The First Book of Samuel - SAREJESS (chrysanthemum read aloud TXT) 📗

and the British war office. He was not exactly sure to what purpose his intelligence gathering would be used but he knew that he had just stumbled upon a major piece of information. The port of Cailses which at most times was a busy merchant port, was, he discovered being used to assemble a major fleet of ocean going men of war. It had been some years since old Bonny as the English called him had lost his battle fleet in Egypt. The English believed that the French had been soundly beaten and it would be some time before they were able to put together a fleet that would be able to withstand the onslaught of Lord Nelson’s fleet.

When some one had suggested to Lord Nelson that he might want to rest a while on his laurels, he had flown into a rage and told the incompetent commander who had suggested this that he did not believe that Napoleon had been as badly beaten in Egypt as the British public liked to believe. Thus Samuel had once more been summoned to the war office and told by the Duke of Albany, “Once more sir your services are needed in France to observe gather intelligence and return with all the information on shipping, building and transports” and all of this had to be done with in a month. For the first part of the month Samuel had found nothing which remotely resembled a fleet. However stumbling upon the shipyard and harbor last evening had changed his mind. He had managed to avoid the pickets and had got quite close to the center of the French fleet provisioning center before gathering enough intelligence to make it worthwhile.

Samuel was aware, as was most of the British public that the French ports were blockaded and for good reason. Although the work of blockading the ports was monotonous and boring it was a necessary evil to keep Bonny in port to protect the sea from the French war machine. It made everything he did that much more difficult. Because he would have to use roads and those roads throughout Europe were not in a good state. The war had been going on almost fifteen years with no end in sight. The admiralty routinely told the captains who commanded their ships of war that if they could not take as prize a vessel then they should do their utmost to sink or scuttle her. Any loss of ships to the enemy was an advantage to the British while the King roundly applauded any battle in which his English came out tops. It was a sore point if an English ship surrendered to any of Napoleon’s ships.

Thus the British navy worked to keep the French forces landlocked thus helping in the overall war effort the short piece of but a year before was all but forgotten. No one really believed it would last, neither the English nor the French, it was but a temporary respite from battle.

It remained now for Samuel to make his way to a small fishing village up the coast from where he would bribe a fisherman to take him out to the patrolling English ships. Failing which he would steal a boat and sail out himself but he much preferred to go out under the legitimate guise of fishing. It was not unknown for the hungry guns of the French batteries to open up on fishing boats who had broken the curfew to be bombarded with grape shot or to be sunk.

Thus as he set out once more, he stopped at a small shop in the town to buy some bread and wine for his breakfast. It was fortuitous that he did for had he been on the street moments later he would surely have been arrested by the guards. For this morning Albere, the guard captain was in a particularly foul mood. He had been awakened by one of his underlings, informing him that a stranger had been seen near the shipyard asking questions. It had also been observed that the stranger bore a starling resemblance to a known spy, who had been executed a few years earlier in Paris for his part in helping refugees escape to Britain. Maybe this man was a brother or a cousin of the spy who had been executed.

Had the angry guard captain known that he was dealing with the same man he would have been even more upset. Why he may even have lost his breakfast of brandy and thick stew, had he known that the very spy who had been executed, had avoided his pickets, spent the whole night gathering intelligence on the ships strengths and the number of men employed there. All of this intelligence would soon be used to bring to battle the very fleet which was being prepared and this all because Samuel the spy had once more proved the worth of his intelligence.

In the mean time Samuel hitched a ride with a farmer who was going up the coast to the small village of St Jun from where he would once more make his escape to the misty islands of Britain. Thus Samuel played a part which no one except a select few knew in the mighty machinery of the war office in bringing France once more to battle. The result was to be one in which the French were finally defeated at sea and in which the heroic Lord Nelson would lose his life.


CHAPTER TWENTY
Boston United States of America
Christmas 1870

On a cold and wintry afternoon in 1870 two gentlemen met outside the Bell & Lanthon inn in the fine city of Boston. One was from New York and the other was from the deep south, from Charleston West Virginia. Both of these men had come to the city of Boston in the hope of starting a new venture in industry. A few years earlier these men had faced each other as enemies on the battlefields. Now old animosity set aside they were about to embark on a venture that would bring them riches or so they hoped.

