02 - Keane's Challenge (10 page)

It had been his worst fear.

He knew, though, that as soon as the French were done with that, their orders would be to engage Craufurd as quickly as possible to gauge the strength of his force.

Ross stared at the smoke. ‘Poor buggers. And we did nothing to help them, sir. Not a bloody thing.’

‘We could do nothing, sarn’t. What could we have done?’

He turned and looked back at the others, all of whose faces wore the same blank stare of unforgiving despair and bitterness and he knew that somehow they must blame him.

Heredia cursed. ‘Look, look there. The flames. You know what is happening, don’t you? This is your general’s idea of saving a nation. Can you see?’

Ross tried to calm him, but even his words were not in earnest.

Martin spoke quietly as he looked. ‘How many people did you say were in there?’

Keane spoke, still staring at the city. ‘I didn’t.’

Silver provided the answer. ‘Ten thousand souls, God help them.’

They stood there for what seemed like hours but was in fact but a few minutes, until at last Keane spoke and there was a coldness in his voice. ‘Well, there’s fewer than that now. There’s nothing to be done. We need to get back and warn General Craufurd. The French won’t waste any time. As soon as they’ve had their fill in there, they’ll come for us.’

He turned his horse, thankful not to have to look any longer at the burning city, and rode down the hill fast and back to the road, followed by the others. No one spoke for the entire journey back to the bridge, and on entering the camp, past the green-jacketed sentries of the 95th, who presented arms, Keane made straight for the general’s tent.

He found Craufurd writing a report.

The general looked up. ‘Keane. Well? What news?’

Keane shook his head. The gesture and his expression would have been enough, but he replied nevertheless. ‘Ciudad is lost, sir. In flames. Taken this morning, I’d guess. And all within it.’

Once again the image came to his mind of the dead woman and child in Celorico.

Craufurd shook his head. ‘This is a sad day for British arms, Keane. But there was nothing to be done. To have risked relieving Ciudad would have lost us Portugal.’

‘And Europe with it, sir.’

‘Yes, Europe with it. Though I’m sure that our own army will soon be wondering what it is we are doing here. This benighted country is in a parlous state. Its men fight well – regular army, that is. But the militia are deserting in droves. They have either lost faith or they just want to gather the harvest. They have no conception of what may befall them. In any case they won’t have any harvest to gather very soon. And what they have may be destroyed.

‘The Portuguese regency are utterly opposed to the duke’s policy of a “scorched earth”. They see British soldiers destroying their people’s livelihood. And who can blame them for protesting?’

‘I can see why we do it. But at what cost? We lay waste the crops to prevent the French from taking them.’

‘Now your British soldier must pay for everything. Every last scrap and morsel. And if he did not you would flog him. And you’d be right, Keane.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Those are Wellington’s orders. But the French, as everyone knows, live off the land. Loot, pillage… it is their way. They take everything they can find. That’s the way the emperor likes to manage his campaigns.’ He laughed. ‘You must admit, it has a certain simple brilliance about it. In one stroke he can ensure his army is fed and at the same time instil a sense of terror into the people they invade. You and I know the soldiery, Keane. Any soldier, whatever his country. Leave a soldier to fend for himself and he’ll make damned sure he gets what he wants. And no questions are asked. It’s a stroke of brilliance.’

‘Yes, sir. It is clever,’ Keane agreed. It was sheer genius and utterly immoral.

‘But we cannot sanction such a thing. And so we burn the crops. Mark me, Keane, if we carry on as we are, very soon we shall have the Portuguese turning on us, as well as the French.’

*

‘Sarn’t Ross, stand the men to, throughout the night.’

‘Are you sure, sir? When there’s divisional pickets of the Rifles posted anyway? The lads might save their energy.’

Keane glared at him. ‘I’m not requesting you to do so, sarn’t. It’s an order. Yes, the Rifles are good enough, but I want to know what’s happening before anyone else. It is our business to be ahead of all others and I do not intend to lose face. They can take turn about at guard duty.’

Ross snapped to, suddenly back in the regular army, seeing in Keane the manner of an old-style officer which lately he seemed to have abandoned. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘And I won’t have any slacking. Any man asleep at his post will be on a charge.’

