Take, Burn or Destroy, page 29
Madame Adair called for a servant to bring him water, and this helped a little. Hayden thought his crew all looked as ill as he did, and he was gratified to see them loaded onto a dray when they departed. Prisoners were often marched many miles to gaols—difficult enough for healthy men.
As the dray retreated down the lane, Hayden could see the dull-eyed gazes of his crew as they stared back at him. A strange guilt came over him. He should be with his crew, not making more than likely futile plans to escape. But there was no going back now. To admit he had lied would bring about an immediate and official response. He was going to have to make his escape in his present condition. Waiting until he recovered was no longer possible.
“Why did that man call you ‘’ayden’?” Madame Adair asked.
He shrugged. “He did not know my name, I suppose.”
She tilted her head and gazed at him quizzically. “He seemed very pleased to see you . . .”
“I made it my duty to aid them when the ship was wrecked. I am ashamed to say it, but the crew of Les Droits de l’Homme did not respond to their situation with courage, let alone gallantry.”
“Well, I am happy you survived, Capitaine,” she said, and smiled, the worry disappearing from her face for an instant. “Did you sleep well . . . after our visitors left?”
“I was attended by a nightingale; did you hear it? So beautiful and sorrowful.”
She looked suddenly sad. “I do not think it will sing again this night, Capitaine.”
“I would be very melancholy if it went away.”
“Not so sad as me.”
She turned on her toe and sailed off towards the house. Hayden wondered if everyone saw what he did in the way she moved—some little contentment in the midst of madding distress.
Hayden called over one of the servants who had taken water to the prisoners. “Do you know where those Anglais were being taken?”
“To Brest, Capitaine.”
“Brest? But Quimper Prison is in the opposite direction . . .”
The man shrugged. “That is what they said, Capitaine Mercier.”
“Merci.”
Hayden moved to a chair beneath the shade of the chestnut and watched the road north. It was not long before the servant was proven right—the dray with its guards went slowly up a hill, the horses straining.
When Hayden had recovered a little of his strength, he stumbled up to his room, resting once upon the stair, and dropped onto his bed like a sack of oats. He woke to a tugging upon the shoulder of his jacket.
“Monsieur Capitaine . . . Monsieur Capitaine?”
“Mademoiselle?”
Charlotte stood over him.
“Will you not eat, Capitaine Mercier? Mama desires that you do.”
Hayden swung his feet over the side of his bed, and sat up, bracing himself with an arm to either side. Before him Charlotte stood almost eye to eye. “Mama says that one must eat to grow strong.”
“She is very wise, your mother.”
The girl nodded as though this was merely understood and beyond question. A tray of food sat upon a small table; the smell of it drifted to Hayden.
“No one woke me for supper?”
“We tried, monsieur, but you would not stir. I have been shaking you now for at least an hour.”
“So long? I was very tired.” A thought arose from the confusion. “Did you not go off to visit with friends?”
“I did, but they sent me home. Madame Lepic said that Hortense had taken ill, although she did not seem it in the least.”
“I am sorry she grew ill. But you do not feel sick, I hope?”
The girl shook her head.
“Tell your mother I will eat now. And thank her for my supper.”
“Of course, monsieur.” She ran off.
Hayden wondered if she had been sent home because the neighbours did not want to be seen aiding a woman who was most likely about to be taken away. No doubt everyone within several miles knew of what had occurred the previous night.
Hayden ate; the food and the scents wafting in his window reminded him of his boyhood visits to his mother’s family. If his friends back in England knew how much love he felt for this country, they would probably be shocked. How he wished this terrible war would end! Suddenly, and overwhelmingly, he felt repelled by it. By a war where his two people fought, where madmen and mobs cried out for the blood of women like Madame Adair. Where children were orphaned by some impersonal strike of a committee member’s pen.
When he was finished, Hayden carried his own tray downstairs, wanting to step out for a breath of the evening air. Gravel rattled beneath his boots as he crossed to the grass, the fragrance of the April evening as intoxicating as a woman’s perfume.
He stood upon the crest that looked out over the long valley and felt the soft breeze wash over his face. For a moment he closed his eyes, and when he opened them again the darkness appeared to have seeped up from the moist ground to thicken the air.
Madame Adair stood beside him, her arms crossed over her breast, a shawl gathered close. How she had crossed the gravel without him hearing he did not know.
“Madame,” he said, giving a little bow.
“Capitaine. I shall miss this view . . . terribly.” She fell silent for a time. Nighthawks flitted across the clouds and the few stars waking. “I only hope they do not wake Charlotte. I will make no resistance so there is no noise. Will you sit with me, Capitaine? When they come I will be here, beneath my favourite chestnut.”
“Certainly, yes.”
She turned and put a hand gently upon his arm. “Thank you, Capitaine Mercier, for what you have done. If there is a child, please know that I will raise him—or her—with all my love.”
“Thank you, Madame. I will pray that you are spared.”
She nodded her thanks.
They arranged the chairs so that they looked out to the south-west, where the last light of the spring day ebbed away over the horizon.
