For a moment Roger gazed at the Marshal in horror. Several of the prisoners had been shot while trying to escape, and now nine who had been recaptured were to be hanged. He had no doubt that Charles was among the latter.
Fantastic as it seemed, the scene Georgina had witnessed in her crystal had, after all, been a true vision of the future. Even more fantastic, Fate had caused him to travel many hundreds of miles uselessly and delayed him again and again in his search for Charles, yet brought him within a few miles of the place where a rope was to be put round his neck, on the very day he was condemned to die. Clearly this was the work of Providence; there could be no doubt of that.
But suddenly it flashed into Roger’s mind that the issue was not yet settled. Unless he could reach Schloss Bergedorf within an hour or so it might be too late. He might find Charles’s body, with that of eight others, dangling from the branches of trees. Without another word to Davout, he turned and strode toward the door.
‘Halt!’ came the sharp command from behind him.
Automatically he obeyed and again faced the Marshal, who glowered at him and said, ‘You seem to have forgotten the respect due to a senior officer, Colonel.’
Roger saluted. ‘My apologies, Your Highness. The peril in which my nephew stands drove all other thoughts temporarily from my mind.’
‘You seem very attached to this nephew of yours.’
‘I am indeed.’
‘Yet you are citizens of different countries, which have for many years been at war. You cannot have seen him since he was a child.’
Galling as it was to Roger to have to waste precious moments giving an explanation to the Marshal, there was no avoiding it, and he replied, ‘As I stated a moment back, Highness, by blood I am half English. Moreover, I was brought up there, and still have many acquaintances in that country who believe me to be an Englishman. His Imperial Majesty has long been aware of this, and on numerous occasions has sent me to England in secret to report to him upon the morale of our enemies. During these visits, which were at times several months in duration, I naturally saw a great deal of my relations.’
Davout nodded. ‘So that is the way of things. Even so, you could not have known that the boy was likely to be hanged, and merely to obtain his release I marvel that you should have risked showing yourself in northern Germany.’
‘I see no reason why I should have feared to do so,’ Roger replied, inwardly fuming at having to carry on this conversation when every minute was so precious. ‘Your Highness’s being in command of this territory is guarantee enough that, apart from exceptional circumstances, all French officers are safe here.’
‘You are right, but you mention exceptional circumstances—and they apply to you.’
‘In what way, may I ask?’
‘Surely you have not forgotten that in 1810 you were tried by a Prussian court for the murder of your wife and the Baron von Haugwitz, found guilty and condemned to death?’
Roger frowned. ‘I recall very vividly, Highness, that most unpleasant experience, resulting from my being unable to prove my innocence. Also that I owe my life to your having induced the King of Prussia to commute my sentence to ten years’ imprisonment.’
‘I felt that I could do no less for a French officer whom I knew to have served my Emperor well on numerous occasions. But I was thinking of the present. When we met again last year in Russia, you told me that you served only a few months of your sentence, then succeeded in escaping when being transferred from one prison to another, through an attack on the convoy by a mob of rebellious students. Now that Prussia has betrayed us and become our enemy, owing to the great scarcity of food bodies of Prussian troops frequently raid my territory in the hope of securing supplies. Should you run into one of these raiding parties and someone in it chances to recognise you, I’ve not a doubt but that they’ll carry you off with them to serve the other nine years or more of your sentence.’
Giving a hasty glance at the clock with frantic anxiety, Roger saw that it was now past five. As it was late October there could not be much more than an hour of daylight left. Swallowing hard, he said, ‘That is a chance, Highness, that I must take. I beg you now excuse me.’ Then he saluted and ran from the room.
Below in the stables he found a sergeant farrier, who picked out for him a good, strong horse and had it saddled up. Since being shot through the calf, Roger had ridden only on a few occasions and then at a walk. He had not yet even attempted to wear riding boots, but swathed his legs in spirals of blue cloth. Now, ride he must and at the fastest pace he could manage, for Charles’s life hung on a matter of minutes.
While the horse was being saddled he got out his map to make certain of the road to Bergedorf. It lay on a main road south-east of Hamburg and he must have passed within three miles of it that morning. Mounting the horse he found it more mettlesome than he could have wished, and had difficulty in holding it back to a trot as soon as he had passed out of the great gateway.
