by Max Hennessy
‘No, sir. Just the more intelligent of what we have. I think this war shows the trend of future wars and it’ll be a good idea if we take note of it.’
Wolseley was silent for a long time, staring at his fingers as they rested on the brown wood of his desk. ‘I read the pieces you wrote for the Morning Advertiser,’ he said at last. ‘They were well-written and succinct. Can you write all that again? For me. In a report.’
‘I think so, sir.’
‘Then you’d better get on with it. You’ll be found a room and a couple of secretaries. I want it setting down with as much clarity as you showed in the reports for the Morning Advertiser. You have a gift with a pen and the Secretary for War will be very interested.’
Colby hesitated. ‘Sir, it was not my intention that I should be away from my regiment for good.’
‘Nor is it ours,’ Wolseley snapped back. ‘The best leaders of the future will be men who have done alternate spells on the staff and with troops. We shall all be seeing a change in a year or two when the reforms we plan take effect. The purchasing of commissions will go. It has to go. It’s illogical, iniquitous and indefensible in these modern times, and when it does go we shall perhaps be able to push a few of our more capable men into ranks commensurate with their ability.’
He paused, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. ‘I have no time for politicians,’ he said. ‘They’re nothing but a race of drones, and Cardwell stands head and shoulders above the rest for the forwardness of his ideas. But–’ he hesitated ‘–they all act in accordance with the national tradition of starving the army of brains and then complaining about the hidebound military mind when it comes to war.’ He paused again. ‘You ought to learn a lot here that might be good for you, because politics and military leadership are very closely connected.’
Brave, brilliant, ambitious, unpopular at court but popular with the press, Wolseley clearly had his finger on the pulse of the army. He turned to the window again. ‘Have you got rooms in London?’ he asked over his shoulder.
‘No, sir.’
‘Then you’d better get some. Got anybody trustworthy to look after you?’
Colby didn’t think Ackroyd would object to being away from home a little longer. ‘I think I can manage that, sir.’
‘Then you’d better get on with it and get yourself settled in. You may be going back to France. I’m interested to know what the Prussians will do about Paris.’
‘I can answer that now, sir,’ Colby said. ‘They’ll besiege it.’
‘Starving ’em out won’t win the Prussians the love of the civilised world.’
‘I suspect that won’t worry Bismarck too much, sir. I met General Sheridan, the American, at Sedan. He and I had a few things to talk about. He’s got a reputation for ruthlessness, but I suspect the truth is that he’s just a clear-thinking man. Moltke had come to the conclusion that wars could be won simply by the movement of troops. Sheridan pointed out that this was only the first requirement of victory and that the way to end a war was to cause the inhabitants of an invaded country so much suffering they’d force their government to demand it.’
‘And?’
‘I think Moltke took it to heart. I think the Prussians will bombard.’
London had a wintry look about it and the cabbies shivered in their high seats on the hansoms. There were a few men Colby knew at the Cavalry Club, including a captain who had been at Balaclava. He was thinking of selling out before the purchase system was brought to an end and was in a gloomy mood. There was also a note for Colby from his sister Harriet who had been on a visit to her father and was surprised to hear he’d been entertaining a young woman.
‘He said she was asking after you,’ she wrote. ‘She refused to give a name because she wished to surprise you. What have you been up to?’
Colby decided he’d better go home and, catching a train the following morning, he was in York by the afternoon. At Harrogate, a trap from Braxby was waiting for him, driven inevitably by one of the Ackroyd family. Harriet met him at the door, grave-faced, to announce that his father had been put to bed with a chill.
‘I don’t think he has the will to fight it,’ she said.
Despite the grey day there was something about Braxby that nudged at Colby’s heart. This was where he belonged, where the bones of his ancestors rested, where he, too, would eventually rest, God willing, and that knowledge was surprisingly important.
The pleasure at coming home was spoiled by the frailty of his father. Grey-faced, his white hair like a wispy halo round his head, the general lay on pillows in the bedroom. A huge fire burned in the grate and the housekeeper sat by it, knitting. As Colby entered, she rose, bobbed a curtsey and disappeared.
