Beneath the Aurora

by Richard Woodman

  ‘Come, Colonel. I have ordered some meat and wine for you, and if you wish we can send for hot water for you to shave . . .’

  ‘Good!’ snapped Bardolini and crossed the parade.

  Patmore led them into another casemate which served as the officers’ mess. It was simply furnished with a table, chairs, a sideboard and some plate. Another artillery lieutenant lounged over a glass and bottle, already well down the latter for his welcome was heartily indulgent.

  ‘Please sit down, gentlemen. Henry Courtney à votre service. Here, sir,’ he said to Bardolini, ‘your breakfast.’ A gunner in shirt-sleeves brought in a platter of sliced meat and bread. Courtney poured wine into a second glass. Bardolini hesitated, then sat and fell ravenously upon the plate.

  ‘Mr Courtney,’ Drinkwater said as Bardolini devoured the food, ‘would you do me the courtesy of allowing me a few moments of privacy with our guest?’

  ‘Oh, I say, I’ve not finished . . .’

  ‘Harry!’

  Courtney turned and caught the severe look in Patmore’s eye. ‘Oh, very well,’ he said unconvincingly, and rose with a certain display of languid condescension, ‘as you wish.’

  Drinkwater helped himself to a glass of wine as the door closed. The shirt-sleeved gunner looked in and Drinkwater dismissed him, closing the door behind him. Then he walked back to the table, drew the identification paper from his breast yet again and laid it before Bardolini. The Neapolitan read it, still chewing vigorously. Then he stopped and looked up.

  ‘My own papers, they are with my sword and sabretache! I do not have them!’

  ‘Calm yourself, my dear Colonel,’ Drinkwater said and sat down opposite Bardolini. ‘We can attend to the formalities on our way back to London. At the moment I wish only to know the purpose of your visit.’

  ‘I have plenipotentiary powers, Captain. They are, with respect to yourself, for the ears of King George’s ministers. I have a letter of introduction to Lord Castlereagh . . .’

  ‘You speak excellent English, Colonel, where did you learn?’ Drinkwater adroitly changed the subject.

  ‘I worked for many years in the counting-house of an English merchant in Napoli. He taught it to all his clerks.’

  ‘You were a clerk then, once upon a time?’

  ‘But a republican always,’ Bardolini flared.

  ‘Yet you represent a king, and seek the ministers of a king. That is curious, is it not?’

  ‘King Joachim is a soldier. He is a republican at heart, himself the son of an inn-keeper. He is a benevolent monarch, one who wishes to unite Italy and be a new Julius Caesar.’

  ‘I thought Caesar refused a crown . . .’

  ‘King Joachim is not a king as you understand it, Captain. Believe me, I lived under the rule of that despot Ferdinand and his Austrian bitch. They are filth, perhaps as mad as they say your own king is, but certainly filth, not worthy to eat the shit that ran out of the sewers of their own palazzo.’

  ‘And yet I have to ask what King Joachim would say to the mad King George’s ministers?’

  ‘I cannot tell you.’

  ‘I cannot take you to London.’

  ‘You would not dare to refuse!’ Bardolini’s eyes blazed.

  ‘Colonel, the ocean is wide, deep and cold. The men who have seen you today will have forgotten you in a month. Why do you think I have come here today? Do you think I myself do not have special powers, eh?’ Drinkwater paused, letting his words sink in. ‘Come, sir, telling me what you have come here for is likely to have little effect on matters if I am a man of no account. On the other hand, going forward to London on my recommendation will ensure your mission is swiftly accomplished.’

  Bardolini remained silent.

  ‘Let me guess, then. You are here in order to open secret negotiations to preserve the throne of Naples in the name of King Joachim Napoleon. You speak very good English and have plenipotentiary powers in case it becomes possible, in the course of your discussions, to conclude a formal accommodation, or even a full treaty of alliance, in which the British government guarantee Naples for the King your master who, though he remains a Marshal of France and Grand Admiral of the Empire, lost his French citizenship on succeeding to the crown of Naples.’ Drinkwater paused, aware that he had Bardolini’s full attention.

