Flashman's Escape (20 page)

“Nice try,
monsieur
,” called a voice in French.

Chapter 20

“Don’t shoot,” I replied automatically in French, the language the man had spoken. For a moment I thought that there had been a pursuit from the column after all. Had they had just watched me change sides? Then I heard more people moving through the trees and they seemed to be coming from higher up the hill. I tried to turn my head but the muzzle was pressed harder into my skull.

“Keep still, my little tyrant,” taunted the man behind me in French. “You will see us soon enough.” Then the man called out to those behind him in Spanish. “Look, we have a French officer trying to disguise himself as a Briton. Perhaps he is trying to desert.”

“Officers don’t desert their armies,” called another voice behind me. “They live like kings in them.”

“Perhaps that bastard Hugo sent him to find out where he can kill more partisans,” declared another voice and that suggestion was met with growls of agreement from several others.

“No,” I called out this time in Spanish. “I am a British officer. I was sent to rescue a man called Grant who is travelling in that column. There is a two-thousand-dollar reward from General Wellington if you help me take him alive.”

This suggestion was greeted with the sound of expectorating and a loud spit from the man behind me. “We know all about El Granto and his reward,” he stated gruffly. “It is just the kind of bait that Hugo would use to tempt us to attack his men in the open. Is that why he sent you, to persuade us to walk into his trap?”

“No, of course not. I am British, I tell you. I can prove it…”

Before I could say any more a rough cloth sack was pulled over my head and my arms were grabbed. As I yelled my muffled protests, my hands were tied behind my back but not before several fists connected sharply with my ribs. I was still yelling that I was British when a gag was tied tightly over the top of the sack, forcing the rough cloth into my mouth and leaving me only able to grunt incoherently. I felt my sword being unbuckled and the pistols being taken from my pockets.

I received another rain of blows when they found the copy of the letter to the French minister of war in my pocket. They could not read all of it but they knew it was in French and that it was addressed to Paris. Then I felt a rope noose pass over my head and for an awful moment I thought that they were going to hang me on the spot. I thrashed and writhed around to get away and they must have guessed what I was thinking for there was more laughter and blows, before I felt the rope pulling me forward rather than up.

They dragged me for what seemed several miles through the trees, yanking on the rope when I tripped over a root and kicking and punching me when I did not move fast enough. I might not have been able to speak, but from what I overheard I gathered that when we got to wherever we were going they were going to hold some sort of trial. There was much talk of a fearsome ‘chief’ who hated the French and seemed to specialise in getting information from prisoners. Nobody seemed in any doubt of the outcome of my inquisition as the punches kept coming; but at least, I thought, I would have a chance to defend myself. Surely, I reasoned, I could get them to send word to the British to prove my identity. Even this chief would not kill a British officer, especially if there was a chance that Wellington would pay a reward for me too.

Eventually they started to slow down and I could smell wood smoke and human excrement through the sacking. I realised that we were getting close to their camp. Suddenly I felt the rope being removed from my neck and I was pushed forward. The sack was still kept firmly in place by the gag so I could not see where I was going. Then the men made me crouch as though to get through a small opening. They pushed me forward into whatever space it was but my head hit something hard and I fell to my knees, feeling slightly sick. They rolled me through the opening into the area beyond. There was plenty of light coming through the fibres of the sack and so I guessed I was still outside. Was I in some sort of cage? I wondered. I heard the men move away, laughing, as I struggled to get on my knees while my head throbbed with pain. Then I heard something scuffle much nearer.

There was a strange crooning noise and I tried to work out what it could be. Had they left me defenceless with my hands tied behind my back, in an enclosure with a vicious wild animal? No, I could hear the men still moving away. If I was about to be killed by some creature, surely they would have stayed to watch. I tried to shuffle away from the sound but my back was soon up against branches that seemed to have been tied into some form of wall. The crooning noise came closer and then I felt hands touching my face. The fingers pressed into my eye sockets. I thought they were going to try to gouge my eyes and tried to turn away. But then the hands got purchase on the sack cloth and started to tear it.

The hands tore a wide long slit in the sacking opposite my eyes. Through it I got my first glance of the creature helping me. I say creature, for that was what he was then; but from the shreds of uniform he still wore, he must have once been a French soldier. Now he was half naked with long hair and a matted beard. But most disturbing were his wild, rolling eyes and the strange, guttural animal noises he made. I tried to ask for help through the gag, but even though I barely managed a series of strangled grunts, my companion just started to scream to drown out the noise. When I shook my head at him in an effort to get him to remove the gag he shrank back out of my view. Moving my head against the bars behind me, I managed to widen the slit in front of my face. Slowly I managed to draw the top of the sack over my head like a hood and then I saw what had driven the poor devil mad.

We were both in a wooden cage, not tall enough to stand up in, but made of stout branches that were well lashed together and as thick as a man’s wrist. It was set in the middle of a circular clearing between what I took at first to be gnarled tree trunks. Then I saw some colour on one and realised that most of the trunks had at least one man nailed to them. The bodies were blackened with age and decay but the one that had caught my eye still had part of his blue uniform coat showing.

Dear God, I thought, I have to convince them that I am not French. I cannot end my days like this: dying in agony nailed to a tree just because I was caught wearing the wrong coloured coat. Little did I know that the crazy events of that day were only just beginning.

I have had the misfortune to stand in various courts in my time, from a drum head court marital, to hearings in the House of Commons. But I have experienced nothing like the trial with the partisans – and that includes a trial by ordeal I endured in Africa. In all of those cases the accused had at least the slightest chance of being found not guilty. I quickly discovered that the verdict in my trial was a forgone conclusion.

