Beneath the Aurora Read Free Page B

the only man capable of doin’ the job, Captain, the only man with the
nous
. He was emphatic upon the point, wanted me to tell you about a bookseller fellow in Paris, and a Madame de Santon, or some such, but he slipped away, poor devil. He was in a deuce of a lot of pain at the end, despite the paregoric.’
    Moira had given him the key to the desk at which he now sat, striving for some temporizing reaction to Templeton’s news.
    â€˜Barrow has not mentioned the matter . . .’
    â€˜It was only decided at Board this morning . . .’
    â€˜You’re damned quick with your intelligence,’ Drinkwater snapped sharply. ‘So much for the confidentiality of the copy room!’
    â€˜I believe Mr Barrow wished it to be known, sir, in this roundabout way.’
    â€˜How obligin’ of him,’ Drinkwater muttered, knowing that in the past he had once crossed the Second Secretary and done himself no favour thereby. ‘You had better pour us both a glass, Templeton.’
    Drinkwater rose, aware that he had still not thoroughly read the dispatch from Helgoland. He moved towards the little half-moon table where the clerk poured the rich madeira. He caught sight of himself reflected in the glass doors of the cabinet. The bottle-green coat did not suit him, and was at odd variance with his old-fashioned queue with its clump of black ribbon nestling at the nape of his neck. He looked a damn fool!
    Templeton handed him the glass. ‘What are we to do, Templeton?’ he asked. ‘D’you have any bright ideas? If they want for money, we’ve no means of raisin’ revenue, and if they want value for what little they allow us, how in heaven’s name do we give it to ’em?’
    He was half-hearted in his complaint, but Templeton did not seem to notice. The truth was, the intelligence reports processed by the two of them contained little of significance now that the naval war on the coast of Europe was reduced to the tedious matter of blockade. There were the lists of Yankee ships slipping in and out of French ports, but as many were doing the same in Spain and the British were purchasing the supplies they brought to keep Wellington’s Anglo-Portuguese army in the field. As for the matter of their own funds, Drinkwater had learned that Dungarth had himself underwritten most of the department’s expenses, squandering his modest inheritance to the distress of his Irish tenants. His own finances would not extend so far.
    In so far as the Secret Department had achieved anything recently, Drinkwater could recollect only his pressing the Board to increase the strength of the blockade on the eastern coast of the United States. He had written an appreciation of the matter born out of his own experience of Yankee privateers rather than the coded missives of spies.
    â€˜We appear to be redundant, Mr Templeton,’ he said with an air of finality.
    â€˜I fear that may well be the case, Captain Drinkwater,’ Templeton said, sipping his wine unhappily.
    â€˜You will retain a position within the Admiralty, surely.’
    â€˜Oh, I daresay, sir, but not one of such gravity, sir, not one with such, er, such opportunities.’
    The emphasis on the last word reminded Drinkwater of the vital perquisites of office among these black-garbed jobbers. There were expenses to be written off, bribes to be paid and spies to be funded. Everything was reduced to money and everyone had their price, women as well as men.
    He thought of Moira’s ‘Madame de Santon, or some such’. Drinkwater knew her better as Hortense Santhonax, née Montholon. Dungarth’s key had revealed his secret dossier on Hortense and the small pension she received to keep open communications with the Emperor Napoleon’s former Foreign Minister, Talleyrand. He concentrated on the present. There was Liepmann in Hamburg, Van Ouden in Flushing and Vlieghere at