The lieutenant plunged his hand into the inside pocket of his naval jacket and then brought it out empty.
“Understand, Peyrol,” he said earnestly, “this is not a service of fighting. Good men are plentiful for that. The object is to play the enemy a trick.”
“Trick?” said Peyrol in a judicial tone, “that's all right. I have seen in the Indian Seas Monsieur Surcouf play tricks on the English . . . seen them with my own eyes, deceptions, disguises, and such-like. . . . That's quite sound in war.”
“Certainly. The order for this one comes from the First Consul himself, for it is no small matter. It's to deceive the English Admiral.”
“What — that Nelson? Ah! but he is a cunning one.”
After expressing that opinion the old rover pulled out a red bandana handkerchief and after rubbing his face with it repeated his opinion deliberately: “Celui-là est un malin.”
This time the lieutenant really brought out a paper from his pocket and saying, “I have copied the order for you to see,” handed it to the rover, who took it from him with a doubtful air.
Lieutenant Réal watched old Peyrol handling it at arm's length, then with his arm bent trying to adjust the distance to his eyesight, and wondered whether he had copied it in a hand big enough to be read easily by the gunner Peyrol. The order ran like this: “You will make up a packet of dispatches and pretended private letters as if from officers, containing a clear statement besides hints calculated to convince the enemy that the destination of the fleet now fitting in Toulon is for Egypt and generally for the East. That packet you will send by sea in some small craft to Naples, taking care that the vessel shall fall into the enemy's hands.” The Préfet Maritime had called Réal, had shown him the paragraph of the letter from Paris, had turned the page over and laid his finger on the signature, “Bonaparte.” Then after giving him a meaning glance, the admiral locked up the paper in a drawer and put the key in his pocket. Lieutenant Réal had written the passage down from memory directly the notion of consulting Peyrol had occurred to him.
The rover, screwing his eyes and pursing his lips, had come to the end of it. The lieutenant extended his hand negligently and took the paper away: “Well, what do you think?” he asked. “You understand that there can be no question of any ship of war being sacrificed to that dodge. What do you think of it?”
“Easier said than done,” opined Peyrol curtly.
“That's what I told my admiral.”
“Is he a lubber, so that you had to explain it to him?”
“No, gunner, he is not. He listened to me, nodding his head.”
“And what did he say when you finished?”
“He said: `Parfaitement. Have you got any ideas about it?' And I said — listen to me, gunner — I said: `Oui, Amiral, I think I've got a man,' and the admiral interrupted me at once: `All right, you don't want to talk to me about him. I put you in charge of that affair and give you a week to arrange it. When it's done report to me. Meantime you may just as well take this packet.' They were already prepared, Peyrol, all those faked letters and dispatches. I carried it out of the admiral's room, a parcel done up in sail-cloth, properly corded and sealed. I have had it in my possession for three days. It's upstairs in my valise.”
“That doesn't advance you very much,” growled old Peyrol.
“No,” admitted the lieutenant. “I can also dispose of a few thousand francs.”
“Francs,” repeated Peyrol. “Well, you had better get back to Toulon and try to bribe some man to put his head into the jaws of the English lion.”
Réal reflected, then said slowly, “I wouldn't tell any man that. Of course a service of danger, that would be understood.”
“It would be. And if you could get a fellow with some sense in his caboche, he would naturally try to slip past the English fleet and maybe do it, too. And then where's your trick?”
“We could give him a course to steer.”
“Yes. And it may happen that your course would just take him clear of all Nelson's fleet, for you never can tell what the English are doing. They might be watering in Sardinia.”
“Some cruisers are sure to be out and pick him up.”
“Maybe. But that's not doing the job, that's taking a chance. Do you think you are talking to a toothless baby — or what?”
“No, my gunner. It will take a strong man's teeth to undo that knot.” A moment of silence followed. Then Peyrol assumed a dogmatic tone.
“I will tell you what it is, lieutenant. This seems to me just the sort of order that a landlubber would give to good seamen. You daren't deny that.”
“I don't deny it,” the lieutenant admitted. “And look at the whole difficulty. For supposing even that the tartane blunders right into the English fleet, as if it had been indeed arranged, they would just look into her hold or perhaps poke their noses here and there but it would never occur to them to search for dispatches, would it? Our man, of course, would have them well hidden, wouldn't he? He is not to know. And if he were ass enough to leave them lying about the decks the English would at once smell a rat there. But what I think he would do would be to throw the dispatches overboard.”
“Yes — unless he is told the nature of the job,” said Peyrol.
“Evidently. But where's the bribe big enough to induce a man to taste of the English pontoons?”
“The man will take the bribe all right and then will do his best not to be caught; and if he can't avoid that, he will take jolly good care that the English should find nothing on board his tartane. Oh no, lieutenant, any damn scallywag that owns a tartane will take a couple of thousand francs from your hand as tame as can be; but as to deceiving the English Admiral, it's the very devil of an affair. Didn't you think of all that before you spoke to the big epaulettes that gave you the job?”
“I did see it, and I put it all before him,” the lieutenant said, lowering his voice still more, for their conversation had been carried on in undertones though the house behind them was silent and solitude reigned round the approaches of Escampobar Farm. It was the hour of siesta — for those that could sleep. The lieutenant, edging closer towards the old man, almost breathed the words in his ear.
“What I wanted was to hear you say all those things. Do you understand now what I meant this morning on the lookout? Don't you remember what I said?”
Peyrol, gazing into space, spoke in a level murmur.
“I remember a naval officer trying to shake old Peyrol off his feet and not managing to do it. I may be disparu but I am too solid yet for any blancbec that loses his temper, devil only knows why. And it's a good thing that you didn't manage it, else I would have taken you down with me, and we would have made our last somersault together for the amusement of an English ship's company. A pretty end that!”
“Don't you remember me saying, when you mentioned that the English would have sent a boat to go through our pockets, that this would have been the perfect way?” In his stony immobility with the other man leaning towards his car, Peyrol seemed a mere insensible receptacle for whispers, and the lieutenant went on forcibly: “Well, it was in allusion to this affair, for, look here, gunner, what could be more convincing, if they had found the packet of dispatches on me! What would have been their surprise, their wonder! Not the slightest doubt could enter their heads. Could it, gunner? Of course it couldn't. I can imagine the captain of that corvette crowding sail on her to get this packet into the Admiral's hands. The secret of the Toulon fleet's destination found on the body of a dead officer. Wouldn't they have exulted at their enormous piece of luck! But they wouldn't have called it accidental. Oh, no! They would have called it providential. I know the English a little too. They like to have God on their side — the only ally they never need pay a subsidy to. Come, gunner, would it not