On Parole in Lisbon

Raoul glanced quickly up at Dr Maturin and down again. "Thierry - Thierry told me - I hadn't known!" He could not keep his own pain from his voice. "I should have known, but I stood and talked to Noix. I told you - none of us had gone into the village... It was not the truth."

Stephen sighed in relief. "Oh, capitaine, I knew that at least one of your men had to have gone in. Ickx would have needed a stronger man to hold down..." He drifted off, and then his face went even paler. "Thierry? It was not Thierry?"

"No! Thierry thought I knew - we did not talk of it on the ride, and afterwards ..." Raoul looked at the doctor in amazement, and then said: "I did not realize that you already assumed I was lying. I did not know, I swear it... When Ickx said he wanted someone to go with him, to help him, I said ... I did not give the order, but nor did I refuse. I... " He drew a deep breath and continued: "He went to Brissac, and Brissac and two other men went with him to ... to help. One of them was Lacroix, whose body you found... The other was Feillu. They are both dead. But Brissac is still alive - I suppose."

"Oh, thank the Dear," said Stephen, placing a hand over his heart. "When you said that Thierry had told you, I thought..." He looked at des Sablières, without a smile, but without a particularly fierce expression. "If you did not know, then it was not a lie, capitaine. I have told you already what I think of your conduct that night; there is no need to revisit it. I do not blame you for the untruth in the least. But if Brissac is alive..." He took off his glasses, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I confessed to Padre Miguel, and I entirely expect that he broke the Seal. I do not blame him, but it certainly creates a problem. I think Brissac is canny enough to have put the pieces together even without having aided in the torture; it will only act as confirmation." His voice, trembling along with his hands, belied the calmness of his tone.

Raoul lifted his head and returned Maturin's gaze, his eyes blinking away moisture. "I - I thought we would be back where we were. That you... " He broke off, biting at his lip. "Brissac - if I return to Oporto, to France even, I will see him brought to trial for his part in it. It is unthinkable that Frenchmen... "

Stephen went very still, and looked into des Sablières' eyes. "Unthinkable that Frenchmen would what?" he asked carefully.

Maturin's sudden stillness struck Raoul and he fell silent. The question made him frown and he said, confused, but still meeting Stephen's eyes: "That they would use such methods - against a priest, against anyone. To make a priest break the Seal - to torture him until he did that, and then kill him. That -" He paused briefly and said, sadly: "I know that is what they did - I know they were Frenchmen, as I am. That is what is unthinkable."

"Unthinkable..." Stephen looked away, staring down at his hands, folded in his lap. "Capitaine, I am compelled to ask: if you had won that fight in the woods, and I had been taken to Porto to be interrogated, what exactly did you imagine that interrogation would entail?"

Raoul's eyes widened at the implications in Dr Maturin's question, and he shook his head angrily. "No. I would have handed you to the Army - not given you up to the likes of Ickx." He stopped suddenly and said slowly and painfully: "If we had taken you, after the fight, I would have done that. And you would have been questioned. But if Ickx had still been alive, if he had been with us, you would have been taken by him, and I could have done nothing, even if I had wished to do so."

"Even?" Stephen smiled sadly at the young man's naivety. "Capitaine, had I been given over to the army, and not to Ickx, the outcome would have been the same. It is a matter of who, not of how. I would certainly have been questioned - put to the question, in fact."

"You may think that our emperor is a tyrant, and an imperialist intent on the conquest of Europe, but the army still fights honourably. We - " Raoul's eyes met Dr Maturin's with a question and an apology. "As honourably as we can - and what you say ... Surely I would know better than you if it were true. I have learned what men can do, but that is when they get out of hand. Not policy."

Stephen hated to talk about his time in Mahon - whenever he was asked what had happened to his hands, he claimed that they were caught in a machine, or vaguely spoke of an accident at sea. But Capitaine des Sablières held such ideals about Bonaparte and his war, and perhaps a seed of doubt had already been planted in his mind.

He spoke softly. "I said to you yesterday that I had been captured twice by your countrymen, and treated well. It is true, but I lied by omission; I have been in the custody of the army as well as the navy. Four years ago, in Minorca. I was nominally held by a colonel by the name of Auger, but in reality it was a brilliant capitaine, who considered his honour as an officer above all."

"That ... " Raoul swallowed. "They did not treat you well? But if the Capitaine was honourable..."

"They did not treat me well, Capitaine." Stephen felt strangely touched. "Their captain felt that his honour as an officer in the French army demanded that he stop at nothing to ensure French victory on the island. I do not know whether he enjoyed it - it seems to be quite common for torturers to affect a hatred for their victim in order to make the process more justified, more bearable, and sometimes the affectation becomes a reality in their mind. For some it is a reality to begin with, but I am not at all certain that was the case with him."

"You do not think they were acting on their own. No, of course not. You are saying that they tortured you." Raoul did not disbelieve Dr Maturin. The doctor would lie to him, no doubt - they were enemies still. But not with this calm voice, that wanted him to understand this, not for any advantage to Dr Maturin or the British, but for what the doctor saw as his own good. He had tried before, but this...

Raoul got to his feet, and stood looking down at the doctor. "And you are saying that that is what would have happened if we had won the fight in the wood - that I would have..." He stopped, appalled, and turned away, trembling.

"That is what I am saying, Capitaine. They tortured me. And I knew that being captured by you would mean the same again, carried forward to the extremity, without a rescue. Think upon my actions: when we struggled, I, with a broken skull, used my head as a weapon. In a fight, it would be senseless - the action would hopefully cause you enough pain to release my arms, but would entirely incapacitate me afterwards. I did not need to fight you - I only needed my hands free long enough to take the poisonous pill I had prepared. And again, when I said to you that I would not have let Dumoulins take me to Porto - I did not lie."