A servant brought them coffee and a blanket for Madame Adair to wrap herself in. Little was said, though once it was utterly dark Madame Adair reached out and took Hayden’s hand and held it with a certain tenderness. The night crept on, the clock in the hall counting each muffled hour, as though it rang from some great distance.
Midnight came and then passed. Hayden began to wonder if in fact Madame Adair had been spared—the Jacobins would not come. But then, before the half-hour rang, he heard the sound of horses’ hooves and then muffled voices. Two torches appeared, illuminating men on horseback.
Madame Adair wrung his hand a second and put a knuckle to her lip, but then mastered herself and rose to her feet. Hayden did the same, and she spun and pressed herself against him a moment. Pulling free, she kissed him once upon the lips and then stepped away, crossing the grass towards the gate that led to the lane.
Hayden followed her—he could not allow her to face this mob alone. Just before the gate they paused and watched the torches approaching, riders moving in the bloody light. Too soon these men were at the gate, then through, alighting from their saddles. They numbered a half-dozen—soldiers, Hayden could see.
“Madame Adair?” one of them enquired.
“Yes,” she managed, though she could hardly breathe. “C’est moi.”
“That’s him,” one of the men interjected. He stepped forward into the dull light—a French naval officer. “Capitaine Hayden of the Themis. I would know him anywhere.”
Fifteen
He had no coat. He had been hustled away so abruptly that he had left his French captain’s coat hanging in his room. The evening was cool, but not cold, and after the harsh nights he had spent in the wreck Hayden was certain he would endure.
He was seated in the back of a small cart, across from him the naval lieutenant armed with a pistol, ahead a driver and an armed soldier. There were men on horseback, including a lieutenant or captain; in the poor light, Hayden was not sure which.
The look upon Madame Adair’s face when he did not deny the lieutenant’s claim was something he would never forget.
“No, no,” she had protested. “He is Capitaine Mercier!”
But he was not, and she had looked at him, first in surprise and then betrayal. He had felt so very low as they loaded him into the cart.
Betrayal of trust seemed to be what defined him, suddenly. He had betrayed Henrietta, then his men by abandoning them, and now Madame Adair, who had given her complete trust to him. For a man who took pride in acting honourably, even at great cost to himself, this was the strangest feeling. Who would think well of him now? Even Philip Stephens might withdraw his support, or so he imagined.
As the cart rolled, the men upon the bench spoke quietly, and laughed occasionally, as did the men on horseback. He had not been manacled or put in irons or even bound, but perhaps they could see he was not strong enough to escape, though it did not stop him from contemplating such a course.
The great worry now was how the local authorities would respond to Hayden’s claiming to have been a French sea officer. It was, he realised, a foolish thing to have done and something he would almost certainly not have claimed had he not been so utterly spent and confused when he woke. If the authorities named him a spy and sent him to Paris, he would more than likely not leave that city alive—and he could not claim to be with child.
Rest was the physic for Hayden’s present condition, and it was all he could do to stay in his seat. Every part of his being wanted to lie down on the deck of the cart and sleep. It would not matter in the least to him that the planks were hard, the road rutted, and the cart poorly sprung. Looking across at the lieutenant, he could see the man was engaged in the same struggle. He, too, was not recovered from their ordeal.
“What became of Capitaine Lacrosse, if I may ask?” Hayden enquired.
“He survived, Capitaine, but was recalled to Paris.” The man shrugged, as if nothing else need be said.
“I am sorry to hear it,” Hayden replied, and meant it. Lacrosse was an honourable man, and it did not improve Hayden’s mood to learn that he had gone to his death. Fleeing might never have occurred to the Frenchman, or perhaps it had not been possible—he had been taken to Paris rather than simply summoned.
“There was much bad news that day,” the lieutenant observed, shaking his head, “though not perhaps for you, Capitaine. Did you know that your ship was taken by English cruisers before it could make Brest?”
“My ship?” Hayden was confused.
“Oui. The frigate—Themis.”
“Was retaken by the English?”
“So it has been reported.”
Hayden could have fallen from the cart. The bad-luck ship had had a bit of good luck for a change? He could hardly credit it.
Over and again, Hayden fell asleep only to catch himself as he slumped down. Brest—if that was indeed their objective—was many miles distant and would probably not be reached before midday.
It was light when Hayden awoke, jounced by a rut in the road. He lay half upon the little bench, across from the sleeping naval lieutenant who seemed to have lost his pistol.
Hayden sat up, groggily, and shook his aching head. For the life of him he could not remember lying down or falling asleep, which he found more than a little disconcerting. One of the horsemen noticed him and prodded the Navy lieutenant with a hand. The man opened his eyes, looked around, and then scrambled to a sitting position, searching the bottom of the cart.
“Where is my pistol?”
The man riding beside the driver reached back and passed the missing firearm to the lieutenant, butt first.
“Luckily, the Anglais fell asleep before you or he would have had your gun.”
They all laughed, but only briefly. Fatigue had the better of all of them and no one was in particularly good humour, Hayden guessed.
The sea came into view, distantly, as they crested a hill, and it took a moment to realise that this was very close to the parts that he, Hawthorne, and Wickham had traversed when sent ashore by Captain Hart to view the French fleet. How very long ago that seemed!
