by Gale, Iain
‘Didn’t I promise you all a share of the treasure? Well, each of you should take two bags.’
Martin spoke. ‘Sir, should we not declare any booty?’
‘Martin, I swear you’ll make a general yet. Yes, of course we should declare it all. But who is to say how much we recovered, and how much we gave to pay off Morillo? Do it now, and we need not declare it and thus lose whatever portion the army might choose to take. Silver, you and Martin will take four bags each. Two for yourselves and two for each of the others. Now, look sharp about it.’
They were not slow to respond, and as they transferred the bags to the panniers on the mules, Keane walked across to Morris.
‘Tom, I think that, as officers, it might be appropriate for you and me to take four bags each. Do you not agree?’
‘James, you do realize that this is strictly illegal, that we really should do it as directed by the book.’
‘Tom, when have I ever done things by the book? Unless, of course, you no longer want a part of it.’
Morris thought for a moment. ‘I may be cautious, but I’m not stupid.’
And then, with his head aching from too much wine, and his spirits as high as they had ever been, carrying more money in his saddlebag than he had seen in his life, Keane led his men away and over the hills, back towards Braga and the army.
*
Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley stood at a window of the loggia of the castle of Abrantes and looked out across the Tagus. He toyed with the cuff of his coat, hesitated for a moment and then turned to face the two men who stood behind him. His face was alive with interest.
‘How much did you say?’
‘Originally there were 50,000 crowns in the wagon train, sir. But the French managed to get away with a portion and we had to pay off Colonel Morillo.’
Wellesley smiled. ‘Still, 25,000 crowns is not to be sniffed at. The commissariat is deficient in transport, the soldiers have no shoes and are without pay. Our hospitals are bursting and we need at the least £200,000 a month. We have a loan from Oporto. Yes, 25,000 crowns will do. You did well, Keane. And now you say that Morillo will do as we ask?’
‘He’s a good man, sir, if you tackle him the right way.’
‘Which in your opinion included giving him half of the silver?’
‘Yes, sir. It’s the sort of argument that he understands. He will fight for his country but with such an incentive he is inclined to believe that we will keep our word and that in turn is sufficient to encourage him to keep his.’
‘You are clever, Keane, damned clever. Would you say so, Grant?’
‘Damned clever, Sir Arthur.’
*
It had taken much longer than Keane had anticipated to regain contact with the army, for shortly after reaching Braga Wellesley had turned and headed south.
He had decided not to pursue Soult any further. The men were exhausted and to do so would have drawn him uncomfortably far from his own supply chain. And so the army had withdrawn down the Cavado river to Braga and back to Oporto, and Keane had trailed them, arriving every time a day or two after they had left, finding nothing more than the evidence of the redcoats’ presence and a population wondering why the British had come to their towns only to retreat back to the south. And Keane had been unable to offer them an explanation. Oporto still reeked of the battle and the earth of the burial mounds lay fresh in the shadow of the seminary. To leave the city had seemed absurd, but the army had gone to Coimbra and there was no alternative. At length he had found them at Abrantes, almost where they had started, and he had begun to wonder whether Wellesley was really the master that many believed him to be. They were not far from Lisbon now, and as Wellesley spoke Keane was pondering whether he might petition for leave and call upon Kitty Blackwood. He wondered too where her brother might be now and how he might find out. There seemed to be every chance. For although he had found the general in poor spirits, his news and the booty had lightened that mood. He would choose his moment carefully. Wellesley spoke again. ‘Yes, Keane. Clever of you. And now I’ve something more for you to consider. What do you know of General Cuesta?’
‘I know that he commands the army of Spain and that he is our ally, sir.’
‘Perhaps it might have been better had someone had the common sense to inform him of that fact.’
Grant sniggered. Keane said nothing. Wellesley continued. ‘General Cuesta is a thorn in my side, Keane. Marshal Soult is licking his wounds and Marshal Ney pinned down by the Spanish in the north, for which assurance I must thank you, Keane. Marshal Victor, however, is a very present danger to us. He is here.’
