The English Channel was a graveyard of secrets that summer.
Each crossing, each tide, carried with it more than mere trade—beneath the salt and mist drifted whispers, coded letters, and men who did not exist in any registry.Since the beginning of the operation, several agents from Unit 141—affiliated with the so-called "Ghost Cell"—had been making their way across the Channel. They traveled not as soldiers, but as fishermen, merchants, or simple travelers, their accents conveniently blurred by advanced class with bona fide englishmen. Each bore documents so carefully forged that even the scrutiny of the Admiralty could find no fault.At the heart of their passage stood one man: Edgar Thorne.Thorne's name was never meant to appear in any archive. A clerk in the British Admiralty's lower division, he was the kind of man whom power overlooked until it was too late.
A debtor, a gambler, and a man perpetually balancing between disgrace and redemption, Thorne had been ensnared months earlier by the Ghost Cell through the most effective of weapons—money.He had become, almost without realizing it, their gatekeeper. Through him, falsified naval records were entered into the Home Office's official lists. Birthplaces were shifted; signatures of recruitment officers were perfectly imitated; service histories were woven out of entire cloth. The name "Cuckoos" was chosen deliberately.Just as the bird lays its eggs in the nests of others, letting them be raised as their own, these men would live and work under the flag of their enemy. They would be English by tongue, British by uniform—but French in heart and purpose.They were recruited in the most discreet corners of Brest, Saint-Malo, and Bayonne. Old mariners, dismissed after the American war, were drawn in by promises of pay and redemption. Many were Bretons, Basques, and Corsicans—men with salt in their veins and grudges against the English that no treaty could erase.At the head of the effort was Capitaine Marceau, a veteran of the Navy with the manner of a priest and the eyes of a wolf. His orders were to lead unit 141's recruits, hardened by sea life, and willing to vanish for years if need be."Your name will not be remembered," he told them bluntly, "but your work will be felt in London."Each recruit underwent a meticulous transformation:A new name, often borrowed from a dead man.
Papers forged by Thorne's office.
A brief schooling in British mannerisms—the cadence of speech, the style of salute, the small details that could betray an impostor.
Some were sent to Liverpool or Portsmouth, posing as discharged sailors from American privateers. Others enlisted directly under their false names in the transport crews of the Fleet, which was still desperately short of skilled hands.By the end of August, nearly twenty of them had been successfully integrated. A few served as cooks or carpenters; others, more daring, entered as petty officers or gunners' mates. They had orders to remain invisible—competent, loyal, and entirely unremarkable.By mid-July 1786, more than fifty "new sailors" had been officially integrated into the provisioning and transport branches of the Royal Navy.Each carried a false identity like:Thomas Grafton, supposed loyalist from Boston.
Pierre Leclerc, alias "Peter Clark," Breton by blood but "Londoner" by paper.
Jacques Montalvo, a Basque seaman posing as a Portuguese deckhand.
All were bound by a single command: observe, record, and corrupt.The operation was progressing far faster than even the Dauphin's advisers had dared hope. What began as an exercise in sabotage was rapidly turning into an infiltration of Britain's colonial arm.
August 18th, 1786
News arrived from London like a cannon shot:
His Majesty's Government had officially approved the creation of a penal colony in New South Wales. The Royal Seal was affixed; orders were dispatched to the Admiralty and the Home Office; and Captain Arthur Phillip was confirmed as commander of the First Fleet.For the Ghost Cell, it was the validation of months of preparation. The English couldn't take it anymore.
The great imperialistic machine had begun to move—and with it, the noose they had designed was quietly tightening.In a small apartment near Soho, the French operatives gathered that night around a map of the world illuminated by a single candle. Red wax pins marked the positions of the eleven British ships.
A faint smile crossed 051's face—the true head of this operation.
"The old lion," he murmured, "is finally stepping into the trap."They all knew what this meant. The mission had evolved. No longer content to manipulate contracts and corrupt supplies, they would now reach inside the Fleet itself—its heart, its sailors, its officers.
Henry Moreau's philosophy, passed through the centuries and reborn in the mind of the Dauphin's strategists, had been simple concerning this operation:
Apparent power lies in the battlefield, but in the bloodstream of your enemy's empire lies true power.