The Dark Secret of Josephine

by Dennis Wheatley

  The busy little harbour was only ten minutes’ walk away; in the summer there was always sailing to be had, and in the autumn shooting on neighbouring estates. During spring the New Forest, which lay inland behind the town, offered a thousand lovely spots for picnics, and in winter the stag was hunted there. In such surroundings, other things being propitious, it was impossible not to be happy, and Roger had greatly enjoyed both his childhood there and the visits he had made since setting out into the world.

  His father, a bulky, red-faced jovial man, welcomed them with his usual heartiness, and declared again and again how glad he was to see Roger safely out of France. The double celebration of the father’s Knighthood and the son’s Governorship called for the best wine in the cellar, and no one was more happy than old Ben, the house-man, to get it up for such an occasion.

  The Admiral insisted upon hearing both about Roger’s last months in Paris and their projected journey to the West Indies, before they could get a word out of him about his own affairs; but Amanda made the two men bring their port into the drawing-room after dinner; then she demanded to know how her father-in-law had earned his K.B.

  ‘M’dear, I did not,’ he responded gruffly. That is, unless you can count near forty years of readiness to do my duty on all occasions sufficient warrant for the honour. To be honest, it was a stroke of luck. The common practice is for despatches to be sent home by an officer of Captain’s rank who has distinguished himself; but their Lordships’ order had been received for me to transfer my flag to Harwich; so my Lord Hood would have it that I should carry them. That meant my conveying the latest news to His Majesty in person, and in honouring me his real intent was to express his gratification with the Service as a whole.’

  ‘Come, Sir,’ Roger laughed. ‘He told me himself that you had played a part in capturing Corsica.’

  ‘ ’Tis quite untrue!’ his father protested. The main fleet had no hand in that. Its business was to lie between the French ports and the island, in order to prevent interference with our operations against the latter. As Rear Admiral, my task was the unspectacular one of acting for Lord Hood on the many occasions when Victory left us, so that he might run close in and by his inspiring presence lend fresh vigour to our men’s attacks.’

  ‘But tell us, please,’ Amanda urged, ‘how the island was taken.’

  ‘At the outset it looked a simple enough undertaking. The patriot leader, Pasquale de Paoli, already controlled the greater part of the island, and the French held only three strong places in the north. But, in the event, it proved a hard nut to crack. We’d have had it sooner, though, had not the revolutionary troops put up an unexpectedly stout resistance, and our own army failed in a most lamentable manner to give us adequate support. At times the lack of spirit shown by the latter almost drove our sailormen into a frenzy.

  ‘The affair opened in mid-January by His Majesty’s Commissioner, Sir Gilbert Elliot, and Lt. Colonel John Moore of the 51st being put ashore to formulate a plan with Paoli. The veteran patriot agreed to employ his partisans in keeping the French from reinforcing San Fiorenzo overland while we attacked it from the sea. Early in February troops were landed on a beach adjacent to the town, but they were slow about it, and it was our jack-tars who showed them how to man-handle guns brought off from the ships up on to the heights so that they could fire down into the fortress. ‘Twas a gruelling business hoisting such weighty pieces with blocks and tackle up precipitous cliffs, but once the batteries were in position the game was as good as won. On the 16th an assault was made by moonlight on the principal redoubt, and I am told that Colonel Moore led it with commendable gallantry; but ’twas about the only episode creditable to the army until near the conclusion of the campaign.

  ‘Next day the French abandoned San Fiorenzo and my Lord Hood at once urged the setting about of the reduction of Bastia. But General Dundas, who was the chief soldier there, acted in a most poltroon-like fashion. He pleaded that his numbers were insufficient for the task, and refused all further co-operation until he received reinforcements from Gibraltar, My lord was so angry that although he had no authority to do so, he used his great prestige to order the General home. By mid-March, feigning illness to save his face, he had gone, but his successor, General D’Aubant, proved no better, and would not move a man or gun across the mountainous ridge that separated San Fiorenzo from Bastia. Our great Admiral then declared that he’d take the place on his own.

  ‘For the purpose he detached Captain Nelson in Agamemnon and two frigates. There followed one of the finest exploits in all our naval history. Horace, or Horatio, Nelson, as he now prefers to be called, although only thirty-five, and despite the loss of seven years between the wars spent on the beach, is become one of our finest Captains. He is quite a little fellow and of frail build, but for zeal, intelligence and courage he has no equal, unless it be my Lord Hood himself. In this affair he played the part of a Marine, landed his lower deck guns and inspired his men to Herculean efforts in dragging them up seemingly unscalable heights to bombard Bastia. Against him were pitted five thousands resolute French, but he acted as though his own thousand men were ten thousand, and for six weeks attacked the enemy with unflagging ardour. On May the 18th his efforts were rewarded by their asking for terms. That stirred the army to activity and to the chagrin of us all it arrived without having fired a shot on the 23rd just in time to accept the town’s surrender.

