STUDIES IN THE NAPOLEONIC WARS 049
Making Contact with the Marquis-General
7. Tales of Secret Service (10)
Making Contact with the Marquis-General
A week after supervened the unobtrusive Robertson, who had naturally spent much time on his circuitous journey from Bremen to Hamburg, from Hamburg to Lübeck, and from Lübeck to the isle of Fünen. He reached Nyborg, and quartered himself in its best inn, where to his disgust he was pestered all day by a Jewish commercial traveller, who had perhaps conceived the same idea as himself, of supplying luxuries to the Spanish officers’ mess. Whether he was a French spy, or only an inquisitive bagman, Brother James never quite made out; but he was a nuisance. It was with some difficulty that he got the Jew well out of sight, made his way to the back-stairs of headquarters, and opened his petition on the cigar question to the General’s major-domo. A supply of good cigars was a welcome idea, but it was with some hesitation that the important menial consented to let him see the General. Possibly a good douceur was administered. But finally the emissary was shown, through a room full of officers busy with papers and reports, into the sanctum of the Marquis.
This was the critical moment—and worthy of a silent prayer to the God of the good old cause. When the major-domo had left the room Robertson dropped his samples of cigars and chocolate-—hitherto ostentatiously exhibited—and threw himself on La Romana’s mercy. He owned that he was a priest and a British subject, not a German and a commercial traveller, and stated openly that he had a mission from Mr. Canning and Bartholomew Frere. The Marquis was at first inclined to be suspicious and silent, thinking that he might have to do with an agent provocateur sent by the French Government to test his loyalty. But he did not call in his staff, or order the arrest of the intruder. Thereupon Robertson gave him the private message from Frere, recalling the old conversation at Toledo in 1804, and handed to him the scrap of paper in the British diplomatist’s handwriting.
No one could have known of this save Frere and himself, thought the Marquis, and became at once quite confidential. He owned that his position filled him with disgust, that Napoleon had plotted the ruin of Spain, that he was a loyal subject of the Bourbons, and that he was wholly unable to make out exactly what had happened at Bayonne in May, for he was cut off from all information. Thereupon Robertson told him of the details of the Bayonne treachery, of the Madrid massacre of May 2nd, and of the general insurrection of Spain. On his saying that the Asturian Deputies had arrived in London just before he left, the Marquis asked for their names, The Vizconde de Matarosa and Don Andrés de la Vega, replied the monk. “Both sound men, and known to me personally”, remarked the Marquis, and after that showed no signs of hesitation.
Robertson explained that the British Government guaranteed the landing of the expeditionary force in Minorca, Cadiz, the Canaries, or South America, or anywhere that the Marquis chose, if he could collect it in a body at Nyborg, which fortunately was a harbour town. There were British ships in sight every day, and if communications were opened with them, Sir Richard Keates, the Admiral of the Baltic Squadron, had orders to co-operate at once. La Romana asked for a night to talk matters over with his staff, and bade Brother James come again in the morning with more cigars.
So next day the emissary, after shaking off his Jew fellow-lodger with some difficulty, came again to headquarters. It was evidently all right—the officers in the ante-room smiled at him and wagged their pens. The Marquis was ready to accept the whole plan, and bade the visitor get into touch at once with the Admiral, and ask him to collect transports. But there was a fearful problem to be solved before any blow could be struck: the troops must be concentrated at Nyborg, and they were at present scattered in seven different cantonments, separated from each other by broad arms of the sea. It would take several days for him to get into touch with the outlying regiments, and then each corps would have to make its arrangements for seizing shipping and getting across to Funen. Moreover they were all mixed up with Danish and Dutch detachments.
However, he had thought of a plan which would give him an excuse for concentrating his army. He would write to Marshal Bernadotte, and inform him that he intended to hold a great review of his whole force on August 7th, at which the oath to Joseph Bonaparte should be taken in a solemn fashion. The Marshal might like to be present himself at the ceremony. Meanwhile, Robertson had better get in touch with the Baltic Fleet without delay; it should be ready to pick up the army just before the day fixed for the review.
All this exposition was interrupted in the most tiresome fashion by feigned argumentation about cigars and chocolate. For the French valet of the Marquis came into the room several times unbidden, and his master was convinced that he was a spy. Wherefore he began haggling over colonial prices, on each occasion that the unnecessary menial came in with a message.
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