Authors: Rob Griffith
“Yes, if I was he I would go. Now. Before we take offence.” said Bennett with a sudden and disconcertingly theatrical snarl.
I backed through the door and kept looking over my shoulder as I walked down the corridor into the club. The room had gone quiet and all eyes were on me. I stifled an urge to run. I walked slowly through the crowd and up the stairs. They had their money. For a moment I hoped that perhaps that was the end of the matter but I don’t think they took kindly to my threat. I had perhaps spoken in haste and might yet regret it. Bullies tend to lose interest once you are cowed and perhaps I should have played the part of a milksop. As it was, I feared my dealings with Mr Oldfield and Mr Bennett were not over, and would not end well. Not at all well.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
August 1803
I was early. A habit that had developed over the previous weeks and one that didn’t suit me. I am impatient by nature and so arriving before an appointment always leads to pacing. Pacing back and forth normally leads one naturally enough to contemplation; an activity that I could then ill afford. In common with anyone who has embarked on a foolish or reckless course of action any amount of contemplation led to doubt and it was far too late for that. Thankfully I had been busy enough to keep such thoughts from my head. Henry Brooke had educated me on the structure and activities of my new employer. He had punished one of his clerks by making him try and teach me the complexities of ciphers and sympathetic inks, the lessons gave both of us headaches and the urge to reach for the nearest bottle.
I had paid out of my meagre pocket for some tutoring from both Mr Jackson and Mr Angelo at the rooms they shared in Bond Street. Gentleman Jackson, a former champion of some repute, introduced me to the art of pugilism, or rather the art of being bruised, bloodied and winded. Harry Angelo honed my swordsmanship from the embarrassingly incompetent level it had been to something approaching the grace and power with which he could command a blade. By the end of a fortnight with them, exercising with each on alternate days, I was fitter than the proverbial fiddle and had the vague hope that next time I was called upon to fight anybody I might actually come out the better, all of which was instantly dismissed by my next tutor, Georges Cadoudal.
Cadoudal was a French émigré who had worked for the Alien Office in France but was then training other conspirators and agents in the mysteries of espionage. His house in Romsey was host to many shadowy figures. We were not allowed to use our real names and conversations were limited to the job in hand. We learnt how to observe without being observed, how to pass notes by sleight of hand, how to disappear in a crowd and how to recognise if you were being followed. Cadoudal’s mantra was that if you had to resort to violence then your mission had failed. Invisibility was the spy’s primary weapon, or so he said. It didn’t fill me with confidence though, when he was caught and guillotined the next year. However, that, as they say, is another story. Eventually Cadoudal decided that my skills were such that I might only get myself killed and not endanger anyone else. He reported the fact to Brooke who promptly ordered me to Walmer Castle near Deal, a short sea journey from France. I was obviously to be sent on my first mission. A prospect that filled me with both dread and hope.
The post chaise had dropped me outside the castle an hour before my appointment with a Colonel Smith, the liaison for agents at Walmer. I decided to take a walk on the beach rather than pace up and down some stuffy waiting room, and tipped the coachman to take my luggage up to the gate whilst I sauntered towards the shore. It was as fine a day as the English summer can deliver; blue sky with the lightest hints of wispy cloud, a warm sun and the gentlest of breezes. Shelley, had he been at my side, would have waxed most lyrically.
I went back to Walmer recently to visit the Duke of Wellington and found that the place had been turned into a comfortable country house but back then it was still a working fortress, as well as the residence of the Warden of the Cinque Ports. Cannon poked their noses from the battlements and red-coated infantry could be seen drilling in the fields alongside. I had seen more troops encamped on Branham Downs and temporary batteries spaced out along the whole coast. All of Kent was being turned into an armed camp and I began to take the hot air being spouted in London about the preparations for an invasion a bit more seriously. I turned my back on the low squat shape of the castle and walked across the road to the beach.
I crunched my way across the shingle to the surf line and sat on the steep bank just at the water’s edge. The sea was smooth and the waves gently caressed the stones like a school master shushing his charges during a lesson. Out to sea a myriad of vessels sheltered in the Downs anchorage awaiting favourable winds to take them down the Channel or up around North Foreland and into the Thames. The treacherous Goodwin Sands were only four miles off shore but they and the South Foreland cliffs meant that the vessels could gain some protection whilst they waited. There were men o’ war, every size of merchantmen from East Indiamen nearly as big as a seventy-four to packets, brigs and barges and then fishing boats, bumboats and gigs. Sails stained with salt and mildew flapped forlornly in the gentle wind and faded flags of many colours flew limply at the mastheads. Around each larger ship skittered luggers and galleys servicing the vessel with provisions, water or supplies. Along the beach warehouses and crude shacks housed chandlers, smiths, taverns and even brothels. Everything a sailor needed after a long voyage. Here and there a boat was being hauled up the shingle by a capstan or launched into the swell by sailors up to their necks in the steeply shelving surf.
I sat on the pebbles and watched all this bustle. One of those hundreds of ships would be taking me across to France that night. I shaded my eyes and tried to guess which one. I could see a frigate close inshore but she would be too big. There was a bomb vessel but she would be too slow. The most likely was a cutter flying the blue ensign about half a mile out but there was little sign of activity on her. I tried not to think any further ahead than which vessel might carry me to France. I didn’t want to think about what I would be doing in France, or if I would even come back.
I picked up a flat stone and skimmed it into the oncoming waves. It managed two skips before it sank beneath the water. The next stone did four and the one after, five. That record stood for some minutes until I found a really smooth and flat pebble that did seven. I was so intent that I did not notice the sound of steps behind me, it was only when the woman’s voice broke my concentration that I realised I was no longer alone. A great spy I would make, I thought.
“Sir, pray tell me why it is that when a gentleman is faced with water and a ready supply of stones that they seem obliged to combine them into some sport?”
