“O’Reilly, go with him. And bring the deer. The general will fancy a bit of venison, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Party approaching.” A hushed voice sounded through the darkness.
There was more than one sigh of relief when boots could be heard crunching on the gravel.
“Push the boats out! Board as soon as they float free!”
The wire was cut. They had not been seen.
At first light the landings would begin.
For the poacher the war was over even before it began. When he finally realized what had happened to him, he was most relieved. These weren’t Sir Percy’s gamekeepers after all; he would not be appearing at the Falmouth assizes, as he had feared. Being a prisoner of war of the Americans was far better than transportation to the other end of the world.
The lights in Buckingham Palace had been blazing past midnight and well into the early hours. There was a constant coming and going of cavalrymen as well as the occasional carriage. All of this activity centered on the conference room, where a most important meeting was taking place. There was a colonel stationed outside the door to intercept messages; a second colonel inside passed on any that were deemed important enough to be grounds for an interruption.
“We will not have the sanctity of our country violated. Are we clear?”
“You are, ma’am, very clear. But you must understand that the violation has already occurred; the landings are a thing of the past now. Enemy forces are well ashore in Liverpool, the city has been captured, all fighting ended according to the last reports.”
“My dear soldiers would never surrender!” Victoria almost screeched the words, her voice roughened by hours, if not days, of deep emotion. Her complexion was so florid that it alarmed all those present.
“Indeed they would not, ma’am,” Lord John Russell said patiently. “But they might very well be dead. The defenders were few in number, the attackers many and ruthless. And it appears that Liverpool is not the only goal. Reports from Birmingham report intense fighting there.”
“Birmingham — but how?” Victoria’s jaw dropped as, confusedly, she tried to master this new and frightful information.
“By train, ma’am. Our own trains were seized and forced to carry enemy troops south. The Americans are great devotees of trains, and have made wide use of them in their various wars.”
“Americans? I was told that the invaders were Irish…”
“Yankees or Paddies — it makes little difference!” the Duke of Cambridge snapped. The hours of wrangling had worn down his nerves; he wished that he were in the field taking this battle to the enemy. Slaughtering the bastards.
“Why would the Irish want to invade?” Victoria asked with dumb sincerity. To her the Irish would always be wayward children, who must be corrected and returned to the blessing of British rule.
“Why?” the Duke of Cambridge growled. “Because they may have taken umbrage at their relatives being bunged up in those concentration camps. Not that we had any choice. Nursing serpents in our bosom. It seems that Sefton Park, the camp east of Liverpool, has been seized. Undoubtedly Aston Hall outside of Birmingham is next.”
While he was speaking he had been aware of a light tapping on the door. This was now opened a crack and there was a quick whispered exchange before it was closed again. The group around the conference table looked up as the colonel approached with a slip of paper.
“Telegram from Whitehall—”
The Duke tore it from the officer’s fingers even as Lord Russell was reaching for it.
“Goddamn their eyes.” He was seething with fury. He threw down the message and stamped across the room to the large map of the British Isles that had been hung on the wall.
“Report from Defender, telegraphed from Milford Haven — here.” He stabbed his finger on the map of western Wales where a spit of land projected into St. George’s Channel. “It seems that some hours earlier they caught sight of a large convoy passing in the channel. They were proceeding south.”
“South? Why south?” Lord Russell asked, struggling to take in this new development.
“Well, it is not to invade France, I can assure you of that,” the Duke raged. He swept his hand along the English Channel, along the southern coast of Britain. “This is where they are going — the warm and soft underbelly of England!”
At first light the attacking armada approached the Cornish shore. The stone-girt harbor at Penzance was very small, suitable only for pleasure craft and fishing boats. The Scilly Isles ferry took up the most space inside where she tied up for the night. This had been allowed for in the landings, and the steam pinnace from Virginia was the only American boat that attempted to enter the harbor. She was jammed tight with soldiers, so many of them that her bulwarks were only inches above the sea. The men poured out onto the harbor wall in a dark wave, running to the attack and quickly securing the customhouse and the lifeguard station.
While all along the Penzance coast the small boats were coming ashore. Landing on the curving strand between the harbor and the train station, and the long empty beaches that ran in an arc to the west of the harbor. The first soldiers to land went at a trot down the road to the station, then on into the train yards beyond. General Grant was at the head of the troops; the trains were the key to the entire campaign. He stamped through the station and into the telegraph office, where two soldiers held the terrified night operator by the arms.
“He was sleeping over his key, General,” a sergeant said. “We grabbed him before he could send any warning.”
“I couldn’t have done that, your honor,” the man protested. “Couldn’t have, because the wire to Plymouth is down.”
“I’ve asked him about any down trains,” Major Sandison said. He had been a railway director before he raised a company of volunteers in St. Louis and led them off to war. His soldiers, many of them former railway men, had taken the station and the adjoining yards.