A Shred of Honour

by David Donachie

  The boy began to sing, so softly that the words were incomprehensible. But the effect on everyone present was electric. The doctors shot back to take a long look, Picard clutched his wife, and Rossignol started to clap his hands, only stopping himself when he realised that the sound might alter things. One of the doctors leant forward again, lifting Jean-Baptiste’s eyelid and peering closely into the still orb. His other hand touched the boy’s neck at the side.

  ‘An improvement in the vital functions,’ he declared, in a hushed but insistent voice. Then he moved back to allow his companion to examine the patient. That, when accomplished, produced a confirmatory nod. And all the while Jean-Baptiste sang. The senior doctor turned to Rossignol. ‘It is too early to claim success, and several more tests will have to be conducted.’

  Rossignol looked at Picard, who nodded, before addressing the doctor. ‘Please, spare no expense.’

  Then Rossignol spun round, took Markham by the arm, and led him out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him.

  ‘Have they found out what ails him?’ asked Markham.

  ‘If they have, Lieutenant, they would not say, since to do so might depress their fees. But they have got the boy to respond, and with luck they may bring him back to normality.’

  ‘Then let us wish them luck,’ Markham replied.

  ‘Yes indeed,’ replied the Frenchman, with passion. Then his voice returned to normal. ‘Were you in search of something?’

  ‘Water with which to shave, the wherewithal to make my uniform more presentable. What little kit I came ashore with is still in the possession of Captain Elphinstone, and the last thing I want to do now is go and find him.’

  ‘Return to your room, Lieutenant. I will ensure that all you require comes to you.’

  ‘The Picards won’t mind?’

  ‘Of course not. Now do as I say.’

  Chapter nine

  The following morning found him standing rigidly to attention in the senior officers’ quarters which lay inside the massive stone walls of Fort de la Malgue. Through an old glassed-over embrasure, he had a fine view of the Grande Rade of Toulon. The outer harbour, bathed in brilliant sunshine, was full of ships unloading men and supplies. The atmosphere in the elegant room was, however, somewhat chilly as the men around him discussed forthcoming operations.

  Earlier, kicking his heels in an ante-room, Midshipman Driberg had brought him up to date about the siege and those engaged. The Bouche de Rhône Army was under the command of General Cartaux. He was rated a fool but his troops, despite their ragged appearance, were numerous and buoyed up by the surrender, then the subsequent sack, of Marseilles. The Army of Savoy, under Lapoype, was closing in from the east. Given the topography, they’d seek to occupy the surrounding heights, especially Mont Faron, thus cutting Toulon off from the interior. But it would be a hard nut to crack. The features of the landscape, plus the permanent fortifications built by the French themselves, made it a natural stronghold. Unless the French could dominate the harbour with gunnery, the fleet could sit there till doomsday.

  Driberg was even more loquacious on the subject of his commanding officer. The Honourable George Keith Elphinstone was not only very well connected, he was also high on the captains’ list, close to the promotion that would allow him to hoist his flag as a Rear-Admiral. The midshipman insisted he was fair but firm, a strict disciplinarian who cared for his men, an opinion Markham found hard to accept. He was certainly short-tempered, which Markham discovered as soon as he entered to make his report. And it wasn’t just his failure to hold his position that got him into hot water. The captain’s florid complexion and grey, bushy eyebrows, atop a heavily muscled body, gave him the appearance of an avenging Biblical prophet.

  ‘You had in your hands a man who deserved to be hanged.’

  ‘I accept full responsibility for Fouquert’s escape, sir.’

  ‘I should damn well think so, laddie.’

  ‘I checked on the pursuit, personally. But I was looking for a large body of men, not one or two of his sailors. If they came after us, staying off the road, I could not have seen them.’

  ‘So they were free to sneak up to the coach in the dark and release the blackguard, is that what you’re saying?’ Markham nodded, but kept silent. Elphinstone’s eyebrows drew together to form one single entity. ‘You had no notion to post a guard? Any officer with a half a brain would have thought of that.’

