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Lion. There are some matters we shall have to discuss and some other officers I want you to meet. Two o’clock, then, at the Inn. Tomorrow you must be here at midday for the conference at which the details will be settled. You will have a few days after that during which you can exercise your men. In the years to come this may well be described as the turning point of the war. The role you are to play is of the highest importance and can make all the difference between victory and defeat. You will do well, Mr Delancey, of that I am sure.”

Chapter Two
T HE ROYALIST
    T HE DINNER in a private room at the Golden Lion was a pleasant and convivial occasion. The other guests were Major Moncrieff of the 7th Regiment, Lieutenant Bassett and a French émigré, the Vicomte Pierre de Mortemart. At one stage Moncrieff asked the prince about his property in France. There followed a description of the Castle of Navarre and the surrounding forest of Evreux, a hundred thousand acres of woodland with great lakes and islands and exotic birds. D’Auvergne also spoke of the Elysium, a garden which was planned round a single perfect statue, a nude masterpiece representing the Goddess of Youth. He described the scene when his adoption as heir was announced, the moment when he was girded with the sword of Turenne, the moment when the trumpets sounded a fanfare, when the guns fired their salute from the terrace. It had seemed so real at the time! It seemed, in retrospect, a mere fairy story. If true, it related (surely) to some other and forgotten world. In all likelihood the castle and its magic garden would by now have ceased to exist. The prince himself was like no man that Delancey had ever met. With his air of authority went an extraordinary aura of romance, and he held them all spellbound for as long as he talked. Delancey realised with a shock that the Revolution must have destroyed the prince’s inheritance, probably for years and quite possibly for ever. Then a turn in the conversation revealed the prince in a different role, the rescuer of French aristocrats, the centre of a system for gaining intelligence. In some complex way he was fighting a war of his own, a war of wits instead of guns, a war which would not end so much with a British victory as with restoration of the monarchy in France.
    Back in the
Royalist
and trying to sleep that night, Delancey thought over the conversation at dinner. How strange it all seemed! But even St Peter Port was not the place he had known in his younger days. It was now bustling and alive, with troops and seamen everywhere, with nobles and priests who had fled from France, with concerts and assembly balls—yes, and a theatre as well. As a centre for gaining intelligence from France it would be hard to improve upon. It must, for that matter, be as useful to the French for gaining intelligence about Britain. But were these French-speaking islanders loyal to George III? That was hard to say. It was easier to assess their reaction to Robespierre. Many of the Guernseymen were devout followers of Mr John Wesley. They might trade with the enemy but they would do nothing directly to help the cause of the ungodly.
    After a restless night Richard Delancey was awakened by bugles sounding the reveille. He guessed that the sound came from Castle Cornet and that the garrison would stand-to at daybreak. It was still dark when he came on deck but with a lightening of the sky beyond the island of Herm. It was the King’s birthday and there was to be a review, he remembered. Afterwards he would be told what he had to do. . . . He shivered, not entirely because of the cold, and wondered whether this was the last week of his life. Ought he to write his will? He dismissed the idea for he had practically nothing to leave. He was well chosen for a perilous mission, he reflected, for he would be missed by no one. He doubted whether the same could be said of Moncrieff, a red-haired Scotsman from what