The Price of Glory

by Seth Hunter

The other coaches were there already. One for Imlay and his second; the other for the referee and another man, presumably the doctor. There was some conferring. They began to load and check the weapons. Imlay stood a little apart, looking back towards the city as if he were expecting someone, but most likely lost in his thoughts.

  Did he deserve to die? Probably not. Not for what he had brought Mary to, for it was impossible to tell what had happened between them.

  There are two sides to every story.

  For being a French spy, then?

  Well, yes, for it would have served to hang him, if proven, or have him shot before a firing squad. But was he a French spy ? Nathan was no longer sure. Certainly the Admiralty appeared to have given him the benefit of the doubt, else he would not be walking freely about the streets of London.

  It occurred to Nathan now that if he was a double agent, which seemed likely, it would go some way towards explaining his difficulties with Mary, for how could he have an honest relationship with someone when his entire character was cloaked in deception.

  He was getting nowhere with this. He had killed many who did not deserve to die. Why make an exception for Imlay ?

  Save that the others had been in the heat of battle and this was in cold blood.

  And he had never really thought of himself as a cold-blooded killer. Whitbread was coming back with the referee, Colonel Dowling, a retired officer of marines. They had brought Imlay’s pistols for Nathan to examine. He took one of them from the case. It was heavier than his own, made by Samuel Nock of Fleet Street. Probably .75 calibre, which would make a sizeable hole in him if he was hit. He noted that it was fitted with sights but doubted if it would make much difference given the range and the size of the targets, unless Imlay intended to take his time and aim for something in particular. He looked down the bore but knew before he did so that it would not be rifled; nor was it. He handed it back.

  “One thing you may not have noticed,” murmured Whitbread, “is that it has a hair trigger.”

  Nathan inclined his head courteously, but he was more interested than he appeared. If you were the slightest bit nervous a hair trigger could be far more dangerous to the man who fired as he who was fired upon. A man had been known to shoot his own foot off with a hair trigger. Nathan suddenly found the possibility of Imlay’s shooting off his own foot quite hilarious and he felt the first bubbling of an unforgivable mirth. He recognised the symptoms for this had been a familiar affliction since childhood. Whenever it was least appropriate, he would be seized by an irresistible fit of the giggles. It had been an agony for him at many a church service for the slightest thing could set him off and he would be reduced to a helpless quivering bundle of weeping laughter during a sermon, despite the certain knowledge that he would be punished by going without his dinner or handed over to the Angel Gabriel for more physical chastisement. It would certainly be inappropriate now and he choked it back by reflecting that the choice of a hair trigger indicated that Imlay was a cool customer who had fought many a duel in the past, though it was far more likely that he had borrowed the pistols, sight unseen, as had Nathan.

  He tried to concentrate as Colonel Dowling explained the rules of engagement but his mind kept wandering. He was impatient to get on with it. And indeed the instructions seemed unnecessarily complicated.

  “Should one person fire and miss, or hit and injure the other duellist before that duellist has also fired, then the person who has so fired must wait, without moving, until his fellow has also fired, if he is capable of so firing. Is that clear to you, sir?”

  Nathan nodded but he was not really taking it all in.

  “If both shots miss, Captain Imlay as the offended party, will be asked if he is satisfied. If he is not, I will instruct your seconds to hand you the other pistol and you will be invited to fire again. And so on, until Mr. Imlay announces that he has had satisfaction—or one or other of you is incapable of continuing.”

  Captain Imlay ? But of course, it was the rank he claimed he had attained in Washington’s army, in the first year of the Independence War. Captain and paymaster in Colonel Forman’s regiment of the Continental Line, though Nathan had been informed that he had never advanced beyond the rank of lieutenant before finding employment that was more to his taste, doubtless taking the regimental funds with him.

  “Very well. Then take up your positions.”

