Flashman and the Emperor

by Robert Brightwell

  Cochrane sent men aloft to take it in and shorten other sails, for the wind still seemed to be increasing. We were through the entire Portuguese fleet before there was even a chance for the gunners to reload. Soon we had the hatches battened down and were rigged for a proper blow. Our admiral seemed to relish commanding a ship in these conditions, but even though I knew the Emperor would climb over them, I found the sight of each new wall of green water coming towards us alarming. I had already been to bed before the squall was spotted and so I made excuses and retired once more. I lay suspended from the ceiling beam in my creaking cot, watching the cabin move about me and listened to the symphony of noises that a ship’s timbers make at sea. It might not sound relaxing, but I had always found it comforting somehow to be surrounded by such strength. In no time at all I had fallen asleep.

  Chapter 29

  “Sail to Maranhão,” I repeated. “But what on earth can we do as one ship there? You know that there are no land forces loyal to the emperor in the province.”

  “Trust me, Thomas,” soothed Cochrane with that infuriating grin. “If we can capture it before the Portuguese fleet gets there, then we can end this war in one go.”

  “Capture it?” I gasped, dumbfounded. “We know that there are over a thousand troops there. They will have cannon and fortifications, ships and citizens loyal to Portugal. How on earth do you expect us to capture the place?”

  “Oh, I have a scheme up my sleeve. It might not work but I think it’s worth a go.”

  “What? Is that all you are going to say? Do you have any idea how infuriating you can be sometimes?” I demanded. Cochrane just laughed and so I added, “Just tell me that you are not simply relying on me as your ‘lucky charm’. And if you tell me that you are turning your disadvantages into advantages, so help me, I might swing for you myself.”

  “Well, since you mentioned it...” chuckled Cochrane. “No, I am not relying on you as a talisman, Flashman, but your marines will play a pivotal role if all goes well.”

  Despite my pressing, that was all he would say about his scheme and not for the first time, I found my association with Cochrane to be immensely frustrating. I would have developed a deep loathing of the man were it not for the fact that he had once saved me from a hideous fate and his mad schemes had an uncanny knack of working surprisingly well. He wasn’t revealing his plans to his other officers either. I spoke to Crosbie, who was just as mystified as I was.

  “You know him better than I,” the captain conceded. “He never shares his ideas before he has to and I would not be surprised if he has more than one idea in mind in case the first one does not work.”

  “How did he capture Valdivia?” I asked. “Would that offer any clues as to what he has in mind at Maranhão?

  “God, I hope not,” said Crosbie fervently. “I don’t want to run that gauntlet again.”

  “Why, what happened?” I pressed.

  “The O’Higgins was holed by some undersea rock and sinking. We had tried to get in the harbour under false colours, but the Spanish were wise to our tricks and would not fall for that. Valdivia was up a river that had a wide horseshoe-shaped mouth to the sea which was protected by a ring of forts. As we could not get in the bay we beached the boats on the shore facing the sea and went inland behind the first fort. We had seen that the fort had stone walls facing the bay and the sea only, as that was where they expected to be fired at from. Inland it was just a wooden palisade. We waited until nightfall to attack. We got in over a ditch and stormed the place, our men running around shouting Cochrane’s name and killing every Spaniard they found. In the dark, there was total confusion and the Spanish threw open the gate and streamed along the path for the protection of the next fort.”

  “What did you do then?” I asked, captivated by the tale.

  “Why, we ran with them, of course.” We soon did not have the breath to shout and in the darkness, I suspect that some Spaniards did not realise we were among them. We struck a few along the way but not many. It must have been a mile to the next fort – it certainly seemed like that in the dark. The Spaniards at the front were yelling for those at the garrison to open the gates to let them, which they did. Before they knew it, though, we were in as well and it was chaos once more. The second garrison decided to run on to the third fort and even though we were exhausted, Cochrane made us go after them. We entered the third fort in the same manner and once more the Spaniards made a run for it. They must have thought that most of the crowd in the darkness was our men, but by then more than half were Spaniards.”

  “Did you chase them again?”

  “Christ no!” he exclaimed. “We were utterly spent by then. I was literally sick from the running. We just about had the strength to shut the fort gates after the Spaniards had left to make sure they did not come back. In the morning when the Spaniards on the other side of the bay saw that the three forts were in our hands, they surrendered and that is how we took Valdivia.”

  “So Cochrane can’t be thinking of doing the same at Maranhão, then?” I asked.

  “No, we had far more soldiers aboard then than your marines and anyway the main port in Maranhão does not have a large horseshoe bay. I have checked the charts; the main port is a place called São Luis. It’s in a river mouth like Salvador but instead of being on one side it is on a promontory with rivers either side. I have been wondering if Cochrane is planning to block the road to the mainland, but I don’t see how your marines, even with some of the crew in tow, can stop a thousand soldiers.”