“Perhaps, madam, it is some long forgotten primordial need to impress the female of the species,” I said as I turned and stood. I flirted out of habit but was pleasantly surprised to see that it was not in vain. In front of me stood a tall woman in a red dress of military pretensions. She must have been about thirty. Her hair was dark and her complexion more tanned than was fashionable. She was just on the pretty side of plain but two things made her instantly attractive. First were her eyebrows, I have always held that a fine pair of eyebrows do much to enhance a lady’s face. Hers were bold, dark and inquisitive. Second were her eyes, they were lit by intelligence and wit.
“If you expect me to be impressed by the throwing of stones then I am afraid that you will be disappointed, sir,” she said, smiling.
“I suggest that you try it for yourself before passing judgement, madam,” I retorted teasingly.
“A fair suggestion, and a good maxim to live by I suppose.”
“I shall show you how, if you would permit me,” I offered.
“Is demonstration really necessary for such simple a skill?” she mocked.
“There are many techniques that need to be mastered. The selection of the appropriate stone, the spinning of it, the angle with which it must strike the water and the correct velocity,” I said. I was smiling as well. There was something about her that would have made any man want to flirt with her. As I said, she wasn’t beautiful but she had a spirit and an air of dangerous rebellion about her. She was a woman who would not be condescended too and she demanded to be treated as an equal, a rare quality that I always find alluring.
“I have observed that it is the habit of men to try and make things more complex than they are, in order to discourage women from attempting them,” she said picking up a stone. She weighed it in her hand and then bent low. The stone span out of her hand towards the water. She was lucky; it kissed the crest of a wave and then skipped a further eight times.
“In your case, madam, I am becoming convinced that you could do anything to which you set your mind,” I said as I grinned and admitted defeat.
“Good, now since I have mastered the art of throwing stones perhaps we could be introduced?” She held out her hand.
“Certainly, Ben Blackthorne, at your service.” I took her hand. Her grip was as firm as any man’s through the kidskin gloves.
“Lady Hester Stanhope and whilst I have called on your services for the lesson I don’t think I shall need any more of them. I would reason that you are one of Mr Brooke’s gentlemen?”
“Yes, my lady,” I said, wondering how much I should say.
“Then we best return to the castle.”
“You live there?”
“Yes, I am Mr Pitt’s niece.”
Do not suppose that this is to be one of those memoirs that recants lists of the great and the good that the writer has met even though they did little more than doff their hat in the street to some famous personage. I will however mention those who have some bearing on my life and William Pitt, one of the greatest prime ministers this nation has ever had certainly qualifies. In the summer of 1803 he was out of office and a short three years from his untimely death. I was somewhat taken aback to find that the delightful Lady Hester was his niece and that he was in residence at Walmer. I knew he had been given the title of Warden of the Cinque Ports but assumed that like most office holders he would take the cash and not actually do anything for it. Perhaps I was judging him by my own standards. I learnt from Lady Hester that not only was he taking his duties seriously but that he was colonel of a regiment of volunteers that he had raised and actively commanded despite, she admitted, his poor health.
She left me at the guardhouse in the tender care of a corporal who ran his finger down the list of expected visitors, silently mouthing each name as he read it. Whilst he looked for my name I watched Lady Hester depart with some regret; her hips swung with what could be taken for, with only minor assistance from a libidinous imagination, a sensuousness usually associated with dark maidens of far off lands. She looked over her shoulder and looked shocked to see me staring, but her eyes glinted with satisfaction all the same.
From the buttons on his uniform and the newness of his equipment I assumed the corporal to be one of Mr Pitt’s volunteers and as such his appearance did his colonel credit, even if his reading skills did not. His cross belt was freshly pipe-clayed and all his buttons shone. Eventually he found my name and bellowed for an orderly to take me up to the battlements, where, the corporal assured me, I could find Colonel Smith.
The orderly led me through the deep cool gateway into the interior of the castle. We walked along a narrow curving passage between the inner and outer walls until I was almost sure we would be back at the gateway at any moment but then we ascended some steps back out into the sunlight. Walmer was built by Henry VIII and so is not high like a Norman castle but low with thick walls and semicircular battlements for the guns which looked out over the beach to the Downs anchorage that they protected. Each gun was captured in its own web of ropes and pulleys designed to absorb the recoil as they flung their twenty-four pound shot out to a distance of more than two thousand yards. More of the Cinque Ports Volunteers kept watch over the coast and a party of gunners were busy cleaning and painting their cannon.
I was led around to the next battlement and this was clear of soldiers but two officers were standing around a huge telescope and a civilian sat in a campaign chair with his leg propped up on a stool. Henry Brooke was there but I recognised none of the others. The army colonel I assumed to be Colonel Smith but the other had on a navy uniform. The orderly introduced me loudly in a thick Kentish accent, unfortunately no one turned to greet me but he left anyway. Behind me were a set of French doors leading into Mr Pitt’s apartments and servants were laying a table for dinner. I walked up to the group and coughed. Brooke looked round and smiled.
“Ah, Blackthorne. Good to see you again. Sir, this is the young man I was telling you about. Lieutenant Benjamin Blackthorne, Mr William Pitt,” Brooke said.
“An honour, sir.” I bent down and shook Pitt’s hand. His grip was firm despite his obvious ill health. He looked older than his forty-four years. He had a sharp nose and a receding chin but alert eyes. His complexion was that of a drinker; his skin was sallow but with red cheeks and nose. It was hard to tell when he was seated but he was tall and thin. A bottle of port sat beside him on a table, along with a stack of letters and dispatches.
“My apologies for not getting up Mr Blackthorne, it’s the gout you know. Damn port is the only thing that helps. Would you care for some?” he said, waving at the bottle.