  ‘Calvi was then the only stronghold left to the French, and it justified the term, as its situation made it appear even more impregnable than Bastia. By then General D’Aubant had been replaced by General the Honourable Charles Stuart, who proved of a far finer mettle; but he was sadly handicapped by great numbers of his troops going down with fever; so once again it fell to Captain Nelson and his gallant men to haul the guns up the heights. It was there, too, that he had the great misfortune to be struck in the face by stones thrown up on the bursting of a shell, and ’tis feared he will lose the sight of an eye. Yet so fine a man is he that he refused to go sick even for a day, and saw the business through to the end. It was near two months of bitter conflict before the job was done, but on August the 10th the garrison marched out; and Sir Gilbert Elliot, who had given great help and encouragement in every operation, formally took possession of the island in the name of His Majesty.’

  ‘It was Sir Gilbert’s younger brother, Hugh, who played so fine a part in helping King Gustavus out of his difficulties while I was in Sweden,’ Roger remarked; but Amanda forestalled the possibility of his beginning to reminisce by asking for further particulars about the Corsican campaign.

  The Admiral responded, and before they collected their candles to go up to bed had drawn a fair picture for them of the patriot leader Paoli; of his barbarous Corsican partisans, who had been of little assistance but, like human vultures, had plundered the French and British dead indiscriminately; of what they termed the ‘Lion’ sun, which in summer made campaigning there more arduous than in Africa; of the fantastic crags, the great chestnut forests, and the off-shore marshes from which came the fevers that had decimated the British troops; and of the amazing devotion to duty displayed by the English jack-tars, although a high proportion of them had been brought in by the press-gangs.

  He also spoke with considerable uneasiness of his recent enquiry into complaints from the lower deck, and felt there was good cause for them. Hardened as he was himself from many years of sea service to living in great discomfort, he regarded the conditions of the ordinary seamen as appalling, and the fact that men maimed in the King’s service should be turned off without pensions to beg their bread for the rest of their lives angered him extremely. That their Lordships of the Admiralty should show little inclination to better matters he thought both reprehensible and short-sighted; for he feared, and as it transpired correctly, that unless reasonable reforms were soon instituted the seamen might be goaded into open mutiny.

  The five days that Roger and Amanda spent at ‘Grove’ went all too quickly. It
was the shortest visit they had ever paid, but the many arrangements they still had to make necessitated their hurrying back to Richmond. Dan, and Amanda’s personal maid, little sloe-eyed Nell, were going with them; but their cook’s husband was a respectable man employed in a local livery stable, so it was decided that he should move in and the couple be left in charge.

  As a Governor’s wife, Amanda felt that she ought to take out some young woman who could help her with her social duties and act as her companion; and for this they had selected her young cousin, Clarissa Marsham. Clarissa was eighteen and an orphan. Since she lived in very straitened circumstances with a great aunt whose main preoccupation was the salvation of her soul, she had jumped at this chance to get out into the world as an unofficial lady-in-waiting, and was already at Richmond helping with the packing up of the more valuable contents of the house.

  Previously Roger had met Clarissa only as a gawky, pop-eyed, high-nosed young bridesmaid at his wedding, to attend which she had temporarily been excused from attendance at an academy for young ladies; but on seeing her again he fully approved his wife’s choice. In the past four years Clarissa’s figure had filled out to perfection and her features had assumed most pleasing proportions. Her bright blue eyes no longer looked like pebbles and now held a merry glint, while the arch of her nose gave her face a provocative arrogance which was happily tempered by her anxiety to please. Pale gold hair and a milk-and-roses complexion added to her attractions; and Roger found himself parting quite cheerfully with a hundred guineas to provide her with clothes to take out although he had originally intended to give her only fifty.

  During the latter part of September the whole household was in a turmoil, with dressmakers coming and going; plate, china, linen, books and the many other articles that might not be easy to procure being packed; boxes and bales being corded; insurance schedules being checked; and arrangements being made on behalf of the couple who were to caretake in the house for what was expected to prove a period of several years.

  At last, on the 27th, the travellers set out; but only to London where they spent the night at the St. Ermins’s town house in Berkeley Square. Then on the 28th the whole party, which in addition to Georgina and Charles included her maid Jenny, his man Tom, and their French Chef—who rejoiced in the name of Monsieur Pirouet—left London for Bristol in four heavily-loaded coaches. By evening they reached Newbury and lay that night at the White Hart Inn. Next day they covered a somewhat shorter stage, arriving in the afternoon at Normanrood in Wiltshire, the seat of Droopy Ned’s father, the Marquis of Amesbury; as Droopy was in residence and had asked them to break their journey there.

  The Lord Edward was considered a most eccentric fellow by the county; not so much on account of his hobbies, which were collecting antique jewellery, the study of ancient religions, and experimenting on himself with Eastern drugs, but because he abhorred blood sports. He was, however, a very keen fisherman and it was the reaches of the River Avon, which ran through his father’s estate, that lured him to the country for a few weeks every spring, and a passion for eating mulberries fresh off the ancient trees that brought him to Normanrood again each September. Yet even there he continued to dress as fastidiously as ever; and when he minced out beneath the portico of the great mansion to receive his guests he was satin-clad, scented and curled as though about to attend a rout in the Pump Room at Bath.