Now that he was trotting for the first time, the pressure of his wounded leg on the horse’s side hurt less than he had expected; so, having covered half a mile and knowing only too well the necessity for speed, he broke into a canter. Another mile and the leg began to hurt him so he eased the pace, for he dared not risk his wound opening again and cause him to lose his grip, with the risk of being thrown from the saddle.
Luckily, the way was fairly flat, with no steep gradients which would have put a further strain upon him. But by the time he had covered half the distance he was sweating profusely and with each jolt of the horse a sharp stab of pain ran up his leg.
With half-closed eyes and clenching his teeth, he pressed on, trotting and cantering alternately. At last he sighted the Schloss, standing on a rise above a village, but it was still two miles off. Glancing down at his burning leg, he saw that the blue bandage was now stained with crimson. As he had feared, the wound had re-opened and must be bleeding freely. By the time he was clattering on the cobbles through the village street the whole of his lower leg was covered with blood and it was dripping from his boot. But there could be no question of pulling up. Rounding a bend he came opposite the gates of the Schloss. At the sight of his uniform a sentry presented arms. But Roger ignored him. It was all he could now do to keep in the saddle.
Ahead, leading up to the Schloss stood a long avenue of lindens. His sight misted by pain, he saw that several score of troops were gathered in the avenue. They formed two long lines and there were several smaller groups beneath the trees. As, with his last reserve of strength, he galloped up the slope, his vision cleared. The nearest group of soldiers was standing below a body that swung from the branch of a tree. The next group was hauling on a rope to hoist a second victim. Beyond, hatless and with their hands bound behind them, stood seven escapers among other groups. In the queue awaiting death Roger saw Charles.
In front of the two lines of soldiers stood several officers. One, obviously the commander of the garrison, was walking slowly up and down. He came to a halt as Roger approached and stared enquiringly at him. Roger pulled up beside him and slid from his horse. As his wounded leg touched the ground, it gave under him and he caught at the arm the officer extended to him. Next moment, as they stood face to face, they recognised each other. The garrison Commander was a Colonel Grandmaison, with whom Roger had served in Austria.
‘Why, ’tis the Comte de Breuc!’ Grandmaison exclaimed. ‘How come you here, my dear fellow, and in such a state?’
With one hand Roger drew the Emperor’s order from his pocket and thrust it at his friend; with the other he pointed at Charles and gasped, ‘That man … the last but three in a row. The Earl of St. Ermins. This … this is a reprieve … an order that he is to be handed over to me.’ Then he fainted.
When he came to, he was inside the Schloss and being carried up a stone staircase on a stretcher. Soon afterwards he was laid on a table. Colonel Grandmaison and several other people were gathered round him, one of whom was an army surgeon. He was given what he realised was an opium drink, then most of his clothes were taken off. Several men held him down while he Squirmed and yelled during the agonising process of having his injured calf disinfected and sewn up again. After he had been put to bed in another room he managed to ask Grandmaison if Charles could be sent to him.
The Colonel agreed, and five minutes later the soldier who had been left to supply Roger’s need of anything let Charles in. His face was still drawn and pale from having recently so narrowly escaped death, but his eyes lit up and he was about to rush forward and pour out his thanks to Roger for having saved his life, when Roger put a finger to his lips enjoining silence.
Having sent the soldier from the room, Roger beckoned Charles to his bedside, made him kneel down and said in a low voice, ‘I have told the Emperor and Marshal Davout that you are my nephew; but they, and everyone else in the French Army believe me to be a Frenchman, born in Strasbourg, the son of a Frenchman who married your aunt. In England it is known only to a few statesmen that I am a Count and Colonel in the French Army. Everyone else believes me to be an English eccentric who has spent the greater part of his life travelling in distant lands. Remember these things, Charles, for my life depends on them, and avoid talking about me whenever possible.’
Charles, weeping with gratitude, readily promised; then, having given Roger another opium drink, sat by him until he managed to get off to sleep.
The days that followed were agonising for Roger and very anxious ones for Charles. Twenty-four hours after his arrival at Schloss Bergedorf, Roger’s leg began to swell and the wound go purple at the edges. There could be no doubt that the blue dye in the strips of cloth he had wound round his leg had got into his bloodstream and poisoned it.