Ross went to break the news to the others and Keane wondered if he might have gone too far. In recent weeks the men had come to see him in a new light. He had created, he felt, a new form of officering, more suited to his role and that of his men, in which he allowed each of them more head and in return expected more of a sense of responsibility. But in that moment, while they had been staring at the burning city, he had sensed the faint whisper of dissent and that, he knew, could not be tolerated. Certainly he might not treat them as if they were the ordinary rank and file. But they must all agree to respect his authority. About that there could be no question.

*

The following morning Keane was woken by Ross from a deep sleep and a dream in which he and Kitty Blackwood were sitting by the banks of a stream, somewhere in England. He glared at the sergeant and snarled, ‘What? What the devil d’you mean?’

‘Sir, you said to wake you. It’s past dawn.’

Keane came to, all thoughts of home and Kitty lost to the moment. Instinctively he reached for his sword, which lay close to the camp bed. ‘The French?’

‘No, sir, nothing of them all night. And the lads were on picket, just as you ordered, sir. They must still be in the city.’

‘Yes, Ross. I’ve no doubt that will occupy them for a few days.’ He wondered how many had died and how many women had suffered.

Ross spoke. ‘And we wait here, with the men straining at the leash to get their hands on a bloody Frenchie.’

‘They’ll come, sarn’t. They’ll come.’

And come they would, he knew. To test their strength, as Massena
took the bulk of his force on to the great border fortress of Almeida, the key to Portugal. But how many would he send now? Based on the reports of the dragoons? More, he guessed, than Sainte-Croix’s division.

He pulled himself from the camp bed and, sitting on the edge, scratched through his shirt under his armpits and across his chest. The damned lice got everywhere, and no amount of fumigating would ever clean them entirely from their home in the stitching of his clothes. He scratched again and, picking up his overall trousers from the floor, pulled them on over his stockings. He wrapped the black cotton stock around his neck and tucked it into place before pulling on his tunic. The boots came next, half-length and hessian style for comfort. He had had them made in Lisbon, paying for them with some of the proceeds of some French silver they had liberated the previous year, and they had been worth every penny. Good dependable footwear was the one thing a soldier needed and valued. Without good footwear you were sunk.

Emerging from his tent, Keane blinked in the sunlight. The camp was alive with activity. To the right the Germans were watering their horses and scrubbing them down as if on parade. Closer to his tent two of his own men, Martin and Leech, were washing their faces in a bucket. Silver sat with Gabriella a little way off, eating some form of breakfast from wooden bowls.

Craufurd was walking towards Keane. He held a piece of paper before him. ‘Keane. I have orders for you. Newly arrived by courier from the commander-in-chief hisself.’

He presented
Keane with the letter. Keane took it and unfolding it saw that it had not been dictated but was in Wellington’s own hand and written on a piece of mule skin, which Keane knew the general kept in his saddlebag when in the field for just such a purpose.

He began to read and looked up. ‘You have read it, sir?’

‘I have. You are to proceed at once to meet with a Spaniard. A certain Don Julian Sanchez. You might have heard of him?’ Keane shook his head. Craufurd went on. ‘This Don Sanchez, it seems, is little short of a marvel. While the French were still besieging the city, he managed something others had tried and failed. He broke out of Ciudad and galloped to Gallegos.’

‘Good God! He deserted?’

‘Not quite. He managed to save himself and a fair number of his own men. They’re good fighters, although it’s a miracle they got through the French lines. He has taken command of a band of guerrillas in the hills and has offered us his services as a colonel.’

‘Sir?’

‘You are to join him and, under cover of bringing him and his men in to fight with us, investigate him and ascertain for Wellington exactly what sort of a man he might be. Lord knows what you’ll find. He’s quite a character apparently. Colonel be damned. Began as a private soldier, a farmer’s boy. Promoted to officer in Ciudad only last year. God knows where he acquired the ‘don’, but they all seem to call him by that name. Hates the French.’

‘Don’t they all, sir?’

‘Indeed, though Sanchez has more cause than some. They killed almost all his family in cold blood.’

