The Sultan's Daughter

That famous critic, Howard Spring, wrote of The Launching of Roger Brook, ^'I look forward with pleasure to the spectacle of Roger Brook turning the Scarlet Pimpernel pale pink.'

Since then Roger's exploits as Prime Minister Pitt's most resourceful secret agent, and his hectic love-affairs, have gained him a permanent place among the leading characters in period fiction.

That, in part, is due to his adventures always being presented against a background of the facts of history. Dennis Wheatley never takes liberties with dates or events. These, and the portrayal of such famous people as General Bonaparte, Josephine, Nelson, Emma Hamilton, Sir Sidney Smith, Djezzar Pasha, Talleyrand and Fouché—all of whom play large parts in the present story—are in accordance with the most reliable sources. Even the accounts of the capture of the heroine's mother by Barbary pirates and of Napoleon's shocking mental collapse on the fateful 18th Brumaire are strictly authentic.

From the England of 1798 the reader accompanies Napoleon on his conquest of Egypt; then witnesses Nelson's brilliant victory at the Battle of the Nile, Sir Sidney Smith's heroic defence of Acre, the escape of King Ferdinand and Queen Caroline from Naples and, finally, is taken behind the scenes during Napoleon's desperate gamble for supreme power. Meanwhile, Roger himself is in almost constant peril and, driven crazy by his passion for the beautiful half-French, half-Turkish Zanthd, risks ruin and death in order to sleep with her.

Dennis Wheatley's books sell over a million copies a year; so it is safe to say that many more than a million people are eagerly awaiting this tour de force by The Prince of Thriller Writers. They will not be disappointed.

for DERRICK MORLEY

Ambassador Extraordinary and 'Most Secret' during the years we spent together in the Offices of the War Cabinet and for MARIE JOSE,

this tale of great days in France. With my love to you both

DENNIS

The Great Risk

It was late on a dismal February afternoon in the year 1798. For the past ten days the weather had been so bad in the Channel that no ship had dared to put out from the little harbour of Lymington with a reasonable hope of running the blockade and safely landing a passenger, or a cargo of smuggled goods, on the coast of France.

But in the lofty rooms of Grove Place, the home of Admiral Sir Christopher Brook, a small, square mansion looking out across the Solent to the Isle of Wight, it was warm and quiet. The heavy curtains were already drawn, shutting out the winter cold and the steady pattering of the rain. In the dining room the soft light of the candles glinted on the silver and crystal with which the mahogany table was laid. Opposite each other sat two people— the Admiral's son Roger and his guest Georgina, the widowed Countess of St. Ermins. They had just finished dinner.

Suddenly Roger pushed back his chair, looked directly into the lovely face of his companion and declared, ^' Georgina, I must be the stupidest fellow alive in that despite all the opportunities I've had, I've lacked the sense to force you into marrying me.'

Georgina's dark curls danced as she threw back her head and gave her rich low laugh. 'What nonsense, Roger. We have oft discussed the matter and-'

^'Aye,' he interrupted, * and reached the wrong conclusion. God never put breath into a couple more suited to share the trials and joys of life; and you know it.'

He was just over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and slim hips. His brown hair swept back in a high wave from a fine forehead. Below it a straight, aggressive nose stood out between a pair of bright blue eyes. From years of living dangerously as Prime Minister 'Billy* Pitt's most resourceful secret agent, his mouth had become thin and a little hard, but the slight furrows on either side of it were evidence of his tendency to frequent laughter. His strong chin and jaw showed great determination, his long-fingered hands were beautifully modelled, and his calves, when displayed in silk stockings, gave his tall figure the last touch of elegance.

She was a head shorter, and the full curves of her voluptuous figure were regarded in that Georgian age as the height of feminine beauty. Her face was heart-shaped, her eyes near-black, enormous and sparkling with vitality. Her eyebrows were arched and her full, bright-red lips disclosed at a glance her tempestuous and passionate nature.

But, apart from the physical attractions with which both of them had been blessed, Roger was right in his contention that neither had ever met another human being in whose company each had known so much happiness.

After a moment Georgina shrugged her fine shoulders, smiled and said, ^' Dear Roger, that no two lovers could have had more joy of one another I'd ne'er deny; but marriage is another thing. We agreed long since that did we enter on wedlock the permanent tie would bring ruin to our love. 'Tis because I have been your mistress for only brief periods between long intervals that the flame of our desire for one another has never died.'

' Of that you cannot be certain, for we have never put it to the test. Besides, physical desire is but one ingredient of a successful marriage. Another factor is that we both have young children. That you care for my little Susan like a daughter and let her share your Charles's nursery is a debt 111 find it hard ever to repay; but it would be far better for them if we were legally united, so that we became "mother" and "father" to both.'

' In that you have an argument I find it difficult to refute, for I know none I'd as lief have to bring up my little Earl to be a proper man. Yet it does not shake my opinion that other considerations outweigh it.'

^'I'll revert, then, to the point I made a moment since. It was that we have never made trial of our passion for long enough to form an idea of how durable it might prove. Look back, I pray you, on our past. There was that one unforgettable afternoon when I was but a boy and you seduced me-'

^'Fie, sir! Seduced you, indeed! Tis always the man who-'

^'Fiddlesticks, m'dear. You had already allowed another to rob

you of your maidenhead, whereas I-

^' Pax! Pax! ' Georgina laughed. ^' Let's say that both of us had just reached an age when there was naught for it but to succumb to the hot blood of our natures.'

^'So be it,' he smiled back. ^'But that was in the summer of '83 and it was well on in the autumn of '87 before I held you in my arms again. After a few months of bliss we had to separate once

more, and then-'

Georgina gave a sudden giggle. ^' I'll ne'er forget that night in '90 when we made our pact that if I accepted my Earl you would marry Amanda. Then we slept together.'

^'And, shame upon us,' Roger smiled, ^'became lovers again for the six weeks before our respective marriages. But after that we played fair by our spouses. At least you did, although I deceived Amanda four years later with Athenais de Rochambeau and she me with the Baron de Batz. It was not until I got back from the West Indies in the spring of '96 that, after near six years and Amanda's death, I once more shared your bed.'

^'We had that glorious spring together, though. Three whole months of bliss.'

^' Could I have foreseen that our idyll was to be so abruptly terminated through that fiend Malderini, I'd not have been content to spend those months lotus-eating, but would have persuaded you then to marry me.'

^'No, Roger! No! Years before that we had decided that to marry would be to court disaster.'

He shrugged. ^' Anyway, I missed my chance and was forced to flee the country. While I was travelling in India and with General Bonaparte in Italy, another eighteen months sped by. This Christmas brought me the sweetest present I could ever wish for— your lips on mine the night after my return. Yet here we are a bare six weeks later and I must once more tear myself away from you.'

Roger leaned forward and went on earnestly, ^' Think on it, my love. It is now fourteen years since the sweet culmination of our boy-and-girl romance. We vowed then that, although we'd consider ourselves free to make love where we listed, each of us would ever hold first place in the other's heart. We have kept that vow, yet in all these years we have lived scarce ten months together.'

Georgina slowly shook her head. ^'Dear Roger, I am most sensible of it and have oft felt a great yearning for you when you have been in distant lands. Yet your own statement is the answer to your argument. Had we married, with yourself abroad for years at a stretch it could have been no more than a mockery of the state. Made as I am, unless I'd taken lovers during your long absences I'd have burst a blood vessel, and had you not done likewise you would have returned to me as dried up as a sack of flour. It would have meant either that or spending our brief reunions reproaching one another for discovered infidelities.'

^' Nay. Matters need never have come to such a sorry pass as you envisage. Had we faced up to our situation after Humphrey's death and married then, I would have changed my whole life so as to remain with you.'

^' You changed it when you married Amanda, but for how long did you remain content with domestic felicity? In less than two years you succumbed to the urge to go adventuring again. How can it possibly profit us to con over all these ^'' might-have beens "? Above all at such a time as this, when within a few hours you will again be on your way to France? '

^' 'Tis just that which causes me to do so,' he replied promptly. * Your having volunteered to brave the winter journey and accompany me here for the sake of spending a last night or two with me, then tempests having delayed my departure for ten days, have given us a new experience of one another.'

'You refer to our having for the first time in our lives been for so long completely alone? '

^'1 do. With my father absent in his Command at Harwich, and the cousin who keeps house for him staying with friends in London, we might have been marooned on a desert island except for the servants providing us with every comfort. We have eaten, slept and loved, or sat engrossed in conversation by a roaring fire, just as we listed, without a single duty to perform or any social obligation. And for my part I have never been nearer to dwelling in heaven.'

^' In that you speak for me, too,' she smiled. ^' Time has ceased to be our master, and each night when I have fallen asleep in your arms I have known the sweetest contentment. I would that living with you in this world apart could have gone on for ever.'

^' Then, sweet, have I not made my case: that as soon as it is possible we should marry? '

Georgina sadly shook her head. ^' Nay, my beloved. We must not allow ourselves to be led astray by these halcyon days that we have snatched from life's normal round. As I've already said, to be faced during long separations with the alternative of maintaining a dreary chastity or deceiving one another would be fatal to our love.'

^' There is yet another alternative. I am too far committed to my present mission to ask to be excused of it; but when I return to England I could resign from Mr. Pitt's service.'

^'Can you say, within a month or two, when you expect your return to be? ' Georgina asked.

He shook his head. ^' Alas, no. Unfortunately there is nothing definite about my mission. It is simply that having established myself as persona grata with the men who now rule France, and particularly with Barras and General Bonaparte, I should return there, keep Mr. Pitt informed, as far as possible, of their intentions and do what I can to influence their policies in favour of British interests.'

^' Then you may have to remain abroad for a year, or perhaps two, as you did during the Revolution.'

^' I trust not, yet I cannot altogether rule out such a possibility. You will recall that when recounting my more recent activities I told you that in Italy General Bonaparte made me one of his A.D.C.s with the rank of Colonel. While I have been in England he has believed me to be on sick leave at my little chateau in the South of France. My orders were to report back to him at the end of January, and I would have done so had not storms delayed my passage. When I do rejoin his staff I must go where he goes; but the odds are that even he does not yet know how the Directory will employ him, now that Austria has signed a peace with France.'

^' Since our nation alone now remains in arms against the French, surely they must strike at us. You have said yourself on more than one occasion that they might attempt an invasion in the spring, and that if so this little Corsican fire-eater will be the man to lead it.'

^' You may take it as certain that the Directory favours such a move; and Bonaparte himself becomes like a man crazed with excitement whenever anyone raises in his mind the vision of the glory that would be his if he succeeded in marching an Army into London. At least, that was his dearest ambition until I secretly stacked the cards that led to his being given the command of the Army of Italy; and it may well be that now he is once more dreaming of himself as the conqueror of England.' Giving a twisted smile, Roger added, ^' If so I'll be back quite soon, but in a foreign uniform and making it my first business to ensure your not being raped by the brutal and licentious invaders.'

Georgina snorted, ^' Tis more likely that you'll find yourself back in the sea with a British pitchfork stuck in your bottom.'

^' I've good hopes of escaping such a fate,' he laughed, ^' for it's my opinion that the French will never get ashore at all. The attempt would be at best a desperate gamble, and Bonaparte has an uncanny way of assessing odds correctly. I think it more than probable that he will decide against staking his whole future on such a hazardous undertaking.'

^' What, then, are the alternatives? '

^' He has several times mentioned to me a grandiose project for leading an expedition to conquer the glamorous East and make himself another Alexander.'

^' Should he do so I assume, from what you have said, that you would perforce accompany him? '

^' No, no! ' Roger laughed. ^' That I will not do. I've no mind to spend the rest of my life fighting Saracens and savages. Were I faced with such a grim and profitless prospect I'd think up some way to relieve myself smoothly of my aide-de-campship. Personally, though, I think it unlikely that the Directory would agree to Bonaparte taking a large army overseas for his own aggrandizement. Since France is still bankrupt, despite the immense treasure Bonaparte looted out of Italy for her, I count it probable that the minds of the Directors run on renewing the war across the Rhine, or sending him to invade smaller States that have remained neutral, to act again as a robber for France. But all this is speculation. It would, therefore, be unfair in me to disguise from you the possibility that new developments in France might prevent my return this year, or even next.'

For a long moment Georgina was silent, then she said, ^'1 am very conscious that I owe it to my little Charles to marry again, so that he should have a father to bring him up. At any time I might meet a suitable parti. Not one who could ever take your place in my heart, but a home-loving man of probity and charm for whom I could feel a genuine affection. Since you may be away for so long, I must hold myself free against such an eventuality. You too might meet some charming woman with whom you may feel tempted to share your future. If so, as in the past, you must also consider yourself free to marry again; for I can hold out little hope that I will ever alter my opinion that this unique love of ours can be preserved only by our never remaining together long enough to weary of one another. All I can promise is that should we both be still unwed when you do return to England I'll give your proposal serious consideration.'

Roger refilled their glasses with port and said, 'In fairness I can ask no more, and I pray that my return may be neither in a French uniform nor delayed beyond the summer. Let's drink to that.'

She raised her glass and they both drank. As she set it down, she sighed, ^'1 would to God I could be certain that you will return at all. Each time you leave me to set out upon these desperate ventures my stomach contracts with the horrid fear that I'll never see you more. You've been monstrous lucky, Roger; but every day you spend among your enemies is tempting Fate anew. Hardly a week passes but I think of you and am harrowed by the thought that you may make some slip, be caught out and denounced as an English spy.'

He shrugged. ^' My sweet Georgina, you need have little fear of that. I have spent so long in France that my identity as a Frenchman is established there beyond all question. Anyone who challenged it would be laughed at for a fool.'

^' How you have managed that I have never fully understood.'

^' The fact that I lived there for four years in my youth formed a sound basis for the deception. To account for my foreign accent, before I rid myself of it, I gave out that my father was of German stock and my mother English, but that I was born in the French city of Strasbourg. I further muddied the waters of my origin by giving out that both my parents died when I was at a tender age; so I was sent to my English aunt, here in Lyming-ton, and brought up by her. My story continues that I hated England, so as soon as I was old enough ran away back to my native France. In that way I became known there as the Chevalier de Breuc.'

^' But later, Roger, you became the trusted henchman of Danton, Robespierre and other sanguinary terrorists. Such men have since been guillotined, or at least proscribed. How did you succeed in escaping a similar fate? '

^' In that, I am one of many. Tallien, who directed the Red Terror in Bordeaux; Freron, who was responsible for the massacres in Marseilles; and numerous others whose crimes cry to heaven have proved such subtle politicians that they rode out the storm, succeeded in whitewashing themselves and still lord it in Paris. There are, too, scores of ci-devant nobles who, until the Terror made things too hot for them, had, for one reason or another, found it expedient to collaborate with the Revolutionaries. Some were thrown into prison, others went into hiding. After the fall of Robespierre they all emerged with specious stories of how from the beginning they had worked in secret against the Revolution; so it has become the height of bad form to enquire closely of anyone about their doings previous to '9'.'

'Thus on my return from Martinique, in the spring of '96, I needed only to imply that I, too, had been playing a double game, to be welcomed into the most fashionable salons which have sprung up in the new Paris. Such terrorists as survived know that I had a hand in bringing about Robespierre's fall, so they naturally now accept it that I fooled them when they knew me as a sans~culotte_y and was all the time a young nobleman disguised. The aristocrats whose acquaintance I made earlier in the galleries of Versailles look on my as one of themselves—a clever enough schemer and liar to have saved my neck throughout the Revolution.'

^' I should find it most repellent to have to move in such a dubious society.'

^' But for a few exceptions they are indeed a despicable crew. At times it makes my gorge rise to learn that some woman of noble birth has become the mistress of a man well known to be a thief and a murderer, or that a Marquis is giving his daughter in marriage to some gutter-bred ex-terrorist who has climbed to influence and wealth over the bodies of that nobleman's relatives. Yet it is in the fact that the Revolution has brought to the surface a scum composed of the worst of both worlds that my security lies. To them, there is nothing the least surprising that a youth educated abroad by rich relatives should have returned to become a fervent patriot, having risen to the rank of Citizen Representative, have conspired against Robespierre and now be an aide-de-camp to General Bonaparte.'

'There are gaps in your career in Franch, of which you have made no mention: one of two years while you were first married to Amanda, another while you were Governor of Martinique and yet another while you were in India. If seriously questioned, surely you would have difficulty in accounting for them; and there must be at least a few Frenchmen who have seen you when you have been wearing your true colours, in England or elsewhere, as Admiral Brook's son, and would recognize you again.'

' No.' Roger shook his head. ' My absences from Paris are all accounted for. And to gu^rd against such chance recognition as you suggest I long ago invented two mythical cousins, both of whom strongly resemble me. One is myself, the English Admiral's son, Roger Brook; the other, on my mother's side, as a bearded fellow named Robert MacElfic. Should any Frenchman think that he has seen me where I should not have been I'd vow it was one or other of these cousins they saw and mistook him for myself.'

^' Lud! One must admire you for a cunning devil,' Georgina laughed. 'Can there then be no single man in all France who knows you for an Englishman and can give chapter and verse to prove it? '

Roger's face became a little grave. 'There are two. Joseph Fouche, the terrorist who was responsible for mowing down with cannon the Liberal bourgeoisie of Lyons, is one. But when we last came into conflict he was without money or influence and on the point of quitting Paris as a result of an Order of Banishment forbidding him to reside within twenty leagues of the capital. Fortunately he is not among those terrorists who succeeded in whitewashing themselves; so from fear of the reactionaries seeking to be avenged on him he is most probably still living quietly in some remote country village.'

^' Then your chances of coming face to face with him are, thank God, slender. Who is the other? '

^' Monsieur de Talleyrand-Perigord. His name was struck from the list of emigres in '95, but he did not return from America until the autumn of '96; so he had not yet arrived in Paris when I was last there. He has since been made Foreign Minister, as 1 learned in Italy while assisting Fauvelet de Bourrienne with General Bonaparte's correspondence.'

^' It is a certainty, then, that before you have been for long back in Paris you will run into him at some reception.'

^' True, but I have little apprehension on that score.' Roger shrugged. ^' He and I have long been firm friends. Moreover, he is greatly in my debt. It was I who saved him from the guillotine by providing him with forged papers that got him safely out of Paris. He is not the man to forget that; and, although he knows me to have been born an Englishman, it should not be difficult to persuade him that I have served France well and have for long been French at heart.'

Georgina slowly shook her head. ' You are the best judge of that. Yet I shall still fear that, through some accident, the fact that you are a secret agent sent from England will come to light.'

He frowned. 'Knowing so well your psychic gifts, it troubles me somewhat to hear you say so. I only pray that your foreboding may not be due to the capacity that you have oft displayed for seeing into the future. Yet I do assure you that such a risk gives me small concern compared with a far greater one that always plagues me when I set out upon my missions.'

'What greater risk could there be than of a discovery which would be almost certain to lead to your death? '

' It is that, having acquired considerable influence with Barras, the most powerful man in the Directory, I may use it wrongly. On more than one occasion I have formed my own judgment and have acted in direct opposition to what I knew to be the official British policy.