He had to submit to the pain of having the gangrenous strips of flesh cut away and the wound being restitched. But that failed to avert the menace. The following day the signs of poisoning appeared again, and the surgeon gave his opinion that the only certain way of saving Roger’s life was to amputate his leg below the knee. However, on being pressed by Charles, the sawbones admitted that there was just a chance that further cutting away of the flesh might make amputation unnecessary. Upon this the wretched Roger, his brain a prey to delusions caused by opium and three-parts drunk on brandy, yet still capable of feeling acute pain, submitted for the third time to the surgeon’s knife and needle.
A period of great anxiety followed, but on November 1st, Roger’s sixth day at Schloss Bergedorf, the surgeon was satisfied that the second operation had been successful. These days of constant pain had cost Roger a stone in weight. Combined with the loss of blood and fear of being crippled for life, they had left him very weak. It was no surprise to him, therefore, when he was told that it would be several weeks before he could hope to travel and, anxious as he was to get home, he made no protest.
* * *
It was during the time when Roger was so desperately ill that an event occurred in London which was to bring Susan into dire peril.
One morning towards the end of October, just as Jemima was about to go out shopping with Lady Luggala, a running footman arrived with a letter for her. It was from her mother, and asked that both of them should come to her as a matter of the utmost urgency. As their carriage was already at the door, they drove straight to Islington.
There they found the witch’s house a scene of great activity. The servants were packing silver and linen into hampers in the hall, while the witch and her high priest, the lean Father Damien, were busily parcelling up magical implements and packets of precious drugs in the drawing room.
No sooner had the door closed behind her visitors than the witch cried angrily, ‘My dears, it is a shocking blow that we have suffered. That fool Cornelius Quelp has allowed himself to be trapped.’
‘Oh dear!’ exclaimed Jemima. ‘How did it happen?’
‘A French émigré, one of the old, sour kind who refused to return to France when the Emperor proclaimed an amnesty and has long been in the pay of the English, wormed his way into the Dutchman’s confidence. He was arrested yesterday and charged at Bow Street with being a French secret agent. The evidence against him was irrefutable and it is in the Tower that he is now. A friend of his brought the news to me in the middle of the night.’
‘Obviously you are leaving, so I take it you fear he may betray us,’ said Maureen Luggala unhappily.
It was Father Damien who answered her. ‘The Mynheer is a courageous man and much attached to us, so I do not believe he would betray us lightly, but the brutal English may force him to.’
‘The English are not brutal in that way,’ Jemima volunteered. ‘They have long given up torturing prisoners.’
‘There are other means of securing information from prisoners,’ the priest retorted. ‘They could promise to release him if he provided them with a list of his associates.’
‘It is that I fear,’ the witch put in, ‘and Father Damien and I would head the list, since it was from us that he obtained the greater part of the information he took to France.’
‘Oh my! Oh my!’ Lady Luggala wrung her hands. ‘Then all of us are ruined.’
‘Nay. ’Tis I who am ruined. Another year or two in London and I could have made a fortune out of the Hell Fire Club. Now I must abandon it and leave the country.’
‘You mean to return to Ireland?’
‘Yes, although since the English rule there, even that may be dangerous if Quelp discloses his dealings with me. Where else could I go?’
‘You might find a smuggler who would run you over to France,’ Jemima suggested.
‘It would take time to find one, child, and time is precious. Besides, the stars are no longer favourable to the Emperor. He is far from finally defeated yet, but Leipzig was, I am convinced, the turn of the tide for him. This latest combination of so many nations allied against him must end in his downfall. Those stupid Bourbons will then return. But they are not such fools as to neglect having all the secret papers they secure gone through most carefully. Quelp’s will show the sums paid to me for the information supplied to him. Then, should I be in France, I’d be in constant danger of being identified and sent to the gallows. No, Ireland it must be; and that, Maureen, is why I sent for you.’
‘You mean to take Jemima and me with you?’
‘No, no!’ the witch spoke impatiently. ‘The fact that you both met the Dutchman here a few times is no proof that you were involved in his activities, any more than were the men and women who came to participate in our Hell Fire orgies. Neither of you is in any danger; but I need your help in securing a safe refuge in Ireland. I dare not settle in Dublin. It is too well that I am known there. And I’ve no mind to pig it in some peasant’s cottage. It occurred to me that Father Damien and I could lie low in that castle of your late husband’s, at Luggala. But I’ll need a letter of authority from you for us to occupy it.’
