Fortune

by Lenny Bartulin

  ‘Savages,’ Ludwig von Kleist said. ‘Cannibals.’

  ‘I’ve often wondered what his name was,’ Lord Oldham said. ‘My wife calls him Richard.’

  ‘How is it done?’ Rolt said.

  ‘First the skull is removed and the flesh cut away, then they fill it with heated pebbles and sand and sew everything back up again. Leave the head to dry and wait until the whole thing shrinks. Hell of a job. Then they wear the heads around their necks and apparently become invincible—or invisible. One or the other. Useless either way, I should think.’

  ‘What would you take, Lord Oldham,’ Rolt said, ‘if I were to make an offer?’

  ‘For my old friend Richard?’

  ‘Name a price, sir. I will endeavour to oblige.’

  ‘Ha! And I thought you Prussians had no money!’

  WAR CONTINUES IN THE CARIBBEAN, TOO

  The Anne-Laure was taken without a single cannon being fired, slightly north-west and ten nautical miles from Cayenne.

  ‘What would be the point of engagement?’ Captain Mènard had said, looking out at the three enemy ships sailing towards him. ‘There’s nowhere to escape, except to the bottom.’

  ‘Make a run for it, sir?’ his first officer said. ‘Back out to sea?’

  ‘your enthusiasm isn’t matched by our abilities, Augustin. And we’ve only a day’s fresh water left, maybe two.’

  Général Fourés agreed. ‘It would be a pointless risk.’ The frigates had long since left them and, besides, the British and Portuguese had already occupied the colony. The général shook his head, patted the captain on the back. ‘you got us here safely,’ he said. ‘Best we continue the course.’

  ‘Augustin,’ Captain Mènard said to the first officer, ‘strike the colours.’

  The enemy ships held back and then a launch was sent over from the brig Vingança. Half-a-dozen Portuguese soldiers boarded the Anne-Laure. Their lieutenant was a short but erect man with a thin moustache, in riding boots and spurs. He approached Captain Mènard and saluted. In a loud, theatrical voice, he asked the captain to surrender his ship. Mènard did so, squaring up his shoulders, and then along with Général Fourés he led the Portuguese lieutenant into his cabin.

  ‘What happens now?’ Elisabeth von Hoffmann asked. It was very bright on deck and hot, and she shaded her eyes with her hand.

  Christophe Bergerard said, ‘They take the ship and put a Portuguese flag on her.’

  ‘I mean to us.’

  Bergerard shrugged.

  When the three men emerged from the captain’s cabin a short while later, the Portuguese lieutenant called over two of his soldiers. They stood to attention on either side of Général Fourés. The général removed his sword and presented it in both hands to the Portuguese lieutenant, who bowed formally and took it. The général was then politely arrested as a prisoner of war and escorted across the deck by the soldiers.

  Elisabeth hurried over to him.

  ‘Michel—’

  ‘It’s all right, ma chérie,’ the général said, trying to appear relaxed. ‘Just games we are obliged to play.’

  He took her hand. Fourés was still pale, clammy and exhausted (it had been, in the end, fifty-nine days at sea), and he’d lost weight during the trip. He suddenly seemed much older to Elisabeth, frail and feeble in his loose-fitting uniform.

  ‘What should I do?’ she said.

  ‘Rest, be calm and wait for me. Captain Mènard will get you ashore and Christophe can take care of everything until I return.’

  Elisabeth hugged the général tightly and whispered in his ear, ‘I love you.’

  ‘Wait for me,’ he said. ‘yes?’

  She stepped back and watched him walk over to the side of the ship. The général paused and nodded to her, then disappeared down the rope ladder.

  LIKE A GRIEVING MAN

  On the horizon, a black speck sailed across the white line of sky and sea, bound the long way for Paramaribo after erratic winds and waters had forced a change of course. From its decks and with the naked eye, it was impossible to see the Anne-Laure (its opposite and equal black speck) clearly, to see it being boarded by the Portuguese and the général arrested and descending the rope ladder, or Elisabeth von Hoffmann on deck, uncertain and yet enthralled by the circumstances in motion that were her life now. Impossible to see and yet Krüger was looking exactly in that direction as Elisabeth stood and experienced her presence in the world as though for the first time. He was gazing intently down the invisible line that linked their momentary cartographic perfections of latitude and longitude, two lives only a few nautical miles apart and yet unknown to each other (though of course the gods knew them both).

