Rumours Of War h-6

by Allan Mallinson

  ‘Did his man give any reason?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Very well. In a quarter of an hour.’

  There was a letter addressed to Georgiana on the table, and another to his father. He took out a clean sheet of paper, and dipped his pen in the ink.

  Reeves’s Hotel,

  Lisbon

  10th October 1826

  My dear Howard,You will forgive a hurried few lines, I think, for we are of a sudden quite busy. But I wished to tell you that we are safely come here, that our hosts are universally hospitable, and the country is much as I recall it from earlier times. My companions are agreeable and seem to know their business, but Colonel Norris is very trying. He has embraced a scheme of defence which relies solely on the lines of Torres Vedras and has conceived it for no better reason than the lines served the Duke of Wellington capitally well a decade and a half ago. He takes no account of the special circumstances of that time, nor the aptness of the scheme to those which obtain now. Neither does he calculate the cost of putting the defences into good repair. We spent the better part of yesterday and today riding the lines, and that together with the information the two engineers officers have from the Portuguese engineers, indicates the cost would be prodigious in both money and time. Neither does he take account of what will happen in those provinces which the Miguelistas will occupy to the east, for as you know the lines are but ten leagues at most from here. There is no question but that Lisbon must be secured, but the forces which the Miguelistas dispose are not so great as to require works so extensive as Torres Vedras to halt them. And even if they be reinforced with Spanish troops then it is not the case that they must carry all before them to these earthwork gates of Lisbon, for the country would afford a very capital defence close to the border, where there are strong fortresses – stronger even than those at T. Vedras. But do we not suppose that it would be the very presence of British arms in Portugal that would deflect Spain from any adventure, to such extent that not a shot might be fired in anger by any red coat? That would indeed be felicitous, but is that not Mr Canning’s intention? Then by that reasoning the red coats must show themselves early rather than take refuge behind the mountains and forts of T. Vedras. But all this Norris is quite impervious to. He can think only of imitation. I do not know if there is anything you may do by way of alerting the authorities to the employment of any of our forces were they to be sent here . . .

  Hervey put down his pen. He would have to finish later; Major Cope was waiting for him, and they were due at the residence in half an hour. He would have to add something by way of enjoining Lord John Howard to discretion, of course, without suggesting that so experienced a staff officer would otherwise act without it, though he recognized that in asking him to alert the authorities to the danger, he set a difficult task in this respect.

  He was already looking forward to dinner with some apprehension. Kat had presented herself to the Forbeses, and secured an invitation, and he felt sure there would be some awkwardness occasioned by it since his relations with Colonel Norris were becoming distinctly strained. He fastened the bib of his tunic, picked up his cloak and forage cap, and went to the Rifles major’s rooms.

  ‘It’s deuced cold. Have some of that punch,’ said Cope as Hervey entered, standing in front of the fire and indicating an earthenware jug on a side table. ‘I don’t recall it so cold the last time.’

  ‘Perhaps we were more active,’ said Hervey, helping himself liberally. ‘I felt myself more useful, that’s to be sure.’

  ‘Indeed. The very reason I believe we should speak.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Look, Hervey, you and I know this plan of Norris’s is half baked. Griffith and Mostyn know too, but they’re engineers; they’re bound to get on with surveying those deuced lines. We have got to get ourselves engaged on something other than fortification.’

  ‘Believe me, I’ve been of that conclusion for days,’ said Hervey, his eyebrows raised in a gesture of disdain. ‘It is easier said than done, though. Norris flatly refuses, as well you know. I’ve contemplated speaking with Forbes, but how do you think he might help? He’s not even true master of his own embassy.’

  ‘I heard Beresford was to come,’ said Cope, confidentially.

  ‘Beresford?’ Hervey was surprised. ‘I doubt that will be universally welcome. I have it that he’s regarded with great jealousy by many of the senior officers here.’

  ‘May be,’ said Cope, throwing the remains of a small cigar into the fire. ‘But there’d be none of this nonsense about fortification if he were to take command again.’

