The Emperor's Gold

by Robert Wilton

  As promised, Admiral Lord Hugo Bellamy called that evening at the First Lord’s Residence at the top of the Admiralty building. After the cool, formal fashion of the rest of his rooms, Lord Barham’s study was darker and more personal, souvenirs of West Africa and the West Indies crowding the books.

  ‘Anything yet, Bellamy?’

  ‘Not yet, My Lord. Almost all of our people should have reached France by now. It will take time to get any news out.’

  ‘You have systems in place, of course.’

  ‘The Comptrollerate-General ships will rendezvous with some of our regular brigs and frigates. Flags and semaphore, of course; we can relay any essential intelligence back to England tolerably quick – most obviously any news of this fleet of Sharks.’

  ‘We’re pissing into the wind, Bellamy, aren’t we?’

  ‘My Lord.’

  9th August 1805

  CROSS-REFERENCING FOR PLACE NAME ROSCARROCK AND EQUIVALENTS

  ROSCARROCK, Godstone (Surrey) – hill of this name, regular environ for Francis Monk or Francis Munk or Black Monk, highwayman and sometime J/20 (d 1799), vide J/20/86, J/20/92, J/20/134 and once site of seditious meeting (28th November 1804, vide J/20/296 and X/24/7)

  ROSCARROCK, Wadebridge (Cornwall) – farmhouse, hamlet and hill of this name, twice meeting place of smuggler Simon Hillyard, subsequently X/51, vide X/51/27, X/51/31, M/10/7/27

  ROSCARROCK, Boston (America) – temporary lodging for Thomas Paine, two nights March 1775, vide A/3/41

  ROSCARRICK, Falmouth (Cornwall) – sometime home of Henry Hope Martin, thief and smuggler (and sometime casual factor), vide J/133/209, X/53/18, M/482/50

  ROSCARRICK, Lisburn (Belfast, Ireland) – site of 20th of June 1797 meeting of Defenders, vide I/X/12/83

  [SS M/1309/2/12 DRAWN FROM GAZETEER SS 1/17 BELIEVED LOST]

  In the first soft, animal stirrings of the morning, a little man trotted through the dew to the farmhouse on a horse that was obviously too big for him. He hesitated on the edge of the yard, hands still on the reins of the borrowed horse, until De Boeldieu had shown himself and murmured some private word of reassurance.

  De Boeldieu introduced Roscarrock as ‘a colleague’, and the little man as ‘Monsieur Jean’, and no one enquired further. The two Frenchmen murmured slowly and gravely, apparently of community affairs in one of the nearby towns. Monsieur Jean spoke cautiously and precisely, and in an attempt at emphasis he two or three times produced a phrase in English for Roscarrock’s benefit. The French had been slow and formal enough for Roscarrock to gather that the man was some kind of local official, and to pick up basic messages on the poverty of the villages, the resentment at so much military activity in the region, and the busyness of the police.

  The little man excused himself after half an hour; he had received a sign of their arrival late last night and had wanted to take immediate advantage, but now he must hurry to work so as not to break his normal routines. De Boeldieu escorted him to the door. He told Monsieur Jean he looked tired; Monsieur Jean should get some rest.

  De Boeldieu had assumed responsibility for making what he could of the basic food that some invisible friend had left, and started to work on a breakfast. ‘Mood in the district,’ he said in summary. ‘Some interesting details about police procedures and the military and the state of things. But we will be getting nothing on your mysterious fleet from such a man.’

  ‘Your friend Joseph brought out the Minister’s private copy of French naval plans. If they didn’t contain anything on it, it’s going to take a very special agent to do better.’

  ‘This business has touched my professional pride,’ De Boeldieu said, and he was serious. ‘Now, my Prometheus, may I beg of you a fire? An indifferent soup, like an indifferent liaison, may be much improved with a little warmth.’