  Krüger, as he stood there on the deck contemplating the sea, sank into the feeling of his unboundedness, blissfully adrift. The ship had taken his life out of his hands and placed it at the whim of air and water. He was free and the sensation overwhelmed his inner self. Air and water, endless, simple, content, all that it took to be free! But Krüger didn’t consider that these were gods too, old gods waiting around, frolicking, playing, shouldering and enforcing, nature at their fingertips, nature soothed, pressed, palpitated, struck (raging Tiamat of the saltwater seas and thunderous Tlaloc of the rain, Enlil the sky god, wielder of storms, the sisters called Djunkgao who stroked the ocean currents with the palms of their hands). Krüger sensed these otherworldly forces (who cannot sense them?) but could not forge the words that might describe them. Without words, he was denied their dimensions, and thus their maps could not be drawn by his imagination and they eluded him. And so Krüger remained upon the surface of things. Like a grieving man, he understood his relief as freedom from the world that had grieved him, rather than a deeper immersion, as young Elisabeth von Hoffmann had understood it, as she had understood it during her own relief, in the aftermath of her own storm of gods. She was inside and present and Krüger was on the surface of things and absent, yet to understand the true dimensions of the world.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ Christophe Bergerard said.

  Elisabeth shrugged, squinting across the bright blue ocean, a hand over her eyes against the glare, towards a small dark smudge on the horizon. She’d turned just then and looked out and there it was, as though it had called to her. ‘Is that a ship?’ she said.

  THE GUILLOTINE

  The Anne-Laure was brought in under escort and dropped anchor about a mile out from the settlement. Everybody then waited onboard for what seemed an excessively long time before they were allowed to disembark. Even the Portuguese lieutenant began to pace the deck and grumble at his men.

  ‘Signal them again!’ he said.

  ‘yes, sir!’

  Bureaucratic matters were eventually resolved and a launch sailed Elisabeth and Christophe into the Cayenne docks. (Captain Mènard had kissed her vigorously. ‘My best sailor! Goodbye!’) The water was choppy and splashed over the bow, drenching Elisabeth’s dress down her left side. Ahead of them, Cayenne was cut into dense green forest that stretched out endlessly around it. Already, its humid, heavy presence could be felt, even inside the cool threading of sea breezes.

  A man by the name of Dr Antoine Girodet was waiting for them. He introduced himself and apologised for the lacklustre welcome.

  ‘We have been defeated and occupied,’ he said, ‘and our administration has succumbed to its habitual indifference, only more so. It’s the weather, you see.’ He turned to Elisabeth. ‘I’m sorry for the loss of your général, Mademoiselle.’

  ‘Do you know where they’ve taken him?’

  ‘Where? No.’

  Elisabeth narrowed her eyes at Girodet. He was olive-skinned, with dark unruly hair, young and handsome (she admitted it, though there was something about him that she immediately didn’t like). ‘No,’ she said, echoing him softly.

  ‘Wait!’ Girodet suddenly said, calling out over her shoulder and making Elisabeth jump. ‘Is that the blade?’

  Behind Elisabeth, sailors were unloading crate
s from another launch that had come from the Anne-Laure. Girodet walked quickly towards them. He spoke with the sailors and then pointed to a nearby cart. Elisabeth saw two Indians (she thought they must be) standing in front of it, shoulders harnessed like horses and naked except for barely covered loins. Their flat, red-brown faces were blank, inscrutable. She thought they looked like children.

  Girodet directed the sailors among the items unloaded from the launch. They eventually carried over a large flat crate and two smaller ones, as well as a few long lengths of dark timber. They stacked everything into the cart and then the doctor slipped them a bottle of rum.

  ‘Who is this Dr Girodet?’ Elisabeth said.

  Christophe had sat down on one of their trunks (the heat was unbelievable) and removed his coat. ‘We’ll find out, I suppose.’