  That was certainly true, thought Hervey. But Marshal Beresford, who had reorganized the Portuguese army from top to bottom in Wellington’s time, and who spoke the language well, had no reputation for tact. ‘So you think we should do some preliminary work on Lord Beresford’s behalf?’

  ‘I do. And I believe we should take the opportunity this evening to alert Forbes to it. He is a sensible man. He may already have wind of it indeed.’

  Hervey sighed. ‘What a merry party we shall be.’

  They walked to the Forbeses. The Rua do Sacramento was but a short distance, and with two torch-bearers it was an easy enough business. The residence itself, a large palácio with a classical white façade, was lit as it had been on their first evening, with candles in every window, so that Hervey supposed the chargé held a levee too, which notion did not in the least please him. In the event, however, the evening was a lively and pleasing affair. There was no levee; it appeared that the chargé honoured a general from the Negócios Estrangeiros e Guerra. Indeed, the reception lifted Hervey’s spirits; in part, he imagined, because the room sparkled with mirrored light in a way he had not seen since Calcutta, and because, too, a harpsichordist entertained those who would move within earshot. He even managed to slip from the room to examine the portraits of the King and the Duke of Wellington in the antechamber, studio copies by Sir Thomas Lawrence, very fine. By the time they sat to dine, his mood had entirely altered, although he had not been able to exchange more than a dozen words with Kat, and all of them in company.

  In fact, Kat had been making the party aware of her regard for him. She did it without the least suggestion of impropriety, and with the single-minded intention of increasing her protégé’s standing in the company. She intended approaching the chargé d’affaires on the subject of a more extensive reconnaissance, to be undertaken by an officer whom the Duke of Wellington himself evidently held in high esteem. At table, too, she sparkled as if she had been at Apsley House itself, having a word for everything and everybody in a manner that quite possessed the general, dazzled the engineer majors, quickened Major Cope noticeably, and delighted her hostess and Mr Forbes. Even Colonel Norris, Kat noted, sitting opposite and slightly to one side, was charmed. So charmed indeed, that after dinner she considered changing her stratagem.

  Hervey had no idea that Kat had any particular object in dining with the Forbeses other than as prelude to a night they would spend together in the Rua dos Condes. But pillow talk with Kat was not the same as it had been with his bibi; she did not consider herself a mere receptory of confidences. Kat’s instinct and pleasure was to use her influence, and to exploit any honest weakness to increase it. When Hervey had told her, three afternoons before, of his frustration with Colonel Norris’s intentions, she had perfectly naturally resolved to help as best she could, for not only did she wish to press her beau’s case for its own sake (she did not consider for a moment that he might be in the wrong, for that was not her concern), she was especially anxious to be useful, being sensible still of his uncertainty in her being in Lisbon at all.

  Kat’s intention had been to engage the chargé’s sympathy. But she perceived, now, that Colonel Norris was the better object, and she imagined that only a modest degree of flattery (and hint of her husband’s gratitude) would be required to succeed. So, after she and Mrs Forbes were joined by the rest of the party in the drawing room, for a full
quarter of an hour she pressed her attentions exclusively on the officer commanding the special military mission to Portugal.

  Kat was disappointed, however. And not solely for her beau; she could not recall so pallid a response to her attractions in all her life. She began to wonder how manly Colonel Norris was. He had been so much the chanticleer at dinner (she would confess she had encouraged him), speaking interminably of his fortifications at Torres Vedras. But all he could do, and just as Hervey had told her, was imitate the Duke of Wellington. Yet he had not a fraction of the duke’s masculine resolution; and certainly not his vigorous appeal.

  And so she turned her attention instead to Mr Forbes, conscious that she had already let valuable time slip through her hands. But she had observed him carefully at dinner: he was a measured man, seemingly modest, reasonable, and intelligent; he would not easily succumb to blandishments. They had not previously met, but Mrs Forbes had once danced at Athleague House, and her husband must know of it since he had made a point of telling Kat how much he had admired her father’s staunchness in refusing to proclaim his country in the troubles of 1798. ‘A most humane and wise man he must have been, Lady Katherine,’ the chargé had said at dinner.