He stabbed at the map which lay on the table before them, hitting it with his forefinger in the south of the country, to the west of Madrid.
‘We have done all we are able for the moment in the north. Now here we have a very clear opportunity to attack Marshal Victor and to take Madrid. But to do that I must have the co-operation of General Cuesta.’
‘And that you do not have, sir?’
‘No, Keane, that I do not have. Tell him, Grant.’
Major Grant walked across to the map. ‘You see, Keane, General Cuesta has a plan. It is undoubtedly a fine plan on account of the fact that it has been constructed by the general himself. And it will without doubt, should it succeed, confer on the good general all the honours of his country. There is a problem, however, Keane, and the problem is that his plan stinks.’
‘Sir?’
Wellesley spoke. ‘General Cuesta may parade the fact that he will liberate the nation but his chief motive in all things is to cover himself with glory. He has agreed that we should advance together in two columns along the Tagus, directly towards Madrid. He has promised supplies but to date nothing has been forthcoming. I have every reason to suppose that as we near Victor’s army, Cuesta will attempt to defeat it single-handedly. I met with General Cuesta yesterday to discuss our plan. It is a compromise, Keane, no less, and both you and I are aware that on a battlefield compromise seldom wins the day. But we have agreed on the plan and we will stick to it. Tomorrow we advance into Spain.’
Keane’s heart sank. Surely Wellesley did not intend for him to lead his men with the army? There was no alternative but to go straight to the heart of the matter. He would ask for leave. ‘Sir, I was going to ask whether I might … ’
Wellesley cut across him. ‘We advance into Spain, Keane. You will take your men and march with the covering force on our left flank. Cuesta has placed them there to warn of any approach from the left. But they’re a rum lot, Keane. Spanish and Portuguese only. Cuesta dictated their make-up. I doubt that they’ll stand when it comes to a fight, and I have no faith in their ability to give the alarm. You must cover them, Keane. And, of course, General Cuesta will not know of your presence.’
‘You want me to spy on our allies, sir?’
‘If you like, Keane, yes. Oh, and Grant, I leave you to tell Captain Keane of other developments. Thank you, gentlemen.’
They left the room, but immediately they were outside Keane turned to Grant. ‘Sir, can he mean it? We have just come in from the north. To send us out again so soon … ’
‘I may agree with you, but I cannot argue with the general, Keane. You know that. He wishes you to shadow Cuesta and that is what you must do. I am quite aware of your wishes and of your interest in a certain young lady in Lisbon.’
‘Sir?’
‘I have my sources. Let it be said that I do not approve at all of that liaison. Not at all, given your relationship with the young woman’s brother, and so I am only too happy that you are ordered out.’
Keane, astonished that Grant should know, shook his head. Grant went on. ‘Now, James, don’t take on. It’s for the best. Besides, you’re all to be kitted out before you go.’
‘Kitted out?’
‘Haven’t you heard? No, of course you haven’t. That was the “development” to which the general referred. The good Captain Scovell has designed a new uniform for
the corps of guides and you’re all to wear it. It is splendid, quite splendid. I believe that your men may even now be in the process of making its acquaintance.’
13
It was an impressive spectacle. Keane and his men sat on the hillside overlooking the road to Madrid and watched as General Cuesta led his men to battle. With their drums beating, their bands playing, and beneath holy banners that bore the ragged red cross of Burgundy, the arms of the king and images of the Virgin Mary, the Spanish marched to meet Marshal Victor. They marched to drive the invader from their country. And Keane and his men were going with them. They had barely had time to gather their possessions together and the reunion between the two parties had been a hurried affair, very different from that which Keane had envisaged. Now at least, though, they were together, even if half of them were utterly exhausted.