  And so the farce began in earnest, if you could have an earnest farce. The two men stood back to back, pistols at the ready. Suddenly it came upon Nathan that within the next half minute he stood a very good chance of being killed or maimed, and to his intense alarm he felt a stirring in his bowels. By God, he was never going to fart, not while standing back to back with Imlay! He was able to check the process before he was disgraced but the thought of it, and Imlay’s reaction, brought a return of the earlier affliction. And this time he was unable to suppress a snort of laughter.

  “Excuse me,” he said, wiping his nose with his free hand.

  “Are you ready, Captain?”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Nathan, “but I think I am about to sneeze. May I trouble someone for a handkerchief?”

  This caused something of a problem. They had pistols, powder and shot, bandages, sutures, probes, but not, it appeared, a handkerchief; until Imlay, who had clearly been holding himself back, reluctantly produced one from his sleeve.

  Nathan wiped his nose. “Thank you,” he said, handing it back. Imlay took it with distaste and handed it to his second.

  “You are quite ready now, Captain?”

  “I am,” said Nathan. “I do beg your pardon.”

  And so once more they took up their positions back to back, and this time Nathan managed to control both extremities of his anatomy for the ten paces necessary to reach the firing position.

  He turned, still holding his pistol at his cheek, and for the first time that morning looked Imlay straight in the eye.

  “Take aim!” the colonel announced.

  Nathan stretched out his arm and aimed at Imlay’s head. He thought that he saw a flicker of alarm cross Imlay’s face but it might have been in his imagining. He felt nothing now but a deadly calm.

  “Fire!”

  Very deliberately, Nathan swung his arm to the right and fired. High and wide. He did not know until that instant that this was what he was going to do. When the smoke cleared he saw that Imlay was still standing motionless, his pistol at the ready. He still had not fired. This surprised Nathan. It seemed to surprise Imlay too, for he looked upon Nathan as if he had not expected to see him there. And so they stood, in this same identical pose, for a second or two. It cannot have been longer. The smoke from Nathan’s pistol still hung in the air, mingling with the mist from the ground. The magpies had risen from the ground in a patchwork quilt of white and black. Nathan’s arm still pointed at an angle from his body, like a frozen lookout, four points off the starboard bow. He gazed steadily back at his opponent, partly in defiance, but mostly by way of a challenge. Kill me and see how it will profit you. And it was possible that this thought also occurred to Imlay: that it would not profit him at all and might even occasion a serious loss. Or possibly, he had made his mind up long before, for he too fired wide. Though not so wide that Nathan did not feel the wind of its passing and to his eternal shame flinched, though the ball had long gone.

  “Are you satisfied, sir?” the referee called out to Imlay.

  Nathan did not hear the reply, his ears being slightly deafened by the report of the pistol, but it must have been in the affirmative, for the seconds were nodding as if they, at least, were satisfied, and shaking each other’s hands and taking turns to shake hands with the referee, and the doctor was packing up his bags and the magpies were swooping back to earth with ribald cries, as if they had seen it all before and would again and it never amounted to much more than this, for all the arduous preparation, and the squirrel had resumed its diligent accumulation of wealth among the branches of the trees, or more li
kely had never ceased. And Nathan sighed.

  But the farce was not yet over. For from out of the mist, hanging still in the direction of the city, came another coach. And although it might have been the continuing problem with his ears, it seemed to Nathan that it travelled in a ghostly silence, the rags of mist parting before it. A black coach with four black horses. He half expected it to contain the spectre of Death, come to complain that he was robbed and to insist the duel continued until he had satisfaction and at least one corpse to take away with him. But it was only the gentlemen of the Watch—the Holborn Day Watch in their smart blue coats and their black hats, come to bring a halt to the proceedings, though as usual far too late, and to arrest Captain Peake on a warrant for disturbing the peace.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Atonement

  I FIND IT REMARKABLE, quite remarkable, that having a great many charges and complaints levelled against you …” his lordship consulted the list that lay before him and blinked in affected wonderment at its length and variety, “and being summoned to answer for them to your superiors, you embarked upon a course of action which, had it proved fatal, would have rendered your country and your sovereign an even greater disservice than anything you had previously contemplated.” He raised his eyes from the multitude of reports and regarded their subject coolly. “And when I say fatal, I mean, of course, to your adversary.”