' In three separate matters upon which great issues hung I have done this, and all three times fortune has favoured me. But it is in the taking of such decisions that lies the real anxiety of my work. Each time I am faced with some crisis, in which a word from me may serve to sway the balance, I am beset with a desperate fear that I will adopt the wrong course. So far my judgment has proved right, but there can be no guarantee that it will continue so; and sooner or later, should I again take it upon myself to act contrary to Mr. Pitt's instructions, I may find that I have committed an error that will cost our country dear.'

' I understand and sympathize, dear Roger.' Georgina stretched out a hand across the table and took his. ' But in this new mission you have no cause for such a fear. You told me a while back that it was entirely nebulous. As no specific task has been enjoined upon you, you'll have no nerve-racking decision to take concerning the best way to accomplish it.'

He nodded. ' You are right in that my terms of reference are, in general, vague. But Mr. Pitt has many minor agents in France whose regular reports have enabled him to follow the development of events in Paris. Upon them, he and his cousin Grenville at the Foreign Office have formed more or less correct assessments of the most important men there. They regard General Bonaparte as the best soldier who has emerged from the Revolution. In that I concur, and I would go further. Having worked under him in Italy, I know him also to be a great administrator, and I naturally informed them of my opinion. During the Revolution he was an extremist, and in recent months there have been strong rumours that he contemplates overthrowing the Directory by a coup d'etat. You will readily appreciate that the very last thing Mr. Pitt and his colleagues would wish is to see France under a dictator who is not only a great General but has proclaimed it as a sacred cause to carry the doctrines of the Revolution by fire and sword through every country in Europe. In consequence, while I have been offered only opinions on how it might prove most profitable to develop my relations with other leading men, I have been definitely instructed to do my utmost to ruin General Bonaparte.'

^' Surely that makes sound sense and, apart from any qualms you may feel about harming a man who has given you his friendship, should cause you no uneasiness.'

^' Unfortunately it does, for I am by no means convinced that Mr. Pitt is right in his assumption that, given supreme power, the brilliant young Corsican would become the ogre that he supposes. Admittedly Bonaparte owed his first chance to show his abilities as a soldier to the patronage of Robespierre, and he has since deposed the sovereigns of the Italian States he overran in order to convert them into so-called ^'' People's Republics ". Yet he went out of his way to treat the Pope with civility and formed a Court about himself at Montebello at which even his brother Generals kow-towed to him as though he were a reigning Monarch.'

^' You think, then, that he is already by way of abandoning his Republican principles? '

^'1 think that any man so intelligent must realize the hopelessness of endeavouring to impose them upon Austria, Russia. Prussia and England; and, rather than challenge these mighty monarchical Powers, he would prefer to initiate an era of peace in which to build a new and prosperous France out of that country's present ruin.'

' Does this mean that you have in mind to ignore again your master's orders and assist in furthering the ambitions of General Bonaparte? *

'No, I would not say that. To start with it is most unlikely that it will ever lie in my power to make or mar the career of such an exceptional man. But there is just a chance that some card might fall into my hand by playing which at the right time I could put a serious check to his designs, or even, perhaps, bring to naught a coup d'etat launched by his followers with the object of making him the uncrowned King of France. Should such a chance occur, I would have to decide whether to play that card or withhold it. What greater risk could there be than that of making a wrong judgment which might perhaps bring death and disaster to Europe for a generation? '

A Most Unwelcome Encounter

As Roger finished speaking, Jim Button, the elderly houseman who had been with the family since his boyhood, came in and said, ^' The carriage is at the door, Master Roger, and Dan was set on driving you down; so I've given him your valise.'

'Thanks, Jim.' Roger stood up and Georgina with him. She had insisted on accompanying him down to the harbour; so her maid, Jenny, was waiting in the hall with the great hooded cloak of Russian sables in which Georgina always travelled in the winter.

Roger, who loved colourful clothes, was, for him, dressed very quietly in a grey cloth suit, black boots and a plain white cravat. Over them he put on a heavy, tight-waisted, multi-collared travelling coat. In one of the pockets of its wide skirt reposed a big flask of French cognac, in the other a small double-barrelled pistol. Having bidden Jim and Jenny a cheerful farewell, he donned a beaver hat with a flower-pot-shaped crown and led Georgina out to the carriage.

The port was little more than a quarter of a mile away and during the short drive they sat in silence, Roger with his arm round Georgina, her head upon his shoulder.

Down at the quay a boat was waiting. As they got out, a Petty Officer came forward and touched his forelock. Dan Izzard, Roger's devoted servant, climbed down from the box and put a small valise in the stern of the boat. Then, with a grumble that he was not going too, he wrung his master's hand and wished

him a safe return. Turning, Roger took Georgina in his arms. For a long moment they embraced. All they had to say had already been said and their hearts were too full for further words, but as they kissed he felt the tears wet on her cheeks. Releasing her, he stepped into the stern of the boat, the Petty Officer gave the order to cast off and a moment later the oars were dipping rhythmically as they drew away in the early winter twilight.

Aboard the sloop her Captain, Lieutenant Formby, was waiting to greet his passenger. Roger had already made the young man's acquaintance on the ship's arrival at Lymington ten days earlier, and had not been very favourably impressed. It was not that Formby lacked a pleasant personality, but Roger would have much preferred to be taken across by an older and more experienced man; for it had emerged during their conversation that Formby had been transferred recently from service in the Bristol Channel. However, Roger knew the French coast so well that he felt confident that he could identify headlands and bays along it of which Formby might be in doubt; so he had no serious misgivings on the score of possibly failing to locate the cove, a few miles south of Dieppe, at which he wished to land.

The rain had ceased and the wind had died down. While the little ship tacked out through the Channel to the Solent, then west along it, Roger remained on deck making desultory conversation with her Captain. But when she rounded the Needles she came head-on to a sullen swell that was the aftermath of the recent tempest. Roger had always been a bad sailor; so he decided to turn in and try to get some sleep while he could, in case it should become rougher when they were well away from land.

He slept soundly and did not wake until the Lieutenant's servant roused him at six o'clock with a mug of ale and a plate of meat sandwiches. Sitting up in his narrow cot he slowly drank the ale, but eyed askance the doorstep slices of bread with their filling of red, underdone beef. Knowing the sort of fare which would be set before him during such a crossing, he had come provided with food more to his taste. Opening his little valise, he took from it two hard-boiled eggs and a partridge—one of the last of the season—which he gnawed to the bone.

Seeing no reason to get up, he lay in his bunk all the morning reading a book. At midday he dressed and went on deck. It was Formby's watch below and his Second-in-Command, a stodgy, moon-faced fellow named Trumper, stood near the binnacle, keeping an eye on the sails. Having acknowledged Trumper's greeting, Roger quickly turned away and began to pace the narrow quarter-deck.

As he reached its limit amidships, he noticed one of the hands coiling down a rope at the foot of the mast. The man's face seemed vaguely familiar, so he stopped and asked, 'Have I not seen you somewhere before? '

The sailor straightened himself and replied with a surly frown. ' Aye. My name be Giffens and you knows me well enough though it be a few years since we met. I were groom up at Wal-hampton to Miss Amanda afore you married she.'

Roger nodded. ' I recall you now. But I find it surprising that you should have chosen to go to sea rather than continue to care for horses.'

'Chosen! ' Giffens echoed with a snort. 'There were no choice about it. I were catched by the Press Gang in Christchurch three months back.'

'Indeed. But the servants of the quality are immune from pressing. You had only to show that you were in Sir William Burrard's service to secure your release.'

'I were so no longer. Sir William got to know that I were a member of the Corresponding Society. 'E were that angry that 'e took 'is cane to me and drove me from Walhampton 'Ouse. Aye, and with 'alf a week's wages owing me ter boot.'

' So,' remarked Roger coldly, ' you are a member of the Corresponding Society. As such, you would no doubt like to see the King dethroned and a bloody revolution here, similar to that there has been in France? '

Giffens eyed him angrily. ' I've naught against King George, but I 'ave against gentry the like o' you. To further your own fortune in some way you've a mind to go to France, an' a word with others of your kidney is enough to 'ave a sloop-of-war bidden to land ye there. Yet what of us afore the mast who 'as the doin' of it? Should we be taken by the Frenchies us will find ourselves slaves chained to an oar in them's galleys.'

It was a point of view that Roger had never before had put to him. Had he heard it voiced in other circumstances he would have agreed that it was hard upon the common seaman that his lot, perhaps for years, should he be made a prisoner-of-war, would be the appalling one of a felon. On the other hand, the officers who ordered him into danger could count upon being treated fairly decently and were often, after only a few months of captivity, exchanged for enemy officers of equivalent rank.

But for some years past there had been serious unrest in England. Among the lower orders the doctrines of atheism and communism rampant in France had spread alarmingly. In Bristol, Norwich and numerous other cities troops had had to be used to suppress riots and defend property. In London mobs many thousands strong had publicly demanded the abolition of the Monarchy and the setting up of a People's Republic. Mr. Pitt had found it necessary to suspend Habeas Corpus and had passed a law sentencing to transportation for life street agitators caught addressing more than four people. Such measures might appear harsh but, having witnessed the horrors of the French Terror, Roger felt that no severity against individual trouble-makers was too great, when only by such means could they be prevented from bringing about the destruction in a welter of blood and death of all that was best in Britain. By admitting to being a member of the revolutionary Corresponding Society, Giffens had virtually revealed himself as a potential sans-culotte; so Roger said to him sternly:

'I go to France not for my own pleasure or profit, but upon the King's business. And since you are now one of His Majesty's seamen, however unwillingly, it is your duty to accept any risk there may be in doing your part to land me there.'

Giffens spat upon the deck. ^' Aye! Duty and weevilly biscuits, that's our lot. But you're not one of my officers; so it's not for you to preach duty to me.'

* Speak to me again like that,' Roger snapped, ^' and I'll have the Captain order you strapped to a grating for six lashes of the ^'' cat".' Then he swung on his heel and recommenced pacing the quarter-deck.

Within a few minutes he had dismissed Giffens from his mind and was thinking of his last conversation with Mr. Pitt. Together they had surveyed the international situation and, for Britain, it could hardly have been worse.

Between March '96 and April '97 Bonaparte's victorious army had overrun Piedmont, the Duchies of Milan, Parma and Modena, the Republic of Genoa and an area as big as Switzerland in north-east Italy that had for centuries been subject to Venice. He had dethroned their rulers, set up People's Governments and merged a great part of these territories into a new Cisalpine

Republic. He had also invaded the Papal States and had blackmailed both the Pope and the Duke of Tuscany into making huge contributions to the cost of his campaign. As a result, the whole of northern Italy now lay under the heel of France.

Yet he had fallen short of achieving his great plan, as he had described it to Roger before setting out for Italy. It had been that he should fight his way up to the Tyrol while the French Army of the Rhine marched south to make junction with him there; then with this overwhelming force, he would thrust east and compel the Austrians to sign a peace treaty in Vienna. He had reached the Tyrol, but the Army of the Rhine had failed him; so, to give it further time, he had agreed to an armistice with the Austrians. For six months the plenipotentiaries had wrangled over peace terms at Leoben. By then autumn had come again, and the Army of the Rhine had made little progress. Although the great prize, Vienna, lay less than a hundred miles away, Bonaparte did not dare, with snow already falling in the mountains, resume his advance alone and risk a defeat so far from his base. Reluctantly he had come to terms and signed a peace treaty with the Austrians at Campo Formio on October 17th.

When making peace Austria had not consulted Britain, thus betraying the ally who had sent her many millions in subsidies to help her defend herself. Still worse, by the terms of the Treaty, she surrendered all claim to her Belgian territories. Her flat refusal to do so previously had been the stumbling block which Mr. Pitt had felt he could not honourably ignore when he had had the opportunity to agree a general pacification with France some two years earlier.

Still earlier Prussia, too, had betrayed Britain by making a separate peace; and although Frederick William II had died in the previous November his succssor, Frederick William III, as yet showed no inclination to re-enter the conflict against the Power that threatened every Monarchy in Europe.

Catherine of Russia had realized belatedly the danger, and had promised to send an Army against France. But she had died just a year before the King of Prussia, and her death had proved another blow to Britain. Her son, who succeeded her as Paul I, had detested his mother so intensely that he senselessly sought to be avenged upon her in her grave by reversing every policy she had favoured and, overnight, he tore up the agreement by which Russia was to join the Anglo-Austrian alliance.

Holland lay at the mercy of France, Portugal had signed a separate peace and Spain ' had gone over to the enemy. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies alone, owing to the influence of Queen Caroline, the sister of the martyred Marie Antoinette, pursued a neutrality strongly favourable to Britain, and would have entered the war again if she could have been supported. But she could not. The combination of the French and Spanish Fleets, after Spain had become the ally of France in '96, gave them such superiority that Britain had been forced to withdraw her Fleet from the Mediterranean; so for the past two years Naples had remained cut off.

At sea in all other areas Britain had more than held her own. She had driven her enemies from every island in the West Indies, with the one exception of Guadeloupe, and in the previous October Admiral Duncan had inflicted a shattering defeat on the Dutch Fleet at Camperdown. This had proved more than a great naval victory, for the French had been using the Dutch Fleet to convoy a large body of troops to the Clyde, on the somewhat dubious assumption that an enemy landing there would force the British Government to withdraw troops from Ireland and thus enable the Irish malcontents to launch a successful rebellion.

For several years past the French had been sending agents to stir up trouble in Ireland. They had met with such a fervent response from the discontented elements there that the Directory had promised to send ten thousand troops to act as a spearhead of rebellion against the hated British. Had this force succeeded in landing, it might well have proved impossible for Britain, with her other commitments, to hold the sister island, in which case it would have become the base for a great French Army able to invade at will England, Scotland or Wales.

Even as things stood, the League of United Irishmen was thirty thousand strong and pledged, with or without French help, -to rise and fight to the death for Irish independence at the signal of its leader, Wolfe Tone. So at any time unhappy Britain might find a bloody civil war forced upon her as a further drain on her desperately stretched resources.

Outside the Mediterranean the British Navy had proved more than a match for the combined Fleets of France and Spain. Just on a year before, Admiral Sir John Jervis, now Earl St. Vincent, had so thoroughly defeated the Spanish Fleet, off the Cape from which he had taken his title, that only a small remnant of it now remained. Great seaman as he was, he had also had the greatness of mind to give a large part of the credit for his victory to Commodore Nelson who, on his own initiative, had broken station to cut through the Spanish line of battle, thus throwing the enemy Fleet into confusion.

Later that year this dashing junior officer had shown exceptional skill and gallantry in a series of attacks on the harbour of Cadiz. Then in July St. Vincent had given him command of a Squadron detached for the purpose of capturing the island of Tenerife. In that Nelson's luck had failed him. The Military Commanders in Gibraltar and the Channel Isles both had considerable bodies of idle troops under their orders, but both refused to lend any part of them to St. Vincent for this expedition. On account of lack of troops Nelson had not sufficient men to land forces which could have surrounded the town and had to rely on his limited number of marines and his ' tars' to take it by direct assault.

On the night of July 22nd, when he launched his attack, many of the boats, owing to dense fog, failed to reach their landing points and others were driven off. Refusing to acknowledge defeat, Nelson decided to lead a second assault in person two nights later. The first attack had alerted the Spanish garrison and they were ready for him. It soon transpired, too, that the troops who garrisoned the Spanish colonies were of far finer mettle than those of their home Army.

Before Nelson even got ashore his right arm was shot away above the elbow by a cannon ball. But his men, most gallantly led by officers some of whom were later to become that famous ^' Band of Brothershis Captains, fought their way into the city and held a part of it for several hours. Their position was, however, so evidently untenable that the seriously wounded Commodore agreed with the chivalrous Spanish Governor to a cease-fire and an exchange of prisoners.

In spite of this defeat, there was something about Nelson that had already caused the British people to take him, although still a comparatively junior Commander, to their hearts; and on his return to England in September they had hailed him as a hero. Throughout the autumn his wound had caused him great pain, but by early in December the stump had healed; so he was now recovered and, report had it, pestering the life out of the Admiralty to be sent to sea again.

In France the ^' Five Kings'—as the members of the Directory which had taken over the Government after the fall of Robespierre were called—were still all-powerful. Under the new Constitution which had elevated them to office there were two Chambers: the Corps Legislatif, popularly known as the Five Hundred, and the Anciens, which consisted of two hundred and fifty older statesmen elected from the former body. But the two Houses were no more than forums for debating proposed changes in the law. They had no executive power and Ministers were neither allowed to be members of either House nor were in any way responsible to them.

The Ministers were appointed by the Directory and were little more than chief clerks of departments under them. The Directory also appointed all military officers of senior rank, all diplomatic representatives and all the principal civilian officials of the State. As the majority of the Directors were unscrupulous men, the patronage in their gift had led to a degree of bribery and corruption never known in any country before or since.

All five of the Directors had voted for the King's death, so it was essential to their own safety that they should check the tide of reaction against the Terror that was sweeping France. To achieve this they secured agreement that one-third of the members of the new legislative body should consist of men who had sat in the old extremist Convention. Thus, against the will of the people, they ensured a majority which would refuse to pass any law which might bring retribution on themselves.

Paul de Barras, a man of noble birth and a soldier of some ability, was the acknowledged figurehead of the Directory. He was handsome, brave, gay, utterly corrupt and shamelessly licentious. Jean-Francois Rewbell was its strength and brain. A dyed-in-the-wool terrorist, he was foul-mouthed, brutal and dictatorial, but possessed a will of iron and in indefatigable appetite for work. Larevelliere-Lepeaux was a lawyer, deformed, ill-tempered and vain, with one all-absorbing passion—a positively demoniacal hatred of Christianity. These three had united to form a permanent majority unshakably determined to oppose the popular movement for a greater degree of liberty and tolerance under a truly representative Liberal government.

Nevertheless, the new Constitutional Movement, as it was called, had by the preceding year gained such momentum that it caused Barras and his cronies considerable alarm. They feared that General Pichegru was about to stage a coup d'etat, and it was even rumoured that in the Club de Clichy, where the leaders of the Constitutional Party had their headquarters, a plot was being hatched to restore the Monarchy.

When news of the landslide in public opinion percolated to the Armies in the field they too became disturbed, for a high proportion of the soldiers were former sans-culottes. The Divisions of the Army of Italy drew up fiery proclamations which they sent to Paris, declaring th'at if the Corps Legislatif ' betrayed the Revolution' they would return and slaughter its members.

Bonaparte had also shown his old colours. As the war was at a stalemate owing to the armistice with Austria, he could have gone to Paris and organized a coup d'etat, but he was too shrewd a politician to lead personally a movement in support of the unpopular Directors. Instead he sent General Augereau, a huge, swash buckling bully of a man imbued with violently revolutionary opinions.

Augereau was not a man to take half-measures and on his arrival in Paris he immediately announced that he had come to kill the Royalists. Having concerted measures with Barras, he dealt with the Corps Legislatif on 'th September—18th Fructi-dor, Year V, in the revolutionary calendar—much as Cromwell had dealt with the Long Parliament. Arriving at their Chamber with two thousand troops he overawed their guard, arrested the Constitutional leaders and dispersed the remainder of the members.