The old man’s face lit up as he saw his son but he found talking difficult. ‘Been in France, I hear,’ he murmured. ‘Involved in the war.’
‘Not involved, Father,’ Colby said, bending to kiss the fragile looking skull. ‘I was sent by the War Office. Wolseley sent me.’
‘Don’t like Wolseley. Stirs things up too much. How’d you find the French?’
‘Not as good as when you were fighting them, Father.’
‘Weren’t even then. Marshals were a poor lot on the whole. Even Napoleon was past his prime. How about this other Napoleon?’
‘Also past his prime, Father. And his marshals are even worse. Most of them, as far as I can see, shouldn’t have been in charge of a corporal’s picket. They got their rank because they went down well with the Empress’ ladies.’
The old man sniffed. ‘Well, that’s all finished now,’ he said. ‘Napoleon’s a prisoner in Germany and the Empress is a fugitive in England. Got a place in Kent, I heard. Would have done better in Yorkshire. Still, I always did think the French lacked backbone.’ He was silent for a moment, exhausted by talking. ‘Who’s this gel?’ he ended.
‘Which girl, Father?’
‘The one who came here.’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea, Father.’ The only person Colby could think of was Germaine.
‘Time you were married.’ The old man’s muttering was barely audible now. ‘Hoped I might see a grandson before I go. Nothing odd about you, is there?’
Colby laughed. ‘Not on your life, Father. You were none too young yourself when I was foaled.’
‘True, but things are different these days.’
How, Colby wondered. Men and women still went to bed together. ‘Who was she, Father? Didn’t she say?’
‘No.’
‘What was she like? Tall? Good figure?’
‘Dunno. You’d have to trot her up and down a bit. All she did was sit in a chair. Seemed intelligent, though. Pretty. Dark hair. People without dark hair look as if their faces have faded. Always had dark hair in our family. Good breeders.’ The old man moved restlessly on the pillows. ‘Better go now. I’m tired. It’s bloody awful when you’re old. You’re always tired.’
Harriet was sipping a sherry in the library when Colby went downstairs. ‘How’s Henry?’ he asked.
‘My husband,’ Harriet said briskly, ‘is bursting with health. I wish to God sometimes he were a little more pale and wan.’
Colby wondered if he chased Harriet round the bedroom at night. Harriet was no wilting lily herself, however, and he suspected she enjoyed her life as much as her husband enjoyed his. It made him feel lonely.
‘Making money?’
‘By the thousand.’
‘Children?’
‘All snotty-nosed at this time of the year. But they’re well. George is starting to ride and doing rather well at it. Sarah’s got a pony.’
Seemed to be following the family tradition, Colby thought. He himself had been stuck on a pony at the age of three and expected to stay on. He hadn’t, of course, but he’d learned quickly enough through falling off.
‘This girl–’ he began.
‘Which girl? The Rector’s daughter? I hope you’re not thinking of marrying her, Coll. She’s an awful bore.’
/> ‘Damn the Rector’s daughter!’ Colby snapped. ‘I know she’s a bore. No, this girl who came looking for me. Who the hell is she?’
‘God knows. Father said she didn’t have an English accent.’
‘Jesus Christ in the mountains!’
‘That’s a splendid oath!’
‘Picked it up in the States.’ Colby poured himself a whisky and sank it at a gulp. ‘What was she like? I couldn’t get more out of him than that she had dark hair.’
‘That’s about all he told me.’
‘Pale skin? Dark eyes?’
He didn’t say.’ Harriet sighed. ‘He’s getting a bit old to notice females.’
‘He wasn’t too old to notice she was pretty.’ Germaine for a quid, Colby thought. After all, he’d asked her to marry him and she’d probably decided, with France in its present mess, that it was a good idea. ‘Did he say what she wanted?’
Harriet smiled. ‘You, I think,’ she said.
