Sneak peek: Burke in the Peninsula by Tom Williams

Burke in the Peninsula is Book 4 in the James Burke, Spy series by Tom Williams. While Napoleon and Wellington’s armies clash in Spain, Burke fights his own war alongside the guerillas in this exciting historical fiction novel.

Title: Burke in the Peninsula
Author: Tom Williams
Series: James Burke, spy #4
First Published: September 25, 2020
Publisher: Big Red
Categories: Historical Fiction 

In Spain a dirty war is playing out between French soldiers and Spanish guerrillas. It’s a world of treachery and violence. James Burke will fit right in…

1809 and Burke has scarcely returned from spying for the British in South America before he is sent off again, this time to join the war being waged by Spanish guerrillas against the French. It’s not long before he’s fighting for his life, but which of the Spaniards can he trust?

Burke faces new adversaries and finds old allies in a dramatic tale of adventure during the Peninsular War, set against the background of the bloody battle of Talavera.

It’s real history – but not the way you learned it in school.

About Tom Williams

Tom Williams used to write books for business. Now he writes novels set in the 19^th century that are generally described as fiction but which are often more honest than the business books. The stories have given him the excuse to travel to Argentina, Egypt, Borneo and Spain and call it research.

Tom writes adventure stories about Napoleonic-era spy James Burke (based on a real man) and rather more thoughtful stories set at the height of the British Empire. Burke in the Peninsula is his eighth book.

Tom lives in London. His main interest is avoiding doing any honest work and this leaves him with time to ski, skate and dance tango, all of which he does quite well. In between he reads old books and spends far too much time looking at ancient weaponry.

Tom blogs regularly on his WEBSITE,  where you can also find details of all his books. You can follow him on Twitter as @TomCW99 or FACEBOOK.

Read Burke in the Peninsula for yourself

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Tilbury was, in Burke’s view, a vile place. It seemed prosperous enough, for docks were always a good source of income for traders licit and illicit. There were chandlers and slop shops where sailors could buy clothes that would be good enough for a voyage or two once they had been boiled to get rid of the last owner’s lice and fleas. Several taverns were doing good business, for all it was only mid-afternoon and the whores were parading shamelessly along the dock walls.

It took a while to find the right gate, for all the gates were guarded and the sentries seemed to take a perverse delight in directing Burke to one wrong entrance after another. Perhaps they had some private arrangement with the porters who carried his campaign chest. The two miserable fellows had been following him for almost half an hour by now and would certainly demand a fair recompense for their time.

William suggested that they pass through with one of the carts or in the groups of workers who came and went without exciting any interest from the sentries, but Burke would have none of it.

“For once I can travel honestly under my own name. I won’t be sneaking in like –”

“Like you do all the time by way of business.” William completed Burke’s sentence and earned himself a venomous look. Fortunately, Burke’s attention was distracted by a particularly persistent beggar.

“Old soldier, sir. Fought with Wellesley in India, sir.”

“Not that old.” Burke’s irritation now had another outlet. “If you’re a soldier, why aren’t you still serving?”

The man said nothing, but held up his hand. Where his fingers should have been, there was just a stump. The injury was, as these things went, a minor one, but he would never fire a musket again.

Burke took one look at the hand and dug a shilling from his purse. There but for the Grace of God… The beggar looked at the coin and, drawing himself to attention, threw Burke a salute, which Burke was careful to return.

Burke’s little procession moved on to the next gate where, as luck would have it, the sentry admitted that they were at the right place and even directed them to the quay where they would find the Statira.

Burke, William and the porters joined the sailors, dockyard workers, suppliers and general hangers-on who were making their way towards the wharves. They had, though, scarcely walked twenty paces from the gate when there was a sudden commotion behind him.

“Stop! Stop that man!”

The guard had his musket to his shoulder, but was obviously reluctant to pull the trigger. Given the number of people around the gate and the notorious inaccuracy of muskets, Burke was very glad that he didn’t.

People were already responding to the shouts. Burke caught the briefest glimpse of a running figure, but then all he could see was the crowd setting off after it.

William looked longingly in the direction of the excitement. “Shall we join in?”

“I don’t think so. There seem to be enough hounds on that particular scent already.”

Tilbury was a big port and they took a couple of wrong turns before they finally saw the masts of the little brig-sloop that was to take them on the first leg of their journey.