  Dr Girodet came back to them, his sweaty face bright with excitement. ‘We can walk,’ he said. ‘It’s not far. you can put your luggage in the cart.’

  ‘Walk where?’ Elisabeth said.

  ‘To my humble home, Mademoiselle, of course. I shall have the honour of your presence until matters with the Portuguese, and your accommodation, become a little clearer.’

  Their luggage was loaded into the cart and the two Indians began to pull and the three of them followed behind as it moved off, wheels grinding and wobbly. Girodet offered Elisabeth an umbrella for shade, but she declined.

  ‘Do you know,’ the doctor said, opening the umbrella above his own head, ‘the blade in that large crate right there took the heads of King Louis and Queen Marie Antoinette?’

  Bergerard looked over at Girodet.

  ‘The very blade,’ the doctor said. ‘Incredible, no?’

  ‘My father was there,’ Bergerard said. ‘At the place de la Révolution.’

  ‘Truly?’ Girodet smiled, showing small bright teeth. ‘But that is wonderful!’

  FLUSHING FEVER

  On the evening of 14 August 1809, the British navy (commanded by Sir Richard Strachan, 6th Baronet) resumed an intense bombardment of the Dutch port town of Flushing, where a significant portion of Bonaparte’s navy was stationed. That same night, under the smoke and flash and boom of their guns, with the town in flames and the French retreating and much confusion in the streets, Johannes Meyer slipped away from his regiment.

  He reached the banks of the River Scheldt just before dawn and found a small raft normally used for poling cargo to and from the riverboats. He dragged it into the water and then, staying as low as possible on his knees, he poled the raft across the river to the island of Walcheren. The British were stationed there, with an army of forty thousand men.

  As he neared the island, Johannes slipped into the water and waded through the freezing river to the shore. He walked a short distance, and when he saw the British soldiers he put his arms in the air and called out to them.

  ‘I’m Prussian!’

  The soldiers fired at him (twice; the shots thumped into the sand to his left and right) and then they rushed Johannes and held him at bayonet point. They searched him roughly, pushed him around a little, gave a jab to his kidneys and then walked him up to the main encampment. He was placed under guard in a small wooden shelter.

  Men, cannon, equipment, wagons, horses, everywhere Johannes looked. There were ships anchored out in the deeper part of the estuary, sails tucked away, and further behind there was Flushing, on fire, pouring thick smoke into the air.

  Johannes emptied his boots of water. He waited. Soon he noticed there were lots of men being carried around on stretchers, arms hanging limp off the sides. They moaned and looked feverish. Some of the men on the stretchers were silent and their faces were covered with tunics.

  Half an hour later, an officer came to question Johannes. He wore a tasselled sword and knee-high boots and silver spurs, a tall Englishman in a well-tailored uniform, covered in far less mud than the soldiers Johannes had seen. He was clean-shaven but very pale and he sat down before Johannes with some weariness and a brief expression of pain. Then he asked questions in perfect German. Where was Johannes from and how had he come to be there? What was his regiment, who was his commanding officer? How many men did the French have, where else had he served? Was he a spy?

  With the last question, the officer smiled.

  ‘No,’ Johannes said.

  The Englishman nodded. ‘From Berlin, you say?’

  ‘yes.’

  ‘Tell me, is there still a tavern on Brüderstraße, towards the Schloßplatz end of the street, called the Win auf den?’

  ‘I haven’t been in Berlin for a long time,’ Johannes said. ‘But it was still there when the French arrested me.’

  ‘Good,’ the officer said. He stood up and patted Johannes on the shoulder. ‘Das ist alles gut.’

  A little while later, a soldier came and handed Johannes a British uniform.

  ‘Should fit,’ he said and waited for Johannes to get dressed. The uniform proved short in the arms and legs. The soldier said, ‘Oh well, mate.’

  Johannes was led to another part of the camp and issued a rifle and ammunition, and then, with a signature and a salute, he was formally enlisted into the 2nd Light Battalion of the King’s German Legion. Two days later, he was back in Flushing, part of the British infantry assault. The town was taken, but the effort proved a complete and colossal waste of time. The French fleet had already retreated to Antwerp even before the bombardment had begun.

