The Wanton Princess

by Dennis Wheatley

  Even so, he was in for five weeks of unending misery. The French fleet had not yet fully recovered from the effects of the Revolution, when all but a very small percentage of its experienced officers had either become victims of the Terror or gone into exile. Since Napoleon’s coming to power discipline had been restored; but for the best part of ten years the sailors had lazed about, refusing to do any but essential work, so almost nothing had been done to keep the ships in good repair and they were still in a deplorable state.

  As soon as the squadron struck bad weather the condition of the ships, which had lain for so long in port, became terrifyingly evident. Half-rotten sails were split by the wind before they could be furled, frayed ropes snapped, capstan bars broke, spars snapped off and no fewer than ten masts crashed onto the crowded decks killing scores of men. Roger as usual, was terribly seasick; so too were over ninety per cent of those on board. For days on end he could keep nothing down and even when the storm had blown itself out the stench continued to be so appalling that periodically it still made him vomit.

  He lost over a stone in weight and to add to his suffering could not rid his mind of the constant fear that they would encounter a British squadron. Even two or three line-of-battle ships manned by officers and men of the Royal Navy, trained to fight their ships with split-second efficiency and hardened by countless months at sea in all weathers, could have taken on Missiessy’s whole squadron and wrought the most appalling carnage among the seething masses of men who packed his ships. But in that, at least, Roger was lucky; for throughout the voyage they did not sight a hostile sail and, despite the shortcomings of his ships and crews, Missiessy succeeded in getting his squadron to Martinique by February 20th.

  When they dropped anchor in the splendid bay of Fort de France the scene Roger saw through his cabin porthole aroused very mixed memories. For seven months he had enormously enjoyed being Governor of the island and, by dealing harshly with malcontents but using sweet reason with its leading citizens, brought the French settlers to co-operate with him in administering British rule. Then, after being recalled to England by Mr. Pitt to undertake a special mission, he had returned four months later to find that his wife, Amanda, had just died in giving birth to little Susan. It had been a terrible shock for, although as with all the other women he had known, had the need arisen he would have sacrificed Amanda for Georgina, she had been a good wife and a charming companion; so he had loved her dearly and had mourned her death for many months.

  He remained in his cabin, rather than go up on deck, for a very good reason. In Fort de France there were hundreds of people who had known him as His Excellency Mr. Roger Brook; so to have gone ashore would have been fatal. As a reason for not doing so he had decided to sham illness as long as they were anchored off the town, and in preparation for this deception he had given out twenty-four hours earlier that he had a slight fever which, he feared, heralded an attack of malaria. The ship’s chief doctor had been to see him, given him some quinine pills, which it had recently been discovered were a good remedy for the disease and, without showing the reluctance Roger felt, he had allowed himself to be bled. His brother officers were too elated at the prospect of getting ashore to give much thought to him; and, having taken to his bunk with a number of books, he had reconciled himself to remaining there until the squadron sailed for Dominica. But at least he was able to relieve his self-inflicted captivity by enjoying meals of newly-killed poultry, fresh fish and tropical fruits.

  Admiral Villaret-Joyeuse, who commanded in Martinique, proved most helpful in sending men to assist in making the repairs necessary in Missiessy’s ships and revictualling them; so they were made fit to sail again in a little over a week.

  But, Roger learned from the Brigadier who shared his cabin, Missiessy was by no means so helpful to Villaret-Joveuse. The latter was much concerned about a small island called Diamond Rock, which lay a few miles to the southwest of Martinique. When, in accordance with the treaty of Amiens, the British had returned Martinique to the French, a party of British subjects had retired to the Rock with their possessions and a number of small ships. During the peace the French had not interfered with them and they had succeeded in supporting themselves. When war was again declared they had promptly sent for help to Dominica, troops and cannon had been sent to garrison the island and, ever since, it had proved a thorn in the side of French shipping approaching Fort de France. Villaret-Joyeuse had attempted but failed to take this stronghold, and now he appealed to Missiessy to capture it for him. But Missiessy refused to delay his own mission, and set sail for Dominica.