The porters, who had rested Burke’s chest on the ground while he had once again looked about for directions, gave an audible sigh of relief as they started toward the ship. At that moment, though, the hue and cry that they had seen vanishing westwards when they enter the gate now emerged running along the dockside towards them.

“Bloody hell!” William sounded quite disgusted. “Have they still not caught him?”

“Perhaps we had best join in this time.”

Burke and William headed for the excitement, while behind them the porters dropped the chest onto the cobbles with a crash designed to demonstrate their unhappiness with yet another delay. Burke vaguely registered the sound, but his attention was now concentrated ahead of him. The running figure saw that his path was cut off and hesitated and in that moment the mob was on him.

“Oh, well.” William sounded resigned to missing out on the fun. “Too late to join in after all.” He turned to head back to the Statira, but Burke put out a hand to stop him.

“I think I recognised that fellow. Let’s find out what’s going on.”

He pushed his way through the crowd, men allowing him to pass out of grudging respect for his red coat. By the time he reached the centre, though, the man they had been chasing had already been beaten to the ground and blows were falling on him from all sides. It was lucky that, many of those around him being sailors, and sailors often going bootless, he was at least spared the kicking he might otherwise have expected. Even so, his face was bloodied and the cries that had guided Burke in his direction were already fading to whimpers.

“What in God’s name do you think you’re doing?” Burke’s anger checked the mob for a moment and then a dozen voices responded.

“He’s a spy.”

“A Froggie spy.”

“He’s going to set fires in the docks.”

So that was it. If Burke had a guinea for every story he had heard about French spies, he would be a rich man by now. There were spies of course: agents among the emigres who flocked to the fashionable London salons; messengers who carried ciphered instructions on the boats that smuggled French brandy onto the coast of Kent. He had no doubt that there were men who watched the semaphore towers that carried signals from London to the fleet in Portsmouth. But he did not believe that they had infiltrated cripples to penetrate His Majesty’s dockyards.

Burke knelt beside the man and gently reached for his right hand. “He’ll struggle to strike a spark with this, won’t he?”

There was a moment’s silence as people looked at the fingerless ruin of the hand. Then: “He can still be a spy.”

There was a murmuring around him. The man looked French, didn’t he?

“He’s English, you fools: an old soldier begging at the dock gate. Who set up the hue and cry?”

The marine who had been on guard now shuffled through the crowd. Yes, he had challenged him. The man had no business in the docks and had run when ordered to stop.

“You knew him, then?”

Yes, the sentry admitted: he was a familiar figure. “He begs at the gate. He’s always trying to get in because he thinks he might be able to beg food off the ships. The sailors can be soft on a cripple.”

Who had said the man was a French spy? There was a silence. The mob was already drifting away and those who remained were taking a sudden interest in the ground at their feet.

Burke took a guinea from his purse and gave it to the marine. “Get him a room in an inn. See he’s looked after.”

“Yes, sir.”

The marine did not appear to Burke to be a bad man. He had, after all, just been doing his job. It was the mob’s fear of spies that had done the damage. Burke had heard that somewhere in the North they had hanged a monkey as an agent of Napoleon. It seemed to him that the government’s propaganda warning of spies was doing more damage than the spies themselves ever would.

The marine was already helping the beggar to his feet and they limped off as Burke went back to recover his chest.

The porters were not happy to have been kept waiting. The taller one spat as Burke approached. “They say you saved some Froggie spy from a beating.”

Burke felt suddenly weary. “He wasn’t a spy.”

“You’d know, would you? Know a lot about spying, do you?” The man spoke with a sneer.

Burke said nothing, but turned towards the Statira.

William remained to deal with the porters. “You can bugger off now. I’ll get some sailors to carry our kit.”

“You’d better pay us now then. Your man owes us a sixpence apiece for all the pissing around we’ve been doing.”

William smiled, stepped close to him and hit him very hard in the stomach.

“Which part of bugger off don’t you understand?”

The porters looked at each other and then at William. For a moment they hesitated. William smiled the smile of a man who really, really wants to hurt somebody and thinks he might soon have the opportunity to do so.

“Keep your bloody shilling,” the tall man said, and they turned and walked back the way they had come with all the dignity they could muster. Burke, who had paused to watch the altercation, thought they didn’t muster much dignity at all.