Hervey 07 - An Act Of Courage

by Allan Mallinson

  It began within minutes of taking the castle. Those still under discipline made for the rear of the breaches with their officers, as Picton had ordered; many more ran straight into the deserted streets. It was three o’clock when Sir Edward Lankester realized what was happening: there was shooting throughout the city, long after the last Frenchman would have surrendered. Although Picton had diverted him to the assault, it was the provost marshal who had summoned him forward, and he could not exempt himself now from the original orders. But where was the provost marshal?

  What, anyway, could a troop do, asked Lieutenant Martyn, if the better part of four divisions was dissolving in disorder?

  Sir Edward appeared to grit his teeth. ‘There are women and children and old men in this city, and they’re Spanish too – our allies. We can do what we can do.’ He turned to his senior NCO. ‘Serjeant Hawkins, go bring up the troop. Muster in the castle yard.’

  Hervey was relieved they would be doing something, at least. After Corunna, he knew full well what the worst might be. Should they even wait until the troop came up? The regimental officers would be having a hard time of it in the streets: could they not try to help them?

  ‘Hervey, go and see if a picket has been placed at the castle gate,’ said Sir Edward, sounding weary.

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘And no further, mind.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sir, the captain said no further!’ Corporal Bancroft, covering, was not so much fearful for his own safety but for his reputation.

  ‘You saw that place, Corporal.’

  ‘Ay, sir, but what’d we ’ave been able to do?’

  The nuns had been unfortunate in the extreme. Their convent was at the very exit from the castle. But the location had also been a blessing, since their defilement had not been prolonged: Kempt’s reserve battalion had come out and put an end to the riot.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Hervey, sharply. ‘We can do what we can!’ He pressed on, sword drawn.

  Hatless men in tattered red coats, filthy, bloody, lurched out of the shadows or from doorways, clutching bottles and other plunder, inviting Hervey and Bancroft to join them, pointing to where there was more.

  Bancroft grabbed his arm as Hervey lunged at them with the flat of his sabre. ‘No, sir! Steady on!’

  A scream made both men turn on their heel.

  ‘What in God’s name . . .’ gasped Hervey.

  They sprinted for the house. Its door, like the others in the street, lay battered down. Hervey leapt it, while Bancroft took post to cover his back.

  Oil lamps and candles lit the brutish scene: two Connaught privates, and a mother and three daughters – Hervey wondered they hadn’t screamed more. The bigger man lunged at him with a bayonet. There was no room to fence. Hervey dropped his sword, drew his pistol and fired in a split second. The man fell back across the girl’s body, blood bubbling from the hole in his chest, legs and arms twitching like a dancing puppet. The second rushed at him. Hervey swung his pistol-butt at the man’s head, but a mutton fist felled him. Corporal Bancroft pointed with his sabre as the man tried to leave, but the same fist grasped it and wrenched it aside. Bancroft drew his pistol. Then he dropped his aim – save it for a man trying to come in.

  The women (in truth, the daughters looked but in their teens) were now hysterical. Hervey held up his hands to calm them, assuring them he had not just killed the man to take possession of them himself. He pulled the lifeless Connaught to the floor, freeing the third daughter. But her throat was cut, and her nightdress slit top to bottom. There was nothing he could do but restore her modesty. He pulled down a curtain and laid it over her, and then in the most broken of Spanish he told them to put on their cloaks and come with him. The mother at once began protesting – imploring. Then he understood.

  It was madness to try bringing the murdered sister as well, but he saw the woman would not leave her. And so he shouldered the bestial evidence of the Eighty-eighth’s riot, and prayed they would have it easy for the hundred yards to the castle.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  RESOLUTION

  Badajoz, 31 December 1826

  ‘When did you know it was I? How?’

  The physician smiled a little, as much as to say that Hervey ought not to be surprised that such a thing could be known. ‘Soon after I looked inside your Prayer Book, when the guards took it, I thought it probable. It seemed unlikely that there would be any other by your name in the British cavalry. And then, as we began to speak about the past, I became more certain. But only listening to you now could I be assured.’