  The northern tip of Martinique lay only twenty-five miles from the southern tip of Dominica, and Roseau, the capital of the latter, some forty-five from Fort de France. The wind being fairly favourable the passage was made in a little under two days and, soon after dawn, the French squadron appeared off Roseau.

  Roger, who meanwhile had declared himself recovered, knew that a great part of the island, dominated by a lofty extinct volcano, Morne Diablotin, was covered with dense jungle. In spite of that, had he been commanding the expedition he would have landed his troops on the eastern shore and, even had it taken a fortnight, had them cut their way through the jungle to assault the capital from the rear. As the garrison of such a place was unlikely to consist of more than a single battalion, and the French had twelve thousand men at their disposal, by adopting such a strategy they could not have failed to take it; and on the island there were no other towns of importance, so the surrender of Roseau would have completed the operation.

  After landing his troops, Missiessy could too, have sailed his squadron round to the west coast and, when they made their assault, have assisted them in a swift capture of the place by bombarding the fort and town. But the Admiral, confident that the broadsides of his ships would swiftly cause the British flag to be hauled down, elected to rely on a frontal assault.

  That the garrison had been taken by surprise there could be no doubt as, but for the firing of a single alarm gun, nearly a quarter of an hour elapsed before the fort began to reply to its bombardment by the French. But once the British gunners got into action their fire soon began to tell. Not only were they better trained and reloaded their pieces more swiftly, but they had the advantage always enjoyed by shore batteries engaging ships. Their cannons were on a firm base whereas those in the ships were in constant motion owing to the swell of the sea. In consequence, the shooting of the British was much more accurate. Soon the French squadron was taking heavy punishment. Cannon balls smashed great holes in the sides of the ships, ploughed through the soldiers massed on their decks and brought down spars and masts.

  Roger could not escape the obligation to stand on the poop of the flag-ship near the Admiral and his staff. As the battle raged the palms of his hands became damp and he felt goose pimples on his skin from fear that at any moment a cannon ball might cut him in half. Then, to his great relief, soon after ten o’clock, it became so obvious to Missiessy that he was getting by far the worse of the engagement that he had a signal hoisted breaking off the action.

  A quarter of an hour later the squadron was out of range of the fort and heading up the coast. In a quiet bay some miles north of Roseau the ships dropped anchor and lay there for two days while the dead were consigned to the sea and the damage that had been done to the ships was, as far as possible, repaired.

  On the day following the assault Missiessy called his Captains aboard the flag-ship for a Council of War, at which Roger and other senior Army officers were present. The general opinion was that now the garrison at Roseau had been alerted and shown itself capable of putting up such a stout resistance there could be no hope of taking the island. It was then decided to sail north and see if they would meet with better fortune at Montserrat, Nevis and St. Kitts.

  Had the French succeeded in taking Dominica Roger would then have been faced with the problem of getting from there to the exit of the Windward Passage where ‘Enterprise’ had been lost; which me
ant a voyage of twelve hundred miles across the Caribbean west of the arc of islands that enclosed that sea, and he had already planned how to set about it.

  Now he had to think again, but he soon decided what to do. As he was only a passenger and not under Missiessy’s orders he went to the Admiral after the Council of War, and said, ‘Since there is to be no further attempt to take Dominica, sir, it is pointless for me to remain in the West Indies and the Emperor will expect me to return to France as soon as possible. The speediest way for me to do so would be to get a ship from Guadeloupe, so I should be grateful if you would have me put ashore at Pointe-à-Pitre.’

  Guadeloupe was the next island northwards in the chain from Dominica and the squadron had to pass it on its way to Montserrat, so Roger’s request presented no difficulty. Two days later he said good-bye to his companions on the terrible Atlantic crossing and was landed at Pointe-à-Pitre.

