For Our Liberty (22 page)

“What do you mean?” I asked, knowing where the conversation was heading after having the same discussions with my sister and my father.

“Will you be returning to your regiment?”

Fortunately the main course turned up just at the right moment to give me time to think of an answer. I had asked myself the same thing many times over the previous weeks and not been able to come up with anything. The lamb cutlets and French beans were duly served and even after a long sip of wine I still had to play for time.

“Do you think I would be welcome?” I asked, even though I knew I would not.

“I dare say some would grumble but does that matter?” Hawkshawe said.

A mouthful of lamb and mashed potato gave me time to think.
 

“No, I suppose not,” I answered eventually.

“Then what is stopping you?”

“James, be honest, I was never really suited to the army, was I?”

“Well, perhaps not. There was that time you fell off your horse in front of Major Lithgow.”

“I was drunk.”

“Yes, I think the whole parade determined that for themselves when you didn’t get up.”

“You see!”

“People change, Ben.”

“Yes, perhaps. But I think His Majesty will have to do without me, at least in that capacity,” I said letting the implication of that sentence sink in, knowing James would ask the logical question. I wanted time to think of the answer myself.

“What do you mean?”

“Let us just say that I’ve had an alternative offer of employment.” I then began to tell him the whole tale of my escape from France, the Alien Office and, of course, Dominique. I was surprised that he had not been more inquisitive and dragged the story from me before. I was getting quite skilled with the telling of it now but the more I told it the more distant it seemed. The plates were cleared again and a selection of desserts brought to the table (I opted for the apricot gateau and James went for the chocolate soufflé) before I finished with the meeting with Brooke. Hawkshawe astonished me with his first reaction, though.

“I have met Captain Wright, or rather he was a Lieutenant at the time,” he told me after I had finished my tale.

“Where?”

“In Egypt of course. He worked for Sir Sydney Smith behind the French lines. Good fellow, a bit slippery like all those intelligencer types of course. You’ll fit right in,” he smiled.

“So everyone keeps saying. I am beginning to think that I should be insulted that my friends and family consider me suited to a life of lying and treachery.” I should be insulted but not surprised, I thought.

“I, for one, think that it is your independence, spirit and courage that make it a natural career for you, but there again you have always been a lying bastard.”

“Thanks, friend.”

“Besides I didn’t think you were considering it? I thought you rejected the advice of your father out of habit?”

“Who told you my father had a hand in it?” I asked, suspiciously.

“In my experience fathers have advice about everything,” Hawkshawe said, and looked away to nod in the direction of an acquaintance.

“Well, in this case you are right. Worse thing is the original idea was Lucy’s. Damn her,” I said with more vehemence than I felt. Hawkshawe looked quite shocked.

“I’m sure she only had your interests at heart,” he said.

“Perhaps.”

“There is something else to consider, of course,” he said, as he leant forward into the candlelight.

“And what is that?” I asked, expecting another lecture on duty, or my former debauchery, or my lack of purpose or any other virtue that I lacked or vice that I excelled in. I should have thought better of Hawkshawe.

“Dominique,” he said. The single word made my heart miss a beat.

“What about her?” I made a dismissive gesture and it was my turn to look away around the room.

“You have fallen for her like a drunken dragoon on parade.”

“Very droll,” I said, still gazing intently at a questionable painting on the wall of barely clad Greek gods pleasuring each other whilst cherubs looked on.

“I’m serious, Ben. You want to go back and help her. You promised her. And you love her I think.”

“When did you become an expert in love?” I looked back at my friend, and spoke more sharply than I should have, and regretted it.

“When I lost my own heart to someone of whom my family can never approve,” he put down his spoon and wiped his mouth with his napkin.

“So that is why you keep the young lady’s name to yourself? I assume it is a young lady?” I said, trying to return a lighter note to the conversation.

“Damn your eyes Ben, it is not a laughing matter. I love her dearly,” he said, and I believed him, poor soul.

“You’ve been reading too much Wordsworth.” I still wanted to avoid the subject but my feeble wit was not enough to deflect a man poisoned by cupid’s arrow. The waiter came back with a large block of Wensleydale and the port.

“Sorry, James, but if your family don’t like her what can you do?”

“Ignore them.”

“And be disinherited?” Surely he was not serious. His family’s estate was not large but he could never hope to live on his army pay.

“If it comes to that,” he said, with the same determination as when he spoke of war.

“Is she worth it?”

“Yes, and I think you feel the same about Dominique.”

“It doesn’t matter what I feel. There are two armies, a navy and an ocean between us.”

“That’s why you’ll be joining the Alien Office. They’ll send you to France.”

“Maybe. But if they do I’ll surely have more important things to do that jumping into bed with Dominique again. It’s hard to think of a less certain basis for a romance,” I said, the merest thought of her long slim body torturing my soul.

“You’re assuming that she doesn’t feel the same way about you.”

“There wasn’t a lot of time to talk about feelings, we were too busy being shot at.”

“Stop thinking with your head, or your breeches come to that, and believe in your heart.”

“You
have
been reading too much poetry!”

“Or having too much port. I think it is time we called it a night, old friend,” said Hawkshawe. It was late, most of the other diners had long since left.

“Thank you, James. For dinner, and everything.”

“Think nothing of it,” he said. There was a brief embarrassed silence between us, as is often the case when conversation between men touches on sentiment. We both coughed and stood, draining our glasses, and then retrieving our hats and cloaks.

