Flashman's Escape (26 page)

“What do you think of this Trebuchet woman?” asked Grant.

“If her lover has been imprisoned by Bonaparte then surely she is not a supporter of the emperor. Perhaps she will just turn a blind eye if she thinks someone is living in her garden.”

“Unless she thinks she can win favour for her lover by turning us in,” said Grant with one of his rare astute thoughts.

“Possibly,” I agreed.

We fell silent then as a marching band started up nearby. It got steadily closer and so we walked to the end of the alley and watched it pass by. More grey-whiskered men, but they knew how to play. The tunes were not familiar to us but they were rousing anthems. A crowd followed the band along the street, some singing along and others cheering when a new refrain started. The sight of so many happy people and the jaunty music made me almost forget I was in the enemy capital. I could not help tapping my foot in time to the music as I watched the band march by. Then I felt a hand clap me on the shoulder.

“Come away,” whispered Lacodre. “The police often follow the bands to check that any men who look like they should be in the
Grande Armée
have got exemption certificates.”

I glanced around but no one seemed to be watching us as Lacodre led us back up the alley. This time the gate was open and we walked into the very overgrown garden. Lacodre bolted the door after us. “The house is a hundred metres in that direction,” he explained, pointing away from the wall. “Now let me show you the chapel.”

He led the way between some bushes until we emerged further along the wall in a small graveyard. Standing amid the gravestones was the chapel. It was a Gothic medieval affair with a stubby bell tower at one end and the door at the other. The door end had partly collapsed but the roof looked sound over the rest of the structure.

Lacodre led the way inside and a young woman was waiting for us. “This is Anna,” Lacodre introduced his cousin and turned to her. “And these are the two gentlemen I told you about.”

The girl looked anxious and twisted a cloth nervously in her hands. “Please,
monsieurs
, you must be very quiet and very careful. Madame Trebuchet’s young sons are home from school and they sometimes play in the gardens.”

“I am sorry,” added Lacodre. “I did not know they would be here, but we have nowhere else to hide you. If you can stay out of sight all will be well. Anna will bring food for you once a day. There are some blankets left on the altar and an old cot bed behind it. I will let you know as soon as we have heard from Marcel.”

With that Lacodre and the girl took their leave, the girl still whispering anxiously to her cousin as they walked away and clearly not happy with the arrangements.

Chapter 25

Three days later and Grant and I were bored out of our skins and getting on each other’s nerves. Twice we had heard the boys playing in the garden and had slipped out of the chapel to hide in some very thick undergrowth along the garden wall. The second time the brats had played for hours while I was nearly eaten alive by ants, which had a nest near where we were hiding. Eventually the boys were called in for tea and Anna arrived a short while later with a cloth-wrapped parcel of food for us. She was a plain creature, but if she had been willing, she could have helped me pass the time more pleasurably. Instead she rebuffed all my advances.

“Get way with you,” she cried, slapping away a grasping hand. “What would my husband say when he comes home from Russia to find me carrying another man’s baby?”

“How do you know he is not helping himself to some Cossack wench?” I goaded. “Come on, just a little cuddle.”

But she was having none of it. She seemed to view my company as some form of contagion and Grant was little better. He barely spoke to me either unless he had to. He still resented me punching him when we first arrived in Paris. Grant had persuaded Anna to get him some books from the library and now he spent most of his time reading up in the bell tower. I made him give me a book to read, but it was some treatise on philosophy that soon sent me to sleep.

After three days in that garden with an existence that resembled the life of a Trappist monk, I was desperate for diversion. I was in Paris with half a million French men marching to Russia. That meant half a million French women missing male company. Surely I could find just one that would welcome Flashy’s attention. To start with I worried about the risk of being caught either by those that might be searching for us or those just looking for deserters. But as the days passed frustration overtook my fear, until on the third afternoon I could stand it no longer. Shaved and smartened up as best as I could, it was time to leave my self-imposed monastery.

I had already heard the marching band pass down the street at the end of the alley. Having given it time to reach the Luxembourg Garden I slipped quietly out of the garden gate. When I reached the street few people seemed to be about and so I forced myself to walk slowly and casually towards the park. It was a warm day and as I walked through the park gates it seemed that half of the city was taking its leisure there. Two thirds of those promenading around the flower beds and the band stands were women, and oh what women!

There is something about Parisian ladies that you don’t find anywhere else. Paris has always been known for its fashions, but in my experience since the revolution there has been a licentious recklessness to them as well. As I learnt to my cost during my previous visit, it even infects girls visiting from Britain.