Keane read the rest of the note. It was as Craufurd had described. The duke wanted him to find Sanchez and give an account of his character. He was assembling, by all accounts, a personal army. Reports varied as to its size, but according to
George Scovell it was estimated that he might be as many as a hundred strong in horse and twice that in foot, with more men flocking to his banner by the day. The tone of the note seemed to imply that the duke wanted to know if Keane felt that Sanchez might need to be brought under the thumb. ‘I am sure that you will know how to deal with him’, it concluded.

Craufurd, seeing that Keane had finished reading, spoke again. ‘The word is that you are quite adept at dealing with the guerrillas. Is that the case?’

‘Sir?’

‘I did hear that you worked with them last year to liberate a sizeable sum from the coffers of the French and that most of this was passed on to the duke to pay the men. Is that correct?’

‘Yes, sir, we did manage to take a deal of silver from Marshal Soult’s baggage train in the rout from Oporto.’

‘Well done.’ He paused. ‘I also heard that some of that money was never recovered.’

Keane said nothing.

‘Sorry, captain. Were you not aware of that?’

‘I’m sure, sir that we did not recover the entire amount. And I know that the guerrillas made off with some.’

‘The guerrillas? No one else?’

Keane blanched. ‘No one else, sir. Are you suggesting that I… ?’

‘Merely a rumour I had heard, Keane. No more than that. Among the staff. Fair game, I’d say. Wouldn’t you, Keane? Spoils of war?’

‘I couldn’t comment on that, sir. The duke might not agree with you.’

Craufurd looked down and played with his sword knot. ‘Nor he might, Keane. There was something else, wasn’t there? Someone died. An officer.’

Keane felt suddenly alarmed. Surely Craufurd could not know about his killing of Blackwood. Only Morris, Grant and the duke knew the truth of that day. He managed to steady his nerve.

‘Sir? I don’t follow you.’

‘A duel. You killed someone in a duel, did you not? A fellow officer?’

A faint smile touched Keane’s face and he breathed again. ‘You seem well acquainted with me, sir. Is that how I’m known among the staff, sir?’

Craufurd laughed. ‘Touché. No, captain, it is not how you are known. Although your predilection for cards and pretty women precedes you. Principally you are known as the hero of Oporto and quite the rising star. You have the duke’s ear. He likes to have himself surrounded by bright young men. If you keep your nose clean and don’t do anything stupid, you’ll advance far.’

Keane wondered how Craufurd could know that he and his men had appropriated a quantity of the French silver. A quantity which had bought him not only the boots but the soft cotton shirt he now wore beneath his uniform jacket. And he also wondered whether that was all he knew. Whether he might be aware of the identity of Blackwood’s killer and, if so, whether the fact meant anything to him.

Fastening on his sword, which in his haste he had not done, he saluted the general. ‘If you will excuse me, sir, I’ll take my leave. I must find my men and make ready to leave for Don Sanchez.’

‘Yes, of course, you must go by all means, but remember what I have said. Oh, and one thing more, Keane. The French will be aiming for Almeida now. The duke craves further knowledge about how they will advance. Do not disappoint him, Keane. On any count. Nor me.’

According to Wellington’s note, Don Sanchez had left his base near Richioso and crossed the border into Portugal, and was now based at San Pedro, an old citadel town built around a central tower and the remains of a palace. Even in this time of crisis, for the Spanish officer to lead his company quite independently into Portugal and occupy such a place, redolent with history of the border wars between the two peoples, was, thought Keane, a presumptuous action. Not only did it count on the hospitality of the Portuguese; it also took for granted that the British would necessarily want or need to work with him. Presumptuous perhaps, he thought, but it was also undeniably good strategy. The man was shrewd, of that there was no doubt.

Once Sanchez was in Portugal it would be hard to get rid of him, and so he had come to the British for better or worse. And it was Keane’s job to find out which.

From such a position Sanchez would be able to keep an eye on the fortress of Almeida in the valley below and the surrounding area and to eventually establish contact with Wellington at Celorico, which lay directly to the west. The plan was to attach Sanchez and his men to the hussars, with Keane acting as
liaison, and to move the whole force down to the line of the Duas Casas river in order to guard Craufurd’s right flank.