Generals Pichegru and Miranda and thirty-eight other prominent Constitutionalists were sentenced to the ^' dry guillotine\ as it was called, and transported to the fever-ridden swamps of Cayenne. The Corps Legislatif was then purged of more than two hundred members, leaving a rump that was entirely subservient to the Directors.

The coup d'etat of 18th Fructidor had also made infinitely more remote any possibility of Roger influencing some of the French leaders in favour of negotiating a peace. After five years of executions, street fighting, massacres, civil war in La Vendee and wars against half a dozen foreign nations, the French people were utterly sickened by blood-letting in all its forms. They longed for peace every bit as much as did the British. Had the Constitutionalists triumphed they would have given the people peace but, once again, as always happens at times of crisis, the Liberals, lacking the determination and ruthlessness of their extremist opponents, had been swept away. The Directory, on the other hand, was as determined as ever to carry the doctrines of the Revolution into every country in Europe, both by the thousands of agitators it sent abroad as secret agents and by force of arms. In consequence, Roger saw little hope of peace as long as the present rulers remained in power, and felt that he would be extremely lucky if he could succeed even in diverting some part of the French war effort from England.

Soon after four o'clock he was abruptly roused from his gloomy musings by a series of orders shouted from the after deck. Men tumbled up from below, others ran to the ropes and hauled on them. The vessel heeled over, the sails sagged and flapped noisily for a moment, then billowed out again as they refilled with wind. For most of the day the ship had been proceeding under a fair wind, east-south-east; now she had swung round to east by north.

At eight bells Lieutenant Formby had come up on deck to take his watch. With his telescope to his eye he had his back turned and was looking aft from the break of the low poop. Roger ran up the short ladder to it and asked him why he had changed course.

Formby frowned and pointed to the south-west. Hull-up on the horizon, but only just perceptible to the naked eye, lay a three-masted ship. ^' From this distance I can't be certain,' he said, ^' but she looks to me like a Frenchie. If so, she's a frigate out of Cherbourg.'

Taking the glass the young Lieutenant offered, Roger focussed it until he could see the ship quite clearly. ^' She is certainly a warship,' he remarked, ^' but I am not sufficiently acquainted with such matters to give an opinion on her nationality.'

As Roger handed back the telescope, Formby went on, ^' Had we continued on course we'd have had to pass within a mile of her, and that's a risk I dare not take.'

^' Stap me, no! ' Roger agreed emphatically. ^' We'd be completely at the mercy of a ship that size did she prove an enemy. Do you think she will have sighted us? '

^'1 doubt it. This vessel being so much smaller, it would be harder to pick up. If she has, we can only pray that she did not observe our change of course.'

^' You mean that seeing us turn away would arouse her

Captain's suspicions that we are either up to no good or are British? '

'Hell's bells!' Formby exclaimed, quickly putting up his telescope again. 'She has sighted us. Even with the naked eye you can now discern that her three masts are merging into one. She is coming round, so intends to pursue us.'

Roger shrugged. 'She is still miles away. Surely you can outdistance her with this sloop? '

Formby's forehead "was creased with a frown. ' Should she crowd on all sail, I'd not wager on it.'

For the first time Roger felt a slight apprehension as he said, 'At least, your ship is much more easily manoeuvrable. Unless she gets near enough to menace us with a broadside you have naught to fear except some balls from her bow-chaser. Visibility, thank God, is bad. By taking avoiding action, you should escape being hit until darkness closes down and we can get away under cover of it.'

'I could, with luck, had I a first-rate crew,' the Lieutenant replied bitterly. ' But more than half my men were pressed and were landlubbers until a few months back. With such ham-handed swabs, and slow at that to obey orders, I'll not be able to get the best out of her.'

Roger refrained from comment. From his father he knew only too well how, during the years of peace, half the ships of the Navy had been allowed to rot, while the men who had manned them either starved or settled into jobs ashore. During the past few years many new ships had been built and somehow crews had been got together for them, but nearly every ship in the Navy was undermanned and there was still a great shortage of trained seamen with long service.

Anxiously now he continued to stand beside Formby, peering at the outline of the frigate in the grey light of the February afternoon. After twenty minutes she appeared appreciably larger, so it was clear that she was gaining on them.

From time to time Formby used his glass to scan the horizon to the north. He said now, ' I turned up-Channel in the hope that we might meet with a ship of the Dover Squadron. That would scare the Frenchman off; but, unfortunately, we're a long way from the Narrows vet.'

Another half-hour went by, while officers and crew stood about, or leaned on the rail, watching with growing apprehension as the frigate gradually crept up on them. When two bells were struck, announcing five o'clock, individual sails on the jib boom and foremast of the frigate could be distinguished. From the waterline she presented a diamond shape with a fraction of the downward point cut off, nine-tenths of the remainder being made up of bulging white canvas.

At ten minutes past five a puff of smoke billowed out from her bows and some seconds later they heard the report of the gun. But the shot fell far astern of the sloop and was obviously intended only as a summons to her to heave to.

By twenty past they could clearly see the crest of foam on either side of the frigate's cut-water. Five minutes later she opened fire in earnest with her bow-chaser. The first shot was short by a good two hundred yards, and half a dozen others, fired at the rate of one a minute, failed to reach their target. Yet the spouts of water sent up from the sea by the fall of each shot gradually came nearer.

Roger, endeavouring to assess their chances of getting away, thanked all his gods that the sky was overcast. Sunset could not be far off and darkness should hide them from the enemy well before six o'clock. Yet within the next quarter of an hour they might easily be dismasted, and so compelled to surrender. With one half of his mind he was trying to think up a plausible story to tell about himself in the event of capture.

Suddenly a cannon ball clanged on the iron post of the stern lantern, bounced on the deck and whistled harmlessly off at a tangent. Formby turned to Roger. His eyes were wide and his young face white as he said, ^' I've never fought a ship before, sir, and our twelve-pounder in the stern is useless at this range. What do you advise? Should we continue to hold our course or risk a tack? '

Angry that his safety should have been entrusted to such an inexperienced man, yet sorry for him, Roger replied, 'You are the Captain of this ship, so it is for you to decide. Were I in your place I would hold my course but run up the white flag. That would fox them into ceasing fire temporarily. The French are not such fools as to sink a ship if they think there is a good chance of capturing her. While their Captain is nurturing a false belief that we have surrendered, with luck we'd get away in the darkness.'

^' No, no! ' Formby protested. ^'1 could not do that. It would be dishonourable so to deceive our enemies.'

Roger gave a cynical laugh. 'When you have played tag with the French as long as I have you will realize that since the Revolution the majority of them who now wear officer's uniform are unscrupulous scoundrels and would think no trick too low to get the better of you. But, I repeat, the responsibility of saving this ship from capture is yours, so you must take such action as you think best.'

For some time past he had been increasingly perturbed by recalling his conversation with Georgina, and her fear that through some ill-chance he might be caught out as a spy. Once safely landed in France, he had little fear of that, but there was now no escaping the fact that a few more direct hits by the frigate's cannon balls might force the sloop to surrender.

At best that would mean imprisonment and an indefinite postponement of his mission, but it might have far more serious developments. Should someone aboard the frigate, or in France when he was landed there as a prisoner, chance to have known him during the years he had spent in that country under the name of Breuc, it was going to be no easy matter to explain his presence aboard a British ship-of-war. A little grimly, he realized that he was now in grave danger from exactly that ^' lesser risk' of which he had made so light.

3

The Lesser Risk

Barely concealing his disgust at Roger's ^' dishonourable' attitude to waging war, Formby ordered the Jack to be run up. The frigate's captain was already doing his utmost to sink the sloop or compel her to surrender, so openly proclaiming her to be British added nothing to their danger. But as the little stern gun could not have sent a shot within hundreds of yards of the enemy, or have done her serious damage even had the shot landed, the Lieutenant's gesture was no more than one of futile defiance.

Roger was not at all surprised that his advice had been rejected; but since it had, and there was no other means of gaining a temporary respite from the frigate's fire, he felt that he should no longer delay taking such steps as he could for his own protection. Within the next quarter of an hour he might be killed or drowned, and that was a risk there was no escaping; but, if he did survive this one-sided action, he meant to do everything he could to preserve his identity of Colonel Breuc and, with his usual resourcefulness, he had thought of a plan which, as far as the French were concerned, should give him a fair chance of doing so.

Turning again to Formby he said, ^' The Government having placed this sloop at my disposal to take me to France is sufficient indication of the weight they attach to my mission. If we are captured it is of the utmost importance that the French should not realize that I am an Englishman. Therefore, should you shortly decide that you have no option but to surrender, I desire that you first have me put in irons and locked in the lazaret, then tell our captors that I am a Frenchman and that you picked me up this mid-day endeavouring to get to France in a small sailing boat which was near sinking.'

' If that is your wish, I'll see it carried out,' Formby replied. Then he added with a sudden show of spirit, ^' But, dam' me, I'll not surrender my ship; not till she's either dismasted or holed below the waterline.'

Clapping him on the shoulder, Roger smiled. 'To hear you express such a sentiment warms my heart, Lieutenant. Since your crew leaves much to be 'desired in handling ship, let us then continue to take our punishment while forging dead ahead, and pray that fortune may aid us to escape.'

As he spoke, the frigate's bow-chaser boomed again. Next moment the Quartermaster at the wheel gave a single scream and collapsed upon the deck. The cannon ball had taken him squarely in the small of the back, cutting him nearly in half and spattering his blood in all directions.

Luckily the spent shot had not seriously damaged the wheel, only shearing off one of the spokes, and it was quickly secured by the bo'sun. But the ball had cleft the air barely a yard from Roger, so that he had felt the wind of it brush his cheek. More than once he had owed his life to having no false shame about taking cover when under fire and, while others about him were still gaping at the gory remains of the unfortunate Quartermaster, he left the poop in two swift bounds for the greater safety of the well-deck below it.

He had scarcely picked himself up and stationed himself under the ladder, where he would be protected not only from a direct hit but also from flying splinters should a shot smash into the deck forward of him, than the frigate's gun boomed again. This time she missed, but her next shot smacked through the sail above him, leaving a large rent in it.

Crouching there, he thanked his stars that he was only a passenger and had no duty to perform or obligation to set an example by remaining exposed upon the poop, as was the case with Formby.

The young Lieutenant, meanwhile, white-faced but determined, remained at his post, cursing his inability to return the frigate's fire. But he ordered the after gun to be run out and loaded in readiness, for it looked as if their pursuer would soon be in range of his smaller armament.

Dusk had now fallen and the enemy's next two shots went wide.

After the second, knowing there would be a minute's interval before another could be fired, Roger swung himself round the ladder and ran a few steps up to it to get a quick look astern over the taffrail. The semi-darkness obscured the outline of the frigate but her position could still be clearly seen because she had lit her lanterns.

At that moment there came a sharp crack and flash. Formby had just given the gunner the order to fire the little twelve-pounder. Instead of ducking back, as he had been about to do, Roger leapt up the remaining steps of the ladder on to the poop. His action nearly cost him his life. Another ball smacked into the deck only a few feet in front of him. It would have carried off his head had it not landed on a ring-bolt which caused it to ricochet and whine away over his shoulder. Dashing forward he grabbed Formby by the arm, and shouted:

' Are you mad to fire upon the frigate? *

Angered by such arbitrary treatment, Formby jerked his arm away. 'How dare you address me in such terms? ' he cried hotly. ^' Get back to your funk hole and leave me to fight my ship.'

^' Funk hole be damned,' Roger retorted. ^' I've killed more men than you've been months at sea. Unless you want your ship shot to pieces order your gunner to blow out his match.'

Drawing himself up, Formby snapped, ^' For this impertinence, sir, I could have you put in irons. I am the Captain of this ship and-'

^'1 care not if you are the King of Spain,' roared Roger. ^' Have you not the sense to realize that though we can see the frigate on account of her lights, she can scarce see us as ours are still unlit? To her we can now be no more than a dark shadow. Another few minutes and we'll be hidden by the blessed dark. But do you continue to fire your popgun you'll be giving her a mark by which she may yet sink us.'

The frigate's gun boomed again. Seconds later the shot crashed through the stern rail, sending deadly splinters flying in all directions. One caught the Yeoman of Signals in the fleshy part of the thigh, and he gave vent to a spate of curses. But this fourth hit gave point to Roger's argument and Formby had the grace to admit that he was right. Fighting down his humiliation, he gulped:

^'1 stand corrected, Mr. Brook. The temptation at least to show fight got the better of my judgment. We'll not fire on her again and in a few minutes we'll chance a tack with the hope of getting clear of her altogether.'

Several more shots came over but no further hits were scored. As eight bells sounded, signifying the end of the first dog-watch, they turned on to a new course and, shortly afterwards, the firing ceased. They had been saved by the early coming of the winter night.

Now that the action was over, Roger began to consider how it might have affected his plans. When they had sighted the frigate they had been about five hours' sailing from Dieppe, given a continuance of the wind in roughly the same force and direction. Although by nine o'clock it would have been fully dark, only the fisher folk would have turned in for the night at that hour, so he had intended to have the sloop hold off a couple of miles or so from the shore until midnight. But for the past two hours they had been sailing away from Dieppe, and the wind would be less favourable heading back in that direction. Therefore it would now be midnight, or perhaps one in the morning, before they reached the normally deserted cove in which he intended to land. The loss of an hour was of no importance, or two for that matter. His only definite requirement was that he should be put ashore in ample time to get well away from the coast before morning.

To Formby he said, ^' Now that we are out of trouble, Lieutenant, I pray your leave to retire to my cabin. I've a hard day ahead of me tomorrow, and it's unlikely that I'll get any sleep for the best part of twenty-four hours; so I've a mind to put in a few hours before I land.'

'That would certainly be wise,' the Lieutenant agreed, 'and you should have a good meal too. Shortly now the galley will produce something for us, and Trumper will relieve me while I have the pleasure of entertaining you.'

Roger shook his head. 'I thank you, but beg to be excused. I am a poor sailor and hot meals at sea are apt to play the devil with my stomach. I've some hard tack in my cabin which will suit me better, should I feel hungry.' Then, not wishing to seem churlish to the young officer after having been so brusque with him, he added with a smile,' But if you chance to have a decanter of wine handy I'd be delighted to take a glass with you before I turn in.'

'Indeed I have.' Formby's face brightened. 'Let's go below.'

In his cabin he produced some very passable Madeira, of which they drank two glasses apiece, while wishing one another good fortune. Then, having asked to be called at midnight, Roger went to his own cabin.

There he made a scratch meal from his small but carefully chosen stock of provisions, then undressed and, still ruminating on his good luck at having escaped capture, fell asleep.

At midnight the Lieutenant's servant woke him. A quarter of an hour later he had dressed and, carrying his small valise, went up on deck. There was no moon and as cloud obscured the greater part of the heavens it was almost totally dark; so it was a perfect night for a secret landing. Groping his way up to the poop, Roger saw Formby's face lit by the glow from the binnacle. Stepping up to him, he asked:

'How long should we be now? Whereabouts on the French coast do you estimate us to be at the moment? '

Looking up, Formby replied, 'As far as I can judge by dead reckoning, the coast on our beam should be a few miles south of Le Touquet.'

' Le Touquet! ' Roger echoed, aghast. ' But that is not far from Boulogne, and sixty miles or more north of Dieppe. What in hell's name led you to bring your ship up-Channel? '

The Lieutenant bridled. ' After our experience this afternoon surely you would not have had me go about and again risk capture? We might well have run into that frigate.'

' In darkness and with our lights out there would not have been one chance in five hundred of our doing so,' Roger snapped. 'And here am I, a half-hour after midnight, still several hours' distant from the place at which I wished to land.'

' I'm sorry, Mr. Brook.' Formby's voice held evident contrition. 'I was under the impression that you'd mentioned that cove south of Dieppe only as a preference, and that it would have served your purpose to be landed at any quiet spot on the French coast. But I'll put her about and beat down to Dieppe if you wish.'

Roger considered for a minute. With the wind in its present quarter it was unlikely that they could reach Dieppe before six o'clock in the morning, and that was much too late to risk a landing. He could require Formby to turn back towards England, cruise off the Sussex coast for twelve hours, then run in again to put him ashore near Dieppe the following night. But that would mean the loss of yet another day in reporting to General Bonaparte; worse, the wind might change, rendering it impossible for him to land in France for another forty-eight hours or more.

Although he hated being at sea in uncertain weather, he had deliberately chosen the much longer crossing to Dieppe, rather than the short one across the Straits of Dover. It had been only a minor consideration that Lymington was one of the most convenient ports from which to cross to Dieppe and that, if he were held up by the weather, he could wait there in the comfort of his old home instead of a draughty inn in Margate or Sandwich. His choice had been governed by the fact that, whereas Calais was over a hundred and fifty miles from Paris, Dieppe was less than a hundred.

In the days of the ancien regime the difference would have mattered little. The corvee—the system of conscripting the peasants once a year for forced labour on the roads—had been one of the most bitterly resented impositions of the Monarchy, but it had kept the roads in excellent condition. Moreover, every few miles there had been Royal Post Houses—well-run hostelries at which travellers could secure good meals and relays of horses without delay or difficulty.

All that had been entirely changed by the Revolution. The roads had become nobody's responsibility. After six years of neglect they had fallen into an appalling state of disrepair, pockmarked with pot-holes sometimes as much as two feet deep and, in wet weather, having in places stretches of almost impassable mud. So many horses had been commandeered for the Army that relays often took hours to obtain, and the inns in which travellers were compelled to wait had become bug-ridden dens staffed by surly servants. To frequent breakdowns and other discomforts had to be added the lawless state of the countryside with the risk of being held up and robbed by bands of deserters.

In consequence, where in the old days it had been possible to travel from Calais to Paris overnight, it could now take up to four days in winter, with the certainty of passengers having time and again to get out, unload their vehicle and, knee-deep in mud, manhandle it out of the deep ruts in which it had become bogged down.

With fury in his heart, Roger thought of the additional fifty miles of such nightmare travel he would now have to face if he were landed in the neighbourhood of Boulogne. But he decided that he could not afford to risk another night at sea, with the possibility that the weather might turn foul and delay his landing by several days.

Turning to Formby, he said coldly, 'Very well, then. Run in, and we will reconnoitre the coast for a place suitable for me to be put ashore.'

At the Lieutenant's command the sloop altered course to northeast. Twenty minutes later they picked up a winking light on their starboard quarter which they decided must be the harbour beacon of the little fishing village of Le Touquet. Although the sky was mainly overcast, a faint starlight percolated through a few rents in the scudding clouds and, as they drew closer inshore, it was just sufficient for them to make out patches of white cliff against the dead blackness of the night sky above them.

While the sloop ploughed on until the Le Touquet beacon had become only a speck astern, Roger and Formby alternately studied the coast through the latter's night glass, until Roger said, ' Somewhere here should serve.'

Formby gave orders to stand in, start sounding and prepare to lower a boat. For some minutes a monotonous chant broke the silence as a seaman swung the lead. When he called four fathoms the command was given to heave to, and the sails came rustling down. A kedge-anchor was thrown out and the boat lowered and manned. Formby wished Roger luck, they shook hands, then Roger climbed down into the stern of the boat.

