Authors: Rob Griffith
“So, Blackthorne. If you will not tell me, perhaps I should ask Mademoiselle Calvet?” Lacrosse said.
I lunged up at him but the two gendarmes grabbed me and held me in vice-like grips. A thin, almost apologetic, smile played across the face of Lacrosse.
“Well, Blackthorne. Maybe I have found your Achilles’ heel? Should I let my men talk to her? You know how gentle they can be.”
I still said nothing. He sighed again.
“Very well. Take him back to his cell and get the girl.”
I surrendered.
“Enough, you win.” I shook myself free of the two gendarmes and straightened myself up, “I’ll tell you where I have hidden the papers.” I paused whilst I brushed myself down and thought of a suitable tale. “I never brought them from Paris. I memorised them and hid the originals in my rooms.” I put all the desperation and fear I felt into my performance.
Lacrosse scrutinised me. I don’t think he believed me for a second but he knew he would have to verify my story. We both realised I had saved myself for a day or so whilst word was sent to Paris. After that, he would likely kill me, and Dominique, if I didn’t give up the papers. In the meantime, just to be sure, he got his men to beat me, asking me again and again where the plans were. I stuck to my story, until I passed out once more.
Dawn had been and gone before I awoke, stiffer and colder than before. The cell had looked more appealing in the dark. Now nothing hid the squalor and filth. The window displayed a small patch of leaden sky but little else. My headache was gone though, which was the first piece of good news, and a key was turning in the lock. I chose to take this as another piece of good news since executions traditionally take place at dawn and hangmen are quite a conservative lot. It was too soon for Lacrosse to have received word back from Paris that the plans were not in my rooms so I expected to be presented with a meagre meal of some kind which I could throw in the face of my captors. I was disappointed.
The figure that the gaoler showed into the cell had the air of superiority and condescension of the highest born Duke. He waved his escort away with an irritated gesture of one hand. The gaoler scuttled gratefully out, pulling the door to behind him but not locking it. I heard him walk hurriedly down the corridor, he had probably been ordered to make himself scarce. My guest said nothing for a few moments. He looked around the cell but displayed no distaste. Perhaps he was used to such surroundings. It would have been good manners for me to get up but I remained seated, as uncomfortable as it was. There was nothing about the man that made me want to be polite. I was sure my mother would have agreed with me.
I had been expecting the gloating presence of my grey nemesis Lacrosse, back for another round of questions, but this was not he. The visitor was older for a start, about fifty or so, and he had the look of a man that had decided to stop fighting the advancing years and surrender to them instead. His hair was retreating rapidly and his stomach was beginning to bulge. When his thin lips smiled the effect was not unlike a corpse that had lain too long in the sun.
“Please, remain seated,” he said. When I didn’t react he smiled again, very briefly and then continued in a thin voice that belied his evident confidence, “I believe that these belong to you?” He reached into his jacket and extracted the packet of papers that Wright had given me. He tossed them on to the straw in front of me. This time when I didn’t say anything it wasn’t through insolence but sheer mystification. What could I say? A denial seemed trite. He paused for a moment then continued again, pacing up and down the few feet across the width of the cell. “Your friend Colonel Gaspard has not betrayed you, well not very much. He gave the papers to me, the one person in France who could help you. I used Gaspard to keep an eye on the less reputable side of the English community in Paris. His luck at the tables meant that a few extra livres were always welcome. When your letter arrived he naturally forwarded it to me. He might have thought it the best thing for you, or he might have thought that it would go badly for him if I had become aware of his involvement. It matters little. The point is that I am now in a position to do you a service.”
He stood on tiptoe to look out of the barred window, allowing me time to collect my thoughts. He must have known about Gaspard to have the papers, so anything I said would not implicate the Colonel, not that it mattered if I believed his story. I had always wondered who made good Gaspard’s debts so readily. Playing for time I asked him his name.”
“I apologise, I should have said, Monsieur Blackthorne. My name is Jean Baptise Dossonville.”
Jean Baptise Dossonville I knew was Calvet’s boss. Dominique and Calvet had both told me a few things about him. He had begun life as a servant and eventually rose to be valet to some of the most powerful men in France and was trusted by Louis XVI himself. When the Revolution came Dossonville joined the police. Dominique said this was so that he could protect his former employers and I wanted to believe her.
He quickly rose to be Inspector of the Paris Police and during the Terror his hands were far from free of blood, although his loyalties were far from clear. Calvet knew that Dossonville had, on occasion protected Royalists and turned a blind eye to their plots. He was known to take money from the British but he was not trusted by them or the Royalists, I had been told. Eventually justice, of a kind, caught up with him after one of a countless number of coups and he was sent to the penal colony in Guiana to die. However, his English paymasters in the Alien Office helped him escape and once the Peace of Amiens had been signed he returned to begin his career again. Arrested by Fouché he counterattacked with his own denunciation of Fouché and Bonaparte was fool enough to believe him. Fouché was sacked and Dossonville made Controller of Administration, overseer of all the secret police organisations. Calvet had said that the only thing you could count on was that Dossonville would serve his own interests. If those interests coincided with yours then he might help you, but you should always watch your back.
“A pleasure to meet you,” I said.
“I doubt that, but no matter. As I said, I am in a position to do you a good turn, as you would say.”
“And what might that be?” I really didn’t think I wanted to know.
“You can take those papers back to England for me.”
This time my silence indicated nothing but speechlessness. Why would Dossonville want me to take secret documents about Bonaparte’s invasion plans to England? Was he betraying his country again? Had he been paid to help me? No doubt a man like him was capable of anything for his own ends but what were they, and if I went along with them would I be furthering my own country’s interests or just his? He stopped pacing and leant against the door.