Greatly relieved that she would not, as she had feared, have to flee the country, Maureen replied eagerly, ‘What an excellent idea. I’ll write to the bailiff with pleasure. But you do realise, don’t you, that the castle has not been lived in for many years, so a lot will have to be done to make it really comfortable.’
‘That is of no great moment. Father Damien and I will need the use of only a few rooms, and your bailiff can get people in from the village to clean them up for us.’
While they were talking, the priest had left the room and returned with a decanter of Madeira. As he poured the wine for all of them, the witch finished packing the last bag of herbs into a straw basket. Sitting down, she asked Jemima:
‘Tell me, child, how do your relations with young Susan progress? It is some weeks since we have talked of this.’
Jemima pulled a face. ‘Alas, I cannot tell you that they do progress. It is now long since I established myself as her best friend. We see one another frequently and talk with the greatest intimacy. She has no secrets from me—that I’ll swear. And in many things I can influence her without difficulty, yet I am no nearer dominating her mind than I was six months ago.’
‘That is disappointing. I’d hoped with time you would achieve hypnotic power over her, and so be able to make her commit acts which would ruin her in Charles’s eyes when he returns.’
‘I have tried, Mama, but my efforts have proved in vain. It is not that she is a prude or sexually frigid. Indeed, she confessed to me not long since that, at the time Charles made that unfortunate scene here during a meeting of the Club, she was in half a mind to take a lover and, heaven knows, there are a dozen beaux into whose arms I have tried to push her. Yet she’ll not give more than a kiss to any of them. She says that when Charles went to the wars, she vowed to herself that she’d remain a virgin until his return, however long that might be.’
‘It may not now be very long, for all the portents tell me that, in a matter of months, the war will be over. I’ve not told you of it, child, but in recent weeks I’ve been much worried for Charles. Some great danger seemed to hang over him; something quite unforeseeable, for owing to the ritual that you and I performed upon his leaving, he is protected from all the normal hazards of war. But he has passed through this period of adversity unharmed.’
‘Thanks be for that,’ Jemima sighed. ‘Yet, since my hopes of having the gossips dub Susan a society whore have failed so lamentably, my chances with him will be no better than when he went away.’
The witch patted her daughter’s cheek. ‘Do not lose heart, little one. We will lure Susan to Castle Luggala. You must bring her there as your guest, and then …’
‘But, Mama, she would recognise you at once. How could she fail to do so, having seen you that night when Captain Hawksbury brought her here and she ruined your celebration? She’d flee the place the moment she set eyes on you.’
‘Nay, you are in error there. She might wish to flee, but I’d find no difficulty in holding her at the castle against her will.’
Father Damien chuckled. ‘And we would put her to good use. I recall her well from the night she made that grievous scene here. The thought of her nude makes me lick my lips. I’d take great joy in relieving her of her virginity.’
‘You lecherous fellow,’ Maureen Luggala smiled at him. ‘The very thought of you forcing her makes me feel randy.’
The lean priest gave a grin, leaned forward and took her by the arm. ‘If that’s the case, m’dear, let’s go upstairs to my room. It wouldn’t be the first good bout we’ve had together, and maybe we’ll not have a chance to have another for some time.’
Maureen gave a breathless little laugh, and stood up. ‘I regret only that, in the circumstances, it must be a short one.’
When they had left the room together Jemima remarked to her mother, ‘How Maureen can possibly enjoy being had by that repulsive man passes my comprehension.’
Katie O’Brien shrugged. ‘My dear, had you been had by him yourself you would understand it. He is a stallion of the first order and positively tireless. To any woman passionate by nature he is a gift from the gods. I have even seen women faint with pleasure under him. His control is perfect and he can bring me to a climax four times to his once.’
‘What!’ Jemima’s eyes widened and she exclaimed. ‘D’you mean you’ve actually allowed that loathsome creature to make love with you?’
‘I have indeed. And so has every female member of the Hell Fire Club. It is he who initiates them.’
‘Mama, you amaze me! How can they possibly bring themselves to submit when knowing nothing of his special power to drive them half crazy with sexual enjoyment? The very feel of his slobbering mouth on mine would make me vomit.’
