The Sultan's Daughter (6 page)

‘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 at 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 régime
the difference would have mattered little. The
corvée
—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 north-east. 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 realised 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. Seeing 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 behind him. 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 Nonetheless, 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 toward 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 realised 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 foot-falls 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.