  ‘You have, moreover, a difficult game to play because, on the one hand, King Joachim does not want his brother-in-law, the Emperor Napoleon, to know of this action. Nor does he wish the Austrians to learn of it, for while they may well toy with King Joachim, his desire to unite the Italian republicans and then the whole peninsula is inimical to their own interests. Moreover, it will cause deep offence to King Ferdinand, whose wife, Queen Maria Carolina, is not only the sister of the late Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, but was also born an Austrian archduchess and whose husband, though ruling still in Sicily, has been deprived of the Italian portion of his kingdom by conquest. King Ferdinand regards your King Joachim as an usurper.

  ‘Nevertheless, Prince Cariati at Vienna is assiduously pressing King Joachim’s suit to the Austrian ministry. So your master must play a double game, for the Emperor Napoleon works to detach the Austrian Emperor from his alliance with us, thinking his own new wife, the Empress Marie-Louise, yet another Austrian archduchess, possesses influence to succeed in this endeavour, being daughter to the Emperor Francis himself.’

  Drinkwater paused. Bardolini had ceased chewing and his jaw lay unpleasantly open so that half-masticated food was exposed upon his tongue. Drinkwater poured another glass of wine and looked away.

  ‘Now, Colonel, do you have anything to add to this?’

  Bardolini shut his mouth, chewed rapidly and swallowed prematurely. He lunged at his glass and gulped at the claret, wiping his mouth on the scarlet turn-back of his cuff.

  ‘Sympatico, Captain, we are of one mind!’

  ‘Perhaps. But King George’s ministers will be less easy to oblige than you imagine, Colonel. Consider. Your master has already communicated with us through his Minister of Police, the Duke of Campochiaro, who sent one of his agents, a certain Signor Cerculi, to discuss with Colonel Coffin at Ponza matters of trade and an easement of the naval blockade of Calabria. Is that not true? And after these negotiations had been concluded, Cerculi let it be known that King Joachim and his brother-in-law had fallen out, indeed, that they were frequently at odds. King Joachim wants to rule in his own name and Napoleon wants him as no more than a tributary-king, a puppet – a marionette. Is this not so?’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Bardolini looked genuinely puzzled.

  ‘Because’, Drinkwater said, leaning forward and lowering his voice, ‘Colonel Coffin reported the matter back to the Sicilian court at Palermo, and from there it was passed to London.’

  Such a torrent of detail clearly surprised Bardolini. He was astonished at the knowledge possessed by this strange Englishman. He did not know that Coffin had regaled the British frigate captain with the whole story and he, bored with the tedium of blockade, had confided all the details to his routine report of proceedings. This, in turn, had crossed Drinkwater’s desk within two months, at the same time that the confidential diplomatic dispatch from Sicily had reached the office of the Foreign Secretary.

  ‘But therein lies our dilemma, Colonel,’ Drinkwater continued relentlessly. ‘King Ferdinand has been assured that the British government wants to see the King of the Two Sicilies restored to his rightful place in his palace at Naples. How, then, can His Britannic Majesty’s government take King Joachim seriously?’

  It was, Drinkwater thought wryly, a fair question. Napoleon Bonaparte, having driven Ferdinand across the Strait of Messina, placed his brother Joseph on the vacant throne at Naples, leaving Ferdinand and Maria Carolina to vegetate under British protection at Palermo. Then, when he deceived the King of Spain and took him prisoner, Napoleon transferred Joseph to Madrid, installing him as king there, and sent Marshal Murat to Naples as King Joachim. It was rather a tawdry and exped
ient proceeding.

  ‘Ferdinand is not important. He fled in English ships to Palermo. You support him there, without English ships he is powerless. Your government can abandon Ferdinand. Lord William Bentinck, your former minister at Palermo, has already been recalled by Lord Castlereagh.’

  ‘But what has King Joachim to offer us in exchange for our protection? Can he guarantee that, if we maintain the dignity of his throne, the people of Naples, let alone of the whole of Italy, will acknowledge him as king?’

  ‘Si!Yes! He is most popular! Without your ships, Ferdinand would be lost and Sicily would join all of Italy. Would that not be better for England? To have a friendly power in the Mediterranean? You would like a naval port at Livorno, or La Spezia.’

