Authors: Rob Griffith
The fog reminded me of the smoke that night outside Alexandria, the remains of the abbey could have been the Roman ruins we fought amongst in the desert. I had made a mistake that night in Egypt and someone dear to me had died because of it. I was determined the same thing would not happen again. We entered the cloisters and moved along the colonnade, stepping as softly as we could on the cracked and uneven stone floor. I heard another dragoon coming and stepped into an archway, extending my right arm and aiming towards the sound. My hand shook slightly and the gun wavered but I forced myself to exhale softly, steading my aim. He was coming directly towards us. I squeezed the trigger even though it would seal our fate. I could do nothing else. The flint sparked, the powder flashed and the shot reverberated around the enclosed stone walls as the ball hit the dragoon and he span around and fell to the ground with a hole his head.
This time I didn’t have to say anything; we were all running in an instant. Shots and shouts came from behind us and I ran through a doorway into the main body of the church. The floor was littered with rubbish, old fires and animal dung. Dim shafts of light came from huge holes in the roof, and bushes and even small trees erupted from the stone floor. The nave stretched away from us so far that the fog shrouded the altar. Dominique fired and missed as a dragoon entered the church through another door. He ducked back and we sheltered behind a massive column. Things were not looking good. The south door of the church outside of which our salvation hopefully lay was an impossible thirty yards away. Another dragoon came from the cloisters behind us and a quick shot from me hit him in the thigh. His screams attracted even more attention. Dominique fired again at the dragoon in the other doorway, hitting him in the shoulder. We ran along the aisle to another column; closer to the south door but it was still beyond our reach. A shot smashed what remained of one of the stained glass windows as we ran. We made it to a small chapel and ducked behind a wooden screen. Dominique and I hurriedly reloaded the pistols. I popped my head out from cover to see how close the dragoons were and could only see the officer dragging one of his injured men through a doorway. I couldn’t see any other dragoons, at least none still standing. I felt the briefest flurry of hope but then Lacrosse entered the church, a pair of long duelling pistols in his hands.
“Monsieur Blackthorne, surrender! You will not escape this time. Make it easy and spare us any unnecessary bloodshed and I will make sure the boy lives,” he called. I thought of trying a witty riposte, as heroes in books should, but curiously enough my fear robbed me of my sense of humour. Instead I reached to Dominique and lightly touched her hand once more.
“Dominique, I’ll draw his fire. You get Claude to the horses.”
“No, Ben, we go together,” she said shaking off my touch and ramming a ball into one of her pistols.
“We don’t have a choice. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.” I didn’t give her the opportunity to argue further and ran. I headed for the east end of the church. The dragoon officer fired from the doorway where he was still tending to his wounded comrade. The ball creased my back. I cursed and fell, sliding behind the pulpit as another shot chipped the stones behind me. I sighted quickly at the officer, firing both pistols one after the other. He ducked back through the door unharmed. I began to reload, knowing I only had seconds. I saw Dominique and Claude run but instead of going to the south door they were coming towards me. Dominique had seen me fall and feared the worst.
“No,” I shouted and waved them away. Lacrosse stepped from the shadows and took aim. I shouted something, I can’t remember what. Dominique pushed Claude down to the ground as Lacrosse fired. She screamed as the ball hit her back and flung her forwards. Claude picked up one of her pistols and fired wildly at Lacrosse. He was lucky, the shot took the blackguard in the arm and he crumpled against a column, cursing like a sailor.
I raced forward to Dominique and fell to my knees. Blood soaked my hands as I held her. Claude gently touched her cheek. She was ghostly white, her breath coming in shallow gasps. I could feel the wound in her back, the ball would have been in one of her lungs, the blood trickling from her mouth had small frothy bubbles in it. I had seen enough men die in battle to know what that meant.
“Ben,” she said, weakly.
“Don’t say anything, save your strength,” I said as I brushed a strand of hair from her face. I stole a quick glance around the church. I could see no more dragoons and began to pick her up but she shook her head.
“We would have been happy,” she said between several bloody coughs.
“We still will be,” I said, desperately thinking of something I could do to save her. Her breathing became shallower but easier. Her body had stopped fighting and was accepting the inevitable, but I could not.
“Ben, I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“Don’t give up, please.”
“Claude, Ben will look after you now,” she said. They were her last words. I looked at Claude. I could not bear to see the pain in his eyes and looked away, back to his sister.
I cursed as she closed her eyes but her chest continued to rise and fall, sporadically and weakly as the blood pooled beneath her. Claude pointed behind me and I turned to see Lacrosse staggering towards us, a curling tendril of smoke still coming from one of his pistols. One arm was held across his chest and bleeding. He stepped forward and opened his mouth to speak and I suppose he was going to deliver some speech regarding how I was no match for him, how he would enjoy witnessing my appointment with the guillotine or some such but I wasn’t in the mood to listen to the murdering bastard. One of my pistols was by my hand. It was slick with Dominique’s blood and only half loaded but I picked it up and fired all the same. The ramrod shot from the barrel and took Lacrosse in the neck. The look of surprise made what I imagined was my imminent death worthwhile. He sank to his knees, blood pouring from the wound and then fell forward, the end of the ram rod protruding from the back of his neck.