  There Roger had no fear of being recognised as Mr. Brook, as Guadeloupe was the only French-owned island in the Caribbean that had never been taken by the British. The Governor made him welcome as one of the Emperor’s A.D.C.s and, eager to hear all about Napoleon’s Imperial Court, said that he must be his guest at the Residency until he could get a ship. Roger thanked him and, now that Missiessy was out of the way, enquired, not for one to take him back to France, but one bound for San Domingo.

  On account of his health he was not expected back in France until the early summer; so now he would say that he had employed his time by visiting several French islands in order to be able to report upon conditions in them.

  If, haunted as he was by the nagging fear that Georgina had been sold into a brothel, it was unlikely that she would have been taken so far from the place where she had been captured as Guadeloupe. Nevertheless, during Roger’s stay of six days on the island, on the excuse of amusing himself after a long voyage, he visited all the haunts of vice in Pointe-à-Pitre, and paid the ‘Madams’ handsomely to produce all their girls for his inspection, having said that he was searching for one girl in particular whom he had known on a previous visit to the West Indies.

  The majority of the girls in the less expensive houses were Caribs or of mixed blood; but in the better ones more than half of them were French with here and there Spanish, Dutch and English trollops. Some of them had previously served in houses in other islands and these, having stood them wine, Roger closely questioned; but none of them could recall having known a woman at all resembling Roger’s description of Georgina.

  On March 10th he went aboard the ship that was to take him on the eleven hundred mile run north-west across the Caribbean. The winds proved fairly favourable and for day after day, now brown as a berry, he lay on deck shaded by a sail from the blazing sun, reading or idly watching the flying fish skim the blue water. It was April 2nd when they docked at Port-au-Prince, and there he paid only a formal call on the Governor, courteously refusing his offer of hospitality with the explanation that he meant to spend only long enough in the capital to hire a small sea-going craft in which he intended to sail up the coast.

  This left him free to explore the vice haunts of the city; but after three days he had met with no success in his quest for news of Georgina. Meanwhile he had chartered a ketch owned by a grizzle-haired quadroon named Charbon, who knew those waters well. The crew were mulattos; one of them called Pepe Pepe being a half-caste Spaniard who could act as an interpreter in Cuba. On the 5th he sailed across the southern end of the Windward passage for Santiago de Cuba, arriving there on the 10th.

  As allies of the French, the Spaniards made no difficulties for him; and for the next three days, with Pepe Pepe as his companion, he continued his search, visiting a score of brothels, but with no more success than in Port-au-Prince. On the 13th he sailed again, this time up the Windward Passage and round the north-eastern end of Cuba to Baracoa. This was the nearest port to the place where ‘Enterprise’ had gone down and, again with Pepe Pepe’s help, he spent forty-eight hours visiting every vice spot in the town, until he had satisfied himself that Georgina had not been taken there.

  On the 18th he left Cuba and recrossed the Windward Passage to Port de Paix on the northern tip of San Domingo. There he spent another two days, by now sick of the sight of near-nude women and the stench of their cheap perfume. Still he failed to pick up any trail, but he remained convinced that Georgina was alive and was determined not to give up until he had found her; so he sailed along the north coast to the French stronghold of Cap Haïtien. Yet another two days’ search proved unavailing.

  He had by now explored the stews in all the most likely ports to which Georgina might have been taken. There remained only Port Royal outside Kingston in Jamaica. It was more distant from the scene of her disappearance than the others but there, down by the palisades there was a whole town of houses of ill fame that was notorious throughout the Caribbean, and if she had become the victim of an English buccaneer it was in Port Royal that he would probably have sold her.