  ‘My men where exhausted. Besides, sir, I had no idea he was so important. To me, he was just another sailor.’

  The captain slammed the table. ‘He was a damned murderer, and that, laddie, is in your own report.’

  Markham opened his mouth to protest, but his list of seeming errors was not yet complete. ‘I’m informed that you also passed up the opportunity to capture a French artillery officer.’

  ‘Hardly, sir. He was so severely wounded he had to be carried by two of his men.’

  ‘Yet you didn’t see fit to bring him in?’

  ‘If you’d seen the wound, I think you would have judged, as I did, that his best hope of survival lay with his own surgeons.’

  It sounded lame, said like that. And Markham hoped his face didn’t betray the truth. It had been the bravery of his gunners, who’d very nearly sacrificed their own lives to save their officer, which had affected him so deeply. The contrast between that and the attitude of his own men in the recent frigate action was not something he could easily explain.

  The Scotsman put his hands on his hips, leaning forward slightly to emphasise what he was saying. ‘You will oblige me in future, Lieutenant, by killing the enemy instead of releasing them, wherever you encounter them. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Sir.’

  Elphinstone picked up a set of maps from his desk and gestured with a peremptory wave. ‘Come with me.’

  Markham had followed him through a door, to the larger room he now stood in, dominated by a long dining table covered in maps. A group of Spanish officers stood round the table, one of them clearly of Admiral’s rank. He knew, because Driberg had told him, that Lord Hood had no intention of taking command ashore himself. But instead of handing over that task to the only person Driberg thought fit to hold it, Elphinstone, he’d agreed that the Spaniard, Rear-Admiral Gravina, be appointed to the office.

  The conversation that Markham witnessed, carried out in a polite but strangled way, demonstrated quite clearly that a fissure had already appeared in what was supposed to be the united allied front. Gravina himself, being reluctant to debase his Spanish honour by taking part in the discussions, left most of this to a yellow-faced army Colonel called Serota. Tall, thin and hollow-chested, this officer clearly considered Elphinstone an imbecile. He had a hacking cough to go with his sallow complexion, one that interrupted the flow of every single sentence he uttered. The discussion ranged back and forth, as various matters were aired. What it boiled down to was simple enough. The Spaniards wanted to attack, while Elphinstone insisted that they must stay on the defensive. Finally, having stood in the background for an age, Markham was called forward to relate what had happened at Ollioules.

  ‘I think Lieutenant Markham will bear witness to the low quality of those troops opposing us,’ said Elphinstone, as soon as he’d finished, pacing back and forth, his stocky legs making his heels dig into the flagstones. ‘Certainly we can drive them back if they encroach too far. But even the worst soldiers, in such numbers, will cause us casualties we can ill afford.’

  ‘I have brought ashore the flower of the Spanish army,’ said Serota, his concave chest puffing out enough to make him look normal. Elphinstone’s eyebrows shot up, and he had to rub his hands over his face to hide his reaction to that remark, since his opinion was that the plants at the Spaniard’s disposal were more like weeds. Obviously neither Gravina nor Serota noticed, since the latter, after a deeper and more serious bout of coughing, carried on in the same flowery tone. ‘They are proud men and will not be content merely to act defensively. Th
e admiral and I intend that they should fight like lions, not dig like dogs.’

  Elphinstone addressed Gravina directly, which brought a touch of rouge to Serota’s cheeks. ‘We must find more men, Admiral. We cannot undertake offensive operations without reinforcements. If we control the heights, with additional redoubts built to withstand whatever the French send our way, the town is safe, just like a little Gibraltar.’

  That made Gravina flush angrily, and his officers growled amongst themselves at the mention of that name. Being allied to the British was strange enough for such men, who’d more often found themselves fighting alongside the French. The mention of that island bastion, vehemently claimed as an integral part of Spain, only reminded them of how much the world had altered. Realising immediately that he had made a gaffe, Elphinstone shot Markham a hard look, as though the mistake had been his fault.