  CONVERSATIONS OF ADMIRAL P. C. J. B. S. DE VILLENEUVE, RECORDED THE 30TH DAY OF NOVEMBER, 1805

  On the 9th we put to sea from Vigo. Ah, what a moment. My fleet, this greatest fleet, and our destination the south coast of England. I was in the Bucentaure, of course. You’re not a sailor, are you, my friend? You wouldn’t understand this, I fear. The young Lieutenant here, he would sympathize with me. Designed by Sane himself, finest Shipbuilder of the age. The first of her class, eighty guns and sleek, a true-bred Arabian horse galloping towards England. We were twenty-nine ships of the line, and many frigates and corvettes beside. Ah, that sight. Shadows in the Spanish sun that lit my way.

  Now, at last, it is so simple. No more Napoleon, no more waiting, no more obstacles. I am at sea. I have France’s greatest fleet under my command. Your British blockade is nowhere – for the first time I feel the sea my own. Soon Allemand will join me, and we are greater still. To Boulogne, collect the Emperor – ‘Ah, Excellency, might I have to honour to invite you to step into England?’ – and because of Fouché’s plan the Royal Navy will be too weak to stop me.

  Of course, I am thinking of the brute Fouché and his plan. A lot depends on him, and his network of agents. If his spies have not managed to disrupt and distract the Royal Navy as intended, then even with Allemand we might not be strong enough. But Fouché is efficient: you might not have him to dinner, but for all his comic opera titles he gets a thing done. And now I am a little more comfortable, you understand, because what Fouché and the Emperor do not know is that I am rather better informed than they think. In La Royale, our French navy, we have had our networks since long before these revolutionaries have come along thinking that they change the world. Now the Minister Decrès and I have a private arrangement by which news will reach me of whether Fouché’s extraordinary scheme has succeeded or failed.

  Ah, that moment. The land falling away through my cabin window, and all the politics with it. Ahead, the open sea and glory!

  [SS G/1130/15]

  They grew tetchy with the hours of enforced idleness, with the unspoken fear that, despite De Boeldieu’s network of friends in the nearby farms, they might at any moment hear the thunder of hooves or the tramping of a squad of gendarmes, and with their mutual suspicion. De Boeldieu declared that they would try the soup cold for lunch, since the occasional descent into barbarousness offered variety, and only scowled when asked whether he took the same approach to his liaisons.

  In the early afternoon a beggar slouched up the lane to the farm. De Boeldieu watched carefully, then smiled, but still told Roscarrock to keep a lookout on all the approaches to them. He opened the door to the yard. ‘If this is what I suspect,’ he said, ‘I shall need the code word or code phrase you have been given to reassure the friends of General Metz.’

  ‘“The air of Picardy.”’

  ‘The air of Picardy? Charming. Well, let us see what this beggar wants.’

  ‘If he’s in real trouble, we can offer a hundred thousand pounds in gold, or all the cold soup he can eat.’

  De Boeldieu studied Roscarrock’s face for one grave moment, then smiled and stepped into the yard.

  Roscarrock watched the two men talking over the farm gate, trying to weigh De Boeldieu’s affectations and his intrepidity.

  The Frenchman was back after a few minutes. ‘I have made references, comparisons, and jokes about the air of Picardy, and I am beginning to sound like an imbecile. Nothing.’

  ‘Perhaps this isn’t one of the General’s contacts. Perhaps he wants to check us before he gives acknowledgement.’

  ‘“The air of Picardy”? That exact phrase?’

  ‘The exact phrase. I got the impression they’d got it like that from some file.’

  There was a cough from the doorway. The beggar had ambled across the yard to them. De Boeldieu gave a final glance of frustration at Roscarrock, then headed for the door. Halfway there he stopped, his face opened in sudden enlightenment, and he shot another glance of irritation over his shoulder. He muttered something to the beggar, and reached into his pocket. While he rummaged fruitlessly, he began to whistle. Watching the search eagerly, the beggar joined in the tune. Finally a
coin was produced and changed hands; the beggar bit at it, winked, and shambled away across the yard.

  De Boeldieu closed the door. ‘“Picardy” is an old country tune, for the love of God! Lord, when Napoleon rules in London, perhaps then I will have masters of quality.’

