Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

by Rafael Sabatini

“My dear O’Moy!” It was an exclamation of protest, something between pain and indignation, under the stress of which Tremayne stepped entirely outside of the official relations that prevailed between himself and the adjutant. And the exclamation was accompanied by such a look of dismay and wounded sensibilities that O’Moy, meeting this, and noting the honest manliness of Tremayne’s bearing and countenance; was there and then the victim of reaction. His warm-hearted and impulsive nature made him at once profoundly ashamed of himself. He stood up, a tall, martial figure, and his ruggedly handsome, shaven countenance reddened under its tan. He held out a hand to Tremayne.

  “My dear boy, I beg your pardon. It’s so utterly annoyed I am that the savage in me will be breaking out. Sure, it isn’t as if it were only this affair of Dick’s. That is almost the least part of the unpleasantness contained in this dispatch. Here! In God’s name, read it for yourself, and judge for yourself whether it’s in human nature to be patient under so much.”

  With a shrug and a smile to show that he was entirely mollified, Captain Tremayne took the papers to his desk and sat down to con them. As he did so his face grew more and more grave. Before he had reached the end there was a tap at the door. An orderly entered with the announcement that Dom Miguel Forjas had just driven up to Monsanto to wait upon the adjutant-general.

  “Ha!” said O’Moy shortly, and exchanged a glance with his secretary. “Show the gentleman up.”

  As the orderly withdrew, Tremayne came over and placed the dispatch on the adjutant’s desk. “He arrives very opportunely,” he said.

  “So opportunely as to be suspicious, bedad!” said O’Moy. He had brightened suddenly, his Irish blood quickening at the immediate prospect of strife which this visit boded. “May the devil admire me, but there’s a warm morning in store for Mr. Forjas, Ned.”

  “Shall I leave you?”

  “By no means.”

  The door opened, and the orderly admitted Miguel Forjas, the Portuguese Secretary of State. He was a slight, dapper gentleman, all in black, from his silk stockings and steel-buckled shoes to his satin stock. His keen aquiline face was swarthy, and the razor had left his chin and cheeks blue-black. His sleek hair was iron-grey. A portentous gravity invested him this morning as he bowed with profound deference first to the adjutant and then to the secretary.

  “Your Excellencies,” he said — he spoke an English that was smooth and fluent for all its foreign accent “Your Excellencies, this is a terrible affair.”

  “To what affair will your Excellency be alluding?” wondered O’Moy.

  “Have you not received news of what has happened at Tavora? Of the violation of a convent by a party of British soldiers? Of the fight that took place between these soldiers and the peasants who went to succour the nuns?”

  “Oh, and is that all?” said O’Moy. “For a moment I imagined your Excellency referred to other matters. I have news of more terrible affairs than the convent business with which to entertain you this morning.”

  “That, if you will pardon me, Sir Terence, is quite impossible.”

  “You may think so. But you shall judge, bedad. A chair, Dom Miguel.”

  The Secretary of State sat down, crossed his knees and placed his hat in his lap. The other two resumed their seats, O’Moy leaning forward, his elbows on the writing-table, immediately facing Senhor Forjas.

  “First, however,” he said, “to deal with this affair of Tavora. The Council of Regency will, no doubt, have been informed of all the circumstances. You will be aware, therefore, that this very deplorable business was the result of a misapprehension, and that the nuns of Tavora might very well have avoided all this trouble had they behaved in a sensible, reasonable manner. If instead of shutting themselves up in the chapel and ringing the alarm bell the Mother-Abbess or one of the sisters had gone to the wicket and answered the demand of admittance from the officer commanding the detachment, he would instantly have realised his mistake and withdrawn.”

  “What does your Excellency suggest was this mistake?” inquired the Secretary.

  “You have had your report, sir, and surely it was complete. You must know that he conceived himself to be knocking at the gates of the monastery of the Dominican fathers.”

  “Can your Excellency tell me what was this officer’s business at the monastery of the Dominican fathers?” quoth the Secretary, his manner frostily hostile.