  Whatever Cochrane had planned, he did not seem unduly concerned at the prospect. I asked him once if I should be training the marines for any particular type of fighting, but he replied that they were already trained for what was required of them. At least we would not have to wait too long to find out his intentions, for after the storm had passed the winds had remained strong. The Portuguese must have struggled to keep their jury-rigged ships going in the strong gusts, but we pressed on at a fine clip. After a week, we had passed Natal on the tip of the corner of Brazil that juts out into the Atlantic. Then we were turning west to sail along its northern coastline with the easterly wind pushing us on.

  We had made our final attack on the Portuguese fleet in the very early hours of the sixteenth of May. By the twenty-fifth we were just a day away from the coast of Maranhão and I was still none the wiser as to what we would do when we got there. But now at last were the first clues. Cochrane ordered all the captured regimental flags to be unfurled and brought up on deck. There must have been thirty of them and they made a colourful display, like a giant silken rug, laid out on the deck. But the admiral was not impressed.

  “Apart from those four,” he announced, pointing at some that had signs of having seen some action, “the rest are in pristine condition. That won’t do at all.” He turned to me, “Flashman, bring your marines on deck with their muskets and plenty of ammunition. We are going to have some target practice.”

  It turned out to be the strangest target shooting I ever saw. Two rows of sailors stood at the edges of the deck, each holding a flag that was trailing forward in the wind. To avoid any risk to the sailors, the marines strolled up and down blazing at the silks at virtually point-blank range. Several times the muzzle flash set the fabric alight, but Cochrane did not seem to mind in the slightest. When they had finished, he had the trophies laid out again but still seemed dissatisfied.

  “Have we any livestock left?” He asked Crosbie.

  “Just a goat, sir,” the captain replied.

  “Well then, I think it’s time for roast goat for dinner. But save the blood and sprinkle it liberally over those, would you,” he ordered gesturing at the colours arrayed before him. It seemed obvious that he wanted the flags to appear more battle-worn, but I still did not understand how that would help our cause. I was further confused when Cochrane asked me to summon Mallee to meet him. “Send him to my cabin,” he told me, “but I would rather he came alone.” He must have seen the look of irri
tation on my face at this for he added, “I do not wish to cause you offence Thomas, but I must know that he will do what I ask with a free heart.” I stomped off to the marines’ quarters to do his bidding, seething that my friend would not just tell me his plan. I was sure that it meant he knew I would not approve of it and that made me more worried yet.

  You can be sure that I grilled Mallee about his conversation when he came out of his interview. The man was more than a little shaken by the encounter, which for someone as cocksure as Mallee was even more alarming.

  “He told me that you had recounted to him how I wanted to change the country,” the marine said. “The admiral says that he will give me a chance to do just that, but in return I must do the thing that I swore I would never do again.”

  “Well, what the hell is that?” I nearly yelled the question at him as I was now beside myself with curiosity.

  “I must be put in chains,” he admitted sadly and then added, “I must speak to the others as he wants some of them in chains too.”

  That was the final straw. It was intolerable that Cochrane was planning to throw my men in chains without even having the decency to tell me what was going on. I stormed into his cabin and demanded that he reveal his plans.

  “This is the thick end of enough,” I blazed. “I am your oldest bloody friend and yet you still tell me nothing. You expect us all to follow you blindly into whatever madness you have planned and don’t give us any chance to prepare or to add suggestions that might help. Now I find that you are proposing to clap men under my command in irons without any explanation—”

  “All right,” Cochrane held up his hands in mock surrender. “As soon as your man has explained what is happening to the rest of the marines and sought volunteers to help, we will call all hands aft and I will tell everyone what I have in mind.”

  Chapter 30

  The following day any look-outs in São Luis would have seen a large ship sailing over the horizon towards the port. Not by chance, it was coming from the north-east, the direction ships would come from Portugal. This was not unexpected as the papers we had captured showed that Maranhão was expecting a frigate from home. As it got closer they would have seen it was a seventy-four-gun ship instead of a frigate, but they would still have not been alarmed, for the vessel was flying the flag of Portugal.

  I stared up at the unfamiliar green and red colours with a feeling of misgiving. We were about to embark on one of the most audacious military gambles ever and I am not a gambling man. I did win a fortune in a game of faro once at Almacks in London, but then the deck had been rigged and that was how I liked things: with the odds firmly in my favour. Even Cochrane admitted that the odds were no better than even for success, but if we won then it would be an astonishing victory. I comforted myself with the thought that if the plan unravelled in the initial stages, we should still get away. But there were so many things that could go wrong and if any of them happened while we were ashore, we were most assuredly lost.

  As with Salvador, to reach São Luis we had to enter the wide mouth of a river. The city lay on the northern side of a long finger of land that had a river down either side of it. Opposite São Luis the river was still some twelve miles wide. I noted from the chart that the settlement on the other side was called Alcantara. The town in Portugal with the same name had been the scene of one of my peninsular victories. I had even been made a knight of the place as a result and I hoped that this was a good omen.

  We could see a brig moving out from the harbour to intercept us and so dropped anchor some three miles from the city, deliberately out of the range of the shore batteries. The crew of the brig would provide our first test and Cochrane was determined that we would succeed.