  Nathan acknowledged this distinction with a small bow and pointed out that he had not meant to kill, or indeed, even wound, his opponent; that he had, in fact, deliberately fired wide.

  “Did you indeed? Well, I can only say that this shows a more mature judgement than is your normal practice; the one consistent theme in this wretched miscellany of error and miscalculation being that you invariably act upon an impulse as hazardous to our friends as it is to our enemies.”

  Earl Spencer spoke in the dry, confident tones of a man who has been used for the greater part of his life to saying very much what he liked to whomsoever he pleased without regard for the consequence. A descendant of the great Duke of Marlborough and one of the first lords of the land, he had now added to that distinction by being made First Lord of the Admiralty, though to Nathan’s knowledge he had as much understanding of the sea and those who sailed upon it as any politician. But Nathan had been in the Gulf of Mexico when the appointment was made and his views on the appointment had not been sought.

  “I was not inclined to think of Mr. Imlay as a friend, either to my sovereign, myself or the country at large,” he remarked, in a tone very like that of his superior, though without the authority to support it.

  Clearly this deficiency had occurred to his superior.

  “Your opinion, sir, is of no consequence and you would do better to keep it to yourself,” Earl Spencer informed him briskly, “unless you are asked for it, which is unlikely.”

  Nathan was not used to being addressed as a midshipman, not at least since he had occupied that lowly status, and was disposed to resent it. With difficulty he curbed this inclination and lapsed into an indifferent disdain, an offshoot of the fatalistic mood that had crept upon him during his brief internment in the Holborn Bridewell when he found he cared very little what became of him; or perhaps before that, when he had watched the Conquest fire upon the crowds at Quiberon and the woman he loved vanish beneath the hungry waves: for he was convinced now that the rider on the white horse had been Sara. And with this indifference came an inclination to find some other means of employment, less taxing upon the sinews and the spirit. In truth, Nathan felt ill used. The Earl Spencer’s contempt—and apparent concern for Imlay above one of his own captains—much increased this inclination. He had always loved the sea far more than the service. It would not grieve him overmuch to be done with it.

  But he admitted to a certain curiosity. Why would Imlay’s death have done a “great disservice” to King George? It was partly in the hope of receiving an answer to this question that he stifled the desire to counter his lordship’s pleasantries with some choice observations of his own.

  “I beg your pardon, my lord,” he replied, “but after witnessing Imlay’s perfidy at first hand, it is difficult for me to comprehend why he continues to be held in such high esteem. Or why, indeed, it is not he who is brought to answer charges, rather than myself. “

  “That is none of your business, sir,” his lordship replied sharply, but it seemed to Nathan that behind Spencer’s cool manner there was something very close to embarrassment.

  During his recent dealings with Whitbread, Nathan had asked the brewer what he knew of the man, for both had been members of the Whig faction in Parliament and had shared the same broadly liberal views, before the war with France had propelled them to opposite extremes of the political divide. Whitbread had initially condemned him as a turncoat but on reflection, he moderated this view somewhat, describing him as “torn by conflicting loyalties.” He advised Nathan not to be taken in by his pose of patrician languor and indifference which, he said, disguised an active and intelligent brain. A graduate of Trinity College and a Fellow of the Royal Society, Spencer had been Member of Parliament for Surrey before inheriting his peerage and had served briefly as a Lord of the Treasury. He was one of the many Whigs who had rejected the somewhat erratic leadership of Charles James Fox when the French declared war, and had “gone over” to the government, for which Mr. Pitt had rewarded him by first making him ambassador to Vienna and then recalling him to take over from Pitt’s own brother at the Admiralty. He had been here too short a time to be judged, Nathan supposed, and though the disastrous landings at Quiberon were not an auspicious beginning to his new career, they could largely be blamed upon the divisions in the Royalist command and, of course, William Pitt, who had encouraged the venture.