  “I am without information on that point,” O’Moy admitted; “no doubt because the officer in question is missing, as you will also have been informed. But I have no reason to doubt that, whatever his business may have been, it was concerned with the interests which are common alike to the British and the Portuguese nation.”

  “That is a charitable assumption, Sir Terence.”

  “Perhaps you will inform me, Dom Miguel, of the uncharitable assumption which the Principal Souza prefers,” snapped O’Moy, whose temper began to simmer.

  A faint colour kindled in the cheeks of the Portuguese minister, but his manner remained unruffled.

  “I speak, sir, not with the voice of Principal Souza, but with that of the entire Council of Regency; and the Council has formed the opinion, which your own words confirm, that his Excellency Lord Wellington is skilled in finding excuses for the misdemeanours of the troops under his command.”

  “That,” said O’Moy, who would never have kept his temper in control but for the pleasant consciousness that he held a hand of trumps with which he would presently overwhelm this representative of the Portuguese Government, “that is an opinion for which the Council may presently like to apologise, admitting its entire falsehood.”

  Senhor Forjas started as if he had been stung. He uncrossed his black silk legs and made as if to rise.

  “Falsehood, sir?” he cried in a scandalised voice.

  “It is as well that we should be plain, so as to be avoiding all misconceptions,” said O’Moy. “You must know, sir, and your Council must know, that wherever armies move there must be reason for complaint. The British army does not claim in this respect to be superior to others — although I don’t say, mark me, that it might not claim it with perfect justice. But we do claim for ourselves that our laws against plunder and outrage are as strict as they well can be, and that where these things take place punishment inevitably follows. Out of your own knowledge, sir, you must admit that what I say is true.”

  “True, certainly, where the offenders are men from the ranks. But in this case, where the offender is an officer, it does not transpire that justice has been administered with the same impartial hand.” “That, sir,” answered O’Moy sharply, testily, “is because he is missing.”

  The Secretary’s thin lips permitted themselves to curve into the faintest ghost of a smile. “Precisely,” he said.

  For answer O’Moy, red in the face, thrust forward the dispatch he had received relating to the affair.

  “Read, sir — read for yourself, that you may report exactly to the Council of Regency the terms of the report that has just reached me from headquarters. You will be able to announce that diligent search is being made for the offender.”

  Forjas perused the document carefully, and returned it.

  “That is very good,” he said, “and the Council will be glad to hear of it. It will enable us to appease the popular resentment in some degree. But it does not say here that when taken this officer will not be excused upon the grounds which yourself you have urged to me.”

  “It does not. But considering that he has since been guilty of desertion, there can be no doubt — all else apart — that the finding of a court martial will result in his being shot.”

  “Very well,” said Forjas. “I will accept your assurance, and the Council will be relieved to hear of it.” He rose to take his leave. “I am desired by the Council to express to Lord Wellington the hope that he will take measures to preserve better order among his troops and to avoid the recurrence of such extremely painful incidents.”

  “A moment,” sai
d O’Moy, and rising waved his guest back into his chair, then resumed his own seat. Under a more or less calm exterior he was a seething cauldron of passion. “The matter is not quite at an end, as your Excellency supposes. From your last observation, and from a variety of other evidence, I infer that the Council is far from satisfied with Lord Wellington’s conduct of the campaign.”

  “That is an inference which I cannot venture to contradict. You will understand, General, that I do not speak for myself, but for the Council, when I say that many of his measures seem to us not merely unnecessary, but detrimental. The power having been placed in the hands of Lord Wellington, the Council hardly feels itself able to interfere with his dispositions. But it nevertheless deplores the destruction of the mills and the devastation of the country recommended and insisted upon by his lordship. It feels that this is not warfare as the Council understands warfare, and the people share the feelings of the Council. It is felt that it would be worthier and more commendable if Lord Wellington were to measure himself in battle with the French, making a definite attempt to stem the tide of invasion on the frontiers.”