It had a crew of six: the coxswain, four oarsmen and a man in the bow to jump out with the painter. No sooner had it started to pull away than Roger's attention was caught by the loud splashing of the oars. For a secret landing such as this the oars should have been muffled and it was another indication of Formby's lack of experience that this precaution had been neglected. It was now too late to do anything about it, but Roger said to the coxswain in a low voice:

' Go easy. Tell the men to dip their oars gently; and there's to be no talking.'

As the coxswain passed on his order, Roger reflected that it was hardly necessary to observe caution to the point where it would double the time it would take for the boat to reach the shore, and he realized that he had given it only as a result of habit. Even so, perhaps it had been wise, since the coast here was so much nearer to England than at Dieppe that it was much more frequently patrolled, and one could not be too careful.

Slowly the boat nosed its way in, was lifted slightly by the surf and grounded on the beach. The bowman jumped out and threw his weight on the painter to keep the boat from being sucked back by the undertow. But the man was still standing calf-deep in water and as the wavelets broke they were wetting him up to the thighs. Seing this by the faint starlight, Roger said to the coxswain:

^' Be good enough to have the boat hauled up for me. It will be many hours before I can "secure a change of clothes and I have no mind to spend the night in those I am wearing half soaked with seawater.'

^' Aye, aye, sir! ' The coxswain spoke sharply to his crew. The four oarsmen shipped their oars, scrambled over the side into the surf and set about dragging the boat up out of the sea. When the bow was clear of the water Roger stood up, with a word of thanks slipped a guinea into the coxswain's hand, scrambled over the thwarts and jumped ashore.

When he sprang out the men were still heaving and cursing, and as they dragged at the boat the keel was making a loud, grating sound on a patch of shingle. It was these noises which had prevented any of them hearing other sounds up by the cliff face. Before Roger caught them he had taken a dozen paces along the shore in the direction of Le Touquet. His heart began to hammer. They were, unmistakably, the footfalls of men running towards the sea. At this hour, in such a deserted spot, it could only be a French patrol that had seen the faint outline of the sloop or heard the boat approaching from her.

He gave a swift glance round. The seamen were now endeavouring to re-launch the boat. He could dash back to it. But would they get it off in time? Even if they did it was certain that the French patrol would be armed with muskets and the boat still within point-blank range.

The alternative was to chance taking to his heels. The men in the patrol would, without doubt, head straight for the boat, in the hope of capturing it as well as its crew. If they reached it before it was afloat a fight would ensue. They would then be too fully occupied to come after him before the darkness had rendered it impossible for them to tell the direction he had taken. He was already some way from the boat and as soon as the patrol came within sight of it the eyes of all of them would be riveted on it; so he might even escape their notice and get clear away without fear of pursuit.

While these thoughts were racing through his mind, the seamen were shouting in alarm and urging one another to greater efforts to get the boat off. Through their shouting cut cries of challenge from the French and demands by them to stand or be fired upon. Without waiting another second, Roger plunged forward and pelted along the shore as fast as his legs would carry him.

Before he had covered fifty yards a shot rang out. Fearing that it might have been aimed at him, he did a quick swerve, then looked back over his shoulder. A second was fired at that moment and for an instant its flash lit the scene behind him as brightly as daylight. Two groups of black silhouettes stood out sharply. The boat had been got off, and the coxswain stood in the stern, his arm extended, pointing a pistol; but three of the seamen, clustered round the bow, had not yet managed to clamber aboard. No more than fifteen feet away the French patrol was charging down the slope. It was led by a figure waving a sword and some of the men had their muskets raised, with the evident intent of firing as they ran. Roger judged there to be at least a dozen of them, but it was obvious that their whole attention was concentrated on the boat's crew and he doubted if any of them had given even a glance in his direction.

To put as great a distance as he could between them and himself while he had the chance, he clutched his valise to his chest, threw back his head, tucked his elbows into his sides and sprinted a good hundred yards. Panting for breath, he then eased his pace, stumbled a few more paces, halted and again looked back. Shouts and curses still echoed back from the chalk cliffs, but darkness now completely hid the scene. Suddenly another firearm flashed.

The boat was well away; a good twenty feet out from the water's edge. Two of the men in her had got out oars and were pulling for the ship. Some of the French had followed the boat out into the sea and were brandishing their weapons but they were already waist-deep and had halted, so it was clear that she would get away. None the less, their skirmish with the crew had not proved altogether a failure. They had captured one of the seamen. Before darkness again blanketed the scene Roger glimpsed a group of them dragging him away, still struggling, up the slope of the beach.

After gulping in a few breaths, he ran on again, but at a steadier pace until he had covered about a quarter of a mile. The shooting and yelling in his rear had ceased. Suddenly, in the renewed silence, he heard the steps of someone running towards him.

Next moment the faint starlight revealed two figures emerging from the gloom ahead. Swerving, Roger spurted towards the greater darkness beneath the cliff. But it was too late. They had seen him. One of them shouted, ' Qui vive?\ then they, too, both swerved inland to intercept him.

With bitter fury he realized that, already winded as he was, there could be no hope of evading them. The only course appeared to be to fight it out. Dropping his valise he thrust his hand into the pocket of his coat, pulled out the little double-barrelled pistol and cocked it as he ran. A dozen yards from the water's edge his path and theirs intersected. The bigger of the two was leading. He had drawn a sabre and swung it high to cleave Roger's head. While the sabre was still pointing skyward Roger fired. The bullet struck the man in the right shoulder. With a howl of pain he dropped his arm and the sabre slipped from his grasp. As he staggered away, the second man came at Roger with a short sword. Roger fired his second barrel, but missed. Dodging the man's thrust, he ran in and smashed the fist that held the pistol with all his force into his antagonist's face. He, too, dropped his weapon, clapped his hands to his broken nose and bleeding mouth, then lurched away moaning.

For a moment it seemed that Roger would yet escape capture but, even as he stood there, his chest heaving painfully from his efforts, he caught the sound of more thudding footfalls fast approaching. It flashed upon him then that the two men he had rendered hors de combat must be only the first to appear of a second patrol stationed further along the coast. It must have been alerted by the sound of firing as the first patrol attacked the boat.

Desperately, he looked about him. To run back the way he had come meant certain capture. The cliff was much too high to scale and it shut him off from attempting to escape inland. But there was still the sea. Sobbing for breath he swung about, pounded down the slope, splashed through the shallows, then flung himself headlong into the water.

It was icy. As his head came up above the surf his heart contracted in a spasm and a shudder ran through him. But, still almost entirely submerged, he stumbled and thrust his way out until, with only his head above water, his feet could just touch the sea-bed.

He had decided to take the plunge on a sudden inspiration that he might get away by swimming out to the sloop. But he had temporarily overlooked the fact that it was early February. As he stood there, up to his neck in the sea, he knew that had he attempted to swim the Channel his chances of success would have been no more hopeless. Strong swimmer though he was even if he could have wriggled out of his heavy travelling coat and rid himself of his boots the cold would have numbed him into insensibility before he had swum a hundred yards.

Yet he still had one faint hope. Racked with pain as they were, the two men he had wounded might not have seen which way he had gone. If so, the patrol would divide to search the shore for him in both directions. Then, if he could stand the cold long enough, he might crawl out and find a hiding place under the cliff until the coast was clear of his enemies. To fortify himself against the ordeal he foresaw he got out his flask of brandy and took a long pull from it. The spirit coursed through his veins like a fire, yet gave him only temporary relief from the deadly chill.

And his hope proved vain. The man he had shot in the shoulder had seen him run off and splash into the sea. As the main body of the patrol came up he began shouting to them, and Roger could plainly hear him giving an account of what had happened. In the faint starlight he could just make out the group of figures as it split up, and the men spread themselves along the shore, evidently peering seaward in an endeavour to spot him.

With only his head above water, and against the black background of the sea, he knew that it would prove impossible for them to do so. But his lips were blue with cold and shudders ran through him every moment. He felt certain now that if his body remained for another five minutes in the grip of those icy waters he would die there. Miserably he admitted to himself that there was nothing for it but to surrender, so he began to wade ashore.

As soon as his chest was above the level of the sea, he feebly waved an arm and cried in French, ^' Don't shoot! I give myself up to you.'

No sooner had he spoken the words than he realized that, taken by surprise, he had committed an appalling blunder. Instead of firing his pistol when attacked, those were the very words he should have used, adding, ' I am a Frenchman, and have just escaped from the English/

To account for himself he could have told the story he had given to Formby—that he had been picked up by the sloop while attempting to get to France in a small sailing boat, or that he was a French prisoner-of-war who had escaped from the Isle of Wight and had bribed the Captain of the sloop to bring him over. By wounding two men of the patrol he had quite unnecessarily declared himself to* be an enemy. Now it was going to be the very devil of a job to make his captors believe otherwise.

With his mind almost atrophied by cold, he vaguely berated himself for his folly, while lurching and stumbling his way ashore. When he reached the strand he collapsed upon it.

Laughing at the obvious madness of this Englishman who had endeavoured to escape by taking refuge in the sea when it was near freezing, but by no means lacking in humanity, the men of the patrol stripped off his heavy coat and pummelled a little warmth back into his shuddering limbs. Then one of them produced a flask of cognac and at short intervals tipped the greater part of it down Roger's throat.

After this treatment he was sufficiently recovered to gulp out that he was a Frenchman, and would later give them the story of how he had escaped from England. At that, they exclaimed in great surprise and at once asked why, if that were so, he had attacked their two comrades. Roger stammered out that by coming upon him suddenly in the dark they had caught him unawares, and that he had been forced to it in self-defence, otherwise they would have cut him down before he had had a chance to explain himself.

His French accent was so impeccable that, to his great relief, they no longer appeared to have doubts about his nationality; but they obviously remained extremely puzzled about his behaviour.

As soon as he could stand, the officer said, ' We will get to the bottom of this later. Let's take him along to the other patrol and find out what has happened there.'

Two of the men then took Roger by the arms and helped him walk the quarter of a mile back to the place on the beach where he had landed. The rents between the clouds were larger now, so the brighter light from the stars enabled him to see that opposite this place there was a dark gap in the cliff leading up to higher ground. In the entrance to it the other patrol was gathered and several of the men had lit lanterns. Their officer came forward and exchanged reports with the one who led Roger's party. Then they all moved up to the entrance to the gap.

Just inside it there was a rough lean-to, which was evidently used by the patrol as a shelter in bad weather. Stretched out on the ground under it, half propped up against a wooden bench, lay an unconscious figure. Roger guessed that it must be the seaman who had been captured, and that to put an end to his struggles he had been given a knock on the head. A moment later, by the light of one of the lanterns, he recognized the man as Giffens.

The two officers conferred again, and from what they said Roger gathered that he and Giffens were to be taken to a nearby house and locked up there till morning. A few minutes later, led by the officer of the first patrol, and with two men carrying the unconscious Giffens, a party with Roger in its midst set off up the steep slope through the gap between the cliffs. Roger, still swaying with exhaustion, had to be helped, but on reaching the top of the cliffs they had not far to go. In a hollow a quarter of a mile beyond the cliffs lay a small farmhouse, which had been taken over by the Military. The shutters were closed so no lights showed from the windows, but inside the kitchen a bright fire was burning and two lanterns hung from the central beam of the room.

For the first time Roger had the chance to get a good look at his captors. The officer was a medium-sized man with a long, droopy nose, prawn-like eyebrows and a greying moustache. He was dressed in a threadbare uniform, and one of his men had just addressed him as Citizen Lieutenant Tardieu.

Roger was shaking as though he had the ague, and a pot of soup was bubbling on the stove; so one of the men gave him a bowl of it. He swallowed about half the soup in a succession of gulps, then the Lieutenant said, 'Now you must give me an account of yourself.'

Pulling himself together, although his teeth were still inclined to chatter, Roger replied, ' I can go into no details in my present condition. I can only ask you to accept my statement that my name is Breuc, and that the sufferings I endured during my escape from England were such that I was half out of my wits when those two men attacked me, so I automatically defended myself. In due course I shall have no difficulty in proving my identity. I hold the rank of Colonel and while in Italy had the honour to be one of General Bonaparte's aides-de-camp.'

Citizen Tardieu's eyes widened. ^' What's this you say? Aide-de-camp to General Bonaparte! I can scarce credit that.' Then after a moment he added, 'Still, since you aver it, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and treat you with the respect due to the rank you claim.'

He then gave orders to two of his men who were standing by to fetch blankets and heat them by the fire. Ten minutes later the men helped Roger upstairs to a bedroom, assisted him to get out of his waterlogged clothes, then wrapped him in the blankets and put him to bed.

When they left the room he heard one of them lock the door, but if it had been left wide open he would not have had the strength to stagger down the stairs in a bid to escape. As things were, he would not have made the attempt, even had he been able to do so, for he felt confident that he now had little to fear. Before he was questioned again he could trust to his fertile mind to have ready a convincing story of an escape from England and, even if he were kept prisoner for a week or so, it should not be difficult to produce evidence that he was, in fact, one of General Bonaparte's aides. Greatly relieved in mind, he dropped off to sleep.

When he awoke it was broad daylight and the Lieutenant was standing beside his bed. With a pleasant smile his visitor asked, ^' Well, and how is General Bonaparte's aide-de-camp feeling this morning? '

Rousing himself, Roger returned the smile and replied, 'Very different from last night, and almost myself again, I thank you.'

The smile suddenly left Citizen Tardieu's face, and he snapped, ^' A taller, more impudent story I have never heard. General Bonaparte's aide-de-camp, indeed! Through an interpreter I have questioned the seaman we captured. He says he knows you well. You are the son of no less a person than Admiral Sir Brook, and an accursed Englishman sent here as a spy.'

A Desperate Situation

For a moment Roger was utterly taken aback. Fie had been roused from a sound sleep barely two minutes earlier, and the events of the previous night were only just assuming their proper sequence in his mind. Yet almost his first memory was of his last conscious thought before he slept—that the officer beside him had agreed temporarily to give his claim to be one of General Bonaparte's aides-de-camp the benefit of the doubt, and his own confidence that he would find means in the morning to substantiate that claim.

Now he recalled having seen Giffens lying unconscious in the patrol's lean-to but, at that time, owing to his own recent ordeal, he had been hardly conscious himself. It had not even entered his mind that the disgruntled ex-groom might betray him. Taken entirely by surprise, he propped himself up in bed on one elbow and stammered:

^'1 ... I don't know what you're talking about. Admiral Brook? I . . . I've never heard of him. Giffens ... the man is lying.'

'I do not think so,' replied Tardieu coldly. ^'He says that he has known you for several years, and has given us chapter and verse about you. From him we also know that the ship from which you landed was a British sloop-of-war. What purpose could a naval vessel have for standing in here secretly at night other than to put ashore a spy? I mean to see that you get your

Roger made no further attempt to protest his innocence. Experience had taught him that when in a dangerous situation the less said the better. He feared that he had already said too much. To have protested that he had never heard of his own father had been unnecessary; worse, by mentioning Giffens by name he had admitted that he knew the seaman, which might later be difficult to explain if he was to get his story accepted that he had been picked up in the Channel.

As he thrust back the blankets he saw that his clothes were in a bundle on a nearby chair. Evidently they had been dried during the night and put there while he was still asleep. Tardieu walked towards the door. When opening it, he glanced back and, seeing that Roger was looking in the direction of the window, snapped:

^' Don't imagine you can give us the slip that way. I've a sentry posted outside with orders to shoot you should you so much as show your head.'

^' My compliments, Citizen, upon your forethought,' Roger replied tartly.

Left to himself, he took his time in dressing and used it to take stock of his alarming situation. It was, he decided, about as tough a corner as any in which he had ever found himself. Any immediate attempt to escape was obviously out of the question, and his only course was to await developments while saying as little as possible. His one consolation was that he had taken no harm from his immersion in the freezing sea. The brandy and hot soup he had been given, and his sound sleep between the warm blankets, had saved him from pneumonia or even from catching a severe chill.

When he felt that he could delay no longer he went down the narrow stairs to the kitchen. Tardieu was standing there with three of his men. Giffens was sitting on a stool in a corner mopping up with a hunk of bread what remained of a bowl of soup. As Roger appeared he gave him one swift, hostile glance, then kept his eyes averted.

Roger looked towards the kitchen range, upon which a pot was bubbling, hoping that he was about to be given some breakfast. Guessing his thought, Tardieu pulled at his grey moustache, then said with a sneer, ^' It would be a waste of a meal to give you one. You won't need it where you're going.' Then, turning to one of his men, he added, ^' Tie his hands, Corporal, then bring him outside.'

At that Roger's scalp began to prickle and the palms of his hands suddenly became damp. He could only conclude that there and then they meant to take him out and shoot him. Instantly he broke into violent protests, demanding a trial, a lawyer, a priest.

Ignoring his outburst, Tardieu drew a pistol, cocked it and pointed it at him. Faced with the probability of immediate death if he resisted, he had no alternative but to allow the Corporal to tie his hands behind his back. When the man had knotted the cord securely he said:

^' No need to keep him covered any longer, Citizen Lieutenant. Should he try any tricks now we've only to give him a good kick.'

Tardieu put up his pistol and led the way out. Roger was pushed after him by the three soldiers and Giffens brought up the rear. Drawn up in front of the farmhouse there was a small, covered cart with a single horse harnessed to it and two other horses tethered nearby. At the sight of them Roger, now wide-eyed and sweating at the thought that they had intended to put him up against the rear wall of the farmhouse and shoot him, felt a surge of temporary relief. Evidently he was to be taken somewhere in the cart, and even a brief postponement of his execution might yet give him a chance to save his life.

Two of the men bundled Roger into the cart. At a sign from the Corporal, Giffens clambered in after him and the two soldiers climbed on to the driver's seat. Mounting one of the horses, Tardieu took the lead; then, with the Corporal bringing up the rear on the other horse, they set off.

The road was no more than a rutted track, and the rumble of the cartwheels on the hard ground drowned all other sounds; so, as soon as Roger had recovered a little from the ghastly five minutes he had just been through, he wriggled into a more comfortable position and said to Giffens: ^' Are you not utterly ashamed of yourself? ' ^' Why should I be? ' muttered the man surlily. ^' For having betrayed a fellow-countryman, of course.' Giffens shrugged. ^'1 don't hold with nationalities. There's rich and poor in the world, that's all. And you be on the other side to I. Besides, it were either me or you.' ^' What makes you suppose that? '

^' Why, they'd 'ave sent I to the galleys. But by givin' you away I've saved me bacon, ain't I? '

Roger managed an unpleasant little laugh.^'1 wouldn't count on that. These Frenchmen of the Revolution have a nasty habit of using one enemy to bring about the death of another, then ridding themselves of his betrayer. I ought to know, seeing that I am a Frenchman myself.'

'You a Frenchie! ' Giffens snorted. 'Don't give me such gab. I know different. You're Admiral Brook's son, just as I tells the officer when 'e questions me an 'our back.'