  ‘I am much moved, señor.’

  ‘A daughter murdered, Major Hervey: one does not forget the details, I am sorry to say.’

  Hervey, pained, looked down. ‘No, of course.’

  Dr Sanchez poured himself another glass of wine. ‘But let us talk no more of it, my friend.’ He lowered his voice. ‘There is interesting news from Lisbon – or rather, of Lisbon. From Madrid.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Sanchez lowered his voice still further. ‘Several brigades of English troops are landed.’

  Hervey brightened. ‘Indeed!’

  ‘I rather think this may hasten your release, parole or no.’

  Hervey frowned. ‘I would far prefer escape by the method we have set in-hand. If I am released it will mean ceremony, and . . .’ He paused. ‘Do you have any more of the tribunal?’

  Sanchez shook his head. ‘I have heard not a word. But then, Major Hervey, truly I am not privy to these things. I do know, however, that the governor of this place is called away – perhaps to Madrid, I am not told – and nothing would be likely before his return. We have several days in that regard, I believe.’

  ‘But not a day to lose.’

  ‘No, there is never a day to lose, Major Hervey,’ said Sanchez, quietly but emphatically. ‘Well, it is but a day’s wait now for the new password. Your scheme of codes has worked admirably well.’

  It had. Brigadier-General Dom Mateo de Braganza had seen at once what was Hervey’s design, and had sent two portmanteaux of books, including General Folque’s manual of semaphore codes, together with a trial message. Hervey had replied in a long letter of thanks, with numerals from the code-book carefully interspersed, and had received a reply by return which told him of the plan to steal him away, and the identity of his ‘fellow of long acquaintance’. Tomorrow, when Sanchez learned the new password, Hervey would send it in a letter asking for some dictionary or other, and then the escape would follow before dawn two days following.

  ‘Was there any intelligence of where these brigades would go?’ he asked, unable even now to distance himself from the matter of strategy that had propelled him here in the first place.

  ‘If there was, it was not given to me,’ replied Sanchez, shaking his head. ‘I imagine one must come to Elvas? It is the logical place.’

  Hervey groaned. ‘It is a long story.’

  ‘How so?’

  He had no wish to appear evasive: here was a man risking his neck, after all. But the precise extent of the physician’s loyalty he could not gamble on. ‘I found myself in dispute with others over where the troops should go.’

  But Sanchez had no interest in the details. ‘Well, we must pray they will have no recourse to arms. It would be a dreadful thing indeed for an old ally.’

  Hervey presumed Sanchez referred to the Portuguese, although he might easily have in mind his own countrymen: the alliance with Spain against Bonaparte had come late, and had always been uncomfortable, but they had indeed been allies.

  In truth, Sanchez was obliged by a debt he felt personally to Hervey, not to the British. That there would have been no debt had it not been for the infamous conduct of a part of the army at Badajoz, he was not inclined to dwell on. He bore no grudges. Like many of his countrymen, he professed to liking Englishmen while disliking the English.

  Hervey approved his wish for peace, however: let them pray, indeed, that there would be no recour
se to arms. ‘Oremus.’

  The physician smiled. ‘Ah, Major Hervey, would that your Latin came from your Prayer Book!’

  Hervey returned the smile. ‘It does, but a very little. I rather fancy we were taught the nobler texts. I recall quite a trade in epigrams when I was a cornet. But I am very unpractised now.’

  ‘And your Greek? I am afraid there was scant choice if not in Spanish in the little library here.’

  ‘My Greek is very ill. I confess I struggled a good deal with the New Testament you so thoughtfully provided.’

  ‘Not, perhaps, so great a failing in a soldier?’