If that was true, then the Rade de Brest was only a few miles off—but it was a very considerable body of water and it would take more than a day to travel round it.
Within half an hour Hayden realised that this would not be their course, as the little cart and its guard of honour wound down a hillside to a tiny village upon the shore. Here a Navy cutter lay to her anchor, her boat ashore, an aspirant awaiting their arrival.
“Is this the Anglais? Capitaine Charles ’ayden?” the boy asked.
“It is,” the Army officer in charge replied. “You will take him and Lieutenant Nadeau as well.”
The Navy lieutenant jumped down from the cart, trying to hide his weakness. “And you must treat him well, you little shit. I will tell your captain. He saved many a French sailor when our ship was wrecked.”
The boy looked a little disconcerted by this sudden assault and only nodded in response.
“You must sign my papers,” the Army man instructed, climbing down from his horse. “Do not think for a moment that you can escape that.”
Signatures were duly scribed, insults traded between the two services, and Hayden and his keeper loaded into the ship’s boat and rowed out to the cutter, where they climbed aboard. Men were waiting with irons for Hayden, but Lacrosse’s lieutenant stepped in between.
“Those will not be needed, I can assure you.”
This did not sit well with the captain of the cutter, an officer only a little older than Wickham, by his appearance. He and the lieutenant stepped away and conferred a moment, and when they returned the captain told his men that the irons could be dispensed with, and he bowed to Hayden.
“You are welcome aboard, Capitaine.”
“Merci.” Hayden was more than a little surprised, but the intervention of Lacrosse’s lieutenant appeared to have worked some small miracle. The anchor was weighed and the little ship got under sail. There was only a little wind, so the cutter drifted along, the shores of the Rade creeping past.
It seemed cruel that such weather would arrive now. Had the day been clear when Les Droits de l’Homme was chased, they would have seen the shore from many miles away and not been wrecked. Yet this spring day seemed almost painfully fair to Hayden. Only a few days previously, he had been wandering along the borders of the land of the dead. Now here he was, sailing upon the Rade de Brest, caressed by a sweet-smelling breeze. Perhaps tomorrow would see him in great danger, but for the next few hours he would be beyond harm.
He wondered what had become of Madame Adair. Had the Jacobins come that night, as she believed they would? Had they taken her away? Certainly, she would be found guilty if so. Her only hope for survival then would be the almost impossibly slim chance that Hayden’s seed had taken root in her womb. These melancholy thoughts were so at odds with the day and his present circumstances that he could hardly bear to contemplate them.
He turned his mind to Henrietta and his betrayal. Given that Madame Adair was an exemplary person who did not deserve persecution, Hayden somehow did not feel that what he had done was wrong. Yet he felt a strange sense of guilt over it all the same. The fact that the experience had not been entirely without pleasure seemed to make a lie of his justification.
The whole afternoon was required to cross the bay and arrive at the naval station on the north shore. Here some time was wasted as the captain of the cutter and Lacrosse’s lieutenant tried to learn to whom Hayden should be delivered. While he waited, Hayden had an exceptional view of the French fleet and made very careful note of what ships were present and how ready for sea they appeared to be.
Finally, Hayden was handed over to three guards and took his leave of Lacrosse’s man, thanking him for his kind treatment.
“Capitaine Lacrosse had a high opinion of you, Capitaine,” the lieutenant explained. “I have done this for him.”
“I am grateful,” Hayden said. “If you meet Capitaine Lacrosse again, give him my thanks.”
“I will, sir,” but there was, in the man’s eye, something that told Hayden he did not expect to see Lacrosse again in this life.
Hayden was led into the citadel, which was both great and labyrinthine. The general direction that they seemed to be going, however, was down. Eventually, they came to the lockup, and it was not a healthful place. After passing a number of large cells occupied by gaunt-looking men, a cell was opened by a guard, and Hayden sent in.
“Why are you putting this Frenchman in with us?” one of the prisoners asked in French.
“You may give it over, Mr Wickham. They smoked me.”
“Ah,” the midshipman said. “I am sorry to hear it.”
Very quickly, Hayden learned that no one knew why they were being held in Brest or where they were going to be imprisoned.
“Certainly, they have prisons for foreigners,” Barthe said, somewhat offended that they were in a common prison for Frenchmen.
“They do, Mr Barthe, but perhaps there is some administrative dispute about to which one we should be confined.”
Mr Barthe made a growling sound.
To his great relief, Hayden found all of his men from the wreck present but for poor Franks, whose body had washed up on the beach. They were none of them hale, and the youngest of them were not the least affected. Though the cell was not large, Hayden managed to find a moment, when most of the men were sleeping, to speak to Griffiths.
Griffiths, like everyone, appeared frail and stiff, as though still affected with the cold from their ordeal. “I thought Mr Ransome might not survive, but he is on the mend, Captain. All the midshipmen were knocked back, but they are thriving now. Better food would be the best physic, but none of us has any money to buy victuals, as we were all robbed as we lay on the beach.”
