Ride with Me

Thomas B. Costain

• Publisher: Rare Treasure Editions
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781774643891
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Guerre napoleoniche

Francis Ellery is a young, courageous newspaper editor who publishes scathing broadsides against the rampaging Napoleon. One foggy London night he loses his heart to the beautiful Gabrielle de Salle, one of a group of exiled French aristocrats. But as the Continent becomes engulfed in the Napoleonic wars, Francis must part from her. He serves on the battlefronts of Spain and Russia as a war correspondent, surviving many colorful and bloody conflicts. And as romance and intrigue swirl around Francis and Gabrielle, their destinies are swept into a vortex of crises and betrayal, spurred on by a hero's rousing cry, RIDE WITH ME...

BOOK I
England

Francis Ellery leaned against the side of a bus which apparently had abandoned the idea of going any further in the fog. He was tired and his stiff knee was hurting him abominably. It was with a deep sense of relief that he heard the sharp voice of Sergeant Cripps far ahead give the order for them to break up and get home as best they could.

Borcher the hatter, who had marched with him at the end of the squad, adjusted his scratch wig with blue fingers and then buttoned his tunic tightly over the yellow waistcoat which proclaimed his Liberal tendencies. “What are ye down for tonight, Ellery?” he asked.

“Committee for London defense. And you, Borcher?”

The hatter snorted as he hobbled off aggrievedly into the dense mist. “Waterworks patrol. But I’ll never get there in this fog. A lot of blasted nonsense anyway. This damned Corsican certainly plays hob with our lives.”

“M’sieur,” said a pleasant feminine voice from above, “is it possible you can tell us where we are?”

Ellery looked up and was able to make out that all the upper seats on the bus were occupied by people in evening clothes. “French,” he thought. Many times he had seen émigrés starting off like this for dinner and unconcernedly taking the cheapest way of getting there.

A male voice said in French, “Allow me to attend to this, Gabrielle, if you please,” adding in slow and halting English, “You in blue coat, where is Can-non Square?”

Looking up at the row of expectant heads, Frank answered: “Cannon Square is a good quarter mile from here. I’m afraid you’ll have to chance the rest of the way on foot. The bus will never get you there now.”

The masculine voice lapsed into French again. “This filthy London! These stupid English! Tonight there will be a soft haze over Paris and people will be riding in open carriages to dinner or the opera. I can’t stand to live among these savages any longer. I think I shall cut my throat tonight and be done with it.” He leaned over the rail and called down brusquely in English, “A shilling, my man, to show the way.”

Frank laughed. “As it happens, I’m going in your direction and I’ll be glad to guide you without any fee, handsome though your offer is.” He paused and then added in French: “I forgive you, m’sieur, for not finding London to your liking on a night like this. But may I point out that many thousands of exiles from your gentle France have found it a safe and friendly sanctuary?”

He heard the pleasant feminine voice expostulating in a low tone. “Jules, will you never learn? Must you always say such things? One can tell from his voice that he’s a gentleman.”

“I mean it,” said the man impatiently. “I shall cut my throat tonight.”

Through the open door of a tavern a hoarse voice said, “Ye won’t see a ’and afore yer ’umping face in ’arf a ’our.” This was no exaggeration. Already the fog was settling down like a damp blanket, with blinding, choking insistence, blotting out the buildings, filling every crevice, turning the lights from shopwindows into faint yellow smudges against the pervading gray. Voices heard at a distance of more than a dozen feet seemed to issue from the air with a suggestion of ventriloquism. It was a lucky thing, Frank said to himself, that he knew every foot of this part of London.

The French party was climbing down the steps of the bus with much talk and laughter. He wondered that they could be so gay. It was the talk of London that most of them had been forced to accept any form of menial work which offered and that they subsisted on almost nothing. This was largely hearsay, however, for the refugee colony kept exclusively to themselves and had little to do with their English neighbors.

The owner of the pleasant voice proved to be a young girl with a worn cashmere shawl around her shoulders. The rest were shadowy figures to him, even when they had reached the ground and stood about in an expectant group, but somehow he could see her as clearly as though she were on a floor of a ballroom with candles by the hundred. She was wearing a Mary Queen of Scots cap, and under its tartan band her reddish-brown hair curled closely. Her face was a slender oval in which her dark and lively eyes seemed unusually large. He could see that her feet (skirts were being worn much shorter than ever before this season) were very trim in a fragile pair of velvet slippers and that the hand clasping the shawl around her neck was small and white. She was so lovely, in fact, that he had a tendency to stammer when he addressed her.

“If you can spare the time, mademoiselle, I will try to find sedan chairs for you and your friends.”

