by Seth Hunter
‘This woman, also, is known to you?’ Nelson enquired, looking from one to the other.
‘Very much so,’ replied the consul. ‘She was, until recently, our best agent in Venice, though most Venetians knew her as the deputy prioress of the Convent of San Paola di Mare, which, thanks to her, was also the city’s best casino.’
Nelson shook his head wonderingly. ‘Those who trawl in deep waters net some very strange fish,’ he remarked cryptically. The captain and the consul appeared somewhat taken aback by this observation, and he clarified it by explaining: ‘The French spy and the Venetian nun. I do not know who is the more to be pitied.’
It was known that the admiral’s abhorrence of the French was matched only by his distaste for the Church of Rome.
‘Oh, the French spy, without a doubt,’ Foresti assured him. ‘For she is a very beautiful nun, and the spy is in thrall to her.’
‘But she is with him by her own choosing?’
‘I think not. In fact, Mr Hudson’s information confirms me in this opinion’ – he threw a glance at Captain Peake which revealed some previous discussion on the subject – ‘and it is good to know that she still has our interests at heart, though I fear she may be in some personal danger as a result.’
‘Well, that is as maybe,’ the admiral replied, ‘but I confess it is the danger that Monsieur Naudé poses that worries me more. I imagine from what we have heard that he may already be on his way to Mysore.’
‘Mysore?’ This was clearly not on Mr Hudson’s horizon.
‘The Sultan of Mysore is Bonaparte’s principle ally in India,’ the admiral explained, ‘and an inveterate enemy of the British interest. I think we may assume that Naudé is being sent to liaise with him. Which makes it all the more imperative that Captain Peake completes his own preparations for the journey.’
Conscious, perhaps, that this might be taken as implying a certain tardiness on the captain’s part, he turned to his visitor and explained: ‘Mr Foresti, among his other concerns, has been making arrangements for Captain Peake’s passage to Suez, and thence to Bombay to alert the Governor to the approaching danger, and to take whatever steps he can to alleviate it.’
The merchant was frowning again. ‘I wonder if that is wise? I mean, to travel by such a route, with so many French patrols between here and Suez. It is not an easy journey at the best of times. The Bedouin, I am told, are killing every ferengee they encounter – after first abusing them most wickedly – on the grounds that they might be allied to the invaders.’
‘And yet it does not appear to have caused your honourable self any great inconvenience,’ the consul pointed out, with a smile that did not quite take the edge off the remark.
‘That is because I travelled by boat upon the Nile,’ the merchant replied evenly, ‘with a Dutch passport and a cachet de passage from the French quartermaster general, which cost me a small fortune in bribes. But I suppose you must have some influence among the Bedouin,’ he added, in a clear reference to Mr Foresti’s appearance.
‘I would not count on it,’ the captain interposed briskly, before they resorted to fisticuffs, ‘but as for myself, I have passed through French lines before, in one guise or another, and Mr Foresti’s tailor might be prevailed upon to fashion me some garments alike to his own, though I would prefer they were not so flashy.’
‘And it is rather late in the day to be sending the captain by way of the Cape,’ Nelson observed, for this was the favoured route from England to India. ‘However,’ he exposed Captain Peake to the severe gaze of his singular eye, ‘the one thing we must avoid at all costs is these despatches falling into the hands of the French.’
‘Well, the direct route is by way of Scanderoon,’ Mr Hudson proposed, with an apologetic glance towards the captain. ‘If you do not mind the plague, and the Turks, and the brigands on the road to Aleppo.’
Chapter Two
The Flight of the Pigeon
‘Scanderoon?’ queried Nathan of his companion when they had returned to their eerie on the top-mast. ‘I take it you know where that is.’
Spiridion looked at him with surprise and some amusement. ‘You mean you do not?’
‘Not the faintest idea,’ the captain admitted blithely. ‘I did not like to say, but I knew you would know.’
