The Old Vengeful

soldier—

indeed, he was an escaped prisoner himself, and a most daring one. Twice he escaped, once from Chel-ten- ham, but unsuccessfully—'

'Cheltenham?' Paul looked at Aske.

'He broke his parole, that means,' murmured Aske. 'French officer prisoners were always paroled.' He gazed intently at the Professor. 'And the second time?'

'From Portsmouth—'

'The hulks!' Aske nodded. 'That's where they sent the bad boys . . . and the hulks were no joke. I'll bet he didn't love the British after that.'

'That is true.' The professor returned this intelligence with interest. 'It was a terrible punishment—some might say inhumane.'

'No worse than the souterrains in the French fortresses. In fact, better a ship on the Portsmouth mudflats than below ground at Bitche or Sarrelibre,' said Aske coolly. 'Some might say that, Professor.'

Men! thought Elizabeth critically, as she felt the temperature drop: unless she came between these unlikely adversaries they would be into the ancient Anglo-French argument next, as to which nation was the more wicked.

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'If Colonel Suchet had a score to settle—' she tried to include both of them, and Paul too, in her silly question '—could that be why he wanted so badly to recapture them. Professor?'

'Ah ...' The Professor turned politely towards her '... no, Mademoiselle . . . That is to say, whatever Colonel Suchet may have felt personally, he was far too busy to pursue them for personal reasons. He had other duties, you see.'

'What other duties?' asked Aske.

'You are a student of this period? An expert?' The little man studied Aske intently.

'A student,' admitted Aske cautiously.

'Of naval history.' For once Paul came to Aske's rescue.

'British naval history.'

Professor Belperron almost smiled. 'Then you will perhaps be acquainted with the name de la Rousseliere?'

'No.' Aske had guessed he was about to be put in his place, but had evidently decided to cut his losses quickly. 'I've never heard of him.'

'I'm surprised.' Surprised and gratified. ' Berthois de la Rousseliere, chef de bataillon du corps de Genie—major, Royal Engineers, as Colonel Hobson would have translated it.' The Professor cocked his head at Aske inquiringly, with false innocence. 'Or perhaps Lieutenant Robert Hamilton?'

He smiled. 'Captain Hamilton, as he became?'

'Naval history is Mr Aske's field, Professor,' said Paul.

'Oh, but Robert Hamilton was a naval officer, Dr Mitchell,'

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said the Professor, his good humour thoroughly restored.

'He was a lieutenant in the Royal Navy of His Britannic Majesty King George III ... and then a captain in the Royal Navy of His Most Christian Majesty King Louis XVI—he was doubly a naval officer . . . But, to be fair, perhaps a little before . . . before your period, Mr Aske? And yours, Dr Mitchell?'

But neither of them were falling for anything this time, observed Elizabeth: each face bore the same expression of obsequious interest of students at the feet of the master, even if those little feet might be swinging in mid- air.

But that was not necessarily appropriate to the daughter of Commander Loftus VC, she decided: heroes' daughters could take narrower attitudes.

'He was a traitor, you mean?'

'A traitor? Ah . . .' He gazed at her, then raised his favourite hand expressively, to indicate a finer balance. 'In those days loyalties were not so simply defined. He was a Scotsman, and the English—the English—they did not appreciate his excellence as a navigator and a map-maker—they did not promote him ... So he promoted himself into another king's more grateful service, to make maps, not of Cherbourg and Brest, but of the Medway and Portsmouth.'

'That still sounds like treason,' said Elizabeth.

'Perhaps. But the frontiers of treason are rarely so clearly defined.' He smiled at her. 'I remember Portsmouth in 1944, dummy3

Mademoiselle. I was in a tank landing-craft of His Britannic Majesty King George VI, waiting to invade France, and not far from the mud-bank on which Jean-Baptiste Suchet was held captive in one of Mr Aske's hulks . . . And I remember thinking, as I looked up towards the forts on the hills above—

the forts which the Lord Palmerston built to protect the naval base from his French enemies in the reign of Queen Victoria ... I remember thinking that if I fell into the hands of my own countrymen in France . . . that I had already been sentenced to death in absentia by the Vichy Government.'

He spread both hands. 'Traitor—renegade—patriot... we take the side that we must take, and do what we must do, which seems best to us. And it is the winning and the losing which decides what we were.'

'Yes—very true. And most interesting,' said Aske. 'But if Hamilton served King Louis XVI, what has he got to do with Major de la Rousseliere and Colonel Suchet, who served Napoleon Bonaparte?'