The man who had offered him the shilling, and who had followed immediately after her down the steps, did not favor this idea. Frank saw that he was tall and quite handsomely attired in lavender coat with a flowing cravat and a well-powdered wig.

“We’re late as it is, Gaby,” said the dandy. “The Comtesse will think we’re not coming and will be having a perfect tantrum.”

The girl nodded and then said to the Englishman: “I think we shall have to walk, m’sieur. Will you be so very kind as to show us the way, then?”

Frank bowed. “I know this section quite well, but it will be necessary to proceed with the greatest caution. I’m going to walk close to the buildings so I can feel my way along. You had better follow in single file, and I suggest you join hands. It’s very easy to become separated in a fog like this.”

The dandy muttered to himself in French, “What an abominable situation!” But the girl said in gay tones: “I’ll follow after you, m’sieur, and I shall hold on to your coattails. I hope you won’t think it too undignified, but we can’t afford to lose you. Jules, take this end of my shawl. It will be like a game.”

Frank thought, “I’m going to play follow-my-leader with the court of Versailles.” The disgruntled Jules was saying, “But, Gaby, I would rather you held my coattails and I took his.” The rest of the party fell into line with more talk and laughter than before. Some of them were elaborately dressed, and all of the women had jewels sparkling on their necks.

“Thieves are sure to be out on a night like this,” said Frank. “You must all hold tight to your purses and other valuables.”

Behind him the girl whispered with a suggestion of a laugh: “Don’t worry about that. I’m quite sure we haven’t a sovereign between us. As for the jewels, they’re all copies. The good uncle got the originals long ago.”

He led the way slowly, with a quite perceptible limp, until the corner was reached, conscious every step of the way of the light tug of her hand. Here he turned cautiously to the right. “The way now is narrow and rough,” he called. “Step with the greatest care.” He dropped his voice. “It’s very muddy, mademoiselle. Your shoes will suffer, I’m afraid.”

She seemed to be enjoying the adventure. “Then it’s all for the best. My shoes are quite old, and if they get very muddy my father will have to allow me another pair.”

“Have you been in this country long?”

“Nearly fifteen years. I was so young when we left France that I have no recollection of it at all.”

“Then England must seem like home to you.”

“No, m’sieur.” Her tone was quite decided. “We live to ourselves, you know. We’ve been taught we must remain French in everything, and most particularly in our thoughts. It’s hoped we shall be returning home soon. My father has rented our present place for many years but he refuses to take a lease. He says it would show a lack of faith if he did. Most of the others do the same. Lately, though, it has seemed to some of us that—that it will still be such a very long time.”

The impatient voice behind them said, “You’re doing a great deal of talking, Gaby.”

“It’s no concern of yours, Jules. And, if you please, don’t tug so hard on my shawl. You’ll choke me.”

Frank said to himself, “She likes to talk to me.” The thought set his heart beating fast. Nothing seemed more important than for this lovely member of the exiled colony to have a good opinion of him. Aloud he said: “I’m afraid you’re right, mademoiselle. It will be a long time before you can hope to return to France. Napoleon is more firmly settled than ever. And now that Russia is joining with him against us——”

“But, m’sieur, it’s not certain that the Tsar will desert us!”

“I’m very much afraid it is. I’m in a position to know because I publish a newspaper, the Tablet.” He said this with the deliberate intention of identifying himself in her mind and, perhaps, of impressing her a little. “We’ve been given official information on the secret clauses in the treaty that the Tsar signed with Napoleon at Tilsit. They call for a declaration of war against Great Britain, and we expect it any day now.”

He thought he detected a suggestion of admiration for the Corsican ruler of France when she said: “He has won so many victories! The armies of France are so strong that sometimes we think he can never be beaten.”

“Sometimes I think you talk too much,” grumbled Jules.

“Was your father in the French Army?” asked Frank.

“No, m’sieur. The aristocracy of France is divided into three classes. We are of the court, not the army. All of us here are of the court.”

The unfriendly Jules said, “Gabrielle!” and then lapsed into a torrent of rapid French which Frank could not follow. He caught the name De Salle, however, and immediately jumped to the conclusion that his beautiful companion was none other than Gabrielle de Salle, the acknowledged belle of the colony. She would be a great heiress when Napoleon fell and the estates of the Royalists were restored. He had heard it said that the Duc de Berri, third in line for the throne, always paid her marked attention when he was in London. Frank could still feel the light pressure of her hand, but suddenly she seemed to be thousands of leagues removed from him. A daydream which had been growing rosily in his mind as they moved so carefully through the thick gray mist began to dissolve.