  ‘Let us look to the future. Toulon will act as a vessel into which we can pour the forces necessary not only to fight the Republicans, but to beat them. If we can tie down Cartaux and Lapoype until Spring, then the countryside could well rise behind them. That is the time to break out, when they raise the Royal standard. Attack then, and the whole of Provence will be ours.’

  Elphinstone had said these last words with the same kind of exaggerated flourish as the Spaniard had used moments earlier. Now he swept his arm in a great arc, his eyes aimed at a point near the ceiling. ‘Imagine the rewards a Bourbon monarch will bestow on the men who achieve such a thing! Why, Admiral Gravina, he will very likely make you a Duke.’

  Driberg entered during this little speech, his face registering shock at seeing such a display from a man normally taciturn. ‘We have a British army Colonel outside, sir. He was in Leghorn, taking passage home in the same vessel as your niece. He heard about events here and wishes to offer you his services.’

  ‘Splendid,’ cried Elphinstone. ‘That’s just what we need. You told him that Brigadier General Lord Mulgrave is on the way?’

  ‘I have, sir, and Colonel Hanger has acknowledged that he is happy to serve under such a distinguished officer.’

  ‘Hanger,’ said Elphinstone. ‘I know the name.’

  ‘Augustus Hanger, sir. Second son of Lord Coleraine. Served in America with Banastre Tarleton’s British Legion.’

  Markham hoped that no-one observed his reaction to the name. His body actually shook. In a second his mind had replayed the events of a dozen years ago. The vivid image of the flames leaping above the Imrie house, the screams of the burning inhabitants mingled with the bloody face of Augustus Hanger. His hand closed involuntarily, as though he still held the broken sword blade he’d used to scar him. But overriding all of that was an ache that filled his chest, a pain so penetrating he thought his heart would burst. The whole edifice collapsed as he heard, for the first time since that night, the gravelly voice of the man he hated most in the world.

  ‘At your service, Captain Elphinstone.’

  ‘I’m overjoyed to see you, Colonel Hanger. You’ve no idea how much we require an army man to oversee the creation of proper defences. We sailors know our way on water, sir, but the finer points of land fortification are a soldier’s preserve.’

  This was said quickly, in English, to avoid offending the Dons, who manned their ships with soldiers, not marines. It also flew in the face of the well-known truth that sailors considered Army officers buffoons. But if he was going to work with a fool, he wanted a British one called Hanger, not the Spaniard, Serota.

  ‘Allow me to name Admiral Gravina, who has the honour of overall command. Colonel Serota leads the men he brought ashore.’

  ‘Delighted, sir.’ Hanger’s response, given with what sounded like a growl, conveyed anything but delight. But Markham knew that to be his habitual voice, one that sounded ill-mannered even when he was grovelling. He listened as Elphinstone went round the room, introducing each officer present. As the junior, he would be last, and with his back to the doorway, Hanger wouldn’t recognise him till he turned. He fought the temptation to do so before his introduction was made. But he spun quickly enough when it was, in time to see the shock of the name, doubled by the recognition of the face; an emotion so sensational that the livid, rough-edged scar that covered half Hanger’s face stood out like a beacon on his pasty complexion.

  ‘Sir!’ Markham snapped, his eyes boring into those of his superior. What he saw there almost eased the pain of remembrance, the shock and confusion of a man who wanted to swear but could not, a creature whose dignity and personality were in conflict. Officers of his rank rarely acknowledged lowly lieutenants, and to show that he even recognised Markham would call for an explanation. But he couldn’t help the careful way he examined Markham’s face, as if he expected to see it as bloody and bruised as it had been the last time they’d met.

  ‘Wait outside, Markham,’ said Elphinstone. ‘I’m sure the Colonel will want a word with you when I’ve appraised him of the situation.’

  ‘Oh I shall, Captain Elphinstone. I shall.’

  Once back in the ante-room, he wasn’t sure if he was shivering with fear, shaking with cold or trembling with rage. A wave of misery swept over him as he collapsed into a chair; the feeling that his decision to take up his commission in the British army, after a gap of a dozen years, was turning out to be a curse.

