Hervey 06 - Rumours Of War (16 page)

Hervey shivered. ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.’ He checked himself: prayers could come later. For now, there was work to do. ‘Corporal Armstrong, send a man back to report, and two ahead to picket the other side of yonder trees!’

CHAPTER EIGHT
DRAWING THE LINE

Lisbon, 6 October 1826

‘I like Mrs Delgado,’ said Johnson as he laid out Hervey’s best tunic.

Hervey did not reply, absorbed as he was by his newly acquired maps. His hand trembled a little, so that he had to peer more intently than usual. He liked these quarters in Reeves’s Hotel, but it was just so damnably cold, what with coal in short and expensive supply, and wood seemingly deficient of heat. It had been two days since he had stood before the Delgados’ great chimneypiece, and he had scarcely been warm since. But it had not been on account of inactivity, even in the absence, still, of orders from Colonel Norris. He had scoured the premises of the booksellers and cartographers of Lapa and the neighbouring districts until he had assembled a handy topographical library.

He looked up, puzzled by the lacuna. Johnson’s statement of itself seemed to require no comment, but the absence of a consequential clause rendered his purpose obscure.

‘She’s a nice woman.’

Hervey had not imagined so simple a resolution.

‘You give your opinion very decidedly.
Nice:
how so?’

‘Tha saw t’way she were wi’ that kiddlin’ of ’ers.’

Hervey thought the observation fair. He wondered what Johnson made of his own parental efforts. ‘Is there anything else?’

His voice mixed surprise and curiosity, but Johnson apparently heard neither. ‘Ay. She’s not stuck up. She talked to me just like Mrs ’Ervey used to.’

Hervey smiled. It was good to be reminded from time to time – and by so indifferent an authority – of Henrietta’s qualities.

‘An’ she talks English as good as me.’

Hervey raised his eyebrows, smiling still. ‘That would indeed be an extraordinary accomplishment.’

‘An’ tha should see ’er wi’ a sword.’

Hervey put down the map. ‘When did
you
see her with one?’

‘Yesterday. I were takin’ that cheese in tha told me to, an’ she were practising in that courtyard o’ theirs.’

‘With a fencing master?’

‘I don’t know, but ’e looked as if ’e knew what ’e were doin’.’

Hervey had returned to the Delgados’ house in Belem the day after his first call, with a present of Cheshire cheese coloured with Spanish
annatto,
and a pint tub of Epping butter. And he had stayed late.

‘Strange she never spoke of it,’ he mused.

‘She were quick, I’ll say that for ’er.’

Hervey took up the map again.

‘’E’s a general then, ’er father?’

‘He’s a colonel in the militia.’

‘Ah,’ said Johnson, with a distinctly knowing note. ‘I thought ’e were gettin’ on a bit.’

‘I told you before: the baron was getting on, as you say, when first we came to Lisbon. Or so it seemed to us then.’

‘An’ that’s why ’e’s on t’right’n’s side then?’

Hervey stopped to think. He had learned long ago that the more naive Johnson’s questions sounded, the more – on the whole – they contained some worthwhile perception. ‘I believe the baron is a man who considers that a settled order is for the greater good. He has not spoken of the merits of one brother over the other.’

‘But what I don’t understand is why t’oldest brother – Pedro?’

Hervey nodded.

‘Why ’e doesn’t just be king of Portugal as well as Brazil?’

Hervey laid down the map again and shook his head. ‘In truth I cannot tell you, for I believe it is very complex. Mr Canning was making long speeches in parliament on the business as we were sailing. But if there is civil war here then it could go very ill for England. That is the point on which we must determine our efforts.’

Johnson was content for the time being. ‘Is there owt else then, sir?’

Hervey cast an eye at the chair. His uniform for the evening was laid out; he did not need his groom to help him dress. ‘No. No, I don’t believe there is. I expect there’ll be orders tonight though – we’ve gone two full days without any, and Colonel Norris will have to give us something soon – so you had better see me back. You might tell Corporal Wainwright too; if he’s back from the livery, that is. And I shall want to go to Belem again. It seems the baron’s found a nice horse for me.’