There was, however, one member of their party missing. Gabriella and Silver had been reunited for a brief time, yet he had decided that she should not come with them, but instead remain at Abrantes with the majority of the camp followers, women and children. She had protested, of course, but Silver had won the day. Perhaps, thought Keane, it was because she had at last managed to get what she craved: a husband and enough money to make them independent. Keane had half expected her to cajole Silver into desertion, but he felt more confident that the man felt some spark of loyalty to his benefactor. Besides, Keane had led them to riches and there was surely the prospect that there might be more to come. It had been a clever ploy, thought Keane, to divide it up so blatantly and in so doing to bring himself into complicity with the men. He hoped that it would have no repercussions; that none of them would use it against him in some way, but he trusted, as always, to his intuition.
The news of the money had astonished and delighted those who had returned to Braga before them, and there was something of a carnival spirit among the eight men who rode out together on the left flank of the left wing of Wellesley’s force on this fine June morning.
In truth, Keane was almost fully content. He was happy with his command and with the eventual outcome, hard won as it had been. Morillo had been persuaded to block Marshal Ney in the north. At least he trusted the man to keep his word on that promise. They were all richer; Fabier too, much to his surprise, had been cut into the booty and had, more importantly, been rewarded for his duplicity at cards by being handed over to an English jailer rather than the guerrillas. Best of all, though, was the fact that, courtesy of Major Grant, they had all been given new mounts.
His own, which he had found awaiting him at the camp, was a pretty bay mare which he had instantly christened Rattler. She stood just over fourteen hands high and carried a white blaze on her nose and two white socks on her hind legs. Quite how Grant had managed to procure him such a fine beast was beyond him and he could only hope that he might keep her from being requisitioned by the cavalry. He patted her neck as they rode on, and mulled over their situation.
The army was paid, Wellesley was happy and Keane and his men had pockets heavy with silver coins, food in their bellies and a fresh pair of boots on their feet.
This last was through no work of his. The boots, which somehow had been contrived to fit, had come with new uniforms. That was Scovell’s doing. The man clearly had time on his hands, thought Keane. Time enough, at least, to design what he thought must be at one and the same time one of the most absurd and one of the drabbest uniforms ever to adorn a British soldier.
Scovell himself had remained behind at Abrantes, training other units of his new Corps of Guides in the skills of carrying dispatches, which was to be their principal work.
Keane glanced round at Ross who rode on his left and wondered what on earth the bluff Scotsman must think of his new attire. The short brown dragoon jacket was trimmed with red at the collar and cuffs and finished with a black lace trim and black frogging. It sat atop a pair of white riding breeches and black hessian boots, and was topped off by a Light Dragoon-style helmet in polished black leather with a black horsehair crest. It was, mused Keane, something of a tribute to the alliance between Britain and Portugal. The helmet had been devised by that maverick cavalryman Banastre Tarleton during the American war and the brown jacket was almost exactly that of the Portuguese cacadores, the light infantry, who were at this moment part of the column marching down below them, behind Cuesta.
How clever of Scovell, he thought, to have made a uniform into a political tool. Not that the men, save Morris of course, and perhaps Heredia, would have understood its symbolic significance.
He had found most of them grimacing at their new costume on his return from the interview with Wellesley the previous evening. There had been exclamations of disbelief and several refusals even to try it on, which were roundly shouted down by Ross. The only two of them actually to admire the new kit were Heredia and Morris. For the Portuguese trooper it was ‘almost like the uniform of my own country’. To Morris, who already sported the Tarleton helmet of the Horse Artillery, it was ‘fine, very fine. Damn close to what I have on at present.’ It was true, thought Keane; it did have something of the horse gunners about it. Perhaps they might all cut a dash in it, and on closer inspection in a glass shortly before they left the camp, he found himself to look not at all bad. There would have to be modifications, of course. He decided that the red would have to go and that he would adopt the yellow facings of his home regiment, the Inniskilling Fusilers. And he would keep his own boots. Another good thing about it was that they were now seen as a unit. He had been concerned that the others had from necessity had to make camp on their return among the rest of the army, and wondered that some had not been discovered for the felons they were. Now, though, they were men transformed. Men who, short of actually changing their names, had become as anonymous as the army could make them. In effect, they had disappeared.
