Page 1 of Unlikely Heroes
Chapter One
November, 1804
Captain Angus Ogilvie - widower, notorious and generally feared thug, and Trinity House Elder Brother - spoke horribly accented French and worse Spanish. Despite that, here he was in the port of Cádiz, where his relentless tracking of Claude Pascal had finally landed the two of them.
What a wretched man was Claude Pascal. The spy had insinuated himself aboard one of the prison hulks in Portsmouth’s harbor, ruining far too many lives in his attempt to foul the Royal Navy’s valuable factories producing war materiel. Captain Rose, warden of Trinity House, had allowed Pascal to escape, then assigned Ogilvie to track the man and see what he planned next.
The Baltic States seemed to be full of intriguers. Ogilvie blended in perfectly well and knew enough German to get by. Thank God the Danes and Swedes spoke enough English to make life endurable.
Following an agile fellow like Claude Pascal had shaken a good stone and more off Ogilvie’s stoutish frame. In the Baltics, Ogilvie managed to quietly murder a handful of French agents – amazing what silent damage a wire could do, especially if the man wielding it had no particular problem with death.
The damage continued into the German states, where two more spies met their maker after Claude Pascal, still blithely unaware, left messages – some encrypted, some not – that went into Ogilvie’s pocket, once their brief ownership in German hands was contested by a Scot of no mean ability. Pursued and pursuer continued down the coast of western Europe.
Ogilvie had no problem understanding the idioms of France and Spain. The difficulty lay in convincing his less-agile tongue to speak the words and not have them sound like they were native to Fort William, Scotland, where he was born and reared until he went to sea.
He managed well enough. A discreet card in French or Spanish, stating that the bearer was unable to speak due to an unfortunate injury had convinced enough innkeepers, especially when he displayed the coins in his purse. If anyone appeared skeptical, all he had to do was loosen his neckcloth and exhibit an impressive scar. That it was the result of a youthful fall from a tree and looked gruesome even now, was no one’s business but his. Long practice at skulking had trained him to never stay more than one night in one place. He got by.
Past Belgium, Ogilvie headed for the coast of France, ordered there by Captain Rose to pop into northern France at Dunkerque, Calais, Ambleteuse and Boulogne to see with his own eyes if there was truth to rumors of smaller vessels under construction, the sort used to ferry soldiers across a short stretch of water like the Dover Strait. Angus Ogilvie followed orders because Claude Pascal seemed to be headed that way, too.
What he saw at Ambleteuse suggested to Angus that the French had miles to go before attacking England from the water. True, ships with masts but no rigging do look predictably disconsolate in a rainstorm.
An evening’s amble down to the dock provided more information. He never had trouble blending in with the localcitoyennes,as long as he wore a cockade in his hat and didn’t shave or bathe often. “You, sir, are a nondescript sort of fellow,” the Prime Minister himself had told him once, intending it as a compliment. “The perfect spy.”
Perfect spy was no title to be proud of. There was no acclaim involved, only silence and dirty deeds. Besides, Angus suspected he was growing soft, or perhaps merely tired. Why else would he find himself, during lonely evenings, thinking so often of Portsmouth and people there who mattered to him?
Invariably his thoughts circled around to Captain Sir Belvedere St. Anthony, elegant fellow done in at the Battle of the Nile by the loss of a leg. How Sir B still managed to attract and win the heart and hand of Grace Croker, gentlewoman and spinster, baffled someone as realistic as Angus Ogilvie, especially since he had his eye on Grace, too.
In one dingy inn or another as he tracked Claude Pascal, Angus had too much time to reflect upon the workings of fate, never in his favor or so it seemed. Usually his rigorous Presbyterian upbringing still managed to poke through and remind Angus that he should feel more pity for Sir B, who was not healthy and who knew he was dwindling. How much pain can a man take, after all?
Sailing Master Able Six, unspeakably brilliant teacher at St. Brendan the Navigator School, had confided to Angus before this journey began that Lady Grace St. Anthony was with child. “I wonder if Sir B will live long enough to see his son or daughter,” Able had commented on Angus Ogilvie’s last night in Portsmouth before he began his European skulk. “I hope he does.” Angus was not so certain he felt the same way.