  “Quite so,” said O’Moy, his hand clenching and unclenching, and Tremayne, who watched him, wondered how long it would be before the storm burst. “Quite so. And because the Council disapproves of the very measures which at Lord Wellington’s instigation it has publicly recommended, it does not trouble to see that those measures are carried out. As you say, it does not feel itself able to interfere with his dispositions. But it does not scruple to mark its disapproval by passively hindering him at every turn. Magistrates are left to neglect these enactments, and because,” he added with bitter sarcasm, “Portuguese valour is so red-hot and so devilish set on battle the Militia Acts calling all men to the colours are forgotten as soon as published. There is no one either to compel the recalcitrant to take up arms, or to punish the desertions of those who have been driven into taking them up. Yet you want battles, you want your frontiers defended. A moment, sir! there is no need for heat, no need for any words. The matter may be said to be at an end.” He smiled — a thought viciously, be it confessed — and then played his trump card, hurled his bombshell. “Since the views of your Council are in such utter opposition to the views of the Commander-in-Chief, you will no doubt welcome Lord Wellington’s proposal to withdraw from this country and to advise his Majesty’s Government to withdraw the assistance which it is affording you.”

  There followed a long spell of silence, O’Moy sitting back in his chair, his chin in his hand, to observe the result of his words. Nor was he in the least disappointed. Dom Miguel’s mouth fell open; the colour slowly ebbed from his cheeks, leaving them an ivory-yellow; his eyes dilated and protruded. He was consternation incarnate.

  “My God!” he contrived to gasp at last, and his shaking hands clutched at the carved arms of his chair.

  “Ye don’t seem as pleased as I expected,” ventured O’Moy.

  “But, General, surely... surely his Excellency cannot mean to take so... so terrible a step?”

  “Terrible to whom, sir?” wondered O’Moy.

  “Terrible to us all.” Forjas rose in his agitation. He came to lean upon O’Moy’s writing-table, facing the adjutant. “Surely, sir, our interests — England’s interests and Portugal’s — are one in this.”

  “To be sure. But England’s interests can be defended elsewhere than in Portugal, and it is Lord Wellington’s view that they shall be. He has already warned the Council of Regency that, since his Majesty and the Prince Regent have entrusted him with the command of the British and Portuguese armies, he will not suffer the Council or any of its members to interfere with his conduct of the military operations, or suffer any criticism or suggestion of theirs to alter system formed upon mature consideration. But when, finding their criticisms fail, the members of the Council, in their wrongheadedness, in their anxiety to allow private interest to triumph over public duty, go the length of thwarting the measures of which they do not approve, the end of Lord Wellington’s patience has been reached. I am giving your Excellency his own words. He feels that it is futile to remain in a country whose Government is determined to undermine his every endeavour to bring this campaign to a successful issue.

  “Yourself, sir, you appear to be distressed. But the Council of Regency will no doubt take a different view. It will rejoice in the departure of a man whose military operations it finds so detestable. You will no doubt discover this when you come to lay Lord Wellington’s decision before the Council, as I now invite you to do.”

  Bewildered and undecided, Forjas stood there for a moment, vainly seeking words. Finally:

  “Is this really Lord Wellington’s last word?” he asked in tones of profoundest consternation.

  “There is one alternative — one only,” said O’Moy slowly.

  “And that?” Instantly Forjas was all eagerness.

  O’Moy considered him. “Faith, I hesitate to state it.”

  “No, no. Please, please.”

  “I feel that it is idle.”

  “Let the Council judge. I implore you, General, let the Council judge.”

  “Very well.” O’Moy shrugged, and took up a sheet of the dispatch which lay before him. “You will admit, sir, I think, that the beginning of these troubles coincided with the advent of the Principal Souza upon the Council of Regency.” He waited in vain for a reply. Forjas, the diplomat, preserved an uncompromising silence, in which presently O’Moy proceeded: “From this, and from other evidence, of which indeed there is no lack, Lord Wellington has come to the conclusion that all the resistance, passive and active, which he has encountered, results from the Principal Souza’s influence upon the Council. You will not, I think, trouble to deny it, sir.”