  If Roger landed in Jamaica he could become Mr. Brook, but his crew, although half-castes, were French subjects; so for fear of capture it would be necessary to bribe them heavily before they would agree to put him ashore in some deserted bay. Moreover Kingston was four hundred miles distant from Cap Haïtien, whereas the place where the ‘Enterprise’ had gone down was only some hundred or so miles off and in the opposite direction. As there had always been the possibility that Georgina was still marooned on a desert island Roger intended, should he fail to trace her in any of the ports, to search the area for her. To go south to Kingston and return would take anything from a fortnight to three weeks; so he decided to save for the time being the money with which he would have had to bribe his crew, explore the islands first then, if need be, go down to Jamaica as a last resort.

  Accordingly they sailed from Cap Haïtien on April 24th and set a north-west course, which would carry them about half way between the north-eastern tip of Cuba and the many shoals and sandbanks to the south-west of Great Inagua.

  The only information Roger had to go on was Mr. Small’s statement that ‘Enterprise’ had been attacked when a day’s run outside the Windward Passage and, depending on wind and weather, that might have taken the ship anything from twenty to a hundred miles or more beyond the point of Cuba; so the area to be searched was a considerable one.

  On the 27th they sighted the first group of islands. During the next three days the ketch dropped anchor in the shallows off each in turn, and Roger had himself rowed ashore in the dinghy to explore them. Two of the largest were inhabited, but only by a few families of miserable-looking Carib Indians who contrived to eke out a bare existence on fish and coconuts and lived in palm leaf huts. Scared out of their wits at the sight of Roger they ran off and hid in the undergrowth; but he made no attempt to lure them out as, not knowing their language, he could not have questioned them.

  During the past three weeks Roger had been favoured with good weather, only occasionally meeting with a wind strong enough to make the sea uncomfortably choppy; but soon after the ketch left the group the sky became overcast, the wind dropped and the atmosphere became ominously still. Realising that a hurricane was blowing up, they hastily got out the oars and pulled with all their strength to get back to the nearest island. Fortunately they reached it near a creek up which they were able to pole the ketch a few hundred yards. By then the sky was black with great drops of rain spattering down. A few minutes later it was descending in torrents. Lightning flashed in great jagged streaks and thunder boomed like the discharge of whole broadsides of guns. The downpour lasted for two hours, to be succeeded by a terrible wind that it seemed would tear the clothes from their bodies and bent a nearby group of palm trees so far over that their fronds at times brushed the sand. The sea had been churned into huge waves that rushed up the creek and caused the ketch to bounce wildly up and down, then beached her high and dry. By evening the worst of the hurricane was over, but they had to remain there for another three days before the wea
ther was sufficiently settled for them to relaunch the ketch and set sail again.

  In the nine days that followed they visited a score or more of other islands, among them several on which there were wild pigs, and one of these, Roger felt sure, after finding the remains of a camp, must be that on which Jenny and Mr. Small’s party had been marooned from March to June in the preceding year.

  Then, on the morning of May 12th they sighted an island about two miles long with a shelving beach which ran up to higher ground on which there was dense vegetation. As they approached it recognition dawned in Roger’s mind. Suddenly he was positive that it was the island to which in his vision he had seen Georgina swimming. The airs were light and with maddening slowness the ketch edged in towards the coast. Trembling with impatience, when they entered shallow water he cried:

  ‘I’ll not use the dinghy. Beach her! Run her ashore!’

  Captain Charbon looked at him in astonishment but obeyed the order. Jumping from the bow Roger plunged waist deep into the water and waded the last twenty feet to dry sand. Looking swiftly about him he saw the entrance to a shallow valley some two hundred yards to his right. At a run he set off towards it. The valley had a small stream trickling through it and curved inland, the banks growing steeper until on one side he was hastening along beneath a fifteen-foot high cliff. After he had covered a quarter of a mile the little canyon widened into a clearing, in which there were two rough palm-leaf huts leaning crookedly against the cliff. As he stumbled towards the larger of the two he pulled up short and gave a horrified gasp. Sprawled in front of the rickety door lay a bundle of clothes. Inside them was a skeleton.