Johnson screwed up his face. ‘Not one o’ them Lucythings?’

‘Lusitanos, yes. They’re all right.’

‘They’re too araby. Right vicey little things they can be.’

Hervey had no special fondness for arabs, even after his time in India; he would certainly never describe them as tractable. ‘But they’ve got bottom, have they not?’

Johnson decided to hold his peace, suddenly remembering he had a letter to deliver: ‘Oh, ay – I’m sorry, sir; this came while tha were out.’

Hervey took the envelope expecting a communication from Colonel Norris. His jaw dropped when he saw the handwriting and the words ‘by express’. He broke the seal quickly and began to read.

‘My God!’

‘Bad news, sir?’

Hervey did not answer at once. He looked about the room, as if there might be something to enlighten him, and he scratched his head. ‘Come back in ten minutes with a boy who can run to the Rua dos Condes.’

Johnson left looking faintly vexed.

Hervey went to the writing table and took pen and paper from his morocco case. He made several false starts, screwing up the sheet each time and throwing it at the fire grate, until at last he found his voice:

My dear Kat,
Your arriving here has so astounded me that I pen you these brief words to say that I shall come by this evening, when duties permit. I dine with Colonel Norris and the others of my party at the legation, and I expect that it may be late before I might absent myself.

Forgive this hasty note, but I must even now be about my business here.

Your own,

Matthew Hervey.

He read it over. It seemed a cool response. But he had not the time to rewrite it; and even if he had he was not sure he could do better. He placed it in an envelope, wrote the address hurriedly, then sealed it.

Johnson returned with a swarthy child dressed in a dirty yellow suit. ‘’E’s a postboy.’

‘Indeed.’ Hervey thought for a moment, decided to trust to Johnson’s against his own judgement, and gave the boy the envelope and a silver escudo. ‘Rua dos Condes?’

The boy checked his oral instructions with those on the envelope. He nodded.
‘Sim, senhor.’
Then he darted from the room.

Hervey sighed. He supposed the boy would be strolling by the time he reached the street. He doubted he knew where the Rua dos Condes was, let alone had any intention of going there. How was it that so unpromising a lad could even read?

‘’E runs for t’hotel, sir. I shouldn’t worry.’

Hervey knew there was little he could do now but trust; he was due at the legation in half an hour, and Colonel Norris wanted to see him first.

‘An acquaintance of mine from London, General Greville’s wife. She is here in Lisbon and invites me to dine.’

‘So tha won’t be gooin to t’embassy?’

‘Indeed I shall be, yes. And that is what I have said in my reply.’ Hervey heard his own trepidation in the words.

But Johnson saw no occasion to press for enlightenment. ‘Anything else then, sir?’

‘Thank you, Johnson, no. I believe you may go now.’

‘Right. So I’ll see thee back, and I’ll ’ave young Wainwright ’ere an’ all.’

Hervey hesitated. ‘No, on second thoughts – if there are any orders I’ll send for you. Otherwise reveille at seven, as usual.’

When Johnson had gone, Hervey sat down wearily at his desk. He could not imagine what Kat thought she was doing coming to Lisbon like this. They had had it out a fortnight ago: he would not be many months here, he would write to her, she would go to stay with a sister. That was what they had said. Was this just another diverting opportunity, too good to miss, like Brussels before Waterloo? There was nothing like the prospect of a fight to heat the blood of a man in regimentals – Kat’s very words. Was
that
why she had followed him? He shook his head. How was he supposed to keep a liaison secret here? Perhaps he just ought not see her – after tonight (he would have to go to her tonight)? In all probability he would be leaving for the frontier tomorrow or the day after. Yes, that was probably his best course. He would warn her tonight that he would be leaving for the frontier at once, and that he would be unlikely to return until the party re-embarked for England, their work done. And meanwhile, he had better get himself into his Oxford mixtures, and to Colonel Norris’s quarters.