Claude sobbed and I looked back to him and Dominique. She was still, and I hoped with all my heart that every sermon I had ever sat through had been true and that she had gone to a better place. I could hear shouts of more dragoons outside. At best Claude would be back in the Temple and I would be executed before nightfall. At worst he would share my fate and it would all be for nothing. Her death would be for nothing. I knelt down and kissed her lips. Claude kissed her forehead.
“We have to go,” I whispered.
“I can’t leave her,” Claude replied.
“You have to. We have to.” I whispered.
“She gave her life for you, Claude. For her death to mean anything you have to live,” I said, but I don’t know if I was thinking of saving my own worthless skin, or obeying her wish to look after Claude. I’m sure you can be a better judge than I, dear reader.
“We have to go, now,” I said, and I stood unsteadily and gently pulled him up and away from his sister. He gave me a look of pure hate but did not resist. I took a carbine from the still warm hands of a fallen dragoon and led Claude through the south door of the church into the daylight. I heard a voice from behind us but I could not look back as we walked away from her. Our horses were there, as Henri had promised. Four of them.
I dragged Claude into a shambling run and lifted him bodily into the saddle of one of them before mounting myself. Claude looked a little unsteady but he’d have to ride if we were to have any hope of escape. He was still looking back at the church but I don’t think he had any greater wish to die than I did. That would come later, with the regrets and the recriminations.
The dragoon officer came out of the church and shouted at us to stop. My answer was to fire the carbine at him and then throw it in his direction. I slapped Claude’s mount on the rump and urged my own into a canter. We headed for a ruined gate house that led to the road out of Paris.
I would like to say that there has not been a day since then when I haven’t thought of Dominique. As time passed there might have been whole weeks when I did not see an expression on someone’s face or hear a laugh that made me think of her. They say that time can heal any wound. They are wrong but my life went on without her, despite my and the Alien Office’s best efforts. Eventually I did find happiness with someone else and love her dearly and deeply, but the brief passion of my love for Dominique will live with me forever, as will the heartache of her death. True, if we had known each other for longer, perhaps even married, then the domestic routines would have necessitated that the passion change into something quieter and more comfortable but I will never know. It may be that she would have been insufferable to live with, perchance she would have grown fat, or lost her teeth, or been a scold about the housekeeping money. I will never know, fate took her from me and left me only with the memories of a few stolen moments. Through nurturing Claude I felt I was somehow allowing her to live on, but that was all far into the future on that morning in Paris.
I remember that I looked across to Claude as we rode, and tried to think of something to say but there was nothing I could think of that would mean anything. Nothing that would help. There were tears in his eyes, and probably mine too. It was still cold and the horses' breath rose in clouds as went from a canter to a gallop. The blood on my hands had started to dry to a flaky crust. I looked back towards the church but it was too late, it was hidden by the mist. The dragoons would retrieve their horses and follow us. Gendarmes would be patrolling the roads ahead and we had a sea to cross. Part of me, as always, wanted to take the easier path; to stop, give ourselves up and accept our fate, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. She had made a better man of me.
Author’s Note
This story is interwoven with historical fact. The portrayal of the Alien Office, The Grand Conspiracy, Robert Fulton and his inventions, and the imprisonment of British nationals by the French on the resumption of the long war between the two countries are all reasonably accurate. For those wanting to know more about the Alien Office I would recommend
Elizabeth Sparrow’s Secret Service: British Agents in France, 1792-1815
.
The impetus behind writing this novel came from researching Sir Sydney Smith and Captain John Wright, both real people who appeared briefly in
Forty Centuries Looking Down
, my first novel. Britain’s secret war against Bonaparte is much less well known than perhaps the earlier clandestine campaigns against the Revolutionaries fictionalised by the famous Scarlet Pimpernel, and you’ll note that the Pimpernel’s calling card of a pressed flower was in fact used as a means of identification by the Alien Office and their Royalist allies.
This revised edition of
For Our Liberty
was prompted by feedback from literary agent Jane Judd. She gave me many useful pointers and, despite the fact that she didn’t take me on as a client after the revision, I would like to thank her for invaluable comments. I would also like to thank my wife, Natalie, once again for her proof-reading and comments. I couldn’t have revised this book without her. Also I would like to thank those readers of the first edition who enjoyed it and spurred me on to try and make it even better, especially my Auntie Pat.
Blackthorne’s next adventure will take him far from the shores of England to South America where he will take an important, if reluctant, role in the British capture of Buenos Aires in 1806. A military operation unauthorised by the government and that, despite initial success, led to a humiliating defeat and ultimately played a part in the creation of the nation of Argentina.
Rob Griffith
Warwick
2013