‘They are warned beforehand that they may find their initiation an ordeal, so steel themselves to it. Besides, there is an occult significance to the act. In the old days it is said that to become a member of a coven a woman had first to copulate with Satan. That too may have actually occurred, as in witch trials the accused frequently confessed it and told of their initiation as a mixture of ecstatic delight with hideous pain. They described Satan’s member as huge, as cold as ice and barbed like an arrow, so that its motion tore their vaginas and they bled profusely even while screaming from a succession of erotic climaxes more rewarding than any human had ever given them.
‘Yet, I doubt not that in most cases it was a man designedly made hideous who performed upon them. In any case, willing submission to a repulsive being was the price they had to pay if they wished to achieve occult power. And that is why I selected Father Damien to play the part of Satan.’
Jemima sighed, ‘Eager as I am to become a witch, I find him so disgusting that I fear I could never bring myself to let him have me.’
‘That, child, is unfortunate, as I know that ever since he first set eyes on you he has desired you. In fact, more than once, he has begged me to let you be initiated with that in view. You know my reasons for having refused. I’d not risk it even becoming rumoured in London society that you had become a member of the Club. But the Club is now finished, so when you come to Ireland that will not apply. I am in hopes that you will think again upon it and overcome your repugnance to him, at least for once, in order that you may attain occult power.’
‘I’il consider it,’ Jemima agreed reluctantly, ‘although the idea of having that old goat naked upon me fills me with disgust. And did you really mean that you would force Susan to let him take her virginity?’
‘I might if it suited my purpose. The thing is do you think you could persuade her to accompany you to Ireland?’
‘Yes. I’m confident that I could, without much trouble.’
‘Then you need no longer worry your pretty head about the future. I will so handle matters that, soon after Charles returns from war, he will make you Countess of St. Ermins.’
* * *
It was not until the last week in November that Roger was able to leave his bed. While confined there everything possible was done for him. Dopet was sent for from Herrenhausen to act as his soldier servant. His old friend, Colonel Grandmaison, visited him daily and, although food throughout the whole countryside was terribly scarce, saw to it that the invalid had the best of everything that could be procured. Now that Charles was officially Roger’s prisoner, he was no longer confined with his German fellow captives, and was allowed out for walks on parole, but he spent a good part of his time at Roger’s bedside, either reading to him or bringing such news as there was.
No-one knew for certain what was happening in the south, but it was said that the survivors of Napoleon’s army had straggled back to the Rhine, and at that river, on which there were many fortresses strongly garrisoned by the French, the retreat had been checked. The Emperor, it was rumoured, had reached Paris on the 9th and was frantically at work there raising yet another army. Meanwhile, the Austrians and Russians were cautiously infiltrating into the Rhine Provinces, delaying to advance further before reducing French-held cities in them.
After Roger had been able to get up for a few days Colonel Grandmaison placed at his disposal a carriage in which to go for drives with Charles. Twice they drove into Hamburg and were shocked by the woebegone appearance of the remaining, half-starved inhabitants.
These drives along the shore also filled them with an infuriating frustration. Ever since Sweden had joined the Allies, the Baltic had again been open to British shipping, and the Skaggerak swarmed with British warships. Almost daily they bombarded the Danish ports and the fortresses of Hamburg. Often they sailed impudently up and down the mouth of the Elbe, within easy swimming distance of the land. If only Roger and Charles could have got aboard one of them, that would have been an end to their troubles. But Davout kept his shore patrols extremely alert, to prevent Hamburgers getting out to the ships with useful information; so, even had Roger been his old self, any attempt to swim off one night would have entailed great danger. As it was, still crippled and very weak, such a project was out of the question.
Never before had Roger and Charles spent so long constantly together, and both derived great pleasure from getting to know each other really well. Charles had always admired his ‘Uncle Roger’, but had been a little awed by him, while Roger had previously looked on Charles as no more than a promising youth. But now they were able to appreciate each other’s real qualities and talked together as equals. As Roger’s health improved, they discussed more frequently what they should do when he was well enough to leave Hamburg, and they came to the conclusion that their best plan would be to endeavour to reach France as, with Roger’s long experience of that country’s northern ports, they offered the best prospect of contacting a smuggler who would run them over to England.
To have again used the Mess cart that had brought Roger to Hamburg would have meant travelling very slowly, so Colonel Grandmaison agreed that Roger might take the smallest of three coaches that the owner of the castle had left in the coach-house before taking to flight, and their departure was fixed for November 30th.