  Hervey smiled again. ‘No, I don’t suppose it is. If there is war in Greece then I might be able to forage in pentameters; otherwise I imagine it to be little loss. Doctor, I was grateful merely for the sentiment; and as I said, it occupied my mind – considerably!’

  Sanchez held up his hands, conceding the point. ‘But now, to return to your friends in Elvas, is it not very gratifying to learn that such a man as Colonel Laming, and a lady of rank, have hastened to your aid?’

  Hervey took another large measure of wine. It warmed him, the taste of the familiar from hearth or mess. ‘I hardly know what to think. Laming, I am not perhaps so surprised by. We served together for some years, but he went elsewhere when the regiment was in India. Dona Isabella is “at home” in Elvas; her uncle is bishop. I imagine she accompanied Laming as interpretress. But, yes, it is quite a turn-up.’

  Sanchez finished his wine, and made ready to leave. ‘Well, you shall see both, and soon. I will leave you to your books, now, Major Hervey. I have calls to make.’

  ‘Of course, doctor.’

  Sanchez rose, looking thoughtful again. ‘Do not trouble yourself with unhappy memories of this place, Major Hervey. We Spanish understand what is the nature of war. You know well enough what our guerrilleros had to do. And after Badajoz, we did not once retrace our footsteps, did we? Were you at Salamanca?’

  Hervey smiled. ‘I was at Salamanca. And I saw Madrid the following month.’

  ‘Exactly! And thence to the Pyrenees . . .’

  Hervey shook his head. ‘You forget: we could not take Burgos. We had to withdraw again to the border.’

  Sanchez raised his hands and his eyebrows: he had forgotten. ‘But Badajoz never changed hands again!’

  ‘No, and we ran the French hard and fast the following year. I made my first footing in France in October.’

  ‘Five years!’ said Sanchez, shaking his head. ‘A long time in the life of a young man.’

  Hervey shrugged his shoulders. ‘It would be crueller now for me, I assure you!’

  Sanchez grasped Hervey’s shoulder. ‘Major Hervey, my dear friend, forgive me! I understand perfectly: every day for you here must seem like a hundred. I am certain your release shall be soon!’ He gathered up his coat and hat. ‘I beg you would excuse me now. I leave you to your thoughts of tomorrow. Be ready with that book of codes when I return!’

  Later, when all was silent in the repose of the afternoon, Hervey took up a pen and began a letter home – or rather, to the place where his sister held the guardianship of his daughter, and increasingly the care of their ageing parents.

  As from Lisbon

  31st December 1826

  My dear Elizabeth,

  I much regret the long delay in writing to you and to answering yours of— the letter is not to hand, forgive me. Your salutations, as those of our entire family, in respect of the King’s honouring me with his order of the Bath are most gratefully received, I assure you, and required an earlier expression of gratitude from me than here. However, the past weeks have been a very great trial, I fear to tell you, though I would beg at once that you do not worry, for all is now well. I have, perforce, been unable to write to you – I will not trouble you with the causes now, for they are tedious and better explained à tête. But I have had opportunity and occasion for serious reflection and consideration of my situation, especially as it touches on you and Georgiana, and I am resolved on return to England at once to put all arrangements onto a sound and proper footing, and so to arrange my military duties as to have a proper regard for the need of a daughter for her father, and, I might say, of a sister for her brother, and for the parents of a son who has too long been absent from them. I do not yet know how this is to be accomplished, for there are certain questions which the Horse Guards shall require answer of me when I return, neither do I make any particular proposals in respect of Georgiana . . .

  He made no particular proposals, but he knew what was the right course. A governess, which in part Elizabeth was, would without doubt satisfy the requirements of a daughter who, by maternal right at least, would at some time enter good society – indeed, very high society. But a governess (even he was aware) did not satisfy the natural needs of a child. In truth, he knew that none could but the actual mother. However, a new wife, if she were good and loving (and why should a man choose otherwise to be his wife?), would better serve Georgiana than any hired woman might. His course, therefore, was very clear. How he would set it was another matter.