  ‘Perhaps. Are you empowered to offer us a naval port?’

  Bardolini shrugged again and looked about him. ‘This is not the place . . .’

  Drinkwater grinned. ‘You may have to content yourself with such a place, Colonel,’ he said dryly, ‘you are in my hands now,’ and his expression and tone of voice, strained by tiredness, appeared to Bardolini to be full of menace.

  In fact Drinkwater was disappointed. The Neapolitan had nothing to offer. Joachim Murat was hedging his bets fantastically. It would be an act of humanity to send this candy-stick officer back to Flushing by the first available boat, but perhaps he would play the charade for just a little longer.

  ‘Well, Colonel,’ he said with an air of finality, stirring as though to rise and call Patmore and Sparkman, ‘is King Joachim to be trusted? He is married to Caroline Bonaparte, the Emperor’s sister. If he commits himself to coming over to the Allied cause like Bernadotte, his position must be unassailable. He courts Austria, which has her own deep interest in Tuscany and the Papal States, and would rather an accommodation with Ferdinand of the Two Sicilies than the adventurer and parvenu King Joachim . . .’

  ‘Captain! You should not call him that! He is brave, and true! And devoted to his people and the Rights of Man!’

  The sincerity of Bardolini’s florid passion was genuine, though he had looked angry at Drinkwater’s reference to Bernadotte. They were getting nowhere. For all the confidence of his exposition, Drinkwater was exhausted. The overnight journey jolting in a chaise, turning over and over in his mind the likely outcome of this queer meeting; the memorizing of the notes he had scribbled from a quick rereading of the guard books; the rehearsal of facts; the guessing at motives and the building in his own mind of a convincing, watertight reason for this singular, strange invasion, had left him weary. He had wanted to rage at the imbecile Sparkman, so obviously raddled by a night of dissolution, yet the lieutenant’s inhumane treatment of Bardolini had left the man indignant for his own honour, and unguarded about his master’s.

  Drinkwater mustered his wits for one last argument. The drink had made him dopey and he forced himself to his feet, leaning forward for emphasis, his hands spread on the table before him. Again he managed a thin smile at Bardolini.

  ‘There is one last point that we must consider, Colonel Bardolini. Where is the King of Naples now?’

  The question caught Bardolini off guard. ‘He is at Dresden.’

  ‘With his Emperor?’

  ‘With the Emperor of the French, yes.’

  ‘As a Marshal of France, commanding the cavalry of the Grande Armée.’

  Bardolini nodded, frowning.

  ‘Yet he must be on the winning side, must he not? And to preserve his integrity it must never be known that he treated with the other. Is that not so?’

  ‘You are an intelligent man, Captain. The King is married to the Emperor’s sister. They correspond. There could be no absolute secrets between them . . .’

  ‘No!’ snapped Drinkwater with sudden vehemence. ‘Bonaparte is a cynic; he will overlook base ingratitude, even treason if it serves his purpose, but do you think the Emperor Francis of Austria will be so tolerant? He is not so republican a king.’

  Bardolini shrugged, missing the sarcasm. ‘The Emperor Francis will bow if England is in alliance with the King of Napoli. A man who will declare war on the husband of his daughter will do anything.’

  The cogency of the argument was impressive; and Bardolini’s diplomatic ability was clear. Drinkwater fought to retain control of the dialogue.

  ‘But, Colonel Bardolini, even as we speak Marshal Murat is in the field alongside his imperial brother-in-law. At least Bernadotte has repudiated his former master and is at the head of his Swedish troops and in command of an Allied army. His victory over his old friend Marshal Oudinot at Gross Beeren can hardly be called equivocating. Moreover, Colonel, on the sixth of this month, this same ci-devant republican soldier of France beat another old friend, Michel Ney, at Dennewitz. You did not know that, eh?’ Drinkwater paused to let the import of the news sink in, then added, ‘but your master has no such earnest of good faith to offer from his headquarters at Dresden, does he, eh? He behaves as he is, a tributary king, a puppy fawning on the hand that feeds him.’