' I've no doubt you believe so,' Roger said quietly. ' But in that you are wrong. How long is it since you think you last saw me? '

Giffens scratched his^head. 'Let's see now. Miss Amanda were married in the summer o' ninety, weren't she? Then you come down to Walhampton with she the following spring; so 'twould be getting on seven year agone. But I seed you many a time afore that.'

' No, it was my English cousin, Roger Brook, you saw. We are near the same age and have a striking resemblance. But I am of the French branch of the family and was born in Strasbourg. That is why my name is spelt B-r-e-u-c.'

'Them's a pack o' lies fit only for the marines. Seems to 'ave slipped your memory that only yesterday you played the fine English gentleman an' threatened me with a floggin'. You was Mr. Roger Brook then, right enough, an' made no pretence otherwise.'

' Indeed, no; and I'd have been out of my mind to do so, seeing that I was passing myself off as him in order to get back to France.'

' That's another tall one. 'Ow come it that you recognized me, then? It was you as said to me, " 'Aven't I seen your face some place afore? " Remember? '

'Certainly. And I had. On several occasions while our two countries were still at peace I stayed at Lymington with my relatives, and more than once I visited Walhampton with the Admiral—or Captain Brook, as he then was.'

Giffens was evidently shaken, but he stubbornly shook his head and declared, ' I'll not believe it. I'll be danged if I do.'

Sensing the doubt he had sown in the man's mind, Roger pressed his advantage, and retorted, 'You will continue to disbelieve me at your peril. Listen, Giffens. Believe it or not, I am a Frenchman and a Colonel on the Staff of the most important General in France. There are hundreds of officers in the French Army to whom my face is well known. When we reach the place to which we are being taken I shall demand to see the local Military Commander. I'll then have no difficulty in establishing my true identity. I shall, of course, at once be freed. But what of you? If you persist in this idea of yours and make it more difficult for me to get a fair hearing I vow I'll see to it that you are sent to the galleys. If, on the other hand, you are prepared to admit that you may have been mistaken I'll see that you are treated decently and perhaps even arrange an exchange for you.'

For the better part of a minute Giffens remained silent, then he muttered, ' I'll 'ave to think about it. I told the bloke what did the interpreting that my politics was red-'ot Republican, an' arter that they treated me very friendly-like. So as things be I ain't afraid they'll send me to the galleys. But say I goes back on what I said about ye, all the odds is they'll act very different. I've still 'alf a mind that you'se lying; but even given I'm wrong about that, maybe none'11 be found as knows you for a French Colonel, so they'll shoot you just the same. That 'ud be 'ard luck on you, but on me too. No sayin' I were a Republican would do me no good then. They'd clamp the fetters on me an' afore you was cold in your grave I'd find meself a slave in a dockyard.'

There was sound reasoning behind Giffen's argument. As Roger knew only too well, the chances of coming across an officer with whom he could claim acquaintance were all too slender and, although he continued to argue with the man for some while longer, he could not persuade him to commit himself.

Nevertheless, being by nature an optimist, Roger derived some little comfort from their conversation. It was Giffens who had denounced him and if, as he now thought probable, he was to be given some form of trial, Giffens would be the principal witness against him. It was no small achievement to have both sown doubt in his mind and scared him. Whereas before he would undoubtedly have given his evidence with malicious gusto, it now seemed fairly certain that even if he did not hedge he would exercise some degree of caution in what he said.

As the cart jogged on across the windswept downs both its occupants began to suffer from the cold. Giffens could slap his arms across his chest now and then to keep his circulation going. He had also had a hot breakfast, whereas Roger had an empty stomach and, with his hands tied behind him, could do no more than drum with his feet on the floorboards of the cart. Except that it had a hood the cart might easily have been taken for a tumbril and after an hour in it Roger's spirits had again fallen so low that he began to think of it as one in which he was being driven to the guillotine.

At length, between the undrawn curtains above the backboard, glimpses of occasional houses could be seen. Then the cart clattered down a succession of mean streets, to pull up outside a big building in a square, after a journey that had lasted about two hours. As Roger was helped out, he recognized the place as Boulogne and the buildijig as its Hotel de Ville.

His guards hustled him inside, took him down a flight of stone stairs to a basement and handed him over to a turnkey, who locked him, cold, hungry and miserable, into a cell. But he was not left to shiver there for long. After a quarter of an hour the turnkey returned with a companion, and they marched him up to the ground floor again, then into a spacious courtroom.

Earlier that morning the uniforms of Roger's captors had confirmed his belief that they were not Regular troops but Coastguards, with similar functions to the English Preventives, whose principal task was to stop smuggling. In consequence, as he had feared might be the case, he now saw that he was about to be tried not by a military but by a civil court. That meant that he would stand less chance of convincing its members that he was a Colonel in the French Army.

At one time the courtroom had been a handsome apartment, but the walls were now stained with damp, the windows long uncleaned, with numerous cracked panes, and the straw on the floor badly in need of changing. Yet the state of it was far from being as bad as that of many so-called Courts of Justice that Roger had seen during the worst days of the Revolution. The walls of the room were not lined with pipe-smoking, spitting, out-at-elbows National Guards, or the public benches packed with an evil mob of both sexes which, at the first sign of the judges inclining to show mercy, would intimidate them by howling for the blood of the accused.

Here there were no more than half a dozen casual spectators: Tardieu with his men, Giffens, a handful of depressed-looking advocates in the well of the Court and three magistrates, who were sitting at a table on a dais. On the wall behind it the Axes and Fasces surmounted by the Cap of Liberty had long since replaced the Royal Arms of France.

As Roger was put in the dock he swiftly scrutinized the three magistrates seated on the dais. The only thing they had in common was that they all wore tricolour sashes. The Chairman was a tall, lean individual. He had a bulging forehead, was wearing steel-rimmed spectacles, a shiny suit of dark-green cloth and looked as if he might be a lawyer. On his right sat a heavy-jowled, fattish man with black, curly hair. He wore a bright-blue coat, a big horseshoe pin was stuck in his cravat and he was sucking a straw, so Roger put him down as probably a farmer or a horse-dealer. The third man was small, with apple-red cheeks, a snub nose, and was dressed very neatly in a snuff-coloured suit with silver buttons. His appearance suggested the well-to-do bourgeois merchant who had succeeded in living through the Terror.

One of the advocates, who was evidently the Public Prosecutor, got to his feet. He was elderly, thin-faced and had a rat-trap mouth. After taking a pinch of snuff, most of which fell upon his already snuff-stained gown, he opened the trial. In a tired, indifferent voice, he stated that he did not think the present matter would occupy the Court for long, as there was ample evidence to show that the prisoner was an English spy. He then called Tardieu.

Speaking quickly and using many gestures, the Coastguard Lieutenant gave an account of the happenings of the previous night. From time to time he ran a finger down his long nose and shot a malicious sideways glance at Roger, who rightly assumed that Tardieu, having been fooled into giving his prisoner the benefit of the doubt to start with, and a night in a comfortable bed, was now working off his spite. But he said nothing that Roger had not expected him to say.

The next witness was one of the men who had acted as escort from the farm. It transpired that he belonged to the second patrol and had been among the first to reach the two men whom Roger had wounded. In a gruff voice he described the injuries they had sustained and how Roger had taken refuge in the sea, but had been compelled, on account of the cold, to come up out of it and surrender.

Roger had been offered no legal aid; so he asked permission of the Court to cross-examine the witness, and it was granted. In reply to his questions, the man at once agreed that there had been no moon and that none of his party was carrying lanterns. Then, after some pressing, he admitted that it had been very dark and the starlight so feeble that an approaching figure could not be seen at more than a few paces.

The Prosecutor then informed the Court that the next witness would be a seaman of the British Navy. He was a member of the crew of the sloop-of-war that had brought Roger to France and had been captured when landing him from a boat. He would swear to having known the prisoner for a number of years and that he was an Englishman, the son of Admiral Sir Brook.

Giffens was put in the box and, by a series of little more than nods and grunts, confirmed, through an interpreter, the Prosecutor's statement. But Tardieu was not satisfied by this and took it on himself to prime the Prosecutor with further questions. This resulted in Giffens repeating, in dribs and drabs but fully, the statement he had volunteered so readily to the Coastguards early that morning. Roger could see that he had succeeded in scaring the man to a point at which he gave these details only with reluctance, but he could not prevent particulars of himself, his home at Lymington, his visits to Walhampton and his marriage to Amanda from coming out.

When they had finished with Giffens, Roger cross-examined him and, greatly to his relief, found that the seaman had made up his mind to hedge. He agreed almost eagerly that before Roger boarded the sloop at Lymington he had not seen him for nearly seven years, so might perhaps have mistaken him for the Admiral's son.

Roger then made a bold attempt to trade on Giffen's fears by saying, ' As you were at Walhampton before the war with France began, you surely must remember a French gentleman who came there several times with the Admiral: a cousin of young Mr. Brook, who strongly resembled him? '

Giffens gave him a startled look, shook his head, then, thinking better of it, mumbled something that the interpreter translated as, 'Well, perhaps. There were a lot of Frenchmen who were refugees from the Revolution living in Lymington in those days, and some of them visited at Walhampton. But I couldn't be certain.'

Although that left the matter in doubt, Roger felt, as Giffens stood down, that he had scored a valuable point and when the Prosecutor began to question him he gave his story with quiet confidence.

It was that General Bonaparte, knowing that he had spent several years of his boyhood in England and was bilingual, so could pass as an Englishman, had sent him there to report on the measures being taken by the English to resist invasion.

He had been landed on the Kentish coast by smugglers, and had spent the past six weeks staying in small towns on the Kent, Sussex and Hampshire coasts, working his way westward until he reached Lymington.

There, four nights ago, at an inn, he had got into conversation with a naval Lieutenant. This young man had been drinking heavily and, after they had talked for some while, confided that owing to gambling he had got himself into serious money troubles. The Lieutenant had also mentioned earlier that he was under orders to sail his sloop up to Dover as soon as the weather permitted.

Having covered the territory assigned him by his General, Roger was anxious to get back to France. Normally he would have had to wait until he could get in touch with another gang of smugglers working from the Hampshire coast; but the sloop had seemed too good an opportunity to miss if he could persuade the Lieutenant to put him over. He had, therefore, told the Lieutenant that he was a Government agent seeking a passage and asked his help. The officer had, at first, demurred, on the grounds that he would be acting without orders and might risk his ship if he stood in too near the French coast; but Roger had played on his anxiety about money and had overcome his scruples by offering him the considerable sum he would have had to pay a smuggler to run him across.

The Prosecutor then asked him a number of questions about his parentage, upbringing in England, later career in France, recent stay in England and whether, during it, he had been to Grove Place to see any of his English relatives.

Assuming the last question to be a trap, Roger replied promptly, 'Certainly not. With a war in progress how could I possibly have explained my presence in England to them? They would have felt compelled to hand me over to the authorities. On the contrary, while I was in Lymington I was in constant fear of being recognized; so I spent nearly all the two days I was there in my room at the inn. I would never have gone to Lymington at all had it not been a part of my instructions to report on the shipping in the harbour.'

To all the other questions he gave the stock answers which were now second nature to him, adding for full measure references to many of his well-known acquaintances in Paris and descriptions of some of the outstanding scenes he had witnessed there during the Revolution. Since he spoke without the slightest hesitation and in French that was beyond reproach, he felt confident by the time he had finished that he had convinced the Court that he was a Frenchman. Yet one matter arose out of his examination that caused him a few nasty moments.

From beneath the table at which he was sitting, the Prosecutor produced the little valise that Roger had brought ashore, and to which he had clung during his flight along the beach until he was compelled to drop it on meeting the two men who had attacked him. Opening the valise, the Prosecutor took from it a small squat bottle and handed it up to the magistrates for them to look at.

As Roger recognized it his heart gave a thump. The bottle bore a handwritten label, 'Grove Place; Cherry Brandy.' Old Jim Button made a couple of gallons or so of the cordial every year with the morello cherries that grew in the garden. Knowing Roger's fondness for this home-made tipple he had slipped a bottle of it into the valise just before Roger's departure.

' You have told the Court,' said the Prosecutor, ^' that while in Lymington you deliberately kept away from Grove Place. How comes it, then, that you had in your valise a bottle of this liqueur which has the name of the Admiral's residence upon it? '

^'1 bought it,' Roger declared, after only a second's hesitation. ^CI saw it with other bottles in the coffee room of the inn, and chose it as most suitable to keep me warm during my crossing.'

The fat magistrate in the bright-blue coat was examining the bottle and he said, 'The handwritten label shows this to be a private brew. Inns buy their liquor from merchants, not from amateur cordial makers.'

'It may have been stolen,' Roger countered. 'Perhaps one of the servants at the house sold it for half its value to the innkeeper.'

The magistrate shook his head. 'Such things happen, but not in this case. You say you saw it in the coffee room of the inn. No landlord who had bought stolen goods would be such a fool as to display them publicly in his coffee room. I'm an innkeeper myself and can vouch for that.'

^' Then you had best drink it, Citizen,' Roger quipped. ^' You will find it very good.'

His sally raised a titter, but next moment he could have bitten off his tongue. The Chairman of the Bench was on him in a flash. ^' This bottle is unopened, yet you admit to knowledge of its contents. Therefore, you must be well acquainted with the cordial and must have drunk it recently. I regard this as evidence that you did visit Grove Place and were given the bottle there.'

A slight shiver ran through Roger. The courtroom was warmed only by a charcoal brazier; so it was distinctly chilly, and by this time his having had nothing to eat since the previous night was beginning to tell upon him. With an effort, he shrugged his shoulders and said:

'Citizen Chairman, you err in counting that against me. I recommended the cordial on the grounds that I recall enjoying it when as a youth I lived at Grove Place and I saw no reason to suppose that its quality had deteriorated.'

A frown momentarily wrinkled the bulging forehead of the Chairman, then he said, ^' We will leave that question for the moment and enquire further into an outstanding feature of the case. You have stated that your recent visit to England was as an agent for General Bonaparte, and that having completed your mission you fooled the Captain of a British sloop into bringing you back to France. Evidence has been given that you were landed safely and covered near half a kilometre along the shore away from the boat before you were challenged by two members of the second patrol. At that distance, had you declared yourself in what you assert to be your true colours, the members of the boat's crew could not have shot you down or even heard you. Yet, instead of hailing your compatriots with joy, you shot one of them with a pistol and smashed the butt of it into the face of the other. If you are, as you claim, a Colonel in the Army of France, what possible explanation have you to offer for attacking two members of our Coastguard Service? '

This was the big fence and, pulling himself together, Roger took it to the best of his ability. Pointing to the Coastguard who had been among the first to arrive on the scene of the affray, he said, ^' That man has told the Court that at the time of the occurrence the beach was lit only by starlight so faint that it was impossible to see an approaching figure at more than a few yards' distance. The men who attacked me were running full tilt towards me and I towards them. In such circumstances a yard can be covered in less than a second. They were upon me before I had even the time to shout. One of them had a sabre raised above his head with intent to cleave my head from scalp to chin. Instinctively, as the only chance of saving my life, I fired upon him. As he fell his companion charged at me. I barely escaped his thrust, and in swerving struck wildly at him with the hand that held my pistol. It caught him in the face and he went down.'

^' And then,' the Chairman remarked acidly, ^' instead of remaining to give such aid as you could to these compatriots you had injured, you ran off into the sea, leaving them, perhaps, to bleed to death.'

^' There was no question of their bleeding to death,' Roger cried indignantly. 'The one was shot only in the shoulder and the other had but a bloody nose. Besides, their comrades came up with them no more than two minutes later. It was the thudding of the patrol's footsteps on the sand as they came charging towards me that caused me to act as I did. Had I remained beside the men I had wounded, their comrades would not have waited to listen to any explanations but would have struck me down where I stood and made an end of me. My only hope of preserving my life lay in an immediate flight and the hope that their resentment against me would have cooled a little by the time I gave myself up.'

The Prosecutor made no attempt to sum up, neither did the magistrates leave the Court to debate the evidence in private. No further evidence being offered, they began openly to discuss the case among themselves. The Chairman asked his two colleagues for their opinions and the little man with the ruddy cheeks, who had not so far spoken, said:

' He is a Frenchman. There can be no doubt about that. And he has an answer for everything. One must admit that his account of himself is entirely plausible.'

^' Except about the Cherry Brandy,' put in the innkeeper. ^'1 am convinced that he was lying about that.'

'If so,' commented the Chairman, ^' he was then lying to us on other matters. If he obtained the bottle from Grove Place that means he did contact his relatives at the house. His doing so would greatly increase the probability that he is Sir Brook's son rather than a French cousin who could not readily have accounted for his presence in England and who, on disclosing himself, would almost certainly have been detained.'

At that, Tardieu jumped to his feet and cried, ^' He is lying, Citizen Chairman; and I can prove it. When I woke him this morning and charged him with being Admiral Sir Brook's son, his first words were, ^'' Admiral Brook? I've never heard of him." Yet now he declares himself to be a French relative of the Admiral and tells us that he spent several years of his youth in the Admiral's house. He cannot have it both ways.'

Shaken as Roger was by this bolt from the blue, he rallied all his resources to meet it. Leaning out of the dock, he pointed at Tardieu and shouted indignantly, ^' It is the Lieutenant who is lying! I said no such thing! What I said was that I had not seen Admiral Brook since the war started. He has twisted my words because he is disgruntled. Having convinced himself this morning that I am a spy, he feels that I made a fool of him last night and that his men must be laughing at him for having accepted my statement that I am Colonel Breuc and an aide-de-camp to General Bonaparte.'

^' Lies! More lies! ' shouted Tardieu. ^'1 swear to what I have said.'

^' Then you should be charged with perjury,' Roger shouted back.

^' Silence! ' cried the Chairman. ^' Silence! ' and banged hard on the table with his gavel. When quiet was restored he went on:

^' The Court has taken notice of the Lieutenant's statement, also of the prisoner's denial, although I can hardly credit that the reason he suggests constitutes sufficient grounds to have caused the Lieutenant to commit perjury. If we accept his statement it shows how anxious the prisoner was to conceal the truth about his activities while in Lymington and throws the gravest doubt on a great part of what he has said about himself.'

^'1 told you he was lying about that Cherry Brandy,' the innkeeper declared in a self-satisfied voice. ^' Displaying stolen liquor in a coffee room, indeed! Is it likely? '

Roger needed no telling that since Tardieu's intervention things were beginning to look black for him; but the little man with the ruddy face created a diversion by remarking, ^' Whatever the truth may be about what he was up to in Lymington, I'll nofc believe that he's an Englishman. As my Citizen colleagues know, up till the Revolution I'd lived all my life in Paris, and it would be hard to find a man with a more definite Parisian accent.'

The Chairman nodded. ^' On consideration, I think you are right, Citizen colleague, and the seaman's evidence, which is all we have to go on about that, was inconclusive. He must be a Frenchman or, at least, have French blood in his veins. From his statement, too, it can hardly be doubted that he has lived for a great part of his life in France. But pven if, as he says, he was born here, that is no guarantee that he is a loyal Frenchman. Every country has its quota of traitors, and in recent years France has suffered far more in that respect than others, owing to the thousands of emigres who now live abroad and intrigue against her.'

