Of the next five nights he spent only one the last out at Richmond, completing his packing and handing out presents labeled 'not to be opened until Christmas Day'. Early on the morning of December 22nd he left for Tilbury. With a new money belt round his waist, containing gold pieces in several currencies, a few small diamonds and the lettre de marque, he went aboard an American freighter. The ship sailed on the evening tide.
During the short December day it had rained on and off but, as the barque dropped down the Thames, a wind got up and the sky cleared except for scudding clouds that, every few minutes, blacked out the moon. In the estuary the sea was choppy and, by the time they cleared the Nore, the ship was pitching unpleasantly as she fought her way forward. When she altered course to nor' eastward, Roger was awakened by a heavy wave slopping against the side of his cabin and thought unhappily that, as it was mid-winter, they were probably in for a bad voyage.
His fears proved only too well founded. During the days that followed, the North Sea was at its most horrible. The ship was tossed about like the plaything of a giant. She rolled and wallowed in the troughs of the great waves, then was carried sky-high to hover on their summits before cascading down another slope. The timbers creaked, clothes hanging from pegs in the cabins swung slowly to and fro like pendulums, alternately flapping against the bulkheads and standing away from them at an acute angle. Occasionally there came a loud crash as some object fell to the deck, then slithered across it.
For three days the ship ran bare-masted before the storm. Roger had always been a bad sailor, and throughout this time was as sick as a dog. He vomited until he was as empty as a drum, yet continued to retch in agony. His eyes watered, saliva ran hot in his mouth, a child could have pushed him over. He became incapable of coherent thought and would not have minded had the ship gone down.
On the fourth day the fury of the storm lessened sufficiently for her topsails and jib to be set, and Roger staggered up on deck. His clothes uncared for, his hair awry, his cheeks and chin dark with a three-day growth of bristles, he stood clutching a stanchion as he stared out across the grey-green waste. For as far as he could see, an endless succession of white-caps broke the surface, tossing up little jets of spray. No other vessel was in sight, no smudge of land was to be seen on the horizon, no indication of whether the ship was on her course or had been driven off it.
It was bitterly cold and began to rain. Soon it was coming down in torrents. Soaked to the skin, Roger staggered down to the saloon. The Captain of the barque happened to be there. He was a hard-bitten Yankee from Nantucket, who disliked the British; but when, white faced and ill, Roger had staggered to a settee and collapsed upon it, the lean American brought over a tot of rum, lifted Roger's head and forced him to swallow the liquid.
The fiery spirit burned its way into his vitals and made him cough until he feared he was going to choke; but after a while he began to feel a little bit better, and managed to get down two ships' biscuits. As the early darkness closed in, it began to blow great guns again. By then, Roger had crawled back to his cabin. As he lay down on the still rolling bunk, he was overcome by another fit of nausea and spewed up the little he had eaten.
Next day the weather improved sufficiently for more sail to be set, but a blustering wind continued, accompanied by gusts of driving rain. Roger's bouts of actual vomiting had ceased, but he still felt queasy and his stomach was sore from the strain that had been put on its muscles. It was not until the barque had turned east, passed the Skaw of Denmark and was buffeting her way through the Skagerrak that he managed to pull himself together enough to make the effort required to shave and dress himself properly.
Christmas Day had passed unnoticed and it was New Year's Eve when the barque dropped anchor in Gothenburg harbour. Although it was already dark, Roger had himself rowed ashore. The town lay under a pall of snow, and enough light was reflected from it by a waning moon to see the old, timbered houses almost as clearly as hi daytime. The glow of then lighted windows spoke of warmth and comfort within, but outside the temperature was far below zero and Roger was thankful when the coach he had hired at the dock pulled up in the yard of a big inn.
On going inside he saw that the Christmas decorations were still up and the place was crowded with people drinking beer and schnapps. They were starting to celebrate the New Year, but he felt too weak and ill to mingle later with them and join in the revelry. He ordered hot punch, bread and honey to be sent up to his room, ate while he undressed; then, with a sigh of thankfulness, climbed into a bed that had on it a feather eiderdown a foot thick. As he lay there, he still felt the motion of the ship and seemed to be rocking gently from side to side, but the hot posset and the honey had soothed his raw stomach and he fell into a deep sleep. Even the bells of Gothenburg, clamorously ringing in the year 1812, failed to wake him.
He spent the whole of the next day in bed, slowly recovering from his ghastly voyage, and took the opportunity to have his suit well brushed and pressed. On purpose he had brought only the one with him, and very few things, for to have done otherwise could have given away the story he meant to tell of how he had happened to arrive in Gothenburg. He had lost over a stone in weight, and when he looked in the mirror, decided that the patches of grey hair above his ears had perceptibly increased during the past year; but that had been partly due to what he had been through while in the hands of O Diabo. However, there were as yet no wrinkles on his face, except for the laughter lines at the corners of his mouth, and his bright blue eyes were as keen as ever.
The following day he felt much more like his old self. Going out into the town he bought himself a pair of roomy, wool-lined boots, a bearskin coat, a sea-otter papenka, a sheepskin rug, warm stockings and underclothes, returned to the inn to pack, then took the seat he had booked in the diligence leaving for Stockholm.
He had dreaded the two-hundred-and-fifty-mile journey, but need not have done so. Unlike Britain, in which occasional periods of very cold weather cause the people much suffering and inconvenience, the Swedes had long since learned how to protect themselves during their long, bitter winters. For the whole way the roadsides were piled high with packed snow, so that the diligence seemed to be travelling through a long, winding gully, but there were no hold-ups, because the centre of the road was kept clear by relays of men from the towns and villages. Every ten miles or so fresh, flat, metal hot water containers were put in to warm the passengers' feet, and the meals at the inns on the way were passably good. Roger's only complaint would have been that, not long after each halt, the interior of the vehicle became abominably stuffy, because the windows were kept hermetically sealed.
On the evening of January 5th, he arrived in Stockholm and put up at the Reindeer's Head. Next morning he had himself driven out to the Castle. The scenery on the way there was enchanting. Snowflakes sparkled in the winter sunshine on the feathery branches of the pines and larches. Between the clusters of trees there were frozen lakes with colourfully-dressed people skating or being pushed in sleighs on them, while groups of laughing children attacked or defended snow forts and pelted one another with snowballs. But the Castle proved a grim, grey pile and Roger wondered, a shade apprehensively, how Bernadotte would receive him.
Having been passed from, the sergeant of the guard to an adjutant, he sent up his name as Colonel Count de Breuc. He was kept waiting only ten minutes, then taken up a broad flight of stone stairs and along a gloomy corridor to which the light scarcely penetrated. There was no sentry on the door of the Prince Royals cabinet and Roger was shown straight into it. The room was quite small, and filled with maps and books, some of which were even piled on the floor. The tall, handsome ex-Marshal of the Empire was now wearing the much less decorative plain blue uniform of a Swedish Field Marshal. On his broad chest there was not a single decoration.