  After a merry evening, when they were all about to go to bed, Droopy kept Roger back and, telling him he wanted a private word with him, took him up to his own book-lined sanctum. From a cabinet he produced a flagon of one of the rare liqueurs made in a foreign monastery, that Justerini’s imported specially for him, and having filled two tall slender glasses with the amber elixir, he said:

  ‘You know, Roger, how glad I am for you in this fine appointment, and the last thing I would wish to do is to detract from your pleasurable anticipation of it; but I would not be your true friend did I not feel some concern at your going to the West Indies.’

  Having now not a care in the world, and an admirable dinner inside him, Roger replied with lazy cheerfulness: ‘Why so, Ned? The only thing to mar my joy of it is the thought that I am likely to see even less of you for some years to come than while undertaking missions to the Continent.’

  Droopy shook his long forward-thrust, bird-like head. ‘’Tis not that I had in mind; but your health, and that of all who go with you.’

  Roger shrugged. The very prospect of the change has made me feel like my old self already. As you make mention of the others though, perhaps you are thinking of the diseases that are said to afflict white people in those parts.’

  ‘I was; and of the yellow fever in particular.’

  ‘My father spoke of that. As you may remember, he was for most of the years we were at school together on the West India station; and he tells me that he lost quite a number of his ship’s company by it.’

  ‘In those days it was an occasional risk encountered only when ships were in port; but you will be living permanently ashore, and I am wondering if you realise what a terrible scourge it has become?’

  ‘I have heard little about such distant places during my time in France, though I did hear a rumour recently that fever was handicapping our operations there, just as it did in Corsica.’

  ‘Roger, this should go no further, as for obvious reasons the Government wishes it kept quiet; but during the past year we have lost upwards often thousand troops killed off by Yellow Jack in those accursed islands.’

  ‘Ten thousand!’ Roger exclaimed aghast. ‘But ’tis an army; and those the very men who might have won the war for us had they been thrown into Brittany last spring, or sent to support Lord Hood while we still held Toulon. Are you quite sure of this?’

  ‘Certain!’ Droopy nodded his head vigorously. ‘And they are still dying like flies. Therefore I urge you to take every possible precaution against contracting this deadly infection.’

  ‘I will indeed, if you can but tell me what I should do.’

  Droopy took a sip of his liqueur, then replied: ‘Unfortunately little is yet known about this dreaded disease. The doctors say that it is borne on the miasmas that in the evenings rise from the swamps that lie along the low parts of the coasts; but I have a different theory. It is at least possible that it is carried by the mosquitoes which infest such places, and this is my own belief. In any case I would advise that on reaching Bristol you should buy a quantity of fine muslin to make nets under which to sleep. If it does nothing else it will protect you from the annoyance of their stings. Then as to treatment, a tea made from an infusion of the Cinchona bark has proved most efficacious; but prevention is better than cure, and if all of you will take a cup regularly each morning it may protect you from infection. I would like you to give me your promise, Roger, that you will do so.’

  ‘That sounds most sensible. You have my promise and I will see to it that the others adopt a similar routine. Is there aught else that you can suggest?’

  ‘I fear not; though I will give you a drug to take should you be seriously attacked. It will reduce anyone who takes it to unconsciousness for many hours, and you must exercise great care in the handling of it as an overdose would prove fatal; but it will give the body a better chance to fight the fever.’

  ‘I’d be most grateful for it, and not let it out of my own charge.’

  ‘There is one other thing. It is a known fact that the disease never strikes more than a mile away from land. It is that which makes me believe it due to insect stings rather than miasmas; for the latter can be blown far out by off shore winds, whereas the former are incapable of flying more than a short distance. Therefore, if on arriving in Martinique you find an epidemic raging, as I fear you may, use your overriding authority as Governor to clear the troops out of the barracks, and send them to cruise at sea in any ships available. Even those already sick may then recover through escaping a second infection.’

  With the promised drug packed in his valise, and Droo
py’s valuable advice well in mind, Roger took his seat in the leading coach the following morning. Then the cavalcade drove away from the stately pile of Normanrood while their kind, short-sighted host waved after them for as long as his pale-blue eyes could discern the dust thrown up by their horses. That afternoon they reached Bristol and put up at the Negro’s Head.

  Bristol had for long been the second city in the kingdom, but it was on the point of losing its place to Liverpool. The latter had pioneered the wet dock system and could now afford better facilities for a quick turnround than any other port. The canal system, out of which Colonel Thursby had made a large part of his fortune, brought to it far more cheaply than could road transport the products of the now thriving industries of Lancashire and the Midlands; and, in addition, its shipowners had captured the great bulk of the enormously profitable slave trade. In consequence Bristol had now to rely mainly on its specialised trade with the West Indies, its great sugar refineries, and its long established ship-building industry.

  Like other great commercial centres, the revolution in France had had a most unsettling effect on its working population, and the propaganda of the so-called British Jacobins was making many converts to the doctrines of Communism. The landlord at the Negro’s Head told Roger’s party on their arrival that the yards were now at a standstill owing to a shipwrights’ strike, but they were relieved to learn that this would not prevent their sailing.