It may have been the wine, the late hour or our mutual pleasure in the light banter we excelled at that made James and I miss the two dark shadows that followed us. We left the Cocoa-Tree and turned the corner into St James’ Street, past the entrance to St James’ Palace. Thin clouds masked the moon and only the small pools of golden light from the street lanterns lit our way. Two whores stood under one. They were provocatively dressed with most of their bosoms on show but given their age they would have done more business in the shadows. Two gentlemen stood in the light of another lamp. Well, one stood, albeit unsteadily, and another vomited in the gutter. Everything was as it should be for a late night in St James’. The only gentlemen on the street were drunk, and the only women were there in a professional capacity.

A cab stopped behind us for the drunkard and his companion and I glanced back as one of them tried to slur out the address they wished to be conveyed to. It was then that I saw them, out of the corner of my eye; two men about fifty yards behind us. Their gait was too steady and purposeful to be fellow revellers. Their build too stocky and their clothes too plain to be gentlemen. I didn’t stare but turned again to look ahead, I didn’t even alter my pace.
 

“Trouble,” I said, quietly. Hawkshawe didn’t look around but I could sense that he, like I, was suddenly tense.
 

“How many?” he asked, in a whisper.

“Two.”

“There is usually a Charlie in Piccadilly this time of night.”

I didn’t share Hawkshawe’s faith in the broken down old soldiers typically employed as night watchmen by the parish. A runner from Bow Street would have been preferable but in my experience they are always to be found when they are not needed, and never when they are. We kept our pace the same until Hawkshawe exclaimed loudly that a certain hat in the window of Locks was a monstrosity and we both stopped to examine it. Our two shadows did not walk past us but found something equally interesting in the window of Berry’s, the wine merchant.

Hawkshawe and I continued on towards his rooms in Dover Street, where we would part. The light from the bow window of White’s spilled across the road, illuminating a small hand cart filled with horse manure and a boy no older than ten leaning on his shovel, the red glow from his pipe pulsing as he inhaled. I looked behind us, knowing that I shouldn’t. They were still there. I did not relish the thought of continuing on to Golden Square alone and began to think of a way to lose the two thieves, for that is what I assumed we were dealing with. James, however, decided to take a slightly more direct approach to the problem.

“Follow my lead,” he said, and promptly doubled up and pretended to retch over the steps of Brooks’. I loudly berated him for not being able to take his lush and made a show of steadying him. Hawkshawe had chosen to perform his act in the penumbra between two lamps. If the pads wanted to make a move then we had given them their chance. They took it.

I heard steps behind me and balled both fists. James gripped his cane and performed a particularly realistic retch. We both had our backs turned and the prigs would have their cudgels out to knock us senseless, I had a momentary pang of doubt that they could be armed. When you can hang a thief for stealing many of them don’t balk at murder and carry a pair of barkers.

James turned first, his cane whistling through the air to where he expected his attacker to be. His instincts had not been dulled in the two years since Egypt, nor by the copious amount of wine we had consumed that night. His cane shattered as it broke across the side of one of the thieves’ heads. The brute just shook his head and kept on coming. My own attack was no more successful. I put all the power of my turn behind the fist that connected with the stomach of my target. My only reward was a slight gasp of fetid breath and the fact that I must have spoiled his aim. His cudgel crunched into my shoulder a moment later.

James was on the ground with a bloody nose but was rolling to his feet as his attacker came at him again. I couldn’t concern myself with my friend until I had dealt with my own problem. My left arm was deadened by the blow to the shoulder but my right snapped out and my fist connected with the chin of my assailant. His head jerked back but I think I harmed my hand more than his jaw. He swung his cudgel again but I managed to dodge it. He wasn’t expecting that and was off balance for a vital second. I grabbed hold of his coat and twirled him around until his back connected with the wall and I followed through with a knee to the groin. At last I appeared to do some damage and he doubled over and grunted. I risked a quick glance at James who now had his man on the floor and then paid for my concern. My man charged at me like a bull, still doubled over, and pushed me down some steps to a cellar entrance. We rolled and tumbled down the steps until we ended up in a heap at the bottom. I was not lucky enough to come out on top and he took advantage of my momentary stunning to pummel my face with a rain of blows, which he punctuated with a message.

“Mr Oldfield and Mr Bennett,” he said as his left fist made the acquaintance of my right eye, “wants their,” he continued as his right fist knocked a tooth out, “money back,” he finished as his left broke my nose. I might have known, I thought. The fact that these weren’t just two footpads but lackeys of Oldfield and Bennett finally got me annoyed. I brought both my hands up and hit the bastard’s ears. He screamed and put his hands to his head. I heaved him off me and grabbed hold of his head and smashed it into the cobbles. He slumped senseless and I struggled to my feet, kicking him until he stopped groaning, but then stamped on his hand for good measure.

I walked unsteadily back up the steps, blood pouring from my various wounds. James had faired little better but his attacker was running down the street. Hawkshawe leant against a lamppost with both hands and spat blood onto the stones at his feet.

“They weren’t thieves, were they?” he asked.

“No, they were Oldfield and Bennett’s men,” I said. I picked up our hats and handed him his.

“I thought so, thieves would have run sooner,” he said.

“Sorry, James.”

“Forget it, Ben, but you’ll forgive me if I urge you to pay them off before anyone else gets hurt. They are not men to be crossed.”

“I’ll go and see father in the morning,” I said, and I would.

“It’s for the best. You’ll be free of your past then.”

“Maybe,” I admitted. I would be free of my past but not from my future, and there was trouble enough ahead, as you will find out.

“You’re bleeding,” James said.

“It’s just my nose, I think.” I reached up and gently felt the battered organ.