The innkeeper gave a snort. ' Ah, now you've hit on it, Citizen. Look at those fine hands of his. He's an aristo, I'll be bound, and has never done an honest day's work in his life. An emigre, that's what he is, and come here to sell us to our enemies.'

After pursing his thin lips for a moment, the Chairman nodded again. ^'Yes, that would explain everything: his impeccable French, the English landing him here and his dread of capture. Well, the law is clear on the subject of emigres. If caught reentering France such traitors are liable to the death penalty. If my Citizen colleagues agree, I am in favour of passing it.'

^'1 am not an emigre! ' Roger broke in hotly. ^'1 am one of General Bonaparte's aides-de-camp and were we in Paris I'd have no difficulty in proving that. The Director Barras, Citizens Tallien, Freron and many other important men would all vouch for me. I met General Bonaparte as far back as the siege of Toulon. I was with him in Paris on 13th Vendemiaire. I-'

^' Enough! ' snapped the Chairman, rapping on the desk with his gavel. ^' We have given you a fair hearing and have already listened overlong to your lies.'

But Roger was determined to defend himself to the last ditch. Ignoring the interruption, he cried, 'You dare not have me executed! You dare not! My friends, the men I served with in Italy—Junot, Murat, Duroc, Lannes, Berthier and half a dozen other Generals—will exact vengeance on you if you do. Aye, and my great master Bonaparte himself will call you to reckoning. I demand-'

'Silence! Silence! Silence! ' the Chairman shouted, redoubling his banging on the table, and Roger, now white-faced and exhausted, realized the futility of continuing, so ceased his angry threats.

There followed a moment's hush, then the Chairman turned to the innkeeper and asked, ' Do you agree? '

His colleague nodded. 'Yes, he's a spy, right enough. I made up my mind on that as soon as the fool tried to gull us about where he got the Cherry Brandy. Have him taken outside and finished with.'

A sad little smile twitched at Roger's lips. Although there was not an atom of humour in his terrible situation, it had suddenly struck him how incongruous it was that after all the dangers from which he had escaped during his life he was about to be sent to his death because dear old Jim Button had popped a bottle of Cherry Brandy into his valise.

Turning to his other colleague, the Chairman asked, ' And you, Citizen? '

The little man tilted back his head so that the nostrils of the snub nose between the apple cheeks looked like two round holes in his chubby face. Then, in a quiet voice, he appeared to address the ceiling.

' Yes, Citizen Chairman, I agree. Whether or not the man be an emigre, he landed clandestinely on French soil from a British war vessel. He resisted arrest and seriously wounded two of our people. The account he has given of himself lacks the ring of truth, and on several matters there can be no reasonable doubt that he has lied to us. All the evidence points to his having come to France as a secret agent, and in times such as these we cannot afford to take chances. That being so it is our duty to send him to his death.'

For a moment he was silent, then he went on, ' But there is an aspect of this case which I would like my Citizen colleagues to consider. Let us suppose, just suppose, for one moment, that he has told us the truth in one important particular: namely, that he is an aide-de-camp of our national hero, the brilliant young General who has restored the glory of France by his conquest of Italy. Should we decree this man's execution—what then, Citizen colleagues? General Bonaparte is back in France. In a matter of a few months he has become, after the Directors, the most powerful man in the country. He has only to express a wish and others spring to gratify it. To incur his displeasure might bring about our ruin.'

Roger's eyes had remained riveted on the cherubic, upturned face. His throat seemed to contract and he held his breath in an agony of suspense as he waited to learn if this new development would prove the thread by which hung his life.

For a full minute, with a frown of uncertainty on his thin, bony face, the Chairman stared at his small, plump colleague, then he said, ^' You are right, Citizen, in that it might go hard with us did we make an enemy of General Bonaparte; but I count the risk of our doing so exceedingly small. We are all convinced that the prisoner is unquestionably a liar, so it is improbable that he has ever even set eyes on the General.'

' Maybe, maybe,' replied the other. ^' But why should we take any risk at all? '

' Ventre du Rape!' exclaimed the innkeeper. ^' Surely you do not suggest that we should let the rogue go free to spy on us and sell our secrets to the accursed English; or that we should even send him to a prison from which he might in time escape and still do the Republic some serious injury? '

^' Besides,' the Chairman argued, ^' you say yourself that it is our duty to pass sentence of death upon him, and that being so-'

^'1 did not say that,' retorted the little man, suddenly sitting up. ^'1 said that it was our duty to send him to his death. It does not follow that we should make ourselves responsible for his execution; and I, for one, will have no hand in it.'

The innkeeper banged his great fist on the table and cried angrily, ^' What in hell's name do you mean by that? '

Simultaneously, the Chairman shook his head and said in a testy voice, ^' You talk in riddles, Citizen colleague. Put a plain meaning on what you have in mind.'

^' It is quite simple,' came the smooth reply.^' In calling for water and washing his hands before sending the Nazarene to be executed, Pontius Pilate set us an admirable example. The prisoner declares himself to be a Colonel in the Army of France. Moreover, spies are normally court-martialled, as this one would have been had he been caught by a patrol of soldiers instead of by Coastguards. Therefore, in a double sense, this is a military matter. Let us send him to the senior officer in the district, with a message to the effect that after giving him a fair trial we came to the unanimous conclusion that he is a spy and probably an emigre, and so deserving of death; but that on consideration we decided that he should never have been brought before this Court, so we are handing him over for them to deal with as they see fit.'

The innkeeper gave a great bellow of laughter. The Chairman smiled, patted the little man on the shoulder and said, ^' Most ingenious, my dear Citizen colleague. We will most certainly adopt your admirable suggestion.'

He then said to Tardieu, 'Citizen Lieutenant, the Court is returning the prisoner to you. I charge you to deliver him safely into the hands of General Desmarets at his headquarters outside the town.' Turning to the Prosecutor, he added, 'You, Citizen Corbiel, will accompany the Lieutenant, inform the General of the Court's reasons for sending the prisoner to him and give him a full account of all that has taken place here.'

Having so delivered himself, he gave the table one sharp rap with his gavel and declared the Court adjourned.

As Roger stepped from the dock a sigh of relief escaped him. He was not, after all, fated to be led out right away to be hanged, or to face a firing party. Yet he could not disguise from himself that his reprieve was only a temporary postponement of the issue. It was, too, an unnerving thought that he was to be brought before General Desmarets, of whom he had never heard, as a spy who had already been tried and convicted. Even so, he felt that his chances of living out the day v/ere considerably better now that he was to be handed over to the Military. They would surely give a more considerate hearing to a man who claimed to be General Bonaparte's aide-de-camp and, vast as the French Army was, these must be officers or soldiers in the camp to which he was being taken who could, if only they could be found, vouch for it that he was Colonel Breuc.

The strain of the trial upon him had been appalling, as he had not dared to relax for an instant in case he missed an opportunity to make some point that would have counted in his favour. Now he was so terribly exhausted that he stumbled several times when being escorted out to the small covered cart in which he had been brought to the Court.

His hands were again tied behind him and he was bundled into the cart. There was a slight delay while Citizen Prosecutor Corbiel was provided with a horse, then the little cavalcade set off.

Just before Roger had been bundled into the cart he had caught a glimpse of the Town Hall clock and had been amazed to see that it was still a few minutes before eleven. It seemed to him as though many hours had passed since Tardieu had roused him in the farmhouse bedroom that morning. While the trial had been in progress his mind had been so desperately concentrated on its twists and turns, for and against himself, that he had been only vaguely conscious of cold and hunger; but now, as the cart trundled out of the town, he began to shiver and could hear his stomach rumbling. Miserably, while the jolting of the cart again bruised his limbs against the hard floorboards, he longed for food, warmth and comfort, at the same time endeavouring to convince himself that the most dangerous stage in his ordeal was over.

Three-quarters of an hour later he heard a command ring out to halt. The cart pulled up and a soldier poked his head in over the backboard. Withdrawing it, he shouted, 'You may proceed,' and the cart moved on through the gates of a big cantonment, which had been set up on the downs when the numbers of troops garrisoning the coast had become too large to be accommodated in the town barracks.

Five minutes later the cart pulled up again in front of a long, low building facing a parade ground, but only Tardieu and Citizen Prosecutor Corbiel entered it. Another quarter of an hour elapsed before the Lieutenant came out and had his men escort Roger into the building, then along to an office at the back that had a view across distant sand-dunes to the sea.

It then transpired that General Desmarets was absent from the camp and would not be free to attend to any business until he had returned and had his dinner. For the moment, Roger's affair was being dealt with by the General's adjutant, a pleasant-faced young Major, who was lolling behind a desk. When Roger was brought before him he looked at him with lazy interest and said:

' So you are the Englishman and spy? '

^'1 am neither,' declared Roger firmly. ^' This whole business is a ghastly mistake. I am Colonel Breuc and an aide-de-camp to General Bonaparte.'

The young Major sat back and roared with laughter.

^' How dare you laugh! ' Roger cried indignantly. ^' This is a very serious matter.' Yet, could he have seen himself, he would have realized that his statement, coupled with his appearance, gave ample grounds for mirth. His unshaven chin was covered with unsightly stubble, his undressed brown hair looked like a bird's nest and his clothes, which had not been pressed since their immersion in the sea, hung as they had rough-dried, in ugly folds and ridges about him. At that moment he could hardly have looked less like the Staff officer to a General-in-Chief that he claimed to be.

Recovering himself, the Major made him a mocking little bow. ' I'm sorry—yes, let us call you " Colonelalthough I gather you would find it mighty difficult to substantiate your claim to that rank.'

^' By no means,' Roger replied firmly. ^' And I am relying on you, Major, to enable me to do so. In this cantonment there must be many men who served with General Bonaparte in the Army of Italy. I most earnestly request that you will have them sought out and confront me with them. I count it certain that a number of them will readily vouch for my identity. I pray you, too, to give heed to the fact that my life hangs upon your doing as I have asked.'

The young man's face had suddenly become grave. 'Your request would be pointless did you not expect to vindicate yourself through it. The great majority of the men who fought in General Bonaparte's victorious campaign are still with the Army of Italy. Few of them have been transferred to us here in the north. But I will at once have enquiries set on foot for such as have come to us from Italy.'

After pausing a moment, he went on, 'However, it will take some time to collect them. By then General Desmarets should be available and, no doubt, he will wish to adjudicate in this matter in person. Meanwhile, although it seems possible that I may have the pleasure of welcoming you to our Mess later in the day, for the present I am sure you will appreciate that I have no alternative but to have you confined in the guardroom.'

Roger bowed. ' Major, I am deeply grateful to you for acceding so promptly to my request, and for your courtesy. I have only one more boon to ask. This morning I was given no breakfast; so I am terribly hungry. Could I perhaps be brought something to eat while I am in the guardroom, and a pallet on which to lie, with several blankets, for I am both cold and desperately tired.'

^' Certainly you shall be provided with these things,' the Major agreed. Turning to an Orderly Sergeant who was standing by the door, he gave him the necessary instructions.

Under a guard of soldiers, Roger was marched away to the guardroom. Ten minutes later, his hands untied, he was making a hearty meal of stew, followed by bread-and-cheese. He then lay down on a straw-filled mattress and drew a single blanket over himself. There was no need for more, since the room was heated by a roaring brazier.

At last the awful fears which had harrowed him since morning were lifted from his mind. Although a civilian himself, he had spent so much of his time with military men that he always felt at home with them. Once the young Major had grasped the facts of the case he had treated him with consideration and kindness. Even if there were no great number of men in the cantonment who had served with the Army of Italy there must be a dozen or more. A single one who could identify him would be enough to get him out of all his troubles. Confident that by evening he would be a free man again, he dropped asleep.

It was soon after three o'clock when the Sergeant of the Guard roused him and escorted him between two privates back to the headquarters building. They marched him through the room in which he had been interviewed and into a larger one next door. Standing there were Tardieu, Citizen Prosecutor Corbiel and the young Major. Behind a large desk sat an elderly man with a slightly pockmarked chin and grey hair that fell in lank strands on either side of his face. Obviously he was General Desmarets, and Roger put him down as an N.C.O. of the old Royal Army who had risen, owing to the Revolution, by years of conscientious but unspectacular service, to this minor Command.

Giving a nod in the direction of Tardieu and Corbiel, the General said in a gruff voice to Roger, ^' These Citizens have told me about you. Three worthy Citizen magistrates have heard all you have to say and have decided that you are guilty of charges that merit death. You have advanced a preposterous claim to be one of General Bonaparte's aides-de-camp, and say that you served with him in the Army of Italy. We shall soon learn how much truth there is in that.'

His tone and attitude were ominous, but Roger remained optimistic. A door to a passage was opened by the Major and nine men filed into the room. Six of them were officers and the other three senior N.C.O.s. Eagerly Roger's glance ran from face to face. Then his heart sank a little; not one of them was familiar to him. But he could still hope that some of them might have noticed him while he was in attendance on their hero, the General-in-Chief.

Briefly Desmarets questioned each of them about his service in Italy. All of them had fought there and had later been granted leave, on one ground or another, to transfer to the Army of the North. Roger had not joined Bonaparte in Italy until three months after the Armistice of Leoben was signed, and all but two of the men had left Italy before he arrived there. Of the remaining two, only one had visited the General-in-Chief's headquarters at Montebello. He firmly declared that he had never heard of a Colonel Breuc. All of them agreed that Bonaparte's aides-de-camp during the Italian campaign had been Marmont, Junot, Duroc, Lavalette and Sulkowsky.

General Desmarets shrugged his powerful shoulders. ^' There we are, then. I thought from the beginning this would prove a farce.' He glanced at the nine veterans of the Italian campaign and said, ^'1 am sorry, Citizens, that you should have been brought here for no useful purpose. You may go.' As they filed out, he pointed to Roger and gave an order to the Sergeant of the Guard.

^' Take this man away and have him shot.'

Seized once again with terror at the thought of the fate now rushing upon him, Roger broke into violent speech. He pleaded that other men who had served in Italy should be sought, explained that he had not joined General Bonaparte's staff until a few months before the General's return to Paris, and begged for a postponement of sentence until he could communicate with the General. But in vain. Desmarets ignored his outburst, the guards on either side of him seized his arms and hustled him away.

Back at the guardroom, the Sergeant told his Corporal to turn out the reserve guard and take over. Then he selected six of his men to act as a firing party. Just before they left the guardroom he took a spade from a corner, handed it to Roger and said:

^' Here, take a grip o' that. An' don't you dare drop it in a fit of the funks or you'll get a kick up the backside.'

Roger stared aghast at the spade and stammered, 'What . . . what is this for? '

The Sergeant replied with a sneer, ^' Where yer bin all yer life? Don't expect us ter get ourselves sweaty making an 'ole for an English spy to lie comfortable in, do yer? Before sentence is carried out the likes of you 'as ter dig 'is own grave.'

Roger Digs his Grave

Almost overcome with horror at the idea of digging his own grave, Roger gave a gulp; but he took the spade. The six soldiers closed round him, the Sergeant gave an order and the firing party set off.

As they marched through the cantonment, men lounging in the doorways of the huts and others cleaning arms or harness stared at Roger with curiosity. Apparently the fact that he was a civilian carrying a spade and obviously under arrest was enough to tell them that he was going to his death. Evidently, too, a rumour had already run round the camp that he was an English spy, for several of them shook their fists at him, with shouts of * A la mort, cochon!' and 'Sale Anglais\ He was well aware of the hatred with which the French regarded Britain; so their abuse meant nothing to him, and his whole mind was occupied in an attempt to think of an eleventh-hour ruse by which he might save himself, or at least postpone his execution.

His hot meal and three hours' sleep had restored him physically, but the shock of finding that none of the men from the Army of Italy had even heard of him, and the abrupt way in which General Desmarets had dealt with his case, had robbed him temporarily of his wits. It was half past three on a chilly but sunny afternoon, and all he could think of was how pleasant it would be to have a good horse between his knees and be cantering across the downs. At the same time he was terribly conscious, as they marched towards the sea, that with every step he took the moments of his life were running out. Yet, try as he would, he could not bring himself to concentrate.

After twenty minutes they came to within half a mile of the shore at a place where, between a break in the cliffs, there was a wide area of sand-dunes in which steep mounds alternated with depressions and shallow valleys. Some of the mounds had coarse grass growing in patches on them; but there was no other vegetation, except at some distance inland, for as far as the eye could see.

When they had laboriously made their way for some two hundred yards across this desolate waste they slithered down into a broader dip than any they had so far crossed. The Sergeant called a halt and grunted, 'This'll do.'

The men surrounding Roger fell out and moved a little way away from him. For a moment he was tempted to make a dash for it. But with slopes of loose sand rising twelve feet or more on every side he realized that it would be hopeless to do so. He would have been riddled with bullets before he could have reached even the top of the nearest crest. Such is the instinct in a healthy man to cling to life until the very last moment that, although he felt certain that within another quarter of an hour his body would in any case have six lumps of lead in it, he could not bring himself to make the bid against the virtual certainty that he would be killed before he took another dozen breaths.

The Sergeant picked one man to stand by Roger with his musket at the ready; the other five piled theirs in a pyramid, with the long thin bayonets pointing to the sky. They then sat down in a group on a nearby slope to take their ease and began a game of cards. Pointing to the flattish bottom of the hollow, the Sergeant said to Roger:

'Get to it. And don't waste time diggin' a trench more'n what's big enough to take yer body. Should be a metre deep, though; else the sand'll blow off and leave bits of yer stickin' out. We don't want ter tumble over any nasty stinkin' English corpses when we're next out 'ere doin' our trainin'.'

The mental picture that the old ghoul's words conjured up in Roger's mind, of his own body rotting and creeping with maggots, filled him with nausea. Yet there was nothing for it but to begin digging. Although he had found it impossible to concentrate while being marched to the dunes, he had kept looking about him in the wild hope that an officer carrying a reprieve would come galloping up from the cantonment, or that some unforeseen diversion would occur that might give him a chance to escape. But on all sides the landscape had remained empty. By the time they arrived at this hollow where he was about to dig his grave he knew that there could be no living creature within miles, except for the seagulls that wheeled overhead and the men who had been ordered to execute him.

The sand was soft and as soon as he began to dig the trench he found that a good part of each spadeful trickled back into it. That brought him the sudden thought that if he could prolong his gruesome task until darkness fell he would stand a worthwhile chance of attempting a breakaway. But it was not yet four o'clock, so there was a long time to go before it became even twilight. Moreover, in this wildly optimistic idea for delaying matters till sundown, he had counted without the Sergeant.

Seeing that he was allowing most of the sand he dug up to slide from his spade before he threw the remainder aside, the N.C.O. said with an oath, 'Think we want ter stay 'ere all night? Put some guts into it, you English bastard. Shovel quick and toss it as far as you can. That's the way to make a trench in this soft stuff.'

Roger responded by digging faster, but still at no great speed; so the Sergeant suddenly struck him smartly across the shoulders with a swagger cane he was carrying and cried, ' Lively, I said! Lively! If yer not sweating within two minutes I'll cut yer face ter ribbons wiv this cane o' mine.'