The cellar was being dug for a new building at the next corner, and a torch blazed briskly atop the bastion of planks around it. Pausing to consider the best course to follow, Frank saw that the girl was taking advantage of the illumination to look him over carefully. He became acutely aware of his limp and of the ill-fit of his blue tunic of the St. George Marching Association. “She’ll think I’m a regular scarecrow,” he said to himself.

What she saw was a thin young man with friendly and alert dark eyes in an angular face. He was not at all handsome, she decided, although there was something pleasant about his face; perhaps it was a suggestion of intelligence in the width of his brow or the straight bridge of his long nose. What she noticed most about him was an air of eagerness, as though he expected much of life and was in a hurry to meet it. This made her feel sorry for him, but she could not have explained why. It may have been a conviction that his spirit would be checked by the lagging gait of his crippled knee.

“M’sieur, why do you carry a broomstick?” she asked as they began to edge around the plank barricade.

“I belong to a London company of Fencibles,” he explained in a rather self-conscious tone. “They’re being organized all over England again to meet the threat of invasion. This is the third time I’ve joined. First was in ’98 when we were so sure Boney was coming over. Then we got feverishly to work in ’04, when he had his army back of Boulogne and was collecting a fleet of barges. This time it’s certain that he’ll try it. There aren’t rifles to go around, so we drill with broomsticks.”

There was a hint of a laugh in her voice. “Can you be turned into good soldiers that way?”

“Sergeant Cripps doesn’t think so. He gave us such a dressing down this afternoon that I haven’t recovered my self-respect since.”

This, he realized, was a mild report of what had happened. Looking them over with a blistering eye, the five-foot-two martinet had said: “Ye’re a poor lot, gem’men, and that’s the sullem truth. Ye come out as a matter o’ jooty but atter ye does yer bit o’ drill ye goes home and eats yerselves dizzy on mutton and steamed pudding. There isn’t one o’ ye as has lost a inch abart the tripe line, ’cepting Mr. Ellery, who hasn’t none to spare. Let me tell ye this. It’s only bloody hard fighting what’s going to count, and ye’d better get that through yer heads. We’ll be lucky if we’re alive three months from now, and our wives and childers as well. This is going to be war, and we’re all in it—right up to our bleedin’ necks! Nah then, do ye want me to make a fair imitashun o’ fighting men outa ye? Or do ye want to go on playin’ sojer with broomsticks in yer nice white mawleys?”

It had been Frank himself who answered. “We’re with you, Sergeant. Every man here, I’m sure, wants to do everything you think necessary.” There had been a reluctant spatter of voices to confirm this.

“Very well.” The sergeant had glared along the line. “From now on ye’ll be treated like enlisteds. Company! ’Shun!” Forty broomsticks had snapped up to freshly braced shoulders. “Throw yer chests out and pull in those suet puddin’s ye call stummicks. When I’m through with ye today, ye’ll ache in every muscle o’ yer bodies. I won’t be satersfied with less than a blister on every blasted heel in the squad.”

He had been as good as his word. Frank had blisters on both heels, and only the sudden rise of the fog had saved him from the ignominious necessity of dropping out.

“If Napoleon does come over, will it be very bad for us?” asked the voice behind him.

“The British Navy may be able to hold him off. That’s our only hope. If he manages to land his army in anything like full strength, it will be very bad for us, mam’selle.”

A few minutes later he said: “This is Cannon Square. What number do you want?”

“Number 16. On the south side.”

“It faces the gate in the center garden,” added Jules.

“Then here we are.” Frank drew his tinder pistol from a coat pocket and pressed down with his thumb. For a wonder it caught fire with the first impact of the trigger. He climbed the steps and held the light to a brass plate on the door. “Yes, this is number 16. But the name seems to be Billings.”

“We go to the top floor,” said the girl. “Have you much farther to walk, m’sieur?”

“A few squares only, thanks.”

One of the other men had mounted the steps and was ringing the doorbell. Jules called to him indignantly. “You know it’s my privilege to enter first.”

The man on the steps looked down over his shoulder. “Must we stand on ceremony on a night like this, De Vitrelle?” he demanded.

“The rules apply to all conditions of weather,” declared Jules emphatically. “And in all places, even this miserable London. You know that as well as I do, Fortier.”

The girl brushed past him and walked up the steps. “If you’re going to be such a great donkey, Jules, I’ll settle the matter by entering first myself. What do your laws of precedence say about that?” She turned and bowed to Frank. “It was very kind of you to help us out of our difficulty, m’sieur.”

“I’m happy to have been of service. Good evening, Mademoiselle de Salle.”

“Good evening, m’sieur.”

So he had been right! She was Gabrielle de Salle, and so far above him that what little was left of his daydream crashed about him now in complete dissolution.

The rest of the company began to press up...