‘I suppose I should be flattered,’ the Greek sighed. ‘Well, it has several names. Scanderoon is what the English call it, in their vulgar fashion. A crude rendering of Iskanderun, which is its Turkish name. The Venetians call it Alexandretta – little Alexandria – for it is on the site of the port built by Alexander, after his great victory over the Persians at Issus, of which I am sure you will have heard.’
‘Of course,’ the captain acknowledged with a small bow, ‘and I am obliged to you for reminding me. But where in God’s name is it?’
‘It is on the coast of Hatay, a province of the Ottoman empire, about 400 miles to the north-east. It was once the great port of the world, at the western end of the Silk Road, but now is of little account.’
‘Because of the plague,’ Nathan enquired coolly, ‘or the brigands, or the Turks?’
‘All three,’ Spiridion confirmed with a smile. ‘And some more you do not know of yet.’
They set out early the following morning in a species of coastal trader known by the same name as the port, for it was unique to that region: a form of schooner but rather broad in the beam and blunt in the bow, with three short masts bearing three large, lateen sails. Her given name was the Peristeri, which Spiridion translated as the Pigeon, a bird she somewhat resembled and which he declared appropriate to their mission.
‘And why is that?’ Nathan asked him warily, for the pigeon was not the most heroic of images.
‘Because there is a particular breed of pigeon – which we also call a scanderoon – used at the time of Alexander to carry messages between his commanders, and still used for that purpose by merchants in the region – and of course, spies.’
‘It can talk, can it, this bird?’
‘Of course it cannot talk.’ Spiridion frowned. Nathan’s humour sometimes passed him by. ‘The message is attached to its leg.’
‘So I am become a scanderoon,’ Nathan reflected moodily, ‘a carrier pigeon.’
Privately, he was still devastated by the loss of his ship, and had hoped the admiral might have given him one of the French prizes. Even the most battered would have been a considerable improvement on his present transport. The Peristeri was a Greek vessel, which had been bound for Cyprus when it was appropriated as a packet for the delivery of Nelson’s despatches. She was not built for speed, or for conflict, though she carried a pair of swivel guns in the bow and a 6-pounder at the rear as a deterrent to pirates – or, more likely, as Spiridion said, to discourage inspection by the Turkish Revenue cutters, for she was almost certainly a smuggler. Her present cargo, according to the manifest, was beans, which often disguised a multitude of sins, and she provided a few small cabins at the stern for the convenience of paying passengers, though you would have to be very poor or very desperate, Nathan thought, to pay for a passage on the Pigeon.
There were five in his party. Spiridion, of course, who had agreed to accompany him on at least part of the journey; his servant George Banjo – a giant African who had once been a gunner’s mate in the Royal Navy and now acted as Spiridion’s bodyguard and partner in crime; Nathan’s particular friend, Lieutenant Martin Tully, who was to assume command of one of the sloops in his squadron if and when they arrived in Bombay; and a young volunteer by the name of Richard Blunt, who had been recommended to Nathan by the admiral as having expressed a desire to see the Orient. Nathan suspected an ulterior motive for dispensing with his services which would become apparent to him during the course of their journey, but thus far Mr Blunt had displayed no obvious criminal tendencies, and evidenced no mental instability other than a tendency to daydream. He would undertake the duties of a servant – at least until they reached India, when Nathan had promised
to find him more suitable employment.
They left Abukir on the morning of 10 August, and for the next few days they made their plodding progress across the Levantine Sea. The prevailing north-easterly obliged them to sail close-hauled on a long tack parallel to the coast, and the wind was so light at times that they scarcely made seventy or eighty miles between each noon sighting. But it was a pleasant enough voyage, at least at the start of it. Lieutenant Tully, despite their disparity in rank, was as close a friend as Nathan had ever had in the service, and he had an easy way about him with men of all stations in life, be they ex-slaves or ex-consuls.
Nathan had lost most of his personal possessions when his last command, the frigate Unicorn, had been taken by the French, but he had done his best to replace them from the auction of effects that had followed the battle at Abukir – notably, two uniforms previously belonging to a lieutenant on the Vanguard which could, with some altera tion, be adapted to his own requirements, an excellent telescope from Dollond’s, a sextant, compass and chrono meter, a thermometer, a book of maps, and, for his personal protection, a pair of pistols, an officer’s short sword and a seaman’s clasp knife with a blade as good as any dagger.