I started to wander around that park, feeling like a bee in a honey pot. There was at least a score of veteran soldiers taking advantage of the female company. Some had one girl on their arms and some had two. All had broad grins showing through their grey whiskers. Flashy, I thought, if you spend tonight alone, something is seriously wrong with the world.

I was so busy weighing up likely companions that I almost did not spot the policeman heading towards me. He wore no uniform, but as I glimpsed him out of the corner of my eye he stood out as the only man in the park who did not have a female companion. He was fifty yards away but, worryingly, he was walking straight in my direction. Affecting not to have seen him, I turned away and walked towards some bushes and trees that had been arranged to form a woodland glade. I was cursing my stupidity now. Of course I would stand out compared to the other soldiers; I was twenty years younger than most of them. As I disappeared from the view of the policeman behind the bushes, I started to run. If I was caught without an exemption certificate, the best I could hope for was an armed guard to the Russian front. I had been to Russia and had no wish to go there again.

I had gone twenty yards when I spotted my deliverance ahead. Lying half hidden in the long grass ahead was a couple and judging from the rhythmic movement they were fully focussed on each other. I would probably have missed them entirely had it not been for the meticulous tidiness of the moustachioed infantry officer, who had hung his jacket up on the branch of a tree. I swiftly moved across to them on the balls of my feet, trying to make no noise. Any sounds I did make would have been drowned out by the grunting of the old boy, who had found a filly half his age. Glancing down, I saw that she had her eyes closed, perhaps to imagine that the man on top of her was her husband. Right then I did not care if she was picturing being mounted by Bonaparte himself; all I was interested in was searching the soldier’s coat. I found what I wanted folded in one of the pockets, a certificate of exemption in the name of Henri Lafitte. I grabbed it and disappeared into the deepest undergrowth I could find.

I had to move slowly to avoid making a noise and so was still in earshot of the amorous couple when they were discovered by the policeman. Give a man the right to interfere in the lives of others and they become right officious bastards and this policeman was no exception. I felt sorry for the old boy as he was rudely interrupted mid-ride. His companion screamed as he was hauled off her and then there was shouting as the old soldier insisted that he had an exemption even if he could not find it.

“Look at me,” he roared at the official. “I am fifty-four years old and have been a soldier all my life. I carry eight wounds, most earned in the emperor’s service. I have an exemption; it must be in the grass here somewhere.”

The petty bureaucrat was having none of it. “The emperor needs all the soldiers he can get,” he insisted. “No exemption and I have to take you back to the barracks where they can check the details.”

After much more yelling and what was probably a fingertip search of the long grass they had been cavorting in, the old boy was hauled away. While that was happening Flashy, now with his certificate securely buttoned in a pocket, was disappearing through the trees to sample the delights of the park in safety.

As it turned out the women found me rather than the other way round. I was just doffing my hat to a very pretty blonde who seemed to be chaperoned by her mother when a voice called from behind me.

“So you have taken the day off from beating British prisoners?”

I turned and there were the two ladies I had met in the Tuileries gardens when we had first arrived in Paris.

“It was food poisoning,” I reminded them.

“Of course,” agreed the older girl with a knowing smile. “That is what I told Beatrice when we saw you.”

“No, you didn’t,” objected the younger woman indignantly. “You said he had punched the prisoner.”

“Well, as long as you do not think we are British prisoners, you are welcome to accompany us around the park,” offered the older girl. “You are much younger than the other soldiers here,” she pointed out as she ran an appraising eye from the top of my head to my boots. “I am Claudette, by the way,” she introduced herself. “This is my cousin, Beatrice. Once we have listened to all the bands we will have to walk Beatrice home. Then if you are
very
attentive,” and here she squeezed my arm encouragingly, “I might allow you chaperone me home as well.” I almost growled in anticipation at the final sentence for the look in her eye left little doubt as to what my chaperoning duties would include.

You can imagine I attended their every need that afternoon, finding them chairs by the bandstand and regaling them with modestly told tales highlighting the courage of my new persona, Henri Lafitte. They did not seem to notice my ignorance of the words to popular songs played by the bands or that some of the martial deeds I described had been achieved by the British rather than the French. The crowds were drifting home and I was close to boiling in anticipation when another of those infernal policemen intervened again.

