Browne asked hesitantly, “What will become of us, sir?”
Bolitho lowered his voice. “Captain Neale will doubtless be exchanged for a French prisoner of equal rank when he is well enough to be moved.”
They both looked at Lieutenant Algar, and Bolitho added, “I fear he may not live long enough to be exchanged.” He turned his gaze to Neale again, his face normally so pink from wind or sun was like a sheet. Even with good care he might never be the same again. He said, “I want you to agree to any French proposals on exchange, Oliver.”
Browne exclaimed, “No, sir. I cannot leave you… what are you saying?”
Bolitho looked away. “Your loyalty warms me, but I shall insist. It is pointless for you to remain if offered the chance.”
Allday asked gruffly, “D’you think they will keep you then, sir?”
Bolitho shrugged. “I don’t know. Not many flag-officers get taken prisoner.” He could not hide the bitterness. “But we shall see.”
Allday folded his massive arms. “I’m staying with you, sir. An’ there’s an end to it.”
Once again the coach shook itself to a halt, and as two mounted dragoons took station on either side, the rest of the escort dismounted.
A face appeared at Bolitho’s door. It was the French naval lieutenant, his blue coat covered in dust from the hard ride across country.
He touched his hat and said in careful English, “Not much longer, m’sieu.” He glanced at the two bandaged figures. “A surgeon will be waiting.”
“ Nantes?”
Bolitho expected the lieutenant to turn away, but instead he gave an amused smile.
“You know France, m’sieu.” He thrust two bottles of wine through the window. “The best I can manage.” He touched his hat again and sauntered towards the other officers.
Bolitho turned, but said nothing as he saw the intent expression on Browne’s face.
“Look, sir!”
There were a few trees beside the road and some tiny dwellings nearby. But rising above all else was a newly built tower, and there were some masons still working around its base and chipping away at the gold-coloured stone.
But Bolitho stared at its summit and an ungainly set of mechanical arms which were clearly framed against the sky.
He said, “A semaphore tower!”
It was so obvious he was stunned by the discovery. Even the stone which had gone into the rough walls must be some of that brought from Spain. It was certainly not from hereabouts.
The Admiralty too had ordered the construction of semaphore towers, south from London to link their offices with the main ports and fleets, and the French had been using their own signalling system for even longer. But both countries had concentrated on the Channel, and nothing at all had been reported about the wider usage of this new chain of towers. No wonder their movements had been so swiftly reported up and down the Biscay coast, and French men-of-war had been ready to move into planned positions before any possible raid on their harbours and shipping.
Allday said, “I think I saw one just as we were leaving the coast, sir. But not like that. The semaphore was mounted on the top of a church.”
Bolitho clenched his fists. Even at Portsmouth the semaphore was set on the cathedral tower to command the anchorage at Spithead.
“Here, open those bottles!” Bolitho pushed them into Allday’s hands. “Don’t look at the tower. That lieutenant will see us.”
He dragged his eyes away as the semaphore arms began to swing and dance like a puppet on a gibbet. Ten, maybe twenty miles away a telescope would be recording each movement before passing it on to the next station. He recalled reading of the new chain of towers which linked London to Deal. In a record-breaking test they had sent a signal all seventy-two miles there and back in eight minutes!
How the local admiral must have gloated when Styx ’s first penetration of the channel beyond the Ile d’Yeu had been reported. After that it had been simple. He must have despatched three ships to seaward during the night, and when Styx, accompanied by Phalarope, had attempted to engage the invasion craft, his own vessels had pounced. No time wasted, no vessels squandered or wrongly deployed. Like a poacher’s sack. Bolitho felt the anger rising to match his despair.
The coach began to roll forward again, and when Bolitho glanced through the window he saw the semaphore arms were still, as if the whole tower, and not its hidden inmates, was resting.
A new thought probed his mind like a needle. Herrick might be ordered to mount an attack with heavier ships of the squadron. The result would be a disaster. The enemy would gather an overwhelming force of vessels, and with the advanced knowledge arriving hourly on their new semaphore system, almost every move Herrick would make could be countered.
He looked at the sky. It was already darker, and soon the signal stations would be rendered dumb and blind until daylight.
The horses and the iron-shod wheels clattered over a madeup road, and Bolitho saw larger buildings and warehouses, and a few windows already lit and cheerful.
There still had to be some faint hope. Twenty-five miles down the Loire from Nantes was the sea. He felt the chill of excitement on his skin in spite of his efforts to contain it. One step at a time. No more hope without a constructive thought to sustain it. He opened the window slightly and imagined he could smell the river, and pictured it wending its way towards the open sea, where ships of the blockading squadron maintained their endless vigilance.
Allday watched him and recognized the mood.
He said quietly, “Remember what you asked afore, sir? About the falcon on a line?”
Bolitho nodded. “Don’t hope for too much. Not yet.”
Voices challenged and equipment jingled as the carriage and escort clattered beneath an archway and into a walled square.
As the coach responded to its brake, Browne said, “We have arrived, sir.”
Bayonets moved across the windows like pale rushes, and Bolitho saw an officer carrying a large satchel watching from a doorway. As promised, a doctor was waiting. Even that order must have been passed directly here by semaphore. Yet it was all of forty miles from the beach where they had struggled ashore.
The door was wrenched open and several orderlies lifted the moaning lieutenant and carried him towards the nearest building. Then it was Neale’s turn. Still unconscious and unaware of what was happening, he too was carried bodily after his lieutenant.
Bolitho looked at the others. It was time.
The French lieutenant made a polite blow. “If you will please follow me?” It was courteously asked, but the armed soldiers left no room for argument.
They entered another, heavily-studded door on the other side of the square, and then into a bare, stone-flagged room with a solitary window, barred, and too high to reach. Apart from a wooden bench, a foul-smelling bucket and some straw, the room was empty.
Bolitho had expected some sort of formal investigation to begin at once, but instead the heavy door slammed shut, the sound echoing along the corridor like something from a tomb.
Browne looked round in dismay, and even Allday seemed at a loss.
Bolitho sat down on the bench and stared at the stone floor between his feet. Prisoners of war.
The French naval lieutenant stood with arms folded as Bolitho, assisted by Allday, slipped into his coat and tugged his neckcloth into place.
They had been awakened early by the usual commotion of the military. The main building and smaller outlying ones had obviously been commandeered by the local garrison, but still bore the mark of grandeur and privilege. A great house and home farm before the revolution, Bolitho thought. He had seen a small part of it when he had been escorted to another room where Allday, watched the whole time by a keen-eyed guard, had been allowed to shave him.