  Kat thought it her best opening. She knew next to nothing of what he spoke, but she recognized an independent and enquiring mind when she met one. She steered their conversation back to Ireland, thus giving herself the air of a person of wider consequence and the chargé an opportunity for the same. Then, when she judged the moment to be the most felicitous, she played her cards.

  ‘Mr Forbes,’ she began confidentially, glancing deliberately over her shoulder to where Colonel Norris stood taking coffee with the Portuguese general. ‘Might I have a word with you about the military mission here?’

  The chargé looked surprised, but he recognized a woman with an ear to the influential drawing rooms of London as well as Dublin, and he was too practised a diplomatist to be fastidious.

  They drew aside further, and then Kat began her cautionary words. ‘Mr Forbes, are you entirely convinced that what Colonel Norris is proposing would serve both parties best?’

  The chargé looked puzzled. ‘Parties, Lady Katherine?’

  ‘I mean England and Portugal.’ She had not wanted to say the words at first in case it appeared she over-reached herself.

  The chargé was silent for the moment. Kat had risked all, even if she had worked assiduously to prepare her ground, and she knew it; it was one thing to ask for patronage from a senior officer, quite another to meddle in the affairs of a campaign.

  The chargé’s reply when it came surprised her, not least for its forthrightness and its admitting her so completely to his confidence. ‘I am not entirely convinced, no. I had imagined that Colonel Norris might have a more forward policy rather than making a fortress of Lisbon. But he has explained, and plausibly so, that his orders are to uphold the constitutional government here, and that this is best done by denying an uprising in Lisbon any assistance from outside – hence the lines of Torres Vedras, which he sees as much a wall to those inside Lisbon as without – and by having troops on hand to assist in putting down such a rebellion.’

  Kat was deflated by the logic, but her nerve held. ‘Is that the Duke of Wellington’s opinion do you think, Mr Forbes?’

  It was an intuitive shot, and into the dark, but never could she have taken aim to better effect. The chargé’s brow furrowed and his eyes narrowed. ‘Lady Katherine, that has been my particular consideration these several past days. You will understand to where my despatches travel, and from where I receive instructions – to Mr Canning, I mean – but I am well aware that the duke has his interests in this sphere. And, I might add, they are bound to increase, from all that I observe, and I fear an unhappy outcome to any intervention where one part of government holds a different perception of its purpose than does another.’

  Kat was trying hard to conceal her astonishment, and incomplete understanding. ‘Exactly so, Mr Forbes.’

  ‘And yet, I had imagined that Colonel Norris would know the duke’s mind perfectly, he having been so lately on his staff. So I have been proceeding on the assumption that his scheme would indeed meet with the duke’s approval.’

  Kat became anxious again, but she had resources yet. ‘But do you know in what capacity Colonel Norris serves, Mr Forbes? You might find that Major Hervey has more particular knowledge.’

  ‘Major Hervey?’

  ‘I happen to know that he was appointed by the duke personally for the mission, and that they dined together only a little time before he came here.’

  The chargé appeared to believe he had learned a considerable secret; as a gentleman he could not contemplate being deceived by the wife of Sir Peregrine Greville. ‘Perhaps, then, I should speak with Major Hervey. I am most obliged to you, Lady Katherine.’

  Kat curtsied, lowering her eyes, though not without seeing the chargé glance admiringly at her, precisely as she had intended. She watched as he looked about the room, seeing Hervey and then making for him. She watched as he took him to one side and began a very private-looking conversation; and she saw her lover’s face as it registered satisfaction at hearing the chargé give leave to make a reconnaissance of the border.