  Drinkwater finished his diatribe. Tiredness lent a menace to his final words and Bardolini was visibly upset by the torrent of logic poured upon him by this apparently scornful Englishman. He remained silent as Drinkwater straightened up, contemplating the evaporation of his hopes.

  ‘Come, sir. We will summon your sword and sabretache. You shall accompany me to an inn where my chaise will be ready. You may shave there while I eat. I can promise you nothing, but we will proceed to London.’

  Bardolini looked relieved as he stood and reached for his ornate czapka.

  ‘By the way, Colonel, we do not need an Italian port as long as we have Malta. Besides, how long could we trust a king who was married to a Bonaparte princess, eh? Tell me that if you can.’

  Suddenly, in the ill-lit casemate, the beplumed Neapolitan looked ridiculously crestfallen.

  The wind, which had veered in the night and brought a cold forenoon of bright sunshine, backed against the sun as it westered, so that the sky clouded and it began to rain long before they reached Colchester. Drinkwater was tempted to stop and spend the night there, but the steak-and-kidney pie Annie Davis had served him at the Three Cups put him into a doze so that inertia dissuaded him from making a decision and the chaise rumbled on westward.

  He had no thought now but to disencumber himself of Bardolini as soon as they reached London, and when he woke briefly as they changed horses he felt only an intense irritation that he could not have turned north at Manningtree, crossed the Stour and taken the Ipswich road towards Gantley Hall and his wife Elizabeth’s bed.

  The recent weather had turned the road into a quagmire. Every rut had become a ditch, the horses were muddied to their bellies and the wheels spun arcs of filth behind them. The chaise lurched over this morass and bucked and rocked in the gusts of wind, the rain drummed on the hood and he heard Bardolini cursing, though whether it was the weather or his predicament that most discommoded the Neapolitan, Drinkwater neither knew nor cared. At about eleven that night it stopped raining. On the open road the going improved and they reached Kelvedon before midnight. Both men got out to stretch their legs and visit the necessary at the post-house. A draught of flip restored Drinkwater to a lucid state of mind. The stimulus of the alcohol and the irregular motion of the chaise when they drove forward again continued to make sleep impossible. Bardolini, sitting opposite, was equally unable to doze off and in the intermittent moonlight that peeped from behind the torn and ragged cumulus, Drinkwater was aware of the fierce glitter of the Neapolitan officer’s eyes.

  Initially Drinkwater expected sudden attack, an instinctive if illogical fear of treacherous assault. But then he realized Bardolini was caught in a reverie and his eyes merely sought the future. Or perhaps the past, Drinkwater mused, which might be full of disappointments, but was at least inhabited by certainties. As he had found so often at sea, the light doze he had enjoyed earlier had restored him, and he felt an indulgence towards his fellow-traveller.

  ‘Colo
nel,’ he said, as they passed through a patch of brilliant moonlight and he could see Bardolini’s face in stark tones, ‘I do not hold out much hope for your mission. Entre nous, the idea of a republican king is something of a contradiction in terms. Your reception in London is not likely to be, what do you say? Sympatico?’

  ‘I have plenipotentiary powers, Captain. I am on diplomatic service. I expect the normal courtesies . . .’

  ‘I do not wish to alarm you unduly, Colonel, but I am not aware that we recognize the government of King Joachim. Only your uniform prevents your arrest as a spy. That, and my company.’

  ‘But you will take me to Lord Castlereagh, Captain?’ Bardolini asked with a plaintive anxiety.

  ‘I will send word to the Foreign Secretary that you are in London, but . . .’ Drinkwater left the conjunction hanging in the darkness that now engulfed the two men. The unspoken clause was ominous and, unknown to Drinkwater, had the effect on the Neapolitan of causing him to come to a decision.

  Upon landing in England, Colonel Bardolini had expected to be quickly picked up by the police, to be whisked to London with the Napoleonic thoroughness by which such things were managed in the French Empire and those states under its influence. He had not expected to stumble upon the discreditable Sparkman and then be locked up like a common criminal. Protestations about his honour, his plenipotentiary status and offers of his parole had fallen upon deaf ears. Now Drinkwater’s assertions clothed this outrage with a chilling logic. The English were, just as he had been led to believe, barbarians.