“Ah Charles I see you are here have you been waiting long?” asked a rather stout middle aged man with graying temples and thick sideburns of the rather tall Southern gentleman who stood outside the door of the inn. “Why no sir I expected you momentarily and stepped outside to see you alight from the buggy. Shall we step inside and partake of some of this establishment’s fine Brandy-wine?” asked Charles Richardson. “Indeed that would warm the heart and cold hands of a sinner” said Arthur Fitz-Patrick of New York.

Stepping inside and removing their top hats and heavy coats they were greeted by our old fried Samuel Ben Ezra AKA Samuel Ferreira. “Ah Sam my good man, be so good and bring us two glasses of your best Brandy wyn directly” said Charles as he led Arthur to a table near the roaring fire. After seating themselves they discussed general issues what each had been up to and how their individual trips to Boston had been. Once Samuel had brought the brandy wyn the two men became more serious, reflecting on the fact that it was but one day before Christmas and both of them were away on business far from their families. “I must remember to send a Christmas telegraph tomorrow morning to my father and Mary said Richardson” (Mary being his long-suffering wife back in Charleston). Since the end of the war the Richardson family’s financial position had grown precarious. The current venture in Boston was one of Charles's hopes of reviving the dwindling fortune, a large part of which had shrunk with the emancipation of the slaves a few years previously.

As the men talked people entered the inn and were shown to their various rooms and tables. Samuel had bought the inn in the early 1860s and it had grown under his constant care and attention. He was a good host. He had been in the hospitality business for a very long time now and attention to detail was making his inn a local landmark frequented by locals and travelers from afar. Samuel was standing at the bar with a notebook in his hand making notes of things to do, while occasionally listening in to the conversations of his guests. The two gentlemen, one from the south and the other from the north he found interesting. It seemed that they were on to a good thing. For Christmas Eve this year Samuel had decided to pull out all the stops and have a grand bash. Decorations had to be put up and large chunks of meat to be roasted and various puddings had to be made. Later today the tree would arrive, which his staff of ten would decorate in traditional German fashion, with balls and bells and tinsel. He sniffed and thought of the grand affair it would be. It had been a long time since he had attended a feast of any size. He had left Ireland in the early 1850's during the great potato famine and had come to America disguised as a poor Irish refugees. Landing in New York, he had found a job at one of the new hotels that were springing up in the big cities. But he did not like working for any man thus when the opportunity had presented itself he had first gone to California, to seek his fortune as a gold digger. There he had made a fortune, and returning to the east he had settled in Boston. Finding an inn had been a priority, the previous owner had heard there was easy money to be made in the west and had not argued the reasonable price that Samuel had offered for the inn.

One of the men at the table had just mentioned that the new electricity would be a great money spinner and could make a man rich if he applied himself. Samuel was a bit confused as these men spoke of various industries around the city, never clearly stating what their major purpose in these industries were. Taking a bottle of his finest brandy he approached the table and offered to pour them each a drink to which they pleasantly agreed. “To what do we Bostonians owe your visit to our fine town?” Samuel asked Arthur replied “Industry good sir. We are investors who have come to start a new industry in this fine city of yours.” Charles looked at Arthur with a warning eye as if to say “Sir do not say too much for you will give away our intention and our idea.” Charles said to Samuel “So sir what good fare will you put on the tables this fine Christmas Eve? Shall it be food like our Mother made or is it some thing typically Bostonian?”

“This year we will be having quiet a Christmas Eve celebration with smoked gammon turkey and sides of beef and many puddings for the desert. Gentlemen and I trust you will join us when we all have a glass of eggnog Christmas morning. Later one of the men will bring in the tree and we will decorate it so that this old inn will be quite like home for those who are far from home” said Samuel noticing the Southerner.

The Christmas tree was decorated and it looked wonderful. From the kitchen the sound of pots and pans could be heard. Samuel walked into the kitchen; the smell of roasted lamb filled the air. Old Joel, the former plantation slave was singing softly to himself as he stirred a pot of bubbling mince pie filling. He took pride in what he did; he had learned to cook at his mother’s knee.