  ‘Will General Metz see us?’

  ‘I doubt we are at that stage yet. But we move well.’

  ‘When do we bring the gold ashore? Can your fisherman friend be trusted that much?’

  De Boeldieu nodded. ‘He knows that France is at stake, and he would die for her, his sons with him. I do not know whom I fear more, the French police or your English pirates on that boat.’ A moment’s thought, and a decision. ‘But tomorrow we must be on the road I think, and the day after. We have not much time.’

  ‘In that case I must get out to the Jane tonight. Then our old fisherman can take sick, and his sons and some of your other friends can keep an eye on the boat in harbour. To any right-thinking French policeman, it would be insanity to leave all that gold moored in the open like that.’

  ‘To us all, my friend.’

  The door shut smooth and firm behind him, with the distinct click of an expensive mechanism, and James Fannion found himself out in the corridor again, alone in France and wondering what exactly he’d achieved in the conversation that had just concluded.

  He had trekked right across England, into the black heart of her bloody Empire and out again, death and chaos in his wake and the dreams of a free Ireland in his soul, and now he had at last met the one man in Europe who could realize those dreams. Fouché, the butcher of Lyons, the Emperor’s ears and the only man to know the Emperor’s soul, the man who answered to no one but Napoleon himself and could command the whole apparatus of the revolutionary state, and as slippery a bastard as James Fannion had ever encountered.

  He’d turned off the Cork poetry. Fouché, it was rapidly clear, was extremely shrewd and as cold as death, and would have no time for philosophy or romance. Fannion had offered him an Irish rising at a place and time of his convenience and no questions asked. Coordination with a French landing obviously the condition, a free Ireland and be on your way the price. He’d offered him the key to the back door of the British Empire, and the pale Minister of Police had thanked him politely and said how satisfactory that would be and wished him a pleasant evening.

  Fouché had respected him, he’d seen that clear enough. It was there in the Minister’s careful scrutiny of him; damnit, it was all over the man’s cautious words. Fannion knew his own skill and impact, and if Fouché was half as sharp as his reputation suggested, he would know exactly what this Irishman was capable of. Fouché had known that Fannion was making a genuine and serious offer, and he had answered seriously.

  Fouché had other horses running, that was obvious. But tomorrow they would talk again, these serious men. In the meantime, he was a solitary Irishman in the middle of a vast French encampment. The women were wretchedly starved and nowhere near as pretty as he’d been led to believe, and he hadn’t had sight of a decent meal for days.

  Inspector Gabin had set up his headquarters in a mill one kilometre upriver from St Valery. Working on the assumption that the network of Royalist and British spies was as effective as the Minister had suggested, it would be imprudent suddenly to turn a fishing village police office into a circus. The mill was close enough to St Valery and the main roads, and a regular traffic of people would be less obvious. His men wore the rough rural clothes of the local people, and he kept the number at the mill to the minimum; its routines would continue as much as possible.

  The power of the Minister applied to the normal police structures had given Gabin a very satisfactory machine, and he found himself growing alarmingly complacent in it. In addition to the network of policemen and informers across the district, he had a squad of men under his direct control. He had a grenadier Lieutenant acting as liaison with the military, which he couldn’t see being a great deal of use but made everyone involved feel more important. He had three cocky chasseurs to act as mounted couriers, supplementing the police systems and keeping him in closer touch with Boulogne and, through the telegraph tower near Abbeville, even Paris.

  A brisk young Normandy policeman, who had presented himself as the Inspector’s deputy thirty seconds after Gabin had arrived in the middle of the previous night, now stepped smartly into the storeroom and awaited permission to speak.

  A nice little despot he was becoming. Gabin’s thoughts of an aggressive career in Paris were now alternating with visions of a senior post back in Brittany – responsible for the corner of the country he knew best, lots of young men running around to satisfy the politicians, and little interference from Paris. He smiled at the young man. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Report from the village of Friville, Monsieur L’Inspecteur, to the south-west of here. Barthe, the Mayor’s clerk, went home from his office early today; he has kept his borrowed horse and seems to be loading it for a journey.’ There was a faint haze around the man; the whole building swam in flour dust.

