o'clock Hugh Elliot arrived and gave the King details of his negotiations. On the carrying out of very modest stipulations the Danes were prepared to cease hostilities and evacuate their entire army to Norway.

Gustavus was utterly .amazed and could scarcely find words to express his gratitude; but the diplomat warned him that nothing de­finite had been agreed, and that the Danes had only consented to aban­don the conflict on the confirmation of certain eventualities. Tired out but in a far more optimistic frame of mind, Gustavus and his suite sought their beds.

Hugh Elliot and Roger were sharing a room in the English mer­chant's house, and when they reached it Roger said:

"Tell me, Sir! How did you achieve this miracle?"

The Minister sank upon the bed. His thin face was flushed and his eyes unnaturally bright, as he replied: "I can make no secret of it from you, since you are intimately involved. I could not find it in my­self to stand by and witness this great city, with all its people, become the spoil and plaything of a brutal invader. Upon my own responsibility I took a high tone with the Danes and threatened them with the destruction of their whole kingdom did they not instantly desist from their invasion of Sweden, and withdraw."

"S'Death, you did!" gasped Roger. "And this still without orders from Whitehall?"

"I said that I had received fresh despatches, though 'twas not the truth," Hugh Elliot admitted with a feeble smile. "I wrote in my third letter to Prince Charles as follows: 'At this very moment war is per­haps declared against Denmark by Prussia and England, but if your Highness will consent to what I propose, I will immediately despatch couriers, if possible, to stop the invasion of Holstein by a Prussian army and the sailing of our fleet'. 'Twas that alone which gave him pause. Since then I have elaborated this supreme bluff and half-persuaded them to believe that they would do better to accept a present humiliation and eat humble-pie before Gustavus, than find themselves the victims of the wrath of two mighty powers which have already taken up arms to destroy them."

"You have all my admiration, yet I tremble for you," Roger exclaimed. "For if the bluff be called, what then? And how will you fare if our government at home repudiates the ultimatum that you have issued in its name?"

"As to myself, I care not," the ill man replied. "But by the honour of England and the saving of this brave Swedish King I set great store. And 'tis in this, my friend, that you also are concerned. The armistice that I have gained for Gustavus extends only for eight days from midnight to-night. If the Danes do not receive definite con­firmation within a week that either a Prussian army is mobilising to invade Demark from the south, or that a British fleet is preparing to sail against them, they will know that I have lied, and the game will be up."

He paused for a moment, racked by a fit of coughing, then went on: "In the matter of the Prussians we can do nothing. Before I left Copen­hagen Von Rhoda promised me that he would do his utmost to persuade King Frederick William to despatch troops to the Danish frontier. He will have the backing of Mr. Ewart, our Minister in Berlin, who played so great a part in founding the Triple Alliance, and of that good friend of ours, Prime Minister Von Hertzberg; but whether the King will agree to commit Prussia to war on Sweden's account no man can say. Therefore we must forget the Prussians and place our hopes only in what we may achieve ourselves. One final effort must be made to induce my Lord Carmarthen and Mr. Pitt to realise the imperative necessity of instantly publishing an order for the despatch of a fleet. You alone can tell them of our frightful situation at first hand. So at crack of dawn to-morrow you must go aboard the fastest British ship that is lying in the harbour here and get you off to England."

"But..." Roger began.

"I know!" The Minister waved his scarcely begun protest im­patiently aside. "You are flunking again of that wife of yours in Copen­hagen. Well, what of her? You told me yourself that you married her only because you were forced to it."

"Even so," Roger objected quickly. "I made my vows to her in an English church. She loves me, and I am determined to honour them to the best of my ability."

"Who seeks to prevent you? Not I." "The diplomat shrugged wearily. "But she is safe and well cared for where she is. Surely you will not set her temporary inconvenience against a chance of saving ten thousand Swedish matrons and maids from being exposed to the licentious assaults of the brutal Danish soldiery?"

Roger thought miserably of Natalia Andreovna. She was now an exile. He had brought her out of Russia, and without a moment's notice, deserted her in Denmark. He had not even given her an opportunity, as yet, to ask him those questions about his family and status, to which she had every right to expect an answer. He had promised that he would rejoin her within a week, and seventeen days had already elapsed since he had abandoned her in the middle of their honeymoon. Now he was called upon to leave her marooned among strangers, with no further news of him than that he had sailed for England on urgent business, and would get back to her somehow, sometime, when his services were no longer required. To her it would appear abomin­ably callous treatment, and few courses could be better calculated to disrupt the marriage that, once committed to it, he had determined to do his best to make a happy one.