As the state of the country was so unsettled, it was decided that they should travel in civilian clothes; so, on the day before they left, they went into Hamburg where Roger bought a suit for Charles, another, better-fitting one than that in which he had left Leipzig for himself, and a suitable costume for Dopet who was to act as coachman. Then all three of them packed their uniforms in a valise.
On the 30th, with the good wishes of Colonel Grandmaison, the surgeon who had looked after Roger, and numerous other people, they set off. By this time Roger had only enough money left to see them back to France, and to bribe a smuggler to put them across the Channel would require a considerable sum, so he decided to make first for Paris, as there he could draw from the Paymaster at the Ministry of War as much as he required.
The most direct route to Paris lay by way of Bremen, Osnabrück, Münster, Dortmund, Cologne and Rheims, but such scant intelligence as they had implied that the Prussians had already reached the lower Rhine and the frontier of Holland. In consequence Reger decided that in order not to run the risks of crossing a battle area it would be wiser, instead of heading for Cologne, to make a considerable detour and head for the Frankfurt-Mainz area which had for years been so strongly held by the French that it would almost certainly still be in their hands. So, from Dortmund, they turned south-west and took by-roads through the Westerwald and Tannus on their way to Mainz.
Two afternoons after leaving Dortmund they were approaching Wiesbaden. On rounding a bend in the road, to Roger’s surprise they suddenly came on an outpost of Prussian infantry. A Captain called on them to halt. The coach pulled up and Roger put his head out of the window. The officer asked where they had come from. Roger replied ‘Dortmund’. There followed other questions, to all of which Roger glibly gave answers which he had already thought up in case of such a challenge. The Captain seemed satisfied, until he asked them to produce proofs of their identity. That they could not do. His face then took on a stern look and he said:
‘I regret, Herrschaft, but there are many adherents of the arch-fiend Bonaparte still at large on this side of the Rhine, and some of them are spies. I must search your luggage.’
At that Roger went slightly pale, for he knew that they were now in a very tight corner. With apparent calm he shrugged and agreed. Anxiously he watched as their portmanteaux were unstrapped and taken down by some of the soldiers from the coach roof. The first to be opened was that which held the uniforms and there, neatly folded, right on top, was Roger’s dark-blue tail coat with its gold epaulettes and the cross of a Commander of the Legion of Honour on the breast.
Too late he cursed himself as a fool for not having left it behind. But he had expected to change into it after crossing the Rhine, as once in France, it would have assured him a coach with four horses and priority at the Post-houses for the remainder of their journey to Paris.
‘Donnerwetter!’ exclaimed the Prussian officer. ‘What have we here?’
‘A souvenir, Herr Kapitan,’ Roger asserted swiftly. ‘I acquired it for twenty marks from a hospital orderly in Münster.’
‘Ach so!’ the Captain scowled. ‘That we shall see.’ Picking up the coat with one hand, he drew a pistol from his belt with the other, pointed it at Roger and added:
‘Get out of the coach. Hand the pistol in your belt to my sergeant, then take your coat off and put this one on.’
There was nothing for it but to obey, so Roger stepped down into the road and put on his uniform coat. It fitted like a glove.
‘As I thought,’ sneered the Prussian. ‘You are a dog of a Frenchman, trying to get across the river to your swinish countrymen.’
While he had been speaking a sergeant had taken from the portmanteau the soiled but still bright scarlet uniform of the Cold-stream Guards, in which Charles had been captured. The Captain stared at it for a moment, then said, ‘That is not a French uniform. Surely it is English. How comes it here?’
‘It is mine,’ declared Charles in his excellent German. ‘I am a British officer.’
‘If that be so, what are you doing in the company of this French spawn of hell?’
Charles smiled. ‘I am his prisoner, Herr Kapitan, or was until you appeared on the scene and rescued me. I am travelling with him only because he had captured me and, in exchange for my life, I gave him my parole.’
For a moment Roger was quite shocked that Charles should have so brazenly gone over to the enemy. But then he saw the sense of it. Not to have claimed immunity as an ally of the Prussians would have been absurd, and had their positions been reversed it was what he would have done himself.
The third uniform was obviously Dopet’s and, as he could speak only a few words of German, he was swiftly identified as Roger’s servant. A soldier mounted the box in his place and he was ordered into the coach. Roger was told to change back into his civilian coat and the three uniforms were repacked in the portmanteaux. The Captain then put his Lieutenant in charge of the prisoners and despatched them in the coach with a small escort up the road.
