Dennis Wheatley - The Shadow of Tyburn Tree

"Then, Sir," snapped Roger. "Should you persist in giving me the lie, my palm will itch so that it will inevitably make contact with your face."

With a slight cough the Reverend Mr. Tooke intervened.

"Gentlemen, this matter has gone far enough. Why you should imagine, Admiral, that the Chevalier is an Englishman I have no idea; but I trust you will be satisfied that he is a person of good standing when I tell you that he has brought me a letter of introduction from our old friend Sir James Harris."

Roger was filled with admiration for the extraordinarily tactful way in which the learned churchman had provided a bridge while skil­fully evading the point at issue. Mr. Tooke had made no admission that his visitor was not, to the best of his belief, a Frenchman, neither had he vouched for his integrity; but he had, by naming him a protegé of the ex-Ambassador, placed him at once on a respectable footing.

"Ah! Then I'll say no more," cried the Admiral with ready good

humour, but he added with a broad wink at Roger: "Except to ask the Chevalier to remember me most kindly to Admiral and Lady Brook, should his travels ever take him to a little town called Lymington."

With a friendly grin Roger hid his confusion at being so completely bowled out. Then, feeling that in the circumstances it would now be both churlish and stupid to persist in denying his true identity, he said. "I pray you pardon me, Sir, for my extreme rudeness, but I had good grounds for striving to preserve my incognito. Tell me now, I beg, how it comes about that you knew me the second you set eyes on me?"

The Admiral laughed. "You'd not remember me, but I've known you ever since you were a toddler, and I've a long memory for faces."

"I must confess I don't recall our meeting, Sir, though I've often heard my father speak of you with friendship and admiration. You served under him at the reduction of Havana, did you not?"

"Aye, that was way back in '62 and long before you were born, boy. Your father and I were much of an age and became firm friends despite the deck that lay between us. 'Twas he who persuaded our captain to recommend me as suitable for a commission when the Russians asked for a few British seamen to help train their fleet. Years later, when my squadron revictualled in England on our way round to Greece, he came aboard to see me, bringing both your mother and yourself. You were no more than a child of two then, but I saw you again at Lymington when you were about eight. You've altered little since then, except that you've grown into a fine figure of a man."

"I still marvel that you should have recognised me so instantly, Sir."

" 'Twas the similarity of the name coupled with those dark blue eyes of yours, lad. They are your mother's very own, and I fell in love with her for them the first second I saw her. But tell that to Lady Greig and I'll have you keel-hauled out in Cronstadt Bay. I still see your father on the rare occasions when I get leave to spend a few weeks in the old country, and it chances that he is not at sea himself. Can you tell me how fares it with him?"

"Why, yes, Sir. When I sailed from England towards the end of April I left him mightily well and in the best of spirits."

"Ah! The two of you are reconciled, then. I'm monstrous glad to hear it; for your defiance of him and running away to France near broke his heart."

Roger flushed. "So you knew of that, then?"

"He told me of it when I was last in England, two summers back; and I had not heard that you had since made your peace. 'Twas that which made me at first suspicious of your intentions here. I thought mayhap that you were still living by your wits, and had come to Russia in the guise of a Frenchman as a precaution against dis­gracing your own name, should you be caught while up to some nefar­ious business. But since you come sponsored by our good Sir James that puts a very different complexion on the matter. I trust that you left that handsome rascal also in good health?"

"In the very best, Sir. And, I am happy to report, about to be raised to the peerage as Baron Malmesbury, in recompense for his great services to the Crown."

"He well deserves the honour. 'Twould in fact have been earned alone by the splendid fight he put up while here against Frederick the Great's malign influence over the Empress."

"Let us then drink a glass of wine to his long enjoyment of his new title," put in Mr. Tooke.

"I thank you, William," the Admiral smiled. "I'd not say nay to a glass of your good dry" Sack."

When they had drunk the toast, they all sat down, and the Admiral gave Roger a shrewd glance, as he said: "I'll ask no questions as to your purpose here, and thereby invite no lies. But your posing as a Frenchman while bringing a secret introduction from Sir James to my old friend, suggests certain possibilities which, in my position, it is difficult to ignore."

"I appreciate that, Sir," Roger replied seriously, and the Admiral went on:

" Tis said that no man can serve two masters; yet we British— and there are quite a number of us here now that I have leavened the whole Russian Fleet with British officers—have, in effect, achieved an honourable compromise. Technically we are no more than loaned to the Russian Government and can be recalled at any time; but our recall could not be enforced, and many of us have made our homes here. Therefore, most of us feel that our first loyalty should be to the hand that feeds us and the land in which our fortunes lie; yet out of natural sentiment we have pledged ourselves never to take any action which would be definitely to the detriment of the land of our fathers.

"For example, during the last war the Empress was persuaded by her Minister, Count Panin, to form the League of Armed Neutrality, by which Russia, Sweden, Denmark, Austria and Prussia bound them­selves to defend their merchantmen from search for contraband of war being carried to Britain's enemies. Since Russia was the initiator of this pact she would normally have taken the foremost part in these anti-British activities; but whenever a Russian ship-o'-war commanded by a British officer appeared liable to be involved he put a blind eye to his telescope and sailed off in the opposite direction; thus render­ing Russia's part in the Armed Neutrality a nullity."

"Tell Mr. Brook what came about from the arrival of Paul Jones, Samuel," put in their host, "for that is a more recent example of our compatriots' feelings."

"Aye," the Admiral nodded. "You'll have heard of the English renegade who turned pirate and played the very devil with our mer­chantmen, in the American interest, during our war with the Colonies. When the fighting was over he found that persons of quality in the

United States had little time for such a rapscallion and traitor as him­self. So, greatly disgruntled, on learning of the outbreak of the new war 'twixt the Russians and the Turks, he came here to oiler his ser­vices to the Empress. He is a bold enough rascal, but ignorant, and never having directed the operations of more than one ship at a time, completely unfitted for high command. However, misled by tales of his courageous exploits Her Majesty was sufficiently ill-advised to offer him a high appointment in the Grand Fleet, which has been equipping these few months past at Cronstadt.

"Immediately I was informed of this I called a meeting of the senior British officers in the Fleet. Their opinion was unanimous. Not one of us were prepared to serve either with or under an ex-pirate and a man who had played traitor to his country. Some thirty of us went to the Empress in a body and resigned our commissions.''

"Well done, Sir," murmured Roger.

The Admiral chuckled. "That put the poor lady in a pretty fix; for such a step being utterly impossible to her own officers it had never entered her mind that we might undertake it. To accept our resignations would have immobilised the Grand Fleet, which is soon due to sail again under Count Orlof for Turkish waters; while to give way to our demand that the man Jones should be dismissed from her service would have created a precedent which might have had most serious repercussions among her own countrymen. She solved this unique challenge to her authority with her usual ability, by sending Jones as second-in-command to the small fleet in the Black Sea. But this little passage of arms is enough to show you that, although far from home and the servants of an autocrat, we British still reserve our right to use our own judgment in all that, we feel concerns us."