Six
London seemed empty. There were few people Colby knew and Caroline Matchett seemed to have vanished. He’d heard she’d been taken ill and, because he’d once been fond of her, he went to see if there was anything he could do. But the house at Hounslow was shut up and there was no sign of either her or the maid.
Wolseley’s report, a bulky wad of paper written out by a procession of War Office clerks, was almost finished when Colby’s father died and the telegram that arrived at his rooms sent him post-haste to Yorkshire.
A detachment of the 19th had already arrived and were billeted in Braxby under a lieutenant and a sergeant-major. The old man’s horse, with his boots reversed in the stirrups and covered with a black cloth, was brought from the stables as the gun carriage arrived. As it moved off, followed by the carriages of the mourners, it was escorted by the bearers, six lancers with black armbands, their dark uniforms sombre against the light of the winter day.
‘Wrap me up in my old stable jacket–’ the words of the song he’d so often heard his father singing rang round Colby’s head like a dirge – ‘And say a poor devil lies low. And six of the lancers will carry me. To the place where the best soldiers go.’
It was only a short distance to the churchyard and a band from the local militia provided the music, the solemn thump of the ‘Dead March’ giving the beat for the step. The rooks in the oaks were filling the air with their harsh cries, and the steady thud of the drums beat against the chilly day. The village street was filled with people of all ages, and the militia had lined the verges for the passing of the coffin, covered by the Union Jack and bearing the dead man’s hat and sword. Behind walked the sergeant-major of the 19th, carrying a cushion covered with decorations, and the officer and escort of lancers, their legs curiously thin-looking in the green overalls, their eyes sombre under the lance-caps, their cheeks brushed by the plumes fluttering in a breeze that set the trees creaking.
‘Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery…’
It didn’t seem to fit, Colby thought. His father had been the least miserable of men, and he suspected even that he’d enjoyed every minute of his life until the last few months.
‘He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower…’
The Rector had a voice like the base pipes of an organ, and he enjoyed using it. Glancing up, Colby saw his daughter standing opposite him. She was dressed in unrelieved black. She was watching him and, as he looked up at her, he saw her cheeks grow pink.
The sergeant, holding the folded Union Jack under his arm, lifted his head. His order, screamed at the top of his voice, brought the escort of lancers to the graveside, fortunately without falling into it, and they raised their carbines. The volley – a little ragged, Colby thought professionally – sent the rooks into the air. The second one was better and the third got it almost right. Then the soldiers filed away and waited to one side as the mourners moved round the grave. The thump and rattle of soil on the coffin lid sounded hollow and mournful.
As they headed for the carriages, Colby caught sight of Brosy and Grace, and then of the Cosgros, Claude all pink and white, Georgina tight-faced and hard-eyed in a way he’d never noticed before. They were no friends of his father’s but, he supposed, because they were neighbours they had to put in an appearance.
Afterwards, in a subdued murmur of conversation as the maids handed round the sandwiches and the port, the Rector attached himself to Colby, murmuring commiserations. ‘So sad, so sad,’ he announced.
‘Not sure he’d have thought so,’ Colby pointed out sharply. ‘He enjoyed his life more than most people and probably didn’t begrudge dying.’
The Rector looked shocked and, as he backed away, Georgina appeared, in front of Colby, pale-faced, more bosom than ever since she’d produced three children.
‘Colby, I’m so sorry,’ she said.
There seemed to be a speculative look in her eye and he wondered if she were making eyes at him again.
‘He had a good life,’ Colby said. It was a safe cliché. The old man had enjoyed his life, though he suspected he wouldn’t have complained at the chance of a few more years of it.
‘Are you married yet, Colby?’
‘No, Georgina. Still fancy free. It seems to be suiting you, though.’
She pulled a face that was meant, he supposed, to be non-committal. ‘Are you staying home for long?’
‘Few days. That’s all. I have a job in London at the moment. Temporarily on the staff.’
‘That’s where Claude belongs. He could bring his intelligence to bear.’
