‘Upon my soul!’ exclaimed Ainley. ‘This is most extraordinary.’
The three of them were standing beside the stream that looped around the edge of their camp. Cooks were filling buckets of water to use in the preparation of the day’s meals. A little way upstream, horses were being allowed to slake their thirst. Camp followers were washing clothes so that they could be hung out to dry in the warm sunshine. A boy was trying to fish with a rudimentary rod.
The lieutenant had just been told that the sutler with whom he’d talked so freely was, in reality, an enemy spy. It was sobering news. Guilt made Ainley wince.
‘I should have been more alert,’ he admitted.
‘I think you should, Lieutenant,’ said Welbeck, muffling his contempt under a token respect. ‘I would have thought a man in your position would not be taken in so easily.’
‘How right you are, Sergeant!’
‘Before you confided in him, Higgins should have been sifted.’
‘I can see that now.’
‘Better men than you have been deceived,’ said Daniel, trying to soften the blow for his fellow officer. ‘The fact is that Higgins has been gathering intelligence under our noses since this campaign started and nobody had the slightest idea of his true purpose. We must be thankful to Sergeant Welbeck that he was finally unmasked.’
‘I endorse that wholeheartedly — congratulations, Sergeant.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ said Welbeck.
‘You deserve commendation for this.’
‘His Grace was kind enough to write to me, sir. Yet I look for no praise.’ Welbeck straightened his shoulders. ‘I was only doing my duty.’
‘You were doing it very well.’
‘It was Captain Rawson who got the proof that Higgins was a spy. We caught him as he tried to flee.’
‘And we caught his accomplice as well,’ added Daniel. ‘One of them, anyway — there’s a third man who acted as courier but we’ve been unable to identify him. The chances are that he’s already left with whatever intelligence Higgins had managed to collect.’
Ainley swallowed hard. ‘I see.’
‘That brings us to you, of course. What exactly did you tell him?’
‘We had a pleasant conversation, that’s all.’
‘Can you recall what it was about?’
‘I divulged no secrets,’ said Ainley, defensively.
‘You must have divulged something, sir,’ said Welbeck, ‘or the fellow wouldn’t have come to me.’
‘I simply said that you were Daniel’s — Captain Rawson’s — friend and that you probably knew him better than any of us.’
‘What else did you say?’ wondered Daniel.
‘I talked about you, mainly.’
‘Sutlers are only here to sell their provender. Didn’t it strike you as odd that this particular one wanted to talk to you about a fellow officer?’
‘That’s the curious thing,’ said Ainley, ‘We didn’t begin by discussing you. Higgins was too cunning for that. He worked around to it as he did that sketch of me. I suppose,’ he went on with obvious discomfort, ‘that I was drawn in.’
Welbeck was forthright. ‘You were too gullible, sir.’
‘I suppose that I was.’
‘It’s not for you to criticise an officer, Sergeant,’ said Daniel, coming to the lieutenant’s aid. ‘We both know how credible Higgins was. Anyone could have been fooled.’
‘I wasn’t, sir,’ said Welbeck. ‘But I was too late.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘The damage was done by the time he came to me.’
‘What damage?’ said Ainley, hurt by the accusation. ‘On my word of honour, I said nothing about Captain Rawson that wasn’t common knowledge. I talked about him leading a forlorn hope at the Schellenberg and of his gallantry at Blenheim. There’s no secret about any of that.’
‘What else did he want to know?’ asked Daniel.
‘How you’d risen from the ranks.’
‘That was done purely on merit,’ said Welbeck, pointedly.
‘You were more aware of the details, Sergeant, so I took the liberty of mentioning your name. Had I had the slightest inkling of his true motives, of course, I’d never have dreamt of doing that.’
‘No, Lieutenant, I’m sure that you wouldn’t.’
‘I told Higgins nothing he couldn’t have got from elsewhere,’ said Ainley. ‘He’d already heard rumours of what you did in Paris. In fact — now that I remember — it was your adventures in the Bastille that really interested him. He couldn’t believe that you could rescue a prisoner then bring him and three other people all the way back to Holland. He was laughing in wonder.’
‘He was laughing at you,’ said Welbeck to himself but he didn’t translate the thought into words. Stone-faced and bordering on disrespect, he put a question to Ainley.
‘How long would you say that you and Higgins talked, sir?’
Ainley considered. ‘I can’t really put a time on it, Sergeant.’
‘He boasted to us that he could draw a sketch in five minutes. It sounds to me as if the pair of you went on a lot longer than that so you must have told him a great deal about Captain Rawson.’
‘I suppose that I did.’
‘I trust that you didn’t mention Major Crevel,’ said Daniel.
‘No, no, I swear it,’ replied Ainley. ‘On that subject, my lips were sealed. I obeyed your orders on that score, Captain.’
‘I’m glad to hear it.’
‘Honestly, I feel so deuced embarrassed by all this.’
‘You’ve nothing to reproach yourself with, Lieutenant,’ said Daniel with a forgiving smile. ‘I just wanted to hear what had happened between you and Higgins. You’ve put my mind at rest and I’m grateful to you.’
Ainley brightened. ‘Oh, I’m not under fire, then.’
‘Not at all — I’m sorry that I kept you so long.’
Daniel put a hand in the middle of his back to ease him gently away then he strolled along the bank in the opposite direction with Welbeck. The sergeant was able to lapse into familiarity.
‘You let that silly bugger off lightly, Dan,’ he said.
‘Lieutenant Ainley means well.’
‘No wonder Higgins picked on that simpleton. He could see how naive the lieutenant was. He probably got the entire life story of Daniel Rawson out of that fool.’
‘We caught Higgins,’ said Daniel, ‘so no harm was done.’
‘The lieutenant should learn to keep his big gob shut.’
‘And you should learn to be less censorious of an officer, Henry. I concede that Ainley has his shortcomings but he’s assiduous in his duties and has distinguished himself in battle.’
Welbeck snorted. ‘I’ll believe that when I see it, Dan.’
‘He may surprise you yet.’
Before he could speak up for the lieutenant, Daniel saw someone walking briskly towards him. The man was carrying a letter in his hand. When he reached them, he gave it to Daniel.
‘His Grace wanted you to have this as a matter of urgency, Captain,’ said the messenger. ‘It was sent from the French camp.’
‘Thank you.’
Daniel waited until the man had gone before he opened the letter. When he realised what he was holding, he recoiled as if from a heavy blow. His mind clouded for an instant. There was no need to read the letter because, having written it to Amalia Janssen, he already knew its contents. Daniel was shocked that something so private had been made public. If it had been sent by the enemy, the message was clear.
Amalia was in dire trouble.
Flanked by two guards, Amalia Janssen stood in trepidation while Vendome ran a searching eye over her. His scrutiny made her blood run cold. Being abducted and smuggled out of Holland had been a frightening experience but her captors had treated her with a measure of respect. She got little of that from Vendome. His gaze was so direct and penetrating that it was almost as if he were slowly undressing her until she was stark naked before him. Bound and defenceless, Amalia felt abused. She turned her face away in embarrassment.
Vendome nodded so one of the men removed the gag from her mouth and the rope that pinioned her hands behind her back. Amalia rubbed her wrists. During her stay in Paris, she’d learnt a fair amount of French but was far from fluent. When Vendome spoke rapidly to the two guards, she could only pick out certain words. The two men withdrew and she was left alone in the tent with Vendome. After circling her to appraise her from every angle, he came back to face her, lifting her chin with a finger so that she was forced to look into a pair of dark, burning, uncompromising eyes.