“You are probably asking yourself why I would make such an offer? I do not normally explain myself but you English can be so obtuse.” His eyes, that had never met mine for more than a second up to then, held my gaze for a quarter of a minute before he carried on. “It is quite simple really. Lacrosse has been charged with the recovery of these papers. It suits my purpose that Lacrosse, and of course his real master Fouché, fail.”
“You mean that you are prepared to see your armies defeated on the shores of England, for hundreds of Frenchmen to die, all to discredit a personal rival so that you can prevent him regaining he previous position?”
“Yes,” he nodded.
“Fine. How do I escape?” I stood and flicked the straw from myself. The smell would take longer to be rid off, and I don’t mean from the filth I had been sitting in but the stink of the company I had been keeping. Don’t think that I agreed to co-operate lightly. I knew that by allying myself even temporarily with a man like Dossonville was not only taking the tiger by the tail it was like trying to tie two tiger tails together. I would be bitten in the posterior before I was safely home but what else could I do? Sit and wait for Lacrosse to either stretch or detach my neck? Sometimes you just have to cut the cards and hope.
“Your escape has already been arranged,” Dossonville flicked out his watch. “You will be leaving in about five minutes. You are in Abbeville, it is not far from the coast.”
“What about Mademoiselle Calvet, Beston and the Abbé?”
“Do not concern yourself with the two gentlemen, they will play but a small part in our little game. Mademoiselle Calvet is in a cell down the corridor.”
I picked up the papers and he handed me the keys to the cells, consulting his watch again afterwards.
“I must be on my way. The gaoler is safely ensconced in a tavern, as are the gendarmes. Lacrosse is on his way to Paris. There is a cabriolet outside. A British Frigate will be off the coast near Etaples tonight, it will signal with a blue light and you must answer it with the red lantern in the cabriolet. A map is on the seat. I suggest you hurry.”
“Aren’t you worried the gaoler will let Lacrosse know who arranged my escape?”
“Not at all. The story has been decided. Beston and the Abbé died heroically in the escape attempt and I was never here. Lacrosse may come and go but the gaoler knows that if he crosses me then I will remember it.”
“You bastard, you never said Beston and the Abbé were going to die in your bloody scheme.” I took another step forward and Dossonville drew a small pocket pistol, holding it lightly towards me until I stepped back.
“Monsieur Blackthorne, you disappoint me. Lacrosse was going to kill you and them. They are already dead. This way at least you survive. Now stop your pathetic protests and go. I will not have my plan disrupted by an Englishman with a conscience. Even Lacrosse will only take a day or so to check your pathetic story. If you are still here when he returns you will be killed, but not before he takes a very long time trying to convince you to tell him the truth, though even if you do he won’t believe you. Not until you die. You have no alternatives, no choices.”
When I made no move to leave he turned and left himself, delivering a parting shot as he left.
“So be it. But they are dead and you will not bring them back by staying here. Au revoir, Monsieur Blackthorne.”
I heard his footsteps echo down the corridor. I still didn’t move. Then I kicked the wall so hard I almost broke my foot. The damned blackguard was right. Staying there wasn’t going to do anybody any good. I whirled the keys around in my hand for a few seconds while I went through my options; stay and be killed or leave and maybe get back home but run the risk of doing the bidding of a man I didn’t trust an inch. Had it been just myself I may have stayed but there was Dominique to consider. Who am I deceiving? I would have gone even without her. Better to do something than nothing. I put the papers inside my coat and ran out into the corridor shouting Dominique’s name.
I heard her answer and unlocked her cell door. She ran into my arms and I held her and kissed her for far longer than was safe in the circumstances. She was the first to pull away. She looked at my bruised and battered face with horror.
“Ben, what happened? How…” she said. I knew what she was going to say and there was no time for explanations.
“It doesn’t matter. We have to go, now.”
“Where? Where can we go?”
“England,” I said. “We’re going to England.” I said, taking her hand and leading her out of the gaol. Frying pans and fires came to mind.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The cabriolet was where Dossonville had said it would be. It was a smart and light two-wheeler with a leather fold-down hood. Where he got it and if the owner ever got it back I don’t know. I left the hood up and took the reins of the single horse. The mare was lively but I drove us as slowly and calmly as I could out of Abbeville, weaving our way between the traffic and along the Boulogne road. A flock of sheep being driven through one of the main streets impeded us somewhat and I was anxiously looking behind for signs of pursuit but no one challenged us. No one chased us, no one so much as looked at us. Perhaps Dossonville could be trusted, I thought. Perhaps it wasn’t all some elaborate trap. Perhaps the frigate would be at the rendezvous. Perhaps.
There was a lantern with a red lens tucked beneath the single bench seat. There was also a brace of pistols and a small basket of food and some wine. Dossonville was a man who planned for every eventuality, or so I was meant to think. As soon as we were out of the town I stopped the cabriolet and dismounted. I checked the horse and harness, even inspecting the brakes and the wheels. I also took the opportunity to examine the pistols whilst I was on the ground, checking the flints and powder. When I got back into the cabriolet I handed one to Dominique. She took it, checked it herself and then looked back across the low marshes that marked the Somme’s mouth. She was obviously preoccupied with something but wouldn’t say what. I had tried to reawaken some of the intimacy of our one night together with a touch or a look of affection but she rebuffed them as easily grapeshot stopping a column. I supposed her to be as nervous as I was with respect to how we’d keep the rendezvous with the frigate. I had told her of my meeting with Dossonville and she didn’t seem that surprised. He had helped her uncle before, when it suited him, but like me she took nothing he had said at face value. We were both imagining what might happen, what Dossonville’s agenda might have really been. It didn’t help either of our nerves when we heard a troop of cavalry approaching from behind us.