  ‘On which he will have set off by now. I trust he is being followed.’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  The ‘sir’ was nicely done. ‘Very well. Wait until he is clear of the village, somewhere nice and private, and then take him. We must contain this problem.’

  Roscarrock pulled himself up onto the deck of the Jane shortly before midnight. Boule the fisherman seemed both content to put himself at their disposal for the duration of their stay, in return for whatever combination of pride and gold De Boeldieu had established over the years, and to be an exceptional sailor. Sailing close inshore at night is an extremely risky enterprise – Roscarrock had done it himself a few times – but sixty years spent more at sea than on land had brought the old man into a unique harmony with his element. Hunched, scowling and silent, he stared into the night and seemed to hear and smell the currents. Even the minimal lantern signals from the Jane felt superfluous.

  Griffiths, the dour bearded First Mate, met him at the rail. Roscarrock grunted a greeting. ‘Captain awake?’

  ‘Captain’s dead.’

  Roscarrock’s eyes went wide and hard. He straightened to his full height, and gazed into the truculent face, and waited.

  ‘Captain drank. Last night he had a heavy one, and by morning he was gone; must have tipped over in the darkness.’ The face was impossible to gauge in the night, but he seemed to be waiting for the reaction.

  Roscarrock didn’t believe a word of it. But the fate of poor, isolated Miles Froy had to be irrelevant. ‘Looks like you’re Captain now, then, doesn’t it?’ he said.

  The only issue now was whether the private or business scuffle that had killed Froy was going to affect the vital role of the Jane – and whether he would get off the sloop alive and back safely into Napoleon’s France.

  There was a grunt from the dark face, and Griffiths seemed to relax. One positive: if Griffiths and his confederates had just wanted the gold, they’d have been halfway to the Indies by now and not cruising the French coast for Roscarrock. Which also made it more likely that Froy had been killed in some personal affair.

  ‘I need the boxes ashore tonight. Can you get the crew to start transferring them immediately?’

  Griffiths nodded briskly; he’d been anticipating a less businesslike Roscarrock.

  Roscarrock waited for him to start the crew going in the hold; as he’d calculated, the man was still enough of a First Mate to supervise the tricky trans-shipment of the cargo. Then he slipped into the darkness of the ship, listening hard for the whisper of steps behind him, and made for the Captain’s cabin. Dimly, confusion was wrestling with the first, frail strands of another idea.

  There were two chests in the cabin, which was no surprise. Every cabin on every ship had chests in it – for books, for instruments, or for clothes. Most sailors lived many years out of a sea chest before they had any kind of home to call their own. The first of these two was older, larger and locked. Roscar
rock assumed it contained the life of the late Miles Froy, and he knew how small that life would look.

  The second chest was average in size, as such things went; perhaps as big as three of the boxes of gold coins being passed over the side in the darkness above him. A single man could reach the two handles at the ends, and could just carry it depending on what was inside; certainly the soldier and then Jessel had carried it alone at Newhaven. The timber wasn’t as solid as on normal sea chests, but there was a lock – with a key in it. Curiously, a line of small holes had been drilled into the side of the box, just below the lid.

  It wasn’t even locked. Roscarrock took a single breath – of anticipation, of a theory facing its test – and lifted the lid.

  Visually, the contents were unremarkable. A candle lantern was fixed to a wooden shelf at one end of the chest. Next to it was a length of wick cord. Other than that, the chest was filled with a black powder.

  Roscarrock breathed out, and closed the lid. With no definite purpose in mind, he locked it and pocketed the key. There was no doubt that Miles Froy would have known what was in the chest – no captain would have accepted such a thing otherwise. But he wondered at the range of contingencies that might have caused the Captain to use a substantial dose of gunpowder with a time-delay mechanism, and once again he wondered at the activities of the Comptrollerate-General for Scrutiny and Survey.