  While not following Hanger’s career, it had been impossible to avoid picking up snippets of information about him, especially since he was a crony of the Prince of Wales, and shared with that royal sibling an ability to provoke unflattering gossip. He knew that after the peace he’d gone to India as an aide to General Cornwallis, rising to become a member of the Governor’s council, enriching himself in the process.

  Returning to England on leave, Hanger had bought a colonelcy in a fashionable regiment. Thinking about that made him even more depressed. Hanger had cut quite a dash with his spendthrift ways. An ugly man, he was not, and never could be, classed a pleasant companion. His squat, gross figure and unappealing features were made worse by that scar Markham had given him. And once observed, they were merely a foretaste of his coarse manners. He treated men he considered his inferiors with disdain, and women of whatever station as fodder for his misplaced vanity, insulting them by the crude level of his attentions. Yet with all these faults he was courted by a section of society, where gold, liberally sprinkled around, spoke for more than looks and manners. And he was exceedingly careful not to insult anyone who had influence.

  How different for Markham, who finally had only those two ephemeral qualities with which to trade. He should have come back from Russia with ample funds, but his attitude to the recent partition of Poland scuppered any chance of that, leading to rows with his seniors, both British and Russian, which had forced him into a hurried exit through Riga. While he’d been away, his father had died. His relatives not only wished to disown their bastard brother, but insisted that as a condition of his father’s bequest he return every gift the general had ever bestowed. Naming each endowment a loan, they used every legal device available to them to deny him the right to see the will.

  Some of his limited funds went to a lawyer. He agreed the idea of repayment was monstrous, but added that, being illegitimate, George Markham had already had more than his share. Appeals to charity fell on deaf ears. Frederick Markham, the general’s son and heir, was weak and quite malleable. The real problem was Hannah, who would have dearly loved to cut all knowledge of him and her father’s indiscretion out of the canvas of her life. Her sole concession, extracted in exchange for a promise never to darken her door, was to leave his mother in the small house his father had given her, a place she despised, and within whose walls she was steadily drinking herself to death on a diet of remorse and rough poteen.

  After a brief stop in Dublin, he headed for London, that being the only place where a man like him could hope to secure a prosperous future. A wiser head would have taken cheap lodgings, and conserved his limited resources, realised his predicament and patiently so
ught opportunity. But soldiers rarely possessed that attribute, and George Markham was no exception. As an officer in the Russian army, when not actually campaigning, he’d lived in some style. Habit combined with inclination. He believed that in order to achieve prosperity, it was necessary to show some.

  He’d always had an attraction to the theatre, though never the boldness to appear professionally, and that brought him into contact with some of the leading players of the day. These people, with their lack of hypocrisy regarding birth or fortune, seemed natural companions, and opened doors for him that might otherwise have remained closed. That stratum of social London was only too happy to embrace George Markham. Tall, good looking and an excellent mimic, gifted with an Irish tongue, and the wit to match. Credit and good company were readily available to a man who’d just helped Great Catherine defeat the Turks. There was gaming, eating, drinking, riotous companionship and, of course, in a world full of aspiring or successful actresses, women.

  ‘If you’ll wait in here, Miss Gordon,’ said Driberg. ‘I’ll tell your uncle you’ve arrived.’

  ‘You are kind, sir.’ Markham sat up straight. The female voice was light and sweet, redolent of an English summer, roses, apple trees, the buzz of insects in a field of corn; the ingénue, perhaps, in a comedy of manners.

  ‘I cannot say how long Captain Elphinstone will be,’ Driberg continued. ‘He’s engaged in a conference of some importance.’

  ‘It is exceedingly warm. If I could trouble you for some form of liquid refreshment, something cool, I am happy to wait.’

  Markham was on his feet before she was through the door, tugging and brushing at his uniform in a vain attempt to remove the creases caused by the heat, and the stains that even the best efforts of Picard’s servants had failed to eradicate. She stopped as she saw him, her pale eyebrows raised in delicate surprise, her lips slightly parted. With his practised eye he took in the attractive quality of her clothes, the chaste nature of their cut, and made a fair guess at the graceful figure they concealed.