This time I did not see him at all until he stepped out from behind a bush, where he had clearly been waiting to intercept me. It was a different policeman to last time, but my relative youth was obviously attracting their attention.

“My apologies, ladies, but I am afraid I must detain your companion.” He held up a card that had an impressive embossed crest. “I am sure you will understand,” he added with a note of menace.

The girls backed off immediately, alarm in the eyes of Claudette; she evidently wanted nothing to do with the authorities. “Of course, of course. Perhaps we will meet you again, Henri,” she added, before pulling her cousin away and walking swiftly down the path.

“Come back,” I called after her. “It is all right; I have a certificate of exemption.” I was unbuttoning my pocket as I spoke, but the girls did not look back and just hurried away.

“Well, well,” exclaimed the policeman as he studied the certificate. “Henri Lafitte. By the strangest coincidence a gentleman of exactly that name claims he lost his certificate in this very park earlier this afternoon. And here you are with a certificate in that name and appearing far too young to be awarded any exemption.”

“It is a common name,” I protested. “I imagine that there are lots of exemption certificates in the name of Henri Lafitte.”

“I am sure you are right, sir, but fewer, I think, for soldiers that appear to be as fit and able bodied as yourself.”

“I have been wounded, badly wounded, serving the emperor,” I protested. For the first time in my life I was grateful that I had been shot in the chest, for now I saw that there was no alternative but to show him the wounds I had received at Albuera. “Look at my chest,” I insisted, pulling open my shirt. “I have another wound in my thigh if you want to see that.”

The policeman’s jaw dropped in surprise as he caught sight of the large star-shaped musket ball exit wound scars in the middle of my chest.
“Mon dieu,”
he murmured and he actually reached forward and stroked one of the lines to check that they were real scars. “I am amazed you lived with such a wound,” muttered the policeman, with a note of reverence in his voice now. “My apologies, sir,” he said, handing me back the certificate. “But you understand we must do our duty.”

He walked away, leaving me to do up my shirt with slightly trembling hands. That had been a close call. Without the wound he would have arrested me for certain. I looked around but the two girls were out of sight and the park was emptying as evening set in. It looked like I would sleep alone that night after all, but for the moment I was just glad to still be at liberty. I made my way back to the alley and through the gate into the garden. There I found a reception committee of Grant and Anna waiting for me.

“Where have you been?” they chorused.

“Don’t you realise how dangerous it is on the streets?” persisted Anna, seeming genuinely frightened. “They are picking up all sorts of people for the army. If you are arrested, we could all be caught. You don’t know what you are doing.”

“Don’t worry,” I replied, putting my arm around her waist. “Look, now I have a certificate of exemption, and when I was stopped, the policeman looked at it and let me go.”

“You have already been stopped by the police?” She sounded horrified as she stared at the certificate I held out for her.

“Where did you get that?” enquired Grant, but I ignored him.

Anna’s body felt warm and yielding to the touch, reminding me of my earlier desires. “You worry too much,” I told her as I moved my hand up to cup her breast. “Now why don’t you let me help you lose all that tension?”

I did not see her hand before it slapped my face hard. “You are a dangerous fool! You have no idea what risks you are taking,” she shouted, pulling herself away. But then a look of malevolence crossed her features. “But if you really want a woman, I will send Clothilde, the dairy maid, to see you in the morning.” With that she picked up her empty basket and stalked off back through the garden.

Grant demanded again to know where the exemption had come from. When I told him, he had the effrontery to accuse me of taking unnecessary risks and endangering our escape. This from a man who had dragged us all the way to Paris on a whim. We fell to arguing again, and while Grant might have had a point I was not going to admit it. I reminded him that without me he would almost certainly have been caught wandering around in his red coat, and would now be strapped to a table having his fingernails pulled out. He raged back and eventually stormed back up the ladder into his belfry to spend the night with his books.

He was still snoring up there the next morning as I sat on the chapel steps gnawing on a crust of bread for breakfast. It had been a chilly night and I was sitting back against the stonework with my eyes shut, soaking in the warmth of the early morning sun. Suddenly I heard footsteps coming through the trees. I was just judging whether I had time to run and hide in a nearby bush when what can only be described as an awe-inspiring sight hove into view. If the woman had been two hundred pounds lighter, she might have been attractive. But she wasn’t and she wasn’t. This, I realised, must be Clothilde, the dairy maid that Anna had promised me the night before. My jaw must have dropped in astonishment as I took in the sight and when she saw me she gave me a cheery wave and a smile.