Stephen stood, leaning on the chair, and he reached out to touch des Sablières' shoulder. "You do not know how much your actions have confused me, your concern. And you do not know how relieved I am to know for certain that you did not understand what the consequences of your actions would have been."

Raoul flinched, and stood for a moment longer, staring at the wall. When he turned back, he met Stephen's look. He felt only stunned acceptance of a fact that should have obvious. "I should have suspected though. I did not know what happened in the village - " His shoulder rose in a gesture of rejection "- but I cannot deny that I suspected the kind of man Ickx was and what he would do - or why would I have stood aside so like a coward. And if we had taken you, you would have been his prisoner. I should have made the connection myself. But that my senior officers - of the 3rd Hussars - would be complicit in such a horror... Must I believe that too?" Raoul's voice rose, and he stood back from the brink of hysteria and said in a tired voice: "I truly believed such things went out with the Terror, if not the Ancien Regime itself."

"You should have, yes. Recognising what kind of man Ickx was, you should have refused his order, and not allowed him into that village. I do not deny that, but, as I said, this is something that we have already discussed. I do not know your officers, but I know that torture is commonplace in certain echelons of the army, and in the intelligence agencies. Bonaparte's grip is maintained by secret police and informers, and ruthless men who view torture as a valid and efficient way of maintaining that grip, or strengthening it." Stephen gently took the Captain's arm. "Sit down, now, and have something to drink."

Raoul sat down, under pressure from Maturin's hand and looked up at him. He had not expected Maturin to take his confession that well, or to show so much concern for him. What he had been told he would have found hard to believe, except ... His mind threw up other times, other muttered remarks and even harsh jokes, which he had - in his stupidity - dismissed as exaggerations or lies. And Louis, of course. Capitaine Louis Martin, his friend who had died in a skirmish...

His hand still shaking, he poured a cup of coffee, and added sugar. It was already cooling in its silver pot. A mouthful of the sweet liquid and he said: "I think it is kept secret from the Army, or I must have known it. Or perhaps no one cares enough, if it helps us win. Since we must fight..." He put the cup down, and said: "You would have died rather than face it again. I see that now, and that..." He had spoken before of the men he had thought of as being formed under the Ancient Regime, or the wicked men who had used the guillotine so freely against anyone who displeased them or stood in their way, a group that now served Bonaparte for their own ends. These might be the core of the group Maturin spoke of, but could they operate in such numbers - be commonplace in parts of the Army - without the emperor's knowledge? Perhaps Bonaparte was grateful for the information these men provided without looking closely at their methods. It was possible - it was the only thought to cling to in what seemed to be the wreckage of his own honourable career.

"I would. I know that suicide is a sin, but casuistry would I think absolve me in the action. Quite apart from anything else, I do not know how long I would have been able to hold out against them - I am more fragile than I was four years ago, and even then it was close at times." Stephen felt cruel as he saw des Sablières take a shaking sip of coffee, but this was something the young Frenchman needed to know about, about the army and the man he fought for, about the consequences of his actions, and possibly, selfishly, Stephen's reasons for what he did. Maybe after what he had seen so little time ago, he needed to reiterate them to himself.

"I thought that you knew, when we fought on the road. It has been a reason for my reticence. It is not a pleasant thing to know, but it is a necessary one."

"You held out then," Raoul said, almost with hope. "They did not press you so far that you told them what they wanted to know. Did they then let you go?"

"It was a matter of my will, not theirs; they were quite pitiless. They let no one go - they pressed until the man died or broke, and once he told everything he knew, they killed him anyway. They would bring the bodies down to the harbour by night, so that we could see what they looked like..." Stephen finally picked up his glass, and sipped the water. "I was rescued."

It could not be done so openly without general acceptance. That thought killed Raoul's last vagrant hope that -- that there would be some way to absolve the emperor in whom he had placed his faith. Either the emperor deliberately chose not to know what was being done - just as he had turned his back on what Ickx did - or he knew and supported it.

He opened his mouth to speak but his throat was dry, too dry for the coffee to moisten, while his eyes burned with tears for the doctor's pain, and for his own stupidity and cowardice. EVentually he managed to say: "I am glad. I gave you my word before. I will not help them take you again."

"I should not have assumed you knew. Bonaparte's machine runs on two wheels - terror and propaganda, and the one hand cannot know what the other hand does, or must conceal it. That is why they killed all those who spoke - they cannot afford men walking in the daylight with the scars of torture upon them. When I saw you with Ickx, I thought you were another Dutourd; it was only your concern for your men that made me reconsider my opinion."

Stephen looked up and saw des Sablières' tears, and all the old memories merged with the horror of the day, and this new jet of concern and pain; it took all the strength he possessed to maintain some semblance of composure. He reached out and touched the captain's wrist. He had allowed himself by lose himself in the old pain of Mahon; it was terrible, but it was old, and it was familiar, and it was not the hour-fresh image behind his eyelids of Carneiro staring at the smear of blood across the wall that led to her daughter's body. "But I truly believe it is better that you know. And I thank you, for your promise." Them. Des Sablières spoke of 'them'. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Stephen's touch burned on the back of Raoul's wrist. He looked at it, while rubbing his eyes on the back of the other hand. "It must be kept from the people - they would not stand for it, not again. All the pain and suffering - the war. I thought it was the answer, but my father was right, after all." He smiled slightly. "I shall have to tell him, and allow him to pride himself on his insight. Although he too was taken in at first."