  “Right, gentlemen,” he called as hands gathered aft again after the anchor had splashed into the murky green water. “Until we reveal our true colours we are the Queen Carlotta, fresh from Lisbon. I don’t want to hear any English voices above a whisper when they get close and any shouting is to be done in Portuguese. As for our marines,” he turned to the men dressed in red, “you must go below and stay out of sight until we need you on stage for your performance.”

  My men made their way to the hatch and I noticed that they got a few slaps on the back from the crew as they went. When I had first come aboard the Emperor, the marines had been held in contempt by both the Brazilian and Portuguese elements of the crew. But it was clear that at least this reduced number of them had earned some respect over recent weeks. Perhaps a few of their comrades also guessed what their next appearance might cost them in terms of reawakened memories.

  By then the approaching ship was closing up on us. It was not a large brig and was probably just used for harbour patrols. It made a show of stopping smartly just a hundred yards away and dropping anchor. The crew reefed in the sails and spare hands started to shout across for news while a boat was being lowered. A sailor nearby turned to ask me what news he should give them.

  “I don’t know, make something up,” I told him. “Tell them there are rumours that the queen has got the clap, the king has got a new mistress and we are all getting a rise in pay.” He grinned in delight at my suggestions and by the time their cutter was in the water, a cheer could be heard from the other ship, followed by more enquiries about the extra pay. An officer, who berated his men for the noise, climbed into the boat and was soon being rowed across. He was oblivious to the surprise that awaited him.

  “I think the least we can do is pipe him aboard,” suggested Cochrane, grinning as several sailors and the bosun formed a side party at the entry port. I stood beside Cochrane, Crosbie and Grenfell and watched as a sprightly young man climbed through the gap in the gunwale to the high-pitched call of the bosun’s whistle with a folder of papers under his arm. Our visitor saluted the Portuguese flag and then stepped forward holding out his hand in greeting.

  “Lieutenant Garção of His Majesty’s ship Don Miguel he announced. Only then did he falter slightly as he saw the senior officer waiting to receive him. He must have been expecting a weathered Portuguese captain, but instead before him stood a red-haired man in an admiral’s uniform. He was puzzled for a moment and then horrified as he remembered that he had heard of an admiral with red hair. His train of thought was confirmed by his involuntary glance back to the Portuguese flag, which still fluttered overhead. He returned a silent questioning gaze to the admiral, who just shrugged apologetically.

  “I am sorry, Captain,” Cochrane said quietly before nodding at a boy near the flag locker. The Portuguese flag fluttered down to be replaced by a more familiar green ensign with a yellow diamond containing the crest of the Brazilian emperor. At the same time, there was a deep rumble from the wheels of the gun trucks down one side of the ship and suddenly thirty loaded cannon were pointing at the little brig.

  “This is outrageous treachery,” gasped the captain.

  “I know and once again I apologise for this ruse of war,” admitted Cochrane amiably. “As I hope you will understand in a few minutes, it was necessary. But in the meantime, I regret that I must insist that you call on your men to surrender. They can just strike their colours, there is no need for them to fly the emperor’s flag.”

  “Have you no honour, sir?” the captain demanded. “This base deception is beneath the morals of a pirate.”

  “Quite possibly,” agreed the admiral, not the least offended by the insult. He had adopted the manner of an apologetic vicar, which was most at odds with his actions and the rows of guns he had just ordered run out. “But as you will soon learn, there is very little to do with honour today. Please, sir, order you men to surrender and let us avoid any bloodshed. I will give you my word that I will release you and your men without harm and with your ship in a few hours.”

  “It seems as if I have little choice,” the captain retorted primly and he went to the rail to shout the order across.

  Cochrane turned to Grenfell. “Take a boat of sailors over there and make sure that they do not do any
thing stupid. You can reassure them that they will all be released with their captain in a short while.” As Grenfell headed off to do his bidding the admiral turned to his captive. “Now, sir, I would be grateful if you will join me in my cabin so that we can discuss the purpose of my visit. Captain Flashman, perhaps you will join us and relieve the commander of those papers.”

  Crosbie looked hurt to be left out, but someone had to remain in charge on the deck of the ship. We were, after all, now flying enemy colours in the biggest Portuguese-held port remaining in Brazil. I knew that Cochrane was also leaving him behind for another reason; his face was easier to read than a penny novella. He was a card player’s dream and Cochrane’s plan relied on a monumental bluff.

  By the time we had reached the great cabin, I had sifted through the documents. As they had not been expecting us there was very little of interest. There was a letter from the governor congratulating us on our safe arrival and inviting our captain to dine with him. Presumably, he also wanted to hear the news from home. But to my amusement, there was also a note from a naval attaché warning us that Cochrane and the Brazilian fleet were loose in the Atlantic, and advising us to be on our guard.

  Captain Garção refused the offer of a drink and sat stiffly in a chair while he waited for the admiral to explain his actions.