After about a mile it emerged from the pine woods to some open farmlands, on the far side of which was a fair-sized farmhouse. The coach pulled up in front of it. The prisoners were ordered out and marched inside. In a room on the right of the entrance an adjutant was sitting at a table on which there was a litter of papers. The Lieutenant reported to him and the prisoners were brought it.
Roger now had a choice. He could swear that he was in fact a British secret agent, and hope that Charles’s testimony would convince them that he was speaking the truth; or admit that he was a French officer. But he feared that if he took the former course it was more likely that Charles’s testimony in his favour would make the Prussians believe that Charles was a liar and also a Frenchman in disguise. In consequence, when questioned by the adjutant, he decided that it would be better to ensure at least Charles’s continued freedom by maintaining his own supposed rôle and by giving his high rank in hope of good treatment.
To have been caught like this when so nearly out of the wood was utterly infuriating, but he endeavoured to console himself with the thought that it was unlikely that he would remain a prisoner for very long. The Emperor’s army had been shattered. It would prove impossible for even him to raise another of even a third the size of the forces now arrayed against him. North, south, east and west, he was menaced and surrounded by bitter enemies who were determined to put an end his career as a wholesale murderer. Either he must save all that remained to him of his Empire by agreeing to an humiliating peace in the near future, or be completely crushed soon after the New Year. So, in either case, Roger felt that he could count on being restored to liberty within a few months at most.
He had only just given particulars of himself to the adjutant when a babble of guttural German voices sounded in the narrow hall of the farmhouse. A Colonel put his head round the door and looked in. The adjutant cried to him joyfully.
‘Herr Oberst, we have just taken an important prisoner. No less than Colonel Comte de Breuc, a Commander of the Legion of Honour and one of Napoleon’s A.D.C.s.’
The Colonel turned and spoke to his companions outside. Next moment they came pressing into the room, led by a burly figure with a grey, walrus moustache, dressed in a plain, ill-fitting jacket, wearing a floppy, peaked cap and smoking a meerschaum pipe. Roger recognised him at once from descriptions he had had, as Blücher.
At that date the veteran was seventy-one. He was a rough, illiterate man who had the sense to realise his shortcomings as a strategist and rely for planning on his brilliant Chief-of-Staff, Gneisenau; but he was a fearless, ferocious leader and, in spite of his age, still seething with fiery energy. The previous May he had put up a magnificent resistance against great odds at the battle of Lützen. Later at Katezbach, he had defeated Marshal Macdonald, captured eighteen thousand prisoners and over one hundred guns. It was he who had delivered the most telling assault on Leipzig and had been made a Field Marshal for it.
For a moment he regarded Roger with interest. Then the excited voice of a young Uhlan officer in the background suddenly cut the silence, ‘Breuc, did you say? The Comte de Breuc?’
The adjutant looked in his direction and replied, ‘Yes, von Zeiten, this is the Comte de Breuc.’
‘Gott im Himmel,’ cried the Uhlan. ‘It is the murderer! It was he who foully did to death his wife and my uncle, von Haugwitz, at Schloss Langenstein in 1810.’
Roger swung round to face him and retorted hotly. ‘That is a lie. I was accused of their deaths, but was innocent.’
Young von Zeiten pushed his way to the front of the group and thrust out an accusing arm. ‘I recognise you now. I was in court when you were tried and condemned to death.’
‘Why, then, is he still alive?’ asked Blücher gruffly.
‘His sentence, Herr Feldmarschall, was commuted to ten years’ imprisonment. But he escaped after a few months.’
Roger had not yet recovered from the shock of once more being identified as the man found guilty of the double death at Schloss Langenstein. His brain was whirling, but not so confused that he could not guess the awful fate that now threatened him. Next moment the doom he dreaded was pronounced by Blücher.
‘Then send him back to Berlin to complete his sentence.’
As the Fieldmarshal turned away, Roger stared at the ring of hostile faces, rendered speechless by this terrible blow that Fate had dealt him. Whether, in a few months’ time Napoleon agreed to an humiliating peace or was utterly crushed and dethroned could now make no difference to him. Instead of regaining his freedom, his lot was to suffer imprisonment among enemy criminals for all that remained of the best years of his life.