The colonel’s sitting room was cold, although there was a fire. Hervey kept his cloak about him, as did the others, and took out his pocketbook.

‘Well, gentlemen,’ began Norris, packing tobacco into his pipe and eyeing them portentously. ‘We have a historic task before us.’ He paused again and looked at each of them in turn.

Cope, the Rifles major, glanced at Hervey and mouthed silently ‘Bobadil’, the nickname Norris had acquired their first evening at sea.

Norris was all bombast, they reckoned, and jealous bombast at that. No one was permitted an opinion but that it was his. Hervey studied him closely: not a military-looking man, for all his regimentals. He was shorter by a hand than any of them, which only made the bombast seem worse, and he had pronounced dewlaps; Hervey found himself counting them.

‘Yes indeed, a historic task. The very safety of the nation rests in our hands. The weight of responsibility is great, gentlemen. I feel it bearing upon me with full force.’

Hervey could scarce believe it. And this, he supposed, from one of the duke’s own men.
Bobadil
; it was very apt indeed.

‘I say “historic” for so it shall prove, I feel sure. But also because we follow a historic precedent in what we shall soon undertake. One, I feel sure also, that the duke himself would esteem were he here.’

Norris’s rhetoric discomfited all of them alike, but still no one spoke.

‘Gentlemen, you will be acquainted no doubt – if not at first hand then surely by learning – with the celebrated lines of Torres Vedras.’

He searched each face before him for an answer, but in vain (for the statement hardly required one).

‘Just so. Well, gentlemen, the object of our reconnaissance to these shores is those very lines. If there be an invasion of the country, whether by Miguelistas or Spanish regulars, at Torres Vedras it shall be halted, just as the duke himself halted the French!’

That much sounded prudent, thought Hervey, but it could not be the entire story.

‘The day after tomorrow, therefore, we set out to make a survey of the lines to assess their repair and service. Thereafter we shall make an estimate of the size of the force that will be required to garrison the lines in the event that His Majesty’s ministers are decided on intervening.’

Hervey was now distinctly puzzled. The information concerning the fortifications would be available, would it not, and with greater accuracy than they could hope to achieve, in the Negócios Estrangeiros e Guerra? ‘May I ask, Colonel, when we shall make any
forward
reconnaissance?’

‘Forward? Forward where, Major Hervey?’

‘I mean at the frontier, Colonel. We are to suppose, are we not, that the Portuguese loyal to the regent will contest any crossing?’

Colonel Norris looked surprised. ‘If they do, and if they are successful, then all well and good. But if not, then the lines of Torres Vedras shall bar an advance on Lisbon. It is very straightforward, Hervey.’

Hervey chose to ignore the patronizing note, at least in his reply. ‘But might it not be prudent to render assistance to the Portuguese on the frontier too, Colonel? They might fight all the better with a few red coats among them.’

‘Or green ones,’ said Cope, the Rifles major.

Colonel Norris did not appear to care for either the assessment or the drollery. ‘Gentlemen, I fail to understand your purpose. We are not engaged in a game.’

Hervey bit his tongue. He reckoned he had been shot over a great many times more than had Colonel Norris.

Major Cope answered for him. ‘Might we not with advantage, Colonel, divide our effort? My skill, and Hervey’s too, I imagine, is that of the battle of manoeuvre, not of fortification and fieldworks. With yourself, and Griffith and Mostyn here, there should be ample expertise in surveying the lines at Torres Vedras. You could therefore send Hervey and me to the frontier.’

Colonel Norris’s brow furrowed. ‘Major Cope, I am surprised at you. It is one of the fundamental principles of war, is it not, that effort be not divided?’ He rummaged among the papers on his writing table until he found the one with the evidence he needed. ‘Let me quote to you the exact words the Duke of Wellington himself used when he made his submission to the cabinet soon after he landed here all those years ago. It still serves: “As the whole country is frontier it would only be possible to make the capital and its environs secure.” ’ He placed the paper down and looked at the major with a smile not unlike one of pity. ‘So you will see, sir, that I am immovable on this point.’