“But the chief is always the judge,” whined one of the men who came to collect me some three hours later. “I don’t see how we can have a trial without the chief.”

“The chief would find him guilty as well,” claimed another. “Gomez used to be a lawyer so he can be the judge as well as the prosecutor. Now what is he fretting about?”

You can imagine the stifled protests I was trying to get past the gag at hearing this.

“Listen here, you French bastard,” shouted the second man. “It is better for you that the chief is not here. The chief knows ways to kill a man that will make you beg for a death like crucifixion.”

With that cheery thought rattling around my mind, I was picked up and half dragged away. I tried to reassure myself that if this Gomez was a lawyer then at least he was an educated man who would listen to reasoned argument. But as I saw my ‘courtroom’, I had fresh doubts. It was an old stone barn that was packed with at least two hundred people. There was a roar of rage as I appeared in the door and the crowd surged towards me. I was defenceless with my hands tied behind me and for a moment I thought I would be lynched on the spot. Certainly if the guards had not pushed them back with cudgels, I would have been torn apart without the benefit of any trial at all. I have never experienced such venous hatred from a mass of people, and I speak as someone who has sought election to parliament. They saw me as a personification of the French invader and all the atrocities that the French had committed. I was surrounded by screams and threats in Spanish and some dialects I did not understand, but their meaning was clear.

Eventually the guards started to push their way through the throng, but they did not do a lot to deter several fists that flashed out at my head. They even stood aside for a young woman whose face was contorted in rage as she kicked me in the balls. I was therefore battered, bruised and bent over in agony with watering eyes when I finally made my way into the cleared space which comprised the centre of the court. My hands were untied and I was forced to stand straight against a beam before my hands were rebound on the other side of the pillar. Gazing around as my vision cleared, I could see the barely restrained mob still yelling all around me while more people sat up on the roof joists to get a better view of the coming spectacle. In the centre of the cleared space was a table with my sword, pistols and the damning evidence of my French jacket and the letter to Paris.

A man, whom I took to be Gomez, stepped forward and hammered the hilt of his dagger on the table to call the trial to order. “Quiet, quiet,” he yelled. “We are not barbarians; we are not going to tear him apart now.” I felt momentary relief before he continued. “We will have justice, proper legal proceedings, and then when he is found guilty we will execute him.” A huge cheer greeted this pronouncement and people began to settle down expectantly.

By now the pain in my balls had dulled to an ache and I started to marshal my thoughts. There did not seem to be a counsel for the defence. I guessed that I would have to defend myself and, considering the mood of the audience, I would not be given long to convince them. I had been thinking about this in the cage and I had what I thought was a pretty conclusive case that I was British. Unless they had worn away since I last looked, my boots still had a London maker’s mark inside. My shirts and breeches were embroidered with my name for the laundry and this name matched that sewn into the red coat. The only item of clothing I had that was not British was the French uniform coat, and I could explain about my mission. This was surely more than enough to create at least an element of doubt, I thought. At worst, if they were still not convinced, I could suggest that they get a message to Wellington. I could promise a generous reward for my return and the general’s displeasure and retribution if I was harmed in any way.

I started to rehearse my brief and effective argument in my head as Gomez opened the proceedings. “This French officer,” he began, “was seen riding with the French column that passed through the valley this morning. Where is the man who saw him?”

A wiry partisan pushed through the crowd, “I did,” he declared. I recognised the voice of the man who had pushed the gun muzzle against my head.

“The prisoner
claims
to be a British officer,” announced Gomez, giving me disappointed look as though I had let him down by not immediately admitting my guilt. “What uniform was he wearing when he was riding with the French column?”

“The French one,” replied the partisan promptly while grinning at me. The response brought a cheer of approval from the watching crowd that completely drowned out my incoherent raging from the dock.

“Of course I was wearing the French coat! I was in disguise, you bloody fool.” That, at least, was what I was trying to say. But all that came out was a strangled roar as I went red in the face straining against my bonds.

Gomez gave another sad shake of the head at my outburst and pressed on. “And did the other French officers appear to treat him as one of their own?”

“They did,” confirmed the partisan to more acclaim from the crowd.

“And when you captured him, was he changing into a British uniform so that he could discover our camp and lead General Hugo’s men to destroy us?”

“He was,” affirmed the partisan, again still appearing very pleased with himself. This brought a triumphant roar from the crowd. Some of them started waving large knives in the air as though they were ready to hack me to pieces there and then.

I was damn scared. I had not been expecting the fair advocacy of William Garrow but this was ridiculous. With the suggestion that I worked for Hugo planted firmly in their minds, it looked like few would be willing to listen to anything I had to say. But Gomez was not finished yet. He turned to the items on the table.

“Was he carrying this Mameluke sword?” cried Gomez, pointing to the Arabic writing on the hilt. The Mamelukes were Arabic soldiers the French had recruited in Egypt. They had been responsible for a massacre of civilians in Madrid among other atrocities. My sword had been captured from an Arab soldier in India. The affirmative response from the partisan was completely drowned out by another roar from the mob.

Gomez waited for the noise to die down and then held up his hand for complete silence. In the hush he picked up the piece of paper from the table and held it by the tips of his fingers as though it was contagious. If he was a lawyer, I thought, he could probably read French and that wretched document could be my death warrant. “And was he carrying this?” asked Gomez quietly.