Claude, Colby thought, hadn’t got any bloody intelligence. Put him on the staff and the whole army would fall apart.
‘Somebody has to do it, I suppose,’ he said.
She touched his arm. ‘Claude returns to the regiment tomorrow, she said. ‘You must come for tea. Two lonely people–’
She left the words hanging in the air as she moved away, and he stared after her.
‘What are you grinning at?’
He swung round at his sister’s voice. ‘Was I grinning?’
‘Near enough. What about?’
He turned and smiled at her. ‘I think Georgina’s after me again,’ he said.
Before returning to London, Colby had to visit the solicitor in Harrogate over his father’s affairs. The weather was cold with a hint of rain in the air and there was a strong wind that sent the clouds scudding across the sky above the tops of the bare trees. Harrogate station was petrifyingly cold and full of people with pinched cheeks and red noses. A draft of infantry was heading south and were clasping their womenfolk alongside the train. As the whistle went they all climbed aboard and the train drew out, sprouting a forest of scarlet-clad arms.
Back in London, everybody seemed concerned with Paris. Besieged for several weeks now, it was clear it would fall before long. The Prussians had poured westwards, so sustained by French wine, it was said, there was a continuous line of broken bottles all the way from Sedan. Within a fortnight, they were seizing trains as they tried to escape and within three weeks had thrown a ring round the capital. The French had learned nothing and the Prussians had established their headquarters at Versailles where Bismarck, in a white uniform, indulged his curious mixture of gluttony and spartan simplicity, and the German Emperor, august, courteous, always in uniform, fussed about the level of the wine in the bottles at the end of the meals.
With the increasing cold, it soon became clear that hunger was beginning to take its toll inside the city, and a bitter Christmas came and went with the Prussians still outside. It was obvious their leaders were growing worried by the protraction of the war and by the fact that the contempt the rest of Europe had felt for the popinjay Empire was now directed against the ruthless Prussians. Bismarck developed varicose veins and the Crown Prince – probably for the benefit of his mother-in-law, Queen Victoria – was expressing himself weary of the fighting. Clearly something had to be done to end the siege and there was only one way to
do it. What Colby had predicted became a fact, and the first shells fell on the city two days after Christmas. In no time they were falling at a rate of three and four hundred a day, killing men, women and children. Demoralised, half-starved and on the point of revolution, Paris capitulated in less than a month.
Wolseley gave Colby the sort of look he would have directed at a major prophet.
‘Well?’ he asked, gesturing at The Times. ‘What do you think will happen now?’
‘There’ll be the usual victory march through the city, sir, I expect. To make Paris know it’s been beaten. I see the Germans are demanding enormous reparations. That ought to help quieten them down a little, too.’
Wolseley shrugged. ‘And that, I suppose, will be that. The Germans will go home and Paris will return to having a good time as it did after Waterloo.’
Colby paused. ‘Not this time, sir,’ he said. ‘This time there’ll be no return to the old days. At least not for a long time.’
Wolseley’s eyebrows lifted. ‘Are we about to be treated to more prophetic wisdom?’ he asked. ‘Why not?’
‘There’ll be trouble, sir.’
‘What sort of trouble?’
‘Insurrection, sir.’
‘What!’ Wolseley looked startled. ‘Another? They’ve already had three revolutions since 1789.’
Colby shrugged. ‘There are to be elections, sir, and when they come the Empire will be blamed for starting the war and the Republic for prolonging it. France will elect monarchists to be on the safe side and Paris, which has always considered itself the brain of France, won’t stand for that.’
Wolseley looked at him steadily. ‘That’s a startling suggestion,’ he said.
‘I believe it to be true, sir.’
Wolseley gestured. ‘If you prove right, then I should say you’re way ahead of all your contemporaries in a sense of situation. It should stand you in good stead. You’d better go and get it all written down.’
The news from Paris very quickly followed the pattern Colby had suggested. The place was revictualled after its months of starvation, but the elections had struck it like a thunderclap. Only a handful of the militant extremists of the left had been elected.