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE MAKINGS OF AN OFFICER

  Elvas, the Spanish frontier, five days later, 15 October 1826

  Together, women and donkeys meant trouble. That was the common opinion of the wet canteen, and had been since the Sixth had first gone to the Peninsula. Private Johnson had shared that opinion – had voiced it often enough, to Hervey’s certain recollection – so why he thought he could master both was quite beyond Hervey, who cursed now as he dodged the brickbats, trying to extricate with dignity both groom and baggage from the tinkers’ camp.

  ‘We wasn’t gooin fast enough,’ explained Johnson. ‘All that stopping and starting wi’ t’bishop’s men. I thought we’d never get ’ere. And then these lot came along, and they looked right enough, and said I could spread me things about cos they ’ad spare donkeys . . .’

  ‘But I distinctly said on no account were you to leave the bishop’s baggage train,’ countered Hervey, in disbelief still. ‘What did you say to Senhora Delgado?’

  ‘I couldn’t find ’er when we stopped yesterday in t’middle o’ t’day.’

  ‘Well, you have succeeded in arriving in advance of the bishop’s party, but without one of the trunks. I call it a poor trade.’

  Johnson said not a word, for once disposed to concede his delinquency.

  Hervey sighed as they rode in the shadow of the great aqueduct towards the west gate of the fortress-city’s walls, but the foray at least afforded him a better perspective of the fortifications. It had been dark when he came this way the evening before, and only now did he see the true extent and standing of the curtain, and the thickness and glacis of the bastions. Only now, since arriving the night before; twenty years ago, the better part of, he had had ample opportunity to see them, to ride their full circumference indeed, and he had formed the impression then, even allowing for his scant experience of anything beyond the printed page, that Elvas was a fortress of uncommon strength.

  Twenty years ago, as near as made no odds. And now he was before the walls once more, with the enemy perhaps a few leagues only to the east, just as they had thought the French were that first time. And he not blooded then, not yet shot over. Except that women threw things at him, as they had just now; and not all that many miles from here. Women with donkeys; what was it that possessed them? It was not just gypsy women either; that first time it had been the regiment’s own. Sods and stones they had hurled at him then, and, worst of all, abuse. Cornet to major in twenty years (no, to be fair to himself, it was only eighteen): he had risen respectably, that was for sure, even if not as quickly and easily as the rich and connected had. But women still threw stones at him when he troubled their donkeys, just as if he were a cornet still.

  They had had a pitif
ul time of it, the Sixth’s women all those years ago; he knew full well. Worse, even, than the dragoons. The regiment had had its skirmishes on the way to Madrid, but these had never been more than a bit of a bruising, as Corporal Armstrong had put it. They had managed something of a respite near the Escorial – a roof, decent straw, bread and cheese bought from the Spanish peasants – and then on again across the mountains dividing Old and New Castile, when the women had been hard pressed to stay with the columns, losing some of their precious donkeys in the process. When they had limped into stations in front of Salamanca in the second week of December, it had been a true mercy, for the frosts were so hard of a night that the odd man had died during his watch.

  It had been at Salamanca that Hervey had first heard the name Corunna.

  The whole regiment had heard it; and been indignant. Not two dozen men had fired their carbines, and even fewer had crossed swords, and now they were to run for the sea! It was not Sir John Moore’s fault, of course; it was those damned Spaniards – feckless all, to a man. They’d said they would defend Madrid, and then they’d surrendered their own capital without a shot!

  The Sixth fulminated for two days, even the officers.

  But then as suddenly came the news that Sir John Moore would not be turning for Corunna after all. He declared he would not abandon even those who had abandoned him: the army would strike north! They would threaten Marshal Soult’s communications and draw off the French from the capital of Britain’s half-hearted allies; and every man in the army seemed to be cheering.

  Hervey’s troop was on picket when they heard. And the Sixth would lead the movement! The news thrilled the ranks, a promise at last of true action.

  At muster the following morning, Sir Edward Lankester issued his orders. ‘Mr Hervey, you are to take two sections of threes under Corporal Armstrong and bar the pass behind us to all followers.’