  “So, do you have any answer to these charges?” his lordship enquired, with a mild display of interest, “or do you intend to challenge every one of those who have made them, including the acting governor of Jamaica?”

  Nathan ignored the sarcasm. “As to my conduct in the Caribbean,” he replied, “I believe every one of my duties was accomplished satisfactorily, even despite the attempts of Mr. Imlay to frustrate them.”

  “I am inclined to agree with you,” replied the earl, surprisingly, “and would have been ready to dismiss the charges and commend you upon your achievements, had it not been for the more recent complaints from Sir John Warren and the Chevalier de Batz, and your public assault upon a trusted agent of the government …” Nathan opened his mouth to protest but the First Lord stilled him with a gesture, “… the which have disposed me to agree with your detractors, for you do indeed appear to be something of a hothead, sir—a loose cannon who does more damage to your own reputation and that of the service than he does to the enemy.”

  “Though I venture there are a number of Frenchmen who would disagree, my lord,” Nathan pointed out, provoked into a manner he would normally have despised.

  “Would it concern you to be dismissed the service?” his lordship enquired with dangerous composure.

  “It would concern me that I was unable to serve my country at a time of war,” Nathan replied carefully.

  “But not enough to moderate your behaviour?”

  “I am not sure that moderation in time of war …”

  “Do not bandy words with me, sir. The fact is you are very close to being court-martialled and at the very least relieved of your command, a disgrace that would considerably distress your father and doubtless add to your mother’s current financial liabilities.” Nathan felt the blood rush to his face. “And do not glare at me, sir. I speak as an admirer of both, though Lady Catherine, I must say, is her own worst enemy, a feature you appear to have inherited. However, you seem to have your own admirers. Or at least, those who urge me to consider your more useful attributes. Mr. Pitt, for one.”

  Nathan was stunned into silence, for he had met the King’s chief minister only once, an encounter which had led directly to his employment as a government
agent in Paris.

  “Yes, I thought that would give you pause for thought. Mr. Pitt is of the opinion that you might yet do your country a service. You appear to have that facility, rare in one of your rank, for sailing a lone furrow—is that the word? And, one might say, under false colours.”

  Nathan remained silent, though his mind was racing.

  “Indeed, it is the opinion of Mr. Pitt, and some of his associates, that you are ideally suited for such an enterprise. So much so that he has asked me to propose a return to your former occupation. Temporarily, that is, before resuming command of the Unicorn.”

  “He wants me to go back to France?”

  “That would appear to be the gist of it.”

  “For what purpose?”

  Spencer inclined his head. “I must first ask you how you are disposed to respond to such a proposal?”

  Nathan was surprised to register a quickening of the pulse, not entirely unpleasant. A surge of excitement almost. For despite his ordeals in Paris during the time of the Terror, he knew that Pitt was right and that something in him was drawn to the life of the secret agent. Operating independently behind enemy lines, “sailing a lone furrow,” as the First Lord had put it, “under false colours.” He wondered sometimes if it had originated in his peculiar childhood, as a boy born in America, living in England during the War of Independence, the son of an English father and an American mother, who had been parted almost since his birth. Divided loyalties had been bred in his very constitution. As a child he was used to wearing different masks. And growing up in Sussex he had liked nothing better than to trespass on forbidden territory.

  But in those days all he had risked was a beating.

  “I am not averse to the proposal,” he replied guardedly, “but I was summoned here, I believe, to answer certain charges.”

  “Quite. Well, let me put it to you quite candidly, Captain. There are also certain charges against Mr. Imlay—charges made by yourself among others—the which, as you have pointed out, have been strangely overlooked by those in authority. There are reasons for this. Reasons that involve the services Mr. Imlay has done us in the past and may continue to do in the future. The same would, of course, apply to you.”