Fortunately, the admiralty deduced that the naval plans I’d stumbled on were confirmed by early French fleet movements, and countered accordingly. My captured information frustrated Napoleon’s desire to divert the English navy long enough to stage his invasion, so the stalemate of elephant and whale continued. I’d just saved England, not that anyone gave me credit.
So Sidney Smith came to Walmer Castle to see Pasques and me once more. “Good news. We didn’t take the bait, Ethan, thanks to Talleyrand’s papers.”
“A grateful nation might give me my fortune back.”
“I’ve a better bargain for you and your fat French friend. You’re a man of science, a Franklin protégé, and an electrician. I want you to help us pay back the frogs who outsmarted you with secret weapons.”
“Secret weapons?”
“I believe you know the American inventor Robert Fulton? Like you, he’s on England’s side now. We’re going to have the pair of you earn passage to your family by assaulting Bonaparte’s Army of England and sinking his entire fleet. You’ll win back our confidence by paddling into the teeth of the enemy, pledged to victory or death. You won’t even miss your money when you make yourself a hero.”
CHAPTER 22
Walmer Castle was the spy headquarters for Britain’s secret struggle against Napoleon. If the French were inventing a modern national police under Napoleon, the British were inventing a modern espionage service under William Pitt, the sickly, alcoholic, and valiant prime minister. Walmer was one of his personal homes, through his family title as lord warden of the Cinque Ports. His castle looked strategically across a rocky beach at France, and so had become the wartime workplace of General Edward Smith, director of spies. This Smith was the uncle of Sir Sidney, who in turn happened to be a cousin of Pitt. On a rainy April 8, 1805, I was seated at a massive oak table in a low-ceilinged room facing not just that cozy trio but Spencer Smith, Sidney’s brother who’d gathered intelligence in Germany, and Colonel Charles Smith, another brother who led a garrison nearby.
Catherine would call it breeding; Franklin, nepotism.
Sidney Smith, as was his flamboyant custom, was wearing Turkish robes and a turban he’d been given while advising the Ottomans against the French. An ostrich plume floated above, a curved dagger jutted from his waist sash, and his cavalry boots had been replaced with pointed slippers. None but Pasques and I paid this bizarre getup the slightest attention.
Joining the Smith cabal was Admiral Home Riggs Popham, another ambitious Englishman who’d organized coastal militia and a new signal system for the navy. Slim, lithe, and restless, he had the insouciant flair of an aristocrat, treating espionage as a grand game.
Smuggler Tom Johnstone was there, too, matching in height, if not in bulk, my companion Pasques. All were turned to hear three inventors, however.
One was Colonel William Congreve, who was adopting the rockets of the Maharajal armies in India as a possible new sea weapon in Europe. Like all inventors, he was happy as a hound to have a receptive audience.
A second was my old friend Fulton. Unable to win French financial backing to complete his work, he’d come to Britain to sell his ideas to the other side.
I was the third.
Fulton had greeted me warmly. We’d gone adventuring amid the Barbary pirates and used his plunging boat to rescue Astiza and Harry. “Ethan, you disappeared from France two years ago. I feared you dead!”
“I had to look for my son again, Robert. After a sojourn in the West Indies I was returning to France just as you were departing. We didn’t meet because I had to sneak about. Now here we are on the same side.”
“All roads lead to Walmer Castle. Tell me, did you see my boat Vulcan in Paris? Sweet little craft with paint-box colors that chugs on steam. I think the idea holds great promise, but the French let me try her just once before concluding she wasn’t fast enough upstream. By thunder she’s faster than a sailboat when wind and current are adverse!”
“I poked about.”
“Is she still steamable?”
“With a little work.” I kicked Pasques so he didn’t reveal we’d sent Fulton’s toy thrashing into a Seine riverbank. Robert might forgive me for the loss of one of his boats, but I doubt he’d be happy with two.
Congreve I didn’t know. Balding and muscular, he had the rugged build of a day laborer and the peddler fire of the missionary. Like Fulton, he