Morris saw him looking at Ross. ‘Really, James, you surely must have got used to it now. It doesn’t look at all bad. Quite suits you, in point of fact.’
‘You really think so? Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Tom, I’m not keeping this red. I shall be changing my facings to the yellow of the Inniskillens as soon as I can. Better to be dressed in this now – for the business in hand.’
‘Yes, tell me again, what exactly are we doing here?’
‘Tom, although you are most entertaining company and I swear a genius when it comes to logistics and the timing of a fuse, and although I’m sure we shall have need of your talents ere long, it does sometimes seem to me that you might be better playing piquet at a table at Brooks’s.’
Morris laughed and patted his horse’s head as it whinnied. ‘Such flattery. James, I know that I may seem vague, but that is only because I am so very intent upon being precise. I like to have everything in my mind just so. I need to know the finer details before I can address the whole.’
‘Very well. We have been tasked with shadowing Cuesta’s army. We ride on the left flank of the advance. In these uniforms we are even better placed to appear to be no more than a picket of cavalry. But you will realize that we are close enough to observe. That is, after all, our role.’
He thought for a moment and determined that this might be the time at which to ask a question which had been preying upon his mind and which up till now he had been in two minds whether to broach.
‘One more thing, Tom. I don’t know quite how to put this, but I can only be blunt. Are you perhaps playing the spy?’
‘No more than you, James. What do you mean? What? With whom?’
Keane smiled and looked his old friend in the eye. ‘Why, with me.’
Morris looked surprised and said nothing, then, ‘How? How would that be?’
‘Merely that Major Grant seemed to know that I was enamoured of Kitty Blackwood. Seemed to know it all. And as far as I can recollect you are the only person whom I have told.’
Morris shook his head. ‘You are a fool, James Keane, a fool to think that I of all people would do such a thing and a fool not to reali
ze that Grant must have been aware of your preoccupation with her that afternoon at Coimbra. How on earth could he not be? Indeed, how could she not be? She must be aware, James, of your feelings for her. You have not been in contact with her?’
Keane shook his head. ‘No. But give me the chance, Tom.’
Morris sighed. ‘I presume that Major Grant warned you off such a liaison?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well, there you are. It was plain to see. And you choose to ignore him?’
‘Of course.’
Morris laughed. ‘James, I think that must be why I like you so much. You are so very contrary.’
Keane was about to reply when he stopped himself, for up ahead the road was a mass of men. They had caught up with the rearguard of the Spanish army; directly ahead of them limped a body of blue-coated infantry. Keane gazed at them and thought that the Spanish were a ragged army indeed. Most of the regiments wore the white coats and bicorne hats of the old regime, but recent arrivals of coats from England had kitted out some of the units in blue of varying hues. These they finished with tall black-and-brown hats of a new civilian style.
Silver stared at them suspiciously. ‘Blimey, sir, they look like Frenchies to me.’
‘Yes, they do. An easy mistake to make and one that I dare say will cost them a few lives before this war is won. But I suspect that while they resemble the French, they may behave unlike our enemies in battle.’
‘You mean they’ll turn tail, sir? What’s the use of us having them on our side at all, then?’
Keane shook his head. ‘No, Silver, I am not suggesting that they are cowards. Far from it. Just look at Colonel Morillo’s guerrillas. It is not the quality of the Spanish soldier that is in question, but that of his commanders. They’re brave enough men all right. But what they need is to be trained to stand and fight. They go to it with a will, but will they stand in the face of cannon and musket? And who is to teach them? Not those wine-soused lard-bellies who lead them. That’s for sure.’
