Hervey 06 - Rumours Of War (18 page)

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 pitiful 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.’

The other officers and NCOs looked at Hervey pityingly.

‘If they are let through they will hinder the movement north of the entire army,’ said Lankester gravely.

‘Very good, sir.’ Hervey supposed he ought to know how to hold a pass against regimental women, though it escaped him for the present.

They took post within the hour, however – ‘the donkey lookout’ the others jeered as his dragoons went past – but he still had no idea what he would do. They could use the flat of the sword, but that could turn into a nasty mêlée, and they were only eight, after all. Neither did he know how long they would have to keep post; there was no telling how many of the camp-followers would try to force their way through, especially if they had wind of the French at their tails.

In the event he had not long to wait before resolving on action. And perhaps it was as well, for he could hardly sit all morning without giving his dragoons any orders. ‘Everything in the work of cavalry depends on the officer’s
coup d’oeil.’
He had heard it a hundred times; he supposed now he would see in one glance what it truly meant. That or he would be judged a failure, for all his address to date.

The trouble was, there were so many of them – hundreds of women, like droves of tinkers, with donkeys, goats, even cows, and countless yapping dogs. And on they came, babbling, all innocent, oblivious of the army’s resolve to thwart their design, the execution of which was entrusted to Cornet Matthew Hervey of the 6th Light Dragoons, seventeen years old, quondam praepostor-elect of Shrewsbury school.

His dragoons sat silent in the saddle. The women were close enough now to make out who was who. Hervey recognized one of the leaders, a big Irishwoman, one of C Troop’s wives. In front of her plodded a donkey loaded with cooking pots and bedding, which she drove amiably with a stick. Hervey wondered if anyone had told them they would not be allowed through until the army was clear. Looking at them, he reckoned not.

Then that was it, his
coup d’oeil!
These were reasonable women; they would understand the necessity once he explained.

He pressed forward La Belle Dame, his brown mare, a dozen strides or so, just enough for the women to see that he was moving to address them. Corporal Armstrong closed to support, and the column of camp-followers shuffled to a halt.

‘Ladies, I regret you will not be permitted to pass this place until the army has struck camp and cleared it.’

There was not a murmur from his audience.

Hervey was pleased his appeal to reason had been well received. He thought it fair to explain the cause therefore. ‘As you know, ladies, the French are marching on us and—’

Hervey saw his mistake, but too late. The silence turned at once into noisy dismay.