  Forjas spread his hands. “You will remember, General,” he answered, in tones of conciliatory regret, “that the Principal Souza represents a class upon whom Lord Wellington’s measures bear in a manner peculiarly hard.”

  “You mean that he represents the Portuguese nobility and landed gentry, who, putting their own interests above those of the State, have determined to oppose and resist the devastation of the country which Lord Wellington recommends.”

  “You put it very bluntly,” Forjas admitted.

  “You will find Lord Wellington’s own words even more blunt,” said O’Moy, with a grim smile, and turned to the dispatch he held. “Let me read you exactly what he writes:

  “‘As for Principal Souza, I beg you to tell him from me that as I have had no satisfaction in transacting the business of this country since he has become a member of the Government, no power on earth shall induce me to remain in the Peninsula if he is either to remain a member of the Government or to continue in Lisbon. Either he must quit the country, or I will do so, and this immediately after I have obtained his Majesty’s permission to resign my charge.’”

  The adjutant put down the letter and looked expectantly at the Secretary of State, who returned the look with one of utter dismay. Never in all his career had the diplomat been so completely dumbfounded as he was now by the simple directness of the man of action. In himself Dom Miguel Forjas was both shrewd and honest. He was shrewd enough to apprehend to the full the military genius of the British Commander-in-Chief, fruits of which he had already witnessed. He knew that the withdrawal of Junot’s army from Lisbon two years ago resulted mainly from the operations of Sir Arthur Wellesley — as he was then — before his supersession in the supreme command of that first expedition, and he more than suspected that but for that supersession the defeat of the first French army of invasion might have been even more signal. He had witnessed the masterly campaign of 1809, the battle of the Douro and the relentless operations which had culminated in hurling the shattered fragments of Soult’s magnificent army over the Portuguese frontier, thus liberating that country for the second time from the thrall of the mighty French invader. And he knew that unless this man and the troops under his command remained in Portugal and enjoyed complete
liberty of action there could be no hope of stemming the third invasion for which Massena — the ablest of all the Emperor’s marshals was now gathering his divisions in the north. If Wellington were to execute his threat and withdraw with his army, Forjas beheld nothing but ruin for his country. The irresistible French would sweep forward in devastating conquest, and Portuguese independence would be ground to dust under the heel of the terrible Emperor.

  All this the clear-sighted Dom Miguel Forjas now perceived. To do him full justice, he had feared for some time that the unreasonable conduct of his Government might ultimately bring about some such desperate situation. But it was not for him to voice those fears. He was the servant of that Government, the “mere instrument and mouthpiece of the Council of Regency.

  “This,” he said at length in a voice that was awed, “is an ultimatum.”

  “It is that,” O’Moy admitted readily.

  Forjas sighed, shook his dark head and drew himself up like a man who has chosen his part. Being shrewd, he saw the immediate necessity of choosing, and, being honest, he chose honestly.

  “Perhaps it is as well,” he said.

  “That Lord Wellington should go?” cried O’Moy.

  “That Lord Wellington should announce intentions of going,” Forjas explained. And having admitted so much, he now stripped off the official mask completely. He spoke with his own voice and not with that of the Council whose mouthpiece he was. “Of course it will never be permitted. Lord Wellington has been entrusted with the defence of the country by the Prince Regent; consequently it is the duty of every Portuguese to ensure that at all costs he shall continue in that office.”

  O’Moy was mystified. Only a knowledge of the minister’s inmost thoughts could have explained this oddly sudden change of manner.

  “But your Excellency understands the terms — the only terms upon which his lordship will so continue?”

  “Perfectly. I shall hasten to convey those terms to the Council. It is also quite clear — is it not? — that I may convey to my Government and indeed publish your complete assurance that the officer responsible for the raid on the convent at Tavora will be shot when taken?”