Again Roger had no option but to obey, and within a few minutes he was sweating profusely. But some of the sand continued to trickle back into the trench and before he had dug out more than a third of the amount that had to be shifted he was puffing like a grampus. Thrusting his spade upright in the sand for a moment, he took off his heavy coat and threw it down behind him.

As he resumed his digging, the Sergeant remarked, ' That's a real aristo's coat yer got there. Should sell for a tidy sum, so I'll take it as my share of yer kit. Be a sin ter bury good clothes like yours. The others can cast lots for the rest of yer duds.'

After a minute he added, ' I bet yer got a bit o' money on yer too. I'll give you a spell from diggin' if yer'll hand it over.'

Roger's heart bounded. A ' spell' might mean anything from a few minutes to an indefinite period. The Sergeant's offer sounded like an overture to him to buy his life. On reaching Paris he had meant to draw his back pay and, should he need more, there were means by which he could draw on British Secret Service funds; so he had not brought a large sum with him. He had only fifty louis d'or to cover immediate expenses and they were in a money-belt round his waist. Yet those fifty louis, which would have done no more than see him to Paris and buy him a new uniform when he got there, would be regarded by the Sergeant as a magnificent windfall. Even if he had to give five louis apiece to his men to keep their mouths shut that would still leave twenty for him, and that was more than the pay he would receive in a whole year.

The Sergeant spoke again. ^' Come on. Yer can't take it wiv yer. If yer 'and it over I can split it wiv the boys now. That'll save us a lot o' time arguing about shares when ye're a gonner, an' we'll get back to camp the sooner.'

His words instantly dashed Roger's hopes. He felt that he must be out of his mind not to have realized that they would search his body for cash and valuables before they filled in his grave. As they would come by the money anyhow, why should they risk condign punishment by letting him buy his life with it.

Yet even in his extremity it went against the grain to make the Sergeant a gratuitous present; and he thought it possible that it might not occur to them that he was wearing a money-belt. If so, they might strip him only to his underclothes and so fail to find his gold. In the hope of depriving them of it, he said tersely to the N.C.O. :

^' If you've been counting on lining your pockets, Sergeant, you are unlucky. The Coastguards searched me last night and took from me every sou I had.'

^' Then that's bad luck for yer, too,' the Sergeant snarled. ^' I'll give yer no spell, an' if yer drop while yer work I'll have the boys jab their bayonets in yer an' finish yer off that way.'

Once more, under the N.C.O.'s threats and his baleful glare, Roger set about digging. After another ten minutes the sweat was pouring off him and he had managed to scoop out a trench, the middle of which was over two feet deep. But the sides sloped and it still required a lot more work before his body could have been laid in it and well covered.

It was now nearly half an hour since he had started on the job and the hard work had made him uncomfortably hot; but that was far from being the case with the firing party. The sun had gone in and the chill of a February afternoon had descended on the dunes. Of the group of five sitting on the slope nearby playing cards, one or more was now standing up every few minutes to stamp his feet and flail his arms to keep his circulation going.

To ease his aching arms, Roger risked a blow from the cane to pause for a breather. As he did so, the Sergeant snapped, ^' Keep at it, damn yer, or we'll all freeze to death afore yer done.' Then he added as an afterthought, 'What wouldn't I give for a good tot of schnapps to warm me up! '

Instead of going on with his digging, Roger stared at him for a moment. He had just remembered that after taking a few gulps from his brandy flask while in the sea he had managed to get it back into his pocket. To the N.C.O. he said, 'The Coastguards didn't rob me of my flask and it's still three-quarters full of cognac. You'll find it in the left-hand skirt pocket of my travelling coat.'

The Sergeant's eyes widened eagerly and he exclaimed, ' Mort de Dieu! Yer may be a pig of an Englishman, but I'll see to it yer gets a quick, clean death for that.' Then he turned about and began swiftly to rummage in the coat that Roger had thrown behind him.

The guard holding his musket at the ready was standing a yard away on Roger's other side. He, too, was feeling the cold and as time had gone on he had ceased to give his whole attention to the prisoner.

Suddenly Roger lifted the spade and slashed sideways at him with it. The edge of the spade caught the man on his right hand, severing two of his fingers. With a scream of agony he dropped his musket. The Sergeant had just found the pocket in Roger's coat and, bent right over, was pulling the flask out of it. The guard's scream had hardly rent the air before Roger had turned on his heel, swung the spade high and brought its blade down with all his force on the back of the Sergeant's neck. The blow almost severed it. From the terrible wound his blood spurted out in a jet over the sand, and he collapsed without uttering a sound.

Without losing an instant, Roger threw aside the spade that had served him so well as a weapon and made a dash for the slope furthest from the other five men. With the sand slithering beneath his boots he scrambled up it. Jumping to their feet, the men ran to their stacked muskets, shouting imprecations and calling on him to halt. In their haste two of them collided, fell and rolled into the trench. The other three grabbed up their firearms and levelled them.

From the moment Roger had thought of his brandy flask and realized that it could be used as a snare by which he might possibly save his life, his wits had come back to him. It had been the apparent hopelessness of his situation that had so clouded his mind from the moment General Desmarets had ordered his execution. The germ of a plan had scarcely formed before he had a clear-cut picture of exactly how he must act. His perfect sense of timing had done_#the rest and it did not now desert him.

At a glance he had measured the slope and judged that by the time he reached the crest the men would have their weapons in their hands and be ready to fire at him. Up there, against the skyline, and only some twelve yards distant, he would provide a perfect target that they could not fail to hit. Without pausing to look behind him to see if he had judged aright, he flung himself flat.

Three muskets banged in quick succession. Bullets whistled through the air a good three feet above him. He knew that there should be two more, but dared not wait where he lay for more than another few seconds. Picking himself up, he ran on, the hair now prickling on his scalp from the horrid expectation that at any moment one of those other two bullets would smack into his back.

He plunged into a dip, then breasted another slope. A furious shouting broke out behind him, but no bullets either hit him or whined past. From that he could only conclude that the muskets of the two men who had not yet fired could not have been loaded. On reaching the second crest he risked a glance over his shoulder. Three of the soldiers were leaping down the slope, twenty yards behind him, the other two were ten yards in the rear, had reached the top of the first mound and were taking aim at him.

Again he flung himself flat. Again the bullets hummed through the air above him. Again he scrambled to his feet and dashed headlong down the slope ahead. But throwing himself down, although only for thirty seconds, had cost him a good part of his lead. The three nearest men had come up to within fifteen feet of him.

Yet as he pounded on he was far from giving up hope. None of the five could reload his musket as he ran. If they halted to do so, by the time they had rammed home the charges and the bullets and primed their weapons they would have to be good marksmen to hit him. As they must know that themselves, he thought it certain that they would put their trust in running him down. But unless there were trained runners among them he felt confident that he could out-distance them; because he had shed his topcoat, whereas they were wearing theirs, and, in addition, they were weighed down by their heavy equipment.

In that he proved right. By the time he had covered a quarter of a mile he had gained a fifty-yard lead on his pursuers. But he had had no choice in the direction he should take and saw that he was heading almost directly for the sea. To continue on his course was to risk that when he reached the beach they would spread out and hem him in against the water. With his previous night's experience still fresh in mind, he would have thought twice before seeking refuge in the sea even had it been fully dark. As it was still daylight, it would have been completely futile to do so.

His only alternative was to alter direction slightly until, by making a wide curve, he would be running parallel with the shore. That, he feared might cost him much of his lead, but after covering another two hundred yards another swift look over his shoulder filled him with elation. His pursuers were obviously tiring. Two of them had dropped out and the others, staggering now as they ran, were still a good hundred yards behind him.

By then he had come to the end of the dunes, where they sloped down to a wide stretch of foreshore. The sand was firmer there so he took to it and, although he was tiring, it enabled him to increase his pace slightly. Some distance ahead of him, a little way inland, he could now see a farmhouse among a group of stunted trees. The sight of them lent him new strength and determination. If only he could reach them well ahead of his pursuers he might find a place to hide there until darkness had fallen.

For some time past the soldiers had ceased their shouting, but now it suddenly broke out again. Looking back to see the reason, Roger gave a gasp of dismay. A quarter of a mile off, trotting along the shore behind him, were three horsemen, and they were in uniform. The men in pursuit of him were pointing at him and yelling to them:

^' A spy! An English spy. He has escaped from us! He killed our Sergeant and got away! After him! After him! Ride him down! '

Even as Roger grasped this new peril that had come upon him like a bolt from the blue, the three riders put spurs to their horses and urged them into a gallop. The only thing he could do was to turn away from the shore and head up into the sand-dunes, in the wild hope that the loose sand and sudden dips there would make it more difficult for the horsemen to come up with him.

By this time he had run over a mile and most of it had been across soft sand that made the going very heavy. His face was dripping with sweat, his leg muscles were aching abominably and he was catching his breath in sobbing gasps.

To be captured and dragged back to death when he had escaped it four times within the past twenty-four hours, and only a moment since had been in a fair way to regain his freedom, seemed so utterly unjust a fate that he rebelled against it. There was nowhere he could hide, he knew that he had no possible hope of out-distancing the horsemen; yet he staggered on, bent almost double as he charged the upward slopes and slithering wildly as he careered down into the valleys beyond them.

The chase lasted barely four minutes. The murmur of the horses' hooves behind him increased to a loud thudding. His foot caught in a tuft of coarse sand-grass. He stumbled and fell. As he rolled over and picked himself up he found himself facing the three horsemen. Their leader was an infantry officer wearing a shako, the two others were Hussars, with straps wound round their tall busbies. All three had drawn their swords and were waving them on high. It was evident that they meant to give no quarter to an English spy who had just killed a Sergeant and escaped.

In spite of the inescapable destruction with which Roger was now confronted, the instinct to cheat death until the very last moment was still strong in him. To turn and run further was utterly useless. Before he had taken another dozen paces they would cut him down from behind. But he could fling himself flat between two of the onrushing horses in the slender chance that he would escape both their hooves and the swords of their riders. At the pace they were going, if they overshot him that would give him a few more minutes before they could wheel and come at him again. What would he do then, or what could possibly occur to save him during those few fleeting minutes, he had not, as yet, the faintest idea.

Then, as the living torrent of snorting horses and yelling men came rushing upon him, he realized that his idea of possibly escaping them by throwing himself to the ground had been no better than a pipe-dream. Into his mind there flashed a memory of a military gymkhana which he had once attended. It had been on a sunny afternoon with officers in colourful uniforms and pretty women in sprigged muslin crowding the enclosure. On the programme one contest had been for mounted men to ride full tilt at a row of turnips stuck on low pegs. Leaning low from their saddles, they had picked the turnips up, one after another, on the points of their swords. If he did throw himself flat it would only be to have a sword thrust through his back.

Three horsemen were now within ten feet of him, the officer in the centre and leading by half a length. With distended eyes, Roger stared at him. He was a small man, neat and elegant, but with a fierce expression compressing his lips and thrusting out his determined jaw. Suddenly, Roger's mouth opened and he yelled:

'Lannes! Lannes! Do you not know me? I am Roje Breuc! *

From frowning slits, due to concentration, the officer's eyes sprang wide open. His sword was already descending to cleave Roger's skull. With a flick of the wrist, of which only an expert swordsman could have been capable, he diverted the stroke, so that the blade curved away into a horizontal position and became extended at a right-angle to his body. Thus it not only passed a good six inches above Roger's head but prevented the Hussar on his other side from getting a clear cut at him.

The three horses thundered by. Roger, almost hysterical with relief, remained where he stood, still choking for breath. In the next valley the horsemen checked their foam-flecked mounts, brought them round in a wide semi-circle and came cantering back to him.

^' Lannes! * Roger croaked, lurching forward and grasping the bridle of the officer's horse to support himself. ^' Lannes, by all that's holy! Never . . . never was the arrival of any friend more opportune.'

^'Ten thousand devils! ' exclaimed the officer. ^' When you shouted I could scarce believe it. But you are . . . you are Colonel Breuc.'

Roger gave an unsteady laugh. 'Indeed I am; but I've been within an ace of losing my life because till now I could not prove it.'

^' Sang Dieu! What luck then that I chanced to be riding by. Those infantrymen who were giving chase to you yelled to me that you were an English spy and had just got away after killing their Sergeant. It sounds like Beelzebub's own mess that you've been in.'

^' It was; and I did kill the brute. Had I not I'd be dead myself by now. As for my being an Englishman, a pack of fools jumped to the conclusion that I was one simply because I was caught last night landing clandestinely on the coast below Boulogne. But I'll give you full details later of the ghastly time I have been through.'

At that moment, still puffing from their exertions, three soldiers of the firing squad appeared over a nearby ridge. With bayonets levelled and shouts of triumph at the sight of Roger, they ran down the slope to surround him.

'Halt! ' snapped out Lannes. 'Put up your weapons. Ground arms! '

As Lannes was a Brigadier-General, they pulled up and stood to attention after only a moment of surprised hesitation. Then one of them panted out:

'Thanks, Citizen Brigadier, for . . . for 'elping us recapture our prisoner. Us is a firing party an' we was on the point of shootin' 'im, but 'e got away.'

' I know it, and it is as well for your Commander that he did.'

' But . . . but . . stammered the man, * 'e's an English spy, an' 'e's just killed our Sergeant.'

' He is nothing of the kind. He is a Colonel in the French Army and well known to me. You will return to camp and tell the officer who gave you your orders of the absurd mistake that has been made. Meanwhile, I will be responsible for Colonel Breuc.'

An older, truculent-looking man put in, ^' We can't do that. 'E's our prisoner, an' 'oever you says 'e is, 'e killed our Sergeant. Near sliced 'is 'ead off wiv the bloody spade.'

' Silence! ' roared Lannes, who was an impatient man.^' Another word from you and I'll have you given a month's pack-drill for having allowed your prisoner to escape.'

Roger was standing within two feet of his rescuer. Looking up at him, he said in a low voice, 'These men were acting under orders. Would it not be best if we all went to the camp and got the business straightened out properly? '

The Brigadier-General pulled a big turnip watch from his fob pocket, glanced at it and said, 'I must not be late in getting back to Calais to make my report, but I can spare about twenty minutes. Very well, then. We'll do as you suggest.'

Turning to one of the Hussars, he ordered the man to dismount so that Roger could have his horse, then told him to march back with the others. Roger was hardly in the saddle before Lannes set off at a canter, and ten minutes later they entered the cantonment.

As the sentry on the gate presented arms, he stared with astonishment at Roger, now riding at ease beside a Brigadier-General, and when they trotted on towards the headquarters building several other men who had seen him marched off to execution imagined for a moment that they were seeing a ghost. When they pulled up, the young Major was just coming out of the main door with some papers in his hand. His mouth fell open, then he exclaimed:

' Shades of Robespierre! If it's not the English spy! ' Springing from his horse, Lannes said, ^'1 am told by Colonel Breuc that General Desmarets commands here.'

'Then this man is ... is who he said he-' stammered the

Major.

' He is,' Lannes cut him short. ' But I have no time to waste. Take me at once to your General.'

Pulling himself together, the Major gave a stiff salute, turned on his heel and led them through to the General's office. Desmarets was sitting at his desk, smoking a clay pipe. At the sight of Roger he gave an angry frown and cried, ' What the hell are

you doing here? I gave orders-'

Without waiting for him to finish, Lannes, having snapped to attention and saluted him as his superior, said, ' General, I had the good fortune to prevent a most culpable miscarriage of justice. This gentleman is Colonel Breuc and a personal friend of mine. I understand that you ordered his execution. Being an officer of courage and resource he killed the Sergeant in charge of the firing party and got away. He was being pursued by the remainder of the squad when I chanced to be riding by and was able to identify him. I have come here only to report what has taken place, and to inform you that Colonel Breuc will be accompanying me to Calais.'

The General came slowly to his feet. 'He ... he killed the Sergeant, do you say? '

' It was his life or mine,' Roger put in.

* So you confess to it? Then, whoever you may be, it was murder; and you will have to answer for it.'

^' No man who has not deserved death could be expected to allow himself to be shot without putting up a fight,' said Lannes quickly. ^' That the Sergeant should have lost his life in this affair is most regrettable; but if anyone will be called on to answer for that it will be yourself.'

^' What the devil do you mean? ' demanded Desmarets angrily.

^' Why, for having ordered Colonel Breuc's execution without first satisfying yourself that he was guilty of the crime imputed to him.'

^' He was tried by the magistrates in Boulogne, and their opinion was unanimous. He was sent to me only because it is usual for spies to be executed by the Military.'

^' And you, a General, accepted the verdict of a bunch of civilians when the prisoner sent to you claimed to be an officer of the French Army! ' Lannes cried indignantly. ^'1 consider your conduct to have been disgraceful.'

Desmarets's dark brows drew together. With an oath he roared, ^' How dare you use such language to your superior! I intend to hold the man for further inquiry. Even if you are right about his identity it is a moot point whether any man is justified in killing a member of his escort in order to escape. Now you may go.'

^' Start any judicial proceedings you like,' Lannes retorted. ^'1 will make myself responsible for Colonel Breuc's appearance at them when required. But I'll not leave without him.'

^' Then you have asked for trouble and you shall have it. I'll arrest you for insubordination and you shall kick your heels in confinement with him until I see fit to consider further measures.'

As the interview had proceeded, Roger had grown more and more apprehensive. He knew at least that his life was now safe, but what view would a court martial take of his having killed the Sergeant? With luck, they would take Lannes's view that his act had been justifiable homicide. But if there were a straw-splitter among his judges it might be held that to injure an escort during an attempt to escape was one thing, and to kill him another. That could mean a verdict of manslaughter and a severe prison sentence. It was, too, unpleasantly clear that, in order to distract attention from the negligent way in which he had handled matters to start with, Desmarets would do all he could to make the case against his prisoner as black as possible. Roger's one hope lay in Lannes, and glancing anxiously at his friend he sought to comfort himself by recalling what he knew of him.

Jean Lannes was a Gascon, and a year or so younger than Roger. He had had little education and as a boy had been apprenticed to a dyer. Espousing with fervour the cause of the Revolution, he had joined the Army and during the war with Spain reached the rank of Chef de Brigade, although he was then only twenty-five. The Thermidorian reaction had led to him being dismissed from the Service, owing to his political views, but he had re-enlisted as a volunteer in the Army of Italy and had again fought his way up to Brigadier.

In Italy his name had become legendary for valour. He made his mark within ninety-six hours of the opening of the campaign by carrying the village of Dego at the point of the bayonet. He led the final assault on the bridge at Lodi in the face of a hail of grapeshot and captured the enemy guns. At Areola, when victory wavered in the balance, although already suffering from three wounds, he thrust his way out of the field hospital, took command of a column, led the assault that saved the day and was the first man to cross the Adda. Many times wounded and covered with glory, dauntless and indefatigable, he was the best leader of infantry that Bonaparte had, and the General-in-Chief had publicly acknowledged it by presenting him with captured enemy standards.

On the field of battle Lannes did not know what fear was, but this was a different matter. He had already committed himself much deeper than most men would have cared to do by defying an officer of higher rank than himself. But now that he was threatened with arrest, would he back down, apologize and, in order to make his peace, agree to leave Roger there at the mercy of Desmarets? Next moment Roger knew that his fears had been groundless.