That small-minded consideration generally ended the rattles in his head, at least for the evening, because Angus Ogilvie did have a conscience – not a huge one, but a conscience nonetheless. He reminded himself then of the business at hand, following Clause Pascal.
At Ambleteuse, Angus saw twentybateux cannoniers, low-sided and fitted out with sweeps for rowing across the English Channel. What folly. He stopped long enough to estimate that eachbateuxmight seat some one hundred soldiers, all of them likely to puke when they hit that channel chop.I fear you will not prosper, he thought, as he strolled past. Ogilvie knew better than to look back and keep counting, the mark of an amateur spy, which he was not.
He changed his mind at Boulogne, another coastal village which he had always known as an indifferent harbor. France could boast of few good harbors, and Boulogne was no exception, except that Ogilvie knew dredging scoops and shovels when he saw them.
The rumors were true. Napoleon was dredging a deeper harbor at Boulogne, and look, it was being widened, as well. He probably stared longer than he should have. Maybe it was the sight of all those workers that startled him. They swarmed like ants against the slopes, hauling dirt. At the harbor’s mouth, he saw capable masons slapping mortar on trowels to build a fortress guarding the entrance.
He faced seaward, noting the lengthy sandbank which kept frigates of the Royal Navy at bay. Yes, Boulogne was becoming a good port from which to launch an invasion fleet. He could imagine it filled with small craft by 1805.
The idea irritated him, so Captain Angus Ogilvie set fire to two drydocks before he left the city, giving himself great satisfaction. So did a wire necklace for Claude Pascal’s Boulogne connection, who thought he might withhold information about Pascal’s next port of call and still live. “Cádiz, is it?Merci, citoyen,” he told the corpse. “I like Cádiz.”
And here was Cádiz, a place the captain had enjoyed in years past, when active duty took his ships into the excellent harbor, not then under Napoleon Bonaparte’s greedy thumb. Cádiz, home of superior sea food and sultry women.
Either times had changed or he had changed. He settled for a humble bowl of fish soup in atabernaoverlooking the harbor, and ignored a woman making eyes at him. She looked unclean, and Captain Ogilvie did have standards. What was this? A harbor full of Spanish ships, to be sure, but French ones, too, ships large and small, all bottled there by the Royal Navy blockade. Ogilvie had expected this, of course, but the proximity to so much fighting sail, all bent on England’s destruction, fair took away his breath.
Looking up now and then from his newspaper, he counted them, from the biggest – theSantísima Trinidad, largest ship in both fleets – to the smallest pinnace. As he admired the lovely lines of theTrinidad, he mourned the men who would die aboard her when the Combined Fleet came out and Admiral Horatio Nelson waited, ready to pounce.
He didn’t mourn long. He leaned back in his chair and thought about Able Six, that curly-haired, complicated fellow with the lovely wife, who had said they were in for another ten years of war, at least. He marveled at the ambition of Napoleon Bonaparte, a petty enough fellow to begin with, but enhanced by the revolution and allowed to strut upon a larger stage.
Ogilvie grudgingly admitted to himself that the Corsican upstart had some talent. Enough was enough, however. “You won’t take your war onto English soil,” he said under his breath. “Not while I can skulk and murder.”
Speaking of which, he looked across the taberna to a table in the even more dimly lit corner, where sat Claude Pascal with another of his informants. The two men leaned close together, then the informant leaned back in surprise and looked around, almost as if he wanted to be anywhere than with Claude Pascal. Ogilvie could appreciate that.
As he looked closer, Ogilvie squinted to make sure he was right.Well blow me down, he thought, startled to see a familiar English face. He turned toward the wall, nearly certain he hadn’t been noticed, as all manner of ideas ran through his tired brain. One idea connected with another until he forgot his fear and his surroundings. He knew that man.
Sir Clive Mortimer played a small role in the workings of the Admiralty. What was it? Something about first secretary over victualling and procurement, where his task was to review the ledgers and logs sent over from the Navy Board and give them his official stamp of approval.
