The question was, where could he make contact with someone who could be relied on to convey a message safely to England? Poland was under French control, Saxony had sided with Prussia in the recent war but caved in and been granted reasonable terms by Napoleon; thus becoming one of his allies. The Austrian Empire was now neutral, but Budapest, as the capital of Hungary, was subsidiary to Vienna; so no diplomats were stationed there. Further cast offered no opportunities and, when he reached Constantinople, even if a British diplomat was accredited to the Sultan, it would take many weeks to get a message sent by him all the way to London.
After some thought, Roger decided that the only possibility lay in Vienna. Before the break-up of the Third Coalition Britain and Austria had been allies. Although the Austrians had been defeated by the French and the Emperor Francis driven from his capital, since peace between them had been restored he, and the diplomats accredited to his Court, would have returned there. There seemed then a good chance that, if Roger could get to Vienna, his problem would be solved.
But Vienna was some one hundred and forty miles from Budapest, and Roger knew diat Gardane had already sent a galloper ahead to arrange that craft should be procured and made ready to take the mission down the Danube; so the odds were that it would not remain in the Hungarian capital more than a couple of days at most.
That night they put up at the only inn in a small, dreary town. The senior officers shared the few rooms, while their juniors occupied adjacent houses and their servants the barns and stabling. Having brought their food and cooks with them, they ate a passable meal. Afterwards Roger said to Gardane:
'Mon General, I am a great lover of travel and have visited most European capitals, but not Budapest. So I should like to spend at least four or five days there. The pace at which your mission can proceed is naturally limited to that of the pack animals, which carry our supplies. I am sure, therefore, that you will have no objection to my setting off ahead of you tomorrow. Then I'll be certain of getting my few days in Budapest.'
Although Roger had been formally attached to Gardane's mission, he had no duties to perform, and the fact that he was a member of Napoleon's personal staff placed him in a privileged position. The General was much too sensible a man to antagonise one of the Emperor's people by refusing a quite reasonable request. So he replied with a smile:
'By all means, Breuc. I only wish I were able to leave the party myself and spend four or five nights in Budapest smacking the bottoms of a few pretty Hungarian girls.'
That first day from Warsaw they had covered a little under forty miles, so Roger reckoned it would take the cavalcade at least another week to reach Budapest; whereas he had often ridden over a hundred miles in a day, so he should be able to do the journey easily in three. This left him a margin of four days, which would be ample for him to accomplish the journey between the Hungarian and Austrian capitals and be back in the former before Gardane reached it.
He had himself called at four o'clock the following morning, left his soldier servant to bring on his baggage and, travelling as light as possible, set off for Cracow, arriving there that evening. The best hostelry in the big town was reasonably comfortable and he enjoyed a good supper. The long ride had taken a lot out of his charger, so he left it with the head ostler, to be collected when the French mission arrived there, and arranged to complete his journey by Post.
The next night he had to spend at a miserable inn, but he reached Budapest at midday on the 19th. Deciding that he could well afford a badly-needed rest, he went straight to bed and slept for five hours. After waking and dressing, he then made his preparations for the following day.
While at Finckenstein he had procured from the Quartermaster a uniform—one of the many that had belonged to officers who had died from their wounds. It was by no means as elegant as the one he had been wearing on the morning of Eylau, but fairly new, fitted him reasonably well, and was suitable enough. But it was out of the question for him to pay a visit to a British diplomat dressed as a French officer. So, producing some of the gold from his money-belt, he arranged with the landlord of the Turk's Head, where he had put up, to get for him second-hand civilian clothes of good quality.
By the time he had made a leisurely supper off fresh-water ecrevisse, broiled with fennel, a Gulyas of veal and goose livers washed down with a bottle of potent red wine that rejoiced in the name of 'Bulls' Blood of Badescony', the landlord was able to produce numerous articles of clothing for his inspection. He chose a pair of fawn riding breeches, a plum-coloured coat with brass buttons—not because he liked it, but because it fitted him best—a saffron waistcoat sprigged with flowers, a grey cloak and a grey, truncated-steeple hat; then asked to be called at three o'clock, and was in bed and asleep again before ten.
Much refreshed by his two five-hour sleeps, long before dawn, riding Post again, he was on his way to Vienna. On this journey it would be his longest day yet, for the Austrian capital lay a hundred and forty miles to the west. At ten o'clock he spent an hour having breakfast at one of the posting houses where he changed horses. At four in the afternoon he dined at another, and afterwards dozed for a while in an armchair. On the last stage he was very saddle-sore and weary, but kept himself going by occasional pulls at a flask of Beratsch—a potent dry Hungarian spirit made from a distillation of apricots—and he entered Vienna shortly after eight o'clock in the evening.
Sliding from his horse in the yard of the Double Eagle, he threw the reins to an ostler, waited only for the man to unstrap and hand to him the small valise he had brought with him, then limped into the commodious inn. Too tired to bother about food, he ordered a quart of Gluwein and had himself shown straight up to a bedroom. The hot-spiced brew arrived soon after he had pulled off his clothes and flopped into bed. When he had drunk only half of it, he snuffed his candle and, within a few minutes, was sound asleep.
Next morning he awoke stiff and sore, but had no necessity to hurry out; so he had a hip-bath and a dozen cans of hot water brought up to his room. The warmth of the bath relaxed his muscles and, after lingering there for a quarter of an hour, he felt in much better condition to face the day ahead of him. He also felt ravenously hungry and ate a hearty breakfast. Then he asked for writing materials, and sat down to write a letter to Mr. Canning.
Having congratulated the Minister upon his recent appointment, he went on to express his confidence that, with him at the Foreign Office, Britain would pursue a more vigorous policy than had been the case under the late, supine Government.
He then reported on the poor state to which the Grande Armee had been reduced since Eylau, and gave concise particulars about Gardane's mission, its object and probable consequences should it prove successful.
Instead of signing the letter, he wrote as a last paragraph:
This comes from he who teas accompanying you back to London after dining out at Wimbledon on the night that one of the wheels of your coach came off, and on your being thrown violently sideways, you badly bruised your cheek.
He felt certain that Canning could not have forgotten the episode; but no one else into whose hands the letter happened to fall could possibly know that Canning's companion that night, after dining with Mr. Pitt, had been Roger Brook.