  He wrote on, several pages of inconsequential ‘sketching’, letting his sister down lightly after the portentous beginning – a record of Nature, of architecture, of the manner of the people, anything which might convincingly fill a letter to someone he must own to using very ill indeed. For if he might contemplate marriage, and with considerable expectations, he knew that his sister’s prospects were meagre – a meagreness largely of his making. At length he reached a point at which he considered he might decently finish, and signed his name in the most affectionate manner he was capable of.

  Then he sealed the letter, addressed it, and poured more wine. He was not diverted by any book, even Folque’s, for without the password to encode it was the dullest volume in the world. Instead he drew close to the fire, wrapping his cloak about his shoulders and giving his wine-warmed thoughts over to the course he would set – the course for Georgiana.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  VEILED SPEECH

  Next day

  ‘But how, Major Hervey? Why?’ Dr Sanchez was despairing: he had been given the new password and had come at once.

  Hervey shook his head, trying not to betray the despair to which he was tending. ‘I don’t know. They came this morning, shortly after breakfast. They’ve never searched before. They took every book – sparing my Prayer Book, that is. They had that long enough before.’

  ‘I will go at once to speak with the captain.’

  Hervey sat down. His boots wanted polish, the silver and brass about his tunic was dull, and his shirt was no longer white. These things he had attended to as best he could, but he was daily more conscious of the decline. That the means of his deliverance should be plucked from him now, so close to his triumph, was a cruel blow: the sea of despair was once more stretching before him – perhaps even wider than before.

  But he would fight it. So close . . . there must be a way! ‘I’ve been trying to imagine what they might make of Folque’s signalbook – if they’ve found it. Would it be apparent what I was about? I think not.’

  ‘It might raise a suspicion, not least because it’s part-written in English. But see, when I go to the captain, if the books are simply collected, without examination, I can secrete your book and return with it.’

  Hervey was fighting despair, but he kept his reason: if the authorities had grounds to remove his books, they would be suspicious of any ‘friend’ of his. And if they discovered him with the book, the game would be truly up. ‘Easier said than done, I think, doctor. But what agitates me as much is the thought they might stop the correspondence with Elvas.’

  ‘Exactly so. I will go at once.’

  Hervey held his cloak for him. ‘What is the parole?’

  Sanchez glanced at the door. ‘Napoleon,’ he whispered.

  Hervey sighed. ‘It is all the more dismaying for its being so simple. I suspect it might even be in Folque’s vocabulary
– no need to spell it out at all. Concealment would have been easy.’

  ‘Vexing in the extreme.’ Sanchez put on his hat and turned to go, but then he changed his mind. ‘See, Major Hervey, might you not be able to convey the word in another way? So singular a name is surely susceptible to allusion?’

  The same thought had just occurred to Hervey; also the peril. ‘I could veil my words, yes; but the consequences of conveying the wrong meaning would be disastrous.’

  Sanchez looked disappointed. ‘I see the danger perfectly; I had not thought—’

  ‘No, wait!’ said Hervey, his face now animated, and happily. ‘Laming – I do believe that self-regarding scholar may be our deliverance! Doctor, you recall I spoke of cornets trading epigrams?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Well, one of those – and deuced clever – conveys exactly the parole, no doubting it! Laming will not have forgotten, for it was his own.’ He sat down and snatched up a pen. ‘Doctor, go to the authorities, if you will, and ask if they will take a letter on the usual terms. Do not trouble them for the return of any book: it could only rouse suspicion, and we have no need of Folque now.’

  Sanchez needed no urging. He clapped a hand on Hervey’s shoulder, as much to reinforce his own resolve as his friend’s. ‘Very well! We shall succeed!’

  When Sanchez had gone, Hervey began to write. He had said it, and he was as sure of it as may be: Laming, even after so long a time, would not have forgotten such an intriguing acrostic. It remained only to insert the obviously contrived phrase.