Drawing himself up, the little Gascon cried furiously, ' Do you know who I am? I am Lannes! I fought with General Bonaparte at Montebello. I captured the guns at Lodi. I was the first Frenchman across the Adda. Arrest me at your peril. General Bonaparte lies this night in Calais. I'll send one of my orderlies to him with a report of your disgraceful mishandling of this affair. Before morning all hell will break about your ears. Unless you allow Colonel Breuc and myself to depart this instant you might as well tear your rank badges off here and now, for you'll not need them tomorrow.'

Although a rough, uncultured man, Desmarets was no fool. He realized that he had unwittingly put his head into a hornets' nest. To arrest a national hero and court the anger of the terrible little Corsican who was his master spelled certain ruin. Yet he lacked the tact to give way graciously. With a sullen scowl he muttered:

^' I'm not afraid of Bonaparte, and I've done my duty as I saw it. Still, I've never been one to make trouble. Have your way, then, and we'll say no more of this.'

^' I'll make no promise about that,' snapped Lannes. Then jerking his head towards the door he added to Roger, ^' Come, Breuc. We must ride hard. The General-in-Chief is expecting me and he does not like to be kept waiting.'

Five minutes later the young Major had produced a mount for Roger. With the two Hussars behind them, he and Lannes clattered out of the camp and took the road to Calais. Alternately they cantered, trotted and walked their horses to give them a breather. During the latter spells Roger gave his friend an account of his misadventure and, in turn, Lannes brought him up-to-date with what had been taking place since Roger had left Bonaparte to go on sick leave.

He said that on leaving Italy Bonaparte had gone to Rastatt where, it had been agreed, the details of the Peace Treaty should be settled. Francis II was in a somewhat difficult position, for he was Emperor of Austria and also the titular head of the Holy Roman Empire. This latter consisted of numerous Germanic States that, centuries earlier, had formed a Federation giving allegiance to a Monarch elected by their Princes as the representative of the hereditary power derived from ancient Rome. In more recent times the Emperor of Austria, being by far the most powerful among them, had, almost automatically, been elected as their Suzerain. But Francis had signed a peace with Bonaparte only in his capacity as Emperor of Austria; so he now had to arrange matters with the numerous satellite, semi-independent rulers who had given him their support as the head of the Holy Roman Empire.

Under a secret agreement entered into with Bonaparte by the Emperor's Foreign Ministers, Baron Thugut and Count Cobenzl, certain Princes whose realms had been overrun by the French, or were to be ceded to them, were to be compensated by being given other territories, and some of the German Prince-Bishops were to be deprived of their ancient fiefs altogether.

It was to initiate these delicate negotiations that Bonaparte had gone to Rastatt. However, soon foreseeing the endless wrangles that must ensue at such a conference, and detesting long hours of inaction spent listening to argument, he had, after a few days, left the plenipotentiaries appointed by the Directory to handle matters.

During his progress through the Swiss cantons the republicans in the cities had hailed him with enthusiasm as the ^' Liberator of the Italian People \ A few minorities had even gone to the length of handing him petitions asking that he should free them from their feudal overlords.

His journey thence through France had been a triumph. His name, almost unknown eighteen months earlier, had since become synonymous with victory and the renewal of French glory. In every town and village the people had fought to touch his hand and had showered gifts upon him. When he reached Paris on December 15th the enthusiasm of the crowds had been indescribable. He was the man of the hour, and rich and poor alike went wild about him.

It was no secret that the Directors were very perturbed by his popularity, jealous of it and a little frightened of him. However, they donned the absurd, pseudo-classical robes which the Assembly had decreed as their costume for official occasions and gave the young conqueror a State welcome, during which they, in turn, embraced him, acclaimed him as a hero and urged him to undertake further conquests for the glory of France.

He had accepted all this as his due, but with commendable modesty, and had afterwards withdrawn himself on ail occasions when it seemed likely that he would receive a public ovation.

He had been living quietly with his wife Josephine in their house in the Rue Chautereine, refusing to receive any visitors except his personal friends. To honour him, the Municipality had changed the name of the street to Rue de la Victoire, but the only honour which appeared to give him real pleasure had been his election to the Institute. His name had been put forward to fill the vacancy created by Carnot's flight on 18th Fructidor, and he had been unanimously elected. At his inauguration as a member of this learned body he had addressed the assembled savants with humility and declared, to thunderous applause, that the only conquests of real value to mankind were those wrested by science from the universe for the benefit of humanity as a whole.

When Roger asked how it came about that Lannes had been riding along the beach between Calais and Boulogne, the Brigadier replied, ^' The Directory have appointed our little man General-in-Chief for the invasion of England; so at the moment he is carrying out a reconnaissance of the coast to assess the shipping available for such a project. He j^as brought with him only de Bourrienne, myself and, as his aide-de-camp, Sulkowsky.

^' While he carried out an inspection of Calais harbour this afternoon, he sent me to report on the beaches south of Calais, to see if there were any coves or small river mouths in which shallow-draught vessels might be assembled. But I found none, and I cannot think that he will chance the destruction of an Army in such an operation. The British Navy commands the Channel. Until we have built up a Fleet to equal it, and have made preparations on a scale which would take many months to complete, I doubt if more than a handful of us would ever get ashore in England, and those of us who did would be massacred by that ferocious people.'

This was excellent news to Roger, as Lannes was one of Bonaparte's most trusted officers, and so exceptionally well placed to judge the way his mind was working. Moreover, the fact that the only senior officer Bonaparte had brought with him on this important reconnaissance was Lannes showed the value he set on the fiery Gascon's judgment. Being also a very outspoken man, Lannes would not hesitate to oppose the project should ambition tempt the Corsican to face the risks involved.

It was close on two years since Roger had first mentioned to Mr. Pitt the name of Bonaparte and had informed him that, although the newly promoted General had not then commanded even a Brigade in the field, he was a man to watch. He had said that conversations with that gaunt young Artillery officer had convinced him that Bonaparte had an extraordinary grasp of military matters, a mind capable of conceiving strategic plans on the grand scale and was fired by a boundless ambition; so that with Barras behind him it was certain that he would soon be given an important Command. Roger had then warned the Prime Minister that should that Command be the Army of the North he must expect an invasion that summer, as Bonaparte had maintained that the only means of ensuring permanent peace and prosperity to France lay in the destruction of her great commercial rival, Britain, and that the dearest of all his dreams was to march into London at the head of a French Army.

The Prime Minister had taken the warning seriously and had put certain measures in train to strengthen the defences on the south coast, but not long afterwards Bonaparte had been given the Command of the Army of Italy. As a result, with the laissez-faire habitual to the British, preparations to resist invasion had been allowed to slacken off. Roger was well aware that little of value had been done, and the danger of the French making a successful landing was as great as ever. It comforted him, therefore, to learn that Lannes thought it unlikely that Bonaparte would attempt it.

By taking the inland road they covered the twelve miles to Calais in good time and entered the town a little before seven o'clock. Lannes said that their General had taken up his quarters for the night at the house of the Military Commandant, General Reveillon. It was a spacious mansion which, before the Revolution, had been the property of a wealthy noble. In the courtyard Lannes and Roger handed their mounts over to the two Hussars and the Brigadier led the way inside.

In the hall they ran into another old friend of Roger's, Fauvelet de Bourrienne. He was a ci-devant noble and as a youth had been a cadet at the Military Academy at Brienne with Bonaparte, although he had later gone into the Diplomatic Service instead of entering the Army. During the Revolution he had been recalled from his post in Germany but, fearing that as an aristocrat he would be sent to the guillotine, he had refused to return to France; so he had been listed as an emigre.

When peace negotiations were about to be entered into, following the signing of the armistice at Leoben, Bonaparte had felt the need of a really capable man, on whose devotion he could rely, to act as his Chef de Cabinet. At Brienne, Bonaparte, as the poor son of a landless Corsican gentleman, had been almost ostracized by his rich and noble schoolfellows. Bourrienne had been one of the few who, as well as being a star pupil, had befriended him; so he had written and offered him the post. Bourrienne had accepted, joined him in Italy and soon showed such ability that Bonaparte had every reason to be pleased with his choice.

On seeing Roger, Bourrienne opened wide his arms, embraced him and cried, 'Mon ami, what a joy to have you back with us!

But what a state you are in! You look as though you have been dragged through a hedge backwards. What the deuce have you been up to? '

Between them Roger and Lannes gave him a rough outline of what had occurred, the latter promising a more detailed account later. Then Bourrienne took him into a room at the front of the house which their host used as an office.

General Reveillon w$is sitting there: a big, red-faced, jolly-looking man in his late forties. Having welcomed Roger, he took him up to a bedroom on the third floor and ordered a soldier servant to bring up cans of hot water so that Roger could wash and tidy himself up. As he was about to leave, he said:

^' When you are ready, come down to the big salon on the first floor. Supper will be ready in about three-quarters of an hour, and I have asked some of my officers to meet the General-in-Chief; so we'll be quite a big party.'

Half an hour later, having made himself as presentable as he could and with a light heart now that all his troubles were over, Roger went downstairs and entered the salon. There were nearly twenty officers there, and Bonaparte was standing near one of the tall windows, talking to Reveillon. The young conqueror was then twenty-eight and a half, so was some eighteen months younger than Roger.

The eagle eyes in the pale face of the weedy-looking little Corsican lit on Roger immediately. With an abrupt gesture he beckoned him over. Roger drew himself up, walked forward and stood stiffly to attention.

Bonaparte, whose memory was prodigious, said sharply, ^' Breuc, you were due to report back from leave not later than January 31st. You are twelve days late. Explain yourself.'

Roger replied with quiet confidence, ^' Mon General, it was in your service. I recovered from the wound I received in Venice more speedily than I had expected; so I decided to put the remainder of my sick leave to good purpose. Since you have often spoken to me of your intention, sooner or later, to invade and conquer England, and since I can so easily pass for an Englishman, I had myself smuggled across the Channel. My return was delayed by appalling weather, but in the six weeks I spent there I carried out a reconnaissance of the present state of defence on the south coast, from Ramsgate to Lymington.'

A sudden smile twitched Bonaparte's thin lips and his large dark eyes lit up as he murmured, 'That was well done, Breuc. Well done indeed. I have always counted on your value when we make our descent on England, and now you will be worth an extra Division to me.'

When he had first addressed Roger so sharply a sudden hush had descended on the room. Now, raising his voice so that all could hear, he laid his hand on Roger's arm and said, ^'1 appoint you my Aide-de-Camp-in-Chief for the invasion of England, and I have today decided to lead the Army of the North against that accursed island before the spring is out.'

The New Babylon in 1798

Bonaparte's pronouncement was received with great enthusiasm. Lannes alone among the assembled officers refrained from joining in the cheers and for a moment it looked as if he were about to voice a protest. But evidently considering the time and place inappropriate, he refrained and confined himself to exchanging an uneasy glance with Bourrienne.

Having dealt with Roger, the General-in-Chief resumed his conversation with R6veillon; so Roger tactfully withdrew and mingled with the others. When supper was announced they filed into a large dining room where, although Reveillon was the host, he insisted on Bonaparte taking the head of the long table. The gesture showed Roger that his chief had by his return to France lost nothing of the status he had achieved for himself in Italy.

There, at Montebello, during the peace parleys with Austria, he had in a few months transformed his position from that of a fighting soldier, who shared all hardships with his strongly Republican officers and men, to that of an almost royal personage. He had formed a Court at which his wife, mother and sisters set the tone for the many other ladies who had been invited from France to join his senior officers. Even his oldest friends no longer dared to ^' thee and thou' him. Like royalty, he dined every night in state, with his family and only a few others whom, from time to time, he chose to honour. The drawing rooms and antechambers of the Palace were always crowded, not only with his Generals but with a score of German and Italian nobles sent by their Princes to fawn upon him and win his goodwill.

He talked almost incessantly and now, as then, everyone hung upon his words while his agile mind flashed from subject to

89

subject, hardly waiting for answers to the questions he shot at those nearest him. Reveillon had taken the place on his right and Bourrienne was on his other side. Lannes and Roger were on the opposite side of the table, a few places down. The meal was nearly over when, during a brief pause in the conversation, Lannes said to his master:

^' But for my arrival on the scene this afternoon you would have been short of an aide-de-camp. At four o'clock Breuc was on the point of being shot as a spy.'

Bonaparte gave Roger an amused glance. 'That would have been carrying your pretence of being an Englishman a little too far. Tell us how you got yourself into such a predicament.'

One of Roger's most valuable gifts was his ability as a raconteur. He plunged into his story with gusto, deliberately raised several laughs against himself, gave a graphic description of the terror he had felt and belittled his achievement of having got away from seven armed men.

He could afford to adopt such an attitude because Bonaparte believed him to be fearless. At the siege of Toulon, soon after they first met, Roger had got himself into a position where he had no alternative but to lead an assault on an enemy battery over open ground in full daylight, and the out-at-elbows little Commander of the Artillery was under the impression that he had deliberately volunteered to undertake this suicidal act. More recently, too, on an island near Mestre, he had defended himself against a dozen Venetians under the eyes of the General-in-Chief, and in so doing had saved him from their most unwelcome attentions. He had received a sword of honour as a reward and a mention in Army Orders that had established his reputation for valour.

As Bonaparte loved stories he listened attentively, interrupting only to tell Roger what he ought to have done on several occasions when he might have taken some different line in his defence. By the time the tale was completed everyone had finished eating, the wine was circulating freely and several officers had lit cheroots. Bonaparte's comment on Roger's account of himself was:

^' Like myself, Breuc, you were born under a lucky star. Desmarets I know only by name. He is one of those Old Guard Generals who owes his rise to the Revolution. Most of them should never have been promoted above Sergeant-Major. His attitude shows laziness as well as irresponsibility. On that account

I shall take steps to have him removed from his Command. Now tell me the impression you formed of the defences of England.'

In replying, Roger had to be extremely careful. It was in the interests of his country to report that the south coast now bristled with formidable obstacles designed to prevent an enemy landing. However, he knew that the French must have numerous spies in England who would be sending back more or less accurate assessments; so he dared no_#t depart very far from the truth. With a thoughtful look, he said:

'The English have certainly not made the best of the time they have been given since you last contemplated a descent on their shores, but they are now definitely in a position to give us a hotter reception. In '96, apart from such great castles as Dover, Walmer and so on they had virtually no fixed coast defences, whereas they have since built a chain of forts along the Kent and Sussex beaches. There is one every few miles and they call them Martello Towers.'

'That I had heard. What are they like? Are they armed with cannon? Do you consider them formidable? '

' They are round, with inward-sloping walls and thirty or forty feet in height. Some have cannon on their roofs, the others are expected to receive their armament shortly.' In the latter statement Roger lied, as he knew the deliveries from the arsenal to be hopelessly behindhand. He continued, 'To storm them will not be easy, as they will be defended by resolute men.'

Bonaparte smiled. 'To have built them with inward-sloping walls was folly. That makes it less easy for a garrison to thrust the top of a scaling ladder back and cast it down with the men upon it.' Looking across at Bourrienne, he added, ' But we shall need many scaling ladders. Make a note to treble the quantity normally allotted to each Division.' To Roger he said: 'You consider the morale of the British to be good? ' 'About that I have no doubts. In every past campaign they have displayed their doggedness in defence. And you may be certain that in defending their own soil they will fight like tigers. You may recall, mon General, that when you asked my view on this two years ago I told you that not only will the troops show great bravery but people of all ages for miles round will come to their aid with shotguns and pitchforks, and I have seen no reason to change my opinion.'

'Unorthodox resistance of that kind will be only temporary,*

Bonaparte shrugged. * After I have had a few hundred of them shot as francs tireurs the others will be glad enough to run back and tend their pigs. But what of Regular forces? Have these been materially increased? ¹

^' Not greatly,' Roger admitted, ^' but to some extent. However, they will now have the support of a considerable Militia. Virtually every able-bodied gentleman and yeoman within twenty miles of the coast has been embodied in these volunteer units, given a uniform and equipped with weapons.'

^'Pah! ' exclaimed the General. ^' My veterans will make mincemeat of such amateurs. And you say that the Regular forces have not been much increased? Well, God is always on the side of the big battalions. Once ashore we shall drive all before us.'

Lannes suddenly put in, ^' But we have first to get ashore. And in its present state our Navy is no match for that of the English.'

^' What of that? ' Bonaparte replied promptly. ^' Looked at on a map, the Channel appears to be no more than a gulf between the two countries; but in fact it consists of hundreds of square miles of water. The English Fleet cannot be everywhere at once and it should take us only about seven or eight hours to get across. If we make our crossing on a foggy night the chances of running into their Fleet will be negligible.'

^' We might run into one of its frigates,' argued Lannes. ^' If so, the frigate would bring the Fleet speedily down on us, to our destruction.'

Bonaparte gave him an impatient glance. ^' Should that happen our own escorting ships-of-war would swiftly overwhelm the frigate. Even if she did escape, the odds are that it would be many hours before, in fog, she could locate the Fleet and bring it down upon us. By then we should be safely ashore and with our artillery landed.'

^' Would not fog prove as great a handicap to us as to the enemy? ' Roger asked. ^' Surely our flotillas would be liable to become dispersed. Many units would then find themselves lost and fail to reach their objectives.'

^'1 should take precautions against that. Each ship or barge would carry a fog-horn and keep in touch with her companions by sounding recognition signals at short intervals.'

Bonaparte's only experiences of sea travel were his brief crossings between Corsica and France, whereas Roger had voyaged many thousand miles. Moreover, he had learned much during his boyhood of the storms and currents of the Channel, so he did not think it all likely that this idea could be made to work in practice. But he refrained from voicing his opinion.

After a moment Bonaparte asked, ^' Do you know who has been nominated to oppose me when I land in England with an Army? '

Roger smiled. 'Alas, no! I was neither in the confidence of Downing Street nor tlje Horse Guards. I think it almost certain, though, that the Duke of York would assume command in person.'

'What! That barber's block whom Pichegru chased out of Holland in '95? '

'Since he is the King's son and Commander-in-Chief of the Army, it is hardly likely that he will allow himself to be passed over.'

' Then I will eat him for breakfast.'

After the laughter had died down Roger remarked, ' He could, of course, have a Second-in-Command well qualified to advise him. Faced with such a desperate situation, they would probably recall Sir Ralph Abercrombie from Ireland.'

' He did well in the West Indies,' Bonaparte admitted. ' But he is an old man now. He must be well over sixty and, I am told, near blind; so he will give me little trouble.'

The conqueror of Italy would have spoken less disparagingly of Sir Ralph could he have foreseen that three years later the Army he had left to garrison Egypt was to be totally destroyed by this veteran.

' It is possible,' Roger suggested, ' that Lord Cornwallis might be given the post, or even the Command. He has a great reputation-'

' Reputation! ' Bonaparte snorted. ' That fellow! Why, he lost the war in America for the British! He allowed himself to be boxed up in York Town by a mob of colonial farmers and was compelled to surrender. He is, too, nearly as old as Sir Abercrombie.'