  Worse still, on the island of Walcheren, the British had been decimated by Flushing fever: a rampant, ruthless spread of malaria, typhoid and dysentery, which eventually killed four thousand men (barely one hundred were killed in action) and infected a further sixteen thousand. The campaign was reduced to a desperate evacuation of the dying.

  Johannes Meyer remained miraculously uninfected. Some weeks later he was finally shipped across the Channel to the Sussex coast, to a town called Bexhill-on-Sea, where the King’s German Legion had its training depot.

  He began planning his escape the moment he arrived.

  PARAMARIBO

  The heat. And in the air, an intense fragrance of lemon and orange blossom.

  The River Surinam was choked with ships, barges and launches, loading sugar, molasses, coffee, cacao, indigo and cotton all bound for Holland, and unloading flour, beef and pork, salted fish and spermaceti candles, timber, horses and slaves. Krüger walked and watched. His legs were shaky. It had been forty-seven days at sea and stepping onto land hadn’t changed anything. The heat was inebriating.

  A slave ship from the West African coast had unloaded some twenty-odd Negroes: men, boys, women, children, naked and shielding their eyes from the light. What was left of an original one hundred and forty souls. The breeze picked up the stink of their stale sweat, of their fear and hunger. In a huddle, they were ladled water from a bucket then handed bananas and oranges.

  A voice called out, ‘Wash ’em!’

  While the Negroes continued to eat, buckets on ropes were dipped into the river and then hauled up and the water was splashed over them; five, ten, fifteen buckets of river water. The women rubbed their children’s hair and cheeks, their necks and chests and backs. After they’d eaten the fruit and had been washed by the buckets of water, a man came with a smaller bucket and each Negro cupped out some of the coconut oil there and rubbed it into their skin. The women rubbed their children then themselves. Now the Negroes glistened and Krüger could see how the men were roped in muscles and the women were smooth-legged and shone and the children were long-limbed and shiny too.

  He walked on.

  There were some fine houses in Paramaribo, made of timber and brightly painted, two and sometimes three storeys. Along the streets there were orange, tamarind and lemon trees, bursting in bloom, and magnificent gilded carriages making their way, the drivers in full livery (in the heat!), the horses immaculately brushed, and there were finely dressed men and women strolling in embroidered silks and glossy velvets, gold and silver lace, the women with elegant Frenc
h parasols to guard against the sun. Krüger had never seen anything like it.

  At one corner a large group stood around a birdcage hung from a tree: inside, a black-and-red-feathered bird, barely the size of a thumb. It chirped and tweeted sharply. Krüger noticed wealthy gentlemen in expensive clothes, holding silver-tipped canes, and women in silks and lace, fanning themselves. There were barefoot slaves in worn breeches, too, and slave women smoking small wooden pipes. There were ragged children running about, black and white and every shade between, and men who stood importantly at the rear of the crowd, broad-rimmed hats low over their eyes, silent except for an occasional whisper into the ear of one of the slaves, who then ran over to a mulatto man standing beside the birdcage with a slate in his hands. Bets were made and a moment later the talking ceased and everybody fell silent and watched the birdcage.

  A tall, skinny Negro came up close to the cage. The tiny bird inside flitted about. Once it had calmed and perched itself on a branch stuck between the cage bars, the Negro closed his eyes and licked his lips and began to whistle. It was a soft, low, beautiful sound. Krüger could see the Negro’s thin, scarred cheeks quiver, just as though a bird’s tiny heart was beating beneath its surface, and the sound he made trembled and carried on the heavy, humid air.

  The bird in the cage looked about, its head moving in quick jerks. The people standing around waited and didn’t move and watched the bird. It continued to perch there on the branch and jerk its little head and it didn’t make a sound. And then, with a flurry of wings, it suddenly flew to the cage bars and gripped them and let out a harsh squawk.

  The crowd exclaimed as one. Money quickly changed hands. Krüger asked and discovered: the object of the game was to inspire the bird to sing. It was called rackling.

  ‘But this rackler no good!’ the old slave beside him said.

  Another man came up to the cage. Wagers were made.

  Krüger moved on. At a nearby tavern he asked for Bayman Quince Rotterdam. He was told to wait, that Bayman would come by in the early afternoon.