Besides these necessities, the Vanguard’s purser had provided a quantity of food and wine for the voyage – though not without complaint – and the armourer had supplied a dozen muskets with powder and shot, and an assortment of pikes, cutlasses and tomahawks which would enable them to defend the honour of the service, as he put it, if they had any trouble from ‘the local heathen’. At the last minute, he had thrown in a pair of Nock guns – a formidable weapon with seven barrels, issued by the Admiralty to repel boarders, but rejected by most sea officers on account of their tendency to break the shoulder of whoever fired them and to set fire to the rigging.
However, in the absence of either the French or ‘the local heathen’, their main enemy on the voyage was bore dom. They had no duties to perform and there was little in the way of diversion. Nathan spent the days practising with his new pistols, firing at empty bottles of arak as they were chucked overboard by the crew, or taking frequent readings with his new sextant, much to the amusement of the master and his mate, who seemed to know exactly where they were without recourse to any instrument – or, more likely, had no interest in the matter. When these activities began to pall, he idled in the hammock he had had rigged under a canvas awning in the stern, or questioned Spiridion on the finer points of their onward journey from Scanderoon.
‘Let us first reach Scandaroon,’ Spiridion advised him sagely, composing himself more comfortably in his own hammock.
But Nathan was not to be so easily diverted.
‘And what of the British consul there,’ he persisted. ‘Is he a gentleman of your acquaintance?’
Spiridion turned to face him, with a puzzled frown. ‘What British consul?’ he enquired.
Nathan felt inside the jacket that he was using as a pillow and produced the folded document which comprised the admiral’s written order. Ensuring that no one apart from the helmsman, who spoke no English, was within hearing distance, he proceeded to read it aloud: ‘“Vanguard, in the Road of Bequier, Mouth of the Nile, 9 August, 1798. Sir – You are hereby required and directed to proceed, with the despatches you will herewith receive, in the vessel that will be appointed for you, to Alexandretta, in the Gulf of Scandaroon, and having furnished yourself with every information from the consul at that place,”’ – he put great stress on these words – ‘“you will lose no time in proceeding to Bombay by the shortest and most expeditious route, that may be pointed out by the before-mentioned gentleman, delivering the said despatches to His Excellency the Governor of Bombay, on your arrival there, et cetera, et cetera.”’
He folded the document with an air of quiet satisfaction and replaced it in his temporary pillow.
‘Well, the admiral is misinformed,’ Spiridion responded, quite unimpressed. ‘Doubtless, by your Mr Hudson.’
‘He is not my Mr Hudson. I only just met him.’
‘Very well. But, I tell you, there is no British consul in Scanderoon, and there has not been for many years. The last one was a Mr Parsons and he died before the last war with the French. Or perhaps he retired,’ he considered with a frown. ‘Most of them die, however. Usually after a year at most, of the ague or the plague or some such disease.’ He thought for a moment. ‘Possibly, he means Mr McGregor.’
‘And who is Mr McGregor?’
‘An agent of the Levant Company. Like Mr Hudson. He sometimes calls himself Consul. Acting Honorary Consul,’ he sneered.
‘Well, will he not do?’
‘No, he will not do.’
‘Why not?’
Spiridion sighed. ‘Because –’ But then he shook his head. ‘I have no right to speak ill of the man,’ he declared with unusual rectitude. ‘I hardly know him.’
‘But you are saying he is unreliable?’
‘I am sure he is as reliable as any agent of the Levant Company.’ This was clearly not intended as the most glowing of testimonials, and the speaker further diminished its value by adding the qualification: ‘When sober.’
‘Ah. And is he ever sober?’
‘Not if he can help it. I am sorry, Nathan, you have induced me into slander, but there it is. Besides, I doubt very much if you will find him in Scanderoon – sober or otherwise.’
‘Because?’
Another small hesitation – ‘Because there is a possibility that the French party will have established itself in the port. In which case, I suspect Mr McGregor will have removed himself and his family to a less hostile environment, possibly to Cyprus where his mother lives.’
‘The French party? In Scanderoon?’ Nathan raised himself to a sitting position and observed his companion more closely. ‘I thought the French were condemned as infidels and idolaters. Invaders, too, since they came to Egypt. Enemies of the Prophet.’
‘Oh, but Bonaparte has recently declared himself to be an admirer of the Prophet, did you not know? No, I agree, it is unexpected,’ he added, for Nathan’s expression was incredulous, ‘but so your Mr Hudson informed me. He has even offered to convert to Islam.’
‘But the man is an atheist!’
‘Clearly he does not consider this to be a hindrance. I am told he assured the Elders in Cairo that as he had no Christian convictions, it would be of no consequence to him to turn Mussulman, and if they thought it would improve his standing with the local populace, he was willing to oblige them.’
‘And this impressed them, did it?’
‘As to that, I cannot say, but I am told that when it was explained to the general that he would have to undergo circumcision and forgo the consumption of alcohol, he did not pursue the matter.’
‘No, he would not,’ Nathan declared dryly. ‘He is as attached to his private parts as any Frenchman. More so, indeed, since he is Corsican by birth. And he likes his wine, too, I recall.’
Nathan had known the young Bonaparte in Paris, and had become quite attached to him for a while, the general being under the impression that he was an American merchant by the name of Turner, and an intimate acquaintance of Thomas Jefferson, who had been the American Secretary of State at the time.
‘However, infidels or not,’ Spiridion continued, ‘the French are not as unwelcome in the region as you might care to think. The Revolution has its admirers, even among the Arabs and the Turks. Besides, there is a large population of Greeks in the region who, you may be aware, have a historic leaning towards democracy. There are even some, I believe, who have read Rousseau. And, of course, you do not have to be a Revolutionist, to wish to be rid of the Mamelukes.’
The captain nodded wisely. There was a time, not so very distant, when the word Mameluke would have conveyed nothing to him. At an educated guess, he would have said it was a species of monkey, but several months in Spiridion’s company had acquainted him with a great many of the tribes and factions that flourished – and feuded – within the Empir
e of the Ottomans. The Mamelukes, he was now aware, had their origin in the Christian slaves taken as young boys from the Caucasus, forcibly converted to Islam, and trained as crack cavalry troops in the armies of the Great Sultan. Originally, they had been sent to Egypt and Syria to fight the Crusaders, but had seized power them selves and established several dynasties throughout the region. One of their many peculiarities was that although they maintained a large harem of African and Arab women, they would only marry women from their own homeland in the Caucasus. But to compound this eccentricity, they refused to entertain the notion of having children by them. If their wives conceived, the babies were aborted. The Mamelukes believed that this avoided the blood feuds and internecine rivalries that had destroyed so many dynasties in the past. Instead, they imported boys of eight or nine from Georgia and trained them as their successors. By such means they had formed an elite of light-skinned, often fair-haired, warriors, at the very pinnacle of Muslim society.
But although they were among the finest fighting horsemen in the world, they had been thoroughly defeated by the French Army, shortly after its landing in Alexandria, and the survivors had fled into the desert to lick their wounds – leaving Bonaparte to march on Cairo and proclaim himself as the Liberator of Egypt, freeing Turk, Arab and Greek alike from the tyranny of the Mamelukes. And the whole of the Levant was waiting to see where he would go next.
‘So apart from the plague and the brigands and the evil Turks, we must now anticipate that the French will be waiting for us in Scandaroon,’ Nathan remarked dryly, ‘sharpening their guillotines and singing the “Marseillaise”.’
‘I think that would be unlikely,’ Spiridion retorted. ‘But there is a possibility that one or two of their associates might be sharpening another kind of blade. The art of silent murder is a tradition of these parts. As is the employment of paid assassins. They may prefer garrotting to cutting your throat, but I do not suppose the French will quibble over the means employed, provided you are no longer a threat to them.’
